LEADER
ISSUE 007 SUMMER 2013
THE CHURCH RESTORED
PROPHETIC AND PIONEERING AGAIN?
STEVE THOMAS IS THE LEADER OF THE INTERNATIONAL TEAM WHICH SERVES THE SALT & LIGHT FAMILY. STEVE HAS BEEN PART OF OUR FAMILY OF CHURCHES SINCE THE EARLY YEARS AND IN THIS KEYNOTE ARTICLE REFLECTS ON OUR JOURNEY, WHAT GOD HAS TAUGHT US, AND WHAT NEW CHALLENGES LIE BEFORE US AS GOD AGAIN CALLS US TO PIONEER PROPHETICALLY.
A MOVE OF GOD
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, on the back of a significant move of God’s Holy Spirit of the mid 1960’s, a number of networks or families of churches emerged. The charismatic movement had been a wonderful refreshing move of God’s Holy Spirit across many denominations, which also resulted in lots of new churches being born. The churches resulted either as a spontaneous fall-out from some denominational churches which did not accept or embrace this new move of the Holy Spirit, or as a the result of a deliberate vision to plant churches of a different nature from some of the existing more traditional churches. This was a prophetic and pioneering movement, if at the same time, somewhat chaotic.
PUBLISHED BY SALT & LIGHT MINISTRIES AN INTERNATIONAL FAMILY OF CHURCHES TOGETHER ON MISSION Editorial team Steve Thomas, Ron MacLean, Stanley Mehta, Ngwiza Mnkandla, Dave Richards Editor Andy O’Connell andyo@saltlight.org international@saltlight.org www.saltlight.org +44 (0)161 850 7530
In the midst of this somewhat chaotic fruit of the charismatic movement, people began to look for connections to provide fatherhood and stability for their rather immature churches. But there was theological rationale as well: in the midst of an explosion of life, there was a lot of teaching on life in the Body of Christ, the family of God, and the sort of connected, covenant communities that God wanted to establish in his churches. “Restoration theology” became the byword for the understanding of what God was doing. God was restoring the church to His original purpose for it. When Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not be able to resist it” he was envisaging a strong, connected community of God’s people advancing into his world with a clear, consistent missional vision. The vision of these church families or networks was to see the church of God built through a recovery of apostolic, prophetic and the other fivefold ministries, the connections and relationships providing strength and cohesion for all God wanted to do. The formation of these much more cohesive families within the Body of Christ was a further prophetic, pioneering emphasis. Salt & Light Ministries is one of those family networks that emerged at that time, around the fatherhood of Barney Coombs. There was a sense of joy in these relationships, a new appreciation and understanding of the Kingdom of God, fresh exploration of fivefold ministry, and >>
IN THIS ISSUE PIONEERING AND PROPHETIC AGAIN? 1 LET’S GO NORTH! 4 THE WORLD ON OUR DOORSTEP 6 REBUILDING ANCIENT RUINS 8 PLANNING FOR CHANGE 10 INTERNATIONAL LEADERS CONFERENCE 12
LEADER
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a richness of life as God joined us together in equipping relationships. Around this time, God connected us to leaders in lots of different nations, and it has been a joy to discover the richness of God’s big family in the International family that we became. I value those relationships highly, and appreciate the different cultural perspectives that complement our own. We are enriched, sharpened, and provoked by one another, and we are so grateful for God’s design in building us together.
AN APOSTOLIC PASSION
As that family of leaders and churches has grown, we have learned to go beyond our natural cultural boundaries, serving churches in other nations, blessing the nations and seeing an apostolic passion start to grow. We have seen God lead us into different kinds of connections: • Existing churches in nations like our own gathering to form families of churches, and churches planted within those nations; • Relationships forming between churches in the West and the developing nations; • Various friendships with ‘missionaries’/NGOs/agencies, with an increasing trend of the developing world sending missionaries back to the West; • We have learned to discern where God is joining us, giving us a mandate to ‘build’.
However, in the main, we have not yet made a real impact through apostolic pioneering in empty places – the so-called ‘unreached people groups’ that Ngwiza explores more in his article. In our roots, there are strong values of family, relationship, discipleship, fivefold ministry, the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God, life in the Holy Spirit and his gifts and ministries, and many more very good things. There are some things that could have been better, too, in our life together. Prayer has undoubtedly not been one of our strongest areas. Mission at home in our own locality, and evangelistic fruitfulness have also been a struggle for us. We are definitely trying to adjust those aspects in these days. We have had a heart for nations – and this has been very strongly developed with the nations that God has joined together in the Salt & Light family. But we are looking to God for much, much more. It is worth saying that, over the last few years, our International Team has been seeking to be much more intentionally strategic and missional than we were in our earlier years. This is all very normal. God joined us as family; then we started to see that we were to be a “family on mission”. Moreover, we have set five goals for ourselves to be used as a guideline in each of our nations or regions where we are working. These five goals are:
• Raising up strong apostolic bases and churches: these are to be resource centres, seeking to train up and send out workers everywhere • Raising up indigenous leaders in each nation where we are working. • Raising up fivefold ministry, to equip all of God’s people for their ministry • Encouraging national vision for church-planting • Encouraging initiatives that will impact and change society We very much hope that these goals will not be news to anyone – they define what we believe our family dynamic should be.
A FRESH CALL TO PIONEER
Even more than this, the International Team have felt God challenge us very hard about nations we are not yet touching, or where the gospel is not strongly penetrating. In other words, our mission has been focused around nations where we have connections; but we are convinced that God wants to push us into prophetic, pioneering mission again. We need to keep moving forward, following God’s Holy Spirit as we move. We believe that God’s apostolic or missionary mandate for us is expressed in Romans 15, where Paul talks about his work in Asia Minor as being virtually complete, but he still wants to visit Rome with a view to travelling on to Spain, which, in his world, would have been seen as the farthest outlying areas of the Roman empire. The apostolically gifted person (and a genuinely apostolic movement likewise) always wants to move beyond where he is at the moment. God is looking to fill “empty places” with his presence, and the knowledge of his glory.
NEXT STEPS
The International Team of Salt and Light believes that God wants our family of churches to press out in a fresh prophetic and pioneering movement in seeking to touch nations that we are not yet involved in. We are glad to say that a number of our people are lining up for this: “your youth will be willing in the day of your power” (Psalm110:3).
At the moment, we are seeking to take a number of steps to prepare us to engage more strongly with this: • We are seeking to gather information across our church family of people of all ages who may be interested in pioneering into nations we have not yet touched. This way we can connect people from different countries we are already working in, who may have a common heart or interest. This is a fact-finding process, to enable networking of people with kindred hearts. • We are developing connections with pioneer missionary agencies, such as Frontiers and Horizons International (and others) in order to develop partnership agreements. We appreciate the experience and expertise of these agencies, and the very warm relationships that we have been able to develop. • We are sending one or two “Salt & Light” teams into new situations which we believe God is speaking to us about. We have to be very discreet about some of the locations of these teams, so as not to jeopardise their security. • Just as we have done over the last few years, we are seeking to clarify in our minds and vision where we have a mandate simply to bless, and where God is giving us a mandate to build. Both are valid, but we need to know which is which. But as we move forward, we are looking for places where the Holy Spirit is giving us a “building permit”. (This is just like Paul’s experience in Corinth, where Paul stayed for 18 months, because told him he had “many people in this city”. • Our goals are much the same as those which characterise our home churches. It is to make disciples, i.e., to bring people to faith in Christ and train them in his ways, in such a way that new communities of Christians are built. • We are seeking to be listen very clearly to God about where he may want us to send teams over the next few years. We are in the very embryonic period of a prophetic, pioneering move, so we need to keep praying hard and listening to God, in order that we may find his strategy. We are very excited about new possibilities. We need faith and wisdom.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? Raising up strong apostolic bases and churches: these are to be resource centres, seeking to train up and send out workers everywhere Raising up indigenous leaders in each nation where we are working Raising up fivefold ministry, to equip all of God’s people for their ministry Encouraging national vision for church-planting Encouraging initiatives that will impact and change society
If there are those who, on reading this, recognise that they have a heart for a nation or people-group not significantly touched with the gospel, and would like to know how to get in touch with anyone else with a similar heart or vision, we would like you to get in touch with us! PLEASE EMAIL INTERNATIONAL@SALTLIGHT.ORG OR VISIT WWW.SALTLIGHT.ORG/GLOBALMISSION WHERE YOU CAN SECURELY SEND US YOUR DETAILS, AND, AFTER SOME SECURITY CHECKS, WE WILL SEEK TO CONNECT YOU WILL LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE FROM OUR INTERNATIONAL FAMILY OF CHURCHES.
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LET’S GO NORTH! (WHO ARE THE UNREACHED?)
NGWIZA MNKANDLA IS BASED IN HARARE, ZIMBABWE. PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL TEAM, HE ALSO LEADS THE SALT & LIGHT AFRICA TEAM AND DAWN AFRICA (WWW.DAWNAFRICA.ORG). NGWIZA HAS A PASSION FOR CHURCH-PLANTING AND UNREACHED PEOPLES, AND LONGS TO SEE ‘A CHURCH WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF EVERY PERSON’. WE ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN WHAT ‘UNREACHED PEOPLES’ MEANS.
INTRODUCTION
Paul wrote in Romans 15, “I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation, but as it is written; To whom He was not announced, they shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.” In answering the question: Who are the unreached – those who “have not heard” – we probably need to begin with some definitions. Here are some terms you will often encounter: people group, unreached people groups and unreached, unengaged people group.
there is no known effort of any pioneer work amongst them. A group is considered engaged when four elements are present: • there is a pioneering effort going on • there is commitment to work in the local language and culture • this commitment is long term • it is focused on the emergence of a church planting movement (CPM) – a rapid church multiplication process where churches are planted that plant other churches
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
There are several lists around that define unreached people groups. Organizations such as The Joshua Project, Harvest Information Systems Registry Of Peoples, Ethnopedia, Call2All, Global Trends Fruitful Practices and 4K are among the major players in as far as providing information on these lists. The lists differ somewhat because of gaps in research and errors in data collecting mechanisms but generally speaking, the majority of unreached people groups lie within what is called the 10/40 Window; between 10 degrees North and 40 degrees North. This region covers mainly North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This is sometimes called the Resistant Belt because of the grip of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
People Group: the largest group within which the gospel can spread as a church-planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance. Understanding usually has to do with language while acceptance has to do with culture, history and religion.
This region has a number of interesting facts about it: biblically, it has a huge historical significance; most of the world’s major religions were birthed here and yet for Christianity, it is the least evangelized of all regions in the world. Consequently, it has the largest number of unreached people groups as well as unreached cities because of the dominance of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. An interesting development is the emergence and growth of a fourth group of the ‘Non-Religious’.
Some people groups have not been reached because of language barriers where there are no scriptures in their mother tongue and communicating gospel truths to them is through a language they are not familiar with. It’s sometimes also the case that learning their language is not easy.
Satanic strongholds are prevalent in the region with rampant poverty giving credence to the statement that the poor are the lost and the lost are the poor. There are somewhere in the region of 6,100 Unreached People Groups in this belt representing over 2.8 billion people.
The second barrier to reaching these people groups may be to do with acceptance where their culture, religion or history makes it difficult to break through to them. Ministering to Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists presents this challenge. Language, culture, religion and history are often the common identities that bring the group together.
PROGRESS
There is good news and bad news here. The good news is that the gospel has made rapid advances over the years and continues to accelerate at an exponential rate. In the year Year (AD)
UPGs
World population
Congregations per UPG
Unreached People Group (UPG): This is a people-group where the Christian presence is less than 2% evangelical and those claiming to be Christians are less than 5% of the population. Often, there is also no known church-planting movement in that community.
100
60,000
180,000
1:12
1500
44,000
425,000
1:1
1900
40,000
1,600,000,000
20:1
Unreached, Unengaged People Group: This people-group is even a step further in that not only is it unreached, but
1970
18,000
3,500,000,000
150:1
2010
8,000
7,000,000,000
1000:1
100AD, there were 60,000 UPGs in a population of 180,000. Then, there was one congregation to every twelve UPGs. Fifteen hundred years later, with a known world population of 425,000, we were down to 44,000 UPGs but this time, the odds had balanced out in favor of the church: there was 1.1 congregations to every UPG! By 1900, we had come down to 40,000 UPGs and this time there were 20 churches for every UPG. By 1970 we had 18,000 UPGs with 150 churches for every one of them! The figures get better in 2010 where we then were down to 8,000 UPGs with 1,000 churches for every single one of them! Today, we are down to 6,000 UPGs with churches climbing! In short, where you have over 1,000 churches focusing their prayers, giving and sending to one UPG, something is bound to give way. The task is doable. That is why it is possible for Matthew 24:14 to be fulfilled in our generation. It is possible for the gospel to be preached to all nations in our day: the one major prophesy to be fulfilled before the Second Coming! The bad news is that we still have close on two billion people who are without the gospel! Of the 253,000 missionaries around the globe today, only 24,000 of them are working amongst the 6,000 UPGs! Less than 5% of all finances given globally by the church, are directed toward missions! Christians spend more on pet food than they give to missions. If the amount of money Christians in the west spend on chewing gum was given to missions, the task of raising $640,000 needed annually to place four missionaries amongst each of these UPGs would be accomplished! Just 80¢ per practicing Christian per year and we would have the funds needed. While the provision of the funds and the presence of missionaries does not guarantee that the job will be done, it’s one measure we can use to reach these UPGs.
CONCLUSION
geographical zone. We live in a day where one person’s Samaria is another person’s Judea or to another, their uttermost part of the world. We live in a day of missions from anywhere to everywhere. The call is not to some special elite group within the church – it is to ALL. The Great Commission is for all believers in all ages! We are responsible for the UPGs in our generation because none of them must perish. The African Church for instance, is taking the call seriously. The rallying cry in mission circles is “Let’s Go North!” There is a cry to send missionaries to Muslim North Africa. There are thousands preparing to join the Back To Europe movement (www.back2europe.org). I was in Lima, Peru recently where I heard the same cry from the Latinos. While the West will remain a powerful sending base, the agenda for missions has shifted to the developing world! Missionaries from the developing world are less of a threat to the UPG countries, cost less to support, have been prepared through political and economic hardships at home and are closer in culture to the UPG than the Western Church is. Perhaps it’s time for meaningful partnerships bringing together the material resources of the west with the human resources of the developing world in a concerted effort to close the gap. Dr Ralph Winter says that while people in UPGs suffer from malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera and other water borne diseases, the West battles with obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart diseases, strokes – not to mention drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, suicide and murder! There is a great imbalance that needs to be corrected. To whom much has been given, much will be required. And so may we all echo Paul’s words, to go where no other has gone before so that those who have not heard, may not only see but hear and understand.
While the focus is on the 10:40 Window, it is crucial to understand that UPGs are not necessarily restricted to this
LEADER
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THE WORLD ON OUR DOORSTEP
ADAM AND KARINA MARTIN ARE PART OF THE TEAM AT COMMUNITY CHURCH DERBY, UK. THEY HAVE A PARTICULAR CALL TO WORK WITH IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN THEIR CITY. ADAM TELLS US ABOUT WHAT GOD IS DOING.
Cultural diversity has become a fact of life in most British cities. Derby, where I live, is a relatively small city with a population in the region of 250,000. 25% of the population are BME (Black or minority ethnic), and 14% were born outside the UK. Current estimates are that we host 180 ethnic groups and over 200 languages are spoken. I still find these statistics breath-taking. How can our churches respond to the massive needs and opportunities created by the levels of immigration we are experiencing? As I share some of the insights we’ve gained over the last 12 years I’m very conscious of the brilliant work going on in other cities. The Holy Spirit is inspiring all sorts of creative and strategic initiatives around the UK and we’ve benefitted hugely by learning from other churches.
UNREACHED PEOPLES COMING TO US
In 2002 God began to draw our attention to the large numbers of refugees arriving in Derby. Many were from some of the world’s most unreached nations; Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I remember praying for these ethnic groups as a student and thinking how distant and exotic they seemed. Now they were arriving to live among us.
We gathered a few mission-minded friends and with the blessing of the leaders at Community Church Derby (CCD) we began an international church plant. There was so much to learn! Our aims were to extend a welcome in the name of Jesus, to make disciples, and to form a multi-cultural church as a prophetic demonstration of the power of Jesus to unite diverse ethnic groups. After ten years we’d seen partial success, made plenty of mistakes along the way and learned some valuable lessons. We’d had the joy of baptising about 15 people from Muslim backgrounds and had a wonderful congregation of about 40 people from about 15 nationalities. However we weren’t making much progress in discipleship and we were all pretty weary.
A CHURCH THAT LOOKS LIKE THE CITY WE’RE IN
It was at this time that Aled Griffith arrived to take on the leadership of CCD. He was carrying a prophetic challenge to us as a church to ‘look like the city we are in’ – a church for all peoples. We brought our small international church into CCD and formed two ‘missional communities’. One had a specific focus on Iranians the other was for anyone with a heart for Muslims. Within a year the work with Iranians grew dramatically. We now have 30-40 regularly attending a mid-week group and Sunday gatherings. We’ve also seen a few Kurdish men respond to the Gospel. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of what God is doing is the development of leaders from within these communities and the way the wider church is becoming mobilised to welcome the nations on our doorstep. It feels as though God has given us some tools and principles that are beginning to bear fruit.
A BROAD AND FOCUSSED APPROACH
For about 10 years the work of reaching out cross-culturally was carried by a small dedicated team. We are still working with the few who have a specific calling to this work, providing training and a high level of support. However the vision is carried by the whole church leadership and everyone is encouraged to play their part in our commission to welcome the newcomers to our city. This summer we are using the book of Acts to teach about God’s heart for all peoples and bring a consistent challenge to engage with the other cultures around us. We need both a broad and focussed approach in our outreach, too. Jesus ‘went about doing good’ blessing the crowds and demonstrating his Gospel of grace. It’s vital that we follow his example and look for practical ways to serve the immigrant communities. As well as running English classes, helping with asylum situations, and running business enterprise training and social events, we have developed a ministry of ‘Welcome Boxes’. Volunteers from the church are trained to visit new arrivals and take a shoe-box filled with gifts to welcome them to the city. They offer friendship and practical support. Following up every new contact is unrealistic and not always very fruitful. We learned this the hard way, spreading ourselves too thinly across too many relationships. We are learning to sieve as well as to sow; looking for those who are hungry to know more about Jesus. A great tool for this is inviting people to Open Word. This is a course combining Bible study and English Language teaching. It is proving very popular and gives us great opportunities to follow up those who are hungry. Over the years we’ve wrestled with the tension between providing homogenous groups and integration into a multicultural expression of church. Mono-cultural groups allow
for discipleship in the believers’ heart language and work well evangelistically; however they work against the new communities’ progress towards integration and run counter to the biblical emphasis on unity with diversity. Here again we’ve learned the value of having a broad and focussed approach. We are committed to growing into a multi-ethnic church which expresses the richness of the cultures within our city. We are exploring ways to broaden our worship style and to raise up leaders from across these groups. At the same time our vision is to grow a variety of ‘missional communities’ committed to focussing on specific cultural groups.
