A Trip to Ethiopia

Presentation of Kombolcha, Ethiopia Mission Trip

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, May 20, 2012

(1)        LEAD UP TO THE TRIP

In December 2009 my wife Candy Tennant and a dozen others traveled to Ethiopia and visited “care points” run by Children’s Hope Chest.  One of those sites was Grace Baptist Church in the city of Kombolcha. 

In March 2010, Peter Abera, an Ethiopian man from Kombolcha visited here and told his story to HillSong Church. He was born Ethiopian Orthodox, a form of Christianity and the most prominent faith in Ethiopia.  During the famine, he worked at a World Vision feeding center run out of Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  There, he accepted Jesus as his Savior.  I am not suggesting the Orthodox Church does not preach the Gospel.  But Peter did not learn to be a Jesus follower in the Orthodox Church.  He didn’t come to Christ until he was mentored by a World Vision worker who shared both food and the Gospel. 

Word traveled to Peter’s father who came to the Grace Baptist Church with a gun, intent on killing his son for leaving Ethiopian Orthodoxy.  Peter was terrified, but the man who had discipled told him to go into the building.  That man brought out a table and poured some coffee. 

Peter’s father set his gun on the table. The man who himself had grown up Muslim and then turned to Jesus at Grace Baptist Church, explained the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Peter’s Father listened.  His heart softened.  They called Peter.  His father put the gun away and embraced his son.

These events took place in the 1990’s.  Peter toured the United States in 2010.  One of his stops was here, HillSong Church.  He shared his story, which I just told.  That day, we invited people to support Grace Baptist Church by supporting the Children’s Hope Chest Care Point there. 

Support is rendered by sponsoring a child.  You send $34/month and you begin a relationship with a child who is educated at the school run by Grace Baptist.  The child gets a uniform, school supplies, and a meal every day.  Some of these kids live with their parents who are extremely sick.  Some have lost one parent and live with the surviving parent; these kids are called single orphans.  Some children lost both parents and live with a relative or guardian.  These are double orphans.  Whether the child is a single orphan, a double orphan, or a kid whose parents are alive but very poor, their needs are tremendous.  We have poverty in America, but in most cases, even our poor would be relatively well off compared to the poor in Kombolcha.

When Peter spoke at HillSong, people signed up to be sponsors.  Today, there are over 160 children in the program at Grace Baptist Church and about 90 are sponsored.  Over 40% of those sponsors come from HillSong church. 

What if we went to visit these kids?  What if we did that every year?

(2) WHAT WE DID

       In 2011, Candy and I went to Ethiopia to adopt our daughter M__.  While there, we went to Kombolcha, an 8-hour bus ride from the capital city, Addis Ababa.  We saw children who have great potential but are shackled by poverty.  The kids embraced us and loved us.  All we did was pass out care packages and take pictures.  And give hugs.  Lots of hugs. 

       I met with the leaders because I wanted HillSong to visit but only if that would be a good thing for them.  Maybe hosting a bunch of Americans would put an unneeded burden on them.  They assured me that a visit would be most welcome. 

      

When Candy and I returned to the United States, we began planning.  There was enthusiasm for the trip here at HillSong.  I imagined us as a church visiting Kombolcha every year.  That’s still my vision, but now that we have been on the firs trip, the vision is expanding. 

       Last year, May to November, many at HillSong attended the initial meetings.  Then, the interest waned.  Conflicting schedules, health, family obligations and other things got in the way.  For various reasons, autumn was passing and we had me and Sara Timmons and Laura Driggers.  Candy has also advertised the trip to sponsors outside our church, and they began signing up.  Soon, we had a team of 15, people from Michigan, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina.

We began preparing through conference calls.  I asked team members to share their Christian testimonies, on the calls.  In addition to that time of sharing, we planned our Bible camp.  Essentially what we would do in Ethiopia is go to the Grace Baptist Church every day and put on a 3-hour Bible camp for some of the kids in the morning.   The camp consisted of Bible lesson, arts/crafts, recreation/parachute games, and the distribution of care packages.  We also had several donations to pass out – balls, backpacks, water bottles, etc.  And, each day, we fed the kids a snack.  We’d take one group through in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

       As our team took shape, I thought, “This is not what I had in mind.”  I envisioned a HillSong team.  This team was a collection from all over with only three HillSong members.  But God was in it.  I was affirmed in the calling that yes, we were to go to Ethiopia.  At the same time, God showed me it wouldn’t look exactly as I thought. 

The time for the trip was getting closer, and I got a phone call.  “Rob, I need to come and talk to you.”  That usually means something is wrong, which is OK.  Christians walk with each other in life when something is wrong.   “Rob, I need to come and talk.”  Heidi Soden called and said those words, but it was because deep inside her, something was very right.  Even though all the deadlines had passed, she felt compelled by God to go on this trip. So, she came to see if there was any way.  I called the organization handling the logistics of our trip, the One Child Campaign.  Thy made it happen.  Our team of 15 was now 16, four from HillSong. 

