Koinonia

Here we go again (Monday With Mounce 102)

I heard some really discouraging and sobering news the other day, and I wanted to take a break from Greek instruction to share it with you.

A friend of mine just left the ministry. This is a young man who felt the call of the Lord, and committed his undergraduate education to Biblical Studies. His wife and he made an additional commitment to go to seminary, a decision that involved major sacrifice on their part. It was interesting, they said, to live with all the hookers in their town. But the rent was cheap.

And when his young wife's health continued to deteriorate, they move to another seminary to finish his education.

The point of all this is that we are looking at about six years of significant sacrifice. Six years. Perhaps more.

And then the time comes; they graduate, and move to their first pastorate. He lasted about four years, and when he and his wife couldn't take it any longer, he resigned and is going into some other area of work, and the church is robbed of a bright and passionate young man who deeply loves the Lord and wants to serve the people.

And what was the cause of this man's and woman's loss of a dream? Gossip.

What is a Christian?

Early in One.Life Scot McKnight shares some of his own journey.

Early in his life he learned that a Christian was someone who had experienced an event, specifically accepting Jesus as their savior and saying a certian sort of prayer. 

Later he expanded this definintion, learning how important personal piety was. A Christian then was someone who was saved and who's life was marked by acts like prayer and reading the Bible.

Though affirming both those things as good, McKnight came to a point where now he suggests that this is not how Christ himself framed what it means to be a Christian. Instead a Christian is more accuratly and simply decribed as someone who follows Jesus.

The rest of One.Life uses this story from Scot's life to spells out why that difference matters and what following Jesus looks like.

My question for you is this: If that question "What is a Christian?" was posed to you, how would you answer?

Half the Church - Are we missing out on the gifts of women?

In your typical evangelical Church this past Sunday more than half of those present were women, and not just because of the Super Bowl.

Each week women constitute a significant majority of most congregations. Yet the church seems unsure what to do with women.

For the most part churches shape their ministries around the assumption that being a woman is defined as moving from young and single, to wife, to mother, to the sweet grandma who hugs you every Sunday.

How many women are left out in this picture? What about the 52% of women in the U.S. who are single? What about the married woman who can’t have kids? What about the wife and mother who has more in common with the guy in the next pew who is passionate about creative writing than she does the typical women’s ministries crowd?

It forces us to wrestle with what being a woman in the Church should look like, and if we are getting it wrong. Yes that entails discussing women in ministry, but we do a disservice to the issue by making that the sole question, there is much more to ask than that. 

Carolyn Custis James has been wrestling with these questions too, and the result of that wrestling is a book entitled Half The Church: Reclaiming God’s Global Vision for Women.

The video below lays out the central premise of Carolyn’s book, which is due out in March.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

Ajith Fernando on Cape Town 2010 (Part 1 of 2)

As Cape Town 2010 draws near, we are excited to share with you the thoughts of Ajith Fernando as he looks forward to taking part in this historic event.

 

The first Lausanne congress in 1974 was used by God in a most amazing way to bring renewal on many fronts to the church worldwide. 

The Lausanne Covenant, whose chief drafter was John Stott, became a new standard for unity and mission thinking among a huge segment of the Christian Church worldwide. This had an excellent articulation of what Christians were struggling to arrive at as a biblically faithful understanding of the relationship between social concern and evangelism. 

It was through Lausanne 74 that the concept of unreached people became part of evangelical parlance worldwide. It was a good time for God to breakthrough given that it was possibly the most representative gathering of Christians ever in history. 

Cape Town is a-comin’ soon. (By Chris Wright)

We are thrilled to share with you an update from Chris Wright who, though facing one of the busiest periods of his life, took the time to share with the Koinonia community his hopes and prayers for Cape Town 2010.

Enjoy!

“This time three weeks and it will be all over,” I found myself thinking this evening as I contemplated the fast-approaching Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town. Of course I was quite wrong and immediately rebuked myself. The Congress will be over, but the work and the impact will only be beginning, by God’s grace. For we have no idea exactly what the Sovereign God has in mind for this event – except to say that it will probably surprise us all  (as the First Lausanne Congress did in 1974).  

The breadth of the Lausanne Movement reflects something of the breadth of the world church, since the majority of the 5,000 or so participants will be from the ‘majority world’ – i.e. the lands of the global south and east, where the majority of the world’s Christians are now to be found. And the breadth of the Lausanne agenda in Cape Town reflects something of the breadth of world mission, in all its forms and activities. Since 1974, “Lausanne” has stood for a holistic understanding of mission, including all that the Bible shows of the heart of God for his alienated world and all that the Bible mandates us to be, say, and do, in the world in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. A glance at the Lausanne website (www.lausanne.org ), and especially at the section given to all the documents and forums and special interests that have camped under its broad tent, shows the amazing range of the missional involvement of people for whom “The Lausanne Covenant” provides an expression of their faith and commitment. 