WORK IN PARTNERSHIP
When the disciples had a miraculous catch of fish, they called on their friends for help to bring it in. We have benefitted hugely from the expertise of friends. Returning missionaries are a tremendous resource to us and many missions agencies are willing to partner with local churches in crosscultural work. Aspiring missionaries have played a key part in the work here. We offer internships providing training and experience as preparation for overseas work and God has sent us some fantastic young adults with energy and passion. Mature believers from the communities you are reaching can help a great deal. We regularly invite Iranian leaders from other churches to come and help us. God is also opening our eyes to the value of working together across the city. In the last year we have helped to launch a community centre managed by several like-minded churches and agencies in the city centre. We now work closely together to serve the immigrant communities and have recently launched a weekly city-wide prayer meeting focussed on blessing Muslims in Derby.
SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITIES
Working cross-culturally is challenging, confusing and messy; especially in today’s multi-cultural cities. We still feel like beginners and are continually learning and adapting. It is also very exciting and fruitful. We need to seize the opportunities God has provided for us. Connecting with unreached people groups has never been easier. We don’t need to travel, we don’t need visas, and we don’t risk arrest for sharing our faith. There’s a wealth of material available to help us including training courses and evangelistic media in many languages. God is also sending some wonderful believers to us from overseas. If we can welcome them properly they will enrich and strengthen our congregations immensely. As we are faithful with the few God sends us, he will multiply our influence. Those who come to faith here are leading their friends and relatives to Christ over the phone and internet. In time we hope to send multi-cultural missions teams overseas. My prayer is that in time some will be heading back to their homelands to plant churches in some of the world’s most unreached nations.
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REBUILDING ANCIENT RUINS: FORMING A FAMILY
BUCK (DAVID) HUDSON IS AN AMERICAN PROPHET BASED IN SWEDEN. HE WORKS ALONGSIDE DAVE AND CHRIS RICHARDS, MAINLY INTO THE NORDIC AND COAST-TO-COAST (USA) REGIONS, BUT ALSO FURTHER AFIELD.
Isaiah 58:12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age- old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. The Nordic family of Salt & Light is quite a diverse group! Currently we are a family of churches from six different nations, six different languages, six different cultures. On the face of it, it would be impossible to create a pan-Nordic family of churches with different and unique histories, languages, and cultures. After centuries of mistrust and misuse, we find ourselves asking Danes and Swedes to worship together, love another, and be a family on a mission together! And in the beauty of God’s Presence, and in hearts joined together for purpose, a family is growing together in Christ! The word ‘family’ is a very introverted word in Scandinavian society and language. It is a very protected and secretive thing. Not a very pleasant experience for most Scandinavians. So to say we are family is quite a big thing! The affirming, encouraging, identity-giving aspect of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood is helping to build trust and a celebration of diversity among these churches. Fatherhood is the key, and Ephesians 4 ministries that are modeling fatherhood are therefore central to our Nordic growth. Practically, wherever we go in Northern Europe, the we see this need for spiritual fathers. Young pioneering leaders and newly planted churches, who have been spiritually orphaned, are desperately seeking input and help with foundations. This has led to strategies of how to help them.
HOSPITAL OR FAMILY?
It could be very easy to gather these groups of people based on their needs. If we did that, we would have a hospital of ministries, rather than a family of real relationships that are joined together by the Spirit. It could also be easy to gather around a fabled Nordic idea of unity, but that would lead to compromise and congregational democracy. We came to the conclusion that the best way to sort out the situation and help those coming, was to share our relational values. Relational values determine family life and atmosphere. This has been incredibly helpful to the pragmatic Scandinavian mind. Unfortunately, in our nations, what works is more
important than what you believe. So in our Danish team, we went through our Salt & Light Core Commitments (www.saltlight.org/corecommitments), and chose 11 points that embody this doctrine and understanding of relationships in our context and culture. I submit these to you in the box to the right.