Then March 21^st came – the day of our departure.  I learned that Sara Timmons can sleep anywhere – plane, floor of the airport, uncomfortable, crowded van.  Because she can do this, she is rested.  When the team is groggy and tired, she is awake, smiling.  We were working with 160 kids who speak Amharic.  A bright smile goes a long way.

I learned that nothing seems to faze Heidi.  She handles it all – the travel, the jetlag, the moments of scheduling uncertainty – she handles it with grace.  And she steps right in to any situation.

I learned that it is important to have a physician like Laura on the trip.  I also learned if you sit next to her for 13 hours on a plane, you won’t get bored.  She is extremely committed to Jesus and she is a conversationalist. 

We all learned that the Ethiopian airlines feeds a lot of meals and when it is meal time, they wake you up no matter how much your seatmate urges them to let you sleep.  Every time poor Laura would talk herself tired and drift off to sleep, they’d come with more food.  I would say, “Just let her sleep.”  Ignoring me, the flight attendant would shake her and say, “Chicken or fish.”  Half the time, I think she was so tired she wasn’t sure what she ordered even after she ate it.

I learned (again) what a fantastic my wife is.  With M__ only being with us 10 months, it wasn’t right for Candy to leave for 9 days.  But the entire time we were in Ethiopia, her fingerprints were all over the trip.  She was the conference calls in on all the planning. 

Here’s an example.  At the guest house, when we checked in, I was given a cell-phone.  Then I looked at the rather detailed notes Candy had put in a folder for me.  It said, “When you get to the guest house, a woman named Mercy will give you a cell phone.”  I looked at the woman and said, “Um, is your name, Mercy?”  She smiled and said, “Uh huh.”  I thought to myself, “I better read this folder carefully, every day.”  And, by the way, four members of the team used that phone to call back home throughout the week.

Our team was truly brought together by God.  We had a teenager, a nurse, a waitress, two pastors, a physician assistant, a school principle, a special ed teacher, a university professor, an office manager, a groundskeeper, and five stay-at-home moms.  There are super-Christians or sophisticated world-class travelers.  Some are over 50 years old, and one is 14.  Some are have a lot of formal education.  Some do blue-collar work.  One team member is a diabetic and she did fine.  One is a vegetarian, a vegan in fact, and she had some food challenges, but also did fine.  Look at these people.  YOU can sponsor a child and you can go on one of these trips.  You can be spectacularly used by God just by making yourself available. 

       At the Bible camp, the kids loved the games and the care packages.  They threw themselves into the crafts time.  They listened and participated when I taught the Bible lesson.  As we did our camp, in the distance, over a loud speaker, we would hear the Muslim call to prayer.  Many Muslims live in Kombolcha.  Among the children and within the Grace Baptist Church Family, some come to Jesus from a Muslim background.

      

(3) WHY

       This trip is about telling Jesus’ salvation, sharing basic needs of food and education and love with extremely poor children, and establishing relationships with those kids and the adults who care for them daily.  With the sounds of Islam filling the air, we told these kids that Jesus is God come in the flesh to take the sins of the world.  We went to Ethiopia to share this, to meet material needs, and to love the children in person.

       The most emotional portion of the trip for most of us came when we got to visit the homes of the children we sponsor.   We got to see 3^rd world poverty up close.  This wasn’t a CNN report.  With our bags of gifts –fruit, coffee, sugar – we went and visited the children.  The child Candy and I sponsor lives with 5 others in a home that’s not bigger than my office here at the church. 

       There is a reality about who Jesus is and some of us cannot see that reality until we step out of our familiar surroundings and into another world.  We go to help the kids yes, but also because we need to.  In order for us to become who Jesus is calling us to be, we need to go.

(4) WHAT’S NEXT

       Next year’s trip is March 9-18.  That corresponds with UNC’s spring break.  MY hope is that we double or triple the number of HillSong people who go.  I’d love to see five from the Encounter small group on next year’s trip.  Already, 17 people have signed up.  I now know this trip is God’s, not Hillsong’s.   The people in Ethiopia were so enthused with our time with them, they are eager for us to come back.  They cried when we left, and we did too – a lot.  Many have already signed up to go back. 

I am convinced God is calling Hillsong to be part of this. I urge you to pray and ask God if you are being called to sponsor or to go. 

(5) LONG-TERM

       I see this as the beginning of a long-term relationship:  HillSong Church, Children’s Hope Chest, Once Child (the organization handling logistics), and Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  In 2013, our Bible camp there will be during UNC’s spring break March 9-18. 

