tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-116339342024-03-07T00:26:18.525-06:00Associates of Eutychus Consultant in Intercultural Leadership and Education
--- Jim PlueddemannJim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-90126454039338895122017-01-22T00:18:00.002-06:002017-01-23T14:36:50.873-06:00Missionary Goals, Roland Allen, Saint Paul and Eutychus <div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Measurable Objectives, St. Paul’s or Ours: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Roland
Allen & The Church Growth Movement <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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James E. Plueddemann <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Evangelical Missiological Society - Midwest Regional Meeting
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Trinity Evangelical Divinity School <o:p></o:p></div>
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April 21, 2012 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Revised January 2014</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It seems that the old "church growth" philosophy of missions is no longer at the forefront of missionary consideration. Yet I often hear admonitions from sending churches and mission agencies to set predictable, numerical goals. Looking back 100 years to the writings of Roland Allen may help us regain a more biblical perspective. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Setting measurable and predictable objectives is appropriate if one is <i>measuring activities</i> But <i>activities are not the same as the outcomes </i>that result from the activities. For example a legitimate measurable objective might be to show the Jesus film 100 times. This admirable objective is both quantifiable and predicted. But it isn't an outcome goal. The real "faith goal" is to see people make a genuine heart commitment to Christ or to see local believers passionate about evangelism. The important outcomes are inner qualities not external quantities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's interesting that the Pharisees in Jesus' day attempted to quantify the Ten Commandments. For example, "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." is an internal heart-related command, but the Pharisees wanted to make it behavioral and quantifiable. Thus they debated how many steps one could take on the Sabbath, how to avoid lighting fires etc. By attempting to set quantifiable behavioral objectives they became hopelessly legalistic. Jesus invested much of his teaching to combat quantitive measurements with inner heart change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rereading Roland Allen<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
almost 50 years later brings back pleasant memories. As a missionary candidate
with the Sudan Interior Mission in the 1960s I desired to be a cutting-edge
missionary, and reading a book that was then 50 years old unexpectedly shaped
much of my missionary thinking over the next 50 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The purpose of this paper is to compare missionary
objectives implicit in Roland Allen’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Missionary
Methods, St. Paul’s or Ours</i>, with more recent Church Growth contributions
to the discussion of missionary objectives. This discussion will be framed with
Scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">1) Missionary Objectives<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">objective</i>
describes what the mission <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seeks to
accomplish</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">desired outcomes</i>,
purposes, goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Methods</i> are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">means</i> of
accomplishing objectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Missionary
outcomes are referred to in passing by Allen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His primary purpose was to investigate methods, while assuming outcomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St. Paul sought to plant reproducing churches
in key centers in the provinces of Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of ten years the Apostle Paul
could say that his work was finished and it was time to move on to a new area
of service.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
The objective of St. Paul was to plant churches in strategic centers in
provinces. These churches would then reach out to influence the whole
province.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no indication that
St. Paul had a ten year plan to reach certain provinces or cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul was not motivated by precise outcomes,
but by vision filled with ambiguity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In his vision on the road to Damascus Paul received a
mandate to go to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified.” (Acts
26:18)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul was given a general task to
all non-Jews. He wasn’t told where to go, the number of converts, how many
churches to plant, or in what time frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Roland Allen makes the case that St. Paul didn’t plan his
missionary journeys. “It is quite impossible to maintain that St. Paul
deliberately planned his journeys beforehand, selected certain strategic points
at which to establish his Churches and then actually carried out his designs.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allen continues: “St. Paul did not deliberately
plan his missionary tours, but I find it equally difficult to believe that he
was not guided by some very definite principles in his selection of his mission
stations.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allen suggests that St. Paul operated from
principles rather than precise goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His objective was to establish two or three centers of Christian life in
a province that would be equipped to spread the gospel throughout the province.
Paul could later claim that the whole province had been evangelized.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Bible never mentions planning for the first missionary
journey described in Acts 13. After fasting and prayer the church in Antioch
placed hands Paul and Barnabas and sent them off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were also sent on their way by the Holy
Spirit (Acts 13:3-4).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that the
early missionaries used their common sense and implicit guiding principles and
then preached the word until they were expelled, stoned or run out of
town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While St. Paul was motivated by a
vision for planting and establishing three or four missionary-minded churches
in each province, it is unclear that he even knew which particular provinces he
should reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After preaching in
Galatia, the Holy Spirit kept him from moving into the province of Asia, and
then led him in a vision to the province of Macedonia (Acts 16:7-10).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Planning seemed to take place in the midst of the activity.
While there are no hints that Paul planned for precise quantifiable objectives
by certain dates, we cannot say that St. Paul was inefficient. After ten years
Paul could claim that “by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. . . from
Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel
of Christ” (Romans 15:19).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is an
amazing accomplishment in a relatively short time frame. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">2) Church Growth
Objectives<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Church Growth movement was helpful to the missionary enterprise in many ways, but was harmful in others. While there are many similarities between the Church Growth
Movement and the Pauline movement described by Roland Allen, the most stark
differences arise from a passion for precise planning and outcomes. In contrast
to St. Paul’s vision-driven, principle-centered objectives, the Church Growth
Movement was driven by planned measurable objectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>C. Peter Wagner writes: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Efforts without measurable
objectives can easily be construed as cop outs. Failure becomes an
impossibility. Reporting becomes hopelessly subjective. This is why goals,
carefully designated specifically articulated and constantly evaluated are
stressed by church growth men.”</i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><i>[6]</i></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">According to this definition, the ministry of St. Paul as
described by Roland Allen was a failure. Paul didn’t begin with measurable
objectives, his reporting back to the church in Antioch was “hopelessly
subjective” and his goals were not “carefully predicted, designated, specifically
articulated and constantly evaluated.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In 1970 Donald McGavran produced a highly influential book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Understanding Church Growth</i>, in which he
writes: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Setting membership goals is in
accordance with God’s eternal purpose. Goal setting in the service of the Great
Commission is pleasing to God. . . . Scripture is solidly on the side of careful
planning for church growth. . . . Goal setting should start by teaching that
measurable church growth is biblically required.</i><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title="">[7]</a> </i></span></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">McGavran suggests that decadal growth be measured as a
percentage of growth, not the growth of raw numbers. He mentions that Ralph
Winter proposed a <i>formula</i> for calculating growth from the concept of compound
interest.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Again we note the glaring contrast between Allen’s
description of St. Paul and the Church Growth strategy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One movement was guided by principled, visionary
and ambiguous outcomes and the other by mathematical formulas and objective
membership goals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I participated in a major church growth seminar in Jos,
Nigeria in the 1970s. A team of missiologists came from the United States and
taught a group of Hausa-speaking pastors through translation. First the seminar
leaders handed out graph-paper and asked each pastor to plot the growth of his
church in the last ten years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they
asked the pastors to set yearly goals for the next ten years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, if last year the church grew by
50 members, they would aim for adding 50 members per year for the next ten
years. Then the seminar leaders handed out logarithmic graph paper that showed
that if they only increased by 50 members a year, the percentage of growth
would over time move downward on the graph. As I visited with the
Hausa-speaking pastors during break times, I realized that most of them were
puzzled by these mathematical projections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many of them pastored some of the fastest growing churches in the world
and yet none of them had dreamed of setting membership goals and graph paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the next ten years the ECWA churches in
Nigeria grew by 370%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They grew not by
setting measurable objectives, but by what Roland Allen described as the
spontaneous expansion of healthy churches reaching out to their neighbors.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is a growing backlash in the non-Western world, against the quantitative
planning theories of church growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However the fundamental world-view of a behavioristic, objective
quantifiable reality persists in many Western mission governing boards are often composed of members with a behavior objective mindset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
suspect that the measurable objectives movement was more influenced by the
business world than by the biblical world described by Roland Allen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">3) Management by
Objectives in Business <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One year before Roland Allen wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Missionary Methods</i>, Fredrick W. Taylor produced a highly
influential monograph called, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Principles of</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific Management</i>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taylor called for a radical increase in
efficiency though the us use of time-motion studies. In 1954 Peter Drucker,
influenced by Taylor, wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Practice
of Management</i>, and introduced the concept of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">management by objectives</i>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A planning model that grew out of the Drucker philosophy
included the acronym SMART or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">s</b>pecific,
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">m</b>easurable, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a</b>chievable, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">r</b>ealistic
and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">t</b>ime-bound. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
None of these five characteristics fit the Allen model or that of St. Paul. It seems
that the Church Growth model was more influenced by principles of scientific
management than by Scripture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In 1995 I wrote an article for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Evangelical Missions Quarterly</i> entitled, “Measurable Objectives,
No! Faith Goals, Yes!”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
The article received so many negative letters to the editor that they had to
run them in the next two issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
editor, Jim Reapsome, told me that my article won a prize for the most negative
letters to the editor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several of my criticizers pointed
to the use of quantities in the book of Acts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I did a study of outcomes and results in the book of Acts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">4) Outcomes in the
book of Acts<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">First I copied and pasted the whole text of Acts into a Word
document with a wide margin. As I read through the text I underlined every text
that made mention of a result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I began
to analyze the various kinds of results, I noticed that most of the results
fell into a limited number of categories. I recopied the text of Acts into a
table format with the text on the left and possible categories of results on
the right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I then analyzed each verse in
the book of Acts that referred to an outcome and summarized the categories into
major groupings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here are my findings:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Results are an important feature in the book of Acts</b>. It is
appears that Luke made at least 111 statements in Acts that refer to outcomes
or results. Luke reported on outcomes that grew out of the work of the Holy
Spirit, the apostles and the early church. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But none of the outcomes were planed advance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here are the major groupings of resultant statements: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Twenty seven times Luke reported <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">evangelistic growth</b>. Three times
approximate numerical results were given such as “about three thousand were
baptized,” (1:14) and “the number of men grew to about 5,000” (4:4) and “about twelve men in all” (19:5).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each
time numbers were used they were given as estimates. Growth in size was
reported 24 times <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">without using numbers</i>,
such as “the number of disciples was increasing” (6:1), “the Lord added to
their number those who were being saved” (2:47), and “all those who lived in
Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord” (9:35). Most often Luke merely
reported that “a great number of people believed.” It seems that Luke was
highly interested in the growth of the church but he was not overly concerned
with reporting numbers. At no point do
we find predictions of numerical converts. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Thirteen times Luke reported results in terms of
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">discipleship</b>, nurture or the
strengthening of believers. Evangelistic results, while important, also
required the continual inner growth of believers. Sometimes Luke recorded
spiritual growth in terms of the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria . . . was
strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit” (9:31).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other times Luke reported the strengthening
of disciples (14:22).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Human
need</b> results were important to Luke. Twelve times results were reported in
terms of physical healing, economic sharing or casting out of evil spirits.
Early believers shared possessions (4:32), the lame were healed (3:8), demons
were cast out (7:7), and the dead were raised (9:40). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Often the results were <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">negative</b>. Twelve times Luke reported painful outcomes of ministry.
After one sermon, Paul was dragged out and stoned (7:57), persecution broke out
against the church in Jerusalem (8:1), Jews poisoned the minds of the Gentiles
(14:2) and Paul was accused of being out of his mind because of his great
learning (26:24).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is important to
note that a high percentage of the reported results were negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke never blamed the sermon or the preacher
for negative results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not all ministries
should be expected to produce positive outcomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Eleven times the result was the direct
intervention of the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Holy Spirit</b> or
of angels. Luke described that “disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit:”
(2:4), “all were filled with the Holy Spirit” (4:31), and the Holy Spirit came
to Gentiles who heard the message (10:44). Twice angels produced unexpected
results when the disciples and Peter broke out of jail (5:19 & 12:11).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often the reported results were not outcomes
of the disciples’ actions, but God used supernatural means to produce results. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Five times the result was a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">theological shift</b> in the mind of Peter and of the church or a
theological challenge to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Peter finally realized
that God “accepts people from every nation who fear him and do what is right”
(10:34).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Jerusalem Council agreed
that they should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who were turning to God
(15:19).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The correcting or developing of
theology was an important result in Luke’s reporting. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Four times Luke reports that the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">word of the Lord spread</b>, widely and in
power (12:24, 13:49, 19:10 & 20).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The result was not described in terms of the action of people, but of
the word of God. We are not told how the people responded but nevertheless it
seemed important to Luke to report the outcome of the spreading of the
word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The prediction of results in Acts does not fit the Church Growth concept of planned or predicted objectives. Only three times out of 111
examples are quantitative results reported and they are reported in round numbers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after the fact</i>. No reported result in
the book of Acts were planned or predicted. Results in the book of Acts were
important, describable and evaluatable, but were not predictable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">5) Reaction Against
Management by Objectives. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The secular management guru Tom Peters has written about the
problems of specific plans and goals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Plans? Goals? Yes, I admit that I
plan and set goals. After I’ve accomplished something, I declare it to have
been my goal all along. One must keep up appearances: In our society “having
goals” and “making plans” are two of the most important pretenses. Unfortunately,
they are dangerous pretenses – which repeatedly cause us to delay immersion in
the real world of happy surprises, unhappy detours, and unexpected byways.
Meanwhile, the laurels keep going to those mildly purposeful stumblers who hang
out, try stuff with reckless abandon—and occasionally bump into something big
and bountiful, often barely related to the initial pursuit.</i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><i>[14]</i></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Could it be that having precise goals and making
quantifiable goals are also a dangerous pretense in missions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Even Peter Drucker seems to agree that management by
objectives would be unhelpful for mission agencies. He writes: “the non-profit
organization exists to bring about a change in individuals and in society.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
These changes are not predictably quantifiable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Missionaries seek to be used of God to bring about change in the hearts
of individuals, the church and society. Such an objective does not fit the
SMART criteria, it is not <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">s</b>pecific, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">m</b>easureable, easily <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a</b>chievable, humanly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">r</b>ealistic or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">t</b>ime-bound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Korean missiologist Bong Ho Son, has written that
“church growth theology has done more harm than good in Korean churches in
general.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Samuel Escobar has also criticized what he identified as the
Western Management Model with it’s passion for statistics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Every characteristic of missiology
becomes understandable when perceived within the frame of that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avowed quantifying intention</i>. Concepts
such as ‘people groups,’ ‘unreached peoples,’ ‘10/40 window,’ ‘adopt a people,’
and ‘territorial spirits’ express both a strong sense of urgency and an effort
to use every available instrument to make the task possible.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Escobar also refers to the hundreds of strategies near the
turn of the century, called AD 2000, and Lausanne II with the vast array of
“arresting but mystifying statistics.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of these strategies would fit the SMART
paradigm of being specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and
time-bound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">6) A Clash of
Cultural Values <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Could it be that the debate about missionary objectives is
rooted in a clash of personality differences or cultural values?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geert Hofstede spent a lifetime gathering
data from around the world on cultural values in the work place. One critical
value was what he identified as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">uncertainty
avoidance</i>, defined as “the extent to which the members of a culture feel
threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Individuals
and cultures with high uncertainty avoidance seek to control the future through
planning, statistics and measurable outcomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the difference
between Roland Allen and the Church Growth Movement is more related to a tolerance
for ambiguity than to theological differences. Winter was first an engineer, a
job that required low tolerance for ambiguity. He felt very comfortable with formulas
and statistics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allen was a pastor more
in touch with the more ambiguous disciplines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Apostle Paul was motivated by a life-long vision and a general sense
of direction, but he could endure the uncertainties of a missionary work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">In a world where many more countries are sending missionaries around the world, we need to be be cautions of missionary strategies that merely reflect Western cultural values, which will not only seem strange, but hinder the missionary world of the new missionaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">7) Conclusion <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Many <i>good things</i> have come out of the Church Growth Movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both McGavran and Allen promoted the
spontaneous expansion of the church through the use of family connections as
“bridges to God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ralph Winter pointed
out vast areas of the world needing more missionary involvement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church Growth theology has permeated the
<i>Perspectives Course</i> movement which as been a challenge and a blessing to
thousands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church mission committees
have benefited from the emphasis on strategic planning. But the movement also
has some serious downsides. Mission committees, mission administrators<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and missiologists take note. The movement of measurable objectives isn't dead yet. Too bad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here are a few
of the serious problems. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Measurable objectives:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">Tend to <i>aim for what is easily measurable</i> rather
than heart change in people and churches. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">What is easily measurable is often insignificant.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">Tempt us to </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;">count activities</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"> rather than eternal
outcomes. Since we can count how many times we do things, it is tempting to
think we are successful merely by being active.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">Assume that </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;">quantity</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"> is an accurate reflection
of </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;">quality</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">, when in fact, often the opposite may be true. Could it be that the faster the growth of
the church, the shallower the quality of discipleship? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">May lead to a missionary becoming </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;">incorrectly
encouraged</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"> when only external goals are met, or becoming wrongly discouraged by
ignoring the subtle hints of blessing. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">Lead to insignificant or even </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;">trivial goals</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">.
Since measurable objectives must be achievable, we aim at what we know we can achieve rather than true faith vision. We aim too low when we aim at what can be predicted and quantified. </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Even though I believe that quantifiable, predictable or behavioral objectives are a hinderance to the task of world missions, I believe in evaluation. I am convinced that we can keep our eyes open to indications of the effectiveness of the activity or program.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Evaluation that comes after-the-fact can be most helpful in improving programs. I'm convinced that the the best evaluation considers not just outcomes, but programs and cultural awareness of the situation, and how the three fit together. But this is the subject of another blog. </span><br />
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Roland Allen, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Missionary Methods St
Paul’s or Ours</i>? (London: Robert Scott, 1912). <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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Ibid., p. 3. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Ibid., p. 15. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ibid., p. 17.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Ibid., p. 18-19. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> , C.
Peter Wagner, “The Church Growth Workshop or Seminar.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Church Growth Bulletin</i>. vol. viii, no. 6, July 1972, p 235. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> McGavran,
Donald A., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Understanding Church Growth</i>.
3rd edition C. Peter Wagner ed. 1990. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>P . 279 (First published in 1970, revised in
1980 and edited by Wager in 1990) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Ibid., p. 283.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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See, Roland Allen. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spontaneous
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1927).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fredrick W. Taylor. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Principles of</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific Management</i>. New York:
Harper, 1911. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Peter Drucker. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Practice of Management</i>.
New York: Harper, 1954. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a
S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Management Review</i>, Volume 70, Issue 11(AMA FORUM), pp. 35-36. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
James E. Plueddemann, “Measurable Objectives, No! Faith Goals, Yes!” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Evangelical Missions Quarterly</i> 31, no. 2
(April 1995): 184-187. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Tom Peters. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bookstore Journal</i>.