MANAGING GROWTH
Growth has been organic, and we are trying to put habits into place that will help us to continue building in the right way. Denmark can be used as an example: When we began meeting together as related churches and friends, we quickly saw that we needed a way to gather disconnected, new planted and orphaned situations. We hosted relational days when team members could bring their friends to the gatherings. The only thing that I have asked is that if they bring friends, that they care for them. This is a means of helping all to understand the need for relational personal pastoring. From this format comes lots of work for the Danish team, but also a means to see whether people want to join by a heart-joining or simply by ministry. Days are scheduled well in advance, so friends have time to invite friends. Growth produces growth! This is just one example of what each region within our Nordic family is doing. Currently, Dave Richards and I have seen that there are seven different regions in our Nordic lands. These are relationships among churches, apostolic bases, and cultural or national affiliations. The goal is to raise up teams through fatherhood, that can give foundations and extensions through being a Family on a Mission. Connecting these regions is an ongoing work that requires the fathers and mothers of each region to pack a suitcase and build bridges by travelling to help one another. We are becoming bridge-builders that help one another. It is unique that Swedes are helping church foundations in Denmark, Finns in Eastern Sweden, and Danes in Germany. There is no obligation in all of this, just good fun!
NORDIC CORE VALUES
Values determine family life and atmosphere!
HOW DO WE RELATE?
• Friends first, leaders second: Servant leadership. Good government brings peace. • Relationship: Everything in the Body of Christ is relational! We believe brother/sister relationships, pastor/disciple relationships and small group relationships are a key to leaders, and local churches. • Family on a mission together: The mission is transformation of our nations through kingdom living under Christ’s governance. God works through spiritual and natural family, to give us a place of belonging, love, fun, joy, security, friendship, vision, encouragement and care. Fatherhood and motherhood is a key to strong, healthy families! • Fathers and mothers: Fatherhood reveals the government of God. Mothers equal in influence and gift, but not ALWAYS in government (exceptions to every rule) • Every Pastor needs a pastor: relational first – positional second. Care and accountability. Authority is more horizontal than vertical. All leaders are also followers. • The right of appeal: coming alongside when you need someone to stand with you (we stand together, we fight for each other). Churches can appeal when leaders are injuring themselves or injuring them. Appeal is more relational than positional, and must work through relationships.
HOW DO WE FUNCTION?
• Success is successors: Elijah – Elisha, Paul – Timothy is our hope • Discipleship: Discipleship is a key to growing all of God’s people into maturity, so that each one can play their full part in the purposes of God’s Kingdom. We encourage strongly the fostering of relationships of discipleship, where personal pastoring and mentoring are key. • Ephesians 4 ministry: We believe that receiving apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers into local churches brings increased vision and spiritual impact, and provides good care, counsel and accountability for local church leaders. • Different but not wrong (diversity): We value the diversity of our family of churches, where there are different styles of leadership and models of church. We believe this helps us to understand and enjoy the richness of the body of Christ, and we want to live in an atmosphere of respect and mutual appreciation. • A throne and footstool people (Isaiah 66:1): We are a people of his presence and foundations. Everyone has a grace and a place, as fathers and mothers, we will mentor, train, equip, and release these gifts.
RAIN IN THE DESERT
In October this year James and Cindy* are moving to the Eastern Sahara; God has called to be “Bringers of Rain in the Desert”. As God has spoken to us as an international family of churches about growing a vision for church planting in the most unreached parts of the world, this team is one of several S&L teams heading out in obedience to this call. The Eastern Sahara is one of the most remote places on earth and home to about eight million people from thirty different tribes. It has suffered from centuries of poverty and decades of war, and it is almost 100% Muslim. There are no Bibles, no Churches and almost no Christians. It has often been called ‘God-forsaken’, but we know that this is not true. God loves these people and has not forsaken them, and that is why he is sending us. Two thousand years ago Jesus said “Go”, and today we say “here am I – send me!” We believe God is going to use us to transform thousands of lives in Eastern Sahara – both spiritually and practically. We will combine our passion for the Gospel with our passion for helping the poor and needy. We will be engaged in water development – drilling wells to provide clean water and improving sanitation and hygiene in refugee camps. We want to live among the people, love them, serve them, and tell them about the good news of Jesus – and see a church flourish among the ‘Makanese’ people for the first time in history. We believe that God is going to provide us with the right people at the right time to join our team; if you are interested please contact us via www.saltlight.org/globalmission *Names changed
LEADER
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PLANNING FOR CHANGE: A PRACTICAL CHECKLIST
for their salvation and will make every effort to make disciples through works, word and wonders. • He is calling us to prioritise sending church-planting teams: Salt & Light is not just a ‘random’ collection of churches but a family joined and built by God with shared values, history, spiritual life, and leadership. If God has joined us together, should we not expect him to send us together in the area of global missions?
HAVING FRESH VISION IS ONE THING, BUT HOW WILL WE MAKE SURE WE CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOUR? ANDY O’CONNELL, INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, EXPLORES SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE NEED TO ASK OURSELVES IF WE ARE TO PROPERLY RESPOND TO THE CALL OF GOD TO NEW FORMS OF MISSION.