       We might plan other 2013 trips to Kombolcha.  I am exploring the possibility of a medical team going in the Fall. 

(6) WHY IT MATTERS (TO YOU) (ON MAY 20, 2012 IN CHAPEL HILL)

       What does this mean here, now?  We invite you to be part it.  Sign up now, so we can begin preparing.  See Candy or me if you’d like to go.  All you need to is be available.  Teachers, waitresses, maintenance workers, nurses have all gone – these aren’t extraordinarily wealthy folks.  They are folks who hear God’s call, trust in his help, and sacrifice things so they can go where He is at work.  Teens, people over 50, diabetics – all are happy they went and plan to go back.  You can do this too. 

       Or, maybe you’re called somewhere else.  Laura Shrewsbury goes to Ukraine nearly every year where she is a part of a Bible camp for Gypsy children.  Uganda, South Africa, Haiti – we have people who have been or are going to these places.  There is the potential for a future trip to the Dominican Republic. 

       Maybe you are called locally.  Jonathan has the youth on mission every summer.  It’s home repair work and has been done in downtown Roanoke and on an Indian reservation.  We have numerous ministries right here in Carrboro-Chapel Hill and right in our own church.  Personally, I want everyone to go to Ethiopia.  But more than that, for the sake of your growth in Christ, I want you – every one of us – to answer God’s call to step out of comfortable places and into uncertain places where trusting Him is essential.  We don’t live in Faith until we truly give up control. 

INVITATION

       As we move into a time of prayer, singing, and invitation, let this also be a time of considering.  God is calling you, maybe to Ethiopia.  Maybe to something else.  As we sing during this time, I invite to come to the front and pray, asking God where He is calling you.  Or come and ask God, if you already have an idea, to clarify the call on your life.  This isn’t only for young people.  This isn’t only for travelers or people with a certain skill set.  God has a call on every life here.  I am asking today that all of us come and kneel and pray and ask God to reveal the call, clarify the call, and solidify the call.  Maybe coming to the front to pray is not what you usually do.  Maybe that’s the first step in being willing to say to God, “I’ll do as you command.  As the worship team leads, come and pray and ask God to show you the way to the live of service in Jesus’ name he is preparing for you.  Come.

The People Jesus Misses (Jim Henderson)

I am reading Evangelism without Additives, a book about sharing Christian faith by pastor/author/thinker Jim Henderson.  I am not yet finished, but I am thoroughly intrigued by the 85% of the book I have read to this point.  I am going to share a few of my evangelism encounters over the years and after each encounter, I will give myself one of five grades (2 thumbs down, 1 thumb down, incomplete, 1 thumb up, 2 thumbs up).



(1) About 15 years ago, I spent time with my dad and a couple of his brothers on a vacation.  I was pretty convinced that one of my uncles on that trip gave lip service to Christianity, but his life involved minimal church attendance and Jesus had no presence in his life that I could see.  So after our vacation, we were all in back in our homes and I emailed my uncle.  My email was pretty direct with things like "without a relationship with Jesus, you aren't saved and are cut off from God."  I don't think I told him he was going to Hell.  That's never been my style.  But it was an in-your-face attempt through the safety of email. 
Grade - 2 thumbs down; I did not talk to him face-to-face, and I did not show concern for him or try to hear his perspectiv at all.


(2) Twenty years ago, in my first full-time ministry position, I was trying to encourage the teens in the church where I was the youth pastor to evangelize their friends.  I felt it unfair to ask them to do something I wouldn't.  So the next time my best buddy and I sat down for a little video game football, I said, "Hey, I want you to read something."  I talked him through a tract, a standard gospel tract that talked about going to Hell if one died apart from Jesus.  He said, "Oh, this is interesting."  And after I talked him through it, he read it again on his own.  The whole portion of the conversation took about 15 minutes.  Then, we went back to the computer football game.  My friend was not a regular in church and did not ever mention Jesus or faith.  After that day, our friendship continued and continued in conversations about sports and surface-level type stuff.  We never again discussed the gospel tract.
Grade - 1 thumb down; again, I did not ask his thoughts.  I tried to show something missing in him.  At least this was face-to-face and in the context of a relationship.


