Lesson 14: Pioneer Church Planting

Transcription

1 The articles and study guide lessons in this document are copyrighted material. They are made available for the preparation of instructors teaching within the Perspectives Study Program. If you would like to use the article in any other way, permission must be sought from William Carey Library (the publisher) at Lesson 14: Pioneer Church Planting Key Readings Donald A. McGavran A Church in Every People: Plain talk About 627 a Difficult Subject Rick Brown and Three Types of Christward Movements 676 Steven Hawthorne (in Lewis, Insider Movements: Retaining Identity ) Tim and Rebecca Lewis Planting Churches: Learning the Hard Way 690 David and Paul Watson Movement of God Among the Bhojpuri of North India 697 Shah Ali with South Asia: Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques 715 J. Dudley Woodberry Certificate Readings Charles H. Kraft Culture, Worldview and Contextualization 400 Phil Parshall Going Too Far? 663 John J. Travis The C-Spectrum (in Parshall, Going Too Far?) 664 Rebecca Lewis Insider Movements: Retaining Identity 673 and Preserving Community Ken Harkin and Ted Moore The Zaraban Breakthrough 687 Credit Readings Ralph D. Winter The New Macedonia: A Revolutionary New Era in Missions 347 Ralph D. Winter Are We Ready For Tomorrow s Kingdom? 393 H. L. Richard Christ Movements in the Hindu World 589 Ralph D. Winter Going Far Enough (in Travis, Must All Muslims Leave Islam ) 670 Rick Brown A Movement to Jesus Among Muslims 706 Gilbert Hovsepian and Krikor The Awakening of the Persian Church 712

2 A Church in Every People Plain Talk About a Difficult Subject Donald A. McGavran The goal of Christian mission should be to preach the gospel and, by God s grace, to plant in every unchurched segment of mankind what shall we say a church or a cluster of growing churches? By the phrase segment of mankind I mean an urbanization, development, caste, tribe, valley, plain or minority population. I shall explain that the steadily maintained long-range goal should never be the first; but should always be the second. The goal is not one small sealed-off conglomerate congregation in every people. Rather, the long-range goal (to be held constantly in view in the years or decades when it is not yet achieved) should be, a cluster of growing congregations in every segment. Donald A. McGavran was born in India of missionary parents and returned there as a third-generation missionary in 1923, serving as a director of religious education and translating the Gospels in the Chhattisgarhi dialect of Hindi. He founded the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary and was formerly Dean Emeritus. McGavran was the author of several influential books, including The Bridges of God, How Churches Grow, and Understanding Church Growth. The Conglomerate Church Approach As we consider the question italicized above, we should remember that it is usually easy to start one single congregation in a new unchurched people group. The missionary arrived. He and his family worship on Sunday. They are the first members of that congregation. He learns the language and preaches the gospel. He lives like a Christian. He tells people about Christ and helps them in their troubles. He sells tracts and gospels or gives them away. Through the years a few individual converts are won from this group and that. Sometimes they come for very sound and spiritual reasons; sometimes from mixed motives. But here and there a woman, a man, a boy, a girl do decide to follow Jesus. A few employees of the mission become Christian. These may be masons hired to erect the buildings, helpers in the home, rescued persons or orphans. The history of mission in Africa is replete with churches started by buying slaves, freeing them and employing those who could not return to their kindred. Such as chose to, could accept the Lord. A hundred and fifty years ago this was a common way of starting a church. With the outlawing of slavery, of course, it ceased to be used. One single congregation arising in the way just described is almost always a conglomerate church made up of members of several different segments of society. Some are old, some young, orphans, rescued persons, helpers and ardent seekers. All seekers are carefully screened to make sure they really intend to receive Christ. In due time, a church building is erected, and lo, a church in that people. It is a conglomerate church. It is sealed off from all the people groups Chapter

3 628 Chapter 101 a church in every people of that region. No segment of the population says, That group of worshipers is us. They are quite right. It is not. It is ethnically quite a different social unit. Slow to Grow This very common way of beginning the process of evangelization is a slow way to disciple the peoples of earth note the plural: the peoples of earth. Let us observe closely what really happens as this congregation is gathered. Each convert, as he becomes a Christian, is seen by his kin as one who leaves us and joins them. He leaves our gods to worship their gods. Consequently his own relations force him out. Sometimes he is severely ostracized, thrown out of house and home; his life is threatened. Hundreds of converts have been poisoned or killed. Sometimes the ostracism is mild and consists merely in severe disapproval. His people consider him a traitor. A church which results from this process looks to the peoples of the region like an assemblage of traitors. It is a conglomerate congregation. It is made up of individuals, who, one-by-one, have come out of several different societies, castes or tribes. Now if anyone, in becoming a Christian, is forced out of, or comes out of, a tightly-structured segment of society, the Christian cause wins the individual but loses the family. The family, his people, the neighbors of that tribe are fiercely angry at him or her. They are the very men and women to whom he cannot talk. You are not of us, they say to him; You have abandoned us; you like them more than you like us. You now worship their gods not our gods. As a result, conglomerate congre- gations, made up of converts won in this fashion, grow very slowly. Indeed, one might truly affirm that where congregations grow in this fashion, the conversion of the ethnic units (people groups) from which they come is made doubly difficult. The Christians misled one of our people, the rest of the group will say. We re going to make quite sure that they do not mislead any more of us. Easy For Missionaries One-by-one, is relatively easy to accomplish. Perhaps 90 out of every 100 missionaries who intend church planting get only conglomerate congregations. I want to emphasize that. Perhaps 90 out of every 100 missionaries who intend church planting get only conglomerate congregations. Such missionaries preach the gospel, tell of Jesus, sell tracts and gospels, and evangelize in many other ways. They welcome inquirers, but whom do they get? They get a man here, a woman there, a boy here, a girl there, who for various reasons is willing to become Christian and patiently endure the mild or severe disapproval of their people. Ineffective in Untouched Peoples If we are to understand how churches grow and do not grow on new ground, in untouched and unreached peoples, we must note that the process I have just described seems unreal to most missionaries. What, they will exclaim, could be a better way of entry into all the unreached peoples of that region than to win a few individuals from among them? Instead of resulting in the sealed-off church you describe, the process really gives us points of entry into every society from which a convert has come. That seems to us to be the real situation. Those who reason in this fashion have known church growth in a largely Christian land, where men and women who follow Christ are not ostracized, are not regarded as traitors, but rather as those who have done the right thing. In that kind of a society every convert usually can become a channel through which the Christian faith flows to his relatives and friends. On that point there can be no debate. It was the point I emphasized when I titled my book, The Bridges of God. The People Movement Approach Let us now consider the other way in which God is discipling the peoples of planet Earth. My account is not theory, but a sober recital of easily observable facts. As you look around the world, you see that while most missionaries succeed in planting only conglomerate churches by the one-by-one out of the social group method, here and there clusters of growing churches arise by the people movement method. They arise by tribe- or caste-wise movements to Christ. This is in many ways a better system. In

4 donald a. mcgavran 629 order to use it effectively, missionaries should operate on seven principles. 1. Aim for a Cluster of Growing Congregations They should be clear about the goal. The goal is not one single conglomerate church in a city or a region. They may get only that, but that must never be their goal. The goal must be a cluster of growing, indigenous congregations, every member of which remains in close contact with his kindred. This cluster grows best if it is in one people, one caste, one tribe or one segment of society. For example, if you were evangelizing the taxi drivers of Taipei, then your goal would not be to win some taxi drivers, some university professors, some farmers and some fishermen, but rather to establish churches made up largely of taxi drivers, their wives and children, and their assistants and mechanics. As you win converts of that particular community, the congregation has a natural, built-in social cohesion. Everybody feels at home. Yes, the goal must be clear. 2. Concentrate on One People The principle is that the national leader or the missionary and his helpers should concentrate on one people. If you are going to establish a cluster of growing congregations amongst, let us say, the Nair people of Kerala, which is the southwest tip of India, then you would need to place most of your missionaries and their helpers so that they can work among the Nairs. They should proclaim the gospel to Nairs, saying quite openly to them, We are hoping that within your great caste there soon will be thousands of followers of Jesus Christ who also remain solidly in the Nair community. They will, of course, not worship the old Nair gods, but then plenty of Nairs don t worship their old gods. Plenty of Nairs are Communist and ridicule their old gods. Nairs whom God calls, who choose to believe in Christ, are going to love their neighbors more than they did before and walk in the light. They will be saved and beautiful people. They will remain Nairs, while at the same time they become Christians. To repeat, concentrate on one people group. If you have three missionaries, don t have one evangelizing this group, another that, and a third 200 miles away evangelizing still another. That is a sure way to guarantee that any churches started will be small, non-growing, one-by-one churches. The social dynamics of those sections of society will work solidly against the eruption of any great growing people movement to Christ. 3. Encourage Converts to Remain With Their People The principle is to encourage converts to remain thoroughly one with their own people in most matters. They should continue to eat what their people eat. They should not say, My people are vegetarians, but now that I have become a Christian, I m going to eat meat. After they become Christians they should be more rigidly vegetarian than they The great advances of the Church on new ground have always come by people movements, never by the one-by-one approach. were before. In the matter of clothing, they should continue to look precisely like their kinsfolk. In the matter of marriage, most peoples are endogamous, insisting that our people marry only our people. They look with very great disfavor on our people marrying other people. And yet when Christians come in one-by-one, they cannot marry their own people, because none of them have become Christian. In a place where only a few of a given people become Christians, they have to take husbands or wives from other segments of the population when it comes time for them or their children to marry. So their own kin look at them and say, When you become a Christian you mongrelize your children. You have left us and have joined them. All converts should be encouraged to bear cheerfully the exclusion, the oppression and the persecution that they are likely to encounter from their people. When anyone becomes a follower of a new way of life, he is likely to meet some disfavor from his loved ones. Maybe it s mild; maybe it s severe. He should bear such disfavor patiently. He should say on all occasions:

5 630 Chapter 101 a church in every people I am a better son than I was before; I am a better father than I was before; I am a better husband than I was before; and I love you more than I used to do. You can hate me, but I will not hate you. You can exclude me, but I will include you. You can force me out of our ancestral house, but I will live on its veranda. Or I will get a house just across the street. I am still one of you; I am more one of you than I ever was before. Encourage converts to remain thoroughly one with their people in most matters. Please note that word most. They cannot remain one with their people in idolatry or drunkenness or obvious sin. If they belong to a segment of the society that earns its living by stealing, they must steal no more. But, in most matters (how they talk, how they dress, how they eat, where they go, what kind of houses they live in), they can look very much like their people and ought to make every effort to do so. 4. Encourage Group Decisions for Christ The principle is to try to get group decisions for Christ. If only one person decides to follow Jesus, do not baptize him immediately. Say to him, You and I will work together to lead another five, or ten, or God willing, 50 of your people to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour so that when you are baptized, you will be baptized with them. Ostracism is very effective against one lone person. But ostracism is weak indeed when exercised against a group of a dozen. And when exercised against 200 it has practically no force at all. 5. Aim for a Constant Stream of New Converts The principle is this: Aim for scores of groups of that people to become Christians in an ever-flowing stream across the years. One of the common mistakes made by missionaries, eastern as well as western, all around the world is that when a few become Christians, perhaps 100, 200 or even 1,000,

6 donald a. mcgavran 631 the missionaries spend all their time teaching them. They want to make them good Christians and they say to themselves, If these people become good Christians, then the gospel will spread. So for years they concentrate on a few congregations. By the time they begin evangelizing outside that group, 10 to 20 years, the rest of the people no longer want to become Christians. That has happened again and again. This principle requires that, from the very beginning, the missionary keeps on reaching out to new groups. But, you say, is not this a sure way to get poor Christians who don t know the Bible? If we follow that principle we shall soon have a lot of raw Christians. Soon we shall have a community of perhaps 5,000 people who are very sketchily Christian. Yes, that is certainly a danger. At this point, we must lean heavily upon the New Testament, remembering the brief weeks or months of instruction Paul gave to his new churches. We must trust the Holy Spirit, and believe that God has called those people out of darkness into His wonderful light. Between the two evils of giving them too little Christian teaching or allowing them to become a sealed-off community that cannot reach its own people, the latter is much the greater danger. We must not allow new converts to become sealed off. We must continue to make sure that a constant stream of new converts comes into the evergrowing cluster of congregations. 6. Help Converts Exemplify the Highest Hopes of Their People Now the point is this: The converts, whether five or 5,000, ought to say, or at least feel: We Christians are the advance guard of our people, of our segment of society. We are showing our relatives and neighbors a better way of life. The way we are pioneering is good for us who have become Christians and will be very good for you thousands who have yet to believe. Please look on us not as traitors in any sense. We are better sons, brothers and wives, better tribesmen and caste fellows, better members of our labor union than we ever were before. We are showing ways in which, while remaining thoroughly of our own segment of society, we all can have a better life. Please look on us as the pioneers of our own people entering a wonderful Promised Land. 7. Emphasize Brotherhood The principle I stress is this: constantly emphasize brotherhood. In Christ there is no Jew, no Greek, no bond, no free, no barbarian, no Scythian. We are all one in Christ Jesus. But at the same time, let us remember that Paul did not attack all imperfect social institutions. For example, he did not do away with slavery. Paul said to the slave, Be a better slave. He said to the slave owner, Be a kindlier master. Paul also said in that famous passage emphasizing unity, There is no male or female. Nevertheless, Christians in their boarding schools and orphanages continue to sleep boys and girls in separate dormitories!! In Christ, there is no sex distinction. Boys and girls are equally precious in God s sight. Men from this tribe, and men from that, are equally precious in God s sight. We are all equally sinners, equally saved by grace. These things are true; but at the same time there are certain social niceties which Christians at this time may observe. As we continue to stress brotherhood, let us be sure that the most effective way to achieve brotherhood is to lead ever increasing numbers of men and women from every ethnos, every tribe, every segment of society into an obedient relationship to Christ. As we multiply Christians in every segment of society, the possibility of genuine brotherhood, justice, goodness and righteousness will be enormously increased. Indeed, the best way to get justice possibly the only way to get justice is to have very large numbers in every segment of society become committed Christians. As we work for Christward movements in every people, let us not make the mistake of believing that one-by-one out of the society into the church is a bad way. One precious soul willing to endure severe ostracism in order to become a follower of Jesus, one precious soul coming all by himself, is a way that God has blessed and is blessing to the

7 632 Chapter 101 a church in every people salvation of mankind. But it is a slow way. And it is a way which frequently seals off the converts own people from any further hearing of the gospel. Sometimes one-by-one is the only possible method. When it is, let us praise God for it, and live with its limitations. Let us urge all those wonderful Christians who come bearing persecution and oppression, to pray for their own dear ones and to work constantly, that more of their own people may believe and be saved. One-by-one is one way that God is blessing the increase of His Church. The people movement is another way. The great advances of the Church on new ground out of non-christian religions have always come by people movements, never one-by-one. It is equally true that one-by-one-out-of-thepeople is a very common beginning way. In the book, Bridges of God, which God used to launch the Church Growth Movement, I have used a simile. I say that missions start out proclaiming Christ on a desert-like plain. There, life is hard; the number of Christians remains small. A large missionary presence is required. But, here and there, the missionaries or the converts find ways to break out of that arid plain and proceed up into the verdant mountains. There, large numbers of people live; there, great churches can be founded; there, the Church grows strong; that is people movement land. I commend that simile to you. Let us accept what God gives. If it is one-by-one, let us accept that and lead those who believe in Jesus to trust in Him completely. But let us always pray that, after that beginning, we may proceed to higher ground, to more verdant pasture, to more fertile lands where great groups of men and women, all of the same segment of society, become Christians and thus open the way for Christward movements in each people on earth. Our goal should be Christward movements within each segment. There the dynamics of social cohesion will advance the gospel and lead multitudes out of darkness into His wonderful life. We are calling people after people from death to life. Let us make sure that we do it by the most effective methods. Study Questions 1. McGavran says, Indeed, the best way to get justice possibly the only way to get justice is to have very large numbers in every segment of society become committed Christians. Do you agree? Why or why not? 2. Why does McGavran insist that a cluster of growing churches rather than a church is the proper goal in pioneer church planting?

8 676 Chapter 111 insider movements Three Kinds of Movements Rick Brown and Steven C. Hawthorne Three distinct types of movements to Christ have been described in the last century: people movements, church planting movements and insider movements. Insider Movements Becky Lewis defines insider movements as having two essential dynamics: continuing community and retained socio-religious identity. Her definition helps us see what is similar and different in the three different kinds of movements. All three types of movements rightly claim to describe the gospel flourishing within pre-existing social networks or natural communities. All three celebrate the hallmark of new spiritual identity as members of the kingdom of God and disciples of Jesus Christ. But there are differences when we look closely at how the two dynamics of community and identity are seen to work. Let s consider each of the three kinds of movements with these two dynamics in mind. People Movements People movements were identified by J. Waskom Pickett in the 1930s in India, although he called them mass movements. They were later analyzed and popularized by Donald McGavran in the 1950s. The basic phenomenon observed was the decision by whole communities to become Christians together. Although the focus was Christ McGavran often referred to them as Christward movements the intact social network was expected to leave behind their former socioreligious affiliation in order to take on a traditional Christian social identity. People movements are still occurring, although they are rarely publicized. With respect to community, people movements are famous for encouraging entire families, clans, tribes and caste communities to become Christians together. With respect to religious affiliation and identity, they are expected to make a clear break. McGavran often spoke of the need to Christianize whole peoples. Church Planting Movements Church planting movements were noticed and designated in the 1990s. The most prominent feature of these movements is ongoing multiplication, enhanced by radically simple church structure and empowered by natural leaders of the community, who sustain and extend the movements. Within reached peoples in which there is a respected Christian identity, church planting movements have been documented to bring millions of people to vibrant faith. They have also exploded among many unreached people settings in which they usually create new church structures. Even though the churches are usually simple house groups with non-professional lay leadership, they are generally viewed as totally new social structures within the larger community. According to David Garrison, believers make a clean break with their former religion and redefine themselves with a distinctly Christian identity. 4 People movements Church Planting movements Insider movements Natural communities follow Christ together Yes Usually Yes Community Followers of Christ become part of new structure or church Spiritual identity as Christ followers Identity Socio-religious identity changed to become Christian Usually Yes Usually Yes Yes Usually Rarely Yes Rarely Rick Brown is a Bible scholar and missiologist. He has been involved in outreach in Africa and Asia since Steven C. Hawthorne spent years working with teams doing research among unreached peoples in Asia and the Middle East. Endnotes 1. Lewis 2007, Promoting Movements to Christ within Natural Communities, p. 75, International Journal of Frontier Missiology 24:2. 2. In both cases, the assumption is being made that a church is not a building, institution, or meeting, but a functional local community of mutually supportive believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 3. Some people equate C5 churches with insider movements. However, not all C5 communities result in insider movements. For an insider movement to occur, C5 believers must remain genuine members of their family and community networks, not creating odd or competing religious institutions or events. 4. Garrison 2004, Church Planting Movements vs. Insider Movements, p.154, International Journal of Frontier Missions 21:4.

9 690 Chapter 114 planting churches Again, Ken and I, with Abdul translating, explained how we could not have planned a more perfect occasion for entering into the path of Jesus the Messiah than this day of sacrifice. It was such an amazing time. Going On in the New Life Later that day, the family called another meeting where they decided which ones among them should receive more training to teach them about their new life. Since Abdul lives and works far away, they picked Rashad to serve them all in this way. He was delighted, because he had always wanted to be a spiritual leader. We laid hands on him and prayed God s blessing on him for this work. They also decided that Rashad and his sister should come and stay at our house for a week at a time every few months, so that the sister would be equipped to teach the ladies as well. That was a very good idea again, we were totally stunned. Many other things happened in the course of that day. Some began to share about the peace they had, others spoke reflecting about their new life. One of the brothers danced and sang out, I have a new life I have a new life! We can t be sure how many hundreds of prayers were answered in the space of those two days. We had never seen such dramatic changes of hearts in so many Muslims all coming to Christ together at a single time. And so we remain amazed to this day. The events of this story touched upon many complex issues of leadership and contextualization in a very short span of time. Two things need to be made clear. First, the events in this story were the culmination of more than 10 years of hard and faithful work by members of several organizations. Second, these events have been followed by many more years of careful work to: develop leaders, dig deeply into scripture, address difficult discipleship and contextualization issues, all the while facing multiple crises. There have been both wonderful breakthroughs and painful setbacks. But the events in this dramatic story should give us great cause for encouragement. Ted closed his letter by rejoicing in the reality that the Resurrected One is present among us and able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think! (Eph 3:20). Planting Churches Learning the Hard Way Tim and Rebecca Lewis Tim and Rebecca Lewis have been active in Muslim ministry for the last 30 years, leading a field team for many years. They are currently involved in leadership as well as discussions about strategy issues. Church planting is easy! we thought. Within a few months of landing in a North African city, we already had a group of men and women meeting in our home. Joining that fellowship were some Muslimbackground believers who had previously come to faith in the Lord through the testimony of others. We lined our living room with couches in the local style, served sweet mint tea and wore djellabas (traditional robes). We hoped a contextualized fellowship could grow into a solid church. Tim, a seminary graduate, functioned as the pastor but rotated leadership. We sang and studied the Bible in English, Arabic and French. The participants came from Berber, Arab, French, Spanish, Scottish and American backgrounds. We even collected an offering for the poor. We thought we had planted a truly multicultural New Testament house church. However, before the year was out, this church was already collapsing. The believers came from all over the city and had little in common. We wanted them to become like a family, but they were not interested. If Tim was gone on a trip, no one came.

