I have several friends that work for YWAM (Youth With A Mission) around the country. I have many more friends that are committed to and participate in missions in our country and around the world. I too, am involved in missions. So needless to say, I am having to stop and ponder once again what it means to do missions in light of recent news.
This week, ABC aired a story about YWAM fighting against infanticide in the jungles of Brazil. You can read their brief write up and watch their video here. Likewise, YWAM published an article from their vantage point and you can view that article here.
Personally, I don't have any problems with the YWAM missionaries that live in Brazil and adopted the children that had medical or other issues that would have faced certain death had the missionaries not intervened...for me it is a sanctity of life issue and a no-brainer as far as decisions go. (feel free to offer your own thoughts on this)
What made me really stop and ponder, however, is the undertones of culture clash that run through the ABC account of the story. As a Christian, I have no issue with sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with those we encounter...but the question becomes how much of what we do is "Christian" and how much of what we do is "Westernization"?
For example, we want to feed those that are in need of food. Let's say that an indigenous tribe is a hunting and gathering tribe. Does that mean as Christians practicing our faith that we are called to deliver food that is grown elsewhere to them? Are we called to help them with better instruments for hunting and gathering? Are we called to change them into an agricultural tribe that is no longer nomadic? Or are we called to work to maintain natural habitats to where they have enough area to hunt and gather to support themselves? Are we to do this without uttering the name of Jesus? Which of the aforementioned choices is most Christ centered?
In order for someone to understand and receive the good news is it necessary that their culture be changed as well?
Surely providing clean drinking water, food, clothing, shelter, etc are good things. Surely advocating for the lives of children...looking out for the orphan, the widow, and the others that are marginalized is what we are called to do. Surely these are the things that the gospel calls us to do. But at what cost? Must culture be changed in order for the gospel to be received?
These are just some of the thoughts that run through my mind. In the background I can hear Niebuhr's writings running around in circles screaming...is it Christ the transformer of culture (surely this is preached with great frequency), or is it Christ above culture (surely this is preached with equal fervency), or is it Christ of Culture (yes there are proponents here as well)...AHHHHH!!!!!
I am curious, what do you think? How do we do missions in such a way that allows us to fulfill our mission (Great Commission---go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), while doing all the good that we can and doing no harm (which means we have to decide if changing culture is doing harm or not)?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Reaching Out
Something interesting has taken place in the life and ministry of Edom United Methodist Church. About 6 months ago we got our new website up and running (you can check it out if you like at www.edomumc.org) and as a part of this 33 page site there is an area called Soul Food where people can hear audio of the sermons given on previous Sundays and a place where they can request a DVD of the service.
Now this is not a new idea, many churches are living in the 21st century and are live streaming or podcasting their services online. This is, however, a huge leap for us here in Edom.
These services were put in place to serve guests visiting our website, guests thinking about visiting our church, members who are unable (because of travels or health) to attend particular services, and to reach those that are too far away to come to our services.
The people involved felt called to do this, though we were not quite sure of all of the ways that God would use this ministry. Admittedly, our congregation's average age is in the 60's. So unlike many of the services that are available from various ministries and churches, ours is chock full of liturgy, hymns out of the hymnal, etc. To say the least, it is very different from a lot of what is available out there on the world wide web.
Last week, the lady that heads up the DVD portion of this ministry here in Edom received an email from an assisted living facility in Minnesota. They wanted to know if we would send them DVDs of our services. Long story short, yesterday we sent out a package of 30 previous services and have them on the list to mail services out each week.
You might think that after almost 10 years in ministry that things like this wouldn't have such a huge impact on me...but to tell you the truth, I can always use little reminders of God's faithfulness.
I tell you all this to remind you and to remind myself that God can and will use anything, anyone, anywhere for God's own good purposes. Sometimes we see the fruit of our labors in very short time frames and sometimes it is many years later...but God is always faithful.
The most ironic part of all of this (ironic, coincidental, God-thing related...what ever verbiage you want to use here) is that the Sunday prior to this happening I preached a sermon on Joshua that talked about how God was going to increase the Israelite's impact as they crossed the Jordan into the land that was promised to Moses and how God wants to increase our impact in the world too. It wasn't about our financial impact or some personal success, but it was about how God can use us to impact the world for the Kingdom of God if we will only listen and follow.
I am looking forward to our relationship with our new friends in Minnesota and to the many more ways that God's faithfulness will manifest itself in our ministry.