(3) Sometimes between 2002-2005, when I was a pastor in Virginia (1997-2006), we were doing a furniture give-away to the community.  A woman came for a coffee table and her daughter (23 years old), asked if we could give a Bible?  "Sure," I said.  In the ensuing conversation, she learned that we were in need of secretary.  I discerned from our conversation that she had not committed her life to Christ, but she was interested - a classic "seeker."  Our little church didn't attract many seekers like her.  I hired her as secretary.  I  know some members were appalled that an unbeliever was hired onto the church staff. But, I also knew it would afford me daily conversation with this young woman.  I told her when we hired her that church attendance would be a good idea for a church secretary.  She didn't have to attend our church.  However, my wife and I would be glad to give her a ride, and since she had some transportation problems, she gladly accepted our offer.  After about 10 months of typing newsletters with the pastor's articles, riding to church with the pastor and his wife, and being exposed to young people in our church who were passionate Christ-followers, she gave her life to Jesus.
Grade - 2 thumbs up; I give myself a good grade on this one not because it ended in her becoming a Christ follower, but in how we got there, in the context of real relationship that involved time, personal investment, and a lot of give and take.


Maybe as I go along, I'll write another blog like this one - grading my past evangelistic endeavors.

The Life of Children of God

If you really need good news, read Revelation 21-22.  Throughout the New Testament, the permanent joining in love of God and God’s people is described using marriage as a metaphor, and the bride is mentioned in Revelation 21.  After the final confrontation between God and Satan is concluded resoundingly in God’s favor, and Satan is gone, the bride and groom are joined. All who follow Jesus are invited into perfect fellowship with God. 

            He wipes away every tear.  Death is no more.  Mourning and crying and pain – each are gone (21:4).  The home of God is with human beings (21:3b).  At the end of Revelation 21 we see in the Heavenly city, there is no temple; God is the temple.  There is no sun.  God is the light (21:22-23).  All whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life see the face of God (22:4).

            That is coming.  Anyone need hopeful words today?  We’re 1^st John 3, but if you need to, linger at the end of Revelation.    John of Patmos received that vision.  We read his accounting of it and we imagine …

            What about today?  We have a lot to deal with now before that future vision comes to fruition.  How does it help to know that we will one day be in God’s physical presence in unbroken fellowship and in pure joy?  It’s something to look forward to.  But what about right now?

            First John 3:2.  “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  Though we cannot see God with our eyes, our relationship with God is made possible by His Holy Spirit.  In God’s view, His love and the death and resurrection of Jesus are what is needed to make us sons and daughters of God.  That’s how God see all people who receive Jesus.  Right now, not sometime later, we are children of God. 

            This week I was working on this message just before the voting on Tuesday and then right after it.  Outside the site where I vote, I saw some friends who were demonstrating with a placard.  They were peaceful and did not do anything unacceptable or unkind.  They definitively declared their position with the message on their board.  As we talked some who voted opposite them were visibly upset as they walked by and they voiced their displeasure. 

            The tension made me uncomfortable, but my conversation with my friends turned my mind to other thoughts.  The two women are committed Christ followers, and soon, one of them is going to live in an extremely repressive country where one can be imprisoned or killed for criticizing the government.  She’s going there as a visiting professor.  Secretly, she will meet with Christians and try to establish a small group or even, God-willing, an underground church. 

Overt Christianity in this totalitarian state leads to imprisonment.  If one of the citizens tries to escape the country, the government will kill his wife, his kids, and his parents.  Here we were in America openly expressing our views with our in conversation and with our votes.  And this woman I met will soon be voluntarily headed to one of the most repressive places on earth.

            How can she willingly do that, and do it with a joyful smile?  She is beloved.  She knows that she is a child of God.  It’s not sometime later.  It’s right now.

            Our nation’s political dialogue is locked in catch phrases.  People called my house repeatedly with recorded messages.  Their entire platform was “Get Obama out of Washington.”  None of the would-be congressmen offered a plan for affordable healthcare or job creation or any other pressing issue.  It was just a series of different voices repeating the same, tired, attack-dog lines with no positive alternative to offer.  I received the exact same calls in 2004: “Anybody but Bush.”  Really?  That’s the platform.  I am not saying this as a pro-Obama or pro-Bush stance.  The whole system is sick, and we voters act like lemmings, mindlessly following politicians completely void of conviction or honesty off an ideological cliff.

I was down about all of it.  Then I received some criticism on things I had written and said.  I became defensive and wrote words as mean-spirited and meaningless as those I hear from politicians.  I became what I hate. 

I had to remember the woman headed off to risk her life for the opportunity to share the Gospel.  I had to remember the spirit of volunteers from our church who go to Habitat for Humanity projects and similar works like A Brush with Kindness.  Why do these folks spend Saturdays helping people they don’t even know?  They do it because they are beloved children of God.  I had to remember just two weeks ago, I was with 15 amazing people in Ethiopia and we spent time with 160 incredible children sharing the love of Jesus. 

Being a child of God means something.  It give definition to our lives.  We live a certain way and our values are different than the world’s values.  Life is an incredible adventure when we live into our inheritance.

Verse 1 – “See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.”  The Gospel of John, chapter 1 – “To all who received his name, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God who were born not of blood or of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (v.12-13). 

