Vision for Mission

Earlier this month in my sermons I shared with you Biblical importance of “seeing.”  Blindness is contrasted in the Scripture with Vision.  One of Jesus’ parables used the image of blind leading the blind, and both falling into a ditch.  Apostle Paul spoke firmly to believers in his day that it is devil who darkens our understanding, who blinds our sight (2^nd Corinthians 4:4).  Apostle Peter challenged believers that if they are not willing to look at the big picture and have a balanced all-inclusive wide-ranging faith, then they have forgotten their salvation and short-sighted to blindness (2^nd Peter 1:5-9).  The verdict to Laodicean final days church is “blind” and the message is to get cure, to be able to see (Revelation 3:17).

I shared with you the importance of Vision among the leaders.  Greek term episcope, is translated as supervisor, overseer, bishop – all implying Vision, Seeing – it is the word for eldership!

What do you see ahead?  What is your vision of preferred future?  How far do you see?

For the last few months our elders had been grappling with a common shared Vision for our church as we come to meet together.  I had met with a Leadership consultant Andre Thomas on the same subject.  He asked me a question that caught me by surprise: “What is the culture of your church?”   Hmm.....What is our culture?  Our values reflect our underlying culture.   What are those values?  A year ago the Board of elders produced a document “Towards becoming a Prevailing church” outlining those values.  Was it for real, or was it only wishful thinking? What’s on a paper but not in our hearts is not really a culture.  Just like the Law of God, when it is on the stone, outside of us – at best it leads to legalism of trying hard to act out.  It is not until the same Law is in our heart, and we act from within those values that we could claim the Culture of the Law.  Same with our church’s Vision, a statement on a banner, a write-up in the document is not it, until it is internalized in our dreams, in our hopes, in our heart.

Allow me to share just a few fragments of my vision of a preferred future for our church:

·         Our church services, sermons, teaching events are broadcasted online, marketing our product beyond our walls

·         Home-churches in various parts of the city where groups meet weekly to converse about spiritual lessons of Sabbath worship, to nurture new believers and to support each other socially, emotionally, materially

·         School of Ministry where people are taught Biblical Doctrines, Spirituality, Mission and are equipped for Ministry continually

·         Loving community where everyone know each other’s business and helps one another to endure in love until Jesus returns.

You could call it “Church without Walls”

Removing Hindrances, Praying for the Holy Spirit

This week we had been praying for Revival and Reformation.  A series of church outreach events and activities is not enough to keep new people coming to church. We should focus on transforming the life and the conduct of the local church.  Have you been transformed?  How has our congregation had been transformed over the past few years?

Unless the local church has been totally transformed, all the programs and strategies will be in vain. Local church members should strive to model the traits they want to see in new comers.

ENVIRONMENT!   Think about this one word!  The influence of the local church environment on new members cannot be underestimated. Just picture our church as a fish tank, public campaigns and other forms of evangelism are “catching” fish to bring them back to our "tank." If the tank is contaminated, it doesn't matter how well we feed the fish or how much we lecture the existing fish to accept the new ones. Our concern is often the most obvious -- those fish that die in our tank, or who leave the church. But that's just the beginning. We should be as concerned about the fish that don't die but learn to adapt to the contaminated tank, carrying poisons within.  It is urgent to address the environment.

New members, like children, learn much more from what they see and experience than from what they have been taught. In the same way, life must be modeled for new believers. Paul puts it well: "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). A transformed local church will not just teach new members, but will model the life for the new members.

Here are few suggestions for a transformed environment, and its practical implications:

·   Befriend new members, and old. How can we make friends with new members if we're not already friends among ourselves?

·   Show love. We can't show what we don't have -- if the "tank" is contaminated with strife and hatred, that's all we can offer.

·   Involve them. We can't get them involved unless current members are already involved in church activities.

·   Visit them, but don't forget to visit the old member who lives on the street next door, too.

·   Disciple them, but show discipleship to the rest of the church as well.

·   Expect high standards of living from them, but model that behavior in the church.

The transformation of the local church into a loving family, the foretaste of heaven, is our biggest concern. One of our church co-founders attests  "A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs" (Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, March 22, 1887).

We need more than revive our mission and programming, we need to be revived as people, then mission will be a never-ending reality, a warm environment filled with smiling, loving and caring people.  Not by our might, but by the Holy Spirit power we will have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, loyalty, gentleness, unselfishness.  Partner with us,to be ambassadors for loving church.

«SO WHAT» FACTOR: Why do we Pray?

Have you ever ask yourself “Why do I pray?”  English word prayer etymology is derived from Latin root «precarius», related to precarious, meaning shaky, insecure, uncertain, unsafe.  Is our prayer limited only to such situations, when the world is crumbling around?