Another very important aspect, at least as far as the UK is concerned, is that God is leading us to partner with some missions agencies to increase our effectiveness. These are not like traditional ‘send and pray’ relationships with older missionary societies, but a new type of dynamic partnership where we work together, as S&L UK and the agency, to send and support teams on the ground in UPG contexts.
Over the last few years in the UK we have been hearing God challenge us about extending our mission focus to peoplegroups who are unreached and unengaged: those who have little hope of hearing the gospel message. Speaker after speaker at our annual conferences has brought messages about Romans 15, ‘regions beyond’ and going beyond existing relationships to build fresh relationships – even when this was not the topic they were asked to speak on. God is on our case!
HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?
God is clearly calling us, as a family, to ‘go beyond’ our existing spheres of responsibility, and work together to reach the unreached, and we have summarised that in this way: • He is calling us to prioritise the least reached: While continuing to honour the work in more traditional mission fields, God is also calling us to unreached people groups – nations where it is not easy to find a Bible or a follower of Christ, largely found within the 10-40 window, where there is no indigenous church strong enough to evangelise its own people. • He is calling us to prioritise making disciples: While we will need to adapt our approach to suit the people we aim to reach, we will never neglect our concern
When God speaks it is easy to say ‘Yes, Lord’, and then to quickly revert to habit, culture or tradition. As has been famously said: “If keep doing what we’ve always done, we will continue to have what we’ve always had.” In other words, we can have vision and call, but we must also develop strategies and habits that help us make steps towards that vision. Clearly, each international region/sphere and each apostolic base needs to consider its own response to what God is saying to them about ‘regions beyond’. It is part of our mandate to be an apostolic people! Strategies, approaches and tactics may need to be different, bearing in mind the geographical, cultural and sociological context you are working in. But it is also important that our approaches are informed by who we are seeking to reach, and not just to suit us that are doing the reaching! What follows is a simple summary of the areas of strategy we need to consider. I have unashamedly borrowed some ideas from the work that I and others have been doing with the UK team. I’m not saying that what works in the UK will necessarily work for you, but if it does, feel free to borrow our ideas!
QUESTIONS TO ASK OURSELVES A STRATEGY FOR PRIORITISATION
We need to ask ourselves how we will change the priorities of our apostolic teams, leadership teams and churches, to value the unreached, and not just our mission to our immediate community and neighbours? (The ‘ends of the earth’ and not just ‘Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria’) Questions to ask ourselves: • How will we keep this high on the agenda in our leaders’ conferences? • How will we keep the issue ‘centre stage’ during apostolic team meetings? • How will we review current missions practice in the light of the mandate to the unreached?
A STRATEGY FOR COMMUNICATIONS
The required change will likely take many years, and we need “a long obedience in the same direction.” How will we create and maintain a stream of communication flowing across our family of churches, both to encourage vision and to support recruiting? Questions to ask ourselves: • How will we encourage story-telling and testimony: our own stories, stories from the wider family of churches and other peoples’ stories? • How will we encouraging and resource appropriate preaching in churches? • How will we find articles for any magazines circulated within our churches, and properly handle any security considerations?
A STRATEGY FOR COLLABORATION
We want to continue to be a family of churches working together, rather than create some kind of ‘S&L mission agency’. However, if we work together we will be much more effective, in terms of numbers sent, the ability to train and prepare, and the ability to form S&L teams. Workers in inter-denominational teams often report significant challenges of team life, which we feel would be reduced by forming leads led by S&L leaders, and relating to S&L apostolic teams.
Questions to ask ourselves: • How will we arrange inter-church collaboration within our own nation: who is going to send and support – the churches and/or the apostolic team(s) • How will we arrange collaboration with other spheres (for example, UK and France share a common interest in Francophone North Africa: how should they work together?)
A STRATEGY FOR RECRUITING
Once a vision has been cast, and a strategy established, how will we recruit would-be missionary apostles to the unreached? What will we do to find them, determine whether their call from God is genuine and to connect them with other individuals, so that we recruit teams, not just individuals? Questions to ask ourselves: • How will we identify people in your churches? Will that be done by the pastors, in which case how will we change their mindsets; or, following the example of Paul in ‘selecting’ Timothy, will it also be done by itinerant Ephesians 4 ministries? • How will we connect together people with passion for the unreached, and help them find others with whom they can form a compatible team?
A STRATEGY FOR MENTORING
Would-be missionary apostles to the unreached need appropriate training. How will we ensure you are not simply cloning existing ways of doing church, rather than seeing the gospel incarnated in the culture of the people you are reaching? Training therefore needs to include theology, missiology, and leadership, as well as personal and practical considerations. Questions to ask ourselves: • How will we mentor people through the personal and practical preparation? • How will we equip them with the specialist skills and tools they need as missionary apostles? • How will we help them prepare for their ‘trade’, the reason for their presence in the nation?
