Growing in global Christianity

As the church approaches and observes Holy Week, it is appropriate to join with others in remembering the passion of the Christ and take thought to meditate upon the reason for His suffering and sacrifice as He was crucified on Calvary’s cross. We are given a broadening sense of God’s purpose for us in Christ after the resurrection. Jesus says in Acts (1:8), that when the Holy Spirit comes, “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This same dynamic progression of spreading the good news of the Gospel continues to this day.

Last summer I attended a Global Fellowship conference held in Atlanta at the largest congregation in my denomination. Since then I have been experiencing God transforming my outlook as a follower of Christ. I have begun to see in a whole new way, as if with new eyes and depth of insight, what it means to be and do that which Jesus calls and tells us to in God’s Word in the Bible. Upon getting acquainted again with concepts from my studies at seminary in missional theology, I am sensing in myself a renewed passion for ministry and mission in our community. The following modified excerpts of material from the conference I attended and the added reflection in this article provide for us some challenges from a distinctly global Christian perspective.

When the Board of Foreign Mission of the denomination I currently serve in was established in 1837, 80% of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and North America. Today, a rapidly growing global church and a declining church in the West have turned that sharply around.

As Philip Jenkins explains in his book, The Next Christendom, the largest populations of Christians on the planet are in Africa and Latin America – and they continue to grow at phenomenal rates. Jenkins writes, “In its variety and vitality, in its global reach, in its association with the world's fastest-growing societies . . . it is Christianity that will leave the deepest mark on the twenty-first century."

In 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians, or about 9% of its population. Today that continent is home to 360 million Christians out of 784 million people, or 46%. Latin America has 480 million Christians and Asia another 313 million. Many now rightly refer to the churches outside of Europe and North America as the “majority church.” What does it mean for us in the U.S. to be global Christians in the face of these shifts?

Many congregants in mainline denominations are aware that our global partners regularly express concern about how Western churches are moving away from what most in the majority church view to be biblical understandings of marriage, human sexuality and ordination. If our denominations move away from the clear teaching of the Bible, we will find ourselves out of step with the vast majority of Christians around the world.

But the concerns of the majority church are much broader. Several years ago, the daughter of a church leader in Congo attended a youth gathering of a mainline congregation in the USA. She was confused by what she saw and heard, and she went home expressing her astonishment that the young people were just like those who weren’t in the church. From her observation, they were just as caught up in our nation’s secular values.

David Zac Niringiye, assistant bishop of Kampala in the Church of Uganda, gets at some of the majority church’s concerns in a Christianity Today interview. In it, he addresses the question: “How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?”
(http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/007/31.32.html)
In this provocative interview Dr. Niringiye observes, “One of the gravest threats to the North American church is the deception of power—the deception of being at the center.” He goes on to describe how in the gospels and in the early mission of the church it was often at the periphery, away from the centers of control and power, where God was most powerfully at work. Dr. Niringye explores getting lost in the culture, learning to read the Bible differently, the difficulties of cross-cultural honesty, and the blessedness of relinquishing control. It is a powerful interview worth reading for further consideration.

In the new global church whose demographic center and mission vitality is no longer in the West, what forms might our relationships with the global church properly take? Mission is no longer from the West to the rest. In fact, there are many gifts that we need to receive from members of the Body of Christ in other parts of the world. In the new millennium, missionaries are being sent to the increasingly secularized Western cultures of Europe and North America from regions, sometimes referred to as part of the two-thirds world, in Africa, and from countries such as Brazil and Korea where Christianity is expanding. What does it mean for people like us here in the United States to be good partners in mission? Might it encompass the salvation, healing, deliverance, and reconciliation we so very much need in our own community? Would God have us find the answer of Jesus through the mission and ministry of our sisters and brothers in Christ from abroad?

Those initiating the call for a missional fellowship of Christians worldwide believe that Christ is calling us to move beyond confidence in our own capacity to a fresh openness to the witness of the global church. We must learn from their faith and faithfulness together. Christians from other countries and cultures can help us to discern well what it means to gather around God’s mission. As we enter into what many regard as the most holy of weeks, let us consider anew what the apostle Paul referred to in his letter to the Philippians (3:10) concerning the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. Having the same Spirit’s power that raised Jesus from the dead, I believe the body of Christ in Henry County, Indiana in the U.S. of A. is being prepared by the Lord for a new day in God’s better future. We are, in a sense, poised to experience the resurrection of our community for the glory of God in Christ. I am, along with others, prayerfully looking forward to the Lord renewing us in our own day and time, as we see ourselves growing in knowing Christ, and making Christ known for this world that God so loves. This week, I invite you to join with others around you in prayer and worship of the Holy One Who loves us with a love and life that goes beyond the grave.

Adapted from the » e-Newsletter August 8, 2006 - A Copernican-like Revolution issue of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship

http://PresbyterianGlobalFellowship.org/eNewsletters.aspx