10 Tim and rebecca Lewis 691 Gathering a contextualized group of believers was our attempt to plant a church that would last by applying insights from the past. For at least 60 years, missionaries had been winning individuals to Christ in this country, but they had been returning to Islam to regain the families and communities they had lost. Thus, in the last 20 years, missionaries began gathering them together in hopes of creating community, but the churches planted did not last. Thinking the churches were too foreign, which made families and the government oppose them, we tried to contextualize the fellowships, but they, too, fell apart. We gave up and started over. Perhaps we were gathering people from too many different backgrounds together. This time, we determined to gather only believers from one people group the one we were focusing on. So when the opportunity arose, we introduced the only two known believers from that tribe. We expected them to embrace with oy. Instead, they backed away with suspicion. Later, each one reprimanded Tim for introducing them. Each feared the other would expose him as a Christian to his hometown or to the government. Now we thought, Church planting is so hard! Our contextualized, multi-cultural fellowship had failed. Our contextualized, mono-cultural group had also failed. How The Holy Spirit didn t really plant a church. He implanted the gospel into a pre-existing community. were we ever going to get believers to trust each other enough to plant a church? As it turns out, we needed to re-evaluate our assumptions about what the church is and how one is started. First, God unexpectedly showed us a completely different way to plant churches. Then, we noticed how Jesus planted a church crossculturally and how he instructed the disciples to start a church. God Showed Us a Different Way God overhauled our concept of church by planting a church Himself within our people group. To be accurate, He didn t really plant a church; He planted the gospel into a community that already existed. Struggling with our failure to plant a church, we received an entirely unexpected letter. The hand-carried letter notified us that two brothers from our people group had finished a Bible correspondence course. They now wanted to meet a believer. We promptly sent off our best Arabic speaker to their distant town. When he arrived at their house, it was packed. Our team member wondered if he had stumbled onto a wedding, so he hesitantly asked for Hassan, who had written the letter. Hassan and his brother rushed forward to welcome him into their household. They had gathered all their relatives and close friends to hear their honored guest explain what they had learned in their course. They eagerly received the gospel and pledged as a group to follow Jesus. Our teammate was thrilled. When he returned home, we shared his amazement. This new church, consisting of an extended family and friends, continues strong to this day. Decades later, they are still spreading the gospel from town to town through their natural networks. They study

11 692 Chapter 115 planting churches the Word together, pray, baptize and fellowship in ways they have determined best fit their community. No outsiders have ever tried to contextualize what has taken place. They have never had a leader or funding from outside their relational network. They do not feel any need for them. Is this church planting? we asked. It was so different than what we had been doing. For decades, faithful workers had been forming churches, only to have them collapse in less than 10 years. When we arrived, there was only one fellowship left, struggling along in the largest city. We ourselves had witnessed the genesis and demise of several more groups. Was there another way? Decades later they are still spreading the gospel from town to town through their natural networks. They study the Word and pray together, baptize and have figured out the kind of fellowship that best fits their family communities. We compared the two ways of church planting. Our way consisted of forming a church by gathering together believers we knew. Their faith preceded their commitments to each other. We were the connecting center of the relationships, whether the churchwas contextualized or not, multi-cultural or mono-cultural. Of course, we hoped to turn leadership over to the believers as their commitments to each other grew. Instead, the churches collapsed. The way we were building community was a pattern common within our own culture but not theirs. A church developed in a different way when the gospel was planted into Hassan s family, however. The believers encouraged each other within their natural community. Their commitments to each other preceded their faith. Members could no more easily leave the church than they could leave their family. We provided occasional biblical input, such as translated scriptures, but little else. We were truly outsiders. Could faith growing within a family or network be a more effective way of establishing churches within communal societies? If so, how could we do this as outsiders? As we looked at the Scriptures, we noticed two things for the first time: Jesus had planted a church cross-culturally within a Samaritan village, and He had given His disciples instructions on how to plant the gospel within communities. Jesus Taught Us a Different Way How do we plant a church this other way? we wondered. We began by looking at the way Jesus planted a church in a Samaritan community (John 4). The Samaritans, like Muslims today, worshiped the God of Abraham. Like the Samaritans, the Muslims worship what they do not know. Because of their emphasis on purity, the Jews considered the Samaritans defiled and excluded them from the temple and all regular worship of God. So, the Samaritan woman was shocked when Jesus asked her for a cup of water because of the longstanding enmity between their people groups. And when Jesus offered her eternal life, she turned it down, because she knew her people could never join the Jewish religion. Interesting, we thought. Our Muslim friends often turned down salvation in Jesus because they could not imagine joining the Christian religion. But Jesus removed that barrier. When the Samaritan woman pointed out that Jews worshiped in the temple, but Samaritans on the mountain, Jesus clarified that changing religious forms was not the issue. Instead, He said, A time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks (John 4:23). The woman was so overjoyed that they too could become true worshipers, she ran back and told her whole village. As a result, the Samaritans invited Jesus to come into their community for two days. Jesus persuaded them that He really is the Savior of the world, not just the Savior of the Jews. Many believed, and Jesus left behind a church inside that community like the one in Hassan s family. Jesus did not try to get them to come out of their community to join with Jewish or Samaritan believers from elsewhere. We had never noticed this part of the story before!

12 James w. gustafson 693 This story was not a parable; Jesus faced the same barriers we were facing! All the Muslims we knew had been taught that to worship God through Christ they would have to leave their family and join the Christian group, who had been their enemies for 1400 years. But somehow Hassan and his family had seen things the way Jesus did: They could become true worshipers without leaving their community. Then we saw, for the first time, that Jesus had also taught the disciples how to plant a church within a community. In Luke 10, He told seventy disciples to look for a man of peace someone who would invite them into his own household. They were to remain in that household sharing the gospel with all who came into that home and not go from house to house. If no one in a particular village invited them into their household, they were told to leave and go on to another village. Amazingly clear! We had never thought of looking for people who would invite us into their family or community to talk about Jesus! But Jesus and the disciples had planted churches this way. We can copy what Jesus did! we realized. We can begin by telling our Muslim friends that worshiping God in spirit and truth does not require them to change religious systems. If some receive this news with joy and invite us back to tell their whole family, we can go into their community. As happened in Hassan s family, those who decide to follow Jesus can grow in faith together. Instead of trying to get believers from different communities to form a lasting new group, we could, like Jesus, establish a church inside their natural community. Conclusion After 15 years, we had learned church planting in communal cultures the hard way. We found that we couldn t plant a lasting church by gathering random believers into new groups. It didn t matter if they were contextualized or not, multi-cultural or mono-cultural. After a few months or years, these groups would fall apart. Instead we needed to find a person of peace who would invite us into their own community to share the gospel. Jesus was welcomed into the Samaritan village. The 70 disciples were welcomed into a home. In the same way, Peter was welcomed into Cornelius household, and Paul was welcomed by Lydia into her household. In each case, they were welcomed into a cohesive community, so the gospel was shared with the whole group. As a result, people already committed to each other came to faith together. A church was born within a natural community without creating a new group just for fellowship. It reminded us of something Ralph Winter had said: The church (in the sense of being a committed community) is already there, they just don t know Jesus yet! Pigs, Ponds and the Gospel James W. Gustafson James W. Gustafson is a founding member and President of Global Development Network, a non-profit development foundation in Thailand. He spent 27 years as a missionary in Thailand, serving in church planting and community development. He was also the Executive Director of World Mission for the Evangelical Covenant Church of America from 1998 to For decades, Christians have talked about integrating evangelism and development in world mission, but there have been obstacles. The foremost obstacle perhaps has been a narrow definition of evangelism, limiting it to the verbal presentation of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ, however, is not simply a spoken word; it is a Living Word. The gospel is Life. It is the incarnation of the Word of God into the cultures and lives of humankind. The secular definition of development has been a second obstacle for mission-minded Christians. The secular approach to development focuses most often on economic growth. With the goal of increasing profit, this focus becomes individualistic and often pits entrepreneurs against one another. This emphasis on individualism and self-attainment contrasts with the Word of God. The Bible focuses on the good of the group, teaching self-denial and

13 david l. Watson and paul D. watson 697 ourselves and in others. Thai culture, just like Western culture, has a natural tendency to avoid such encounters. In order to grow in power for service, we needed to learn how to talk to each other and to counter each other in love. Other problems in our work could be mentioned, but they all come back to the central point: the more we have learned to deny ourselves, to accept our weaknesses and to depend on God in every detail, the more we have found His wisdom and strength to be sufficient for all our needs. The role of mission agencies, Christian aid agencies and local development organizations includes the ongoing integration of evangelism and development at the local church level. Both elements are critical ingredients of the mission of the Church, and this is where the transformation of society begins. As the local church in every culture is enabled and equipped to reach into its own context with the power of God s grace, evangelism and development will merge to bring about the true transformation of society. A Movement of God Among the Bhojpuri of North India David L. Watson and Paul D. Watson David Watson serves as the Vice President of Global Church Planting with CityTeam Ministries. He works to catalyze church planting movements (CPMs) in difficult-to-reach cities and countries around the world and conducts training for church planting leaders. David has been involved in unreached people work since 1986 and has started two mission agencies that focus on unreached peoples and CPMs. Paul Watson is the son of David Watson. He helps to catalyze church planting movements among English-speaking members of the Online Generation. He works with a team to provide podcasts, manuals and other electronic resources for church planting movement (CPM) trainers and practitioners. None of us, in our wildest dreams, ever thought we would witness what was happening. We planned on establishing a single beachhead church where there was none. We had no plans for seeing hundreds or thousands of churches started. We didn t think it was possible in the places we were trying to reach, for they had demonstrated great resistance to the gospel. We were doing everything we could think of in hopes that something would work and at least one church would get started. Failure God, I can t plant churches anymore. I didn t sign on to love people, train people, send people and get them killed. Six men that I had worked with had been martyred over the last 18 months. I can t live in the area you called me to reach. The Indian government expelled our family from the country. Over 2500 miles and an ocean separated our house in Singapore from the Bhojpuri people in North India. The task is too big. There were 80 million Bhojpuri living in an area known as the graveyard of missions and missionaries. There isn t enough help. There were only 27 evangelical churches in the area. They struggled to survive. Less than 1000 believers lived among the Bhojpuri at that time. Take away my call. I will go back to the States. I m good at business. I will give lots of money to missions. Let someone else plant churches. Let me go. Release me from my call. Every day for two months we had the same conversation. Every day I went to my office, sat in the dark and begged God to take away my call. And every day He refused. Fine. You have to teach me how to plant

14 698 Chapter 117 a movement of god among the bhojpuri churches. I cannot believe that you would call someone to a task without telling them how to do it. Show me in Your Word how you want me to reach these people. If you show me, I will do it. This was my covenant with God. This is what started my part in His work among the Bhojpuri. New Ideas God upheld His part of our covenant. Over the next year, He led me through Scripture and brought my attention to things I had read, but never understood at least in this context. Patterns emerged and new thoughts about church, making disciples and church planting came to life. I prayed for five Indian men to help develop these ideas in North India. I met the first one at a secret forum gathered in India to discuss evangelizing Hindu peoples. They invited me to present some of my ideas. As I talked, they started leaving. One by one, two by two, sometimes five at a time, people got up and left the room. They thought I was crazy! By the end of the day, only one remained. His name was Victor John. I believe what you re saying, he told me, I can see it too. We talked long into the night and became friends. Victor became the first to help me develop these ideas. Over the next year, three other men emerged to work with me. Lord, I prayed, Where is the fifth man? Where is the one we need to complete our team? Now, this was in the days when people still wrote letters. I got stacks of them every day. In Singapore the mailmen rode motor scooters that had a very distinct sound. I heard the mailman putter up to my gate and drop the mail in the box. That day I got a letter from someone I didn t know in India. Brother David, it began, You don t know me, but I feel God telling me that I should become your disciple. Tell me what to do and I will do it. Here was the fifth member of my team. But God didn t give me the man I prayed for. You see, a woman wrote the letter I got that day. Over the next few years we struggled as we implemented the things God taught us. Our first church planted with this new methodology didn t happen until two years after I met Victor. In fact, the mission organization I worked for threatened to fire me each year during my annual review. You re not doing your job, they said. Give me time, I said. We re trying something new. Trust me. And for some reason, they did. All of a sudden, we saw eight churches planted in one year. The next year, there were 48 new churches planted. The year after that, 148 new churches; and then 327; and then 500. In the fifth year, we saw more than 1000 new churches planted! After the fifth year, my mission organization called me. You must be mistaken, they insisted. No one can plant 1000 churches in one year. We didn t believe 500, but we certainly don t believe 1000! Come and see, I told them. And they did. A formal survey of the work among the Bhojpuri showed that our team actually under-reported the number of churches planted in the area! Things were exploding! And things are still exploding. Persistent Prayer Without persistent prayer, I am convinced there wouldn t be a movement among the Bhojpuri. I recently sat in a room with the top Bhojpuri church planters. Each of these church planters and their teams planted at least 50 churches per year. One team planted 500 churches the year before. A research group, engaged to verify our numbers, wondered about possible common threads in what they saw in church planting among the Bhojpuri. They started asking questions to see if they could discover common elements present among church planters. They asked, How much time do you spend in prayer? As they went around the room reporting, my jaw dropped. Team leaders spent an average of three hours a day in personal prayer. After that, they spent another three hours praying with their teams everyday. One day a week the leaders fasted and prayed. Their teams spent one weekend a month fasting and praying.

15 David l. watson and paul D. watson 699 Many of these leaders maintained secular jobs while engaged in their church planting. They got up to pray at 4 a.m. and were at work by 10 a.m. James tells us: The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful (James 5:16b, HCSV). James was right. Just look at the Bhojpuri. Obedience-Based Discipleship A few years ago I sat in a room with several Bhojpuri church planters. Going around the room, each church planter reported the number of churches their team planted over the past year. When it was his turn, the oldest man in the room, about 70 years old, spoke up: We planted 40 churches this past year. That blew me away! I crossed the room and sat at his feet. Brother, I need to learn from you. Teach me about church planting. He looked puzzled and replied, It s not hard. Every morning my great niece reads to me from the Bible for one hour I can t read so she reads for me. Then I think about what she read until lunch. I think about what it means and what God wants our family to do. When everyone comes in from the field for lunch, I tell them what God said through His Word to our family. Then I tell them to tell everyone they know what God said to our family that day. And they do. That s all. An independent organization surveyed the Bhojpuri a few years back. They discovered that tenth generation Bhojpuri Christians, even among illiterate peoples, were just as strong and spiritually mature as Christians from the first generation. In other words, the gospel traveled from person to person, without being diluted or compromised, to the tenth person (tenth generation). We teach every church planter and every believer in our ministry something very simple: If the Bible says Do it, then you must do it. If the Bible says Don t do it, then you don t do it. We also tell them they must pass everything they learn to someone else as soon as possible the same day if they can. This cycle of hearing, obeying and sharing develops mature believers and fuels the movement among the Bhojpuri. We noticed an interesting side effect of obedience-based discipleship. In most Bhojpuri churches, members from the highest to the lowest castes worship together. We never taught them about integration. Other ministries in India made caste an issue. They ended up with high caste churches and low caste churches. All we did was teach them to obey the Word. Their obedience allowed them, perhaps even compelled them, to worship together. Obedience-based discipleship is the core of the movement among the Bhojpuri. You cannot have a movement if you don t obey God s Word. Person of Peace An old man sat on the edge of the road approaching the village. When he saw me, he seemed startled. He slowly stood up and came to meet me. Finally! he exclaimed. You are finally here. Before I could say anything he took my arm and pulled me into the village. Here is the man I told you about. He told people as pulled me along. Here is the man I dreamed about every night for the last 20 years. My dreams told me that we must listen to everything this man tells us. I shared the gospel and a church now meets in that village. God is at work in people s hearts, even before we walk into their lives. According to this man, God told him 20 years before that I was coming to his village. Twenty years prior to that moment, I was studying to be an engineer. I had no desire and no call at that time to be a minister or a church planter. Bhojpuri church planters look for persons of peace people God prepares to receive the gospel every time they enter a village (Luke 10). They usually identify the person of peace within a few hours of entering the village. Some are obvious, like the old man in my story. Some only identify themselves after listening to the church planters talk for a while. When they find the person of peace, the church planters build a relationship with the family and eventually go to their home and start a Discovery Bible Study. If the church planters do not find a person of peace, they move to another village. In about six months to one year, other teams come back to see if anyone is ready to hear the gospel. Planting churches is easier if you re

16 700 Chapter 118 ourselves as servants working with God and the people He has prepared, rather than trying to force the gospel on people who aren t ready. We Are Millionaires A couple of years ago I sat down with Victor John. I am a millionaire, he said. What do you mean? He grinned. This year we baptized the one millionth Bhojpuri into the Kingdom. In God s economy, that makes me a millionaire. I couldn t stop the tears. Over one million new brothers and sisters over 12 years over 40,000 new churches. I had no idea that people would look back on what God did with my failure and call it a movement. I never dreamed He would make me a millionaire. Ourselves as Servants Latin American Workers in the Middle East Andres and Angelica Guzman Andres and Angelica Guzman are a Latin American couple who have worked in professional relief and development for 20 years. They have been members of several secular and Christian humanitarian organizations and have written multiple articles and books. During our 15 years of humanitarian work The opportunity came, and a year later we in the Middle East, our Latin American arrived in the city where we would supervise team had the privilege of witnessing a movement for Jesus. It took place as our closest medical supplies in coordination with two a project to create a system to distribute friends and mentorees taught the life and humanitarian organizations. Besides working teachings of Jesus Christ to many hundreds to provide a steady supply of medicines, we of people within their own people group. The set up the computer systems for the main movement came about, not solely as a result warehouse and also for the large distribution of our relief and development work, but also pharmacies run by the government s Ministry through Bible translation, leadership formation and incarnational living. dures to be used in the warehouse and of Health. We created the forms and proce- Before we had finished our medical studies, and before being married, my wife and I We provided feedback to the main pharma- pharmacy stores, and we trained the staff. both felt stirred by scriptures like Isaiah 49:6, I cies to determine appropriate drug distribution, monitored children s growth to assess will also make you a light for the nations, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the the impact of nutritional programs and did earth. It took a few years for us to realize our vaccination surveys. We developed training calling to serve the peoples of the earth because programs for procedures in nursing, surgery, we knew no other people who were interested emergency medicine, dental care and for lay in this. We had never heard about unreached village health workers. Beside the medical people groups and had no idea that God was projects, we also worked toward creating a moving throughout Latin America to mobilize center for widows and displaced women that his Church to fulfill the Great Commission. educated them in important survival skills. Immediately after our wedding, we went to another country to obtain our cross-cultural Incarnational Living training and began asking God to take us to the We did all this not simply to convert anybody place where he wanted us to serve. We knew or to provide an excuse for our presence. that God was not calling us to be professional Instead, we were motivated by a love of God missionaries, but to join him in his mission and a love toward our fellow human beings, to light the world by serving the needy, while based on the person and teachings of the living and talking as disciples of Jesus. Lord Jesus. We desired to demonstrate that

17 shah ali with j. dudley woodberry 715 The Rebirth of the Persian Church For centuries, ethnicity and religious affiliation have been considered to be identical. If someone is an Armenian, it is assumed that person is a Christian. If someone is a Persian, it has been assumed for many centuries that that person is a Muslim. In the last ten years, a new term has become widespread throughout Iran, which can be literally translated Persian-Christian, or as they would conceptually translate it Muslim-Christian (farsimasihi). If someone saw you wearing a cross, they might ask, Are you Armenian? or Have you become Armenian? But today the question has changed. Because new believers are often asked if they are Persian- Christians (and not Armenians) it shows that for the first time in many centuries, one can be recognized as a Christian without being seen by the greater Persian community as a traitor against Persian people. This new identity is highly significant, testifying to the presence of a truly indigenous, self-reproducing movement. It has long been believed that a breakthrough among Persians could have significant impact on surrounding peoples in Central Asia and the Middle East. This has certainly proved to be the case in Iran itself. Persian missionaries are now going out to nearby minority peoples such as the Azeri, Luri and Kurds, with funding coming directly from the Persian believers themselves. The potential for a large-scale people movement to Christ in Iran has not been this great since the 4th century. Though all of this is cause for rejoicing, it is important to remember that the Persian Church has been here before. As was the case 1600 years ago, the government has begun to respond forcefully to stem the tide of this widespread movement. Although presently this new movement is entering a new period of trial, this time around they have a strong international network of believers, churches and ministries standing ready to help them. Now they have the Scriptures in Farsi, contextualized worship songs, leadership training programs and satellite broadcasts. And last but not least, they have the promise of Jesus, who said, I will build my church. Without any doubt, the move of the Holy Spirit in Iran is evidence of that ultimate and enduring reality. South Asia Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques Shah Ali with J. Dudley Woodberry Shah Ali is the pseudonym of a follower of Christ from a Muslim family in South Asia. His identity is being concealed (There is currently persecution of Christians in his country). He translated the New Testament into his national language using Muslim terms. J. Dudley Woodberry is Dean Emeritus and Senior Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary. He has served in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. His publications include Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road and From Seed to Fruit: Global Trends, Fruitful Practices, and Emerging Issues. From South Asia: Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques, Theology, News and Notes (March 1992), pp Used by permission of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. My Muslim father tried to kill me with a sword when I became a follower of Jesus after comparing the Qur an and the Bible. He interpreted my decision as a rejection not only of my faith, but of my family and culture as well. Historically, Christians were largely converts from the Hindu community and had incorporated Hindu words and Western forms into their worship. In trying to express my faith, I encountered two sets of problems. First, as indicated, Christianity seemed foreign. Secondly, attempts by

18 716 Chapter 124 south asia Christians to meet the tremendous human need in the region had frequently led to the attraction of opportunistic, shallow converts and the consequent resentment of the Muslim majority. Christian Faith in Muslim Dress I was able to start dealing with the foreignness of Christianity when a missionary hired me to translate the New Testament using Muslim rather than Hindu vocabulary and calling it by its Muslim name, The Injil Sharif ( Noble Gospel ). Thousands of injils were bought, mostly by Muslims, who now accepted this as the gospel of which the Qur an spoke. This approach may be supported not only pragmatically by the amazing results but, more importantly, theologically as well. Unlike the Hindu scriptures, the Qur an shares a lot of material with the Bible. In fact, most Muslim theological terms were borrowed from Jews and Christians. 1 Subsequently, a graduate of Fuller s School of World Mission asked me to train 25 couples to live in villages and do agricultural development. Only one couple was from a Muslim background. All the other non-muslim background couples had problems. Muslims would exchange visits with them but would not eat their food until they began to shower in the morning, hence were ceremonially clean by Muslim law after sleeping with their spouses. The Christian couples were called angels because they were so kind, honest, self-sacrificing and they prayed to God. However, they were not considered truly religious because they did not perform the Muslim ritual of prayer five times a day. Thereafter, we only employed couples who followed Jesus from a Muslim background, and we developed a ritual prayer that retained all the forms and content that Muslims and Christians share but substituted Bible passages for Qur anic ones. Little adaptation was necessary because early Islam borrowed so heavily from Jewish and Christian practice in the formulation of the pillars of religious observance (the confession of faith, ritual prayer, alms giving, fasting and pilgrimage). 2 Our Muslim neighbors defined Christianity as a foreign religion of infidels, so we often referred to ourselves as Muslims (literally, submitters to God ). The necessity of submitting to God is certainly Christian (see Jas 4:7), and Jesus disciples call themselves Muslims according to the Qur an (5:111). 3 When villages have decided to follow Christ, the people continued to use the mosque for worship of God but now through Christ. Where possible, the former leaders of mosque prayers (imams) are trained to continue their role as spiritual leaders. Persuasion, Power and People God used other means as well as contextualization to bring Muslims to faith in Christ. On several occasions I have had public discussions with Muslim teachers (malvis) and have been able to show that, contrary to popular belief, the Qur an does not name Muhammad as an intercessor. Rather, it states that on the judgment day intercession will not avail, except [that of] him to whom the Merciful will give permission, and of whose speech He approves (5:109 Egyptian ed./108 Fluegel ed.). But the Injil ( Gospel ), which is from God according to the Qur an (5:47/51), not only states that God approves of Jesus (e.g., Matt 3:17) but that He is the only intercessor (1 Tim 2:5). God has also shown His power through answered prayer the recovery of a three-yearold girl who the doctors said would die in a few hours; the sending of rain and the stopping of flooding; and the appearance of an unknown man to stop a crowd bent on killing an imam who followed Christ. A conscious effort has been made to foster the movement of groups rather than just individuals to Christ. People have only been baptized if the head of the family was baptized. Effort was made to see that leaders understood the message. A Muslim mystic (Sufi) sheikh, upon learning that the veil of the temple had been rent from top to bottom, threw down his Muslim cap, followed Christ and brought his followers with him. Since illiteracy is high, the Bible and training materials are recorded on cassettes, and inexpensive cassette players are made available to the villagers. There has been persecution. Our training center was closed down. A court case was made against me and three fellow workers. Likewise, there has been friction between the

19 shah ali with j. dudley woodberry 717 leaders and misunderstanding by other Christian groups. But the movement of people to Christ continues. Most new believers remain in independent Messianic mosques, but some contextualized congregations have joined the major denominatio. Still other individuals are absorbed into the traditional, Hindu-background church. Toward Responsible Self-Help Besides trying to express our faith in meaningful cultural forms, we have been trying to meet the tremendous human need around us. We want to proclaim the Kingdom and demonstrate its values. Trying to do both presents certain problems: First, there is the problem of using human need for evangelistic purposes of manipulating people and attracting the insincere. Consequently, we help all the villagers despite their religious affiliation and give no financial help to Jesus mosques or their imams. Secondly, the former colonizer-colonized dependency easily gets transferred to donorrecipient dependency. Thirdly, even the distribution of donated food from abroad may only help in the city because of the difficulty of distribution, while giving little incentive to the peasants to produce more because of the artificially reduced price. Fourthly, the introduction of technology may only help those with the skills or the finances to make use of it, while the poorest can just watch the gap between the haves and have-nots widen. To deal with these problems we have followed such common development practices as loaning planting seed to be replaced at harvest time and providing pumps that are paid for from increased productivity. Now, however, we are adapting a program developed in Southeast Asia which should express holistic Christian concern, deal with the problems outlined and ensure that the indigenous church remains self-supporting. The program is training national workers in contextualized church planting and an integrated fish and vegetable cultivation system. In turn, the workers are sent to needy districts where they are responsible for training local farmers in the easily transferable technology so that they can become self-sufficient. Increased population means less land is available for cultivation, and a poor transportation infrastructure means food must be produced near its consumption. The intensive food production system was developed elsewhere. In that system, fish ponds are dug and the excavated dirt used for raised vegetable plots. Excess stems and leaves from the vegetables are used to feed the fish, and the waste from the fish is used as fertilizer for the vegetables. These food production centers are within walking distance of regional urban centers for daily sales and provide space for training of regional farmers and leaders of the Jesus mosques. The concept of Messianic mosques and completed Muslims (following the model of Messianic synagogues and completed Jews) still causes considerable misunderstanding among other Christians. The combining of evangelism and humanitarian ministries by the same people also raises concerns among those who feel Christian agencies should only focus on one or the other. Nevertheless, the models we are developing have been used by God in the raising up of many new disciples and expressing His concern for total persons with physical and spiritual needs. Likewise the Messianic Muslim movement has spilled over into a neighboring country through the normal visiting of relatives; when colleagues and I visited a Southeast Asian country recently, a whole Muslim village began to follow Jesus. Endnotes 1. See Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur an (Oriental Institute, 1938). 2. For the details of this argument see J. D. Woodberry, Contextualization Among Muslims: Reusing Common Pillars, The Word Among Us, ed. Dean S. Gilliland (Word Publishers, 1989), pp In this context, however, they demonstrated their submission by believing in God and His apostle (apparently Muhammad, who had not yet been born).