It was partly at the encouragement of Lindsay Brown, International Director of the Lausanne Movement, that I wrote the book The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission. So it is pleasing that the book has been published in time for Cape Town, and will be made available there at a special reduced price, thanks to the efforts of Zondervan, Lausanne, the local distributor, and a generous donor. The book is an attempt to show just how broad and comprehensive is the reply that the Bible as a whole gives to the question, “Who are we, and what are we here on earth for, as God’s people?” As any who know my other writings might expect, it is a theology of mission that does not start on the Mount of Ascension, but in Genesis. 

Christianity Today features the Lausanne Congress

 

John Kennedy at Christianity Today has written a fascinating article about the organizing of Cape Town 2010

    "Executive Chair Doug Birdsall, an Asian Access missionary based at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, doesn't have the name recognition of his Lausanne predecessors. But he has painstakingly guided the event planning to include a cross-section of pastors, scholars, academics, missionaries, educators, and business leaders.

    Two-thirds of the speakers and presenters are from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where two-thirds of today's evangelicals live."If it's the whole church, it needs to be people from north, south, east, and west," Birdsall says. "These leaders, carefully chosen from thousands of applicants, will represent the demographic, theological, and cultural realities of the global church."

Read the rest here!

Darrell Bock: Hopes for Cape Town 2010

Lausanne-Capetown 2010. October 15-26, 2010

It does not happen very often. This is the third time. The others were in 1974 (Lausanne) and 1989 (Manila). On October 15-26 over 4000 Christian leaders from around the world will gather to reflect on the call of God for the church. 

There will be discussions about truth, reconciliation, the gospel, and the needs of the church worldwide. Each region of the world will get to speak. Beyond this over 600 sites in over 90 countries will be hooked up to watch and participate, so that the event truly will cover the globe.

I am looking forward to hearing what God is doing around the world. I hope to be inspired and renewed in my sense of call. I also hope to sense a greater connection with other believers around the world as we consider what God has called us all to do in and for the world.

My role is Communications Coordinator for the command center of over 600 global link sites. I am overseeing 15 people who will work three shifts around the clock to bring summaries of the events to the Globalink sites to make the conference even more global. Our job is to produce video summaries of sessions within 5 hours of their ending and post them on the Net so other locales can get a sense of what is going on. We will have video material, and reflection questions, as well as summaries of the content. 

The schedule is a full one. Exposition of Ephesians will lead off each day. Key topics are a part of the second set of daily meetings of the full gathering. Topics are truth, reconciliation, world faiths, priorities, integrity, and partnership. In addition, specific topics will be the focus of certain afternoon sessions. In the evening sessions, reports on what is taking place in various continents and among various kinds of people groups will take place. 

Zondervan at Cape Town 2010: The Third Lausanne Congress

 

Yesterday we featured a section from Christopher Wright’s “The Mission of God’s People”. 

I think it’s fair to say that most of us are familiar with his writing, whether it’s this book or one of his many other brilliant works. 

What you might not know is that the holding together of theology and mission, which Wright speaks to so eloquently in The Mission of God’s People, is something he is passionate about when he steps away from working on his latest manuscript as well.

One way this takes shape are his efforts on behalf the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town this year which “will bring together 4,000 leaders from more than 200 countries to confront the critical issues of our time – other world faiths, poverty, HIV/AIDS, persecution, among others - as they relate to the future of the Church and world evangelization.”

This is has the potential to be an incredibly important moment for the Church, and we at Zondervan are excited to see it unfold and to take part in it.

More details later, but for now I wanted to let you know in advance that Koinonia will be doing our best to provide you a window into what happens at Cape Town 2010.

"Your Church is Too Small" - Join the blog tour!

"That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." - John 17:21

In Your Church Is Too Small, John Armstrong presents a vision of the unity possible for Christians across social, cultural, racial, and denominational lines. When Jesus’ followers seek unity through participation in the kingdom of God and the mission of Christ, they demonstrate God’s character to a watching world.

Join the Your Church is Too Small Blog Tour! - March 14-20, 2010

100 bloggers will be posting their thoughts and reviews of Your Church is Too Small. Join the conversation by filling in the form below and an advanced copy of the book will be sent to you. Supplies are limited, so join today! (Continental US and Canada only.) 

After the tour receive a free, final copy of Your Church is Too Small and Ethnic Blends by Mark DeYmaz and Harri Li

Douglas Estes interviewed on Virtual Churches

Douglas Estes, author of SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World, was interviewed on the Paul Edwards show regarding the virtual church movement. Listen to his interview here.

(Note that Douglas' interview begins just over halfway through the podcast.)

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