Feb. 1991. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Peter F. Drucker. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Managing the Non-Profit Organization</i>. NY: HarperCollins. 1990<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Bong Ho Son. “Some Dangers of Rapid Church Growth.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Korean Church Growth Explosion</i>. Bong Rin Ro, and Martin L. Nelson
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Samuel Escobar. “Evangelical Missiology: Peering Into the Future at the Turn of
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Rapids: Baker, 2000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>p. 109. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cultures and Organziations: Software of the Mind</i>. Chicago: McGraw
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Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-35491968103041178792015-03-23T17:06:00.002-05:002015-03-23T17:06:17.424-05:00Short Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence<h3 class="post-title" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0.25em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px;">
Serving With Eyes Wide Open</h3>
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<em>Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence. </em><br />David A. Livermore. Baker Books, P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287. 2006, 188 pages, $12.99.<br /><br />Reviewed for <em>EMQ</em> by James E. Plueddemann, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL.<br /><br />“The world is crawling with foreigners,” exclaimed a student in one of my cross-cultural communication classes. Cultural intelligence is often missing in the 4 million Americans who travel abroad each year to do short-term mission work. While there are several good resources to help short-term missionaries know how to apply for a passport and where to get yellow-fever shots, <em>Serving with Eyes Wide Open</em> is based on solid research and fills an important gap in the literature. It is a most readable book with many examples to help short-termers understand cultural pitfalls and gain cultural intelligence.<br /><br />David Livermore begins with a succinct overview of the world and the global Church. It is important for short-term missionaries to realize that the Church outside of the United States is growing rapidly, often faces persecution, recognizes spiritual warfare and is becoming a major sending force. Such an overview may help overcome the “here I am you lucky people” complex.<br /><br />The next section looks at the motivation for short-term missions. I am impressed with the balance in this section. From his own experience, Livermore points out the shallow motivation that drives many short-term missionaries. He gives sad but humorous examples of what pastors from the United States thought they were teaching and compares it to what the national pastors actually thought of the teaching. He describes misunderstandings between short-termers and host people in the use of <em>time</em>, the urgency of the <em>task</em> and <em>oversimplification</em> of complex situations. He is concerned that too often short-termers parachute into what they perceive as a backward culture, distribute goods and then retreat.<br /><br />“Open your eyes!” is the continual challenge of this book. Readers will find practical steps for gaining cultural understanding in four areas. Short-term missionaries need to gain <em>knowledge</em> of basic cultural differences. Then using this knowledge they can <em>interpret</em> cues about what is really going on in the other culture. Livermore encourages <em>perseverance</em> as short-termers deal with confusing situations, and gives practical advice on how to <em>behave</em> while applying the above three principles in another culture.<br /><br />Livermore concludes with a powerful chapter on “The Heart of the Matter,” doing missions out of a genuine love for people and for God. If short-term missionaries can love the people to whom they minister they will treat them with dignity and respect. If they serve because of their love for the Lord, they will avoid a self-serving motivation and focus on genuine service.<br /><br />Finally I have an accessible book on short-term missions that I can use as a textbook and also give to our youth director as she prepares a group from our church to spend two weeks in Brazil. The book is grounded in research by respected theorists such as Geert Hofstede, Robert Levine, Edward T. Hall and Robert Kohls, yet the book is written for the layperson with compelling examples and insights from practical experience. Many books on short-term missions are either descriptions of the “nuts and bolts” of how to lead a team, or are naïf propaganda extolling the virtues of the so called “next paradigm in world missions.” <em>Serving with Eyes Wide Open</em> is written with a perceptive understanding of the dangers and problems of short-term missions. It also gives a sense of hope by encouraging godly motivation and cultural intelligence.<br /><br /><strong>Other valuable resources for short-term missions:</strong><br /><br />David Mays of ACMC has put together a valuable CD called, Trip Stuff: Stuff You Need To Know About Doing Mission Trips In Your Church. (April 2006) Contact him at <a href="http://www.davidmays.org/" style="color: #776644; text-decoration: none;">http://www.davidmays.org/</a>.<br />Elmer, Duane. 2006. Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility. IVP Books.<br />Judge, Cindy, 2000. Before You Pack Your Bag, Prepare Your Heart: 12 Bible Studies for Short-Term Mission Preparation. Wheaton: Campfire Resources.<div style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 0.25em;">
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Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-83859004059538677662015-03-23T16:40:00.001-05:002015-03-23T17:07:30.062-05:00Short Term Missions - Doing Good - Avoiding Harm <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
How to Avoid Doing More Harm Than Good in Short-Term Missions<br />
<b>Seven Standards of Excellence</b></div>
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Jim Plueddemann<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p>Every year I ask my M.Div students at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School about their view of short term missions. Almost all of them have had experience either as a team leader, or have received short-term teams. I ask them about the effectiveness of short-term missions from the perspective of the receiving people. Invariably about a third of my students feel the trips are worthwhile, a third say they were OK and didn't do much good or harm, and a third feel strongly that short-term missions do more harm than good. Short-term missions is not intended to be therapy for the missionary. Providing experiences for short-termers isn't bad. Maybe call it "short-term experiences" but just don't call it missions. </o:p></div>
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1. <b>God-Centered</b> – Is God honored through this
experience? Is love for God and love for people the chief motivation? It is
quite possible that seemingly "successful" projects of short-term missionaries
actually bring shame to Christ. Most short-term teams are blissfully unaware of unintended consequences of their projects. <o:p></o:p></div>
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2. <b>Gospel-Centered</b> – Will the trip contribute
directly or indirectly to evangelism and developing committed followers of
Christ?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people travel around the
world doing good deeds that contribute to causes other than Christ and his
Kingdom. While the service projects are commendable, unless there is a Gospel component, is not truly missions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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3. <b>People-Sensitive</b> – Do short-termers appreciate and
build on the cultures and giftedness of those they go to serve? Are
short-termers humbly willing to listen and learn from local people? Toxic
charity is doing good things for people that in fact, make them feel less than
human. Treating people as objects or recipients of aid is dehumanizing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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4. <b>Field-Focused</b> – Will the experience strengthen the
ministry on the field? It the trip actually strategic for the field? Short-term
mission trips may broaden the horizons of the short-term missionary, and at the same time be
a hindrance to the ministry of local pastors and long-term missionaries. At times churches fund short-term missions often drain precious resources from the support of
long-term missionaries and field ministries. <o:p></o:p></div>
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5. <b>Long-term Outcomes </b>– Does the trip promote the
a commitment to long-term missions or more fervent prayer or sacrificial giving? Does
it empower local people to be more self-supporting and self-sufficient? There
is quite a bit of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>evidence that the work
of short-term missions facilitates dependency and hinders local initiatives for
those being served, and has little long-term missional impact on the short-termers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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6. <b>Appropriate Preparation</b> – Does preparation make
short-termers aware of God’s plan for the nations, and an appreciation of
cultural values of the local people?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times short-termers are coerced into going on trips resulting in resentment from
those receiving the missionaries. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
short termers go in order to discover themselves and experience the broader
world. Such a motivation is not bad, but neither is it missions. Maybe such trips should be called "self-awareness experiences" rather than missions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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7. <b>Through Follow-Up</b> – Does the trip lead to greater
understanding and long-term missions commitment by the short term missionary and the
sending church?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does the short-term trip
encourage some to be long-term missionaries, to pray for fervently for missions or to give sacrificially to missions? Some research shows that the
effects of the short-term experience wear off after six months, and may immunizing
them against serious long-term involvement in missions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is little evidence that, on the average,
short term experiences contribute to increased prayer or financial support for
world missions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-16317765018266341762011-10-25T08:47:00.004-05:002011-10-26T08:57:36.450-05:00The Rainbow Delusion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQe8Fbgcq8H-Ba2qXqGcnO-vjynD0RXrXTTAnXG6H5QzzE32Ejl1fmAlIYHbROZplZyTsiA2yn0hARBBVo1V-q8usF_72dShchQx_1bXcbdRU0XtJjibD_rzuGSqYsxCNNrNq/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQe8Fbgcq8H-Ba2qXqGcnO-vjynD0RXrXTTAnXG6H5QzzE32Ejl1fmAlIYHbROZplZyTsiA2yn0hARBBVo1V-q8usF_72dShchQx_1bXcbdRU0XtJjibD_rzuGSqYsxCNNrNq/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Once upon a time there lived an odd people in a land where every baby was born blind. The blind people were intelligent and learned not only to cope but also to discover the word around them through the limited senses they had. They built societies and generated traditions quite suitable for a blind civilization. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Then one day an extraordinary thing happened. A loving stranger appeared from far away, a man who could not only see, but who had medicine to cure others of their blindness. This amazing man healed many people. They followed the stranger and learned from him as he taught them. The “cured ones” rejoiced as they discovered exquisite the beauty of flowers, sunsets, birds and rainbows. They spread the wonderful news to their friends. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">For a while great crowds followed the stranger, seeking a cure for blindness. But as unusual as it may sound, many of the blind people hated the stranger and his followers. Some shouted, “Who do you think you are, telling us that we are incomplete people. We were quite satisfied with ourselves before you came. We have our long-established ways of coping with reality. Now you are telling us our traditions are inadequate and you want us to accept your new way of life?” Resentment grew until the blind ones decided to kill the stranger who brought the medicine and teaching about a new way of life. They killed him. But the healer used an even stronger medicine, one that cured death. So I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you that he came back to life after three days in the grave. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The risen healer showed himself to his sighted followers. Then the stranger returned to his own country. He promised to return some day and take them to live in a land that is even more beautiful than anyone can imagine. Just before he left, he gave the his sighted followers unlimited supplies of the healing medicine and told them to go throughout the whole land and heal anyone who wanted to see. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Today millions of people have new eyes to see a wondrous world of flowers, sunsets, birds and rainbows. They too love the risen healer and long for his return. But in the meantime they obey his last words and take the good news of healing to the ends of the earth. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Even today the blind opposition still mocks the sighted ones. Blind scientists write books claiming that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rainbows are a delusion</i>, mere superstitions that can’t be proved by rationalistic scientific method. One blind scientist, Dr. Snikwad wrote a scathing book accusing sighted people of being pre-modern delusionals, blaming them for the problems of the world. Dr. Snikwad closed his ears to the thousands of sighted scientists who follow the wounded healer, scientists who acknowledge they too believe in reason and the scientific method. They plead with the good Dr. to open his eyes, not to a different reality, but to a broader, wider, richer and deeper reality that includes science and reason. Not only does the wounded healer open up a richer world to the sighted ones, but for the first time they see meaning in life as well as color; shining a light on true beauty. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened. . . .<o:p></o:p></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gladness and joy will overtake them,<o:p></o:p></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And sorrow and signing will flee away.”<o:p></o:p></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">(Isaiah 35:5,10)<o:p></o:p></span></div>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-78294814995312148042010-11-04T08:57:00.000-05:002017-01-23T13:51:14.786-06:00Is Social Justice The Same As Evangelism?<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It seems like a “no-brainer.” If we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves we will obviously care about peoples’ wholistic development; their coming to Christ, being transformed into his image while addressing physical and social needs. But is it really a “no-brainer?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Last semester a student came into my office to report on how he and his fellow classmates were promoting <i>social justice</i> among the poor in a nearby community. I enthusiastically complemented him for his ministry. Then I asked if his team talked to anybody about Jesus. The student sat there for a second, almost stunned, and then mumbled, “we forgot.” Another student reported that her goals were to do wholistic ministry in Africa. I asked if she intended to do evangelism. She answered, “No, we will do wholistic ministry.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Robert Wuthnow observes in his recent book </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Boundless Faith</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> that for the church in America “humanitarianism does not so much replace evangelism as evangelism becomes defined as showing Christian love through humanitarian work” (p. 135) and “service is redefined as evangelism” (p. 242). Is this an emerging secular gospel? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wonder if Bible-believing Christians are unreflectively drifting into a <i>neo-social gospel</i> or a gospel without Jesus? Could it be that evangelical Christians are subtly slipping into an incipient universalism? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Seldom has the missionary problem been evangelism without concern for human need. The whole history of missions overflows with descriptions of a solid emphasis on health, hospitals, schools, agricultural projects, rights of women, literacy, famine relief and dozens more. On the other hand, there are many examples of missionaries showing compassion for human need with no concern for the spiritual dimension. With few exceptions evangelical missionaries have always been truly wholistic, caring for the temporal as well as the eternal needs of people. In the middle ages, missionary religious orders started hospitals and introduced improved agriculture and fought for the dignity of the downtrodden. William Carey established businesses and Hudson Taylor studied medicine. It is almost impossible to find a corner of the world where evangelistic missionaries didn’t also establish medical clinics, hospitals, schools and agricultural programs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is admirable that Christians are catching a renewed passion to fight the ills of human trafficking, injustice, hunger, disease, pollution and abandoned children. May these ministries ever increase. But it is a false gospel that seeks to build the kingdom of God while ignoring the King. Jesus challenged Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again” (John 3:3). While I admire secular organizations the merely meet physical and material needs, we shouldn't call their service, Christian missions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Concern for human need without concern for the proclaimed gospel is “halfistic.” May we be faithful to truly wholistic ministry that combined compassionate evangelism with care for human need. </span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-60636574714478140172010-07-06T11:29:00.001-05:002010-07-12T17:14:35.965-05:00Beyond Independence to Maturity<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span">Human development can be divided into stages of growth. A newborn baby is dependent on its parents for every need. A mature adult can world with parents as an equal, and there can be genuine interdependence. During the in-between years a child needs to learn independence, to think for himself, and to solve his own problems. For the child to have a responsible, mature and equal relationship with his parents, he must go beyond independence. <br />
<br />
Church development may have similar stages. A newborn church is often dependent on outside mission for much of its existence. A biblically mature church forms responsible partnership with the church world-wide. But often an in-between stage is needed before the church learns independence. The proper objective of the mission is not merely a self-reliant, independent church, but a church that is actively engaged in evangelism and nurture. Thus, while a self-reliant, independent church is not the ultimate goal of a mission, it may be a necessary and important in-between step. Responsible partnership may not be possible without the church first going through a stage of independence. <br />
<br />
National churches are progressively becoming more independent and self-reliant. Many have assumed authority and responsibility for the work of local churches. Many national churches have been given authority for the work of the mission as well. But before responsible partnership can be achieved it's quite possible that the church must become fully independent. However, the ultimate goal goes beyond mere independence to the unfinished task of evangelism and building the Body of Christ. <br />
<br />
(While the parenting metaphor has limitations) An illustration may help in understanding the stages. Before a father and son can take a bicycle trip together as equals, the father must teach the son how to ride a bicycle. Typically, this is done with the father running alongside the son while holding onto the bicycle. The son will not be able to ride as a responsible partner until the father lets go of the bicycle and the son first learns independence. Independence is a necessary but not sufficient stage in developing responsible partnership. <br />
<br />
Today, many churches started by mission groups are ready to ride alone. Now is the time for the mission to more fully let go in preparation for responsible partnership. But if the mission is to actively encourage independence, there will need to be a change of thinking regarding typical mission strategy. If the mission is to both strategize and actively encourage independence, then it faces a dilemma. <br />
<br />
In the past mission agencies have looked at needs, set objectives, planned a program, and gone to work. In the last few years the mission has tried to involve the church as a partner in the strategy process, but often with limited success. Church leaders often feel they wish to pursue different needs and priorities. They are not afraid to complain about mission strategy, even when they are asked to participate with the mission. This new assertiveness may be a healthy sign of development in the church. <br />
<br />
But one wonders about the resulting role of the mission. Yes, we need to let go, but is there nothing the mission should be doing to help the church with the maturation process? One fears that if the mission ignores its own concerns and merely does what the church tells it to do, the mission may actually hinder development in the same way such treatment would spoil a child. Thus, the dilemma-we must let go, but to have no strategy is irresponsible. Mission boards should not force the church to do things our way; yet we may hinder mature growth if we unthinkingly do only what the church asks us to do. <br />
<br />
A responsible father teaching a son to ride a bicycle will follow two principles: (1) He will let go. If the child learns to ride alone then all rejoice, but if the child falls, it is considered a learning experience. Where there is no freedom to make a mistake, there is no freedom to grow. (2) He will look for "hands-off" ways to help the child, looking for the day when he and his son can ride together as true partners. Developing a biblically responsible partnership should be the primary immediate concern. There are two principles for accomplishing this task: the mission should more fully let go, and the mission must look for supportive, nondirective ways to stimulate maturity in the church. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span">1. The mission should more fully let go.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span"> We should more completely turn over authority and responsibility to the church. A domineering father will stifle the development of his children. But a maturing church is one that is free to determine, under the direction of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of Scripture, its own affairs. It must be free to make mistakes. <br />
<br />
James Dobson, in the book The Strong Willed Child, writes that parents often hinder children from maturing. They even encourage their children to become irresponsible parasites. He writes, "The main fault of parents is that they prevent children from understanding the problems of survival by always solving their problems for them." Children mature through facing the consequences of actions that they have the authority to make. <br />
<br />
Mission agencies must step aside and give the church the freedom to be accountable for her actions, and free to face the consequences of her actions. Even if the consequences may be painful, the mission should not interfere or "bail the church out" of the consequences. We don't need to assume, though, that when the church is given the freedom to face consequences the results will necessarily be painful. When a child learns to ride a bicycle, both the parents and the child become ecstatic.<br />
<br />
The mission must put a greater emphasis on achieving process goals. The goal must be to foster the process of maturation and growth of people. Our top priority should be to foster the developmental process in church leadership. Our goals have often focused on programs and institutions. We have wanted to get a certain number of programs or churches going in certain places by a certain time and see certain results. Typically our goals have been product goals. Process goals often require more patience. We don't plan for the growth of a child through the use of a PERT chart. We don't measure human development on logarithmic graph paper. Process goals take a different kind of planning. We can foster, stimulate, and encourage growth, but we can't force it, no matter how efficient we are or how much money we spend, or how systematically we plan. Mothers of small children often know much more about process goals than even the most successful businessman. <br />
<br />
Too great an emphasis on product goals usually hinders process goals. Often the most efficient, high-powered executives are successful in getting much work done, but they are least effective in developing innovative and creative subordinates. <br />