Malaise settled on my spirit as I depressingly mulled over the political state of things.  My melancholy spilled over and I fell into ridiculous arguments online.  Then the sense of purpose of being God’s child snapped me out of it – both the fact that I am God’s child and that I witnessed that sense of call and joy and meaning in others.  First John 3:2 establishes a certainty we can stand on and live from – we are children of God.

Then we read, “What we will be has not yet been revealed.”  First John three moves from “We are children of God” to sin, mentioned 10 times in verses 4-10.  First John is among the most positive, hopeful writings in scripture, but in the midst of all this good news, sin is present.  In our lives – the lives of people who have put their trust in Jesus – sin lurks. 

In chapter 1, those who minimized or denied sin were called liars.  Chapter 2, the possibility of born-again persons sinning is accepted, and Jesus is named as the one who advocates for us.  He is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (2:2).  Now in chapter 3, Jesus was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin (3:5).

And there rises a problem.  We’ve already read that denial of sin is a lie.  We are all sinners.  But here we read “everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil.”  If we sin, does that negate our status as sons and daughters of God?  If we sin … what a thought!  Of course we sin.  The sins of our entire political system dropped me into an existential funk.  The sins of a nation under the heel of a megalomaniac make me fear for the lives of the people who live there.  All of us suffer pain because of the sins of those around us, many of whom are Christians.  We suffer because of our own sins. 

The literal definition of sin is to miss the mark. Disobedience is sin.  Foul language and mean-spirited words and deceit are ways we sin.  First John 3:8.  “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil.”  First John 3:10.  “The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers or sisters.”  Failure to do right and failure to love lead us into sin, all of us.

First John doesn’t mince words.  Have you heard of the antichrist?  First John 2:18 says many antichrists have come and more are on the way, and First and Second John are the only books of scripture that even use the Greek word, Antixristos ’antichrist.’ Child of the devil; antichrist; how do we reconcile such straightforward teaching with equally definitive words that say we are children of God?  Can we have two Fathers – God and the devil?

First John 3:9 says “Those who have been born of God do not sin.  Because God’s seed abides in them they cannot sin.”  When we live into the gift we’ve been given, the gift of new life in Christ, we have no inclination to sin.  We are new creations.  But the old self, the one in constant rebellion, is at war with the spirit of God who resides in us.  The old self is egged on by the evil of Satan.  The old self is tempted by demons and spirits and antichrists all around.  The old self is satisfied by the flesh most clearly seen in greed, lust for power, and sins of a sexual nature, but also manifest in a 1000 other ways. 

First John 3 implies this tension of sin for children of God.  In Romans 7, it is stated directly.

I am made out of flesh,^[f] sold into sin’s power. ¹⁵ For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. ¹⁷ So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. ²¹

²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? ²⁵ I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!^[k] So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.

            Where do we go from here? 

A few faithful Christ-followers are called to put their lives on the line in faraway countries.  They go where the Gospel is violently opposed because they are children of God and He has sent them.  But what about us, living for Jesus in Chapel Hill, going about our everyday lives.  Are we children of God, living with purpose, or slaves to sin and children of the devil?  If we don’t attend to our relationship with God, the enemy will have great sway in our lives and we’ll easily fall to his temptations.

            What about the seed of God, planted us, as verse 9 says?  I believe that seed is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the difference maker.  We go back to verse 2.  Now we are children of God.  What we will be – people of purpose or slaves of satan – has not been revealed.  Next it says, “What we do know is this:  when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see Him as He is.” 

            No, sin doesn’t win.  Satan does not reign.  The antichrist does not come out on top.  Jesus does.  We know he will return and be revealed and that will be the most wonderful day of history.  We can bank on that

Between now and then, we worship, pray, and stay in the Bible.  In these activities we meet God and stay connected to God’s church.  None of these activities save us, but, in worship, prayer, and Bible reading, we set ourselves so that we are receptive and ready when God enters and begins transforming us.

            With worship, prayer, and Bible-reading as regular life practices, we serve.  Mission trips, work in the church, volunteering in the community, sharing Jesus with friends and inviting them to church – these things make up our lives.  We heap love on hurting, discouraged people around us.  We walk through trials with people.  Good works do not save us any more than prayer, worship, and Bible study.  Jesus saves.  We work out of response to grace.  We love hurting people because that’s where Jesus is.  We’re likely to meet Jesus when visiting a hospital or a prison to give encouragement.  We’re likely to come face-to-face with Jesus while helping the poor, teaching kids, and doing acts of Christian service.  When we do for the “least of these” as Jesus say in Matthew, we do for Him.  Being where He is puts us in touch with the Holy Spirit who takes sin from us. 

            When He is revealed, He says to us, “Welcome, good and faithful one, enter into the joy of your master.”

