God s Global Mission The Great Commission Of Our Lord Jesus Christ
First Two Well-Known Passages From the Gospels Of Matthew & Mark Matt 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Mark 16:19-20 Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
What s the Life Setting of these verses of the Great Commission? Imagine the geo-political context in which our Lord Jesus spoke these words to his beloved disciples. I am going to suggest to you to look at the context in a new way in order to understand these passages for today s current situation.
Second Well-known Passage Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. How is the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ going to be carried out?
From Jerusalem the City to Judea & Samaria the Region to Everywhere the World
Boston-Pilgrim s City on a Hill
Boston
Jonathan Edwards
George Whitfield
Charles Finney
Dwight L. Moody
20 th Century Boston and New England The Graveyard Of Christian Missions And Missionaries
Boston s Churches
What did God use in the Quiet Revival?
Both in the 1 st Century & the 21 st Century God used(s) CITIES! God used(s) DIASPORA PEOPLE God used(s) RELATIONAL (Primary) CULTURE God used(s) Spirit-Empowered people
From the City, to the Region and the World The 1:8s of the New Testament ACTS 1:8. To Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost ends of the earth. ROMANS 1:8. Your faith is being reported all over the world. I THESSALONIANS 1:8. Not only in Macedonia and Achaia (but) everywhere.
The City is a Gold Mine There is gold for the Lord in the cities of the world The city is a gold mine. It has prominent ethnic (vertical) veins. It has prominent sociological (horizontal) veins. And it has other veins that run at will in all directions But there is yet another level of complexity The city is also an organism constantly on the move. -Timothy Monsma
20 years England Rome Jerusalem India
Seismic Shift of Christianity
Diaspora Visitors to Jerusalem at Pentecost Rome(13) Pontus(7) Asia(8) Phrygia(9) Pamphylia(10) Cappa-Docia(6) Mesopotamia(4) Parthian Empire(1) Crete(14) Media(2) Elam(3) Cyrene(12) Judea(5) Numbers indicate sequence listed in Acts 2:9-11 Egypt(11) Arabia(15)
108 Nationalities Represented in Boston and Cambridge Churches African Cameroonian East Indian Honduran Albanian Canadian Ecuadorian Hong Kong Angolan Cape Verdean Egyptian Hungarian Antiguan Caribbean/West Indian Eritrean Indian Argentinean Central American Ethiopian Indonesian Australian Chilean Fijian Irish Bahamian Chinese Filipino Italian Barbadian Colombian French Ivoirien Belizean Congolese German Jamaican Brazilian Costa Rican Ghanaian Japanese British Croatian Greek Kenyan Bulgarian Cuban Grenadian Korean Burmese Curacoan Guatemalan Laotian Byelorussian Czech Guyanese Latvian Cambodian Dominican Haitian Lebanese
108 Nationalities Represented in Boston and Cambridge Churches Liberian Lithuanian Malaysian Mexican Montserratian Native American Nicaraguan Nigerian Norwegian Palestinian Panamanian Peruvian Polish Portuguese Puerto Rican Romanian Russian Salvadorian Samoan Serbian Sierra Leonean Singaporean Slavonic South African Spanish (Spain) Sri Lankan St. Barts St. Croix St. Kittsian St. Lucian St. Vincent Swedish Syrian Taiwanese Tanzanian Togolese Tortola, BVI Trinidadian Ugandan Ukrainian Venezuelan Vietnamese Virgin Islands West African Yugoslavian Zimbabwean
Boston & Cambridge worship services are held in 31 languages Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian ASL (Sign) Burmese Cantonese Creole French German Greek Igbo Indonesian Italian Khmer Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malayalam Mandarin Polish Portuguese Creole Portuguese Russian Spanish Syriac Tigrinya Ukrainian Vietnamese Yoruba
Christians joined together around the world
Christians joined together around the world
Three Eras of Modern Missions Mission to Coast-lands Inland Missions Reaching Unreached People Groups Fourth Era: Cities as God's Locus of Mission
Basic Framework for Missions (1) Missions embrace the whole world (2) Missions need to be embraced by EVERY follower of Christ (3) Missions need to be embraced by the body of Christ as a whole
Berlin and its Spiritual Challenges (1) Communist Heritage (2) Liberal lifestyle and modern Zeitgeist (3) Largest Muslim population
Reverse missions and Diaspora missions movements (1) Reality of immigrant churches in Germany (2) Mental models towards immigrant churches
Impact of a lack of collaboration with immigrant churches (1) Limits for people of a majority culture to reach out to immigrants (2) Distorted image of the body of Christ
Diaspora Missions Research Project Presentation Initial Findings: 10 Diaspora Missions Practitioners from New England to the World
Mission Locations: 10 Practitioners Bahamas Congo Nigeria Bolivia Haiti Peru Brazil India South Africa Burma Liberia Sweden Cambodia Moldova Thailand Cameroon Mexico Undisclosed (Asia)
Types of Diaspora Missions Agriculture Bible Translation Church Planting Construction Economic Development Education Evangelism Leadership Development Literature Medical Networking Orphans Relief Short-term Theological Education
Not-So-Well-known Passages of the Great Commission John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 17:20-23 I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Growth of Cities
Global Urban Ministries Network After 2000 yrs of Acts 1:8, wherever the Gospel has made a significant impact, believers are practicing Acts 1:8 all over again, going beyond their local cities, their Jerusalems to their regions & the World. Time has now come to Connect the Jerusalems to be more effective in World Evangelization following the Great Commission verses of John 13:35; 17:20-23. Cape Town GUMNet Luncheon: as a result now CT participant Mac Pier of New York City has begun a conversation among representatives of ten different cities of North America to learn from each other and EGC represents Boston.
Personal Information and Q & A Dr. Bobby Bose, Global Urban Ministries Education Coordinator Email: bbose@egc.org Dr. Bianca Duemling, Intercultual Ministries, Assistant Director Email: bduemling@egc.org Emmanuel Gospel Center 2 San Juan Street, PO Box 180245 Boston, MA 02118-0994 Website: www.egc.org