DAWN Fridayfax 2003 #28

World

Bible League: 3,433 new churches planted in 2002

"The Bible League's aim is to not only distribute Bibles, but also to bring people to faith in Christ and make them active church members," says German mission leader Reinhard Kannenberg. Besides Bible courses attended by 2.5 million people in 2002, the Bible League also offers church planting courses in various nations. A recent report reveals that these courses played a part in the planting of 3,433 new churches in 2002, of which 331 were in the Middle East, 522 in Cambodia and 123 in Malaysia.
Source: Bibel Liga (the German Bible League), fax (+49)-791-857035; e-mail: BibelLiga.D@t-online.de

Romania

Is Romania becoming a missions centre?

"3,000 of Romania's 5,000 Evangelical churches have a great potential for leading people to Christ and themselves planting new churches in the nation's unreached towns and villages," reports Gavi Moldovan of Misiunea Mondiala Unita's (MMU), one of the nation's strategic mission movements. The movement's aim is to help leaders of the three Evangelical streams - Baptists, Brethren and Pentecostals - develop appropriate mission plans. National research and strategic conferences have resulted in the first truly cross-denominational targets: 3,650 new churches in the next four years, with 10,000 new churches the long-term aim. Over 1,500 new churches have been planted in recent years as a result of training and support of 150 Romanian church planting teams. However, the country with the third- highest percentage of Evangelical Christians in Europe thinks not only of itself: MMU - an alliance of more than twenty churches and missions organisations - also trains Romanian missionaries to work in other cultures. 25 are currently being trained, and a number of missionaries are already in Turkey.
Source: MMU, e-mail ro_alliance@mail.dntcj.ro

India

"Pray for your enemies by name"

"India repeatedly sees persecution. We recently heard how a number of people put pressure on Christians in a certain Indian city," writes Dawn Ministries' Sheryl Wingerd. "How did the Christians react? One of the city's prayer networks made a list of the people who wanted to cause the church difficulties - and prayed for them by name! God intervened, and every one of them experienced something which stopped them persecuting Jesus' followers. One of the group's leaders injured his leg so severely, with a subsequent infection, that the doctors could only recommend amputating the leg. The Christians went to him to pray for his leg. He was healed! He no longer makes trouble for Christians, and the rest of his group had also become conspicuously quiet."
Source: Dawn Newsletter No. 71, fax (+1)- 719-548-7460

World

Is the church becoming 'a pink Cadillac with tail fins'?

Leonard Sweet is a Christian futurist. In his book "Postmodern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World", he details the current state of the Church. John White summarises Sweet's message: "The world is changing dramatically and the church is largely clueless about the change. The institutional church in the next twenty years will continue more and more to look like the pink Cadillac with the huge tail fins." "...the church's leaders have Alzheimer's disease. We still love them. We remember and pass on their stories. But they're living in another world. They're totally clueless about the world that is actually out there. The problem is that they are captaining the ship." "The change (from modernism to postmodernism) can be summed up by the four letters E-P-I-C. Experiential - Participatory - Image-driven - Connected. Sweet is not saying that this change is necessarily good or bad - just that it's the way things are moving. Here's a summary:

From Rational to Experiential.

Modernism emphasizes reason and observation. Postmodernism emphasizes revelation and experience. "In postmodern culture, there is no interest in a 'secondhand' God, a God that someone else (church tradition, church professionals, church bureaucracies) defines for us. Each one of us is a Jacob become Israel: a wrestler with God. The encounter, the experience is the message."

From Representative to Participatory.

Modernism says, "We need our leaders to make decisions for us." Postmodernism says, "We want to make our own decisions and to have multiple choices." "There are no more 'professional clergy' and pew-sitting laity... Postmoderns want interactive, immersive, 'in your face' participation in the mysteries of God."

From Word-based to Image-driven.

Modernism emphasizes words and propositional truth. Postmodernism emphasizes images and the power of metaphor. "The lesson for the church is simple: images generate emotions, and people will respond to their feelings... The greatest image in the world, the image to which we draw people into a relationship, is the image of God in Jesus the Christ."

From Individual to Individual-Communal.

Modernism emphasizes the individual. Postmodernism emphasizes the individual in community. "The paradox is this - the pursuit of individualism has led us to this place of hunger for connectedness... The transiency of the culture requires that our community building and hospitality be more aggressive, not less; more premeditated, not haphazard."

"So, what must the church do to minister to this increasingly postmodern culture around us? Sweet suggests "that ministry in the twenty-first century has more in common with the first century than with the modern world that is collapsing all around us."
Source: http://www.leonardsweet.com

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