            First John 3:2: “We will see Him as he is.”  Revelation 22:4: we will see his face and his name will be on us.  That hope gives us something to look forward to and something to live into today.  As we close, may each one of us imagine that day … and also imagine this coming week, how we will live with purpose as children of God.

AMEN

Frustrated Conversation

I have been frustrated by political conversation in our nation for a long time.  Republicans and Democrats typically trot out the same old cliches but rarely do they offer creative vision or original thinking.  The political speak just degenerates into name-calling and mud-slinging.  I hate it.

Recently, in a comment thread on my blog, the same thing happened, and I am to blame.  I reacted to thoughts and writings by taking them personally and becoming defensive.  I don't want to become so emotional.  I want this blog to be a place where I share my ideas and invite others to comment and offer their own ideas.  I want people to feel safe and comfortable sharing their views even if they differ with me.

In the recent comment thread, "Christian Believer" said some things, and I took them personally.  I decided to remove that thread.  "Christian Believer" and anyone else is invited to comment and disagree with me.  That's OK.  I ask that the exchange be respectful.  And I will try to uphold my end of that.  In the recent exchange I did not.  I was not very nice or respectful.   If I want good dialogue, I need to be a good dialogue partner.  I need to keep the big picture in view.

So, I pledge to do better.  Again, I invite you, my readers, to share and be part of the conversation.  "Christian Believer," I especially invite you.  I too am a believer.  And in my online dialogue with you, I want to do a better of job of honoring Christ and loving you as Jesus commands me to do so.  I have not done that.  I will strive to do so going forward.  

Ethiopia, April 21-30

I really saw the heart of God while in Kombolcha, Ethiopa (April 21-30, 2012).  We did a Bible camp.  I taught the kids the story of Gethsemane, Crucifixion, Resurrection, & Doubting Thomas.  During our camp others on our team did recreation, crafts, and handed out care packages.

In the picture above, we are handing out plates of food.  On the final day, we fed the kids a feast.

Below, I am playing ball with some of the kids on the our last day.  Apparently, the ball (like a beach ball) was hit high and out of the picture.

1 John 1:1-2:2

            I recall being a party to something very embarrassing.  It was several years ago, I was in another country, and another pastor from America was with me.  He and I got into a theological argument that was so heated we forgot the gracious hospitality of our hosts, we ignored the other people around us, and 1ooo’s of miles from the United States we verbally sparred over secondary issues.  My wife had to point out to me how foolish I was.  Here we were, in a third world country, doing God’s work, and he and I shamed ourselves by arguing over trivial matters.  I tell my kids to never say the word “stupid,” but in that moment, this brother-in-Christ, and I were both stupid.

            What’s worth an argument?  When Christians are together, doing God’s work in a context of poverty, is that the time to bicker over theology?

            The author of one of the commentaries I read on 1^st John told of a Christian religious society at one of the Ivy League schools that had just on standard for all participants.  All members had to affirm the ordination of women.[i]  That was the only core issue.  You could believe Jesus is currently on the moon inventing new kinds of cheese and sending it to Wisconsin, and you’d be OK as long as you agreed women could ordained to preach this milk curd gospel.  Ordination of women was the issue.

            The same author pointed out the standard for membership in an organization called The Evangelical Society.  That group required its members to sign a statement affirming the inerrancy of scripture.  Mormons have radically different beliefs about Jesus than do Protestants and Evangelicals, but they would have no problem signing the statement as it is worded.  It was more important to claim inerrancy than to clarify what was meant by it.

            I once had my own witness as a pastor assaulted because of my views on the creation of the earth.  Obviously I believe God is creator – I believe that absolutely, without equivocation.  I believe the way man has observed and described what God did within the limits of our scientific powers of observation is best described by the Big Bang theory.  Our world has evolved and continues to evolve.  Someone heard me say that and heard that I accept that the world is billions of years old, not 10,000 or so, and this person said that because of my failure to read Genesis literally, he had to reject what I had to say about Jesus.  If I didn’t hold his views on creation, then my statements about salvation, taken straight from the Gospels and Paul’s letters were immaterial.

            What’s the core issue for Christ followers?  What’s worth arguing?  When must we stand our ground?  Is it the ordination of women?  Is it our stance on a political issue like abortion or the death penalty?  Is it something with an evasive meaning like inerrancy?  A lot of people hold to the inerrancy of scripture, but they don’t hold the same definition of “inerrant,” or they aren’t the same scripture.  Is one’s position in the creationism-evolution debate the determining factor in whether one is a true Christ follower?

            In 1^st John, the core issue is clear – the one thing that cannot be compromised.  The opening to the letter makes the point.  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life” (1:1).  Scientists operate in the realm of five senses – that which can be proven by empirical observation. The authors of 1^st John declare that all they propose is built upon what they saw, heard, and touched.  Their fellowship, their relationship with God, and their relationship with other people, including all who read their letter are based on God’s appearing.

