Mission Leader

Nathan Cook and his wife Kim are graduates of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. They have one son, Caleb, and are adopting a child from Thailand. Together they have started four house churches in the Binghampton community of Memphis, TN. Nathan is currently the director for Christ Community Ministries, a ministry dedicated to preparing people for incarnational ministry among the urban poor and unreached people of the world. Nathan is also an elder at Christ Community Church.

1. As a native Memphian, how have you seen God at work over the past decade?

I have seen more of a commitment from people to pray for our city and for our city leaders. I think that because of this, God is beginning to shake us of our complacency. There are a growing number of people who want to make Memphis a better place and are willing to put their time, money and talents on the line to see it happen. In the six years that Kim and I have been living in Binghampton, we have seen our neighbors come together to make the community stronger. Some of the residents who have lived in Binghampton all of their lives are providing leadership to our neighborhood associations. This growth in leadership has been complemented by fifty families who have relocated to the Binghampton community for the purpose of living out an intentional Christian witness. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I am encouraged that God is moving us to be more faithful in how we live out the gospel.

2. You were raised in what many would call a traditional church environment and even worked on staff for several years at that church. You are now a strong advocate for house church . . . Why the change and why should others care about house church?

I grew up attending Christ Methodist Church here in Memphis. Christ Methodist was and is a great church. They have always been strong in missions and have provided great leadership with the community development that is taking place in Binghampton. I was blessed to have several men from that church invest their lives in me. I would not be where I am today without them, and without their commitment to discipleship. So, I don’t think that there is one right “form” of church. There are many models that can and do work, mega churches, community churches, and house churches, just to name a few. I am committed to the house church model because I think that it works best for what we are trying to accomplish, namely planting churches among the unreached people of the earth and empowering the poor among us. Since we do not have a staff, buildings, or programs to maintain, all of our resources can be spent on developing missionaries and empowering the poor. The house church model also forces us to develop leaders for church growth. In a mega church or community church you can get away with one leader for every 100-200 people in your congregation. In our house churches we need one leader for every 10-20 people. If we are not constantly working to develop our leadership, our house church will plateau, decline, and die out much faster than a traditional church. Some people might say that is a weakness of the house church. I think that it is a strength. It provides a built in accountability system for leadership development. As leadership goes, so goes the church.

3. Tell us a little bit about Christ Community’s uniqueness related to the poor and the world.

There are about 100 people who participate in our four house churches now. Two of the house churches are bi-lingual, conducting services in English and Swahili. Almost all of the people who participate live 3-4 blocks from their house church. We have made an intentional effort to live in close community with our neighbors and with one another. We have also been able to send missionaries from our church to work among unreached peoples in several countries throughout North Africa, Central and Southeast Asia. I don’t know if any of this is unique or not, but it is who we are.

4. What vision do you have for Christ Community over the next 5 years?

Our main task in the next five years is to do a better job of developing indigenous leaders. We want our house churches to be a reflection of our community. Since we live in a multiethnic community, that will only happen as we are able to make disciples of the nations that God has brought to our front door.

5. Memphis is one of the nation’s leaders in crime, murder, poor education, infant mortality, unhealthy living, and single parent homes. What have you seen in the last year that brings hope?

I have been encouraged to learn that there are people who are passionate about wanting to see a tangible expression of God’s kingdom in our city, and I have been a part of some very promising conversations lately with Christian leaders who want to address these specific problems that you mentioned head on. There also seems to be more of a willingness to work together than I have experienced in the past. But in order to make any significant progress, we need to continue to pray that God will marshall resources and provide us with people who are willing to embrace the personal sacrifices needed to accomplish great things for God.

One of my dearest friends is Hussain Andaryas, an articulate, gifted Muslim-trained follower of the One True God.  As a child growing up in Afghanistan, Hussain encountered a Westerner who placed in this 12 year old boy’s hands, a copy of Matthew and Luke’s Gospels. That event led to an eight year journey in which Hussain sought God as a student, as a jihadist tank driver, and as a religious zealot studying in Iran and Egypt’s leading Muslim seminaries.  Amazingly, God took that young boy on an 8 year journey of seeking, and eventually finding faith in Jesus Christ. And his life was never the same again. Torture and persecution, family rejection and personal sacrifice have been his along with the gift of life in Christ.  You can learn more about Hussain’s story at hesavedme.com.

Turn the clock forward to this past week in which Hussain and a team of Afghan believers engaged Iranians and Afghans who call in on a live TV show via satelite. During September 150 individuals from Muslim nations called into the live television broadcast to discuss faith in Jesus Christ. Here’s some of the conversations.