<br />
Our objective must be to develop leaders who will take initiative and solve problems. It is not enough merely to develop programs and institutions, no matter how worthy they may seem, and no matter how often they are requested by the church. This doesn't mean missions should ignore product goals. But product goals are important if they foster process goals. For example, if our goal is to build a seminary, we could make faster progress if we take initiative. But if our goal is to develop leaders who will take initiative, learn how to solve problems, and learn how to build seminaries, then it is better for us to be patient and to use the situation as a tool for the process of leadership development. Often mission leaders are so concerned with the product, such as a new school, that we hinder the process of development of leadership in the church. <br />
<br />
In order to foster process goals, missionaries must be withdrawn from leadership positions in church administration, even if national church leaders ask missionaries to remain. The church is not developing leadership when it only has authority to make decisions but does not need to take responsibility for carrying them out. The church can make irresponsible decisions and not have to face the consequences. Or the church can let missionaries continue to make decisions and avoid learning how to make their own responsible decisions. <br />
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Withdrawing missionaries from national church leadership positions in no way suggests a moratorium. The mission could increase the number of missionaries; place them in positions where they could have a great spiritual ministry, and still not hinder the development of leadership in the national church. But we should have a phasing out of missionaries in leadership positions in the national church. <br />
<br />
In order to foster process goals, mission agencies must phase out of funding church institutional running expenses. Gifts toward running expenses create a parasite mentality, an inferiority complex, hinders local initiative, and stifles long-range planning. We hinder a responsible budgeting process. When a Bible school experiences financial trouble, it knows the mission will regularly supply emergency funds. There is thus little motivation to spend money carefully or budget wisely. <br />
<br />
Yet time and again when the mission has not provided funds for programs that the church felt were important, the funds have come in locally. The only projects that die are those in which the church has little concern. We are in no way asking for a moratorium on funds from overseas. There is opportunity to increase mission giving for certain projects that do not hinder the development of a responsible church, without fostering an ongoing dependency. But we must phase out as rapidly as possible overseas funds for institutional ongoing running expenses. The first principle for developing a biblically responsible partnership was that the mission should more fully let go. <br />
<br />
We will now discuss the second principle: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span">2. The mission must look for supportive, non-directive means of stimulating maturity in the church</span></strong></b><span class="Apple-style-span">. There are at least two ways a parent can hinder the development of a child: first by dominating the child for too long; second, by spoiling the child through giving everything asked for. If we let go and more fully turn over responsibility to the church we will avoid the first pitfall. But if we merely respond to every request of the church, we are in danger of the second pitfall. We must respond in a responsible and consistent manner. <br />
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In order for the mission to respond in a responsible and consistent manner, leaders must previously have sorted out priorities. The mission will not use these priorities in a coercive manner, but as guidelines for responding to the requests of the national church. An urgent need is for the mission to decide its own priorities for the work in a specific country. Naturally, the priorities are open to further-discussion with the church and there should be opportunity for "in-flight" changes of priorities. But without priorities, there is no basis for responding to requests from the national church. If a parent would merely respond to every demand of the child, the result would be a spoiled, irresponsible child. If a mission responds blindly to every request of the national church, the church will not learn to take responsible initiative.<br />
<br />
Some may object to the mission unilaterally sorting out its own priorities. But for two people to have a responsible friendship, both must first have thought through issues as individuals. "People learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron" (Prov. 27:17). True friends must be free to have their own ideas. Differing ideas help friends to sharpen each other, and ongoing dialogue allows intervals for individual reflection. The mission must not use these priorities in a coercive way to manipulate the church in a direction she is not interested in heading. In fact, not to individually reflect on priorities would be a sign of irresponsible friendship. Thus, a mission organization that has no priorities is irresponsible. <br />
<br />
Once we have thought through priorities, there are at least three models for guiding the implementation of these priorities in a way that will neither dominate or manipulate the church in a direction she does not wish to go. We will call these models: (1) The Foundation Aid Model: (Z) The Cloud Seeding Model, and (3) The Catalyst Organization Model. Each model can be used by itself or with other models. The models are an exercise in matching priorities between the church and mission. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span">1. The Foundation Aid Model.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span"> Many foundations exist to give aid to worthy causes. But a responsible foundation does not respond equally to all requests, neither does a responsible foundation try to coerce other organizations into accomplishing the objectives of the foundation. A responsible foundation has its own objectives and priorities, but has learned that if local people aren't genuinely behind a project or idea, the aid will be given in vain. A responsible foundation will not violate local initiative, but neither will it be without objectives of its own. <br />
<br />
The mission leadership needs to think out prayerfully where, in its limited, humble, correctable wisdom, it senses the national church should be moving. It needs to sort out these matters privately and independently of its ongoing dialogue with the church. Otherwise, it will neither be a responsible friend of the church or a responsible servant of the Lord. <br />
<br />
Yet the mission will not "push" these objectives and priorities on the church. It will use them as tools for evaluating requests by the church. The mission would then be ready to respond to requests for missionaries and funds. The mission should not respond equally to all requests, nor would the mission act unless requested. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span">2. The Cloud Seeding Model.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span"> Cloud seeding does not create moisture that is not already present. Cloud seeding is a stimulus to help the rain to fall in a more predictable place. <br />
<br />
Within the national church there often are large pockets of spiritual vitality. There are often churches, church groups, and individuals with deep spiritual concern for biblical maturity. One could give examples of certain women's fellowship groups, youth fellowship groups, urban churches, educated laymen, theological students and many others, who are eager, ready, and able to assume initiative in moving the church toward maturity. <br />
<br />
When the mission leadership has sorted out priorities it will be better able to identify these groups in accomplishing their objectives. We must discern potential "prophets" in the church and discover how they can be activated, encouraged, and directed. Some national churches have already requested help in areas of theological education and church education. New ideas and new vision can be seeded into clouds of ready individuals. While the Foundation Aid Model can work at top administrative levels, there is much need for creative initiative on the part of each local missionary to discover where and how they can seed ready clouds. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span">3. The Catalyst Organization Model.</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span"> A catalyst aids or speeds up a chemical process. Usually the process would take place without the catalyst, but not as quickly. There are parachurch organizations outside national church structure that act as catalysts to stimulate the process of maturity. For example, the church in Africa has often been involved in evangelism, but New Life for All acted as a catalyst to speed up the rate of evangelism. Other African organizations have acted as outside agents to aid the spiritual maturation process, such as Boy's Brigade, Girl's Brigade, New Life For All, Campus Crusade, Scripture Union, The Bible Societies, Fellowship of Christian Students, and others. The church is already participating in many of these bodies. An indirect way of influencing and encouraging the church toward biblical maturity would be for the mission to stimulate and encourage parachurch catalysts. We can encourage church leaders to participate in these catalyst organizations more fully. We can encourage our local missionaries to become involved locally in parachurch organizations. We can loan staff to these organizations and support them financially. <br />
<br />
The development of a biblically responsible and mature church must be the primary immediate concern for missions, or we could lose all missionaries have worked and sacrificed for. <br />
<br />
The mission agencies must more fully turn over authority positions in the national church so that she can more fully learn from the consequences of her decisions. <br />
<br />
We must more vigorously stimulate church maturity in an indirect, supportive, low-profile manner. <br />
<br />
We do this in order to develop a responsible, mature relationship with the church, so that together we may continue the task of evangelism and of building up the Body of Christ around the world. We must change our present attitudes toward strategy. More than ever before there is the urgent need for Holy Spirit-directed, creative, and biblical innovation in missions. Because Jesus lives and answers prayer, we look forward to the task with excitement. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Published in EMQ 1983 - Permission is needed from EMIS to reprint this article. </span></div>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-14878209439656558242010-04-14T10:15:00.001-05:002010-04-14T10:18:36.846-05:00The Missional ClubOnce upon a time there was a wonderful club. It was called <strong>The Missional Club</strong>. The purpose for its existence was to reach out in order to gain more members. Here is a sample of the Constitution.<br />
<br />
<strong>Aims:</strong> <br />
<br />
1. Get more members, so as to get more members, so as to get more members, etc.<br />
<br />
2. Establish new members in branch clubs which will be self-governing, self supporting and self-propagating.<br />
<br />
<strong>Activities:</strong><br />
<br />
1. Study books on Missional Growth like, <em>The Prayer of Jabez for the Purpose Driven Missional Club for Those Who Are Left Behind in the Shack</em>. <br />
<br />
2. Mobilize every member for a continuous “Total Mobilization Membership Movement” (TMMM).<br />
<br />
<strong>Club Motto: “Joined to Reproduce.”</strong><br />
<br />
Once in a while a crisis would arise. There would be a problem member in the club. One such member had the nerve to raise his hand in a meeting and ask:<br />
<br />
“Why should I be a member of this club?” <strong>"What is the mission?"</strong> <br />
<br />
The answer quickly came from the members in unison:<br />
<br />
“You are “Joined to Reproduce’.”<br />
<br />
“Reproduce what?” the rebel stammered.<br />
<br />
“So that new members can be self-propagating,” sounded the chorus in an angry tone.<br />
<br />
“Yes, but...why should we...?”<br />
<br />
“Sit down.”<br />
<br />
“Heresy.”<br />
<br />
“Liberal,” shouted the angry mob. <br />
<br />
Are we merely planting membership clubs? After all, nothing is born merely to reproduce - except maybe weeds, and missional church clubs.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Adapted</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">from an article published in <em>Evangelical Missions Quarterly</em>, vol. 9. p. 38</span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-26694299713200598312010-04-05T11:14:00.001-05:002010-04-05T14:15:04.299-05:00Do We Teach the Bible, or Do We Teach Students?<span style="font-size: xx-small;">First presented as a paper entitled: “Is Teaching Theology an Art or a Science?", (1988) at the Evangelical Theological Society, Taylor University. Published in <em>Christian Education Journal</em>. 10 1. (1989). Reprinted in <em>Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology</em>. Vol 13.1 (1994). Reprinted in the <em>Taiwan Mission Quarterly</em>, Vol 10 #2 & 3, (Winter 2001).</span><br />
<br />
<br />
Both the clear teaching of Scripture and its application to the student, the church and society are necessary. But neither content nor application is sufficient by itself, and one without the other is dangerous. Yet much Bible teaching in the local church and in the seminary is either subject-matter centered or student-centered. We must re-examine the necessary interdependence between knowledge and practice. <br />
<br />
<strong>A False Dichotomy</strong><br />
<br />
The tasks of biblical scholarship and biblical teaching are related, yet different. The novice Bible professor may be a competent scholar who has mastered ancient languages, developed skills of research and become an expert in a specific technical area of knowledge. But in the classroom the teacher is appalled to discover that students don't know if the book of Hebrews is in the Old or New Testament. Many have never heard of Calvinism or eschatology. The teacher is dismayed by the biblical and theological illiteracy of students and blames local churches for a lack of solid biblical teaching.<br />
Content-centered educators suspect that biblical illiteracy is the result of "watered-down" student-centered education in the local church and argue for rigorous teaching of solid biblical content. They wage passionate battles against student-centered education which emphasizes feelings and felt-needs over the teaching of pure Bible content.<br />
Personal-relevance educators, on the other hand, feel that the mere transmission of Bible content is not enough. They say that students soon forget Bible facts if they don't see their relevance, thus becoming biblically illiterate. From their viewpoint, the blame for biblical illiteracy is the personal irrelevance of content transmission models of teaching.<br />
<br />
<strong>A Synthesis</strong><br />
<br />
Teaching the Bible is not like running a factory with empty-headed students as containers in which to deposit theological pearls of wisdom. But neither is Bible teaching simply a therapeutic exercise. Theology is not merely a tool to help students get in touch with their feelings so that they can become more self-actualized. Bible teaching that is divorced from life leads to dead orthodoxy, while merely teaching solutions to the problems of life without an understanding of Scripture leads to heresy and dead churches. <br />
<br />
Subject-matter educators assume that learning biblical concepts will mysteriously develop spiritual maturity in learners. They assume that if students can refute the JEDP theory, outline the book of Romans, and trace the missionary journeys of Paul, the teaching task of the Bible professor is accomplished. From there it's the job of the Holy Spirit or the job of another academic department to help students put theological facts into practice and promote spiritual growth.<br />
<br />
But personal-relevance philosophies of education may be even more dangerous than subject-matter philosophies. They rightly react against dead orthodoxy and the teaching of inert biblical facts, but their teaching may become a gimmick for simply helping one feel good about oneself. The original meaning of Scripture is ignored while "what it means to me" is overemphasized.<br />
<br />
This, then, is the dilemma between content-centered and student-centered philosophies. Do we teach the Bible or do we teach people? Is the aim of education best accomplished through transmission of absolute truth or through facilitating personal growth in students?<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>The Secular Debate</strong><br />
<br />
The debate is not unique to teaching the Bible. Traditional secular educators argue that schools should go "back to the basics" of teaching the academic disciplines and the great ideas of the classics, while progressive educators are committed to the task of helping students prepare for jobs, becoming good citizens, and developing into self-actualized human beings.<br />
<br />
John Dewey (1902) argues against the dichotomy between the child and the curriculum, between the logical and the psychological, between freedom and discipline.<br />
<br />
Whitehead argues against the teaching of "inert ideas" or ideas which are not connected with other ideas and with life. “Culture is an activity of thought, and the receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth" (Whitehead, 1929, p. 1).<br />
<br />
<strong>The Danger</strong><br />
<br />
The dichotomy between teaching the Bible and teaching students is dangerous. Teaching the Bible for its own sake is idolatry. We study the Bible so we may know God. But we worship the God of the Bible, not the academic discipline of the study of God. On the other hand, teaching students for their own self-actualization makes an idol out of persons, ignores the power of sin, and ignores the absolute standard of God's revealed Truth.<br />
<br />
Educators may attempt to solve the dilemma through balancing curriculum requirements between subject-matter courses and personal-relevance course. Bible departments may try to overcome the tension by having two tracks. The bright students study "hard" theology with Greek and Hebrew, while the more ordinary students follow a "soft" track of applied theology. But such strategies for curriculum balance only promote the worst of both worlds. These attempts at curriculum balance lead either to ivory tower thinkers or unthinking practitioners. Balancing two curriculum extremes seldom leads to real integration.<br />
<br />
<strong>Another Paradigm Is Needed</strong><br />
<br />
Rather than argue between teaching content versus teaching students, and rather than attempting to balance curriculum between the two, another paradigm is needed. This paradigm places subject matter and the experiences of learners in interdependent tension. The interdependence between faith and life is not a new idea. Interdependent tension between the Word of God and life experience began with Adam and Eve. Old Testament patriarchs, judges, prophets and poets cried out for Israel to carefully follow all the commands the Lord had given. Each verse of Psalm 119 is an example of the interdependence between the Word and personal experience. Jesus' teaching does the same.<br />
<br />
Jesus never taught subject matter which was divorced from life, nor did he teach solutions to practical problems without teaching the Word. Jesus' teaching of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the best examples of the interdependence between content and experience. Jesus began by asking questions about the present experience of the disciples. He began with their felt-needs, their problem situation. Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in the Scriptures concerning himself. His teaching was not an isolated lecture – it grew out of the sadness of two people with downcast faces and out of a comprehensive understanding of Scripture. There was lack of connection between the experience of the two disciples and the truth of Scriptures. Jesus helped them to see the connection between the Old Testament and their existential sorrow. He didn't teach an irrelevant theological concept (by threatening it would be on the final exam). Nor did he have them sit in a circle to learn a meditational therapy for handling grief and for improving their feelings of self-worth. Jesus compelled then to reflect on the discontinuity between the content of the Word and their present need.<br />
<br />
Each of Paul's letters demonstrated the interdependence of truth and life. Even the most systematic writings of Romans 1 - 11 grow out of specific life-related needs of people in the church in Rome.<br />
<br />
Barth was impressed with the way in which Calvin related truth to life.<br />
<br />
"How energetically Calvin, having first established what stands in the text, sets himself to re-think the whole material and to wrestle with it, till the walls which separate the sixteenth century from the first become transparent! Paul speaks, and the man of the sixteenth century hears. The conversation between the original record and the reader moves round the subject-matter, until a distinction between yesterday and today becomes impossible (Barth, 1933, p. 7)."<br />
<br />
To say the Bible is practical or pragmatic does not mean that there is a one-to-one correlation between each verse of the Scripture and present felt needs. The Bible is practical because it helps us to know God, and knowing God is infinitely practical. But knowing the Bible is not the same as knowing God. We progressively grow in our relationship to God as we explore the tension between our experience and the Bible and respond in obedience. <br />
<br />
An instrumental approach does not mean that absolute truth is generated by experience. To say that the Bible is pragmatic does not negate the fact that it is at the same time absolute truth. God tells us that all Scripture is not only God-breathed, but it is also useful. God alone is the author of truth. But, until we see him face to face, our understanding of truth is not absolute, and our understanding of truth is significantly influenced by experience.<br />
<br />
The effective teacher is like a person who takes a strong rope, ties one end around the big ideas of Scripture, ties the other end around the major themes of life, and then through the power of the Spirit struggles to pull the two together. The subject-matter educator is busy tying one end of the rope to the Word, while the personal-relevance educator is tying a rope to the felt needs of students. Even if by chance both are using opposite ends of the same rope, there is urgent need for Spirit-filled rope pullers.<br />
<br />
<strong>Educational Analysis</strong><br />
<br />
In order to better understand the paradigm of interdependent tension, the two sides of the dilemma will be analyzed by seeing how each would answer these three questions:<br />
1. What are the assumptions about the nature of the learner?<br />
<br />
2. What educational aims should we seek?<br />
<br />
3. Which are the best educational methods?<br />
<br />
<strong>The Content-centered Educator</strong><br />
<br />
The content-centered educator assumes the learner to be ignorant, with limited understanding and knowledge. Educational aims come from the deficiency between what the learner knows and what the educator thinks the learner should know. The Bible is taught from the perspective of its original meaning and its historical-grammatical interpretation.<br />
<br />
Techniques of higher criticism are taught along with book outlines. Preferred educational methods stress means for efficiently imparting knowledge and truth. Creative subject-matter educators may also be fascinated by the use of technology for transmitting information. Videos, programmed instruction, computers, and PowerPoint presentations might be used. The subject-matter educator assumes that the learner is like raw material for the theological assembly line of knowledge.<br />
<br />
Transmission of information through clearly presented lectures and the appropriate use of technology is good, but it is not sufficient.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Student-centered Educator</strong><br />
<br />
The student-centered educator tends to idealize the current state of the learner. The learner is seen not as deficient or immature, but as a person with rich experiences, deep feelings, great dignity and worth. Aims for teaching the Bible emphasize building relationships with God and with others. Goals include emotional health, becoming aware of one's feelings, and self-actualization. Piety, worship, and the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and meditation are included in the curriculum. The Bible is taught not so much from the standpoint of what it said to the Hebrews and Greeks, but what it says to the modern hearer.<br />
<br />
Educational methods provide opportunities for social interaction, building interpersonal relationships, stimulating personal reflection, and encouraging a caring community. Group sharing of experiences, journaling of reflections and prayer for the needs of others in the class might be specific methods. The personal-relevance educator assumes the learner is like a wild flower, ready to bloom under the right conditions. But personal relevance without a deep understanding of absolute truth revealed by God is meaningless. The search for relevance without an understanding of Truth is ultimately irrelevant.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>The Pilgrim Educator</strong><br />
<br />
The pilgrim educator sees the learner not as an assembly line product or a wild flower, but as a pilgrim. The learner is in process, but the process is only a part of the aim. The personal process has an external goal. The present state of the pilgrim is not seen as a deficit, but neither is it idealized.<br />
<br />
The educational goal is to equip the pilgrim with understanding of the Map God has given (the Bible) and in the power of the Spirit to help him or her benefit from the experiences of previous pilgrims, so that the pilgrim may reach the fullness of the stature of Christ. The intended outcome of theological education is the full development of the pilgrim, so that the pilgrim may also be a blessing to the world. God is not only interested in the temporal position of the pilgrim, but in his or her character. Biblical subject matter is a necessary tool for guiding and developing the pilgrim. But the pilgrim must keep one eye on the Map of the Word while also keeping an eye on the path of experience. <br />
<br />
Pilgrim educational methodology seeks to compel critical reflection between personal experience and the Bible. The Bible is taught clearly, but the teaching of content is not the end – it is a means. The teacher must challenge the student to explore the tension between God's standard and life experiences, and help the student pull the two together. This can be done in many ways – through a stimulating lecture, through educational technology or through a dialectic discussion method. Many methods and combinations of methods are appropriate. The effective Bible teacher is a good teacher of the subject matter, but also constantly challenges students to wrestle with biblical implications for ethical dilemmas, problems in the church, and personal lifestyle. The effective teacher will constantly hold absolute Scripture in creative tension with modern world-and-life views.<br />
<br />
Dewey (1902) uses the metaphor of maps to teach the mutual interdependence between the logical and the psychological. Maps are useful tools for pilgrims. <br />
<br />
Content-centered educators might teach courses in the history of maps. the original languages of maps, theories of interpreting maps, and the higher criticism of maps. But the study of maps must not take the place of the use of maps for an actual journey.<br />
<br />
Student-centered educators might encourage each student to design his or her own map from personal experiences. Experiences and maps of previous explorers are ignored. Students are encouraged to wander through the wilderness of life. The student-centered educator isn't overly concerned if students wander into the swamps as long as they build meaningful relationships with others and better understand their own feelings as a result of the experience. There is little sense of history or sense of direction. <br />
<br />
Dewey argued that experience is not necessarily educative but helps the child to better understand the map of bodies of knowledge. Maps and experience are dependent on each other. It is unwise to divorce the study of maps from the experiences of the traveler. And it is useless for a pilgrim to begin a journey with no sense of direction or purpose. Without the Map of revelation from God, we have no knowledge of who we really are, where we are going, or how we get there.<br />
<br />
Suggestions for Teaching<br />
<br />
Most Bible teachers agree that more can be done to effectively compel critical reflection on the tension between biblical truth and the needs of the person, the church and society.<br />
<br />
The Holy Spirit is a powerful supernatural force in helping to tie together absolute standards of the Word with our sinful condition. Yet the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God, through spiritually gifted teachers, and through spiritually sensitive learners. To depend on the Holy Spirit means that spiritually gifted teachers must continue to "fan into flame" the gifts God has given. Because we are involved in a supernatural struggle between the forces of good and evil, there can be no specific guaranteed outcomes no matter how sophisticated our educational paradigms or methodologies. But spiritually gifted teachers must intentionally do more to challenge students to wrestle with truth in light of the problems of life. <br />
<br />
1. No teacher should be satisfied with merely depositing "inert ideas" into the heads of students to be regurgitated on the final exam. We must teach to higher levels of learning. Students must be challenged to think, analyze, and synthesize ideas in terms of life issues. Examinations should go beyond informational recall and include questions that force students to interpret and use information – to demonstrate insight into current issues. Assigned papers and classroom lectures should compel students to struggle with major biblical concepts. We must also compel students to use these concepts in grappling with problems in the church and society. For example, students can be given assignments to investigate the "folk-theology" of the average lay person and compare that theology to the teachings of historical trends in theology.<br />
<br />
2. Entrance requirements into seminary or graduate school should require students to have previous experience in working with people as well as previous studies in Scripture. How are students to integrate theology and life if the only life they have ever known is school, and the only theology they know comes from books? Seminaries worry about low students enrollments and they feel forced to recruit students with a "raw B.A." Students would not need lengthy experience but should have enough experience to know people and their problems. They could be required to spend a summer as a camp counselor or be a lay youth worker in a church. A high grade-point average is not a predictor of the ability to integrate theology and life.<br />
<br />
3. Graduation requirements must include more than Bible credits. Every Bible major should include courses in human development, anthropology and communication. All master's or doctoral programs should have at least one course pointing out the implications of the particular subject for the needs of the church or society today. Academic programs which teach mere theological "maps" with no concern for the "journey" are sub-biblical. <br />
<br />
4. Bible professors must have more than academic credentials. Their resume should include experience in ministry and personal concerns for contemporary theological needs in the church.<br />
<br />
5. Majors in Christian education must constantly be challenged to reflect theologically on what they are doing. Too often a course in methods of evangelism does not relate to soteriology, and church management courses ignore insights from ecclesiology. Too often practical internships in ministry are not debriefed in light of theological understanding.<br />
<br />
<strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
<br />
Radical educators are calling for a "de-schooling" of theological education, but the proposed pilgrim paradigm is not so radical. Seminaries can serve as the Interpreter’s House in Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress. Biblical knowledge is necessary for pilgrims and must be taught. Most teaching methods will not need to change. Current structures of theological education do not need to be demolished. Many Bible professors are already teaching in such a way as to promote the intentional interdependence of Bible content with problems of life, and many professors in the social sciences constantly interact with biblical and systematic theology. <br />
<br />
Still, the paradigm shift could make a significant difference for students and for the church around the world. Bible courses too often have a reputation of being an exercise in memorizing grocery lists. Students complain that Bible classes are boring, and boredom becomes the powerful hidden curriculum. Christian education courses too often have a reputation of being exercises in techniques in the use of the sandbox and role-plays . Education in the church faces the same problems as those of the seminary or Bible College. There is an urgent need for a gracious, quiet revolution – a pilgrim paradigm of Bible teaching. The common paradigms of content-centered or students-centered education will not adequately develop students or strengthen the church. <br />
May we communicate the Map of the Word through the power of the Spirit in such a way that students will be challenged and the world-wide church will be strengthened for God’s eternal glory. <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Bibliography</strong><br />
<br />
Barth, K. (1933). The Epistle to the Romans. (Trans. from sixth ed. by E.C. Hoskyns). New York: Oxford University Press.<br />
<br />
Dewey, J. (1902). The Child and the Curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.<br />
<br />
Whitehead, A.N. (1929). The Aims of Education. New York: The Free Press.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-458461060828109502010-02-18T15:28:00.001-06:002010-02-19T09:41:27.251-06:00Leadership Formation in the Missional ChurchBook Review<br />
<em>The Missional Church & Leadership Formation: Helping Congregations Develop Leadership Capacity</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
Craig Van Gelder, ed., Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 238 pages, 2009, $20.00. <br />
<br />
<br />
The strength of this stimulating book is the key question it raises: “Can leadership for the missional church be developed in the seminary?” The answer seems to be, “not without radical reform.” The writers suggest that seminaries are good at providing fragmented encyclopedic information but are weak in “preparing leaders to engage the world through helping the church participate in God’s mission” (p. 38). Schools that focus on knowledge, objective reasoning and critical research are identified as <em>Wissenshchaft</em> institutions. In contrast, <em>pideia</em> schools emphasize formation and the culturing of the soul as teachers and learners interact in community. The authors downplay the importance of <em>Wissenshchaft</em> in favor of <em>paideia</em>. <br />
<br />
<br />
The Missional Church & Leadership Formation is divided into three sections. The first two address missional leadership development in the seminary and in the local church. The third section provides helpful insights about actual missional churches. Chapter one, “Theological Education and Missional Leadership Formation: Can Seminaries Prepare Missional Leaders for Congregations?” provides a concise American history of the relationship between the seminary and church in leadership development. Chapter two, “Missional Theology for Schools of Theology: Re-engaging the Question ‘What is Theological About a Theological School?’” discusses the dynamic relationship between knowledge and formation. Professors and pastors would profit from rethinking ways to develop missional leadership through an integration of knowledge and formation. <br />
<br />
<br />
My primary critique relates to the disturbing vagueness of the term “missional church.” The key problem arises from an unclear theology of <em>missio Dei</em>. Is it really the mission of the church to participate in the “whole mission of God”? Partly. But God stretches out the heavens like a canopy, brings out the starry hosts and call them each by name (Isaiah 40:22, 26). Our mission is only a small part of the mission of God and is primarily seen in the mission of Christ. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). How can missional leaders foster the <em>missio Dei</em> while ignoring the sin-cancelling, reconciling mission of Christ? <br />
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<br />
I’m puzzled as to why many missional churches are mono-cultural and seemingly anti global missions. Proclaiming the Word of God to the nations is described as “colonizing peoples to Christianity” and imperialistic (p. 121). The writers don’t want missional churches to be mistaken for “the older emphasis on missions” (p. 209). Truly missional leaders must not disregard Christ’s reconciling commission to the church for all the nations. <br />
<br />
As a missionary I found this book helpful for understanding how insiders define the missional church; and as a professor the book stimulated my thinking on how both formal and nonformal education must be used to develop leaders for the church.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">From forthcoming issue in <em>Evangelical Missions Quarterly</em></span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-49271284663892042782010-01-29T10:33:00.004-06:002010-02-02T20:56:38.391-06:00A Call to Prayer for World Revival<strong>We strongly urge that extraordinary prayer be made for the ten days between the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost. </strong><span style="font-size: 78%;">(Declaration of Dependence) </span><br />
<br />
We urge all churches and all Christians around the world unite in seeking the face of God through prayer and fasting, persistently asking our Father to send revival to the Church and spiritual awakening to the world so that Christ’s Great Commission might be fulfilled worldwide.<br />
<br />
<strong></strong><br />
In 2010 Ascension Day is May 13 - and Pentecost May 23. <br />
<br />
I just finished re-reading <em>The Power of Extraordinary Prayer</em> by Robert O. Bakke, and was deeply moved by stories about the power of prayer in God’s people. The concerted effort of prayer led to Great Awakenings where churches were revived and a fervor for world missions was awakened. Could the Lord God Almighty bring another Great Awakening in the 21st century? Let us call all of God’s people to pray for a world-wide Great Awakening. This, I believe, is the way world missions will move forward.<br />
<br />
One of the founders of SIM (through merger with the Africa Evangelical Fellowship) was <strong>Andrew Murray</strong>. For ten days each year, Andrew Murray challenged churches in South Africa to pray for revival. He took his model from the ten days between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost when the disciples “<em>all joined together constantly in prayer</em>.” (Acts 1:14) The Lord often blessed the concerted prayer of God’s people by sending revival. <br />
<br />
In 2010, Ascension Day is May 13 and Pentecost Sunday is May 23. What might happen if each of us were to personally set aside extra time during these 10 days to pray for the renewal of the church around the world and for an awakening of fervor for world evangelization? What might happen if every mission challenged missionaries and churches to concerted prayer for the Holy Spirit to be poured down on our ministries and our churches? <br />
<br />
Could individuals, churches and mission agencies unite in ten days of prayer? What if every mission organization and every mission-minded church would join together in pouring out our hearts to the Lord? For ten days, millions of God’s children would flood the throne of grace pleading for a world-wide spiritual awakening. <br />
<br />
Here are some suggestions:<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Pray with vision</strong>. Picture in your mind the impact of your prayers on mission agencies, on churches, and on the world. Picture the impact and pray that this vision might come true. Pray with eyes of faith. <br />
<br />
<strong>2. Confess sin</strong>. Confess and forsake all known sin. Spiritual awakening must begin with those who are praying for the world-wide awakening.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Pray from Scripture.</strong> Paraphrase Daniel 9 or Ezekiel 36 or Nehemiah 9 or any other promises from the Word. Great awakenings in the Bible often took place when leaders prayed from the promises of the Word. <br />
<br />
<strong>4. Pray together.</strong> After Jesus ascended into heaven the disciples went to the upper room to pray for the promised power of the Holy Spirit. They “<em>joined together constantly in prayer</em>.” I’m not suggesting that we should have a single world-wide prayer meeting. Instead, I picture tens of thousands of small groups on their knees pleading for personal and worldwide awakening during the 10 Days of Prayer. <br />
<br />
To paraphrase the Declaration of Dependence:<br />
<br />
<em>We strongly urge all churches and all Christians around the world to unite in seeking the face of God through prayer and fasting, persistently asking our Father to send revival to the Church and spiritual awakening to the world so that Christ’s Great Commission might be fulfilled worldwide. We strongly urge that extraordinary prayer be made for the ten days between the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost.</em> (Ascension Day May 13 to Pentecost May 23 2010).Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-62599928390774044122010-01-16T22:10:00.002-06:002010-01-16T22:15:57.260-06:00In Praise of Long-Term MissionariesIn the last few years, we have made repeated visits to 56 different countries. Our minds often reflect on the heroes we’ve met – highly effective long-term missionaries. We stand in awe of these enduring servants of the Lord who not only survive but thrive in the most challenging circumstances.<br /><br /> We appreciate their effectiveness, singles and families who have taken years to become fluent in a language, have learned to enjoy cultural differences, and have taken time to build the trust that takes decades to grow. Because of their long endurance they have been richly used of the Lord to make a powerful impact on the Kingdom through evangelism, healing the sick and planting vibrant churches. <br /><br /> We appreciate their long-term sacrifice. They have given up well-paying jobs to live in countries where they will never quite feel at home. Some live where they are targets of terrorists and armed robbery. Others live in the most polluted cities of the world, where malaria and AIDS are rampant. Part of the sacrifice is not being home for Christmas, birthdays and family reunions.<br /><br /> Yes, we understand the importance of short-term missions. Both of us had positive and influential experiences as short-term missionaries. Jim spent three months with Wycliffe in Peru, which confirmed his desire to serve long-term in missions and Carol grew up as a missionary kid in Ecuador and then spent a summer while in college with her parents, working with them with HCJB radio and church planting. Our two children have also had life-changing short-term encounters working with SIM. Our daughter Shari taught English to Somali refugees in the Chicago area, and Danny spent six months living with a Bolivian family. We thank the Lord for our excellent short-term experiences. <br /><br /> While short-term experiences provide valuable insights for the missionaries, and often provide important services on the field, the majority of the most critical tasks are best done by missionaries who take the time to learn the culture, learn the language and build lasting friendships. Bible translation demands years of study, friendship-building, teaching as well as translating. Cross-cultural seminary teaching requires not only academic qualifications, but a deep understanding of the needs and challenges of pastors. Mentoring local leaders is best done by people who have earned respect of lasting friendships. There is a critical need for many more long-term missionaries.<br /><p><br /> While we appreciate short-term missionaries, we wonder if the ratio is balanced? It’s estimated that each year about a million short-term missionaries travel from the United States to serve cross-culturally. Compare this to about fifty thousand long term missionaries sent out from churches in the United States. We wonder if U.S. churches should be sending 95% of their missionaries as short-termers while sending only 5% as long-termers. Many long-term candidates become discourage and drop out because of the difficulties of raising support. Yes, we see the value of short-term missionaries but why are we sending so few who are willing and qualified to serve long-term? <br /><br />Here are some suggestions <br />1) Those who have had short-term experiences – Ask the Lord to show you if your experiences should be a stimulus for long-term service. <br />2) When you return from a short-term trip, work hard to communicate your experiences to the church. We realize that many of you have had life-changing experiences and few in your church seem to care.<br />3) If, after a short-term missions experience, the Lord definitely leads you to stay home, pray fervently for missionaries, and be an example of someone who is willing to sacrifice financially to support long-term missionaries. <br />4) If you are considering a short-term missions trip ask the Lord to touch your heart with the opportunities of long-term service.<br />5) Church mission committees, we encourage you to make the support of long-term missionaries the backbone of your missions program. We realize that short-term missions might seem more “glitzy” but your first obligation is not to provide interesting experiences for members of the church, but ask yourself “how can our church make the most difference in the worldwide Kingdom of God? <br />6) Long-term missionaries, hang in there. Yes, you are sacrificing much but your effectiveness for the Kingdom can grow every year you are on the field. No reward in the whole world can begin to match the commendation from Jesus “well done, good and faithful servant.” </p><p>Jim & Carol Plueddemann</p><span style="font-size:78%;">Adapted from World-Shapers – World Pulse April 23, 2004</span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-81309642464320810722009-11-13T08:59:00.001-06:002009-11-13T09:01:38.096-06:00The Power of Piaget<span style="font-size:78%;"> By James E. Plueddemann<br />Adapted from a chapter in <em>Nurture That is Christian</em>, James C. Wilhoit and John M. Detonni (eds) BridgePoint Books. 1995.</span><br /><br />Growing up is both difficult and exciting, exhilarating and frustrating. The wonderful task of Christian education is to help people grow to become all God intends of them. Piaget does not tell us all there is to know about human development, but he does provide valuable insights for the Christian educator.<br /> The pendulum of Christian education seems to swing between two unhealthy extremes: mindless learning of Bible facts and an emotion-filled philosophy that neglects the authoritative Word of God. Healthy Christian education is both true to the Word of God and relevant to the needs of the person and the world. Emotionalists claim “If it feels so good, it must be true.” On the other hand, rationalists assume that if people know the truth intellectually they will automatically be good people. Insights from Piaget bring balance to Christian education.<br /> One of Piaget’s most important contributions was to provide a philosophical and empirical connection between external and internal knowledge. How does objective knowledge from outside the individual relate to the subjective meaning-making activity of the individual? How does Bible knowledge relate to being a godly person? How does one avoid cramming raw facts down the throats of children, or at the other extreme, merely using the Bible as a tool for feeling good about oneself?<br /><br />The Practical Problem<br /> Insights from Piagetian theory might suggest a rethinking of the theory and practice of Christian. But is such a radical rethinking really needed?<br /> The church around the world is growing rapidly. The ratio of Christians to non-Christians is higher than it has ever been since the first coming of Christ. Both the percentage of Christians and the number of Christians in the world is higher than ever in history. Christianity is growing rapidly in Africa, South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.<br /> Bible-believing Christian education professors and publishers are increasingly aware of developmental psychology and at the same time are able to integrate psychology with historic orthodox theology. This is an encouraging trend.<br /> But families are falling apart and seminaries seem to be less and less relevant to the needs of the church. Ethnocentric and racial hatred is sweeping the world. Bible teaching in the Sunday school often seems strangely unrelated to the frustrations of life. Economic and ecological prophets of doom are sounding more persuasive, while prophets of the Lord are often ignored. Hundreds of thousands of new Christians are not growing in their faith. While the number of Christians in the world is higher than ever in history, the number of non-Christians is also higher than ever before because of rapid population growth.<br /> Though there are encouraging trends in the field of Christian education, the overall picture provides many hints of a discouraging state of affairs. Bible-believing Christian educators must not relax, but must work and pray for a quiet revolution in the field. We can’t go on like we are! Christian education is in need of a gracious, Bible-based revolution. Piaget suggests a theory and practice of Christian education that might be a beginning.<br /><br />The Influence of Piaget<br /> Piagetian theory does not have answers for all of the problems of Christian education, nor are these theories complete or adequate to fully explain human development. Piaget suggested a general skeleton for thinking about knowledge and that general structure is being modified and fleshed out by modern researchers. Piaget himself would have been disappointed if fresh thinking about his theory ceased when he died. While he was alive Piaget encouraged his students to go into new directions, to use the basic insights from his theory to understand new problems ( Shulman, Restiano-Baumann & Butler. 1985, p. xi). Piaget’s theory was dynamic and changing while he was alive, and fresh thinking about his theory needs to continue. <br /> Robert Kegan a neo-Piagetian, believes that “in Piaget we discover a genius who exceeded himself and found more than he was looking for” (1982, p. 26). Kegan has enlarged Piaget’s theory to include personality development, with implications for clinical psychology.<br /> While Piaget’s theory is incomplete and developing, his insights about thinking and growing may be some of the most important of the century. Several scholars have lauded the impact of Piaget and conclude, “Assessing the impact of Piaget’s work on developmental psychology is a little bit like assessing the impact of the automobile on American society” (Dolezal p. 3), or “assessing the impact of Piaget on developmental psychology is like assessing the impact of Shakespeare on English literature or Aristotle on philosophy - impossible. The impact is too monumental to embrace and at the same time too omnipresent to detect.” (Beilin, 1992, p. 191).<br /><br />Overview of Piaget’s Life (1896-1980)<br /> Piaget was born in 1896 in the small Swiss university town of Neuchtel. “His father was a historian who specialized in medieval literature, and his mother was a dynamic, intelligent, and religious woman” (Gainsburg & Opper, p. 1). Piaget was a brilliant child. He published his first academic paper at age 10. By the time he was 21 he had earned a doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Neuchtel, had published twenty-five professional papers and was considered one of the world’s experts on mollusks. By the time he was thirty Piaget held a job in the Rousseau Institute in Geneva and had a world-wide reputation (Gardner, 1981, p. 56). Piaget was a disciplined person who organized his thinking on long walks and wrote down his ideas the next day. During the summer months he would retreat to a hideaway in the Alps, take long walks, write, and come down in the fall with another book. For Piaget, writing was the way he organized his thoughts. When traveling he would sometimes go to the airport several hours early so he could have uninterrupted time to write (Gardner, 1981, p 57). By the time he died Piaget had written or co-authored about 50 books and hundreds of articles.<br /> Piaget discovered that the shape of mollusks would change when put in a changed environment and concluded that mollusks could assimilate changes because of the need to adapt to the environment.<br /> After finishing his doctorate, Piaget shifted his interests to psychology and began to work in a laboratory with Binet to standardize intelligence tests. Piaget was intrigued with incorrect answers children gave to questions on tests. (Wadsworth, 1974, p. 3). For example many older children would be able to distinguish between the right and left hand of a picture of a boy standing on his head, whereas children a year younger would almost always be confused by the question. He observed that the process of adaptation in children had common elements to adaptation in mollusks.<br /> Piaget spent many hours observing his own children, watching them learn to perceive the world in radically different ways every few months.<br /> He worked in Geneva for the rest of his life. His theories have continued to generate much interest and research.<br /> Piaget argued that in order to understand an idea, a person in one sense has to invent that idea. Invention of ways in which the world works is a challenging task with many pitfalls. Piaget’s theories went counter to Freudian psychoanalytic theories that encouraged parents to avoid frustrating the developing child in any way. He felt such theories led to an excess of unsupervised liberty (Piaget, 1973, p. 6). Piaget felt that children do not learn unless there is an optimum level of dissonance.<br /> He also disagreed with the ideas of Skinner and of programmed instruction. “Programmed instruction is indeed conducive to learning, but by no means to inventing. . . unless the child is made to do the programming himself” (1973, p. 7). Piaget would also disagree with Mager-type behavioral objectives. He would likely prefer problem-posing educational objectives.<br /><br />Overview of Piaget’s Theory<br />The Process of Growth<br /> Piaget is best known for exploring the mechanism and the stages of cognitive development from birth to adulthood.<br /> Piaget has generated important studies on the factors that promote development. Two important factors are social interaction and the process of exploring tensions, or “disequilibration.” People tend to grow and develop as they struggle with problems in a social setting. <br /> Interestingly, people tend to make the most progress in learning when things don’t make sense! For example, a small child may have one single mental category for animals - the family dog. Everything with four legs, a tail, and a wet nose is a dog. When the child sees the neighbor’s cat, which has four legs, a kind of tail, and sort-of a wet nose, the child labels the animal a dog. The process continues until the child sees a cow, or any animal that doesn’t fit the "dog" category. The cow has some of the characteristics of a dog, yet is very different. The cow doesn’t fit the child's mental category. This causes “disequilibration.” The problem prompts the child to construct a broader mental category for animals and produces cognitive development. <br /> Adults also grow as they explore tensions and create new categories. This process is enhanced through interaction with other adults. This means that small groups can provide an ideal setting for healthy growth. For example, when a Presbyterian and a Pentecostal think together over a passage in the book of Acts, it's very possible that interesting "disequilibration" will take place. As they explore the tensions of their differences in interpretation, both will see things they never saw before in that passage. Interaction with people who have different perspectives can be a powerful stimulus to growth. <br /> Ultimately, growth toward Christlikeness is a gift of God. Each Christian has spiritual gifts, so the group itself can become a means of grace. Though groups can facilitate growth, godly development is a result of God’s grace. <br /> Piaget has described the strategies used by children to make sense of their world. The mind at birth is not a passive blank slate, but has built-in structures or schemata for organizing information. The child takes in information from the surrounding environment and puts that information in a mental file folder. Piaget calls this process assimilation. Children transform or re-write the information to fit existing mental categories. But not all the information a child receives seems to fit the existing file folders. When young children hear the story of Pontius Pilate, they put him in the mental file folder labeled “pilot.” Maybe this is why one child drew a picture of the flight to Egypt of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in an airplane, with Pontius as the pilot. Such a picture makes sense given the child’s limited number of mental file folders. But eventually the child begins to figure out that there may be two kinds of pilots, and such an understanding results in confusion or disequilibration in a puzzling situation (LeBar & Plueddemann p. 212). The child realizes the need for accommodation, or the need to add more file folders to accommodate the new category. So the child has one category for airplane pilots and creates another category for a person named Pilate. Learning as defined by Piaget is not solely an inner or outer process, but is the interaction of the inner thinking of the child with the outer world.<br /><br />Stages of Growth<br /> Piaget spent many hours observing his own children in natural settings and found that growth takes place in spurts or stages. These stages are “great leaps” followed by times of calm and integration. He described four major stages. Many researchers have confirmed these general patterns of developmental stages in people from many cultures.<br /> 1. Sensorimotor stage (ages 0-2). The sensorimotor infant makes sense of the world primarily through physical observations - by seeing, hearing, and touching. If a baby is playing with a rattle and the rattle should fall from sight, the baby will not look for it. For babies, objects seem to cease to exist when they are out of sight.<br /> In some ways, the sensorimotor age is the most complex of the developmental stages. Piaget discovered at least six sub-stages in infants. At birth children react entirely with their reflexes, and by the time children reach two years of age they have begun mastery of language and have discovered how to perform scientific experiments with concrete objects. For young children each day produces dozens of miracles both for the child and the parent.<br /> 2. Preoperational stage (approximately ages 2-7). At this stage there is the new capacity to make sense of the world through language and fantasy. Preschoolers learn through intuition rather than through systematic logic, and they have a creative imagination.<br /> In some ways preoperational or intuitive thinking is the most interesting and creative stage. Children may have difficulty seeing the perspective of a parent or another child, and thus have difficulty with cooperative play. But preoperational children have a most creative way of thinking about the world. Since they are not burdened with abstract logic, cars can fly, dreams can hide under the bed, and the moon follows them as they go for a night walk. Elkind (1979) calls children at this stage “cognitive aliens.” Children speak a different language and make up words such as “mouth brow” for mustache. A three-year-old neighbor told her mom I was “lawning” when I was mowing the lawn. “We cannot take anything for granted insofar as the child’s knowledge or understanding is concerned” (p. 147). But children are logical thinkers. Their rules of logic are just based on different ways of knowing the world. <br /> While preoperational children are “cognitive aliens,” Elkind (p. 151) calls them “emotional countrymen.” Children are least like adults in their thinking and most like adults in their feelings. Children aren’t little “thinking machines” when they read. Thinking and feeling are always tied together. Adults must treat children with love and respect.<br /> 3. Concrete operational stage (approximately ages 7-11). The elementary school-age child has the new capacity to use mental logic but is limited to situations that are real and observable. Ten-year-olds in my Sunday school class assume that “tent-making” missionaries, unless people live in tents. Children at this stage learn facts easily, are very literal, and see social issues in terms of black and white, right and wrong. They love the Guinness Book of World Records and have numerous collections of rocks, stamps, and sports cards.<br /> 4. Formal operations stage (often 12 and up). In adolescence and adulthood an important way of making sense of the world is through abstract thinking. Now there is the ability to solve hypothetical problems with logical thinking. Many principles of Scripture cannot be fully understood from the perspective of concrete operational thinking. But complex concepts such as the atonement take on deeper understanding when adults are able to see the abstract conflict between justice and mercy. <br /> In one important sense people can have a mature faith at any level of cognitive development, but for a more adequate understanding of Scripture formal operational thinking is probably needed. <br /> Piaget found that growth is promoted thorough interaction with other children and with parents. And progress in stage development is motivated or enhanced as the child encounters perplexing situation.<br /> The theories of Piaget provide valuable insights for teaching children about God and the Bible. He would suggest that we encourage young people to struggle with problems rather than give them easy answers. He would also suggest we give children plenty of opportunity to explore for themselves and to interact with other children.<br /><br />Growth in Perspectivism<br /> According to Piaget, the process of growth is like the widening ripples caused by a stone falling into a pond (Plueddemann & Plueddemann, 1990). Each stage of human development leads to wider horizons and broader perspectives. The more mature person can appreciate a point of view from a greater number of perspectives, making it possible for empathetic and caring relationships with people of different perspectives. As people grow in the ability to see problems from the perspective of the other person, they can better "rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep." Perspectivism makes discussion possible as people listen and interact with each other's views. Missionaries who can present their message from the perspective of a person in another culture are more likely to be effective.<br /> Parents know that small children are egocentric, seeing the world from their own limited perspective. A wise parent knows it does no good to tell a hungry baby to wait sixty seconds for milk. God didn’t create screaming babies with the mental capacity to contemplate the future. <br /> As children grow older, their awareness of the points of view of other people increases, but the depth of their interaction with others is rather shallow. This is why young children tend to interact in what is called “parallel play.” They are aware of other children playing near them, but they "play alone together" (Selman, 1976). Minimal interaction for children begins to take place about the age of seven. They can now discuss concrete situations with each other and begin to take the perspective of other children. But they are still not able to discuss abstract concepts such as “sharing.” For the seven-year-old, sharing means letting another person use one particular object. So a child may remember to share an umbrella, but not a jump rope. Sharing in the abstract is a difficult concept for children. <br /> From about the age of twelve, perspectivism grows rapidly. Teens experience a revolution of world-view when they are able to see themselves as others see them. Such perspectivism is a strong motivation for boys to begin combing their hair and for girls to pay special attention to what they wear. Teens are growing in their ability to participate in group discussions because they are better able to analyze and reflect on comments from others in the group. Teens often question the religious up-bringing of their home because they are able to reflect on what life might be if they were raised in a Muslim home. Perspectivism can lead to doubt or to a stronger personally-owned faith.<br /> Many adults are capable of genuine perspectivism, but some adults have difficulty “wrestling” with new ideas from different perspectives. Adult Sunday school classes often end in an argumentative discussion with one person not really hearing the point of the other adult. Class comments are often a string of unrelated observations from different members of the group. At times overly simple answers are dogmatically given to complex questions. Piaget never assumed that all adults would reach formal operational thought, so genuine dialogue among adults is not something to be taken for granted. <br /><br />Moral Reasoning<br /> Why do people do what they do? The level of cognitive development is reflected in why people do or do not obey rules.<br /> Piaget observed children playing marbles and wondered about their attitudes toward rules. Children seldom learned rules for playing marbles in a formal setting with rewards and punishment set by adults (Duska & Whelan, p. 9). Piaget wanted to know how children thought about rules, how rules could be changed, and if children actually followed the rules.<br /> Before the age of two children play marbles without rules, but practice many of the skills of playing the game of marbles. <br /> After the age of two, children learn from older children that there are rules to the game, and they imitate those rules. Piaget would call these children egocentric because they assume their rules are followed by all people in the world. They believe that their particular rules are sacred and should not be changed. “They believe that the rules of marbles have been handed down from adults, and some even believe that God may have originally formulated them. Any alteration in the rules is considered a transgression” (Duska & Whelan, p. 10). Children feel an obligation to play by the rules, but often play with little cooperation with other children, or according to the rules.<br /> At about seven years of age, the child begins to play marbles according to rules set by the group, but becomes legalistic in enforcing obedience to the rules. Piaget would call this heteronomous obedience to rules. Rules can be made by the children if they all agree to a particular set of rules.<br /> Twelve-year-olds often develop ability for abstract reasoning, and the making of rules becomes a most important task in playing a game. Rule-making becomes a social activity, rather than blind obedience to external rules. There may be a serious desire to cooperate, so children actually abide by the rules to which they mutually agree. Piaget calls this autonomous reasoning.<br /> Younger children understand doing good as doing what one should do, obeying the rules of adults. Younger children seldom consider the intentions of people as to why they do what they do. For example if a child because of clumsiness or by accident breaks fifteen tea cups, that child is considered a worse offender than a child who out of anger intentionally breaks only one tea cup. Older children pay more attention to the intentions of the child.<br /> Piaget’s understanding of the moral thinking of children supports the idea that children don’t merely absorb character traits from adults, but are actively involved in making sense out of moral behavior from their developmental perspective.<br /> Piaget’s work on the moral reasoning of children stimulated much of the thinking of Lawrence Kohlberg and James Fowler in the fields of moral reasoning and faith development.<br /><br />Religious Thinking in Children<br /> David Elkind (1979b) built on understandings of Piaget when he conducted research about how children think about religious issues. He was not interested in what children were taught in formal education, but what they really thought about religious ideas in a spontaneous setting. He investigated children’s conceptions of prayer, God and religion. His method was to ask questions. “The only requirement in formulating questions is that they be so absurd, to the adult way of thought, that one can be reasonably certain children have not been trained one way or the other regarding them” (1979, p. 259).<br /> He asked questions such as: Can God be president of the United States? Can God talk French? How did God get his name? Does God have a first name? Along a similar line he would ask a Baptist child: Can a dog be a Baptist? How can you tell a person is Baptist? Can you be an American and a Baptist at the same time? <br /> Elkind found stages similar to those of Piaget. He found young children to be undifferentiated in their thinking (Baptists have blond hair), older children to be concretely differentiated (They don’t allow dogs in our Baptist Church so a dog could not be a Baptist), and young teens to be abstractly differentiated (Yes one can be both American and Baptist).<br /><br /> An understanding of Piaget can be helpful in understanding the broad task of religious education. People grow as they interact with people, with the physical world around them. and with knowledge. People are not merely empty sponges to be filled with knowledge but are active in the process of growth. Education is not something one gives to another such as teachers giving an education to a student. True education is the reflective interaction between the student and the environment.<br /><br />Implications for Ministry across Cultures<br /> The Church around the world is in serious need of Christian education that is related to the world-view and needs of culture and at the same time is under the absolute authority of the Word of God. Good teaching in another culture is most challenging.<br /> Piaget would argue that most cultural differences are variations on a set of common themes. There may be thousands of different ways of looking at life, but Piaget would contend that such differences build on similar deep structures in the person.<br /> Traditional IQ tests are thought to be culturally biased, but Piaget redefined intelligence. Piaget claimed that the foundational structures of intelligence are genetic, and thus are potentially available for every human being in every corner of the earth. Piaget did not promote an elitist or Western definition of intelligence. The rate of development may be slowed or optimized by cultural influences, but highest levels of intelligence are possible for every culture ( Ashton, 1975. Dasen, 1977. Price-Williams, 1981). The doctrine of Creation affirms that every person is made in God’s image with all the potential implied by that creation.<br /> Since the fundamental components of teaching and learning are the same in every culture there are basic principles of teaching that are appropriate in every culture.<br /><br />Implications of Piaget for Christian Education<br /> Piaget’s theories need to be evaluated and modified in light of the authoritative Word of God and must be empowered by the Holy Spirit for effectiveness in Christian education. While Piaget made no claim of being a follower of Christ, his insights can remind the Christian educator of basic biblical principles. <br /> * Piaget helps us to see that the purpose of education is development. The ultimate goal of human development is for people to glorify God by becoming like Christ in every aspect of life. The task of the Christian educator is to foster the development of people so they will become like Christ - people who more fully love, know and glorify God. Too often Christian educators become sidetracked with idolatrous purposes such as building bigger programs or merely transmitting knowledge. Church growth and program development must always be means toward the bigger goal of Christ-likeness or they become idols.<br /> * Piaget helps us see that learning is a social activity. Christians should not need to be reminded that good education must involve the body of believers, the Church. People develop as they interact with other people. People don’t learn the most important things in life by sitting in a pew taking notes from one-way communication. Good lectures and powerful preaching may be a stimulus for significant education, but Piaget reminds us that people must interact with each other in order to grow. Education that merely fosters passive reception of information will seldom develop people. <br /> * Piaget helps us to see that learning is a disequilibrating and re-equilibrating process. We grow as we wrestle with the problems of life in light of the Word of God. Life is filled with frustrations and challenges. We are influenced by sin at every stage of spiritual growth. There will always be tension between the way we live and the way we should live. The good news of the Gospel must always be the answer for the bad news of our human situation. The purpose of knowledge, even knowledge of the Bible, is that it be a tool for helping us to resolve the deepest dilemmas of being human. <br /> Through the power of the Word of God and by the Spirit of God these three principles could spark renewal in the Church around the world. The purpose of Christian education is to promote the godly development of people. We must involve the whole Body of Christ in this process, using God’s Word as a means for resolving life’s tensions. If these principles are indeed revolutionary, let us be gracious and humble in implementing them, but let the revolution begin!<br /><br /><br />Bibliography<br /><br />Ashton, P.T. 1975. Cross-cultural Piagetian research: An experimental perspective. Harvard Educational Review. 45, In Harvard Educational Review reprint # 13 Stage theories of cognitive and moral development. pp. 1-32.<br />Beilin, H. 1992. Piaget’s enduring contribution to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology. 28: 191-204.<br />Dasen, P.R. (Ed.). 1977. Piagetian psychology: Cross-cultural contributions. NY: John Wiley.<br />Dolezal, J. G. 1984. A summary and systematization of Jean Piaget’s position on affectivity. Wheaton College, IL MA Thesis.<br />Duska, R. & Whelan, M. 1975. Moral development: A guide to Piaget and Kohlberg. New York: Paulist Press.<br />Elkind, D. (1979a). The study of spontaneous religion in the child. In The child and society. New York: Oxford University Press.<br />Elkind, D. (1979b). Piaget and Montessori in the classroom. In, The child and society. New York: Oxford University Press.<br />Gainsburg, H. & Opper, S. 1979. Piaget’s theory of intellectual development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.<br />Gardner, H. 1981. The quest for mind: Piaget, LŽvi-Strauss, and the structuralist movement. (Second edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.<br />Jacob, S.H. 1984. Foundations for Piagetian education. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.<br />Kegan, R. 1982. The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<br />LeBar, L. & Plueddemann, J. 1984. Education that is Christian. Revised. Wheaton: Victor Books.<br />Piaget, J. 1973. To understand is to invent. New York: Grossman.<br />Piaget, J. 1932. The moral judgment of the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.<br />Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. 1969. The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books.<br />Plueddemann, J. 1986. Theorists who influenced the study of James Fowler and faith development: Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson. Christianity Today June 13, 1986<br />Plueddemann, C. & Plueddemann J. (1990). Pilgrims in progress. Wheaton: Harold Shaw.