Not surprisingly, the ones that stood out for me personally were family and education, but I was also fascinated to hear Colleen speak extensively on the different roles of government and the church and touch on the topic of immigration (which I’m hoping to find time to write a little bit about in the near future). The categories are based on the worldview behind the faculties in the University of the Nations as well as on Landa Cope’s book The Old Testament Template, which I read about four years ago after doing my discipleship training school. The core idea in the book is that the church is caught up in split thinking, segregating the sacred and the secular, and in doing so, excluding God from anything outside the institution of the church.
Colleen went on to explain that to a large extent, churches are divided in preaching either a Salvation Gospel or a Social Gospel, whereas the Bible talks of neither. While salvation is a part of the Gospel, as is social justice, the two are not mutually exclusive, and what the Bible actually focuses on is the fullness of the Kingdom Gospel. The background to Landa Cope’s book is her own personal struggle in realizing that some of the world’s most evangelised nations are also some of the world’s poorest and most socially deprived ones. Most African countries, for instance, are evangelized, yet a huge number of people continue to live in poverty without even the most basic of their needs met, such as access to adequate education or health care. “The devastation you see,” she writes, “is the fruit of preaching salvation alone, without the rest of the Biblical message,” in other words, evangelizing without discipling. Saddened by the fact that a large Christian population does not necessarily benefit a community, and that most Christians don’t even really seem to care or feel responsible, Cope was pushed to search the Scriptures to find principles we can apply to bless a community in every area of society.
“You start in a community with the window of opportunity God opens for you,” Colleen told us. Going into a community should not be about seeking self-fulfillment; it should be about asking what the community needs and what I can do to best serve in it – how I can model and communicate God’s love to the people. Instead of trying to find the right ministry or the most cutting-edge issue to work with, Colleen encouraged us to engage in a community and live out our faith among the people on a day to day basis. Interestingly enough, she said that geography is not the point. Rather, obedience to what the Bible says about reaching out to the poor was the point she was wanting to get across to us.
In May and June I spent seven weeks in Malawi, where I lived with a local family in a very local area of town, interacting with the local people, going to church with them, working side by side with them, getting around on foot and by minibus just like them and eating the same food as they do. All of this was due simply to very practical reasons, limited finances and safety. I can’t take any credit for having been intentional about it, but in retrospect, I’m hugely grateful and kind of amazed to have had the opportunity to live in a local community and build relationships with local people (as well as with all the people I met who had immigrated to Malawi, of course J). I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti