In the following article on Missiology.org Gailyn Van Rheenen makes the point that missionaries must not only be masters at communicating God’s Word. They must also be expert “cultural listeners.” Missionaries (that’s us), be they in North America or in Almaty, can contribute to a culturally inappropriate communication of the Gospel by being poor listeners to the culture. Likewise, we can contribute to syncretism by refusing to let the Gospel critique the culture.   So what is needed?  We must know scripture. We must learn culture. We must critique any culture (including our own) in light of scripture.

My fear as I look at North American church behavior (both legacy and young-cool-dude churches) is that we inadequately critique culture in light of scripture. Read the article below for insights.

Worldview and Syncretism

Presented at the Symposium “Distinctively Christian, Distinctly Mongolian” in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on March 11, 2003

By Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen

I have been honored by the invitation from the coordinating committee to make these presentations on the essence of Christianity and the nature of syncretism.  I wish to thank the organizing committee, the translators of the manuscripts, and each of you as participants.  I appreciate your wonderful hospitality.

I come to you with humility acknowledging that I know little about the ministry context of Mongolia.  My goal is to provide understandings from the Scripture and from worldview analysis, which will enable you to make focused ministry decisions.

My goal in these presentations is to glorify God, to enthrone him as Lord of Lords, and to provide guidance concerning the transformations of people as they turn their lives to follow God.

“Waiting on the Lord”

I would like to begin these lectures with some reflection upon the biblical phrase “wait upon the Lord” in passages such as Isaiah 8:17-20. Read More

J.D. Payne has written a helpful book on migration and ministry among diaspora population segments.

Check out my review of the book at The Gospel Coalition.

Strangers Next Door

J. D. Payne | Review by: Mark Morris

J. D. Payne. . Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press 2012. 206 pp. $15.00.

In light of projections from early census data, Michael Cooper of The New York Times reported on December 12 that very soon the United States will no longer be considered a nation consisting of a majority and multiple minorities. He insists the new census data points to the United States becoming a “plurality.” “The term ‘minority,’ at least as used to describe racial and ethnic groups in the United States,” Cooper writes, “may need to be retired or rethought soon.” Cooper explains that by the end of this decade “no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of children under 18. And in about three decades, no single group will constitute a majority of the country as a whole.”

No doubt J. D. Payne’s Strangers Next Door: Immigration, Migration, and Mission comes at an appropriate time in our nation’s history. The book effectively informs Western Christians—particularly North Americans—about God’s kingdom activity as it relates to the movement of people across the globe. An ethnographer, a demographics guru, or an urban strategist might consider Strangers Next Door a mile wide and an inch deep. I would argue the breadth and depth is just right for the American audience. Read More

I am reading through Thomas Coke’s personal journals and will share a few thoughts in coming days.

Coke was a commoner who obtained his BA in 1768 and his MA two years later. Ordained as a deacon in Oxford in 1770 he quickly moved into public service. By 1769 he was elected to the Common Council and a year later and 22 became bailiff (what we would call mayor.) At the same time he had become a priest or curate to South Petherton. By 1776 he met John Wesley and Coke became enthralled with evangelism. By 1777 he cast his lot with the Methodists.

Advance forward to December 10, 1813 Dr. Coke set sail for Ceylon (Sri Lanka). When a colleague attempted to get Coke’s input on an important paper to be presented, Coke was fixated on one thing. His response, “I beg your pardon, but excuse me, I am dead to all things but Asia.”
What leads a man to turn from the affairs of public life to a sole fixation on advancing the Gospel to Asians? Stay tuned.

Kristi Griem has written a new ebook that should interest many.  Kristi is a ministry partner who has worked closely with Last Letter. Kristi and her husband have been involved in missions advance for as long as I can remember.  The concise e-book hits some important topics and connects the reader to key links for future projects.

Check it out!

Mark Morris

Sustainability is also available for yourAmazon Kindle or Kindle App.

Sustainability is an eBook for anyone interested in helping or currently working with artisan or producer groups to develop products and grow their market in the US. It includes practical steps for how to develop products, market them, and ship products that are made globally to the US.

Sustainability covers five different areas and includes templates and forms that can be customized for your group or business.

• Fair Trade (and what it is)
• Product Development
• Banking and Payment
• Marketing
• Shipping and logistics

If you or someone you know would benefit from Sustainability, hop on over and get your copy now at Amazon.

So what will happen in Afghanistan, now that Ace of Spades (Ben Laden) is dead? STRATFOR is an exceptional intelligence report that comments extensively on what is next in that part of the world. Evidently, multiple definitions of “success” are shaping the argument. The question is how quickly and how significantly will the US depart? A followup question is what will be the results of the dramatic draw down of US troops?

See below several articles on the subject from this week’s STRATFOR report.

is republished with permission of STRATFOR.??????

U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies

June 21, 2011 | 0846 GMT

By George Friedman

U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating to a point where cooperation — whatever level there was — is breaking down. These are two intimately related issues. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill. Afghanistan is Pakistan’s back door, and its evolution is a matter of fundamental interest to Pakistan. A U.S. withdrawal means an Afghanistan intertwined with and influenced by Pakistan. Therefore, the current dynamic with Pakistan challenges any withdrawal plan.

There may be some in the U.S. military who believe that the United States might prevail in Afghanistan, but they are few in number. The champion of this view, Gen. David Petraeus, has been relieved of his command of forces in Afghanistan and promoted (or kicked upstairs) to become director of the CIA. The conventional definition of victory has been the creation of a strong government in Kabul controlling an army and police force able to protect the regime and ultimately impose its will throughout Afghanistan. With President Hamid Karzai increasingly uncooperative with the United States, the likelihood of this outcome is evaporating. Karzai realizes his American protection will be withdrawn and understands that the Americans will blame him for any negative outcomes of the withdrawal because of his .

We are in the midst of the Islamic month of Ramadan, which is their month of fasting from dawn to dusk. For many Westerners, the last thing we want to do is pray for those we consider “enemies.”  Yet Christ teaches us to pray for them.  So during this month of Ramadan, consider this prayer as Muslims around the world go to prayers today.  Certainly we should be praying for them as they prostrate themselves in prayer this day.

Friday Prayer Focus
Today, even perhaps at this moment, Muslims worldwide will be preparing themselves for Friday prayer. Indeed, all week long practicing Muslims do ritual washing in order to be pure for prayer. Right intentions and a focused attitude toward God are specifically encouraged concerning prayer in Islam. However, it is certain that ritual cleansing, as well as the specific times, order and outward forms of prayer, definitely occupy most of the literature and instruction concerning Islamic prayer.
In Islam it is impossible to pray correctly without the ritual cleansing by water, or in the absence of water with sand. Islamic instruction about prayer is filled with long passages on exactly how to accomplish the cleansing process. None of the steps can be sidestepped or done in an improper way, otherwise Islamic prayer loses its merit and validity.
Here is a typical Muslim text about doing Wudu (the ritual cleansing):
1. A Muslim begins every action with intention. To yourself, make the intention to cleanse yourself for prayer, for the sake of Allah.
2. To yourself, say “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem” (In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful).
3. Wash your hands three times, making sure the water reaches between the fingers and all over the hands.
4. Bring a handful of water to your mouth and rinse it thoroughly three times.
5. Sniff water into your nose three times to clean it. Use your right hand to bring up the water, and your left hand to expel it.
6. Wash your entire face three times.
7. Wash your arms, up to the elbows, three times. Start with the right.
8. Use your wet hands to wipe over your head once, from front to back and front again.
9. Use your wet fingers to wipe the inside and outside of your ears, once.
10. Wash your feet up to the ankles three times. Start with the right.
11. Dry off.
Prayer Starters
While some aspects of the ritual washing may be helpful as a reminder about how sinful we are as human beings, ultimately the ritual cleansing does not lead Muslims to true righteousness or holiness.

§ Pray for Muslims to discover the depths of sin and God’s holiness so that they may forever be freed of the idea that water can ever make them fit to meet God. Pray this for people that you may know, pray for Muslims in your city and elsewhere (Heb 8:9-12).

Adapted from 30 Days of Prayer for The Muslim World

Check out the video to the right of this post or linked here. This little vignette gives the readers digest version of a trip I took into some “high risk” mountains and valleys in the heart of the Central Asia.

On a recent trip to that part of the world I met with a follower of Christ Jesus who came to faith from a Muslim background.  I asked him about the “risk” of living for Jesus in the midst of violent opposition. He described his own harrowing experience of being stripped naked before fifty or more people and subsequently tortured for his faith in front of a crowd of people.

As he described the experience he shared, “Risk?  There is no risk.  Our problem is not risk, it is fear.  We pile one layer of fear upon another and upon another. Fear upon fear upon fear upon fear.”

He explained, “We have nothing to fear and there is no risk because all that man can do is advance our journey to our Savior.”

Several news reports over the last weekend in May are calling attention to pressure being applied to numerous Humanitarian Aid Organizations (NGOs) in Afghanistan. More significant than the impact on these NGOs is the threat to presumed Afghan Christians.