<br />Price-Williams, D. 1981. Concrete and formal operations. In R.W. Monroe, R.L. Monroe and B.B. Whiting (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural human development. NY: Garland STMP Press.<br />Pulaski, M. A. S. 1980. Understanding Piaget. New York: Harper & Row.<br />Shulman, V.L., Restiano-Baumann, L.C.R. & Butler, L. (Eds.) 1985. The future of Piagetian theory: The neo-Piagetians. New York: Plenum Press.<br />Selman, R. 1976. The Development of Socio-Cognitive Understanding: A Guide to Educational and Clinical Practice. in Morality: Theory, Research and Social Issues, ed. Thomas Lickona New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.<br />Wadsworth, B. J. 1974. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. New York: David McKay.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-42668938996746370842009-07-20T13:08:00.001-05:002009-07-20T13:11:45.876-05:00Will the Real Leader Stand Up?<span style="font-size:78%;">From forthcoming book by Jim Plueddemann - <em>Leading Across Cultures</em> (IVP).</span><br /><br />There must be hundreds of definitions of leadership, each one reflecting philosophical, theological and cultural values. People from a goal-oriented culture might define leadership as accomplishing the task through other people. Leaders from a relationship-oriented society would prefer to define leadership as the ability to build alliances and friendships. Societies with a low tolerance for ambiguity insist on a precise definition, while those with a high tolerance for ambiguity would likely not bother with any definition.<br /><br />Recently the U.S. News & World Report editors selected their choice of the best leaders. They defined a leader as a person who “motivates people to work collaboratively to accomplish great things.” <a style="mso-endnote-id: edn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a> The selection committee used three criteria for the best leaders: they set direction, by “building a shared sense of purpose” <a style="mso-endnote-id: edn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[ii]</a> they achieved results that had a positive social impact that exceeded expectations, and they cultivated a culture of growth by inspiring others to lead.<a style="mso-endnote-id: edn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_edn3" name="_ednref3">[iii]</a><br /><br />Since there is no divinely inspired definition of leadership I will show my theological and cultural bias with the following description:<br /><br /><em><strong>Good leaders are fervent disciples of Jesus Christ, gifted by the Holy Spirit, with a passion to bring glory to God. They use their gift of leadership by taking initiative to focus, harmonize and enhance the gifts of others for the sake of developing people and cultivating the Kingdom of God.</strong></em><br /><br /><br /><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_ednref1" name="_edn1"><span style="font-size:78%;">[i]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> Amanda Ruggeri, “America’s Best Leaders: How They Were Picked.” U.S. News & World Report, December 8, 2008, p. 55.<br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_ednref2" name="_edn2"><span style="font-size:78%;">[ii]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> Ibid.<br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_ednref3" name="_edn3"><span style="font-size:78%;">[iii]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> Ibid.</span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-1534895975853143012009-07-07T10:10:00.002-05:002009-07-07T10:17:43.244-05:00Are All Christians Missionaries?<span style="font-size:78%;">(From forthcoming book, <em>Leading Across Cultures</em> by James E. Plueddemann, by IVP. Publication date October 2009)<br /></span><br />The word missionary has mixed connotations. For some people, missionaries are heroes and spiritual giants, worthy to be put on a pedestal. At the other extreme, missionaries are thought to be religious fanatics who destroy cultures and stir up sectarian strife. Many times, they are stereotyped as being from the West and having white skin. More recently the idea has surfaced that all believers are missionaries. I remember a missions conference with the theme, “You are either a missionary or a mission field.” I recently visited a church that featured a large sign over the exit: “You are now entering the mission field.” Some Christian organizations define a missionary as anyone needing to raise support. A prayer letter from a Christian camp announced that the camp staff were all missionaries, meaning the camp didn’t pay them a salary. One of my American friends jokingly defines a missionary as anyone who receives a tax-deductable receipt for the cost of their travel.<br /><br />Most missionaries are neither spiritual giants nor destroyers of culture. They go out from every country in the world, they have a unique calling, and they are not defined by whether they raise support or not.<br /><br /><em>A missionary is anyone, from any country, who leaves home in order to proclaim the gospel, usually in another culture.</em> The term is derived from the concept of “apostle,” or “sent one,” so by definition, missionaries move beyond their home ministries.<br /><br />In the Old Testament, priests had local responsibility for taking care of the temple, while prophets spoke the word of God both to Israel and to the nations. Jesus’ disciples were also called apostles or “sent ones.” They were called to leave home, family and occupations for the sake of Jesus and for the gospel (Mark 10:29). New Testament pastors, elders and deacons were responsible for local house churches, while “apostolic bands” left home to preach the gospel. During much of the history of the church, parish priests led local congregations while religious orders carried the gospel to distant places. Put simply, missionaries are people who leave home for the sake of the gospel. While differences between local and non-local ministries become fuzzy at times, the basic distinction helps to avoid confusion of roles.<br /><br />The Holy Spirit gives many gifts. Local pastors, evangelists and teachers play a most important, God-given role in world missions, but they are not missionaries. Christians living or doing business in another country are not necessarily missionaries unless they intentionally seek opportunities to share the gospel. Church groups visiting missionaries in another country are most likely Christian tourists. In my definition, Christians doing relief work in Southern Sudan are not missionaries unless they also seek to talk about Jesus. Many people provide outstanding service to humanity by building houses, drilling wells, stimulating micro-enterprises and feeding the poor. But unless they also intentionally seek opportunities to communicate the gospel, I would not call them missionaries. I’m grateful for philanthropists such as Bill Gates and the Red Cross. They aren’t second-class citizens; I just don’t classify them as missionaries.<br /><br />Yet, communicating the gospel is not the only thing that missionaries do. They do in fact hold verbal proclamation of the gospel together with meeting human need. Through the centuries missionaries have holistically proclaimed Christ as they healed the sick, built schools, provided clean water, initiated agricultural innovation and spoken out against injustice.<br /><br />When an Indian family moves away from their own culture in south India to the Islamic North in order to do the work of evangelism and discipleship, they are missionaries. Chinese family members setting up a market stall in Afghanistan for the sake of taking the gospel westward are missionaries. An Australian English teacher in China who looks for informal opportunities to share the gospel is a missionary.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-10859295449692725402009-06-15T16:27:00.002-05:002015-03-23T16:44:21.615-05:00Should Women be Leaders?<strong>My Disequilibrating Journey</strong><br />
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I’m sorry to admit that I was 36 years old before I really thought seriously about the role of women in ministry. In 1979 I was being interviewed by a woman member of the Board of Regents for a teaching position at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Out of the blue she asked me if I thought women should teach men. Without thinking I quoted 1 Timothy that Paul did not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man. (1 Tim. 2:12) She didn’t say anything but gave me a slight smile. I then asked her if she taught Sunday School in her church and if there were men in the class. She nodded, yes. With an embarrassed look on my face I mumbled that I assumed that she was a good teacher and admitted that I hadn’t thought much about the issue. My disequilibration had begun.<br />
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If women shouldn’t teach men, how could many of my most influential teachers be women? If women aren’t to teach men because women, like Eve are more easily deceived (1 Tim. 2:14) then for sure women shouldn’t be allowed to teach children or even worse, other women. Should men read books or sing hymns written by women? It didn’t fit my theology or my experience. My mother’s teaching led me to accept Christ as savior. If women shouldn’t have authority over men, how could some of the most dynamic, visionary leaders in missions be women? Does God’s inerrant and fully inspired Bible contradict itself when it says women should keep silent in church, while on the other hand they should cover their heads when they prophesy? (1 Cor. 14:34 and 11:5) My naïf position didn’t make sense theologically or experientially. I began to reflect on my experience, and went to Scripture again with a fresh curiosity.<br />
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I grew up in a godly, fun-loving home with a strict German father and Scotch-Irish mother. Both parents were well educated, committed Christians and influential leaders in our local church. In the home my Dad was clearly in charge, but my Mother took most of the initiative in raising and punishing me when I deserved it. Because Mom taught Good News Clubs in our home, I learned most of the Bible stories in our living room filled with children and a flannel-graph board. Even today, when I hear the stories of creation, Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Jesus and Paul, I still picture my mom moving flannel-graph figures around the board with a room-full neighborhood children.<br />
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Many other women teachers had a strong impact on my life. My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Phillipson, gave me a sense of confidence and self-worth that changed my worldview. Once, in front of the whole class, she told me that I might be president of the United States some day. As a 12 year old I recommitted my life to Christ under the dynamic Sunday School teaching of Nettie Baird. At Wheaton College, the teachers who influenced me the most were Vivian Bloomquist and Mary and Lois LeBar. When I began dating Carol I quickly realized that she was a lot smarter than I and had gifts where I was sorely lacking. She began to tutor me in Spanish, and helped edit of my papers. Because of her, my grades dramatically improved under her teaching.<br />
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After we were married, Carol and I joined the Sudan Interior Mission (now Serving In Mission) and began working with the Christian education department of a dynamic church in Nigeria. I realized that Carol along with Ruth Cox and Mary Marbaugh were much more qualified than I, at teaching, through the means of curriculum development. Mary replaced me in the leadership team when we went of furlo and became the first woman to serve on the SIM West Africa Council. Later when I became the International Director of SIM, I realized that a couple of our field countries were stagnating for lack of visionary leadership. When I appointed Becky Welling as the SIM Director of Sudan, her love for the local pastors, fluency in Arabic along with her enthusiasm and possibility-thinking revitalized the ministry.<br />
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On our first vision consultation in India we sensed a deep ingrown discouragement. When I asked the director about his vision for the country, he answered, “the last person to go, turn out the lights.” After we replaced the depressed leader with a dynamic woman medical doctor, Aletta Bell, the field took off. Seldom have we seen such a dramatic turn-around. Aletta traveled to most of the SIM sending offices, exuberantly pounding the pulpit with fresh vision for the ministry in India. In our last visit to India as International Director, the SIMers were buzzing with excitement and enthusiasm about fresh possibilities for ministry. On the last evening of a vision consultation, we sat on the beach, sang praise hymns and watched the sun set over the Arabian Sea. One of the younger folks played music on a “boom-box,” and the whole team made up of members from Ethiopia, Japan, Korea, the United States, India, and many more, lit sparklers and began to dance on the beach. Carol and I watched in amazement. What a difference between our first discouraging visit and our last one with dancing on the beach. India was our fastest growing field. God used this powerfully-gifted, possibility-thinking woman to bring dynamic change.<br />
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<b>Journey Toward Re-equilibration</b><br />
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I consider myself a conservative evangelical Christian holding firmly to the fundamentals of the historic faith. I gladly ascribe to the verbal, plenary and inerrant inspiration of Scripture. Was I on a theological slippery slope toward liberalism? Did I sin by appointing women missionaries to positions of authority over men?<br />
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I continued reflecting on my life. My professional career has been either as a missionary or a professor. For 24 years I’ve been a cross-cultural missionary, and for 19 years I’ve been a professor at Wheaton College or Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I’ve lived, studied, written and taught in areas of leadership and cross-cultural studies. Both help me understand the dilemma of women in leadership.<br />
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The Bible is filled with universal moral ethical principles. Yet where Scripture seems to contradict itself—as in the command for women to be silent, and prophesy with covered head—the principle must not be universal but be intended for a specific or cultural situation. The church in Corinth well-known for specific tensions and squabbles. Many of the commands—such as the length of hair and wearing of hats in church—are generally thought to be culturally-specific. If the apostle Paul were writing to missionaries working in the Islamic world, he might say that it is not appropriate for a man to teach women. It would go against the morays of the culture. If the command is situationally cultural, then both men and women should be alert to times when it would be better for the other gender to do the teaching and leading.<br />
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My experiences and studies in cross-cultural leadership leads me to a rival hypothesis regarding the passage where Paul tells Timothy that he “does not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:11). In a many parts of the world a high power-distance leadership is the expected cultural value, where a domineering leadership style is assumed by both followers and leaders. Jesus consistently taught a counter-cultural low power-distance leadership value when he told the Jews not to call anyone Rabbi (Matt. 22:8), and his disciples to avoid the Gentile style of lording it over others (Matt. 20:25). Many of the translations of the 1 Timothy passage add the footnote with the alternate reading that Paul did not permit a women to teach man in a domineering way. Since leadership struggles were common in the New Testament church, Paul equally might have written, I do not permit a man to teach either men or women in a domineer way. Most likely a woman was giving Timothy problems by her domineering teaching style. The underlying principle probably refers to leadership styles of both men and women.<br />
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<b>Resolution</b><br />
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The universal principle regarding the ministry role of men and women is that they are interdependent. “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God” (1 Cor. 11:11). Men and women are different but interdependent, where the only hierarchical relationship is God. The position isn’t quite egalitarian or complementarian.<br />
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My understanding of the doctrine of progressive revelation helps me to respect both the continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments. I don’t find the term “ordination” in the New Testament. If folks ask me if I believe in the ordination of women, I tell them “no,” but neither do I believe in the ordination of men. (I enjoy being an iconoclast.) The whole idea of a priesthood limited to the males of one family of one of the tribes of Israel is done away in the New Testament. But if we give in to the cultural temptation to “ordain” people let’s not restrict it to the Old Testament doctrine of the limited priesthood. The laying on of hands seems to be a public indication of the giftedness of an individual and there is no indication that spiritual gifts are gender specific. Surely the doctrine of the priesthood of believers is not limited to males. Galatians lists barriers broken down in the New Testament, both men and women are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 2:28).<br />
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I don’t quite fit either the egalitarian or complementarian mold. Maybe I’m an interdependent, egalitarian-complementarian. I praise the Lord for the differences between men and women. Without these differences no one except Adam, Eve and Jesus could be born. I remember reading brain research that discovered a tendency for the left hemisphere to handle abstract functions while the right hemisphere helped with more intuitive ways of thinking. The disconcerting observation is that women usually have more connections between the two hemispheres. In order to make the best decisions it makes sense to have both men and women on governing boards, on leadership teams and highest positions of leadership.<br />
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I’m sorry it took me so long to become disequilibrated. From the perspective of a cross-cultural missionary I realize that there are times when, for the sake of the gospel, both men and women need to step back from leadership positions. I respect hierarchical complementarian men and women who, because of their high view of Scripture, struggle with the dilemma. Usually these folks do all they can to include women is as may leadership roles as they can. But as I look at a world in pain, a struggling and lukewarm church and billions of people around the world who don’t know Christ, I am passionate about the urgent need to employ the giftedness of the whole church.<br />
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<strong>We hurt ourselves when we limit the leadership gifts of at least half the Body of Christ. </strong>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-88699840922932578102009-05-13T06:48:00.003-05:002009-05-13T07:10:06.629-05:00Ascension Day - Pray For RevivalMay 21, 2009 is Ascension Day! . . . May 31 is Pentecost Sunday<br /><br />Ascension day may be the most important date on the Christian calendar that is totally ignored.<br /><br />This is the day the disciples along with the women who followed Jesus returned to the upper room to pray. They watched as Jesus was taken up before their eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight. For ten days they studied the Bible and prayed. They probably meditated on the last words of Jesus. "You will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth." They were told to wait for the Holy Spirit.<br /><br />Ten days after Ascension Day is Pentecost! The day when God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven heard of Jesus in their own language. (Reread Acts 1 and 2)<br /><br />Let us take these ten days and pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. <br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Ascension Day Hymn<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Tune: Hyfrydol<br /></span><br />Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,<br />His the scepter, His the throne;<br />Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.<br />Hark the songs of peaceful Zion<br />Thunder like a mighty flood.<br />Jesus, out of every nation,<br />Hath redeemed us by His blood.<br /><br />Alleluia! not as orphans<br />Are we left in sorrow now;<br />Alleluia! He is near us,<br />Faith believes, nor questions how:<br />Though the cloud from sight received Him<br />When the forty days were o’er,<br />Shall our hearts forget His promise,<br />“I am with you evermore”?<br /><br />Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,<br />Thou on earth our food and stay;<br />Alleluia! Here the sinful<br />Flee to Thee from day to day;<br />Intercessor, friend of sinners,<br />Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,<br />Where the songs of all the sinless<br />Sweep across the crystal sea.<br /><br />William C. Dix 1866Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-82760385959399113392009-02-23T17:12:00.000-06:002009-02-23T17:13:35.684-06:00LOSTWe were frantic. Our son Danny got lost at a Michigan State University football game. We had just come on home assignment from Nigeria and Danny was four years old. Was he kidnapped? Did he fall a couple of hundred feet over the back of the stadium? I peered over the edge of the stadium and half expected to see a crowd of people gathered around a small crumpled body on the sidewalk. Why didn’t we take better care of him? Why didn’t we teach him our phone number? Why didn’t we make sure he had some kind of identification? In a frenzy we searched through the mass of 40,000 football fans. You can imagine our exuberance when we later found Danny in a special room for lost children, eating candy in the arms of policeman. We were so glad that the University took special concern for lost children. <br /><br />Lets pretend that in our panic a friendly policeman sent us to the University Committee on Lostness. I barged into the committee room shouting, “Help! Our son is lost!” <br /><br />Members of the University Committee on Lostness wished to ask me some questions. I assumed that they wanted to know what Danny was wearing, where we saw him last, if he might have gone home with a friend or some other helpful question. But he asked, “What do you mean by lost?” “Is he really lost?” “Who do you think you are to impose your morality of lostness on a child?” “It’s all relative, maybe you are the one who is lost.” “How can you be so arrogant to proclaim your son is lost. You are making a value judgment on his lost state and assume have better judgment than your son?”<br /><br />Weeping and pleading I shouted, “But my boy is lost, I love this boy more than I love my own life. He is in serious danger. Stop your scholarly debates on lostness and come help me find my boy!” <br /><br />At this moment there are at least four billion people who are lost without Christ. About two billion lost people are out of reach of any search party. Their Heavenly Father loves these people more than he loved the life of his own Son. We sense the pain of lostness in God’s heart when we read that there is great joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents. The father in Luke 15 celebrated with an exuberant party when his lost son was found. <br /><br />Mission agencies are recruiting people to form search parties to go into dark and difficult and neglected places to find the lost. We desperately need volunteers and those who will support them? How can so many Bible-believing Christians be complacent when our loving Father is weeping for His lost children?Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-9909396352243230702008-11-15T13:54:00.002-06:002008-11-15T14:00:37.245-06:00Requiem Grace<div align="left"> by Carol Plueddemann<br /> <br />Music is one of the most significant “means of grace” in my life and I’m glad for the rich variety of hymn styles that nurture my heart—ancient, contemporary, country, Black gospel, jazz and all varieties of ethnic expression . I’m no expert when it comes to classical music, but the Brahms’ <em>Requiem</em> has become one of my favorite pieces. <br /><br />Why this Requiem? I first sang this piece with the Jos Community Choir when we lived in Nigeria. We weren’t a polished group, but we sang from our hearts. Though still in my twenties, I had begun to experience the sorrows of death in the loss of two close friends just our age. Later I sang this work with the Wheaton Choral Union on the first-year anniversary of my father’s death. Last weekend Jim and I listened to the <em>Requiem</em> again at the Divine Word Chapel where the lovely sounds surrounded us with comfort in the recent death of my mother.<br /><br />Unlike other requiems, the text of Brahms’ Requiem is all Scripture. The piece begins slowly with a somber melody: <em>Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall have comfort</em> and soon moves to the glad reminder that <em>Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy</em>. Then an ominous pounding of drums announces, <em>Behold all flesh is as the grass. The grass withers and the flower decays.</em> In contrast, The Word of the Lord endures forevermore. Here the music becomes bright, solid and hopeful and transitions to the joyful parade of the redeemed as they come to Zion. <em>Joy and gladness, these shall be their portion. Pain and sighing shall flee.