“There’s
no such thing as foreign Mission with God, God’s Missions Belongs to the
World” - Rev Dr Eddie Fox (World Director of Evangelism, the World
Methodist Council )
GO4th
2011 has certainly broadened my perspective of what Missions
really is. Especially in recent months where our YMOVE committee has been going
for intensive mission training session of deconstruction of preconceives ideas
& assumptions of what Missions is to us. Right now as I write this I’m
still in the midst of reconciling my thoughts of what missions really is.
Going
Beyond Boundaries
Rev
Rick Seaward mentioned that reasons why we don’t go for missions is we put
boundaries & limitations for ourselves. But God has NO BOUNDARIES. Jesus
cross all boundaries & push every boundary. Jesus was one who was move with
Compassion! I believe that is what would move us too, perhaps we should pray
for God to give us that compassion for His people, and that would move us out
of our boundaries.
Diaspora
Missions
The
overview of missions around the world was certainly an eye opener to me. One of
which was Diaspora missions in the world as well as in Singapore. There are 3
main groups of such Diaspora missions, the migrants, the Students and the
professionals. It was really encouraging to hear first-hand from people out
there who do such missions. One of which is the ministry in Fairfield Methodist
church (FMC) where they reached out to the Chinese migrants workers. This all started
from just 110 people who attended this one CNY dinner celebration, where 49
received Christ on that day and now it has grown to up to 13 000 of such
Chinese migrant workers who has come to FMC, where 5000 has received salvation,
500 baptised and now there’s records of people receiving Christ at almost every
service weekly.
Adding
to that, there was this Vietnamese girl who shared a heartfelt testimony on how
she came to know Christ from this girl she met in school and others who came
along the way. Just hearing her story moves one to know that we will never know
how our actions & deeds can actually lead one to Christ eventually. This is
how I see relational evangelism as well. It all starts with building
relationship with one another. It is as simple as just showing that love to one
another. “This
is my command: Love each other. John 15:17”
Going
Deep
We
had the privilege to go deep with in-depth Bible Study with Bishop Robert
Solomon in the morning sessions. We discussed on the story of Jonah on the
first day and on Song of Deborah from Judges on the second day. Below are some
of his profound quotes that I noted down.
"Responding to Missions is like Falling in Love with
God... "Yes God use me"- Bishop Dr Robert Solomon
"One
step forward in obedience is worth years of study about it."- Oswald Chambers
“We
have too many Christians doing too many calculations, with whatever knowledge
we have we just need to make that commitment." - Bishop Dr Robert Solomon
“Why
we obey God?
1)
Fear of Him
2)
Knowing God can be Trusted
3)
Knowing that He Bring Joy to your Heart
4)
Because we Love God”
Personal
highlight
My
personal highlight of the whole conference was during the session by Pastor
Peter Tsukahira a Japanese American Israeli citizen who shared two insightful sharing’s
during the conference. I still remember the powerful testimony of his wife’s
ministry in Israel where they reach out to the poorest of the poor by setting
up shelter for refugees. One day, the prime minister’s wife heard about this,
which later led to the media coming to hear about it as well. When the media
asked of them to share of their ministry, they took that chance to tell about
their relationship with Jesus and how they were Messianic Jews. This public
declaration of their faith and ministry was later on the front page news of
which millions of people read after.
Ministry
in the market place
He
also shared about his marketplace ministry when he was working in the business
world and was a pastor at the same time. He shared that we shouldn’t focus on
just looking to climb that corporate ladder. Sometimes we get too caught up
with the world just looking at climbing that corporate ladder that we may never
even be close to God when we reach to the top. In fact we should stop focusing
climbing up that corporate ladder but look down to those below you instead. We
should look at their needs and ask God how we can meet their needs.
Looking
Far
On
the final night, Peter Tsukahira shared a heartfelt sharing from his book
"God's Tsunami”, the move of the gospel expanding in a westward direction.
From the time of the Apostle Paul, Peter shows that God directed Paul to preach
the gospel to the west. Peter chronicles how the gospel has moved west into
Europe and has been moving steadily westward to this day. Though Paul's
ministry only took him as far as Rome, the gospel has continued to spread to
Europe, then to America. From there it moved to Asia (the 10/40 window) and
will circle back to Israel - where it all started, and there will be the
"end of the line" in the western sweep of world evangelization.