Now this is not a new idea, many churches are living in the 21st century and are live streaming or podcasting their services online. This is, however, a huge leap for us here in Edom.
These services were put in place to serve guests visiting our website, guests thinking about visiting our church, members who are unable (because of travels or health) to attend particular services, and to reach those that are too far away to come to our services.
The people involved felt called to do this, though we were not quite sure of all of the ways that God would use this ministry. Admittedly, our congregation's average age is in the 60's. So unlike many of the services that are available from various ministries and churches, ours is chock full of liturgy, hymns out of the hymnal, etc. To say the least, it is very different from a lot of what is available out there on the world wide web.
Last week, the lady that heads up the DVD portion of this ministry here in Edom received an email from an assisted living facility in Minnesota. They wanted to know if we would send them DVDs of our services. Long story short, yesterday we sent out a package of 30 previous services and have them on the list to mail services out each week.
You might think that after almost 10 years in ministry that things like this wouldn't have such a huge impact on me...but to tell you the truth, I can always use little reminders of God's faithfulness.
I tell you all this to remind you and to remind myself that God can and will use anything, anyone, anywhere for God's own good purposes. Sometimes we see the fruit of our labors in very short time frames and sometimes it is many years later...but God is always faithful.
The most ironic part of all of this (ironic, coincidental, God-thing related...what ever verbiage you want to use here) is that the Sunday prior to this happening I preached a sermon on Joshua that talked about how God was going to increase the Israelite's impact as they crossed the Jordan into the land that was promised to Moses and how God wants to increase our impact in the world too. It wasn't about our financial impact or some personal success, but it was about how God can use us to impact the world for the Kingdom of God if we will only listen and follow.
I am looking forward to our relationship with our new friends in Minnesota and to the many more ways that God's faithfulness will manifest itself in our ministry.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Chaos of Life
It has been 19 days since my last post to the blogosphere...what can I say, life happens.
In an attempt to get back into the grove of writing, I thought that I would just drop a note to update what has happened in the past 3 weeks.
In the school realm, my last year of seminary is in full swing. I am currently doing a 9 month internship at the larger of the two churches that I have served for the past 3 years. In addition to the folks that are participating on my internship committee from my church, there are 3 from a larger church in a nearby town (where my internship mentor is appointed). There are weekly papers and meetings in addition to full time ministry.
On the fire department front, I recently completed my 6 weeks of ECA/First Responder training and am waiting to take my National Registry test to complete the certification process. I am scheduled to test on October 1st and 12:15. This certification will permit me to run on medical calls even when there are no other medical personnel present. I will have completed all the necessary written and skills testing to perform CPR, oxygen administration, bandaging, splinting, etc. It is the lowest level of medical training (right under EMT Basic) but covers all of the Basic Life Saving techniques necessary for what we encounter in medical and trauma calls with the fire department. In addition to all of this, we have just held the grand opening (after many hours of work) for our new station 1.
On the church front, we have recently had a couple of people join the church (one by profession of faith), held our annual health fair, begun our fall Bible study, embarked on missions work with the youth to provide health kits to Southeast Texas suffering from the effects of Ike and school supplies to Christmas and surrounding islands, voted to approve our consultation report recommendations (and delegated the work to the appropriate groups/teams), voted on a new leadership structure to be implemented in January (more streamlined), and sold some land that we don't use to help solidify the finances of the church.
On the home front, Erica has begun her volunteer work with Alpha Chi Omega (and seems to be enjoying it). Bailey is really walking well now and eating with a fork (she is already growing up way too fast!). The dog and the cat are the normal obnoxiously loving and needy children that they have always been. While we didn't experience any effects of Ike, we did have a flood in our hallway this week from our AC unit...after a couple of phone calls and a bunch of wet towels, the AC man showed up and fixed all the problems.
So as you can see, there have been no catastrophes, just life...but there has been a lot of it in the last three weeks.
So what's going on in your world?
In an attempt to get back into the grove of writing, I thought that I would just drop a note to update what has happened in the past 3 weeks.
In the school realm, my last year of seminary is in full swing. I am currently doing a 9 month internship at the larger of the two churches that I have served for the past 3 years. In addition to the folks that are participating on my internship committee from my church, there are 3 from a larger church in a nearby town (where my internship mentor is appointed). There are weekly papers and meetings in addition to full time ministry.