<br /></em><br />"As I turn the pages of my score, I see margin notes penciled in during the many rehearsals I attended. I smile as I note that these musical reminders are also appropriate life challenges: Watch! Sustain—don’t fade. Don’t rush. Support—breathe! Sing sweetly."<br /><br /><em>Lord, make me to know the measure of my days on earth—to consider my frailty—that I must perish…Now, Lord, O, what do I wait for? My hope is in Thee</em>. And then the sweet music of the well-known piece <em>How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs for the courts of the Lord. My soul and body cry out for the living God</em>. These words from Psalm 84 resonate with my <strong>longings for our true Home</strong>. The subject and counter-subject weave a glorious blend as <em>They praise thy name evermore</em>.<br /><br />The fifth movement is written in memory of Brahms’ mother. <em>I will comfort you as one whom his own mother comforts</em>. The soaring, sorrowful soprano solo is among the loveliest music composed by mortals. It is almost too exquisite to bear and fills me with homesickness for heaven where we will experience music in brand new dimensions.<br /><br /><em>Here on earth we have no continuing place</em>. The music is foreboding at this point but becomes brighter as pilgrims are assured, <em>Howbeit, we seek one to come</em>. And then, <em>Lo, I unfold unto you a mystery</em>… (Brahms’ music here rivals any mystery soundtrack.) <em>We shall not all sleep—We shall all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the sound of a trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible</em>. (in-cor-RUPT-ible!) <em>For death shall be swallowed in victory!</em> (Can you hear the blast of the trumpets?) <em>Death—where is thy sting? Grave—where is thy triumph?<br /></em><br />Now the music explodes in a glorious chorale: <em>Lord, Thou art worthy to be praised!</em> And then a confident, calm affirmation: <em>Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. They rest from their labors and their works follow after them.</em> Those who live and die in the Lord have eternal significance. Though their earthly lives are like grass, they will be raised—incorruptible-- to praise God forever. Brahms’ <em>Requiem</em> is a foretaste of that praise.<br /> </div>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-79774823223201094292008-07-12T15:52:00.002-05:002008-07-12T15:57:34.302-05:00The Quandary of Missionary Leadership<p>Missionaries are people who are not afraid to take bold risks. They often march to a different drummer, and have an entrepreneurial spirit. Missionaries are a delightful yet peculiar people. </p><p>When it comes to leadership they face a quandary:<br /> 1. Individualistic missionaries are often called to work under the direction of missionaries or nationals with widely different cultural views of leadership.<br /> 2. Missionaries may be called to lead multi-cultural teams of fellow missionaries and nationals who have radically different cultural expectations of leadership.<br /> 3. Missionaries teach in pastoral training institutions in cultures with dissimilar ideas about the leadership role of the pastor.<br /> 4. The dominant worldwide assumption is that leaders have the responsibility and power to control people. The North American corporate CEO, the South American caudillo, the Asian Confucian elder brother, the Middle-Eastern paternalistic father-figure or the traditional African chief, all fit the model of leadership as power and control.<br /> 5. Missionaries in a post-modern culture react against a domineering view of leadership, feeling called to “do their own thing.” They often see leadership as a service function with little or no authority. <br /><br />The Quandary<br /><br />So here is the quandary. Many post-modern missionaries have an egalitarian view of leadership, while the rest of the world assumes that leadership is control. Yet today’s missionaries working with bottom-up leadership styles are expected to work under leaders and to develop leaders in cultures with top-down assumptions about leadership.<br /><br />A Possible Solution<br /><br />Leadership is a spiritual gift mentioned in Romans 12:8, but footnotes show that the word means to “provide for others” or to “give aid.” The list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:28 uses the word “administration” in some translations, but in others it is translated “guidance” or “those who can get others to work together.” A biblical understanding of “the gift of leadership” challenges most cultural assumptions.<br /> <br />In one sense all believer have spiritual gifts and are responsible to use their gifts to influence the Body of Christ. In this sense, influence is leadership and thus all believers are leaders. But some believers have the gift of fanning into flame the gifts of others, coordinating gifted people and helping them to move in the same direction. This is the likely meaning of the gift of leadership in Romans 12:8. Maybe a way to describe the difference is to suggest that all believers are leaders with a lower-case <strong>l</strong>, while some are Leaders, upper-case <strong>L</strong>. In God’s eyes coordinating Leaders are no more or less important than leaders with general gifts.<br /><br />Here is a tentative definition: <em><strong>Good leadership is the spiritual gift of proactively harmonizing, enhancing and focusing the spiritual gifts of others toward a common vision of the Kingdom of God. <br /></strong></em><br />Often leaders are thought to be either task-oriented or people-oriented. This definition assumes neither “leader as controller” or “leader as cheerleader.” The model takes the task of the Kingdom seriously and assumes that the leader will be proactive and take initiative, while being an encourager and a developer of people.<br /><br />Mission Leaders are not servant door-mats, watching everyone to do what is right in their own eyes. But neither are they servant dictators, paternalistically making decisions for ignorant missionaries.<br /><br />I’m hopeful that this model of leadership will allow missionaries to be more effective in multi-cultural settings.<br /> * It brings out the best of the controller and the encourager models while overcoming the weaknesses of both.<br /> * It allows missionaries to be proactive, to take initiative and to keep focused on the vision, while working under people with diverse leadership styles. <br /> * It has the potential of being a bridge between the dominant modern view of leadership as power and the post-modern passive view of leadership.<br /> * It provides a starting point and a goal for developing leaders in other cultures.<br /><br />Few things in life are more rewarding than working with missionaries and church leaders of other cultures. I often say I am working with a “dream team” of mission leadership. I pray that the Lord will continue to show us how to harmonize and enhance the spiritual gifts He has given believers in every culture so that we may be used to fulfill a vision of His worldwide Kingdom. <br /> </p>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-57741017579469024862007-09-13T11:49:00.000-05:002007-09-13T12:05:22.901-05:00Repositioning Missions for the 21st Century<strong>We need a gracious revolution in our thinking about world missions.</strong> We are not likely to be effective in the next century by merely becoming more efficient within the old paradigms. Mission boards, churches, training schools, and mobilizing organizations need a new paradigm to guide their agenda. As I describe three common mission paradigms—Factory, Wildflower, and Pilgrim, each of which have influenced me at different times—I admit that, for the sake of clarity, I may be presenting extremes. In any case, I believe we must leave the first two paradigms behind and move on to become pilgrims in mission.<br /><br /><strong>The Factory</strong><br /><br />The dominant assumptions underlying some contemporary missions are rooted in what I call the factory paradigm. The industrial revolution gave us this paradigm. The factory metaphor places a high value on precision, quantitative goals, predictability, efficiency, and control. It moves planners to set goals that can be easily measured. They want to know exactly what the final result will look like, when it will be accomplished, and how much it will cost.<br /><br />Such a mind-set within the Christian community affects the way we look at the task,<br />strategies, leadership, and evaluation of mission. When we aim only at what can be measured,<br />we ignore the more important goals of character, discipleship, and holiness, which we cannot predict or quantify without falling into legalism. Factory thinking forces us to aim for goals that can be accomplished in a specific time frame. It inhibits vision for the qualitative development of people, of the church, and of society.<br /><br />Fortunately, most factory-minded missiologists also have a genuine love for the Lord and a deep passion for the church, which produces qualities of character in people despite the inadequate aspects of the paradigm. But while the factory model has been helpful in defining the task, far too often lukewarm churches are the result of the assembly-line mind-set.<br /><br /><strong>The Wildflower</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />In reaction to the factory model, the wildflower metaphor, a more intuitive paradigm, has gained strength. This model emphasizes personal experience, emotions, spiritual warfare, and inner healing. While the paradigm may provide a corrective to the factory model, I question the extent of its integration with biblical teaching, and I fear it may blindly build on contributions from existentialism and Freudianism. Wildflower missionaries often prefer a “go-with-the-flow” approach to missions; they are so embedded in the existential present that they have little time for future planning, or they may assume such thinking is unspiritual. If factory-oriented missionaries have their day planned in fifteen-minute intervals, wildflower missionaries seem to be blissfully unmindful of the calendar. One manages by objectives, the other by interruption. Wildflower missionaries have many strengths and bring spiritual vigor to missions because their flexibility and people orientation enhance their ministry. The danger is that they may lose the foundation of biblical Christianity, become inward looking and lack strategic planning for world outreach.<br /><br /><strong>The Pilgrim</strong><br /><br />A better mental image is that of pilgrimage. Pilgrims have a visionary goal and a sense of direction, but they realize that the path often leads through rugged mountains and foggy swamps, bringing unexpected joys and sorrows. Pilgrims travel together, helping each other follow the map of the Word of God. Because pilgrims have a sense of direction, they are better able to decide if an event is an unfolding opportunity or a sidetrack interruption. Missionary pilgrims are not surprised by difficulty and ambiguity. They are motivated in their service by a vision of the kingdom.<br /><br />><> ><> ><> ><> ><><br /><br /><strong>An Agenda for Revolution</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />We in missions need a gracious revolution as much as any mission, a revolution based on the pilgrim paradigm. Our direction can be outlined in the following twelve-point agenda.<br /><br /><strong>1. Vision</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />The pilgrim missionary is driven by a vision of what God can do for people, for the church, and for society. Pilgrims invite lost people to join them on the road to Christ, involve them in a community of believers, and help them to become all God intends them to be. They challenge them to follow the map of the Word and to become lifelong obedient students of Jesus.<br /><br />For the last ten years we have been conducting vision seminars in its candidate classes, leadership development courses, and field conferences. We also conduct regional vision consultations for missionaries and church leaders in South America, West Africa, East Africa, and Asia. When field directors report to the International Council (which meets every three years), they talk about their vision and the indications they see that the Lord is fulfilling that vision.<br /><br />In all our efforts, while we encourage after-the-fact numbers to describe results, we focus on inner qualities that describe pilgrims marching toward a vision of the future. We ask, What difference does our ministry make in the lives of people, in society, and in the church? As we become ever more efficient and technologically competent at doing secondary things, I fear we might lose our vision for the work of Christ’s kingdom. Instead of church growth in mere numbers, we need a vision for a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish, holy and without fault. Instead of completing a precise task by a specific date, pilgrim missionaries have a dream of what people might look like if they enrolled as students in the lifelong school of discipleship and more consistently evidenced the fruit of the Spirit.<br /><br /><strong>2. Strategy</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />It is not enough to have a vision. Strategic plans—action steps—are necessary. In a world of constant change and uncertainty, vision provides a foundation for pilgrim missionaries who dream of creative, innovative, and even audacious strategies. When missionaries unwittingly work from a factory paradigm, they are tempted to aim at programs or methods rather than eternal results. For example, the vision for a theological school should be more than to double the size of the library or build a new chapel. Vision foresees Christ-like qualities in students and the influence they will have on the church and society.<br /><br />In each vision seminar during the last five years, we have discussed and planned action steps. A pastor’s library project, which provided about 20,000 small theological libraries and training sessions for pastors in Nigeria and South America, grew out of a vision for powerful preaching by better-equipped pastors. Out of a vision for the majestic Andes mountains ringing with the praises of redeemed Quechua grew a radio ministry for that people group. Out of a vision to reach upper-middle-class people of Lima, Peru, grew a Christian TV station. Out of a vision to reach Muslim beggar boys grew a friendship and feeding program.<br /><br /><strong>3. Leadership</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />All pilgrims are called to be both leaders and followers in the body of Christ. The doctrines of the priesthood of all believers and of spiritual gifts mean that each pilgrim is responsible to lead by taking initiative to help others in the body of Christ. Since no person has all the gifts needed for the pilgrim band, there are times when all pilgrims need to follow other spiritually gifted pilgrims. There is often a need for a person to coordinate the gifts of other pilgrims. A coordinator does not take the place of Christ, the true Head, but has special abilities to maximize the effectiveness of other pilgrims. The most appropriate style for the pilgrim coordinator is team leadership. The pilgrim coordinator needs to be proactive, pushing the process of visionary thinking and action, while trusting the insights of others.<br /><br />The primary focus of factory leaders is simply to use the person to accomplish the task. Task-oriented leaders tend to use a controlling style that stifles the development of people. Wildflower leaders seek to develop the person but often ignore the task. In contrast, the primary focus of pilgrim leaders is to use the task of world missions to develop other pilgrims.<br /><br /><strong>4. Evaluation</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Pilgrims use evaluation not to place blame for past failures or for boasting but rather to help colleagues do a better job next time. Many times the results of ministry are serendipitous—wonderful and unexpected. Thousands of people in a resistant people group decide to follow Christ. Revival breaks out in a Bible college. A women’s fellowship group in Africa catches the vision for supporting their own missionaries to a neighboring country. Evaluation in these cases is not to transfer to humans the credit that belongs to God alone but rather to rejoice in what God has done. Similarly, when results are discouraging, the purpose of evaluation is to figure out what might be done to improve the situation the next time, not to assign blame for failure.<br />SIM is in the process of changing ministry evaluation forms to focus on three questions: What was your situation? What was your vision? and What did you do to get there? We ask about indicators of results in the hearts of people and look for ways to improve the strategy in the coming months. Under the wildflower paradigm, evaluation tends to focus on how people feel about themselves; attention is concentrated on interpersonal relationships. Evaluation under the factory paradigm, in contrast, is often threatening because it measures specific outcomes in comparison to predetermined goals.<br /><br /><strong>5. Evangelism</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress illustrates that evangelism is a necessary—indeed urgent— step in helping pilgrims flee the City of Destruction, enter the gate of salvation, and leave their burden of sin at the cross of Christ. Although the global Christian community has grown rapidly over the last century, due to population growth, there are today more people outside the gate than ever before. As a result, evangelism is needed as never before. Evangelicals working from all three paradigms place a strong emphasis on evangelism. While factory-oriented missiologists have been somewhat mechanical in their approach, they have provided a most valuable service in pinpointing areas of need and drawing attention to unreached peoples. Missiologists working under the wildflower paradigm have helped to emphasize the joy of the Lord for new believers and have encouraged greater creativity in expressions of worship. SIM acknowledges its debt to these streams of mission influence and seeks to be faithful as pilgrims in evangelism.<br />Along with our related national churches, SIM regularly asks if there are unreached people groups in our areas of responsibility. A high percentage of our missionaries are working with unreached people groups, and we have recently entered some of the most needy areas of the world.<br /><br /><strong>6. Discipleship and Church Growth</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />When Bunyan’s hero, Christian, flees the City of Destruction, enters the gate of salvation, and leaves his burden of sin at the cross, he is just beginning the next stage of the journey. Evangelism is a most necessary and crucial step, but it is not sufficient. The most urgent need in world missions is the task of helping pilgrims become disciples, learning to obey everything Jesus commanded. There may be as many as 1 billion lukewarm, nominal Christians in the world today. Transformed by Christ, these pilgrims could evangelize their world and flood the earth with justice. Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Colombia, China, and the United States would become models of justice and peace. Racism, ethnocentrism, and poverty would end as people began to evidence the fruit of the Spirit in their communities.<br /><br />Growth in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus is an inner, qualitative process that is difficult to predict, control, and measure. It does not fit the factory paradigm. But world evangelization by itself is not the fulfillment of Christ’s Commission. Christ commands us to make disciples who will obey everything he commanded. This is a lifelong process, not a precise task that can be finished by the year 2000 or any time before Christ returns. Church growth as defined by logarithmic graphs and ten-year projections has never been a New Testament ideal for a church.<br /><br /><strong>7. Theological Education</strong><br /><br />Visionary theological educators see teaching as an opportunity for fellow pilgrims to spend time in what Bunyan called Interpreter’s House. Solid biblical content is taught to help pilgrims find the right path, discover resources to win spiritual battles, and catch the vision of the ultimate goal. Teaching Bible content is a means, not an end. The implicit curriculum for the pilgrim educator is the development of a caring community of disciples learning to obey all Jesus commanded. Wildflower educators often downplay the need for formal education or emphasize personal experience over theological reflection and biblical interpretation. Factory-oriented educators preoccupy themselves with behavioral objectives, test scores, and outward compliance with course requirements.<br /><br />There are about 18,000 students in our related theological schools or extension programs. A high percentage of our missionaries are involved in pastoral education. We also have worked in a low-profile manner to help promote renewal in theological education. We have encouraged international accrediting in Africa and South America, promoted Theological Education by Extension, and helped to publish the writings of theologians from the Two-Thirds World. We have led seminars for theological educators from dozens of countries, urging a quiet revolution in theological education. But I am afraid that the factory paradigm is still common in our related theological education.<br /><br /><strong>8. Meeting Human Need</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Pilgrims are concerned about poverty, sickness, injustice, and hopelessness; the Holy Spirit helps them respond with love and practical action. Both factory- and wildflower-oriented missionaries also have a heart for helping people in need. The factory paradigm, however, tends to see the task in terms of doing things for people, like giving them pills, fertilizer, roads, and wells. It tends to measure results in terms of economic indicators, the number of schools, and so on. Wildflower-oriented ministries tend to give aid based on the emotions of the moment rather than on the long-range development of people in need. But all real development is human development—development that leads people to become all God intended for them.<br />Even though we can cite many failed efforts from our past, we hope we have been<br />learning from our mistakes. We support programs that involve people in their own development, such as People Oriented Development in Nigeria and the Niger Integrated Development team, and helping churches minister to the poorest of the poor, for example, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It is most fulfilling to see the churches we helped to plant catch the vision for meeting human need through their own development projects.<br /><br /><strong>9. Mission and National Church Relationships</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Pilgrim missionaries have the task of planting and nurturing churches in other cultures, while<br />avoiding the temptation of trying to run them. Missionaries need to get out of leadership positions in national churches as soon as possible. Growing churches need to be self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating, and self-nurturing. At the same time, however, we must confess that an “independent” church is an oxymoron. How can members of the universal body of Christ in one country be independent of the rest of the body? The ideal relationship is one in which the national church and the foreign mission work together in a loving, trusting, and interdependent relationship, each fulfilling complementary functions, neither dominating the other.<br /><br />Missions working from a factory paradigm seldom see a loving, interdependent relationship as the goal. They are primarily interested in evangelism and precise time-specific targets. For example, they may say that when 20 percent of a people group have become Christians, then 95 percent of the missionaries need to be moved to a new field. Such a strategy may avoid some tensions of church-mission relationships, but it also misses the joy of cross-cultural discipleship and the excitement of partnering together to reach the rest of the world.<br /><br />We at times has had problems with national church relationships. Sometimes we have held control too long and hindered the development of the national church. But there also have been times when we lost our identity as a cross-cultural mission and fused with the local church. This has meant losing our distinct function as a cross-cultural mission. Through channels such as Evangel Fellowship, which every two years brings together leaders from our related fields, we are endeavoring to develop healthy interdependent relationships.<br /><br /><strong>10.Mission Church Relationships</strong><br /><br />The home-based sending churches and mission boards have an interdependent relationship. Each needs the other. It is not healthy for a sending church merely to send the missionary and the monthly support and not be involved in the care, encouragement, and prayer for that missionary. Likewise, it is difficult, inefficient, and usually ineffective for local churches to send isolated missionaries around the world. Mission boards provide not only logistic and spiritual support but also structures for field-based visionary planning and for accountability. For individual churches to send missionaries around the world would be like local towns sending their own soldiers into war and having the soldiers report back to the mayor of their home town rather than to the officer in the field. Such a plan not only would be more expensive, it would create chaos in the battle. Sending churches and mission boards are mutually dependent on each other.