20 Culture, Worldview and Contextualization Charles H. Kraft Charles H. Kraft has been Professor of Anthropology and Intercultural Communication at the Fuller Seminary School of Intercultural Studies since With his wife, Marguerite, he served as a missionary in Nigeria. He teaches and writes in the areas of anthropology, worldview, contextualization, cross-cultural communication, inner healing and spiritual warfare. Akey question for Christians who work cross-culturally is, What is God s view of culture? For example, is Jewish culture created by God and therefore to be imposed on everyone who follows God? Or is there some indication in Scripture that God takes a different position? I believe we have our answer in 1 Corinthians 9:19 22, where Paul articulates his (and God s) approach to cultural diversity. Paul says, While working with Jews, I live like a Jew but when working with Gentiles, I live like a Gentile. His approach, then, is to become all things to all men, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible. The early Christians were Jewish. It was natural for them to believe that the cultural forms in which the gospel came to them were the right ones for everyone. They believed everyone who comes to Jesus must also convert to Jewish culture, but God used the apostle Paul, himself a Jew, to teach his generation and ours a different approach. In the above text, he articulates God s approach. Then in Acts 15:2 and following, we find him arguing fiercely against the majority position of the early church for the right of Gentiles to follow Jesus within their own socio-cultural contexts. God Himself had shown first Peter (Acts 10), then Paul and Barnabas, that this was the right way, by giving the Holy Spirit to Gentiles who had not converted to Jewish culture (Acts 13 14). But the Church has continually forgotten the lesson of Acts 15. We have continually reverted to the assumption that becoming Christian means becoming like us culturally. When, after New Testament times, the church required everyone to adopt Roman culture, God raised up Luther to prove that God could accept people who spoke German and worshipped in German ways. Then Anglicanism arose to show that God could use English language and customs, and Wesleyanism arose to let the common people of England know that God accepted them in their culture. So it has been that there are major cultural issues in the development of every new denomination. But sadly, the problem persists. Communicators of the gospel continue imposing their culture or denomination on new converts. If, then, we take a scriptural approach, we should adapt ourselves and our presentation of God s message to the culture of the receiving people, not misrepresent God as some early Jewish Christians did (Acts 15:1) by requiring that converts become like us to be acceptable to God. 400 Chapter 64

21 charles h. Kraft 401 Culture and Worldview Defined The term culture is the label anthropologists give to the structured customs and underlying worldview assumptions which govern people s lives. Culture (including worldview) is a people s way of life, their design for living, their way of coping with their biological, physical and social environment. It consists of learned, patterned assumptions (worldview), concepts and behavior, plus the resulting artifacts (material culture). Worldview, the deep level of culture, is the culturally structured set of assumptions (including values and commitments/allegiances) underlying how a people perceive and respond to reality. Worldview is not separate from culture. It is included in culture as the deepest level of presuppositions upon which people base their lives. A culture may be likened to a river with a surface level and a deep level. The surface is visible. Most of the river, however, lies beneath the surface and is largely invisible. Anything that happens on the surface of the river is affected by deep-level phenomena such as the current, the cleanness or dirtiness of the river, Surface-Level Culture (Patterned Behavior) Deep-Level Culture (Worldview Assumptions) other objects in the river and so on. What happens on the surface of a river is both a response to external phenomena and a manifestation of the deep-level characteristics of the river. So it is with culture. What we see on the surface of a culture is patterned human behavior. But this patterned or structured behavior, though impressive, is the lesser part of the culture. In the depths are the assumptions we call worldview, on the basis of which people govern their surface-level behavior. When something affects the surface of a culture it may change that level. The nature and extent of that change, however, will be influenced by the deep-level worldview structuring within the culture. Culture (including worldview) is a matter of structure or patterns. Culture does not do anything. Culture is like the script an actor follows. The script provides guidelines within which actors ordinarily operate, though they may choose on occasion to modify the script, either because they have forgotten something or because someone else changed things. There are several levels of culture. The higher the level, the more diversity is included in it. For example, we may speak of culture at a multinational level as Western culture (or worldview), or Asian culture, or African culture. Such cultural entities include a large number of quite distinct national cultures. For example, within Western culture there are varieties called German, French, Italian, British and American. Within Asian culture are varieties called Chinese, Japanese and Korean. These national cultures, then, can include many subcultures. In America, for example, we have Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Korean Americans and so on. Within these subcultures we can speak of community cultures, family cultures and even individual cultures. In addition, the term culture can designate types of strategies (or coping mechanisms) used by people of many different societies. Thus, we can speak of entities such as a culture of poverty, deaf culture, youth culture, culture of factory workers, taxi drivers culture, even culture of women. Identifying people in this way is often helpful in working out strategies for their evangelization. People and Culture It has been common for both non-specialists and specialists to refer to culture as if it were a person. We often hear statements such as Their culture makes them do it, or Their worldview determines their view of reality. Note that the italicized verbs in these statements give the impression that a culture behaves like a person.

22 402 Chapter 64 Culture, worldview and contextualization The power that keeps people following their cultural script is something inside of people the power of habit. Culture has no power in and of itself. People regularly modify old customs and create new ones, though the habits that result in great conformity are strong. It is important that cross-cultural witnesses recognize both the possibility of change and the place and power of habit. The distinction we are making is embodied in the contrast between the words culture and society. Culture refers to the structure, but society refers to the people themselves. When we feel pressure to conform, it is the pressure of people (i.e., social pressure) that we feel, not the pressure of cultural patterning (the script) itself. The chart below summarizes the distinction between people s behavior and the cultural structuring of that behavior. Cultures and Worldviews Are to Be Respected Cultural/worldview structuring functions both outside of us and inside of us. We are totally submerged in it, relating to it much as a fish relates to water. And we are usually as unconscious of it as a fish must be of the water or as we usually are of the air we breathe. Indeed, many of us only notice culture when we go into another cultural territory and observe customs different from our own. Unfortunately, when we see others living according to cultural patterns and with People (Society) e e el e o t e o t i y o ee eit e co cio y o co cio y o t y it y t o c e ti e y eep e el e o i e ti co itti o t y it y t o c e ti e y o ce i c oo i ee i e o i i te eti i o ce i t e i i o e i o ce i e i i e ti to ot e co itti o e e ti to o eci i to t y to c e t i t t o o o worldview assumptions different from our own we often feel sorry for them, as if their ways are inferior to ours. We may seek ways to rescue them from their customs. The way of Jesus is, however, to honor a people s culture and its incorporated worldview, not to wrest them from it. Just as He entered the cultural life of the Jews to communicate with them, so we are to enter the cultural matrix of the people we seek to win. Following Jesus example, we note that working from within involves a biblical critique of a people s culture and worldview assumptions as well as acceptance of them as starting points. If we are to witness effectively, we have to speak and behave in ways that honor the only way of life they have ever known. Likewise, if the Church is to be meaningful to receiving peoples, it needs to be as appropriate to their cultural lives as the early Church was to the lives of first century peoples. We call such appropriate churches dynamic equivalence churches (Kraft 1979), contextualized churches or inculturated churches. The Subsystems of Culture With worldview at the center influencing all of culture, we can divide surface-level culture into subsystems. These subsystems provide various behavioral expressions of worldview assumptions. Missionaries may be tempted to replace traditional religion with the religious forms l e e e el e e c t tte i te o ic e it y o t i y o ee eep e el e ( o ie ) e tte i te o ic e c y o t t e tio e tio co it e t o ee e e e io tte o c oo i ee i e o i i te eti i e i i e ti to ot e co itti o e ti to o eci i to t y to c e t i t t o o o

23 Charles H. Kraft 403 of Western Christianity. Christian witness, however, is to be directed at the worldview of a people so that it influences each of the subsystems from the very core of the culture. There are many cultural subsystems, some of which are diagrammed below. Truly converted people (whether in America or overseas) need to manifest biblical Christian attitudes and behavior in all of their cultural life, not just in their religious practices. Etc ec nolo y Subsystem Social Subsystem (e.g., Family, Education, Kinship, Social Control o l ie Economics Subsystem an ua e Subsystem eli ion Subsystem If we are to reach people for Christ and to see them gathered into Christ-honoring and culture-affirming churches, we will have to deal with them within their culture and in terms of their worldview. It is hoped that by understanding more of what culture and worldview are all about, we can deal with them more wisely than might otherwise have been the case. Worldview and Culture Change Just as anything that affects the roots of a tree influences its fruit, so anything that affects a people s worldview will affect the whole culture and, of course, the people who operate in terms of that culture. Jesus knew this. When He wanted to get across important points, He aimed at the worldview level. Someone asked, Who is my neighbor? so He told them a story and then asked who was being neighborly (Luke 10:29-37). He was leading them to reconsider and, hopefully, change a basic value deep down in their system. On another occasion Jesus said, You have heard that it was said, Love your friends, hate your enemies. But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too (Matt 5:39,43,44, GNB). Again the seeds were being planted for change at the deep worldview level. Deep-level change frequently throws things off balance. Any imbalance at the worldview center of a culture tends to cause difficulty through the rest of the culture. For example, the U.S. believed at the worldview level that she could not be defeated in war, but then did not win in Vietnam. In the following years, a deep sense of demoralization rippled throughout the society, contributing greatly to the disequilibrium of the era. Well-meaning people can cause major worldview problems when they introduce good changes and apply them at the surface level without due attention to the deep-level meanings people attach to them. For example, the missionary requirement that Africans with more than one wife must divorce the extras before they can be baptized leads both Christian and non-christian Africans to certain worldview assumptions concerning the Christian God. Among these are: God is against the real leaders of African society, God is not in favor of women having help and companionship around the home, God wants men to be enslaved to a single wife (like whites seem to be), and God favors divorce, social irresponsibility and even prostitution. None of these conclusions is irrational or far-fetched from their point of view. Though we believe God intends that each man have only one wife, this change was forced too quickly, unlike God s patient approach in the Old Testament where He took many generations to do away with the custom. Even good changes, if they are introduced in a wrong way can lead to cultural degradation or even immorality. Among the Ibibio people of southern Nigeria, the message of God s forgiveness resulted in many people turning to the Christian God because He was seen as more lenient than their traditional god. The converts saw no need to be righteous, since they believed God would always forgive them of whatever they did. In aboriginal Australia, among the Yir Yoront people, missionaries introduced steel axes to replace the traditional stone axes. This had a powerful disruptive effect simply because the axes were

24 404 Chapter 64 Culture, worldview and contextualization given to the women and younger men, who traditionally were required to borrow axes from the older men. This change, though providing the people with better technology, challenged their worldview assumptions. It lead to the destruction of the authority of the leaders, widespread social disruption and the near extinction of the people. Contextualized (Appropriate) Christianity The aim of Christian witness is to see people come to Christ and to be formed into groups we call churches that are both biblically and culturally appropriate. The process by which the church becomes inculturated in the life of a people has been called indigenization, but now is more frequently referred to as contextualization. The contextualization of Chris- The gospel is to be tianity is part and parcel of the New will sprout within Testament record. and be nourished by This is the process that the apostles were involved in as they took the Christian message that in the cultural soil of had come to them in the Aramaic language and culture and communicated it to those who spoke Greek. In order to contextualize Christianity for Greek speakers, the apostles expressed Christian truth in the thought patterns of their receptors. Indigenous words and concepts were used (and transformed in their usage) to deal with topics such as God, church, sin, conversion, repentance, initiation, word (logos) and most other areas of Christian life and practice. The early Greek churches were in danger of being dominated by Jewish religious practices because those who led them were Jews. God, however, led the apostle Paul and others to struggle against the Jewish Christians to develop a contextualized Christianity for Greek-speaking Gentiles. In order to do this, Paul had to fight a running battle with many of the Jewish church leaders who felt that it was the job of Christian preachers to simply impose Jewish theological concepts on new planted as a seed that the rain and nutrients the receiving peoples. converts (see Acts 15). These conservative Jews were the heretics against whom Paul fought for the right for Greek-speaking Christians to have the gospel expressed in their language and culture. We conclude from such passages as Acts 10 and 15 that it is the intent of God that biblical Christianity be reincarnated in every language and culture at every point in history. Biblically, the contextualization of Christianity is not simply to be the passing on of a product that has been developed once for all in Europe or America. It is, rather, the imitating of the process that the early apostles went through. To return to our tree analogy, Christianity is not supposed to be like a tree that was nourished and grew in one society and then was transplanted to a new cultural environment, with leaves, branches and fruit that mark it indelibly as a product of the sending society. The gospel is to be planted as a seed that will sprout within and be nourished by the rain and nutrients in the cultural soil of the receiving peoples. What sprouts from true gospel seed may look quite different above ground from the way it looked in the sending society, but beneath the ground at the worldview level, the roots are to be the same and the life comes from the same source. In a truly contextualized church, the essential message will be the same and the central doctrines of our faith will be in clear focus, since they are based on the same Bible. The formulation of that message and the relative prominence of many of the issues addressed will differ from society to society, though. For instance, what the Bible says about family relationships, fear and evil spirits, and the advocacy of dance and prescribed rituals will be much more apparent in contextualized African Christianity than in America. Though many non-western churches today are dominated by Western approaches to doctrine and worship, it is not scriptural that they remain so. There are, of course, similar basic problems (e.g., the problem of sin, the need for a relationship with Christ) that peoples of all societies need to deal with, but those problems need to be approached in different, culturally appropriate ways for each cultural group. Christianity should be perceived as excitingly relevant to the problems people struggle with in their context.

25 Charles H. Kraft 405 Contextualizing Christianity is Very Risky There are great risks involved in attempting to promote a Christianity that is relevant culturally and appropriate biblically. The risk of syncretism is always present. Syncretism is the mixing of Christian assumptions with those worldview assumptions that are incompatible with Christianity so that the result is not biblical Christianity. Syncretism exists whenever people practice Christian rituals because they consider them magic, or use the Bible to cast spells on people or, as in India, consider Jesus just another of many human mani-festations of one of their deities, or as in Latin America, practice pagan divination and witchcraft right in the churches, or insist that people convert to a different culture to become Christians. In America it is syncretistic, unbiblical Christianity that sees the American way of life as identical with biblical Christianity or assumes that by generating enough faith we can pressure God into giving us whatever we want, or that we should out of love and tolerance regard homosexuality and even homosexual marriage to go unopposed despite clear biblical condemnations. There are at least two paths to syncretism. One is by importing foreign expressions of the faith and allowing the receiving people to attach their own worldview assumptions to these practices. The result is a kind of nativistic Christianity or even, as in Latin America, Christo-paganism. Roman Catholic missionaries, especially, have fallen into this trap by assuming that when people practice so-called Christian rituals and use Christian terminology, those behaviors have the same meanings that the missionaries ascribe to them. The other way to syncretism is to so dominate a receiving people s practice of Christianity that the surface-level practices and the deep-level assumptions are imported. The result is a totally foreign, unadapted kind of Christianity that requires people to worship and practice their faith according to foreign patterns. New believers develop a special set of worldview assumptions for church situations that they largely ignore in the rest of their lives. Their traditional worldview remains almost untouched by biblical principles. This is the kind of Christianity some evangelical Protestants have advocated, probably out of a fear of the first kind of syncretism. In many situations, this kind of Christianity attracts some of those who are westernizing. But masses of traditional people find little or nothing in Christianity that meets their needs, simply because it is presented and practiced in foreign ways to which they cannot connect. Though the risk of syncretism is always present when Christians attempt to inculturate Though the risk of syncretism is always present when Christians attempt to inculturate Christianity, it is a risk that needs to be taken in order that people experience New Testament Christianity. Christianity, it is a risk that needs to be taken in order that people experience New Testament Christianity. Whether in a pioneer situation or after a foreign brand of our faith has been practiced for years, the quest for a vital, dynamic, biblical, contextualized Christianity will require experimenting with new, culturally and biblically appropriate ways of understanding, presenting and practicing the faith which once and for all God has given to his people (Jude 3, GNB). It will especially require attention to what is going on at the worldview level. To this end the insights of anthropologists into culture and worldview can be harnessed to enable us to advocate a Christianity that is truly contextualized, truly relevant and truly meaningful. Understanding Culture Aids Contextualization Understandings of culture and worldview such as those presented above have helped us greatly in our attempts to understand what biblical and cultural appropriateness means. Among the understandings that have come from such studies are the following: 1. God loves people as they are culturally. The Bible shows us that He is willing to work within everyone s culture and language

26 406 Chapter 64 Culture, worldview and contextualization without requiring them to convert to another culture. 2. The cultures and languages of the Bible are not special, God-made cultures and languages. They are normal human (indeed pagan) cultures and languages, just like any of the more than 6,000 cultures and languages in our world today. The Bible demonstrates that God can use any pagan culture (even Greek or American) with its language to convey His messages to humans. 3. The Bible shows that God worked with His people in culturally appropriate ways. He took customs already in use and invested them with new meaning, guiding people to use them for His purposes and on the basis of new worldview understandings. Among such customs are circumcision, baptism, worship on mountains, sacrifice, the synagogue, the temple, anointing and praying. God wants churches today to be culturally appropriate, using most of the customs of a people but attaching new meaning to them by using them for God s purposes. In this way, people get changed at the worldview level as well as at the surface. 4. God s work within a culture never leaves that culture unchanged. God changes people first, then through them the cultural structures. Whatever changes are to take place in the structures are to be made by the people themselves on the basis of their understandings of the Scriptures and God s workings in their lives, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, not pressured by an outsider. 5. We are to follow scripture and risk the use of receptor-culture forms. Though contextualization within a new culture risks a nativistic kind of syncretism, a Christianity that is dominated by foreign cultural forms with imported meanings is anti-scriptural and just as syncretistic. References Kraft, Charles H. Anthropology for Christian Witness. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, Kraft, Charles H. Christianity in Culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, Study Questions 1. Describe the difference between culture and worldview using Kraft s river illustration. 2. Explain the importance of the distinction between culture and society. 3. Why does Kraft describe contextualizng of Christianity as risky?

27 Going Too Far? Phil Parshall Contextualization issues deal with what messengers of the gospel do to adapt their message, resulting churches and even themselves to new cultural contexts. What follows is Phil Parshall s concern that some missionaries were going too far in their contextualization efforts. In this article, he addresses the practice of some missionaries who were actually becoming Muslims in order to win Muslims. This article set off a healthy debate among mission practioners which continues today. The discussion has helped identify and distinguish important issues related to reaching Muslims. For example, it has become clear that the practice of missionaries becoming Muslims is very different from Muslims retaining their cultural identity as Muslims while becoming faithful followers of Christ. Phil Parshall has served as a missionary with SIM (Serving in Mission) for 44 years in Bangladesh and the Philippines. He is the author of 9 books on Islam, including The Cross and the Crescent: Understanding the Muslim Heart and Mind, Bridges To Islam: A Christian Perspective on Folk Islam and Muslim Evangelism: Contemporary Approaches to Contextualization. Used by permission from DANGER! New Directions in Contextualization, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 34:3 (October 1998), published by EMIS, P.O. Box 794, Wheaton, IL Recently I was speaking to a group of young people who are highly motivated about Muslim evangelism. They excitedly told me of a missionary who had shared a new modus operandi for winning the Sons of Ishmael to Christ. This strategy centers around the Christian evangelist declaring himself to be a Muslim. He then participates in the salat or official Islamic prayers within the mosque. The missionary illustrated the concept by mentioning two Asian Christians who have recently undergone legal procedures to officially become Muslims. This was done to become a Muslim to Muslims in order to win Muslims to Christ. Actually taking on a Muslim identity and praying in the mosque is not a new strategy. But legally becoming a Muslim definitely moves the missionary enterprise into uncharted territory. I address this issue with a sense of deep concern. Contextualization Continuum John Travis,* a long-term missionary among Muslims in Asia, has put us in his debt by formulating a simple categorization for contextualization within Islamic outreach. (See The C1 C6 Spectrum on the next page). Some years ago, a well-known professor of Islam alluded to my belief that Muslim converts could and should remain in the mosque following conversion. Quickly I corrected him, stating that I have never held that position, either in my speaking or writing. My book, Beyond the Mosque, deals extensively with the issue of why, when and how a convert must disassociate himself or herself from the mosque (though not from Muslim community per se). Chapter

28 664 Chapter 109 going too far? I do, however, make room for a transitional period wherein the new believer, while maturing in his adopted faith, slowly pulls back from mosque attendance. Too sudden of a departure may spark intense antagonism and subsequent alienation. See 2 Kings 5 for an interesting insight on how Elisha responded to the new convert, Naaman, who brought up the subject of his ongoing presence in the heathen temple of Rimmon. When, in 1975, our team of missionaries commenced a C4 strategy (highly contextualized, but believers are no longer seen as Muslims by the Muslim community) in an Asian Muslim country, we faced considerable opposition. One long term Christian worker in an The C-Spectrum John J. Travis A Practical Tool for Defining Six Types of Christ-Centered Communities Found in Muslim Contexts John J. Travis (a pseudonym) and his family have been involved in planting contextualized congregations among Muslims in Asia for the past 22 years. Along with his wife, he has authored articles for a number of books and journals and frequently teaches and trains in many countries on the topics of contextualization, healing and sharing the love of Jesus with Muslims. The C1-C6 Spectrum compares and contrasts types of Christcentered communities (groups of believers in Christ) found in the Muslim world. The six types in the spectrum are differentiated by language, culture, worship forms, degree of freedom to worship with others, and religious identity. All follow Jesus as Lord and the core elements of the gospel are the same from group to group. The spectrum attempts to address the enormous diversity that exists throughout the Muslim world in terms of ethnicity, history, traditions, language, culture, and in some cases, theology. This diversity means that myriad approaches are needed to successfully share the gospel and to plant Christ-centered communities among the world s 1.3 billion Muslims. The purpose of the spectrum is to assist church planters and Muslim background believers to ascertain which type of Christ-centered communities may draw the most people from the intended group to Christ and best fit in a given context. All six types are presently found in some part of the Muslim world. Features of Christcentered Communities C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 Traditional church Using culture, both language and other forms, which are foreign to local Muslim culture. Traditional church Using culture foreign to local Muslim culture, but using daily language. Contextualized community Using local cultural forms. Rejecting Islamic religious forms. Contextualized community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable Islamic forms. Community remaining within Muslim community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable and reinterpreted Islamic forms. No visible community. Secret believers may or may not be active in religious life of Muslim community. Socio-Religious Self-Identity of Believers Christian Christian Christian Follower of Jesus Muslim Follower of Jesus Private follower of Jesus Muslim Perception Christian Christian Christian A kind of Christian A strange kind of Muslim Muslim Chart adapted by the editors from Massey (2000), God s Amazing Diversity in Drawing Muslims to Christ, International Journal of Frontier Mission 17:1. Used by permission.

