Friday: Further Study (Cross-Cultural Missions)
I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
(Matt. 8:11-12 NIV). Though these words were spoken in a particular context, in reference to a particular people, we shouldn’t miss the principle.
Image © Providence Collection from GoodSalt.com
Those who have been given great privileges, great advantages in terms of spiritual and theological truths, need to be careful. It’s easy to become complacent about truths that we have been given, truths that in some cases no one else is preaching and teaching. First, we need to make sure that we keep ourselves grounded in these truths; then, second, we need to be willing to teach these to those who don’t know them.
Discussion Questions:
- The cross has shown us the absolute universality of all humanity. Before God we are all sinners, and we all need grace for salvation. Nevertheless, many groups often do see themselves as superior to others. This is common and has been all through history. What about yourself and your own ethnic, social, financial, or cultural group? In what ways do you harbor (and don’t fool yourself—you do harbor) a sense of superiority to others different from you? What’s wrong with that attitude, and how can you learn at the foot of the Cross to change it?
- The woman at the well went back and witnessed to her own people about Jesus. What does this teach us about missions and the importance of using those of a particular culture to reach their own people?
- The Greeks wanted to see Jesus. No doubt they had heard about Him or had themselves seen some of the things He had done. Jesus, of course, is now in heaven, and the church, His people, represent Him here on earth. What does this mean for us in terms of the kind of life we live and the kind of witness we present?
(19)
From the lessons we heard indeed Jesus is for all people, what we need is to accept him as your Lord and saviour. He first preached to the Jews then his own people rejected him, from there he fulfilled his mission, preaching the word to all nation.
From the lesson we learn,we must preach the gospel to entire world filled with the holy spirit and people will accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour.
What a thought provoking lesson to us as 7th day Adventist, to us much truth been revealed, but are we living up to the light that has been given to us? is the question I ask myself. On top of that, am I sharing this truth with others? Life is so busy with the cares of this world, but I pray that God will guide me in how I can commit time, and to be open to the Holy Spirit to share the gospel message to whomever I meet and not to be selective based on outward appearance. My prayer us for the eleventh hour worker no longer to remain idol in the market place (Matthew 20) , but to rise up and to finish the work that we have been called to do. Christ's coming is at the door, are we ready to receive him now?
There are few imperatives we should bear in mind on cross cultural group. The best precedence was at Pentecost for the Church as a whole though the stories these week have a principle for us to follow: EITHER, the church learn the language to preach or learn the culture and worldview to successfully preach the Eternal Gospel.
1). The majority were Jews from all over the world, who either were citizens in those foreign countries but had lost their mother tongue but were familiar with the country they were either born in or had bought their citizenship in some stage of their life.
2). Definitely there were some proselytes and were not familiar with the Jewish language thus the need for the speaking of tongues for the sake of understanding the eternal gospel.
The church should thus encourage new converts to concentrate with their friends, neighbors, colleagues and relatives. And for that to happen the Pastors and elders or personal ministry in each local church should equip them with bible study tools and the mechanics of bible study. The church should then equip older members of the church to go into un-entered territories to share and preach the gospel by using the SOP method on Jesus method, 2x2 by home visitation or by becoming colporteurs. 'The other churches in Fiji openly admit to using SOP advise and are growing steadily than the SDA church in Fiji. These older members have all the experience and supposedly the know how approach for they know the do's and dont's of missionary work et al.
Secondly, The church must have a sort of layman school full time or online so that it's local members are taught the finer points of evangelism and laws of bible study and counseling where they are taught cross culture ministry and contemporary religions thus to be successful missionaries.
This work is so important that we need to seriously set up laymen schools for evangelism, bible study, colporteur, medical ministry and other ministry that we can come up. Let me refer to the precedence at Pentecost, we need to understand our local context for we have a lot of people, racial, political, philosophical, religious et al so we have to learn their worldview to better minister to them. This is no easy task for it needs patience, understanding, tactfulness and humility and respect for these groups. Unless we do this I believe we should not go forth for we do more harm than good and most of the time the DEVIL is happy and ridiculing us for we arrogant and ignorant to these facts and worldview that we in fact make them sons of hell twice and instead of being agents and ambassadors for Jesus we are doing the opposite and working for the DEVIL when we have a casual attitude as such. We should move as a church collectively and decisively with purpose and substance by institution schools. I remember SOP is always adamant that pastors and church leaders should EDUCATE, EDUCATE, EDUCATE members to the importance of knowing the seriousness of this call and mission.God bless His Church and Leaders in equipping especially in Educating, Educating, Educating its members for mission. Members who are well versed and trained for cross cultural mission and ministry.
Aca, excellent advice. It sounds like this is not happening in your area, although it is in many other areas. There are many websites which offer training and sharing resources if it is not been done in your area.
Groups like Lightbearers also send free literature around the world as well as making it available on their website. Amazing Facts have a huge collection of pamphlets for sharing. To name just a couple. Click the Resource link at the top of this page for many other resources as well.
We have a great light that the world does not know about, as the lesson stated we need to be careful that we don't become proud and selfish with our knowledge. This gospel is for the world. John 3:16-17 gives us God's promise that he who gave his son into the world that the world though him might be save.
Let's do our part in sharing this great message with those who know not our God and his Son who loved us all that he gave of his life so that we may have eternal life.
Thank you Jesus for your unselfish gift. Happy Sabbath Family.