Over the last two days Afghan parliament has engaged in heated debate about accusations of NGO support for the spread of Christianity in the country. This situation developed as an Afghan allegedly posed as a Christian and provided youtube “evidence” that he had infiltrated an Afghan Christian meeting. He is making all sorts of unsubstantiated allegations while the Afghan government insists that there is no evidence against these NGOs.  In Afghanistan, real evidence is not even needed in order to do damage. Allegations are damning enough in such a volatile environment.  Reports suggest that Taliban forces are using the situation to stir up demonstrations and resistance to NGOs and the Karzai government.

So what can happen through incidents such as these? What has happened in the past in a country, a state, a city, or a village when Christianity begins to reach a critical mass to the point that opposing forces feel compelled to take action?

In China what happened?  Under oppression, the church in China went through a great scourging but the church eventually multiplied rapidly over several generations.  But what happened before that rapid multiplication occurred? There were many Christians who were brutally murdered.  There were others who denounced their faith – they could not withstand the torture, the imprisonment, the threat of execution.  In China, there were also those believers whose faith was fortified.  The human tragedy, the murders, the isolation of suspected family members creates unjust suffering in such a setting.

Afghanistan is not China, but we can surmise that events such as these could create immense persecution on any NGO that is rumored to have Christian origins or interests.  Churches around the world have compassionately responded in overwhelming fashion to the devastation in Afghanistan.   These compassionate efforts by Christians and non-Christians alike through NGOs could be severely restricted in the coming days, while Western troops fight for “freedom” for the Afghan people.

Confusing matters even worse, is the fact that there is conflict in the legal system in Afghanistan – one law would provide religious freedom and the other would insist on execution for conversion to Christianity.  Who can speak out for oppressed minorities in such a setting? There are  religious minorities in Afghanistan such as the Ahmadis.  Many Afghans call them apostate and subject Ahmadis to extreme persecution. However, Ahmadis may be at a level of critical mass to the degree that the Ahmadis have some ability to speak for themselves and turn to the Afghan and International Human Rights Commission.   Christians on the other hand, officially don’t exist in Afghanistan.  They have no official voice of influence to speak for them within government circles. Any group such as the Human Rights Commission, if they attempted to speak out for Christians, might not survive the onslaught of violent attacks even from within their own ranks.

So what exactly is God up to in Afghanistan? We obviously will not know for some time but we do know that the Afghan people and these NGO’s need our prayers.  Please take time to pray for the nation of Afghanistan during this crisis.

See Reuters Report Below

Afghanistan suspends two aid groups for Christianity probe

(Reuters) – Afghanistan’s government has suspended the activities of two Western aid groups on suspicion of proselytising, an official said Monday.

World Church Services (WCS) and the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) were ordered to stop work as part of a government probe into the activities of aid groups after a private Afghan TV channel accused them of trying to convert Muslims — an offence that carries the death penalty in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Economy, Sediq Amarkhil, said the government had no evidence against either organization, which started operating in the country during the rule of the Islamist Taliban, in the late 1990s.

As planning ministry in those days, the economy ministry oversaw NGO affairs.

“If proven after the investigation that they were involved in conversion activities, they will be introduced to the judicial authorities,” he said. “If not then they can resume their operations.”

Hundreds of foreign and Afghan non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are involved in essential humanitarian projects across the country — helping out in areas ranging from health to education — but some Afghans remain sceptical of their motives and suspect they could be a front for proselytising.

Officials from one suspended group declined to comment, while there was nobody immediately available from the other.

Proselytising is strictly forbidden in the Koran and illegal in deeply conservative Islamic Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of Western forces are fighting resurgent Taliban Islamists who want the expulsion of the troops as part of a holy war.

There have been bloody protests in the past in Afghanistan against the publication of images of Prophet Mohammad in some Western media.

Weeks before their ouster in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, the Taliban detained several Western aid workers after accusing them of proselytising, but the group was freed in a raid by American special forces.

In 2007 Taliban insurgents kidnapped 21 South Koreans who were visiting as part of a church charity group and accused them of proselytising. Two of the hostages were murdered before the rest were released, although the government denied it had agreed to any ransom demands.

The latest development comes weeks after the government ordered 20 foreign aid groups and charities to close for failing to provide reports on their work and finances.

Some 152 Afghan non-governmental organizations were also ordered shut.

(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin, Editing by David Fox)

21 Year Old Jeremiah Johnson

Hands On missionary dies in motorcycle accident

4/12/2010

By IMB Staff

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—A 21-year-old student missionary with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) was killed April 12 in a motorcycle accident in Mozambique, located in southeastern Africa.