29 phil parshall 665 Islamic land told me basically, You are on a dangerous slide. Next you will be denying the cross. Well, 23 years later, we are still at C4 and still preaching the cross. And the Lord has greatly honored our efforts in that country. But now I am the one to protest the slide, not by our team, but by others who are ministering in various parts of the Muslim world. This slide is incremental and can be insidiously deceptive, especially when led by people of highest motivation. Now, it seems to me, we need to bring these issues before our theologians, missiologists and administrators. Let us critique them before we suddenly find that we have arrived at a point which is indisputably sub-christian. C1 Traditional Church Using a Language Different from the Daily Language of the Surrounding Muslim Community. May be Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. Some predate Islam. Thousands of C1 churches are found in Muslim lands today. Many reflect Western culture. A huge cultural chasm often exists between the church and the surrounding Muslim community. Some Muslim background believers may be found in C1 churches. C1 believers call themselves Christians. C2 Traditional Church Using the Daily Language of the Surrounding Muslim Community. Essentially the same as C1 except for language. Though the daily language is used, religious vocabulary is probably non-islamic (distinctively Christian ). The cultural gap between Muslims and C2 is still large. Often more Muslim background believers are found in C2 than C1. The majority of churches located in the Muslim world today are C1 or C2. C2 believers call themselves Christians. C3 Contextualized Community Using the Daily Language of the Surrounding Muslim Community and Some Non-Muslim Local Cultural Forms. Religiously neutral forms may include folk music, ethnic dress, artwork, etc. Islamic elements (where present) are filtered out so as to use purely cultural forms. The aim is to reduce foreignness of the gospel and the church by contextualizing to biblically acceptable cultural forms. May meet in a church building or more religiously neutral location. C3 congregations are comprised of a majority of Muslim background believers. C3 believers call themselves Christians. C4 Contextualized Community Using the Daily Language and Biblically Acceptable Socio-religious Islamic Forms. Similar to C3, however, biblically acceptable Islamic religious forms and practices are also utilized (e.g., praying with raised hands, keeping the fast, avoiding pork, alcohol, having dogs as pets, using Islamic terms, dress, etc.). Foreign forms are avoided. Meetings not held in church buildings. C4 communities comprised almost entirely of Muslim background believers. C4 believers are seen as a kind of Christian by the Muslim community. C4 believers identify themselves as followers of Isa the Messiah (or something similar). C5 Community of Muslims Who Follow Jesus Yet Remain Culturally and Officially Muslim. C5 believers remain legally and socially within the community of Islam. Somewhat similar to the Messianic Jewish movement, aspects of Islamic theology which are incompatible with the Bible are rejected or reinterpreted if possible. Participation in corporate Islamic worship varies from person to person and group to group. C5 believers meet regularly with other C5 believers and share their faith with unsaved Muslims. Unsaved Muslims may see C5 believers as theologically deviant and may eventually expel them from the community of Islam. C5 believers are viewed as Muslims by the Muslim community and think of themselves as Muslims who follow Isa the Messiah. C6 Secret or Underground Muslim Followers of Jesus with Little or No Visible Community. Similar to persecuted believers suffering under totalitarian regimes. Due to fear, isolation or threat of extreme governmental/community legal action or retaliation (including capital punishment), C6 believers worship Christ secretly (individually or perhaps infrequently in small clusters). Many come to Christ through dreams, visions, miracles, radio broadcasts, tracts, Christian witness while abroad, or reading the Bible on their own initiative. C6 (as opposed to C5) believers are usually silent about their faith. C6 is not ideal; God desires his people to witness and have regular fellowship (Heb 10:25). Nonetheless C6 believers are part of our family in Christ. Though God may call some to a life of suffering, imprisonment or martydom, He may be pleased to have some worship Him in secret, at least for a time. C6 believers are perceived as Muslims by the Muslim community and identify themselves as Muslims.

30 666 Chapter 109 going too far? A Ministry Experiment We do have help. In a very limited and remote geographical area in Asia, a C5 experiment ( Messianic Muslims who follow Isa (Jesus) the Messiah and are accepted by Muslims as Muslims) has been ongoing for many years. This ministry provides us with a pretty solid baseline for evaluation, even though it has experienced significant personnel changes over the years. Recently, researchers visited Islampur* to examine the C5 movement there. They found that this movement numbers in the thousands. On one hand, the findings are very encouraging. Nearly all of the key people interviewed indicated a very strong value on reading the New Testament and meeting regularly for Christian worship. Most would say that Allah loves and forgives them because Jesus died for them. They pray to Jesus for forgiveness. Virtually all believe that Jesus is the only Savior, and is able to save people from evil spirits. On the other hand, nearly all say there are four heavenly books, i.e., Torah, Zabur, Injil, and Qur an (This is standard Muslim belief, i.e., Law, Prophets, Gospels, and Qur an) of which the Qur an is the greatest. Nearly half continue to go to the traditional mosque on Friday where they participate in the standard Islamic prayers which affirm Muhammad as a prophet of God. Contextualization or Syncretism? What do we have here? Contextualization or syncretism? Is this a model to follow or avoid? Certainly there is an openness and potential here that is expansive and exciting. But whereas a C5 advocate is happy to keep it all within an Islamic religious environment, I am not. Can the Mosque Be Redeemed? The mosque is pregnant with Islamic theology. There, Muhammad is affirmed as a prophet of God and the divinity of Christ is consistently denied. Uniquely Muslim prayers (salat) are ritually performed as in no other religion. These prayers are as sacramental to Muslims as partaking of the Lord s Supper is to Christians. How would we feel if a Muslim attended (or even joined) our evangelical church and partook of communion all with a view to becoming an insider? This accomplished, he then begins to promote Islam and actually win our parishioners over to his religious persuasion. Even C4 is open to a Muslim charge of deceit. But I disagree and see it as a proper level of indigenization. We have not become a subversive element within the mosque, seeking to undermine its precepts and practices. C5, to me, seems to do just that and opens us to the charge of unethical and sub- Christian activity. In my former country of ministry, our team had an agreement that none of us would go into a mosque and engage in the Islamic prayers. One of our group, however, wanted to secretly experiment with saying the salat. One Friday he traveled to a remote village and became friendly with the Muslims there. Harry* expressed his desire to learn how to perform the rituals and forms of the prayers. The Muslim leaders were quite excited to see that a foreigner wanted to learn about Islam. They gave Harry the necessary

31 phil parshall 667 instruction. At 1 p.m. our missionary was found in the front row of the mosque going through all the bowing and prostrations of the salat. No matter that he was silently praying to Jesus. No one knew. After worship, the Muslim villagers all came up to Harry and congratulated him on becoming a Muslim. Embarrassed, Harry explained that he was a follower of Isa (Jesus) and that he just wanted to learn about Islam. Immediately, upon hearing these words, the crowd became very angry. Harry was accused of destroying the sanctity of the mosque. Someone yelled that he should be killed. A riot was about to break out. The local imam sought to pacify the crowd by admitting that he had mistakenly taught the foreigner how to do the prayers. He asked forgiveness from his fellow Muslims. It was then decided that Harry should leave that village immediately and never return. Another experience relates to Bob,* a very intelligent, productive, and spiritually oriented missionary to Muslims. We met together at a conference and exchanged letters and at least one cassette tape over several years. My great concern was that he openly and dogmatically affirmed Muhammad as a prophet of God. To me, Bob had crossed the line into syncretism. Perhaps his motives were pure, but this progression of identification with Muslims had gone much too far. Today Bob is out of ministry and divorced from his wife. Guidelines In 1979, I wrote the following guidelines to help us avoid syncretism while engaged in Muslim evangelism. Nineteen years later, I reaffirm (and reemphasize) these principles. 1. Islam as a religion and culture must be studied in depth. 2. An open approach is desired. Careful experimentation in contextualization need not lead to syncretism as long as one is aware of all the dangers. 3. We must be acquainted with biblical teaching on the subject of syncretism. New Testament passages on the uniqueness of Christ should be carefully observed. 4. Contextualization needs constant monitoring and analysis. What are the people really thinking? What does the contextualized communication convey? What do specific forms trigger in the mind of the new convert? Is there progress in the grasp of biblical truth? Are the people becoming demonstrably more spiritual? 5. Cross-cultural communicators must beware of presenting a gospel which has been syncretized with Western culture. The accretions to Christianity that have built up over the centuries as a result of the West s being the hub of Christianity should be avoided as far as possible. Conclusion No, I am not maligning the motivation of godly missionaries who are practicing and promoting C5 as an appropriate strategy to win Muslims to Christ. Several of these Christian workers are my friends. They long to see a breakthrough in Muslim evangelism. Their personal integrity is unquestioned. But, yes, I am apprehensive. Where does all this lead us? In that earlier mentioned conference, one young Muslim convert came up to me and said he had followed the lead of the missionary speaker. He went in the local mosque and told the imam that he is a Muslim and wanted to learn more of Islam. His secret goal was to build a relationship with the imam. I asked Abdul* how he felt about what he did. With a look of pain and sadness, he replied that he felt very badly about it and would not do it again. Let s bring the subject out in the open and dialogue together. *pseudonym Study Questions 1. What are the encouraging things Parshall saw in the C-5 experiment? What gave him concerns of syncretism? Why? 2. How does Parshall make allowances for new believers from Muslim communities to avoid sparking alienation and antagonism? 3. Where does Parshall draw the line (on the C-Spectrum) on where contextualization ends and syncretism begins? Do you agree with him?

32 Insider Movements Retaining Identity and Preserving Community Rebecca Lewis Insider movements can be defined as movements to obedient faith in Christ that remain integrated with or inside their natural community. In any insider movement there are two essential dynamics: 1. Continued community. The gospel takes root within pre-existing communities or social networks in such a way that no new social structures are needed, invented or introduced. Believers are not gathered from diverse social networks to create a church. Instead, believers in the pre-existing community become the main expression of church in that context. 2. Retained identity. Believers retain their identity as members of their socio-religious community while living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible. 1 Take a closer look at these two dynamics: Dynamic One: Pre-Existing Communities Become the Church How can the gospel take root within pre-existing communities in such a way that the community or network becomes the main expression of church in that context? To understand why this factor is important in insider movements, let s contrast planting a church with implanting a church. 2 Planting Churches Typically, when people plant a church they work to create a new social group. Individual believers, often strangers to one another, are gathered together into new fellowship groups. Church planters try to help these individual believers become like a family or a community. This pattern of aggregate church planting can work well enough in individualistic Western societies. However, in community-based societies, when believers are taken out of their families into new social structures the affected families usually perceive the new group as having stolen their family member. The spread of the gospel is then understandably opposed. Rebecca Lewis has worked with her husband in Muslim ministries for 30 years, eight of which were spent in North Africa. She has also taught history at the university level for the last eight years. Implanting the Gospel In contrast to how churches are planted, insider movements can be considered to be implanted when the Gospel takes root within a pre-existing community. Like yeast, the Gospel spreads within the community. No longer does a newly formed church group try to become like a family. Instead, Chapter

33 674 Chapter 111 insider movements believers within their pre-existing family or community network gradually learn how to provide spiritual fellowship for each other. This network of believers within their family and community forms the core of an implanted church. The strong relational bonds already exist; what is new is their commitment to Jesus Christ. Implanted movements are not necessarily more contextualized than planted churches. Even if the new church is very close to the culture, the creation of a new structure often unnecessarily distances believers from their families. 3 Continuing Communities: Is it Biblical? Households such as those of Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer became the relational core of many of the churches that we see in the New Testament. These and other examples feature families and larger social communities following Christ together. Some have seen the redemption of preexisting communities as fulfillment of God s promise to Abraham that in his descendents all the families would be blessed (Gen 12:3, 28:14). When entire families and clans are not broken apart, but instead transformed and fulfilled by Christ, the larger society in which these movements flourish can be blessed and transformed in significant ways. The Gospel is not seen as a threat and thus it flows more easily into neighboring relational networks. Dynamic Two: Believers Retain Their Socio-Religious Identity In many countries today, it is almost impossible for a new follower of Christ to remain in vital relationship with their community without also retaining their socio-religious identity. In these places, the word Christian is not understood as referring to sincere believers in Jesus Christ. Instead, the term Christian calls to mind a socio-religio-political category. One s religious identity (Muslim, Christian, Hindu, etc.) is often written on one s identity card at birth. Changing one s identity from Muslim or Hindu to Christian is usually seen as a great betrayal of one s family and friends. Making such a change is often illegal or impossible, or at best, thought to be quite scandalous. Nevertheless, the gospel can spread freely in such places through insider movements. Insider believers have a new spiritual identity, living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible, but they retain their socio-religious identity. Retaining Identity: Is it Biblical? Does one have to go through Christianity to enter God s family? The New Testament addresses a nearly identical question: Do all believers in Jesus Christ have to go through Judaism in order to enter God s family? It is important to realize that for both questions, the nature of the gospel itself is at stake. The Kingdom Circles sidebar illustrates the issue. The woman at the well at first refused Jesus offer of eternal life because as a Samaritan, she could not go to the temple or become a Jew. But Jesus distinguished true faith from religious affiliation, saying God was seeking true worshipers who worship the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:19-24). Realizing that Jesus was the Savior of the world (v. 42) and not just of the Jews, many Samaritans in her town believed. Based on what Jesus had told the woman at the well, it is very likely that these new followers retained their Samaritan community and identity. Later, the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles that the Gentile believers did not have to go through Judaism in order to enter God s family. In Antioch, Jewish believers were telling Gentile believers they must comply with Jewish culture and traditions to be fully acceptable to God. Disagreeing, Paul brought this issue to the lead apostles in Jerusalem. The issue was hotly debated because the Jews had believed for centuries that conversion to the Jewish religion was required to be part of the people of God. But the Holy Spirit showed the apostles they should not burden Gentile followers of Christ with Jewish religious traditions (Acts 15). To make this decision, the apostles used two criteria: the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles coming to Christ and the guidance of Scripture. First, they heard that the Holy Spirit had descended on Gentile believers who were not practicing the Jewish religion. Second, they realized the Scriptures had predicted that this would happen. These two criteria were

34 Rebecca Lewis 675 sufficient for the apostles to conclude that God was behind this new movement of believers who were retaining their Gentile cultural identity. Therefore, they did not oppose it or add on demands for religious conversion. If we use the same two criteria today, insider movements affirm that people do not have to go through the religion of Christianity. Instead, they only need to go through Jesus Christ to enter God s family. Paul wanted people to understand that this truth has been part of the gospel from the beginning. He pointed out that God promised Abraham that all people groups would receive the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Gal 3:8-26). As a result, when Peter and Barnabas consented to the demand of Kingdom Circles A simple diagram can help distinguish between socioreligious identity and the altogether essential spiritual identity of believing in and following Jesus Christ. If the Kingdom of God can be represented as a circle of those who are obedient, believing followers of Jesus Christ, we can portray the idea that only some of those who were participants in Judaism in New Testament times were Jewish people following Christ as Lord and therefore had entered the Kingdom of God (A). Not everyone who was Jewish in that day became part of the Kingdom of God (B). Many Gentiles of that day followed Jesus Christ as Lord and entered the Kingdom of God (C). It s important to note that many Gentiles did not follow Christ or enter the Kingdom (D). But one way to portray the issue facing church leaders in Acts 15 was this: Is it necessary for Gentiles to go through Judaism in order to enter the Kingdom of God (E)? If we ask the same question today, we will have to begin by recognizing that while many people who adhere to Christian culture and family traditions have obediently believed in Christ and have entered the Kingdom of God (F), many others are Christians in name only and have not entered the Kingdom of God, even though they may be members in good standing of Christian churches (G). This raises a similar question: Is it necessary for people with a non-christian identity to go through Christian identity and culture in order to become part of the Kingdom of God (H)? How this question is answered helps us recognize that many people with a non-christian socioreligious identity may be entering the Kingdom of God by becoming wholly devoted, obedient believing followers of Jesus Christ while retaining their socio-religious identity and community relationships (I). traditionalists that Gentiles be re quired to follow their Jewish religious customs, Paul publicly rebuked them for not acting in line with the truth of the gospel (Gal 2:14-21). Paul warned that to add religious conversion to following Christ would nullify the gospel. He also affirmed that not through any religion, but through the gospel the Gentiles are made heirs together in the promise of Christ Jesus (Eph 3:6). Therefore, a person can gain a new spiritual identity without leaving one s birth identity, without taking on a Christian label, and without affiliating with the traditions and institutions of Christianity. Let the nations be glad that they too have direct access to God through Jesus Christ! This is the power of the gospel! d i m Kingdom d i m Kingdom A C i i ni d i m F Kingdom G B d i m E D n i Through Jewish culture? H Through Christian culture? on i i n

35 676 Chapter 111 insider movements Three Kinds of Movements Rick Brown and Steven C. Hawthorne Three distinct types of movements to Christ have been described in the last century: people movements, church planting movements and insider movements. Insider Movements Becky Lewis defines insider movements as having two essential dynamics: continuing community and retained socio-religious identity. Her definition helps us see what is similar and different in the three different kinds of movements. All three types of movements rightly claim to describe the gospel flourishing within pre-existing social networks or natural communities. All three celebrate the hallmark of new spiritual identity as members of the kingdom of God and disciples of Jesus Christ. But there are differences when we look closely at how the two dynamics of community and identity are seen to work. Let s consider each of the three kinds of movements with these two dynamics in mind. People Movements People movements were identified by J. Waskom Pickett in the 1930s in India, although he called them mass movements. They were later analyzed and popularized by Donald McGavran in the 1950s. The basic phenomenon observed was the decision by whole communities to become Christians together. Although the focus was Christ McGavran often referred to them as Christward movements the intact social network was expected to leave behind their former socioreligious affiliation in order to take on a traditional Christian social identity. People movements are still occurring, although they are rarely publicized. With respect to community, people movements are famous for encouraging entire families, clans, tribes and caste communities to become Christians together. With respect to religious affiliation and identity, they are expected to make a clear break. McGavran often spoke of the need to Christianize whole peoples. Church Planting Movements Church planting movements were noticed and designated in the 1990s. The most prominent feature of these movements is ongoing multiplication, enhanced by radically simple church structure and empowered by natural leaders of the community, who sustain and extend the movements. Within reached peoples in which there is a respected Christian identity, church planting movements have been documented to bring millions of people to vibrant faith. They have also exploded among many unreached people settings in which they usually create new church structures. Even though the churches are usually simple house groups with non-professional lay leadership, they are generally viewed as totally new social structures within the larger community. According to David Garrison, believers make a clean break with their former religion and redefine themselves with a distinctly Christian identity. 4 People movements Church Planting movements Insider movements Natural communities follow Christ together Yes Usually Yes Community Followers of Christ become part of new structure or church Spiritual identity as Christ followers Identity Socio-religious identity changed to become Christian Usually Yes Usually Yes Yes Usually Rarely Yes Rarely Rick Brown is a Bible scholar and missiologist. He has been involved in outreach in Africa and Asia since Steven C. Hawthorne spent years working with teams doing research among unreached peoples in Asia and the Middle East. Endnotes 1. Lewis 2007, Promoting Movements to Christ within Natural Communities, p. 75, International Journal of Frontier Missiology 24:2. 2. In both cases, the assumption is being made that a church is not a building, institution, or meeting, but a functional local community of mutually supportive believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 3. Some people equate C5 churches with insider movements. However, not all C5 communities result in insider movements. For an insider movement to occur, C5 believers must remain genuine members of their family and community networks, not creating odd or competing religious institutions or events. 4. Garrison 2004, Church Planting Movements vs. Insider Movements, p.154, International Journal of Frontier Missions 21:4.