Jesus demonstrated that cross-cultural mission was possible.
The assurance that Jesus will be with us to the very end of the
age(Matthew 28:20)should energize us to take the good news to
every land and sea.
The good news is that Jesus saves regardless of our cultural back
ground and He(Jesus) has promised to be with us till the end.
I always say that you must keep Jesus at the forefront of your life. Keep the message simple. Like the woman at the well, you must say: "Come & see the man..." who has given me new life, who has taken my pain away, healed my broken heart & has given me a reason to live, one who has set me free from my fears, & has given me hope.
As far as my witness, I strive to be more like my Master every day-more of Him & less of me. I simply must say, "Not my will, but thy will be done".
We desire the truth, give ourselves to Christ completely without reserve, seek salvation as if He were the most valuable pearl in the world, surrender our bad habits to Christ, visualize Christ, allow the Holy Spirit to inpower us, now we go out and tell our family,friends,neighbors, and the world what He has done for us. By desiring, giving, seeking, surrendering, visualizing, allowing, and telling, we are now trully believing in Christ. Yes now you have been born again of the Holy Spirit. Don't get me wrong the Holy Spirit can baptize you with the 1st step, if you allow Him to be your navigator and power through the next steps. What happens when you are born of the Holy Spirit? Marvelous things: 1. Christ forgives your sins, 2. simultaneously the Holy Spirit puts in you a desire to obey, an attitude of obedience, if you will. Thus we appropriate Christ merits (accept the invatation and puting on the wedding garment). Matthew 22:9-12. Look at the jail keeper, Acts 16:34. Look at the demon possesed man after Christ forgave and healed him. Mark 5:20.
Great is His faithfulness, Lord unto us. Don't you argree? We can't even repent without the Holy Spirit implanting a desire to obey.
Happy Sabbath.
It is probably worth considering that we have a cross-cultural issue on our front doorstep. We sometimes call it the "generation gap". Our children and grandchildren are growing up in a very different culture to us who are older. We cannot help but notice that the younger generation has a very different approach to life than those of us who are older. For example younger folk question authority much more than older generations. They want to know "why" rather than accepting something on the basis of authority.
We often tend to blame the education system, the media, rock music or other influences for our young people leaving the church but in reality it is worth asking ourselves if we have really made the effort to talk to our young people in a language that they understand. Most of our young people come to their understanding of faith from a very different perspective to those of us who are older. It is important the we understand this in our effort to pass on those values that we regard as important. Just shouting louder does not get the message across.
The same is true now that we live in a largely secular society. There is a cultural gap between churched and unchurched folk that even talking about faith becomes difficult. You cannot depend on words to preach the Gospel in an unchurched environment. To effectively bridge the gap we must understand the importance of actively living the Gospel.
I agree with you Maurice. We are always on the Reactive mode rather than Proactive and most of the time when we want to be in line we are a decade late. Each conference in various groups should tailor their curriculum or whatever in advance. There should be a special committee to follow this up world wide.
I think you are right but I don’t think some of the young people are as questioning as we would think. To me it seems to all depend on who the authority is. Just look at conformance within their age group or their acceptance of concepts and ideas their teachers present which sometimes override what their parents have taught them. Sometimes, but not always, a person in authority with a respected degree will be believed before anyone else but even that has its exceptions.
But, hey, all of this is not new. Some of the ancient Greek philosophers moaned and groaned over the youth of their time and my dad had the same problem with me and other kids in my age bracket. So truly there is nothing new under the sun.
I think perhaps the big difference is that many of them have been taught self respect to the degree that they think of themselves as being more important than anyone else. I see that all the time and I also see more defiance of their parents at a very young age which is something we never dared to do.
I think that questioning authority and peer conformity are two different issues; even though they both affect young people. You are right Tyler in that every generation wants to carve out their own identity.
I still maintain though that we do need to work on bridging the generation gap (both ways) As a person who is now being affected by "age-est" attitudes and comments directed at me, I am starting to appreciate how some of young people must feel about that attitudes and comments directed to them.
The church I attend has a variety of nationalities, just wanted to throw that in. Our church has a so called "clique"; its been like this for longtime. This saddens me. And it also saddens me, there are a lot of "back stabbing members". I always pray for the Holy Spirit, to guide each member, myself included. I also believe that if members don't live up to the faith, and cling onto worldly practices, somehow the Lord will not bless the church as a whole. We don't live in a perfect world, but may the Holy Spirit unclog our sinful ways.
I hear what you are saying Elizabeth; and there is a lot that goes on in church communities that saddens me as well. However I like to bear a couple of things in mind.
1) We cannot be close friends with everyone. In my church there are people who have quite different interests to me, and apart from being polite and saying hello to them, we share little with one another. That is not wrong. I have friends who I spend time and interests with. And most others likewise have a group of friends who share similarly. Providing we are open and welcoming, friendship groups do not need to be considered as cliques.
2) There are always those who, for one reason or another, are on the fringes of the church community. We need to be aware of that. That is where our duty of community pastoral care comes in. When the members of a church take on board the idea of the caring for one another, those people who are on the fringe are made to feel welcome.
While the current lessons seem to be directed towards considering national and racial boundaries, it is also worth considering the effect of generational and socioeconomic boundaries that all too often inhibit community pastoral care in our churches.
We need to hear the prayers of those who feel disenfranchised by the church and act as God's ambassadors in making them feel welcome and encouraged