Jerusalem is God's chosen place for the return of the Messiah. This message is
described in Scripture. The passage Peter references is Romans 11:25, where
Israel's revival will follow the fullness of God's harvest among all nations
and is the chief requirement for Christ's return.
Are
you ready to "Catch the Wave of God's Purposes?"- Pastor Peter
Tsukahira
What
is Missions to me? - Benjamin Lau
A lot of us have our own
presuppositions of what missions is, partly from the influences of our own
church background or prior exposure to missions. Andrew Kirk who wrote the book
titled, “What is Mission”, asserts that we need to start with a proper
theological understanding of God, which shaped our theology of Mission.
This reminded me of a personal theological framework of God which I once
drafted that is based from my understanding of the Kingdom of God in light of ‘Missio
Dei’, which is the Latin word for ‘the mission of God’. I formulated this
framework in this way, as I believe we first need to acknowledge God’s
sovereignty and His reign as King in the Kingdom of God as said in Psalms
103:9, "The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His
Sovereignty rules over all”. With that premise, I believe we need to understand
God’s heart for the world. In accordance with Missio Dei, God desires to
restore back His creation mandate.
This restoration of the
creation mandate is similar to what Chris Wright postulates, “the great plan
and purpose of God is to redeem the whole of creation, broken by sin and evil,
into the new creation, populated by the redeemed from every culture through the
cross and resurrection of Christ.” Andrew Kirk’s expands this with a really
good overview of his tentative understanding of the theology of missions, he
said, it is “a disciplined study which deals with questions that arises when
people of faith seek to understand and fulfil God’s purposes in the world. It
is a reflection on attitudes and actions adopted by Christians in pursuit of
the missionary mandate. Its task is to validate, correct and establish on
better foundations the entire practice of mission.”
So what is missions means
to me today?
Firstly, I believe we need to think through the
impact we create when we are going for short-mission trips. For example, when
we go on short-term mission trips, are we there to just teach English? Would it
be beneficial for them in the long term? Or perhaps, when we plan an Easter
programme, would it actually help them? Even with good intention, sometimes we
may actually be imposing the culture of how we “do” church to a village in
another country who “do” church totally differently from us? These are
considerations we need to take note of and to be aware about. Sometimes it can
be just as simple as going there to encourage the missionaries there or just
playing with the kids. Having said that, I still believe there is a purpose for
such short term mission trips, as God can always use anyone in His ministry,
just that we need to think through the real intentions of why we go for such mission
trips in the first place.
Besides this short term
mission trips, we also need to see that missions involves the entire church. Imagine
if we our entire church members can be Kingdom Minded and see beyond the
four-walls of our church who actually actively participate or support any of
these ministries in some way! There is so much impact a local church can actively
play in God's Kingdom purposes in this nation and in the World!
This is supported by what Chris
Wright who have said, “Missions is the mode of existence for every member of
the whole church to take the gospel to the whole world.” David Bosch elucidates it beautifully, “Mission
takes place where the Church, in her total involvement in the world and the
comprehensiveness of her message, bears testimony in the form of a servant,
with reference to unbelief, exploitation, discrimination, and violence, but
also with reference to salvation, healing, liberation, reconciliation, and
righteousness.”
If someone asks me what my
theology of mission is now, I would respond, it is playing a part in God’s
Mission to reconcile back His Kingdom to all creation and to restore His Creation
Mandate. It’s a holistic approach, not just in a spiritual sense by
evangelizing to others, but being that true witness of God in our life and
meeting the physical, physiological and emotional needs of the marginalized and
the people we meet along in our journey in this life. And all this is only
possible with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
“We are called
to spread the Good News of the Gospel by Word, Deed and Sign in the power of
the Holy Spirit so that the world may know Jesus Christ,”...“We, the
people called Methodists, are followers of Jesus in the company of the Wesleys.
John Wesley made it clear the Wesleyan Way for the Methodist Movement is to be
alive, vibrant and growing.” - Rev Dr Eddie Fox (World Director of
Evangelism, the World Methodist Council )
The Wesley YMers who came on the final night of GO4th!
Our YMOVE discussion on one of our many meetings on missions, on "What's the KINGDOM OF GOD?"