36 ken harkin and ted moore The Zaraban Breakthrough Ken Harkin and Ted Moore 687 Ken Harkin and Ted Moore worked together as part of a multi-agency team dedicated to seeing a following for Christ established among the Zaraban people. Ted passed away while serving the Zaraban people. Ken and others continue in the work. The following account of a breakthrough in a Muslim country is told in the words of a fellow missionary, Ted Moore. I (Ken) served as a member of Ted s team of mission workers that has prayed and labored in the Zaraban region since The events recounted here took place in The names of the people and the ethnic group have been changed. One of the first believers from the Zaraban, a man named Abdul, began to follow Christ in the late 1980 s. It s worth noting that most of the Zaraban people group dwell in a remote area that has been very supportive of fundamentalist expressions of Islam. Young men from this area have been recruited and trained to fight in jihad, or Islamic holy war, in nearby countries. One of the key figures in this story is Rashad, one of Abdul s brothers. At the time of this story, Rashad had recently returned from training as a jihadist warrior in a neighboring land. Not long after these events, Ted contracted a disease that was difficult to treat in the region in which he was working. Ted died within a few days. He was in his forties. What follows is an edited version of one of his final newsletters to his supporting friends and family. This letter represents not only the observations of Ted and myself, but also some details as told to us by the family in the days and weeks that followed. When Abdul first came to stay in our home, his father asked me to take a guiding role in his son s life. I agreed and told him that would include teaching Abdul about faith in Jesus the Messiah, to which the father agreed. Since that time, five years ago, our vision and prayer has been that the whole family would join Abdul in following the Savior. Likewise, Ken, my co-worker who continued In his dream he saw a man dressed in white with his arms outstretched. The man told him that he had a special gift for him and was sending messengers. discipling Abdul in that first year while Sarah and I were out of the country, had the same desire and vision for the family. Once during a wedding, family members told Ken that they were hopeful that through ghusl (baptism) in the name of Jesus they would be freed from the fear of jinns (demons). Over the years we had befriended Abdul s family, Ken and I had journeyed several times from the city where we live to his family home in a remote rural area. It was especially important to be with his family during the holiday of Eid when an animal is sacrificed to remember Abraham s willingness to offer his son. What follows is the story of our most recent visit. We had to overcome difficult scheduling conflicts but were finally able to arrive on a Sunday morning the day before the big holiday. We arrived just in time to discover and participate in what God had already been doing in our absence. Rashad s Letter and Dream As we prepared for this journey, we had been pondering a letter from Abdul s brother, Rashad, that I had received two weeks earlier. Rashad had always wanted to become a Muslim religious leader. His letter was full of positive statements about how we prayed, how often we prayed and God s answers to our prayers. He mentioned the changes in Abdul s life and character. At that time he was reading our Muslim-friendly Biography of Jesus. He asked some specific questions about the wording of a particular passage of Scripture and ended his letter with the following: I want to become one of you. Please guide me. We were unsure what he really

37 688 Chapter 114 the zaraban breakthrough meant, remembering some of the heated debates we had with him in past encounters. Before leaving, Ken and Abdul spent time in prayer. In the middle of prayer, they both felt very inspired to pray for God to move in a special way on the trip. Ken specifically felt led to pray for a miracle that would bring the entire family of 16 people to faith in Jesus. Our little car performed its heroics once again, getting us there late Saturday night. Private travel without a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle is usually not recommended in the interior of this region. We surprised everyone in Abdul s family when we arrived about 6:45 a.m. After breakfast, Rashad was eager to sit us down and talk about the letter he had sent. He began by telling us about a dream he had just that previous night, while we were still en route. In his dream he saw a man dressed in white with his arms outstretched. The man told him that he had a special gift for him and was sending messengers who would guide him to it. And now here we were before him! Rashad shared many things with us, including the fact that he now believed jihad was wrong and that a way of love was the path of truth and power. The Verdict: We will all follow the way of Jesus! He spoke about things Jesus said in the Scriptures regarding false worship that had impressed him how our worship is worthless if in the midst of it we remember a brother wronged and don t leave our worship to be reconciled. He reiterated that he wanted to become one of us, following the path of Christ and requested that we guide him. Ken asked, What do you feel is the next step to follow Jesus? Rashad replied that the rest of the family should hear that he was ready to follow Jesus so that they could follow Him too. Ken and I looked at each other with stares of disbelief and recovered enough to say, Uh, right. That s a good idea. You do that and we ll sit in the other room and pray. The family women, children, everybody quickly gathered and we prayed in another room. Soon, Rashad returned with the verdict: Yes, we will all follow the way of Jesus the Messiah! More Famous than Pepsi After that, Rashad escorted me into town so I could use a phone to call my wife, Sarah. He told me about how he had been gathering some of his friends in the past few weeks explaining to them about the way of the Messiah especially about real prayer that wasn t just for show. Many were very interested. More shock. As we arrived at the long distance telephone facility in the village, Rashad pointed out the Pepsi sign across the street. Then he said, You know this name, Pepsi, is more famous around the world than the name of Jesus. We must overcome our weaknesses and compete with them so that His name becomes more famous than Pepsi. In the meantime the family who owned the establishment brought us some cold RC cola drinks. Rashad said, RC is okay, but no more Pepsi for me! The Critical Moment While we were in the village, Ken had taken the opportunity to give a brief overview of the Gospel of Mark to the rest of the family (some had never heard much of the story of Jesus life before). He explained that ghusl (baptism) is one of the first steps of obedience to enter into the way of Jesus the Messiah. He asked each one individually if they understood and were willing to follow this path. Father, mother, sisters and brothers all of them said, Yes. We arrived back just as Ken had finished giving his quick tour of the gospel of Mark. Ken and I continued to wear stunned facial expressions. We were beginning to feel the weight of what was about to happen next. An entire people group was about to be significantly penetrated with the gospel for the first time in its long history. What we did in these critical moments would likely be repeated for years among the Zaraban. What we encouraged them to do could either adorn the gospel message or create stumbling blocks for many others who would seek to follow Christ in the future. We prayed again. Their obedience needed to be simple and direct. It needed to be culturally and linguistically relevant. It needed to be reproducible locally. It needed to be private but communal within the home, but not as individuals acting alone. It needed to be an act of worship and praise filled with dependence upon the Spirit s power. So we began to map

38 ken harkin and ted moore 689 out our strategy for the next day s baptism ceremony for the whole family that would happen prior to the Eid festivities. Abdul had missed out on all of what had just transpired in his family, because he had been out of town on an errand. Ken and I agreed not to say anything ourselves until his brother had a chance to tell him the good news. When Rashad told Abdul how the family had all decided to follow Jesus, Abdul was stunned. After his brother left the room, Abdul embraced us and praised God through many tears. But there were still some issues. Another brother and his wife had not been present during all this. Ken and I began to worry that he might prevent all we were hoping for. So we urgently told Abdul to go talk with his sister-in-law about all this since the brother was still at work. Abdul gathered his thoughts and went into the kitchen (a mud-walled room with a fire pit in the middle) to talk with her. He began with small talk, played with the baby and nervously got around to the subject. She answered casually, Oh yes, your mother and sister have already explained everything to me. I m part of your family and am ready to do this. When Abdul returned, his amazed look assured us things had gone well, even before he told us what had happened. One last person needed to be told the missing brother. Before we could meet him, we had to first visit Abdul s uncles. This took a couple of hours. When we arrived at the brother s shop, Rashad was already there! I suppose we should have guessed. He had already explained everything to him, and he was agreeable but wanted to ask one question in the morning after his evening shift and before the ceremony. Off with the Old, On with the New The next morning we awoke early to prepare the water containers for the baptism. Abdul s other brother asked his question: Does this mean we are becoming Christians? Abdul knew what he meant. He answered, No, we will not be alcohol drinkers, pork-eaters or try to join with a different ethnic group. We will follow the teachings and life of Jesus the Messiah. Oh, good, he replied. So we all gathered together for the baptism. Ken and I spoke in the national language, and Abdul translated everything into his local dialect. I told them about the sacrifice of the Messiah and how He offered us forgiveness. Ken told them about the resurrection and newness of life, eternal life. Then Ken asked three questions: 1. Are you ready to follow the path of Jesus the Messiah? 2. Are you willing to obey by faith His command to receive ghusl (baptism) and repent? 3. Will you call others to follow this path? Abdul and Rashad s father, a normally reserved man, was leading out with the answers: Yes, Praise the Lord! We will follow this new path! We will receive ghusl. We will call others to join us! All the others joined in heartily. I explained how baptism symbolizes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives and that it is a step of obedience, an act of worship. We had decided that Ken and I would first re-baptize Abdul so the whole family could see. Then the three of us together baptized all the rest, using proper Arabic terminology as is appropriate in most Muslim cultures in religious matters, even if they don t speak Arabic. Ken then told them to change their clothes, and as they did, to picture themselves taking off the old life and putting on the new. This imagery was repeated again and again by several family members over the next two days. Some more questions came. Abdul s father asked, Should we go to the Eid prayers like always or should we stop going? Abdul answered that now these prayers could be done for the right reason, not as a show to others, not as a means of absolution from sin or duty, but out of love and praise for the God who saves and as an opportunity to pray for our community. We all went to prayer together. Then came the time for the ritual sacrifice of a lamb. One of the brothers danced and sang out, I have a new life I have a new life!

39 690 Chapter 114 planting churches Again, Ken and I, with Abdul translating, explained how we could not have planned a more perfect occasion for entering into the path of Jesus the Messiah than this day of sacrifice. It was such an amazing time. Going On in the New Life Later that day, the family called another meeting where they decided which ones among them should receive more training to teach them about their new life. Since Abdul lives and works far away, they picked Rashad to serve them all in this way. He was delighted, because he had always wanted to be a spiritual leader. We laid hands on him and prayed God s blessing on him for this work. They also decided that Rashad and his sister should come and stay at our house for a week at a time every few months, so that the sister would be equipped to teach the ladies as well. That was a very good idea again, we were totally stunned. Many other things happened in the course of that day. Some began to share about the peace they had, others spoke reflecting about their new life. One of the brothers danced and sang out, I have a new life I have a new life! We can t be sure how many hundreds of prayers were answered in the space of those two days. We had never seen such dramatic changes of hearts in so many Muslims all coming to Christ together at a single time. And so we remain amazed to this day. The events of this story touched upon many complex issues of leadership and contextualization in a very short span of time. Two things need to be made clear. First, the events in this story were the culmination of more than 10 years of hard and faithful work by members of several organizations. Second, these events have been followed by many more years of careful work to: develop leaders, dig deeply into scripture, address difficult discipleship and contextualization issues, all the while facing multiple crises. There have been both wonderful breakthroughs and painful setbacks. But the events in this dramatic story should give us great cause for encouragement. Ted closed his letter by rejoicing in the reality that the Resurrected One is present among us and able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think! (Eph 3:20). Planting Churches Learning the Hard Way Tim and Rebecca Lewis Tim and Rebecca Lewis have been active in Muslim ministry for the last 30 years, leading a field team for many years. They are currently involved in leadership as well as discussions about strategy issues. Church planting is easy! we thought. Within a few months of landing in a North African city, we already had a group of men and women meeting in our home. Joining that fellowship were some Muslimbackground believers who had previously come to faith in the Lord through the testimony of others. We lined our living room with couches in the local style, served sweet mint tea and wore djellabas (traditional robes). We hoped a contextualized fellowship could grow into a solid church. Tim, a seminary graduate, functioned as the pastor but rotated leadership. We sang and studied the Bible in English, Arabic and French. The participants came from Berber, Arab, French, Spanish, Scottish and American backgrounds. We even collected an offering for the poor. We thought we had planted a truly multicultural New Testament house church. However, before the year was out, this church was already collapsing. The believers came from all over the city and had little in common. We wanted them to become like a family, but they were not interested. If Tim was gone on a trip, no one came.

40 The New Macedonia A Revolutionary New Era in Mission Begins Ralph D. Winter Donald McGavran commented, At the International Congress on World Evangelization, Dr. Ralph Winter proved beyond any reasonable doubt that in the world today [year 1974] 2,700,000,000 men and women cannot hear the gospel by near neighbor evangelism. They can hear it only by E-2 and E-3 evangelists who cross cultural, linguistic and geographical barriers, patiently learn that other culture and language, across the decades preach the gospel by word and deed, and multiply reproductive and responsible Christian churches. McGavran added, Nothing said at Lausanne had more meaning for the expansion of Christianity between now and the year The following article is the text of Winter s address, given at the July 1974 Lausanne Congress. Ralph D. Winter is the General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF) in Pasadena, CA. After serving ten years as a missionary among Mayan Indians in the highlands of Guatemala, he was called to be a Professor of Missions at the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten years later, he and his late wife, Roberta, founded the mission society called the Frontier Mission Fellowship. This in turn birthed the U.S. Center for World Mission and the William Carey International University, both of which serve those working at the frontiers of mission. In recent years, a serious misunderstanding has crept into the thinking of many evangelicals. Curiously, it is based on a number of wonderful facts. The gospel has now gone to the ends of the earth. Christians have now fulfilled the Great Commission in at least a geographical sense. At this moment of history, we can acknowledge with great respect and pride those evangelists of every nation who have gone before us and whose sacrificial efforts and heroic accomplishments have made Christianity by far the world s largest and most widespread religion, with a Christian church on every continent and in practically every country. This is no hollow victory. Now more than at any time since Jesus walked the shores of Galilee, we know with complete confidence that the gospel is for all men, that it makes sense in any language and that it is not merely a religion of the Mediterranean or of the West. This is all true. On the other hand, many Christians as a result have the impression that the job is now nearly done and that to finish it we need only to forge ahead in local evangelism on the part of the now worldwide church reaching out wherever it has already been planted. Many Christian organizations ranging widely from the World Council of Churches to many U.S. denominations, even some evangelical groups, have rushed to the conclusion that we may now abandon traditional missionary strategy and count on local Christians everywhere to finish the job. This is why evangelism is the one great password to evangelical unity today. Not everyone can agree on foreign mission strategies, but more people than ever agree on evangelism because that seems to be the one obvious job that remains to be done. All right! There is nothing wrong with evangelism. Chapter

41 348 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia Most conversions must inevitably take place as the result of some Christian witnessing to a near neighbor and that is evangelism. The awesome problem is the additional truth that most non-christians in the world today are not culturally near neighbors of any Christians and that it will take a special kind of cross-cultural evangelism to reach them. CROSS-CULTURAL EVANGELISM: THE CRUCIAL NEED Examples of the Need Let us approach this subject with some graphic illustrations. I am thinking, for example, of the hundreds of thousands of Christians in Pakistan. Almost all of them are people who have never been Muslims and do not have the kind of relationship with the Muslim community that encourages witnessing. Yet they live in a country that is 97 percent Muslim! The Muslims, on their part, have bad attitudes toward the stratum of society represented by the Christians. One group of Christians has boldly called itself The Church of Pakistan. Another group of Christians goes by the name The Presbyterian Church of Pakistan. While these are national churches in the sense that they are part of their countries, they can hardly be called national churches if this phrase implies that they are culturally related to that vast bloc of people who constitute the other 97 percent of the country, namely, the Muslims. Thus, although the Muslims are geographically near neighbors of these Christians they are not cultural near-neighbors and thus normal evangelism will not do the job. Or take the Church of South India, a large church which has brought together the significant missionary efforts of many churches over the last century. But while it is called The Church of South India, 95 percent of its members come from only five out of the more than 100 social classes (castes) in South India. Ordinary evangelism on the part of existing Christians will readily persuade men and women of those same five social classes. However, it would be much more difficult it is in fact another kind of evangelism for this church to make great gains within the 95 other social classes which make up the vast bulk of the population. Or take the great Batak church in Northern Sumatra. Here is one of the famous churches of Indonesia. Its members have been doing a great deal of evangelism among fellow Bataks of whom there are still many thousands whom they can reach without learning a foreign language, and among whom they can work with the maximum efficiency of direct contact and understanding. But at the same time, the vast majority of all the people in Indonesia speak other languages and are of other ethnic units. For the Batak Christians of Northern Sumatra to win people to Christ from other parts of Indonesia will be a distinctly different kind of task. It is another kind of evangelism. Or take the great church of Nagaland in Northeast India. Years ago, American missionaries from the plains of Assam reached up into the Naga Hills and won some of the Ao Nagas. Then these Ao Nagas won practically their whole tribe to Christ. Next thing, Ao Nagas won members of the nearby Santdam Naga tribe that spoke a sister language. These new Santdam Naga Christians then proceeded to win almost the whole of their tribe. This process went on until the majority of all 14 Naga tribes became Christian. Now that most of Nagaland is Christian even the officials of the state government are Christian there is the desire to witness elsewhere in India. But for these Nagaland Christians to win other people in India is as much a foreign mission task as it is for Englishmen, Koreans or Brazilians to evangelize in India. This is one reason why it is such a new and unprecedented task for the Nagas to evangelize the rest of India. Indian citizenship is one advantage the Naga Christians have as compared to people from other countries, but citizenship does not make it easier for them to learn any of the hundreds of totally foreign languages in the rest of India. In other words, for Nagas to evangelize other peoples in India, they will need to employ a radically different kind of evangelism. The easiest kind of evangelism, when they used their own language to win their own people, is now mainly in the past. The second kind of evangelism was not a great deal more difficult where they won people of neighboring Naga tribes, whose languages were sister languages. The third kind of evangelism, needed to win people in far-off parts of India, will be much more difficult.

42 Ralph D. Winter 349 Different Kinds of Evangelism Let s give labels to these different kinds of evangelism. Where an Ao Naga won another Ao, let us call that E-1 evangelism. Where an Ao went across a tribal language boundary to a sister language and won the Santdam, we ll call it E-2 evangelism. (the E-2 task is not as easy and requires different techniques.) But then if an Ao Naga goes to another region of India, to a totally strange language, for example, Telegu, Korhu or Bhili, his task will be considerably more difficult than E-1 or even E-2 evangelism. We will call it E-3 evangelism. Let us try out this terminology in another country. Take Taiwan. There, also, there are different kinds of people. The majority are Minnans, who were there before a flood of Mandarin-speaking people came across from the mainland. Then there is the huge bloc of Hakka-speaking people who came from the mainland much earlier. Up in the mountains, however, a few hundred thousand aboriginal peoples speak Malayo-Polynesian dialects entirely different from Chinese. Now if a Mainlander Chinese Christian wins others from the mainland, that s E-1 evangelism. If he wins a Minnan Taiwanese or a Hakka, that s E-2 evangelism. If he wins someone from the hill tribes, that s E-3 evangelism, and remember, E-3 is a much more complex task, performed at a greater cultural distance. Thus far we have only referred to language differences, but for the purpose of defining evangelistic strategy, any kind of obstacle, any kind of communication barrier affecting evangelism is significant. In Japan for example, practically everybody speaks Japanese, and there aren t radically different dialects of Japanese comparable to the different dialects of Chinese. But there are social differences which make it very difficult for people from one group to win others of a different social class. In Japan, as in India, social differences often turn out to be more important in evangelism than language differences. Japanese Christians thus have not only an E-1 sphere of contact, but also E-2 spheres that are harder to reach. Missionaries going from Japan to other parts of the world to work with non-japanese with totally different languages are doing an evangelistic task on the E-3 basis. Lastly, let me give an example from my own experience. I speak English as a native language. For ten years, I lived and worked in Central America, for most of the time in Guatemala, where Spanish is the official language, but where a majority of the people speak some dialect of the Mayan family of aboriginal languages. I had two languages to learn. Spanish has a 60 percent overlap in vocabulary with English, so I had no trouble learning that language. Along with the learning of Spanish, I became familiar with the extension of European culture into the New World, and it was not particularly difficult to understand the lifeways of the kind of people who spoke Spanish. However, because Spanish was so easy by comparison, learning the Mayan language in our area was, I found, enormously more difficult. In our daily work, switching from English to Spanish to a Mayan language made me quite aware of the three different cultural distances. When I spoke of Christ to a Peace Corpsman in English, I was doing E-1 evangelism. When I spoke to a Guatemalan in Spanish, it was E-2 evangelism. When I spoke to an Indian in the Mayan language, it was the much more difficult E-3 evangelism. Now where I live in Southern California, most of my contacts are in the E-1 sphere, but if I evangelize among the million who speak Spanish, I must use E-2 evangelism. Were I to learn the Navajo language and speak of Christ to some of the 30,000 Navajo Indians who live in Los Angeles, I would be doing E-3 evangelism. Reaching Cantonese-speaking refugees from Hong Kong with the Good News of Christ would also be, for me, an E-3 task. Note, however, that what for me is E-3 could be only E-2 for someone else. American-born Chinese, who have significant exposure to the Cantonese-speaking subculture, would find Hong Kong refugees only an E-2 task. Everyone who is here in this Congress has his own E-1 sphere in which he speaks his own language and builds on all the intuition which derives from his experience within his own culture. Then perhaps for almost all of us there is an E-2 sphere groups of people who speak languages that are a little different, or who are involved in culture patterns sufficiently in contrast with our own as to make communication more difficult. Such people can be reached with

43 350 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia a little extra trouble and with sincere attempts, but it will take us out of our way to reach them. More important, they are people who, once converted, will not feel at home in the church which we attend. In fact, they may grow faster spiritually if they can find Christian fellowship among people of their own kind. More significant to evangelism, it is quite possible that with their own fellowship, they are more likely to win others of their own social grouping. Finally, each of us here in Lausanne has an E-3 sphere: Most languages and cultures of the world are totally strange to us; they are at the maximum cultural distance. If we attempt to evangelize at this E-3 distance, we have a long uphill climb in order to be able to make sense to anyone. In summary, the master pattern of the expansion of the Christian movement is first for special E-2 and E-3 efforts to cross cultural barriers into new communities and to establish strong, ongoing, vigorously evangelizing denominations, and then for that national church to carry the work forward on the really high-powered E-1 level. We are thus forced to believe that until every tribe and tongue has a strong, powerfully evangelizing church in it, and thus, an E-1 witness within it, E-2 and E-3 efforts coming from outside are still essential and highly urgent. CROSS-CULTURAL EVANGELISM: THE CRUCIAL NEED At this point, let us ask what the Bible says about all this. Are these cultural differences something the Bible takes note of? Is this something which ought to occupy our time and attention? Is this matter of cultural distance something which is so important that it fits into a Congress like this? Let us turn to the Bible and see what it has to say. Acts 1:8: An Emphasis on Cultural Distance Let us go to that vital passage in the first chapter of Acts, so central to this whole Congress, where Jesus refers his disciples to the worldwide scope of God s concern in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. If it were not for this passage (and all the other passages in the Bible which support it), we would not even be gathered here today. Without this biblical mandate, there could not have been a Congress on World Evangelization. It is precisely this task the task of discipling all the nations which includes all of us and unifies all of us in a single, common endeavor. Notice, however, that Jesus does not merely include the whole world. He distinguishes between different parts of that world and does so according to the relative distance of those people from his hearers. On another occasion he simply said, Go ye into all the world, but in this passage he has divided that task into significant components. At first glance you might think that he is merely speaking geographically, but with more careful study, it seems clear that he is not talking merely about geographical distance, but about cultural distance. The clue is the appearance of the word Samaria in this sequence. Fortunately, we have special insight into what Jesus meant by Samaria, since the New Testament records in an extended passage the precise nature of the evangelistic problem Jews faced in trying to reach the Samaritans. I speak of the well-known story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Samaria was not far away in the geographical sense. Jesus had to pass there whenever he went from Galilee to Jerusalem. Yet when Jesus spoke to this Samaritan woman, it was immediately obvious that he faced a special cultural obstacle. While she was apparently close enough linguistically for him to be able to understand her speech, her very first reply focused on the significant difference between the Jews and the Samaritans they worshipped in different places. Jesus did not deny this profound difference, but accepted it and transcended it by pointing out the human cultural limitations of both the Jewish and the Samaritan modes of worship. He spoke to her heart and bypassed the cultural differences. Meanwhile, the disciples looking on were mystified and troubled. Even had they understood that God was interested in Samaritans, they probably would have had difficulty grappling with the cultural differences. Even if they had tried to do so, they might not have been sensitive enough to bypass certain differences and go directly to the heart of the matter which was the heart of the woman. Paul acted on the same principle when he sought to evangelize the Greeks, who were at

44 Ralph D. Winter 351 an even greater cultural distance. Just imagine how shocked some of the faithful Jewish Christians were when they heard rumors that Paul bypassed circumcision, one of the most important cultural differences to the Jews, even Christian Jews, and went to the heart of the matter. He was reported to them as saying, Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is worth anything in comparison to being in Christ, believing in him, being baptized in his name, being filled with his Spirit, belonging to his body. At this point we must pause long enough to distinguish between cultural distance and walls of prejudice. There may have been high walls of prejudice involved where Jews encountered Samaritans, but it is obvious that the Greeks, who did not even worship the same God, were at a far greater cultural distance from the Jews than were the Samaritans, who were close cousins by comparison. It is curious to note that sometimes those who are closest to us are hardest to reach. For example, a Jewish Christian trying to evangelize would understand a Samaritan more easily than he would understand a Greek, but he would be more likely to be hated or detested by a Samaritan than by a Greek. In Belfast today, for example, the problem is not so much cultural distance as prejudice. Suppose a Protestant who has grown up in Belfast were to witness for Christ to a nominal Belfast Catholic and an East Indian. He would more easily understand his Catholic compatriot, but might face less prejudice from the East Indian. Generally speaking, then, cultural distance is more readily traversed than high walls of prejudice are climbed. But, returning to our central passage, it is clear that Jesus is referring primarily neither to geography nor walls of prejudice when he lists Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. Had he been talking about prejudice, Samaria would have come last. He would have said, in Judea, in all the world and even in Samaria. It seems likely he is taking into account cultural distance as the primary factor. Thus, as we today endeavor to fulfill Jesus ancient command, we do well to be sensitive to cultural distance. His distinctions must underlie our strategic thinking about the evangelization of the whole world. Evangelism in the Jerusalem and Judea sphere would seem to be what we have called E-1 evangelism, where the only barrier his listeners had to cross in their proposed evangelistic efforts was the boundary between the Christian community and the world immediately outside, involving the same language and culture. This is near neighbor evangelism. Whoever we are, wherever we live in the world, we all have some near neighbors to whom we can witness without learning any foreign language or taking into account any special cultural differences. This is the kind of evangelism we usually talk about. This is the kind of evangelism most meetings on evangelism talk about. One of the great differences between this Congress and all previous congresses on evangelism is its determined stress on crossing cultural frontiers where necessary in order to evangelize the whole earth. The mandate of this Congress does not allow us to focus merely on Jerusalem and Judea. The second sphere to which Jesus referred is that of the Samaritan. The Bible account shows that although it was relatively easy for Jesus and his disciples to make themselves understood to the Samaritans, the Jew and the Samaritan were divided from each other by a frontier consisting of dialectal distinctions and some other very significant cultural differences. This was E-2 evangelism, because it involved crossing a second frontier. First, it involved crossing the frontier we have referred to in describing E-1 evangelism, the frontier between the church and the world. Secondly, it involved crossing a frontier constituted by significant (but not monumental) differences of language and culture. Thus we call it E-2 evangelism. E-3 evangelism, as we have used the phrase, involves even greater cultural distance. This is the kind of evangelism that is necessary in the third sphere of Jesus statement, to the uttermost part of the earth. The people needing to be reached in this third sphere live, work, talk and think in languages and cultural patterns utterly different from those native to the evangelist. The average Jewish Christian, for example, would have had no head start at all in dealing with people beyond Samaria. If reaching Samaritans seemed like crossing two frontiers (thus called E-2 evangelism), reaching totally different people must have seemed like crossing three, and it is reasonable to call such a task E-3 evangelism.