On the fire department front, I recently completed my 6 weeks of ECA/First Responder training and am waiting to take my National Registry test to complete the certification process. I am scheduled to test on October 1st and 12:15. This certification will permit me to run on medical calls even when there are no other medical personnel present. I will have completed all the necessary written and skills testing to perform CPR, oxygen administration, bandaging, splinting, etc. It is the lowest level of medical training (right under EMT Basic) but covers all of the Basic Life Saving techniques necessary for what we encounter in medical and trauma calls with the fire department. In addition to all of this, we have just held the grand opening (after many hours of work) for our new station 1.
On the church front, we have recently had a couple of people join the church (one by profession of faith), held our annual health fair, begun our fall Bible study, embarked on missions work with the youth to provide health kits to Southeast Texas suffering from the effects of Ike and school supplies to Christmas and surrounding islands, voted to approve our consultation report recommendations (and delegated the work to the appropriate groups/teams), voted on a new leadership structure to be implemented in January (more streamlined), and sold some land that we don't use to help solidify the finances of the church.
On the home front, Erica has begun her volunteer work with Alpha Chi Omega (and seems to be enjoying it). Bailey is really walking well now and eating with a fork (she is already growing up way too fast!). The dog and the cat are the normal obnoxiously loving and needy children that they have always been. While we didn't experience any effects of Ike, we did have a flood in our hallway this week from our AC unit...after a couple of phone calls and a bunch of wet towels, the AC man showed up and fixed all the problems.
So as you can see, there have been no catastrophes, just life...but there has been a lot of it in the last three weeks.
So what's going on in your world?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Sin, Evil, and Satan...what do you think?
It has been a while since I have posted! I have been undergoing an adjustment with my new school schedule and getting everything kicked off for fall here at our churches.
I had an interesting experience last week. I went to my interview with the District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM) to be interviewed for the possibility of being passed on to the Conference level Board of Ordained Ministry (BOM) and commissioning for next sprint at Annual Conference.
The meeting was full of laughter and mostly warm faces (I knew a number of people on this committee already) and after some horseplay and some serious questioning, I exited the room and they voted. When I returned, they congratulated me and let me know that I would be hearing from the Conference about completing materials for the upcoming BOM meeting. This is all great news.
The interesting thing that happened to me was that I was questioned rather harshly on my written presentation of sin, evil and Satan. I was told to lighten the language and offered several other recommendations that I am taking under advisement (but not jumping right into action on just yet!).
My concern is that if we minimize our discussion of the destructive forces of sin, evil, and Satan (yes, I said it again) in the world, are we not somehow minimizing what Scripture assures us that Christ has overcome? I mean, if sin and evil are not pervasive, why do we need a savior?
Before I set out to pontificate more about these issues, I thought I would ask what you all think. Here are my questions:
what is sin?
what is evil?
is Satan real?
how would you relate these to your congregation?
Does the way that you discuss sin, evil and Satan impact your understanding of grace, Christ, or salvation?
These are just a few of the burning questions that I have rolling around with the marbles (yes, there are a few remaining) in my head right now.
Let me know what you think.
I had an interesting experience last week. I went to my interview with the District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM) to be interviewed for the possibility of being passed on to the Conference level Board of Ordained Ministry (BOM) and commissioning for next sprint at Annual Conference.
The meeting was full of laughter and mostly warm faces (I knew a number of people on this committee already) and after some horseplay and some serious questioning, I exited the room and they voted. When I returned, they congratulated me and let me know that I would be hearing from the Conference about completing materials for the upcoming BOM meeting. This is all great news.
The interesting thing that happened to me was that I was questioned rather harshly on my written presentation of sin, evil and Satan. I was told to lighten the language and offered several other recommendations that I am taking under advisement (but not jumping right into action on just yet!).
My concern is that if we minimize our discussion of the destructive forces of sin, evil, and Satan (yes, I said it again) in the world, are we not somehow minimizing what Scripture assures us that Christ has overcome? I mean, if sin and evil are not pervasive, why do we need a savior?
Before I set out to pontificate more about these issues, I thought I would ask what you all think. Here are my questions:
what is sin?
what is evil?
is Satan real?
how would you relate these to your congregation?
Does the way that you discuss sin, evil and Satan impact your understanding of grace, Christ, or salvation?
These are just a few of the burning questions that I have rolling around with the marbles (yes, there are a few remaining) in my head right now.
Let me know what you think.
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