Jeremiah Johnson, a member of Royal Palms Baptist Church in Phoenix, Ariz., and driver of the motorcycle, was riding with an interpreter (name withheld for security reasons) when the accident happened. Reports from overseas personnel say Johnson was killed instantly in the accident and his passenger was injured. Details on the interpreter’s condition and how the crash happened were not available at press time.

“Our hearts are broken,” said Charles Lord, pastor of Royal Palms. “We’re very proud of Jeremiah. God had been working in his life … he was serving the Lord to reach people who were unreached with the Gospel.”

Johnson was working with the IMB’s Hands On initiative among an unreached people group. The program enables college students to work on the mission field for a semester. Johnson was a student at Glendale Community College in Glendale, Ariz.

Johnson is the son of Diana and David Johnson. David is director of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary’s Arizona campus. Jeremiah also is survived by sisters, Rachel and Talitha; and brother, Merritt.

Lord described Johnson as courageous and willing to go wherever God was calling him to serve.

“We’re really going to miss him,” said the pastor.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

This story, along with many others at CommissionStories.com gives a telling picture of the day-to-day realities in disaster areas around the world. Volunteers are there making a difference.

‘No bottled answers:’
Haitians ask volunteers ‘what do I do’ now?
Staff
See more stories at CommissionStories.com
What do I do?” the Haitian man asked helplessly. The Jan. 12 earthquake had destroyed his home and taken the lives of his wife and two children. He was living out of a suitcase.

Butch Vernon, pastor of Thoroughbred Community Church in Nicholasville, Ky., struggled to answer the man’s question. Vernon was in Haiti as a volunteer with a Kentucky Baptist disaster relief team.

“I’m not asked that question a lot back in the States, you know?” said Vernon, his voice cracking with emotion.

“It’s not one of those deals where you can say, ‘take two [Bible] verses and call me in the morning. It’s the only time I’m going to see that guy, and there are no bottled answers.

“I prayed with him and I hugged him, and we gave him some medicine that won’t fix [his problems], but it made him feel better,” he added. “We’re seeing a lot of that.”

Teams on the ground in Haiti
From Jan. 31 to Feb. 8, Vernon and the Kentucky team joined forces with a Mississippi Baptist disaster relief team. They were part of a coordinated effort among the Florida Baptist Convention, which has a long-standing relationship with Haitian Baptists; Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist relief and development agency; the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board.

The toughest part for a volunteer is accepting that you can’t help everyone, said Daniel Edney, who directed the medical response efforts with the Mississippi disaster relief team.

“But we can take care of those who God puts in front of us,” said Edney, a member of First Baptist Church, Vicksburg, Miss., who had led relief teams in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and in South Asia after the tsunami.

“When those you help walk out with a smile on their face, you know you’ve done something.”

When the Mississippi volunteers pulled up to a church on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, they were surprised to see people praising and worshipping God — so many of them were struggling to get by without food and water.

“It was a neat thing to drive up and hear them singing and praising the Lord and worshipping,” said Kay Cassibry, Mississippi’s state WMU executive director who led the 10-member relief team.

“They have been so receptive,” added Cassibry, a member of Highland Colony Baptist Church in Ridgeland. “People do not know us, but they are receptive to our hugs and everything.”

Many helped during week
During the week, the Mississippi team helped at makeshift medical clinics and saw more than 1,100 patients.

“We have treated all kinds of things,” said Cassibry, while walking through one of the clinics. “There were a lot of respiratory problems, a lot of infection. We had to set a couple of bones.

“We’ve got a guy on an IV,” she added. “He asked for a Bible as soon as he woke up. We were pretty excited about that.”

For Hester Pitts, another Mississippi volunteer, the biggest blessings were the thank you letters she received from Haitians.

“I know what it means for us to be here,” said Pitts, a member of First Baptist Church of Vicksburg, “but [these letters are] tangible evidence of what it means for them.”

Pitts admitted her life-changing trip to Haiti was almost a missed opportunity.

Vacation interrupted to serve
She was on vacation with her husband, Kerry, and two other couples in Tampa, Fla., when she was contacted about joining the relief team. Pitts — a retired medical technologist — admitted she wanted to wait until later to volunteer, but she couldn’t shake her burden for Haiti.

Pitts agreed to go to Haiti immediately and asked others in her vacation group if they wanted to join her. One of her friends, David Baldwin, broke down in tears.

“He said, ‘Hester, I’ve been sitting here praying that God would open that door for me to go,’” Pitts said. “I could not believe it.”

Within two hours, the couples were on the road back to Mississippi so that Baldwin and Pitts could prepare for their trip. For Pitts, giving up her vacation was an opportunity of a lifetime.

“I’m just thankful that I didn’t miss the experience,” she said. “I came so close to telling God ‘no.’”