45 352 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia One Christian s Judea is Another Christian s Samaria It is very important to understand the full significance of the distinctions Jesus is making. Since he was not talking about geographical, but cultural distance, the general value of what he said has striking strategic application today. Jesus did not mean that all down through history Samaria specifically would be an object of special attention. One Christian s Judea might be another Christian s Samaria. Take Paul, for example. Although he was basically a Jew, he no doubt found it much easier to traverse the cultural distance to the Greeks than did Peter, because unlike Peter, Paul was much better acquainted with the Greek world. Using the terminology we have employed, where an E-1 task is near, E-2 is close, and E-3 is far (in cultural, not geographical distance), we can say that reaching Greeks meant working at an E-2 distance for Paul; but for Peter it meant working at an E-3 distance. For Luke, who was himself a Greek, reaching Greeks was to work only at an E-1 distance. Thus, what was distant for Peter was near for Luke. And vice versa: reaching Jews would have been E-1 for Peter, but more likely E-3 for Luke. It may well be that God sent Paul rather than Peter to the Gentiles partially because Paul was closer culturally. By the same token, Paul, working among the Greeks at an E-2 distance, was handicapped by comparison with E-1 nationals like Luke, Titus and Epaphroditus; and, as a matter of evangelistic strategy, he wisely turned things over to national workers as soon as he possibly could. Paul himself, being a Jew, often began his work in a new city in the Jewish synagogue where he himself was on an E-1 basis and where, with the maximum power of E-1 communication, he was able to speak forcefully without any non-jewish accent. Let us straightforwardly concede right here that, all other things being equal, the national leader always has a communication advantage over the foreigner. When the evangelists went from the plains of Assam up into the Naga hills, it must have been very much harder for them to win Ao Nagas than it was for Ao Naga Christians to do so, once a start had been made. When There is no excuse for a missionary in the pulpit when a national can do the job better. the first German missionaries preached to the Bataks, they must have had a far greater problem than when the faith, once planted, was transmitted from Batak to Batak. E-1 evangelism where a person communicates to his own people is obviously the most potent kind of evangelism. People need to hear the gospel in their own language. Can we believe God intends for them to hear it from people who speak without a trace of accent? The foreign missionary communicator may be good, but he is not good enough. If it is so important for Americans to have 30 translations of the New Testament to choose from, and even a Living Bible, which allows the Bible to speak in colloquial English, then why must many peoples around the world suffer along with a Bible that was translated for them by a foreigner, and thus almost inevitably speaks to them in halting phrases? This is why the easiest, most obvious surge forward in evangelism in the world today will come if Christian believers in every part of the world are moved to reach outside their churches and win their cultural near neighbors to Christ. They are better able to do that than any foreign missionary. It is a tragic perversion of Jesus strategy if we continue to send missionaries to do the job that local Christians can do better. There is no excuse for a missionary in the pulpit when a national can do the job better. There is no excuse for a missionary to be doing evangelism on an E-3 basis, at an E-3 distance from people, when there are local Christians who are effectively winning the same people as part of their E-1 sphere. In view of the profound truth that (other things being equal) E-1 evangelism is more powerful than E-2 or E-3 evangelism, it is easy to see how some people have erroneously concluded that E-3 evangelism is therefore out-ofdate, due to the wonderful fact that there are now Christians throughout the whole world. It is with this perspective that major denominations in the U.S. have at some points acted on the premise that there is no more need for missionaries of the kind who leave home to go to a foreign country and struggle with a totally strange language and culture. Their premise is that there are Christians over there already.

46 Ralph D. Winter 353 With the drastic fall-off in the value of the U.S. dollar and the tragic shrinking of U.S. church budgets, some U.S. denominations have had to curtail their missionary activity to an unbelievable extent, and they have in part tried to console themselves by saying that it is time for the national church to take over. In our response to this situation, we must happily agree that wherever there are local Christians effectively evangelizing, there is nothing more potent than E-1 evangelism. However, the truth about the superior power of E-1 evangelism must not obscure the obvious fact that E-1 evangelism is literally impossible where there are no witnesses within a given language or cultural group. Jesus, as a Jew, would not have had to witness directly to that Samaritan woman had there been a local Samaritan Christian who had already reached her. In the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, we can conjecture that it might have been better for an Ethiopian Christian than for Philip to do the witnessing, but there had to be an initial contact by a non-ethiopian in order for the E-1 process to be set in motion. This kind of initial, multiplying work is the primary task of the missionary when he rightly understands his job. He must decrease and the national leader must increase. Hopefully Jesus E-2 witness set in motion E-1 witnessing in that Samaritan town. Hopefully Philip s E-2 witness to the Ethiopian set in motion E-1 witnessing back in Ethiopia. If that Ethiopian was an Ethiopian Jew, the E-1 community back in Ethiopia might not have been very large, and might not have effectively reached the non-jewish Ethiopians. As a matter of fact, scholars believe that the Ethiopian church today is the result of a much later missionary thrust that reached, by E-3 evangelism, clear through to the ethnic Ethiopians. Thus, in the Bible, as in our earlier illustrations from modern mission history, we arrive at the same summary. E-1 Powerful, but E-3 Essential The master pattern of the expansion of the Christian movement is first for special E-2 and E-3 efforts to cross cultural barriers into new communities and to establish strong, on-going, vigorously evangelizing denominations, and then for that national church to carry the work forward on the really high-powered E-1 level. We are thus forced to believe that until every tribe and tongue has a strong, powerfully evangelizing church in it, and thus an E-1 witness within it, E-2 and E-3 efforts coming from outside are still essential and highly urgent. From this perspective, how big is the remaining task? CROSS-CULTURAL EVANGELISM: THE IMMENSITY OF THE TASK Unfortunately, most Christians have only a very foggy idea of just how many peoples there are in the world among whom there is no E-1 witness. But fortunately, preparatory studies for this Congress have seriously raised this question: Are there any tribal tongues and linguistic units which have not yet been penetrated by the gospel? If so, where? How many? Who can reach them? Even these preliminary studies indicate that cross-cultural evangelism must still be the highest priority. Far from being a task that is now out-of-date, the shattering truth is that at least four out of five non- Christians in the world today are beyond the reach of any Christian s E-1 evangelism. People Blindness Why is this fact not more widely known? I m afraid that all our exultation about the fact that every country of the world has been penetrated has allowed many to suppose that every culture has by now been penetrated. This misunderstanding is a malady so widespread that it deserves a special name. Let us call it people blindness that is, blindness to the existence of separate peoples within countries a blindness, I might add, which seems more prevalent in the U.S. and among U.S. missionaries than anywhere else. The Bible rightly translated could have made this plain to us. The nations to which Jesus often referred were mainly ethnic groups within the single political structure of the Roman government. The various nations represented on the day of Pentecost were for the most part not countries but peoples. In the Great Commission as it is found in Matthew, the phrase make disciples of all ethne (peoples) does not let us off the hook once we have a church in every country God wants a strong church within every people! People blindness is what prevents us from noticing the sub-groups within a country

47 354 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia which are significant to development of effective evangelistic strategy. Society will be seen as a complex mosaic, to use McGavran s phrase, once we recover from people blindness. But until we all recover from this kind of blindness, we may confuse the legitimate desire for church or national unity with the illegitimate goal of uniformity. God apparently loves diversity of certain kinds. But in any case this diversity means evangelists have to work harder. The little ethnic and cultural pieces of the complex mosaic which is human society are the very subdivisions which isolate four out of five non-christians in the world today from an E-1 contact by existing Christians. The immensity of the cross-cultural task is thus seen in the fact that in Africa and Asia alone, one calculation has it that there are 1,993 million people virtually without a witness. The immensity of the task, however, lies not only in its bigness. Need for E-2 Evangelism in the United States The problem is more serious than retranslating the Great Commission in such a way that the peoples, not the countries, become the targets for evangelism. The immensity of the task is further underscored by the far greater complexity of the E-2 and E-3 task. Are we in America, for example, prepared for the fact that most non-christians yet to be won to Christ (even in our country) will not fit readily into the kinds of churches we now have? The bulk of American churches in the North are middle-class, and the blue-collar worker won t go near them. Evangelistic crusades may attract thousands to big auditoriums and win people in their homes through television, but a large proportion of the newly converted, unless already familiar with the church, may drift away simply because there is no church where they will feel at home. Present-day American Christians can wait forever in their cozy, middle-class pews for the world to come to Christ and join them. But unless they adopt E-2 methods and both go out after these people and help them found their own churches, evangelism in America will face, and is already facing, steadily diminishing returns. You may say that there are still plenty of people who don t go to church who are of the same cultural background as those in church. This is true. But there are many, many more people of differing cultural backgrounds who, even if they were to become fervent Christians, would not feel comfortable in existing churches. If the U.S. where you can drive 3,000 miles and still speak the same language is nevertheless a veritable cultural mosaic viewed evangelistically, then surely most other countries face similar problems. Even in the U.S., local radio stations employ more than 40 different languages. In addition to these language differences, there are many equally significant social and cultural differences. Language differences are by no means the highest barriers to communication. The need, in E-2 evangelism, for whole new worshiping groups is underscored by the phenomenon of the Jesus People, who have founded hundreds of new congregations. The vast Jesus People Movement in the U.S. does not speak a different language so much as it involves a very different lifestyle and thus a different style of worship. Many American churches have attempted to employ the guitar music and many of the informal characteristics of the Jesus Movement, but there is a limit to which a single congregation can go with regard to speaking many languages and employing many lifestyles. Who knows what has happened to many of the mods and rockers who were won as a result of Billy Graham s London Crusades? On the one hand, the existing churches were understandably culturally distant from such people, and on the other hand, there may not have been adequate E-2 methods employed so as to form those converts into whole new congregations. It is this aspect of E-2 evangelism which makes the cross-cultural task immensely harder. Yet it is essential. Let us take one more well-known example. When John Wesley evangelized the miners of England, the results were conserved in whole new worshiping congregations. There probably would never have been a Methodist movement had he not encouraged these lowerclass people to meet in their own Christian gatherings, sing their own kind of songs and associate with their own kind of people. Furthermore, apart from this E-2 technique, such people would not have been able to win others and expand the Christian movement in this

48 Ralph D. Winter 355 new level of society at such an astonishing rate of speed. The results rocked and permanently changed England. It rocked the existing churches, too. Not very many people favored Wesley s contact with the miners. Fewer still agreed that miners should have separate churches! A Clear Procedural Distinction At this point we may do well to make a clear procedural distinction between E-1 and E-2 evangelism. We have observed that the E-2 sphere begins where the people you have reached are of sufficiently different backgrounds from those of people in existing churches that they need to form their own worshiping congregations in order best to win others of their own kind. John 4 tells us that many Samaritans from that city believed in him (Jesus) because of the woman s testimony. Jesus evangelized the woman by working with great sensitivity as an E-2 witness; she turned around and reached others in her town by efficient E-1 communication. Suppose Jesus had told her she had to go and worship with the Jews. Even if she had obeyed him and gone to worship with the Jews, she would on that basis have been terribly handicapped in winning others in her city. Jesus may actually have avoided the issue of where to worship and with what distant Christians to associate. That would come up later. Thus the Samaritans who believed the woman s testimony then made the additional step of inviting a Jew to be with them for two days. He still did not try to make them into Jews. He knew he was working at an E-2 distance, and that the fruits could best be conserved (and additional people best be won) if they were allowed to build their own fellowship of faith. A further distinction might be drawn between the kind of cultural differences Jesus was working with in Samaria and the kind of differences resulting from the so-called generation gap. But it really does not matter, in evangelism, whether the distance is cultural, linguistic, or an age difference. No matter what the reason for the difference or the permanence of the difference, or the perceived rightness or the wrongness of the difference, the procedural dynamics of E-2 evangelism techniques are quite similar. The E-2 sphere begins whenever it is necessary to found a new congregation. In the Philippines we hear of youth founding churches. In Singapore we know of 10 recently established youth break-away congregations. Hopefully, eventually, age-focused congregations will draw closer to existing churches, but as long as there is a generation gap of serious proportions, such specialized fellowships are able to win many more alienated youth by being allowed to function considerably on their own. It is a good place to begin. Whatever we may decide about the kind of E-2 evangelism that allows people to meet separately who are different due to temporary age differences, the chief factors in the immensity of the cross-cultural task are the much more profound and possibly permanent cultural differences. Here, too, some will always say that true cross-cultural evangelism is going too far. At this point we must risk being misunderstood in order to be absolutely honest. All around the world, special evangelistic efforts continue to be made which often break across culture barriers. People from these other cultures are won, sometimes only one at a time, sometimes in small groups. The problem is not in winning them; it is in the cultural obstacles to proper follow-up. Existing churches may cooperate up to a point with evangelistic campaigns, but they do not contemplate allowing the evangelistic organizations to stay long enough to gather these people together in churches of their own. They mistakenly think that being joined to Christ ought to include joining existing churches. Yet if proper E-2 methods were employed, these few converts, who would merely be considered somewhat odd additions to existing congregations, could be infusions of new life into whole new pockets of society where the church does not now exist at all! The Muslim and Hindu Spheres Aside from the Chinese mainland sector, the two greatest spheres in which there is a tragic paucity of effective cross-cultural evangelism are the Muslim and the Hindu. Our concluding words will center in these two groups, which, in aggregate, number well over one billion people. As we have earlier mentioned, a converted Muslim will not feel welcome in the usual Presbyterian Church in Pakistan. Centuries-old suspicions on both sides of the Muslim-Hindu fence make it almost impossible for Muslims,

49 356 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia even converted Muslims, to be welcomed into the churches of former Hindu peoples. The present Christians of Pakistan (almost all formerly Hindu) have not been at all successful in integrating converted Muslims into their congregations. Furthermore, it is not likely even to occur to them that Muslims can be converted and form their own separate congregations. The enormous tragedy is that this kind of impasse postpones serious evangelism along E-2 lines wherever in the world there are any of the 664 million Muslims. Far to the east of Mecca, in certain parts of Indonesia, enough Muslims have become Christians that they have not been forced one by one to join Christian congregations of another culture. Far to the west of Mecca, in the middle of Africa on some of the islands of Lake Chad, we have reports that a few former Muslims, now Christians, still pray to Christ five times a day and worship in Christian churches on Friday, the Muslim day of worship. These two isolated examples suggest that Muslims can become Christians without necessarily undergoing serious and arbitrary cultural dislocation. There may be a wide, new, open door to the Muslims if we will be as cross-culturally alert as Paul was, who did not require the Greeks to become Jews in order to become acceptable to God. Vast new realms of opportunity may exist in India, too, where local prejudice in many cases may forestall effective near-neighbor evangelism. Indians coming from a greater distance might by E-2 or E-3 methods be able to escape the local stigmas and establish churches within the 100 or so social classes as yet untouched. It is folly for evangelists to ignore such factors of prejudices, and their existence greatly increases the immensity of our task. Prejudice of this kind adds to cultural distance such obstacles that E-2 evangelism, where prejudice is deep, is often more difficult than E-3 evangelism. In other words, scholarly, well-educated Christians from Nagaland or Kerala might possibly be more successful in reaching middle-class Hindus in South India with the gospel than Christians from humble classes who have grown up in that area and speak the same language, but are stigmatized in local relationships. But who dares to point Christian unity cannot be healthy if it infringes upon Christian liberty. this out? It is ironic that national Christians all over the non-western world are increasingly aware that they do not need to be Westernized to be Christian, yet they may in some cases be slow to sense that the challenge of cross-cultural evangelism requires them to allow other people in their own areas to have the same liberty of self-determination in establishing culturally divergent churches of their own. In any case, the opportunities are just as immense as the task. If 600 million Muslims await a more enlightened evangelism, there are also 500 million Hindus who today face monumental obstacles to becoming Christians other than the profound spiritual factors inherent in the gospel. One keen observer is convinced that 100 million middle-class Hindus await the opportunity to become Christians but there are no churches for them to join which respect their dietary habits and customs. Is the kingdom of God meat and drink? To go to the special efforts required by E-2 and E-3 evangelism is not to let down the standards and make the gospel easy it is to disentangle the irrelevant elements and to make the gospel clear. Perhaps everyone is not able to do this special kind of work. True, many more E-1 evangelists will eventually be necessary to finish the task. But the highest priority in evangelism today is to develop the cross-cultural knowledge and sensitivities involved in E-2 and E-3 evangelism. Where necessary, evangelists from a distance must be called into the task. Nothing must blind us to the immensely important fact that at least four-fifths of the non-christians in the world today will never have any straightforward opportunity to become Christians unless the Christians themselves go more than halfway in the specialized tasks of cross-cultural evangelism. Here is our highest priority. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE THEOLOGICAL NATURE OF THE TASK The main theological question, raised more often than any other, is so profound that I feel I must devote my remaining time to it. The question was stated in many ways in your

50 Ralph D. Winter 357 response papers, but is basically this: Will not our unity in Christ be destroyed if we follow a concept of cross-cultural evangelization which is willing to set up separate churches for different cultural groups within the same geographical area? It is only with humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit to honor the Word of God above the secular influences to which we all are subject, that I dare to proceed with a perspective which I myself could not understand nor accept until several years ago. I was brought up in the United States, where for many people integration is almost like a civil religion, where such people almost automatically assume that eventually everyone will speak English and really shouldn t speak any other language. To me, cultural diversity between countries was a nuisance, but cultural diversity within a country was simply an evil to be overcome. I had no thought of excluding anyone from any church (and I still do not), but I did unconsciously assume that the best thing that could happen to Black, White, Chicano, etc., was that they all would eventually come to the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant church and learn to do things the way that I felt was most proper. Following this kind of American culture- Christianity, many missionaries have assumed that there ought to be just one national church in a country even if this means none at all for certain sub-groups. Such missionaries, in all earnestness, have assumed that the denominational pluralism in their own home country is simply a sin to be avoided. They have assumed that Southern Baptists aren t necessary in Northern India, even though, as a matter of fact, in Boston today most of the Anglo churches have been sitting around waiting for the Arabs and the Japanese to come to their churches, and it has taken Southern Baptists to go into Northern United States and plant Arab churches and Japanese churches, and Portuguese churches, and Greek churches, and Polish churches, right under the nose of hundreds of good-willed Anglo churches which have been patiently waiting for these people to assimilate to the Anglo way of life. With one or two fine exceptions, the Anglo churches, with all their evangelistic zeal, simply did not have the insight to do this kind of E-2 and E-3 evangelism. Christian Unity and Christian Liberty For my own part, after many years of struggling with this question, I am now no less concerned than before about the unity and fellowship of the Christian movement across all ethnic and cultural lines, but I realize now that Christian unity cannot be healthy if it infringes upon Christian liberty. In terms of evangelism, we must ask whether the attempt to extend, for example in Pakistan, an external form into the Muslim culture is more important than making the gospel clear to such peoples within their own culture. Can we not condition our desire for uniformity by an even greater desire for effective preaching of the gospel? I personally have come to believe that unity does not have to require uniformity, and I believe that there must be such a thing as healthy diversity in human society and in the Christian world Church. I see the world Church as the gathering together of a great symphony orchestra where we don t make every new person coming in play a violin in order to fit in with the rest. We invite the people to come in to play the same score the Word of God but to play their own instruments, and in this way there will issue forth a heavenly sound that will grow in the splendor and glory of God as each new instrument is added. The Example of the Apostle Paul But some of you have said, OK, if that is what you mean, what about the Apostle Paul? Did he set up separate congregations for masters and slaves? I really don t know. I don t think so. But that does not mean that didn t happen. In a recent monograph by Paul Minear entitled The Obedience of Faith, the author suggests that in Rome there were probably five separate congregations of Christians, who numbered a total of 3,000, and that Paul s letter to the Romans was written actually to a cluster of churches in the city of Rome. He also suggests that these churches were very different from each other, some being composed almost entirely of Jewish Christians, and others (the majority) almost entirely of Gentile Christians. Instead of visualizing a single Christian congregation, therefore, we should constantly reckon with the probability that within the urban area were to be found forms of Christian community which were as diverse, and probably also as alien, as