A STRATEGY FOR PARTNERSHIP
In our outreach to certain nations and people groups we may well benefit from partnerships with friends in agencies or networks that ‘specialise’ in working in
these areas. That may be for technical help (e.g. water engineering) or for missiological help (e.g. familiarity with particular people-groups, or ways of doing church that work among unreached people groups.) Many churches like ours have a reputation among agencies for being gung-ho and exposing existing works to unnecessary risk; equally, we see many agencies as simply wanting a ‘pay and pray’ approach, where the church simply hands the worker over to the agency. Neither are satisfactory. Questions to ask ourselves: • Are their partner agencies or NGOs that you should be working with for maximum effectiveness?
A STRATEGY FOR IMPLEMENTATION
We are all busy leaders, dealing with a range of issues across our spheres. It would be easy for this ‘agenda for fresh pioneering’ to simply fall by the wayside. What do you need to do to ensure that it remains a strong focus for you, your team and your churches? This work involves lots of individual people: what administrative or implementative arrangements do you need to establish, to ensure that every potential candidate and worker is properly supported? Questions to ask ourselves: • How will you release people to do that work? • How will you keep senior apostolic leadership involved and owning the process, while not being bottlenecks
A STRATEGY FOR FINANCE
Questions to ask ourselves: • What strategies for finance do we need? • Will workers be expected to tentmake, or will churches support them? • Are there funds we need to find together as a sphere or network? What is best practice, leading to sustainable mission? • Many of our bases are prioritising support for workers with a call to the unreached, over those with a call to ‘churched’ nations. How do you respond to this?
A STRATEGY FOR PRAYER
Questions to ask ourselves: • What strategies for prayer are needed? How will this be prioritised in your church/sphere?
LEADER
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international leaders conference 2014
20-23 February 2014, OxFOrd, uK salt & light an international family of churches together on mission www.saltlight.org
IN FEBRUARY 2014 THE INTERNATIONAL TEAM IS HOSTING OUR BIENNIAL INTERNATIONAL LEADERS’ CONFERENCE, IN OXFORD, UK. FOR LEADERS OF ALL LEVELS IN ALL OF OUR CHURCHES, YOU ARE WARMLY INVITED TO JOIN US!
“Sheikh Hanif’s dream was very curious indeed, both overwhelming and hopeful. It was not at all like the frightening and troubling nightmares he had sometimes known. No, this was different. It required immediate action because, according to the dream, some important would happen today.”
ILC14 will • Inspire leaders with news of what God is doing around the world, and with fresh vision for what he wants to do in their own community and beyond • Equip leaders with the skills and tools to serve God, live well and lead others into the mission of God • Refresh leaders by providing time to step back from work and ministry, and be renewed in God’s presence • Connect leaders from many nations, enabling God to form fresh partnerships for purpose and mission
“Hanif was a seasoned Muslim leader. Like his father before him, he had studied the Qur’an for years and had become a leader in his community. For them Hanif was the voice and character of Islam, a decent man who represented what it meant to be a good Muslim. But although Hanif’s commitment to Islam was genuine, there was a deep void in his soul that Islam had never really satisfied.”
International Team leader Steve Thomas explains what we aim to achieve through ILC14: “God is doing a new thing with our international family! As the International Team have prayed and talked together in recent months, we have agreed to invite Jerry Trousdale as our main speaker and are delighted that he has agreed to come! Jerry is the author of the exciting book Miraculous Movements, which describes a fresh Holy Spirit led movement of discipleship and mission across the Muslim world. And, his stories and insights will help us with all the challenges we face in mission at home! As well as inspiring us to mission, ILC14 will also be a fresh call back to discipleship and following the Holy Spirit! We look forward to seeing you there!” The team have asked that ILC14 be hosted in Oxford, UK. Close to London airports and providing a large multipurpose facility, The King’s Centre provides a great base for us to gather, to share meals and to network in smaller groups. FULL DETAILS AND ONLINE BOOKING AVAILABLE FROM 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 AT WWW.SALTLIGHT.ORG
“It has been a dream like no other dream. In it, Hanif had encountered a handsome and graceful man. The man showed Hanif a place well known to him, and not too far from his home. He showed him the face of a man and said, “Go now, and wait by the place. Look for this man, for he is my servant. Find him, for he will show you the true answers to your questions about God.” EXTRACT FROM MIRACULOUS MOVEMENTS: HOW HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS ARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH JESUS, JERRY TROUSDALE, ISBN 978-1418547288, AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON. YOU CAN ALSO LISTEN TO JERRY TALK ABOUT THE WORK ON YOUTUBE.