            We must agree.  God became flesh and walked the earth in the form of a specific man in history – Jesus.  God is Jesus.  Usually, we say, “Jesus is God.”  Try is this way – God is Jesus.  The awkwardness draws our attention.  We can argue about ordination of women, form of baptism and whether re-baptism is OK; we can discuss these and 100 other issues.  We must agree that God appeared to humankind in Jesus.  God is Jesus.  Jesus is God.  On this we stand.  All who claim the name Christian disciple must hold that Jesus is God and that God appeared in Jesus.  He walked among us.  He died for the sins of the world.  To have life in his name, we must believe in Him and put our faith in Him. 

            If you aren’t sure about Jesus, we are glad you are here and we aren’t going to get in your face.  We won’t try to jam Jesus down your throat.  We love you because love is essential to Jesus.  It is has to be the rule in His church.  We cannot truly be His unless we love. 

To be a church member and a true Christian, the core issue is Jesus.  God came in the flesh in Jesus.  That issue was being debated in the churches who received the letter we call 1^st John.  And God died for us to cover our sins.  Sin also was an issue in the late first century continues to be an issue today.

First John was probably written in response to heresies unfolding in the churches that had been founded by the same people who wrote the Gospel of John, disciples that included the Apostle John and others.  The young churches under their leadership were infiltrated by people who denied that Jesus came in the flesh and people who said sin didn’t matter.  These deceivers claimed to be sinless.  That’s what they said, anyway. 

Or if they admitted their sins, they said because God is spirit, sins of the flesh don’t matter.  Jesus was a spirit – not a flesh and blood man, and so sins committed in the body are inconsequential.  Both claims are outright lies – the claim that I do not sin; and, the claim that I might sin, yes, but my sins are of no importance because only intangible, spiritual realities last.  These deceptions are contrary to the Gospel.  The writers of 1^st John started off by connected words of life and salvation to what the authors saw, heard, and touched – the physical reality of God in the flesh, Jesus. 

            Getting very personal, the author says in the beginning of chapter 2, “My dear ones, I write so that you will not sin.”  Obviously sin happens, and he’s already made that point.  He knows those in the church will mess up sometimes.  Sin is a part of human reality.  He’s rejected the opponents who claimed to be sinless.  “I write so that you will not sin,” – this means so that we do not make the mistake of claiming perfection. 

We make mistakes, which is why we need Jesus.  First John 2:2 says He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the world.  The death of this very real man, God in the flesh, covers all sin because sin needs to be covered.  As people of God, we have to take sin seriously and we have to acknowledge our absolute need for the forgiveness we have in Jesus.

            Once we receive that forgiveness, first John tells us to “walk in the light as he is in the light” (1:7).  In the light, all sin is acknowledged.  The ways of God are openly named and life is conformed to God’s standards and God’s expectations.  This is true of all our relationships.  In all our human interactions, we do things God’s way, the way of selfless, sacrificial love. 

            As we step into 1^st John, we see a progression for the life of one who follows Jesus.  First, the reality: the discipels have seen, touched, heard – God in the flesh, Jesus.  First John is based not on an indescribable mystery, but on his very real encounter with Jesus. 

Next, because we have met Jesus, for us in the form of the Holy Spirit, we identify falsehood, name it, and root it out.  The falsehoods 1^st John fought against was a denial of the incarnation and the lie that sin is not present or it is present but unimportant.  Naming the centrality of the life of and death and resurrection of Jesus, and declaring the presence of sin, we are then called to walk in the light because only in the light are we walking with Jesus.  Walking in the light means faith (believing the Biblical story about God), and obedience (submitting to God’s rule).  And God’s rule is love. 

            Where does it all lead?  Why was 1^st John written?  What’s the point?

            The best life a person can have is life in Jesus Christ.  Only in Him do we have truly blessed relationships with people and with God.  In friendships with Christians and nonChristians alike, we love best because God is at work in us and we are sensitive to and cooperative with His Holy Spirit.  And this best life, this life in Christ, reaches its peack when we share the story of salvation and the love of the Gospel. 

First John 1:4: “we are writing these things so that our joy may be made complete.”  For that first century community of committed Christ-followers, absolute fulfillment and happiness came in sharing the gospel with the church who would in turn share the Jesus story with the world.  Joy was present complete when the truth was believed and the sins forgiven and heresy demolished.  But joy was complete when the good news was told to the world.  Our joy is in our witness, our telling. 

As we go through six weeks in 1^st John, the authors’ joy will once again be increased.  Our little church will drink and be filled with the living word of God.  In Heaven somewhere, John rejoices.  We read this letter so we will grow in our knowledge of God.  In our reading our relationship with Him deepens.  In our sharing it deepens even more.