51 358 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia the churches of Galatia and those of Judea. But whatever the case in Rome, Paul in his travels was usually dealing with the phenomenon of house churches, where whole households, masters and slaves, quite likely worshiped together. We cannot believe he ever separated people. However, we do know that he was willing to adopt in different places a radically different approach, as he put it, for those under the Let us glory in the fact that God allows different lifestyles to exist in different forms, and that this flexibility has been exercised throughout history. law and for those not under the law. When, for example, he established an apparently non-jewish congregation among the Galatians, it was obviously different, perhaps radically different from that of the Jewish congregations elsewhere. We know this because Jewish Christians followed Paul to the Galatians and tried to make them conform to the Jewish Christian pattern. Galatia is a clear case where it was impossible for Paul to submit simultaneously both to the provisions of the Jewish Christian way of life and at the same time to the patterns of an evidently Greek (or perhaps Celtic) congregation. Paul s letter to the Galatians, furthermore, shows us how determined he was to allow the Galatian Christians to follow a different Christian lifestyle. Thus, while we do not have any record of his forcing people to meet separately, we do encounter all of Paul s holy boldness set in opposition to anyone who would try to preserve a single normative pattern of Christian life through a cultural imperialism that would prevent people from employing their own language and culture as a vehicle for worship and witness. Here, then, is a clear case of a man with cross-cultural evangelistic perspective doing everything within his power to guarantee liberty in Christ to converts who were different from his own social background. This same thing is seen when Paul opposed Peter in Antioch. Peter was a Galilean Jew who was perhaps to some extent bi-cultural. He could have at least been able to understand the predominantly Greek lifestyle of the Antioch church. Indeed, he did seem to fit in until the moment other Jewish Christians came to the door. At this point Peter also discovered that in a given situation he had to choose between following Jewish or Greek customs. At this point he wavered. Did he lack the Spirit of God? Did he lack the love of God? Or did he fail to understand the way of God s love? Peter did not question the validity of a Greek congregation. Peter had already acknowledged this before his Jewish compatriots walked in the door. The point was that Peter was pained for others to know him as one who could shift from one community to the other. What this means to us today is quite clear. There were in fact in the New Testament period two significantly different communities of believers. Peter was regarded as the apostle to the circumcision and Paul to the uncircumcision. Peter identified more easily with the Jews, and no doubt had a hard time explaining to Jews his experience at Cornelius household, namely his discovery that Greek congregations were to be considered legitimate. Paul, on the other hand, was able to identify more closely with the Greek congregations. Perhaps they were eventually his primary missionary target, even though in a given locality he always began with the Jews. The Equality of Diversity One clue for today is the fact that where Paul found some Christians to be overly scrupulous about certain foods, he counseled people in those situations to abide by the stricter sensibilities of the majority. However, it is always difficult to make exact parallels to a modern situation. The New Testament situation would compare more easily to modern India today were it the case that the only Christians in India were Brahmins (and other members of the middle castes) with their highly restrictive diet. Then we would envision Brahmin Christians finding it hard to allow the less restrictive meat-eating groups to become Christian; but the actual situation is very nearly the reverse. In India today it is those who eat meat who are Christians, and the problem is how to apply Paul s missionary strategy to this situation. In regard to food restrictions, it is as though the Brahmins are under the law, not the present Christians. In this situation can we imagine Paul saying, To those under the law I will go as under the

52 Ralph D. Winter 359 law if by all means I may win some? Can we hear him say as an E-2 or E-3 evangelist, If meat makes my brother offended, I will eat no meat? Can we hear him defending worshiping groups among the Brahmins against the suggestion or expectation that they should change their diet or join congregations of very different lifestyle in order to be accepted as Christians? Against the accusation that he was dividing the church of Christ, can we hear Paul insist that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, low caste nor high caste? Is this not the actual force of his oft repeated statement that these different kinds of people, following their different cultural patterns, are all equally acceptable to God? Was he really announcing a policy of local integration, or was he insisting on the equality of diversity? Note very carefully that this perspective does not enforce (nor even allow) a policy of segregation, nor any kind of ranking of Christians in first- and second-class categories. It rather guarantees equal acceptability of different traditions. It is a clear-cut apostolic policy against forcing Christians of one lifestyle to be proselytized to the cultural patterns of another. This is not a peripheral matter in the New Testament. True circumcision is of the heart. True baptism is of the heart. It is a matter of faith, not works, or customs, or rites. In Christ there is freedom and liberty in this regard people must be free either to retain or abandon their native language and life-style. Paul would not allow anyone to glory either in circumcision or in uncircumcision. He was absolutely impartial. He was also widely misunderstood. Paul s problem ultimately was in gaining acceptance by the Jews, and it was Asian Jews, possibly Christians, who pointed him out in the temple and thus finally caused his martyrdom for his belief in the separate liberty of the Greek Christian tradition. Let no one who seeks to be a missionary in the tradition of the Apostle Paul expect that working between two cultures will be easy to do. But he can take heart in the fact that the hazards of the profession are more than justified by the urgent missionary purposes of the crosscultural evangelist. If, for example, a cross-cultural evangelist encourages members of a Brahmin family to begin worship services in their own home, does he insist that they invite people from across town to their very first meeting? On the other hand, any Brahmin who becomes a Christian and who begins to understand the Bible will soon realize, whether it was entirely clear before or not, that he now belongs to a world family within which there are many tribes and tongues indeed, according to the Book of Revelation (Rev 7:9), this kind of diversity will continue right down to the end of time. When the cross-cultural evangelist allows the development of a Brahmin congregation, he is not thereby proposing Brahmin segregation from the world church. He is not suggesting that the Brahmin Christians shun other Christians, but that Brahmins be included within the world church. He is merely affirming their liberty in Christ to retain those elements of their lifestyle that are not inimical to the gospel of Christ. He is not increasing their alienation. He is giving them the Word of God which is the passkey to the ultimate elimination of all manner of prejudices, and is already signing them into a world Christian family which embraces all peoples, tribes and tongues as equals. Unity and Uniformity Now, I regret that this subject is so delicate, and I would not embark upon it if it were not so urgently significant for the practical evangelistic strategies which we must have if we are going to win the world for Christ. I would not even bring it up. Yet I must say I believe this issue is the most important single issue in evangelism today. Many people asked me what I meant by the strategic value of the establishment of youth churches. It is important to realize the youth situation is highly parallel to the situation we have just discussed. It is by no means a case where we are suggesting that young people not be allowed in adult services. We are not suggesting segregation of the youth. Youth churches are not ends, but means. We are not abandoning the thought that young people and older people should often be in the same service together. We are merely insisting, with what I pray is apostolic intuition, that young people have the freedom in Christ to meet together by themselves if they choose to, and

53 360 Chapter 54 The New Macedonia especially if this allows them to attract other young people who would likely not come to Christ in an age-integrated service. It is a curious fact that the kind of culturally sensitive evangelism I have been talking about has always been acceptable wherever people are geographically isolated. No one minds if Japanese Christians gather by themselves in Tokyo, or Spanish-speaking Christians gather by themselves in Mexico, or Chinese-speaking Christians gather by themselves in Hong Kong. But there is considerable confusion in many people s minds as to whether Japanese, Spanish and Chinese Christians should be allowed or encouraged to gather by themselves in Los Angeles. Very specifically, is it good evangelistic strategy to found separate congregations in Los Angeles in order to attract such people? Do Cantonese-speaking non-christians need a Cantonese-speaking congregation to attract them to Christian faith and fellowship? If you talk to different people, you will get different answers. In my opinion, this question about evangelistic strategy in the forming of separate congregations must be considered an area of Christian liberty, and is to be decided purely on the basis of whether or not it allows the gospel to be presented effectively to more people that is, whether it is evangelistically strategic. Some go as far as granting separate language congregations, but hesitate when the differences between people are social and non-linguistic. Somehow they feel that people may be excused for meeting separately if their language is different, but that the gospel urges us to ignore all other cultural differences. Many people are literally outraged at the thought that a local congregation would deliberately seek to attract people of a certain social level. And yet, while no one should be excluded from any church under any circumstances, it is a fact that where people can choose their church associations voluntarily, they tend to sort themselves out according to their own way of life pretty consistently. But this absolutely must be their own free choice. We are never suggesting an enforced segregation. Granting that we have this rich diversity, let us foster unity and fellowship between congregations just as we now do between families rather than to teach everyone to worship like Anglo-Americans. Let us glory in the fact that the world Christian family now already includes representatives of more different languages and cultures than any other organization or movement in human history. Americans may be baffled and perplexed by world diversity. God is not. Let us glory in the fact that God has allowed different lifestyles to exist in different forms, and that this flexibility has been exercised throughout history. Let us never be content with mere isolation, but let us everlastingly emphasize that the great richness of our Christian tradition can only be realized as these differing life ways maintain creative contact. But let us be cautious about hastening to uniformity. If the whole world church could be gathered into a single congregation, Sunday after Sunday, there would eventually and inevitably be a loss of a great deal of the rich diversity of the present Christian traditions. Does God want this? Do we want this? Jesus died for these people around the world. He did not die to preserve our Western way of life. He did not die to make Muslims stop praying five times a day. He did not die to make Brahmins eat meat. Can t you hear Paul the Evangelist saying we must go to these people within the systems in which they operate? True, this is the cry of a cross-cultural evangelist, not a pastor. We can t make every local church fit the pattern of every other local church. But we must have radically new efforts of cross-cultural evangelism in order to effectively witness to 2387 million people, and we cannot believe that we can continue virtually to ignore this highest priority. Study Questions 1. Explain the difference between E-1, E-2 and E-3 evangelism. Which of the three does Winter consider most powerful? Why? Which does he consider most urgent? Why? 2. Christian unity cannot be healthy if it infringes upon Christian liberty. Do you agree? What significance does this issue have for practical evangelistic strategies?

54 Are We Ready for Tomorrow s Kingdom? Ralph D. Winter Ralph D. Winter is the General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF) in Pasadena, CA. After serving ten years as a missionary among Mayan Indians in the highlands of Guatemala, he was called to be a Professor of Missions at the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten years later, he and his late wife, Roberta, founded the mission society called the Frontier Mission Fellowship. This in turn birthed the U.S. Center for World Mission and the William Carey International University, both of which serve those working at the frontiers of mission. AJewish rabbi in Los Angeles has thrown down the gauntlet to wayward Westernized Jews. He claims that his own Orthodoxy is the only genuine form of the Jewish faith. He feels Conservative and Reformed Jewish congregations have gone the way of Christianity! The idea is that the true faith can only be contained in a certain, specific true culture, the original culture. Holding on to a true culture is not very likely to succeed if only because we can look around and see that Jewish Orthodoxy is a very small piece of the global pie, even of all those who think they are holding on to the true biblical faith, and even among those who specifically hold on to a Jewish culture of some sort. OK, so the Roman socialites threw rice at a wedding. Do Jews who live in Rome have to do that? So the Romans had a big party, giving gifts to each other on December 25th. Should Jews take up the practice? Well, not even Greek Christians took up the 25th of December. To this day they are not impressed by what was in Jesus day, on December 25th, the Roman pagan holiday for Saturn the Saturnalia. More ironic still is the plain fact that much of Jewish Orthodoxy today consists of large and small additions over the centuries since Christians grabbed the faith and ran with it, certainly long after the sacred days of Hebrew culture. And, when was that? In King David s day, in Moses day, in Abraham s day? Wow! Not even the Jewish Bible portrays a single cultural way of life. It would seem that God has determinedly been kicking people out of one culture into a new one (Abraham to Canaan, to Egypt, to the dispersion of the Northern tribes, to the booting out of the Judean tribes, on and on). What is going on? It looks as if God wants them to learn how to carry their faith into different cultures, not just preserve a given way of life within a discordant culture. The Bible, as a whole, would seem to sit in judgment upon every human cultural tradition, no matter whether it is Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidian, first century Jewish, Paul s mixture with Greek elements, Roman- Latin, Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, or you name it. Now then, is God s culture fixed as an evangelical American pop culture with its CDs, DVDs, television, horrifying divorce rate, childcare centers, etc.? Quite honestly, are our missionaries any of them now assuming that the ultimate achievement of the biblical faith Chapter

55 394 Chapter 62 are we ready for tomorrow s kingdom? is what we have today in evangelical Christianity? If not, when are we going to seriously contemplate the future form of what we call the Christian faith? OK, forget the turgid theologies of contextualization. Take a look for just one second at the actual global record. It is not too early to recognize that the largest growing edge of biblical faith is not Jewish Orthodoxy, not Roman Catholicism, not Eastern Orthodoxy, not German Lutheranism, not Anglicanism, not American mainline denominationalism, not Evangelicalism, not Pentecostalism, not the Charismatic renewal, etc. What is it? It is the often ignored but vast company of those outside and beyond what we usually call Christianity. In Africa, it is the 50 million within the African Initiated Churches. In India, it is a phenomenon already in the millions which is arising within the 600 million caste sphere, where Christianity by that name is virtually absent. In China, it is the house church movement which, up to this point, we in the West like to call Christian, but at closer look might not fit very well at all. The fact is that anything Western has its attractions and detractions, and while most cities of the world are superficially Westernized, Western Christianity has really only successfully lapped up minorities around the world, peoples who had nothing to lose by opting for an outside, foreign culture as against an oppressive majority culture. This is most obvious in India. It is perhaps true in China. It is true in much of Africa. The growing edge may more and more be the kind of thing we would call cultic or at least anomalous in this country. Are we prepared for that? Does our attitude towards home grown aberrant forms of basically biblical faith in this country match what is needed in the rest of the world? Can we trust the Bible to eventually balance out these thousands of new, out of control movements? Can we digest the plain fact that the entire Islamic tradition is, like Roman Catholicism, full of non-christian elements which we despise, yet is clearly the product of the impact of the Bible (unlike Hindu culture)? What do we do with such forms of quasi-biblical faith? Rather than look a the bewildering varieties of forms of religious faith at the different earthen vessels in which the faith is contained let s look at the extent that the will of God has taken hold. That is the Kingdom of God. Study Questions 1. Why is it difficult to evaluate our own cultural forms of Christianity? 2. What influence can be expected to correct or balance out errant forms of the Christian faith?

56 Christ Movements in the Hindu World H. L. Richard The Church Growth Movement and the study of how peoples turn to Christ began with observations of Christward movements among Hindus in India. India s social system, with thousands of distinct sociological communities (mostly the various Hindu caste groups), provided unique bridges for the gospel to spread within communities, while also presenting unique problems for the gospel to cross multiple boundaries. H. L. Richard was involved in grass roots Christian ministry in India for ten years before devoting another ten years to studying Hinduism and Christian work among Hindus. As a result of his studies, he has published numerous articles and books on the history of evangelism in India. He is one of the founders of the Rethinking Forum. People Movements in the Hindu Context The people movements that built the Indian Church developed in various low caste and tribal groups on the fringes of Hindu society. The first great movement into the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th century was clearly politically motivated, as a caste of fishermen sought help from the Portuguese. Protestant-influenced movements began in the mid-18th century. Currently India, like most of the globe, is in a period of rapid change, and protest and advancement movements among Dalit (formerly called untouchable ) peoples is an important aspect of the ferment. Dalit movements were once rooted in the Christian movement, but now encompass Buddhists and secularists as well, so that the Church is now part of the Dalit movement rather than vice versa. Research sponsored by the government of India carried out in the 1980s identified 4,693 communities in India. Roughly 30% of these are Dalit and tribal communities, and among some of these groups there continue to be people movements towards Christ. The persecution of Christians in India is almost entirely in these settings where there are ongoing multiple conversions of Dalit or tribal peoples. In the early people movements, Western denominationalism was transplanted to India and little of India s heritage was expressed in church life. But new missiological insights and initiatives that developed through the 20th century have been embraced and implemented in India. Cross-cultural mission and contextualization principles are now evident in these new church movements, yet the movements remain predominantly among the Dalit peoples. Reasons for the lack of response to the gospel from non- Dalit Hindus (70% of the Hindu people groups) are various and complex. One significant factor is certainly that the Indian church carries a double stigma in its witness to the Hindu world. One problem is that the church remains Western in Chapter

57 590 Chapter 92 Christ Movements in the Hindu World many of its functions and appearances. Despite a powerful movement towards Westernization, Hindus feel a strong aversion towards foreign religions. The church is also deeply Dalit in its make-up, so that it is almost impossible for a Hindu to join the church and remain in good social standing in a Hindu home. There is a massive gap in perception and understanding between Hindus and Christians, and too few Christians have sought to understand Hindu perspectives on life and spirituality. Diverse Teaching Within the Hindu Context Understanding Hinduism is a challenge. Academics struggle to define Hinduism, recognizing that the term itself is not indigenous to India but was introduced by outsiders. In its early use it assumed a unity that was later found to be nonexistent; diversity upon diversity is the mark of Indian religiosity, and lumping it all under an ism suggests a unity that is simply not present. It is often pointed out that Hinduism is not creedal and does not have any essential belief system. Yet there are various branches that do have distinctive theological traditions, like Vaishnavism. The largest section of Hindus, Vaishnavas consider Vishnu the supreme God and worship his avataras/incarnations as Ram and Krishna. There are dozens of denominations of Vaishnavas with distinctive minor doctrines. Various efforts have been made to summarize the varying religious teachings within Hinduism. Hindus often summarize three paths to salvation: the path of knowledge, the path of works and the path of devotion. Christians have tried to summarize Hinduism as having philosophical and popular branches. Neither of these summaries is very helpful due to the artificiality of each. Most Hindus engage aspects of all three of the Hindu paths, and incorporate both philosophical and popular dimensions in their faith and practice. Philosophical aspects of Hinduism often gain a large place in books, and the New Age movement has made some of these concepts quite familiar around the world. This type of Hinduism has been exported from India as a profound philosophy that leads individuals to higher consciousness. But this Hinduism is hardly to be found in India, where the worship of God (often with multiple images) is central to life. Diverse Religious Practice Within the Hindu Context The most basic Hindu act is puja, or worship, which is central to family life in the home and also secondarily manifest in the temple. This fact points to a theistic core to most Hindu faith and practice. It is a dynamic theism that consistently affirms that finally there is only one God, yet sees myriad manifestations of that God under various names and guises. Most worship involves the lighting of lamps and incense, the offering of flowers and fruits, and chanting and singing before images of various gods. Idolatry is thus also basic to most expressions of Hindu devotionalism, and, along with caste, is the most complicated aspect of presenting Christ in Hindu contexts. Participation in idolatrous worship is clearly unacceptable in a biblical worldview; also biblically unacceptable is a scornful dismissal of what others hold dear (even idolatry), particularly when held by parents and elders to whom respect is owed. Negotiating appropriately between these two extremes is no easy matter. The spiritual attitude most highly sought and valued among Hindus is bhakti, or devotion to God. Ritualism and superstition are both too prevalent in Hindu practice (as they are in other religious traditions as well), yet a heart of warm devotion towards God is the recognized ideal. It is true that some of the philosophical traditions highlight detachment above bhakti, and detachment from worldly concerns is a high value even in bhakti traditions. But bhakti and puja best define the religiosity of Hindu life, and spirituality is primarily a God-consciousness that feeds devotion and worship. Both this devotional attitude and the diverse pluralism of Hindu traditions contribute to the high esteem for Jesus Christ among Hindus. Sadly, many varieties of Christianity are not seen to be focused on worship and devotion. The person of Christ is often peripheral in church debates, and spirituality too easy declines into attending church once a week. In what are still considered Christian countries there seems to be no concern at all

58 H. L. Richard 591 for the teachings of Jesus. It is no wonder that Hindus are not attracted to Christianity. Too often the finished product of doctrinal and ecclesiastical Christianity has been imported to India, rather than planting the seed of the gospel among Hindu peoples to grow up in truly Indian ways and forms. Hindus often refer to dharma rather than the Western concept of religion; dharma is duty, law, righteousness, that which upholds society. The way of Jesus meshes with dharma, producing humble and productive members of families and society. Complex Social Structure of Indian Society When introducing the gospel in Hindu contexts, the changing sociological structure of Indian society is as important to grasp as Hindu religious attitudes. Individualism is gaining ground in India accompanying urbanization and modernization, yet Hindus remain deeply relational, and relationships are central in family, extended family and caste community. Caste has a divisive aspect, and the theory of merit or demerit by birth is unacceptable. Untouchability is the most objectionable aspect of caste, and although currently rejected both legally and philosophically, the implications of untouchability are far from eliminated from Indian society. But caste as one s identity and sense of belonging to a people is not fundamentally wrong or problematic, and historical efforts to break caste have not succeeded. Anti-caste Hindu reform movements (the Lingayats being a striking example) have ended up becoming castes, and even Christian denominations often function as separate caste-like communities instead of being yeast that spreads throughout Hindu society. The majority of Hindus are members of the Other Backward Castes (OBC, an official government of India designation), a sector of society rapidly growing in economic and political power, often at the expense of the Dalit castes. Historically and presently there are signs of turning to Christ from a small number of the thousands of castes and communities that are OBC. The so-called high castes of Hindus have dominated the socio-economic and political story of India for centuries. A reactionary faction from among the high castes has recently risen to political and social strength, promoting Hinduism as the only legitimate religion of India, preaching and practicing intolerance towards other faiths and seeking to stir up more moderate traditional Hindus. This is another aspect of the ferment of modern Hinduism that makes simplistic definition and diagnosis impossible. Hindus have migrated around the globe as leaders in business and education, most being from the high castes where the impact of the gospel has been negligible. This diaspora of Hindus has disproportionate influence on Hindu issues due to their economic power, and their experience and understanding of Hinduism is impacted by their context as a minority among other peoples. The rich potential for sensitive witness for Christ among these Hindus has hardly begun to be explored by Christians around the world who now have Hindus in their neighborhoods and workplaces. The Hope of Incarnational Movements The principles of the people movements that have impacted the tribal and Dalit worlds of India remain valid for the higher caste peoples. Rather than calling individuals out of family and caste, the gospel needs to spread over the bridges of God that are present in caste communities. Instead of calling people to the finished product of Western Christianity, the good news of the power and grace of God in Christ needs to be presented in terms and forms that are meaningful to Hindus. Incarnational communication in the Hindu world is only beginning as the legacy of the colonial era of Hindu-Christian interaction fades from memory. There is abundant reason for hope that Hindus will increasingly see that Jesus is the one most worthy of bhakti (devotion), as humble lives of devotion to Christ are lived out among them. People and insider movements need to develop in all Hindu communities, where a truly biblical faith that is also true to Hindu dharma is lived out and expressed in ways that resonate with traditional Hindu cultural forms and values. The rich diversity of Hindu cultures and communities await this truly incarnational expression of discipleship to Jesus.