In words of last century’s theologian Thomas Merton “prayer is an expression of who we are...we are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.” Philip Yancey in his book on Prayer asks “Does Prayer change us, or God, or both?”  Does your prayer work?  Does it work the way we think it should?  What difference does it really make? Apostle Paul says that prayer is the result of Holy Spirit searching our hearts and prompting us (Romans 8:26)

We come to our regular mid-week prayer meetings to teach each other to pray.  A child cannot learn language in isolation, as proved by the terrible cases of children locked for years.  If prayer is the language with the Divine, communicating with completely other, then the community and listening to others communicate is the best learning ground, learning by “osmosis.”  How fluent are you in the Prayer Language and Grammar, or are you “tongue-tied”?  Should we even learn to pray out-loud, or is there a mystery in silence?   Could it be that the conscious prayer is really “tuning in” to the conversation already going on deep in our hearts?

Great promises are offered in the Bible to people “if they PRAY.” But what about all those unanswered prayers, whose fault?  What if two people are praying contradictory prayers, who should God listen to with fulfilment?

This week we come together to pray for each other, to pray for friends, to bring others and pray for them.  Prayer is the greatest social act that the human being is capable of, because when we pray for someone else, we connect with them in the spiritual realm.  We can connect through prayer with whole nation, communities, ethnic groups, the earth, other living creatures, which we would never be able to do physically.

Do not censor your prayer, as God sees into our hearts more clearly than we do.  Just speak without limit, with no boundaries to God.  That is all He requires, for through speaking with us He is changing this world.  

THINGS WE DON'T often TALK ABOUT... Trick or Treat?

After reading a positive note about Christmas, you may wonder “What about Halloween?”  Some families (I mean, Adventist members) send their kids out dressed up in costumes to get candies, some adults are going to a special costume party.  What do we say about October 31^st?  Many Christians advocate that there is nothing wrong with having fun on Halloween.

I would begin to answer with this: it depends what you think about devil.  Many so called Christians do not think devil exists too.

Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."  (Gyles Brandreth, "The Devil is gaining ground" The Sunday Telegraph (London), March 11, 2000.)

The word Halloween first attested in the 16th century also has “Christian” roots, and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows (Saints) Day, which falls on November 1.  In the Roman Catholic Church Halloween is viewed as having a Christian connection, and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland.

Let me ask you, do you derive the meaning of Christianity from the Roman Catholicism, or Anglican version of Protestantism? Or, perhaps, you begin to see that such practices are contrary to many other beliefs we hold from the Bible.

Ask yourself whom am I joining “having fun” on this day, known as the day of the dead?  It prompts the next question, what do you believe about the dead?  If the dead are resting until the resurrection it is one thing, but if the dead are abiding as either souls or spirits (uncertain by most Christians and other faiths), then this day invites to experience their treat.  Again the Biblical teaching on this is also clear – there are no spirits of the dead, such are demonic tricks.

Apostle Paul in his letter to Corinthians states that other religions are demonic: 1 Corinthians 10:20-21: "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God..” Hence, things that have origin in such religions have clear association.

That is why this particular day and events associated with it open the door to the occult and can introduce forces into people's lives that they do not understand and often cannot combat. 

Study the issue, before you make a rush decision, or justify it by “other Christians” opinions.  Examine your own worldview, your faith, and know that Seventh-day Adventists are peculiar people, because we differ from the majority opinion as we seek the truth as it is in Jesus.

ADVENTIST IDENTITY – IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

I am reflecting on the message I preached last Sabbath, praying that the Holy Spirit would communicate where my words fall short.  As “adherents” of our denomination celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Seventh-day Adventist name there is also a question “what relevance does it have today?”  From week to week I interact with people who consider themselves “adherents” to the name, and mark even on the census that they are “SDAs” yet they have nothing to do with core beliefs, mission, community or work of the Church that is called so.

“Seventh-day Adventist” name communicates faith in the miracle making God, creating the world in six days, and coming again to re-create and restore this sin-damaged world.  It is a sermon in itself rooted in the past work of Creator God and the future hope of the Redeeming God.  We know the great beginnings we have had, and we know the glorious promise we are anticipating! But, what about now, the present?

It is from the story of Moses that I shared with you the search for identity.  Exodus 33 records Moses dialogue with God.  Israel knew where they were coming from, they knew the promise given to Abraham and their fathers, and they knew the recent deliverance God worked miraculously for them to exit Egypt.  They also knew the future where they were going to – the Promised Land!  And, (here is the key!) Moses understood that past and future must be connected by the Present.  His plea with God was to walk with them, to have His Presence, His Face be with them, or without His Presence they would not move a mile!  Verse 16 tells us that what really made them (Israel) different from all other nations was not their skills, gifts, possessions, past or future, but God’s Presence in the Present.

The Seventh-day was special not only because God created, but because in that day God walked with people and people were in God’s direct presence.  The Advent of the New heaven and Earth is special not only because of peace and wonders it offers, but because God’s Presence will be experienced face-to-face again!  And it is during this “between” time, the present, that we need God’s Presence. What makes us really special is God’s Presence in our individual lives! Seventh-day Adventist identity is not in the monumental name or momentous hope, but in the present living real relationship with God, knowing His ways, knowing His will, having the Kingdom love among ourselves!