If you were here last week, you heard a new believer’s testimony read and you saw her proclaim new faith in Jesus by being baptized.  I had my own role in her story even though I was not here last week.  I wouldn’t say I “led her to the Lord.”  I think the Holy Spirit did that.  I don’t take any credit for ____’s salvation and I don’t give credit to any person.  Phil, Jonathan, Heather, and I – we are all grateful God allowed us a role in ____’s story.  We rejoice.

I want everyone here to experience that kind of rejoicing.  It comes when you are a witness and you honestly and fully tell of how you were saved by the love of Jesus.  You tell someone who doesn’t know Him.  And you pray for that person, and he or she considers the Gospel, and prompted by the Holy Spirit, becomes a Christ follower.  I want everyone here to know the thrill and joy of playing a part in another person’s salvation.   I think 1^st John shows what a joy that can be. 

So we end with invitation.  Maybe someone listening has not yet put his or her faith in Jesus Christ.  You are invited to come to Him today.

Maybe someone didn’t know that everything in faith, everything in life depends on God in the flesh, Jesus the Anointed.  Maybe someone thought he knew the Christian story but disregarded the seriousness of sin.  You are invited to pray a prayer of repentance today.

Maybe someone knows the story, believes it, repents of sin, but doesn’t share it.  We want your joy to be complete.  You are invited to pray and ask God to help you be a Gospel-sharer this week. 

Seekers, we invite you to pray to receive Jesus today. 

AMEN

As our musicians come, you are invited. 

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[i] Gary Burge, The NIV Application Commentary, p.60.

Informed, Open-Hearted Evangelism

I write as a Christian, and I write to you as a Christian.  If you find yourself reading this do not define yourself as a follower of Jesus Christ or as one of his disciples, I invite you to keep reading.  Imagine you are overhearing two believers talk.  Evaluate the content and decide if you have any interest in learning more about Christian faith.

God wants Christians to tell nonbelievers about the salvation we have in Jesus Christ.  We invite those who don’t follow to begin doing so because eternal life is for all who have received God’s grace as it is revealed in Jesus.  In Matthew 28 Jesus sends his disciples out to evangelize (28:19-20).  He equips us and goes before us.  The quality of our relationship with God is directly related to whether or not we live evangelistically.

All of this is to say, true Christians practice evangelism.  There are numerous ways to go about it, and some are quite inappropriate while others are appropriate in one context and just wrong in another.  But, we’re all called to tell about Jesus and invite people to give their lives to Him and worship Him as Lord.

To do this effectively, we have to be educated.  If I want to share my faith with my neighbors, I have to know the issues my neighbors think are important.  I can only know that information when I gather it in the course of a natural relationship.  To know about my neighbors, I have to spend time with them in true relationship.  If I just get to know them for the sake of getting an opening to proselytize, then I am a phony.  Christians need to love non-Christians for the sake of love.  And in the context of love, we share Jesus.

Love and knowledge as a way of approaching people evangelistically applies in all relationships.  Whether it is a co-worker, someone you see each week at the fitness club, someone who rides the commuter bus with you every day, or a classmate, it’s likely that your desire to evangelize that person will bear fruit if you first love and know that person.

I have been applying this approach to evangelism specifically to Islam.  Often Islam is portrayed as the evil enemy of Christianity.  I do not believe Islam preaches the truth about God, but neither do I believe that all Muslims are Satan-possessed terrorists.  Most Muslims are people who want to know the truth about God.  They think they have found it in their faith.  Will they be more likely to listen to me talking about Jesus as another, better option if I (A) damn them to Hell unless they repent, or (B) show that I care about them? 

In order to approach evangelism (i.e. sharing Jesus) to Muslims, I have begun reading about Islam, and I read Muslim writers.  Recently on a 15-hour plane trip, I sat next to a young Muslim woman from Somalia.  I engaged her in general conversation and I tried to listen as much as possible.  If learning and listening are key elements to the practice of evangelism, then prayer is a third and probably most important aspect.  I should pray for the woman I sat next to and I should pray as I read Muslim authors.  Through education, listening, and prayer, I will posture myself to do evangelism in an open, loving way.

I believe this is the approach most likely to be successful in our 21^st century context and most reflective of Jesus’ commands to love our neighbor.  This approach doesn’t deny the essential reality that all people need Jesus and are lost without Him.  Neither does it turn people off.  It’s not an angry, judgmental approach, but an open, loving one.  And it is an approach that answers God’s call with an appreciation for the spirit of Jesus’ teaching.  Furthermore, it fits whether sharing our faith with neighbors, with people from other faiths, or with others that we meet in the daily encounters in life.