59 670 Chapter 110 must all muslims leave islam? Arabic sense of the word (i.e., one submitted to God ) and their theology would, of course, differ from standard Muslim theology at a number of key points. They would have to be ready for persecution, and it would be best if these believers were of Muslim background. If over time they made their beliefs clear, and the surrounding Muslim community chose to allow them to stay, should we not praise God for the opportunity they have to share the Good News in a place few would dare to tread? It would appear that neither Abdul, the Muslim convert, nor Harry, the Western missionary, were called and prepared for this kind of work. Regarding how Muslims would feel about such an approach, I think the question is a bit irrelevant. The majority of Muslims that I have talked to object to any activity they perceive as an attempt to attract Muslims to Christianity. However, the C5 approach, which communicates the message of salvation in Christ without the intent to persuade Muslims to change their religion, might in fact be the one most appreciated by Muslims. By separating the gospel from the myriad of legal, social, and cultural issues implied in changing religious camps, a more straightforward, less encumbered message can be shared and (we hope) embraced. On the question of how Christians would feel if Muslims entered a church with the purpose of winning converts to Islam, I personally would not be fearful. Indeed, for a variety of reasons, non- Christians often grace the doors of churches, and many in the process come to Christ! Reinterpreting Muhammad and the Qur an Can individuals be a part of the community of Islam and not affirm standard Muslim theology? Yes, so long as they remain silent about their unorthodox beliefs. Indeed, there are millions of cultural Muslims who have divergent Going Far Enough? Ralph D. Winter Those of us responding to Phil Parshall s excellent analysis Going Too Far are not mainly disagreeing with him but enthusiastically accepting his invitation to bring these things out into open discussion. Time may show us all to be wrong in one way or another. My contribution has been made much less demanding due to the excellent response by Travis. I certainly endorse all five of Parshall s Guidelines. I add these words because I feel we need to take seriously the wealth of experiences and events during over 1,000 years since Muhammed s death, and we need to realize the most important result of all this may be a better understanding of the New Testament! In the first place, that 1,000+ year dynamic record involves deep and almost constant heresy within the very Christian tradition of which we are so often proud. I have already described some of the powerful political and cultural factors in the rise of both Christianity and Islam, in Chapter 36 (The Kingdom Strikes Back). There has always been a lot of disturbing debate about the best way to believe. Early Christian theologians have struggled to define at different times Arian, Athanasian, Monophisite, Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim theologies, etc., as heretical, without singling out any one of them as non-christian. What needs to be very clear in the present discussion is the fact that in recent history Christians and Muslims have each developed highly sensitive and extensively prejudicial attitudes toward each other, especially since the Crusades. This makes it very hard to peel away layers of prejudice and think objectively. It is incredible how political configurations can warp our sensitivities. True blue American democracy worked closely with Russian Communist Allies when it was necessary to put down the Nazi juggernaut. Once that threat was removed, we returned to American/Soviet conflict again. Conflict and polarization in former Yugoslavia is just as great between Croatian and Serb (both Christian) as it is between either of them and the Bosnian Muslims, and objectivity is virtually impossible. Thus, my first point is that our attitudes in this discussion must take into account the possible warping of our perspective resulting from historical events. Semi-barbarian Christians from Western Europe committed awful atrocities against both Eastern Christians in Constantinople and Muslims in Jerusalem. Eastern Christians were considered by Western Christians to be as heretical as Muslims. Today, a simple Bible-church believer might suffer even greater culture shock inside a highly decorated Catholic cathedral than he would in a Muslim mosque. Ralph D. Winter is the General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship (FMF) in Pasadena, CA. After serving ten years as a missionary among Mayan Indians in the highlands of Guatemala, he was called to be a Professor of Missions at the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten years later, he and his late wife, Roberta, founded the mission society called the Frontier Mission Fellowship. This in turn birthed the U.S. Center for World Mission and the William Carey International University, both of which serve those working at the frontiers of mission.

60 john J. travis 671 beliefs or know virtually nothing about Islam, yet who, because of birth and the fact they have not formally left the fold, are seen as a part of the community of Islam. However the goal of C5 believers (unlike C6 believers) is not to remain silent about their faith, but rather to be a witness for Christ. As they share, eventually the issue of the prophethood of Muhammad and the inerrancy of the Qur an will arise. A follower of Jesus cannot affirm all that is commonly taught about the Qur an and Muhammad. Certain aspects of the role of Muhammad and the Qur an must be reinterpreted. This will perhaps be the most challenging task of C5; to not do so will in time cause these believers to move toward C4 (contextualized, yet not Muslim) or C6 (underground/silent believers). Reinterpretation goes far beyond the scope of this brief article and would require the input of Muslim leaders who have put their faith in Christ. A tremendous starting point toward reinterpretation is found in Accad s excellent book Building Bridges (1997). As an Arab scholar and pastor, he suggests ways that Muhammad, the Qur an, and Qur anic verses which seem to deny the crucifixion can be reinterpreted (pp ; ). He cites, as well, examples of Muslims who have successfully remained in the community of Islam after accepting Christ, some referring to themselves as Muslims who are truly surrendered to God through the sacrifice of Messiah Isa (p. 35). Guidelines for Avoiding Syncretism in a C5 Movement The idea of Muslim followers of Jesus or messianic mosques has been suggested by a number of key missiologists (see Winter, 1981; Kraft, 1979; Conn, 1979; Woodberry, 1989). We do need guidelines, however, so that a C5 expression of faith does not slip into a harmful syncretism. Those working with Indeed, for centuries there have been millions of Muslims who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, as well as millions of Christians who are very foggy on that point, such as devout, Bible-revering Pentecostal unitarians in Mexico. In other words, whether believers in Jesus are called Muslims or Christians does not make a whole lot of difference when it comes to precise doctrinal fidelity to the Word of God. Within the African Initiated Churches you can find almost every sort of heresy, but we tend automatically to be tolerant of their theological understanding and are willing to give them time to understand the Bible better partly because it is our habit to call them Christians. Basically, mission strategists are less concerned to get these 50 million people out of these movements than they are to get the Bible into them. Could not this be the case with those thousands, and perhaps some day millions of Muslims whose main problem is that they are not as familiar with the Bible as they ought to be? Can t we think of the Qur an as we do the Apocrypha and let it gradually take a back seat to our Bible simply because it is not as edifying intellectually or spiritually? That will happen despite the emotional attachment Muslims may have to its Arabic and its cadences (no better understood than Catholics used to understand the Latin Mass). What a handicap the Qur an has in comparison to the meaningful flow of drama in the Gospels! And what a handicap if, like the Latin Mass for so many centuries, the Qur an cannot and must not be translated into any other language! How can it ever compete with the Bible? Maybe the Torah and the Injil simply need to be rediscovered within Islam the way the Bible has needed again and again to be rediscovered within Christian and Jewish history. Then, speaking of tolerance, it is not widely recognized by Christians but it is nonetheless absolutely true that throughout history Muslims have been more tolerant of Christians than the reverse! For thirteen centuries Muslims have been in charge of Jerusalem, and during that time they have preserved four quarters: Muslim, Christian, Armenian, and Jewish. Until modern times, only when that city has been under Christians or Jews, have all others been dealt with genocidal violence. Finally, we are forced to restudy the New Testament. The major missiological issue there is precisely how to go far enough. Do we feel sure Cornelius was hell-bound before Peter got to his door? Part of Peter s explanation, in Acts 15:8, was a God who knows the heart. That is precisely what we as humans don t know. Let us not let our theological formulations outrank the Word of God. Across the centuries of our own history, and the mission fields of the world, movements to Christ have rarely, if ever, been entirely sound by our present biblical understanding. Today we would not accept Luther s eschatology, nor Calvin s willingness to execute heresy. All our backgrounds, in fact, are sub-christian and syncretistic. Should we not be as eager for Muslims to know Christ and His Word as we are grateful that our forefathers were allowed to catch dim rays of light from that same Word centuries ago?

61 706 Chapter 120 a movement to jesus among muslims the greatest potential for an actual movement of self-reproducing churches. Perhaps it is for this reason that they are now experiencing some of the greatest persecution, not so much from within their own group, but from the more traditional Hindus that surround them. Religious nationalism is gaining ground in India s places of power. What were formerly verbal threats from local groups have given way to physical violence against some KBM village groups. Yet, perhaps one of the most important lessons from seven years of ministry has been that opposition has invariably resulted in a purging then multiplying effect on the overall movement, especially when the leaders stood firm. What is intended to destroy this young movement may in the end make its spontaneous multiplication unstoppable. May it be so! A Movement to Jesus Among Muslims Rick Brown Rick Brown is a Bible scholar and missiologist. He has been involved in outreach in Africa and Asia since Adapted from How One Insider Movement Began, International Journal of Frontier Missiology 24:1 (January- March 2007), published by William Carey International University Press, Pasadena, CA. Used by permission. The following account is based on the testimony of Brother Jacob and a foreign missionary. It was also investigated and verified by several Christian leaders in the country concerned. There was a holy man, a Sufi master, whom I ll call Ibrahim. He lived in a remote and traditional region of the country, where several thousand people looked to him for spiritual guidance, blessings for their crops, prayers for health and most of all, intercession for their eternal salvation. It troubled him that thousands of followers believed that he could save them on the day of judgment, while he was worried about his own salvation. So he began to pray in earnest that God would show him the sirāt mustaqīm, the true path to salvation. One night while Ibrahim was praying to know the way of salvation, Jesus appeared to him, radiant in white clothing. He told him to travel to a certain town and consult a holy man from such-and-such a village whose father and grandfather were named so-and-so. Jesus showed him in a vision the way to the house. Ibrahim was excited, realizing that this man s grandfather had been his very own Sufi master. Ibrahim vowed not to eat or drink until he met the man of God and had discovered from him the way of salvation. He got up when it was still very early and walked through a terrible rainstorm to catch an early bus to a town some 40 miles away. Ibrahim soon reached the town, found the house that Jesus had revealed to him and knocked on the door. He was surprised to see a man wearing ordinary clothes, not the robes of a Sufi master. It was Brother Jacob, the leader of a growing movement of Muslims who follow Jesus. When Ibrahim asked Jacob about his father, his grandfather and the village he came from, he knew that this was the very man that Jesus had told him to consult. So he told Jacob about the vision and asked him to tell him the way of salvation. Citing passages from both the Qur an and the Bible, Brother Jacob told Ibrahim the story of creation, how Satan tempted Adam and Eve and how they disobeyed God. He explained how their sin had caused alienation from God and enslaved them to darkness, sin and death. Brother Jacob went on to talk about Cain and Abel, the descent of the world into evil and the rescue of Noah and his family. He described how God called Abraham to follow Him and gave him eight sons. He talked about Abraham s promised descendants, about David and the disobedience of Solomon and his sons. Then he told him about

62 rick brown 707 the true son of David, the true heir of Abraham s promises, the second Adam, Jesus, who was the first human being in history to completely submit Himself to the will of God. He explained that it was the will of God that Jesus the Messiah suffered death on the cross to save mankind, and that God had raised Him back to life and exalted Him to sit at His right hand as Lord and Savior of the world. Brother Jacob told Ibrahim that the Lord Jesus had appeared to him in 1969 and had shown him that He is the true way of salvation. He read Jesus words in the gospel, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Jesus, he said, was Himself the sirāt mustaqīm. Master Ibrahim believed in Jesus and was ready to serve Him. He wanted to be baptized right then and there. Brother Jacob, however, counseled him to wait. God has made you a great leader, and he wants all of your followers to know that Jesus, the Mes siah, is the way of salvation. Go home and tell your wives and children first, and then tell your closest disciples. Ibrahim agreed, and they set a date for Jacob to come visit. About two weeks later, Jacob arrived to find a gathering of 200 of Ibrahim s leading disciples. The Sufi master began by telling the story of his prayer and the vision he was given by God. He described traveling during a storm to get to Brother Jacob s house to ask him the secret of salvation. Then Brother Jacob spoke. He told the same story he had told to Ibrahim, starting with the Qur an and then moving to the Bible, from Adam down to Jesus the Messiah. He called them to put their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. All of the leaders agreed, but they said they must first share this news with their wives and children. A few weeks later Master Ibrahim called Brother Jacob to come back. Brother Jacob arrived to find the Sufi master and 250 of his leading disciples, ready to be baptized, so he baptized Ibrahim and his wives and son. Then he told Ibrahim s wives to baptize their daughters. He then instructed Ibrahim to baptize the 250 senior leaders of his movement and to send them home to baptize their own wives and children. He told them to share the word with others and to baptize those who believe. On that day several thousand people were baptized into the Kingdom of God. Thus began a faith movement to Christ within a Muslim community. Brother Jacob had brought with him three cases of New Testaments, which he gave to Master Ibrahim to distribute to his leaders. But three days later, Ibrahim returned the cases saying they were obviously not for his people. There were too many words that were foreign or that pertained All of the leaders agreed to put their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but they said they must first share this news with their wives and children. to a different ethnic group. Brother Jacob offered another book which he had prepared a poetic paraphrase of the gospel story using familiar and acceptable language. Master Ibrahim saw that this book was wonderful, and he took a large quantity back with him for his disciples. Brother Jacob realized that these new followers of Christ needed a Bible in familiar and intelligible language, so he initiated a Bible translation project for them, starting with the Gospel of Mark. These two insider fellowships continue as house church movements in spite of slander, threats and persecution instigated by people in traditional churches. Master Ibrahim has died, but the movement he led continues under the pastoral care of his sons. They are confident that since it was the Lord Jesus Himself who directed them to Brother Jacob and his message, the Lord will also guide and protect them, and through them bless the Muslim communities to which they belong.

63 712 Chapter 123 the awakening of the persian church The Awakening of the Persian Church Gilbert Hovsepian and Krikor Markarian Gilbert Hovsepian was born in Iran and now lives in the U.S. The son of the late Persian Armenian Church leader Haik Hovsepian, Gilbert continues his father s legacy by producing a series of live-worship broadcasts as well as a collection of over 500 songs for the underground Persian church. He also broadcasts a weekly Bible-teaching program, reportedly one of the 10 most-watched programs in the country. Krikor Markarian served as a researcher and consultant for 10 years in Asia with the Global Adopt-A-People movement. M any Christians have long considered Iran one of the countries most closed to the gospel of Christ in modern times. In reality, however, a steadily reproducing church fellowship movement emerged and spread throughout Iran within our own generation. The story of how this came about is perhaps one of the most intriguing examples of God s sovereignty at work to accomplish His unchanging purposes among the nations. In the early 1960s, two decades before Iran closed completely to modern mission work, a team of missionaries from the U.S. began work among the Persian Armenian community in Tehran. Most of the Armenians were the descendants of a forced exile to Iran in Over the centuries, they developed a unique culture, dialect and even appearance as they assimilated into their host nation. The missionaries recognized the potential for these Persian Armenians to serve as a bridge-people between Islam and Christianity, and so began their work among them with this in mind. We will look at the result of their efforts but to truly understand God s hand in this remarkable story, we must first go back over 1500 years to the birth of the ancient Persian Church. Until the late 3rd century, most believers in the Persian Empire were of Jewish or Assyrian descent. But by around a.d. 300, a powerful move of the Holy Spirit could be seen among native Persians as well. The church in Armenia was a result of this dynamic spiritual awakening among Persian peoples in the late 3rd century. Gregory the Illuminator, a cross-cultural missionary sent from this ancient Persian Church, was instrumental in Armenia becoming one of the first Christian nations. By a.d. 301, Armenia became the first of many kingdoms in the East to embrace Christianity on a national level. This history goes to the heart of the Armenian identity, and Armenians can never forget how the intentional efforts of a cross-cultural missionary from Persia shaped their own history. Unfortunately, the breakthrough among the Persians was short-lived. In a.d. 312, the Roman general Constantine was led to believe he should conquer in the name of the cross. His conversion to Christianity and subsequent rise to power as the emperor of a united Rome suddenly brought a political dimension to the new Persian faith. From then on, Christians within the Persian Empire were seen as potential allies to the Roman Empire, and a new wave of government-organized persecution began. By the end of the 4th century, hundreds of thousands were martyred. Finally, with the coming of Islam in the 7th century, the fledgling Persian church gradually declined and then disappeared. The story of the Armenian Church is different from that of the Persian Church. While also persecuted and later subjected to harsh Islamic controls, the Armenian Church remained steadfast as the Persian church eventually disappeared. Interestingly, the only churches in Asia and North Africa that survived Islamic occupation were those that had the Scriptures in their language. The Armenian, Syrian and Coptic churches are some examples. However, among the Persians, Berbers and Arabs, no Bible was available in their mother tongue. That mistake was not rectified until modern times, and it is likely no coincidence that with the presence of the Bible in these lands, the Church has begun to grow once again. In Persia that rebirth has been one of the most remarkable the world has seen in many

64 gilbert Hovsepian and Krikor Markarian 713 years, and in the providence of God, He allowed the Armenian Church a special role to play in this great Kingdom advance. An Emerging Solidarity We return now to the Iran of the early 1960s. One of the first five disciples of that American missionary team was an Armenian man named Haik Hovsepian. In the late 1960s, Haik received a call from God to go as a missionary to the northern province of Mazandaran with the specific purpose of starting a work among Muslims. Though officially commissioned by the church in Tehran for this purpose, his burden for Muslims was one that few Persian Armenians shared or understood at that time. Most believed he was wasting his time. However, after about eight years of laboring, five house churches had been established with around 20 Muslim-background believers by Though only a small beginning, somehow Haik had a sense that God was building a foundation for a much greater work. Having a gift for music, one of the most important investments he made in the future Persian Church was his translation and authorship of over 150 worship songs into Farsi. According to those who knew him, he envisioned the day such songs would be sung by millions of believers. By 1981, the Persian Church in Mazandaran had grown to around 60 members, and many leaders were emerging. In that year, Haik answered a request and returned to Tehran to become the leader of the Council of Protestant Ministers (a group that is roughly the equivalent of the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States). His appointment to this post was very timely for the church in Iran. It was just two years after the Ayatollah Khomenei (an influential Muslim cleric with a vision for Islamicizing the country) seized the Iranian government, and the emerging church in Iran was beginning to feel the pressure of an increasingly hostile government. The church in Iran was not the only group to chafe under the new regime, however. The Persian people themselves were beginning to react in a negative way to the harsh restrictions imposed by the implementation of Islamic law. A silent rebellion among young people (70% of Iran was under the age of 30) was beginning to build momentum. If the government opposed something, people in this age group embraced it. When the government burned American flags, they wrapped themselves in them. Most importantly, when the government began confiscating Bibles, they could not wait to get hold of one. Slowly but surely, a kind of solidarity began to build between the persecuted Armenian believers and the persecuted youth of Iran. In defiance of the law, Haik began to encourage the Armenian Evangelical churches to open their doors to Persians and to begin using the Farsi language in their services. As new Persian believers began pouring into the churches, the government issued an ultimatum demanding that all such believers be reported. In response, Haik courageously rallied the churches to send a unified response back to the government: We will never submit to such demands. A Watershed Moment By the late 1980s, the number of Persian Muslim-background believers had grown into many thousands. Then in the 1990s, two streams converged to turn this momentum into one of the greatest watershed events in the history of Persian Christianity.

65 714 Chapter 123 the awakening of the persian church The first was a wave of government-organized crackdowns and assassinations of Christian leaders (including Haik Hovsepian in 1994, whose campaign to stop the execution of a Persian convert received both national and international attention). The result of this was that hundreds of Persian lay leaders rose up to take the place of these martyrs and a nationwide house church movement was born. Indeed, the boldness of Haik and the other martyrs, both Armenian and Persian, had a profound effect on the Evangelical church, but most especially upon the Persian believers themselves. At Haik s funeral, hundreds of new Persian believers turned out to honor him despite the presence of government agents documenting all who attended. All of this was God s foundation building for what would come next. In the year 2000, Christian satellite broadcasting began beaming the gospel to almost every home in Iran. This was made possible by the fact that millions of satellite dishes had been illegally smuggled into Iran by corrupt members of the same government that had outlawed them. The Christian satellite programs became a lifeline for the church in Iran. Furthermore, when the Iranian people learned that the government was trying to scramble the broadcasts, they became an overnight sensation. Recent nationwide surveys reveal that over 70% of the population is watching Christian satellite programs. These same surveys indicate that at least one million have already become believers, and many millions more are on the verge. This growth has happened so fast that the underground church can hardly keep pace. In one example, a house church that began with two people several years ago has now multiplied into over 20 groups. The leader of this network remarked, Starting churches in Iran is easy! Everywhere you go to evangelize, people are ready to receive the gospel, or they have already become believers through satellite broadcasts. Training leaders is also easy, remarked another leader. The government has left young people with nothing to do, so believers spend time with one another everyday. They are constantly gathering for prayer, Bible study and evangelism. When a group reaches 25 people, they divide in half and begin again. Within two years, a new believer is expected to become a leader of a new house fellowship and to disciple new leaders. There are now so many believers in Iran, the satellite broadcasters have begun shifting gears towards more discipleship-oriented programming. As in China, the rapid multiplication of house churches through the cell-division strategy has resulted in well-organized networks. There are at least 1,000 groups, most of which are the fruit of Haik Makhaz s intentional discipleship of several dozen core Persian leaders in Tehran during the late 80s and early 90s. One of these leaders, for example, oversees 137 house church fellowships. These organized networks are thriving despite great pressure from the government. In early 2008, government intelligence agents infiltrated a network of around 50 churches by responding to satellite broadcasts as wouldbe seekers. From there, they were able to work their way into the entire network. They rounded up the believers associated with these groups and forced them to sign a document that outlined their punishment if they ever assembled again. Because of such heightened security concerns, coordination between the underground church and satellite broadcasting ministries has grown increasingly difficult, though many are seeking creative solutions to bridge this divide. Leaders of house church networks have repeatedly expressed that one of their greatest needs is for more Bibles in Farsi. The stories of how God has used the Scriptures to bring entire families to Christ continue to pour forth from Iran. There is a tremendous hunger and widespread demand for the Bible. A new translation coordinated by Elam Ministries (founded also by a Persian Armenian) has already had a profound impact. Gilbert Hovsepian is now preparing an audio version for release within the year. It has been said that even if 10 million Bibles were available today in Iran, it would not be enough. One lady who has personally distributed 20,000 Bibles says that she has never once been turned down; rather, the vast majority received it as the greatest treasure they had ever been given.

66 shah ali with j. dudley woodberry 715 The Rebirth of the Persian Church For centuries, ethnicity and religious affiliation have been considered to be identical. If someone is an Armenian, it is assumed that person is a Christian. If someone is a Persian, it has been assumed for many centuries that that person is a Muslim. In the last ten years, a new term has become widespread throughout Iran, which can be literally translated Persian-Christian, or as they would conceptually translate it Muslim-Christian (farsimasihi). If someone saw you wearing a cross, they might ask, Are you Armenian? or Have you become Armenian? But today the question has changed. Because new believers are often asked if they are Persian- Christians (and not Armenians) it shows that for the first time in many centuries, one can be recognized as a Christian without being seen by the greater Persian community as a traitor against Persian people. This new identity is highly significant, testifying to the presence of a truly indigenous, self-reproducing movement. It has long been believed that a breakthrough among Persians could have significant impact on surrounding peoples in Central Asia and the Middle East. This has certainly proved to be the case in Iran itself. Persian missionaries are now going out to nearby minority peoples such as the Azeri, Luri and Kurds, with funding coming directly from the Persian believers themselves. The potential for a large-scale people movement to Christ in Iran has not been this great since the 4th century. Though all of this is cause for rejoicing, it is important to remember that the Persian Church has been here before. As was the case 1600 years ago, the government has begun to respond forcefully to stem the tide of this widespread movement. Although presently this new movement is entering a new period of trial, this time around they have a strong international network of believers, churches and ministries standing ready to help them. Now they have the Scriptures in Farsi, contextualized worship songs, leadership training programs and satellite broadcasts. And last but not least, they have the promise of Jesus, who said, I will build my church. Without any doubt, the move of the Holy Spirit in Iran is evidence of that ultimate and enduring reality. South Asia Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques Shah Ali with J. Dudley Woodberry Shah Ali is the pseudonym of a follower of Christ from a Muslim family in South Asia. His identity is being concealed (There is currently persecution of Christians in his country). He translated the New Testament into his national language using Muslim terms. J. Dudley Woodberry is Dean Emeritus and Senior Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary. He has served in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. His publications include Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road and From Seed to Fruit: Global Trends, Fruitful Practices, and Emerging Issues. From South Asia: Vegetables, Fish and Messianic Mosques, Theology, News and Notes (March 1992), pp Used by permission of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. My Muslim father tried to kill me with a sword when I became a follower of Jesus after comparing the Qur an and the Bible. He interpreted my decision as a rejection not only of my faith, but of my family and culture as well. Historically, Christians were largely converts from the Hindu community and had incorporated Hindu words and Western forms into their worship. In trying to express my faith, I encountered two sets of problems. First, as indicated, Christianity seemed foreign. Secondly, attempts by