• I would like to commit my life to Jesus Christ. From a Muslim in Iran.
• I want to follow Jesus and be taught. A Muslim calling from Afghanistan.
• I’m an Iranian businessman helping Afghans follow Jesus.
• I’m an Afghan follower of Christ worshiping in a secret house church.
• I’m an Afghan believer in Afghanistan and my pastor has been arrested.
• I’m a Muslim in Afghanistan – please help me become a follower of Jesus.
• In the name of God I will kill you for this television broadcast.  This should be your last broadcast.

Over a half million hits have been recorded on the TV website www.afghantv.com.

So, is Jesus real?  Did he actually live and die and rise for us?

Afghans and Iranians and people from many different faith backgrounds bank their lives on Jesus’ authenticity.

So if Jesus is real, why do we merely flirt with faith in him?

If you are still thinking about Compassion vs. Conversion then it may not make sense to talk about mapping and missions. There are many things that I have heard with regard to mapping and the Great Commission. One is, “if you define the task with great specificity, you take God out of the picture.” Another is, “If you define the greatest needs and place them on a map, you are not looking at the places where God is really working.” Yet others have articulated that the showing the work God has done through churches and mission agencies on the map give glory to God for his working in our world.

When we look to Scripture and see the story of the one lost sheep, we see Christ’s compassion for those who have no Shepherd. The willingness to go to where there has been no witness and go to where people are lost shows the compassion of Christ. At the same time, across the globe are people in various stages of growth in their relationship with God. Staying attuned to the various needs of the varied people groups allow us to tailor our ministries and trainings to share and disciple.

Mapping the Great Commission has been the heart of the World Missions Atlas Project (www.worldmap.org). Knowing where the church is and where it is not allows us to develop different strategies of ministry based on their segment of society and their exposure to the Gospel. This includes understanding the level of Bible translation, the level of literacy and prevalence of orality within the culture, which people groups have been exposed to the gospel and which ones have had no church planting. Together with all this information Churches, missionaries, and agencies are better equipped to find the areas where their gifting match needs nearby them and around the world.

In many of our churches we need to examine our mission practices through the eyes and heart of Christ.  I have seen both sides of the compassion/conversion spectrum from the “all we need to do is be compassionate and help others” to the “if we do not have a large number of conversions it was a waste of time and money” mindsets.  Many churches battle with how compassion should work into a mission plan.

Compassion according to Wikipedia.com  is “a profound human emotion prompted by the pain of others”.  Throughout scriptures it mandates us to be compassionate to those around us.  It even draws out some specific groups that compassion should be focused on, such as the widows and orphans in the world.  Jesus was the perfect example of compassion through His walk and His talk.  He showed us compassion through the miracles of healing and interaction with those who were outcasts.  He also shared through parables like the Good Samaritan how we are to be compassionate.  Every one of us as individuals and as a church must seek out ways to show compassion in our communities and around the world.

But what about sharing the Gospel and converting people to Christ?  Shouldn’t that be a part of every mission outreach?  The answer is yes and no.  Which answer is correct depends on who you believe is doing the converting.  Many times we believe that we have the ability to convert people to Christ.  That it is our words and actions that are the final factor in that conversion.  That is not what I see in scripture.  God calls people to Himself through Christ, not us!!  We may plant seeds, water and sometimes even see the harvest, but  we should never think it was our feeble words and actions that gave the final results.  He has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing around the world.  So yes, God will handle the conversion and no, sometimes we do not need to go into the plan of salvation because God may be using others or other divine processes for that part.  I have heard of former Muslims who Christ came to them in dreams or visions to show them who He was.  Our words would never have that impact.

Now do not get me wrong, if God places it on your heart to share the Gospel, do it.  Be a part of His process wherever He may want you.  All I am saying is not every mission encounter must include it.

Once we acknowledge that God is the final converter it becomes easier to understand that we need to be a part of His process.  Compassion is part of that process and is not in competition with it.  We do not know the heart of the people we come in contact with on a daily basis in our daily life, and we certainly do not know about the hearts around the world, but God does.  Compassion by a follower of Christ might be the tenderizer that is needed to soften the heart for the seed to take hold.  Sometimes the Lord blesses us by allowing us to share the seed of the Good News and even allows us to be there when someone asks Christ to be their Lord.  Praise God when that happens but do not take credit for it.

So compassion is not versus conversion, it is an active step in God’s plan to allow all to see the glory of Christ’s heart in action.  God’s people need to show compassion as Christ showed it.

We must all be very careful not to fall into the mindset as a church on mission that we had X number of conversions on that trip or during the year.  We should not be announcing numbers of conversions since only God knows the true hearts of those we encounter.  Let’s just praise God for the opportunity to be a part of His process of salvation and leave the number counting to Him.