<br /><br />Churches and mission boards with a factory paradigm have a more difficult time with an interdependent relationship. Factory-oriented mission boards have a passion for control and may feel threatened by local churches wanting to take more initiative. Factory-oriented church mission committees may feel threatened by the mission board and resent the fact that they use so much money for administration and don’t consult them for every strategic move on the field. The pilgrim paradigm is driven by vision and has a higher tolerance for the more ambiguous relationship of interdependence.<br /><br />We are learning how to listen to sending churches. While the missionary is the primary<br />contact with supporting churches, we can learn much from listening to highly motivated mission pastors and committees. In the past two years, leaders have hosted significant meetings with missions pastors and laypeople from major missionary-supporting churches in five key cities. The purpose is not to indoctrinate them about our mission but to listen to their vision and problems and ask if there are things we can do to help them. Several major initiatives have resulted from these meetings.<br /><br /><strong>11. Partnering with National Church Missions</strong><br /><br />A primary reason why a mission needs to continue a noncontrolling, interdependent discipling relationship with national churches is so we can partner together to reach places neither could reach on their own. The Gospel will be preached in all the world with much more power and credibility if it can be preached by Bolivians together with Australians and Nigerians. It is difficult for a Muslim to say that Christianity is a Western religion when he is hearing the Gospel from a team made up of missionaries from Japan, Canada, and Ethiopia. An ideal is for Christians from any country to be able to share the Gospel together in any other country.<br /><br />The factory paradigm places a high value on efficiency and getting the most results for the least amount of money. Advertisements in major magazines like Christianity Today challenge churches to simply send their money to support national evangelists because it is cheaper or more efficient. While there may be situations where churches in more-developed countries should send money to support national evangelists, the process is loaded with danger. Seldom does the national church feel the responsibility to pick up the support of the evangelist when foreign funding is eventually cut off. Often the local evangelist does not feel accountable to the local church. Moreover, sending churches in the West do not get the blessing of sending their own daughters and sons to their “Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”<br /><br />Our related churches in Nigeria and Ethiopia each have more than 1,000 cross-cultural missionaries, supported primarily by local churches.<br /><br /><strong>12. Revival</strong><br /><br />Pilgrims need regular renewal. It seems that the normal tendency is for missionaries, supporting churches, and field churches to lose their way and fall into the Slough of Despond, to be tempted at Vanity Fair, chained in Doubting Castle, or captured by the Giant of Despair. We become discouraged and begin to fight with each other. Revival helps us to get back on the pilgrim path. Revival is not the ultimate goal for the church any more than getting back on the track is the ultimate destination of a derailed train. Without revival, however, we get stuck with all kinds of problems for a long time.<br /><br />Factory-oriented churches either try to control revival or are afraid it will become too emotional. Wildflower churches may at times think that the emotional high of revival is the ultimate goal rather than a means for pilgrims to get back on the path of worship and service. Pilgrims seek daily revival as the Spirit uses the Word to challenge and correct those who stray from the path.<br /><br />Since 1998 we set aside the ten days between Ascension and Pentecost for fasting, confession, and obedience to the Word. Guided by the model of revival in Nehemiah 9, we included confession, worship, prayer, and obedience. We used e-mail as the primary means of encouraging the mission family each day to continue to seek the Lord.<br /><br />We now have four couples who travel around the mission world as international pastors. Many times the Lord brings renewal during the annual spiritual life conferences held on each field. Many have told me that they are praying daily for revival in our mission, in our supporting churches, and in the thousands of our related churches in Africa, Asia, and South America. May the Lord graciously give us profound times of refreshing and renewal.<br /><br />What might happen if churches, missions, and schools would catch a vision for a gracious revolution in world missions? Could it be that the twentieth century, an amazing century of progress in missions, will be seen by historians as a mere prologue to the astounding growth of biblical Christianity in the twenty-first century? May it be so.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-11375195255500504562007-09-11T16:08:00.000-05:002007-09-11T16:11:17.586-05:00Agenda for A Quiet Revolution in Christian Education [1]The field of Christian Education by its very nature needs renewal in each generation. Because we are involved in the ongoing process of helping to mature believers, we are always only one generation away from extinction. It is easy, and maybe natural, for Christian educators to lose the vision of the previous generation, and to merely perpetuate the mechanics of programming. Rather than being motivated by the driving force of our movement's founders, we are often motivated by a need for mere survival. In each generation we must seek to rekindle the fire and vision of those who have gone before us.<br /><br />In some ways we are facing a crisis today as great as or greater than ever before. Anti-Christian values are more obvious in society. Families are facing pressures greater than could have been imagined 50 years ago. Missions have been very successful in the last half-century, but now much of the church around the world is facing a second-generation lukewarmness. Nominal Christianity in many of the developing nations is growing at an astounding rate.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the field of Christian education is again becoming stagnant. Today we seem to be enamored with a mechanistic view of ministry -- or else we move to the opposite extreme and "buy into" a romantic intuitive view. The Christian education pendulum swings back and forth between an agenda that on one hand stresses efficiency in depositing information into the head of the learner, and an agenda which on the other hand merely stimulates people to contemplate their proverbial navels.<br /><br />The church around the world is facing the age-old crisis of nominalism while the field of Christian education is again urgently in need of renewal. We must rethink both our theory and practice. This is not to say that there are not healthy signs of renewal in many of our organizations, but we can all benefit from a rekindling of our vision.<br /><br /><strong>Renewal Is Difficult But Not Impossible<br /></strong><br />We err when we think that renewal in Christian education will be simple. But we also err when we think it is impossible.<br /><br />Often we are tempted to think that renewal in Christian education can be brought about by adding more efficiency to our method or by instituting better planning. Sometimes we seem to assume that if we can learn to control the environment a bit more efficiently, we can program the Holy Spirit and organize the universe.<br /><br />Even if we could achieve perfect curricula, programs, structures, methods, and teachers we would never be able to guarantee Christian growth. Thus, it is naive to think that we can bring about renewal by demolishing the Sunday School, by incorporating computers, or by using more creative teaching techniques. neither can we guarantee success by merely encouraging more fellowship and sharing.<br /><br />Renewal in Christian education seldom comes through long-range planning. It has most often come through men and women of vision, faith, and action who were able to inspire others. If the process of Christian growth is impossible to pre-determine, then it is impossible to set a time-table for our agenda. Our agenda for renewal is not to figure out a better system. Our agenda must be to stimulate vision and action in men and women of faith.<br /><br />It would be easy to conclude that renewal in Christian education is impossible. When we study the history of God's people from Adam and Eve to the present we see a frightening pattern of rebellion and refusal to grow in grace. Jesus found it much easier to raise the dead and walk on water than to promote faith in his disciples -- and how many of us can even walk on water? The story of the children of Israel is a case study in the difficulty of promoting spiritual growth. God had much less trouble getting the people out of Egypt than he did in getting Egypt out of the people. The prophets were frustrated with the ongoing problem of rebellion and idolatry in the children of God. Even with the teaching and modeling of the apostles, the power of sin was still strong in the hearts and actions of the early Christians. For some reason, God chooses not to force spiritual growth in his people, even though he has perfect control over all the curriculum factors.<br /><br />Yes, it would be easy to think that the task of renewing Christian education is impossible, and in one sense it is. Yet in another important sense, it is irresponsible for us to think that we cannot work to rekindle our vision and renew ministry. We have supernatural resources. Throughout history there have been examples of people who have sought God, prayed, and through the power of the Word and the Spirit have brought about a revolution in ministry. Renewal is possible only through the grace of God, but that grace is real and is greater than all our sins. Renewal is both necessary and possible.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Hopeful Signs</strong><br /><br />There are already hopeful signs of renewal in the field of Christian education. Hundreds of dedicated youth directors are spending thousands of hours discipling youth and are using creative methods to stimulate growth. Summer missions projects are stirring up a new sense of commitment to the Lord and to ministry. The Christian camping movement is challenging youth to a deeper commitment to Christ. Seminaries are producing hundreds of graduates each year who have basic Christian education skills and a heart for ministry. Christian radio and television ministries seek to strengthen the home and the church. Topical seminars and films are meeting needs of struggling Christians. Para-church organizations are continuing effective ministries which play an important part in bringing renewal. Christian education publishing houses are producing innovative curriculum to further stimulate the educational work of the local church. Missionaries are becoming more aware of the need for understanding the cross-cultural implications of Christian education principles. Third-world church are taking advanced degrees in Christian education and related fields.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The Need For Renewal</strong><br /><br />Yet as I talk to Christian education leaders in seminaries, publishing houses, and para-church organizations, I sense discouragement, dissatisfaction and a hunger for renewal. Too often we merely go through the motions to keep out organization from collapsing. Survival or profitability, rather then significance, have too often become our chief concerns. While there are signs or renewal in Christian education, the general pattern is not encouraging.<br /><br />As I suggest an agenda for renewing Christian education, I do so not as a distant critic, but as a fellow struggler. An agenda is not intended to be a final statement, but a guide for dialogue. Both the agenda itself and the implications of the agenda are intended to stimulate discussion and debate. I encourage disagreement and trust that you will help me to see the agenda more clearly.<br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #1:<br />We Must Cooperate.<br /></strong><br />Most of our organizations represent centers of influence in Christian education. One organization may be seeking renewal yet be frustrated by lack of support from other organizations. We tend to blame other centers of influence for not doing their part. Church may blame seminaries for not producing youth ministers with practical skills, and seminaries may blame publishing houses for not being more innovative. Publishing houses say they can't sell innovative curricula to traditionally minded churches. Creative directors of Christian education say they will get fired if they don't do what the management-minded local church Christian educational committee wants them to. The need for renewal in one center of influence calls for renewal in another centers.<br /><br />Many adult Sunday school are merely providing a dull second sermon. Christian education directors may jump from one curriculum fad to another while unaware of basic questions.<br /><br />Christian education in the home has been emphasized, but does not yet seem to be having much effect in helping with the problems of marriage and parenting. Parents are not finding answers and are becoming more desperate. Deep problems in the home carry over to the church and make it difficult to renew the Sunday school. Likewise, problems in the Sunday school make it difficult to renew Christian education in the home.<br /><br />Publishing houses are often frustrated in their desire to improve curriculum. They know that local churches will not buy anything too different. Knowing that teachers are volunteers, and knowing they will most likely spend less than 20 minutes preparing the lesson, they give step-by-step formulas to the teacher. Such formulas make it more difficult for a teacher to adapt a lesson for the specific needs of the students. Students get bored, teachers resign in disappointment and the superintendent madly rushes to coerce another unsuspecting teacher into the cycle.<br /><br />Pressure is put on academic departments of Christian education to attract more students. We compete with each other in trying to "sell" our degree as being the easiest to earn, the cheapest of the most practical course of study. Sometimes we achieve this by requiring students to do less theoretical and scholarly reflection. We are often subtly pressured to give students easy, "cook book" answers to complex problems and to give them a "bag of tricks" called teaching methods. We in the academic study of Christian education are not being encouraged to rethink our philosophical and theoretical assumptions. On the other hand, some Christian educators involved in scholarly reflection do not test and revise their theories by attempting to improve the practice of Christian education. Too often there is an antagonism between scholars and practitioners of Christian education. This antagonism leads to an isolated, ivory tower scholarship that results in poor theory, or else it leads to an uncritical acceptance of methods that results in poor practice.<br /><br />No single center of influence will be able to bring about renewal. If we are to bring about renewal in Christian education, we must work together. Individual seminaries, publishers, para-church organizations, denomination and local churches will not be able to bring about a renewal. Christian education centers of influence re-enforce each other in promoting or hindering renewal. Yet our moral tendency is to compete with each other and to blame each other for failure in the church or the home, rather than to cooperate in strategizing for renewal.<br /><br />Many of us are tired of shallow gimmicks and of organizational competition. In spite of the overt success of some of our churches and organizations, many insiders have the growing suspicion that the field of evangelical Christian education is again stagnant and in need of renewal. While we are bogged down with internal struggles, families are falling apart, individuals are faltering in their growth toward maturity in Christ, and churches are becoming lukewarm. The urgency of the task demands not primarily survival, but significance. Our task is to foster the maturity of individuals and the Church. This task should be our top priority.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #2:<br />We Must Re-Evaluate Out Purposes.</strong><br />(BOX A)<br /><br />Renewal in Christian education will not be possible until we re-evaluate the ultimate purposes of our organizations. What is the ultimate purpose of Christian education? The problem among evangelicals is not that we are unable to answer the question. We would most likely answer that the chief purpose of our organization is to glorify God. But we tend to answer as if this were a catechism question. We might say the right words but we are not sure of their significance. We say we believe that our purpose is to glorify God, but seldom understand the implications of such a statement for our ministry. Our stated purpose is seldom our actual purpose.<br /><br />If we really believe that the ultimate purpose of Christian education is to glorify God, then our ultimate purpose must not be Bible knowledge, organizational survival, human development, or even church growth. All of these are means to a greater end. If they become ends, they become idols. Teaching the Bible, developing programs, building relationships and showing concern for the poor are good, but in themselves they do not automatically contribute to the glory of God. When they become ultimate ends, the educational process becomes unbalanced and less than biblical.<br /><br />I fear that in actual practice, most of our organizations make idols out of means. We must re-evaluate our ultimate purposes.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #3:<br />We Must Re-Evaluate Our Motivation For Ministry.<br /></strong><br />Our real ultimate purpose, in contrast to our stated ultimate purpose, also controls our motivation, or our moral reasoning. Even good actions can reflect low levels of moral reasoning. God is concerned not only with what we do, but also with our motives. People look on outward behavior, but God is more interested in the heart. Eating and drinking can be either good or evil, but whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we must do it for the highest levels of principled morality for the glory of God.<br /><br />Schools, churches, para-church organizations, denominational structures and publishing houses must operate at some level of moral reasoning. If the level of moral reasoning is to glorify individuals, or the organization, or even the Church, then the activities and results of the organization will not contribute to renewal. Our programs will reflect our level of moral reasoning, or our motives for ministry. If we could make the glory of God our actual purpose rather than an afterthought tacked on to organizational purpose statements, we would be much more willing to cooperate with each other, would have a deeper sense of personal satisfaction in our ministry, and we would rekindle the vision for renewing the field of Christian education.<br /><br />I fear that in our day-to-day activities, our real motivation is seldom to bring glory to God.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #4:<br />We Must Study More Thoroughly The Nature Of Human Development.</strong><br />(Box B)<br /><br />In order to bring about renewal in Christian Education we must do more to study the nature of people and how they develop. Our current emphasis is inadequate. We learn about the nature of persons through special revelation in Scripture and through natural revelation. We believe that Scripture is the ultimate authority, but that God wrote the book of nature as well. The two sources are complimentary, even when they at times may seem to contradict each other.<br /><br />Our first source of information about the nature of persons is special revelation. In order for us to understand the nature of persons, we need to understand the nature of God. As Christian educators we need to study theology more deeply. But again, it is not enough to know "correct" answers regarding the nature of persons. We must integrate this information into the theory and practice of Christian education. We believe that God created people in His image, yet our educational methodologies often treat people as if they were machines or animals. Other educational strategies (even those used by evangelicals) tend unconsciously to ignore the Fall and the fact that people are basically selfish and depraved. We have lost something of the image of God and thus we cannot bring about Christian growth by means of our own internal resources. We are tempted to think that we can "educate" or socialize people into the Kingdom. Even we evangelicals are tempted to think that if we can somehow get rid of poverty and injustice people will be whole. We must struggle more fully with the educational implications of our theological understanding of the nature of persons.<br /><br />The second source of information regarding the nature of persons is empirical observation. Christian education at Wheaton has always studied the nature of persons. Twenty-five years ago when I was a student here, we studied age-group characteristics based on the findings of Gesell and others. We charted characteristics and implications for the practice of ministry. A sensitivity to such research helped us realize that our task was not just to teach the Bible, but to teach it to real people with specific interests and abilities.<br /><br />But evangelical Christian education has been slow to catch on to the significance of newer bodies of research about nature of persons. As the LeBars learned much about the nature of persons from research in their time, we today will have much to learn about the process of human development from more recent research.<br /><br />We should take the initiative in conducting research in human development. The more we can discover about how God intended people to grow, the more insights we will gain for promoting that growth. we are not doing enough serious research about human development and about the variables that promote or hinder development. Research questions should be generated from our understanding of both theology and social science. Solid theoretical research has many practical applications. Such findings are broadly generalizable and are thus useful in many more situations, including inner-city and non-western cultures. Theoretical research will help us to answer not only, "What kinds of programs work?", but more importantly, we will begin to address, "Why does it work?" and "How can we do it better?" For example, what factors in the Christian home promote or hinder internal faith convictions? What is the relationship between moral reasoning and Sunday school teaching styles? Research is crucial in helping us to understand the nature of people and the factors that promote the kind of development intended by God.<br /><br />Christian educators have often been slow to see the value of theoretical research. Such research does not seem "practical," at least not for the pastor urgently seeking ideas for setting up a personal filing system. Theoretical research in human development does not seem practical for the Sunday School teacher trying to find techniques to make flannel-graph stick to the board.<br /><br />Seminaries and Bible colleges have a professional orientation and do not claim to be strong research institutions. It is appropriate for them to generate practical projects rather than to conduct correlational or quasi-experimental research. But solid research must be done within the Christian liberal arts context.<br /><br />All social science research builds on philosophical assumptions. Our research must be built on our theological and philosophical assumptions. For example, the recent research in faith development is an example of interesting and important research that is flawed by poor theological assumptions. But who is doing such research from an evangelical framework?<br /><br />Para-church organizations and publishing houses are learning the value of market research. Such research is valuable, but it does not go far enough. We need to know not only which curriculum is most likely to be bought by churches, but also need to investigate the relationship between curriculum and spiritual growth. We need to go beyond asking, "which colors attract buyers?" to "what is happening in the lives of students and teachers as a result of the curriculum?"<br /><br />If our ultimate purpose in Christian education is to help others to more fully glorify God, then we need a deeper commitment to discovering how God intended people to grow toward that purpose. We will never fully understand the secrets of human development, but a deeper understanding of God-ordained human development is a necessary precondition for re-thinking aims and means in Christian education. Apart from this kind of research we will be tempted to adopt methods without reflecting on their implications for promoting or hindering Christian growth.<br /><br />I challenge us to do more research from a theological and theoretical perspective, to learn more about human development. We need to take the initiative in this research, to the glory of God.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #5:<br />We Must Reconsider The Aims Of Christian Education.</strong><br />(Box C)<br /><br />We will not be able to renew Christian education if we continue with inadequate aims. Our aims for Christian education must be generated from our understanding of ultimate purpose, and from our understanding of the nature of persons. Our ultimate purpose is to glorify God in what we do and why we do it. Basic to understanding the nature of persons is knowing that we are created in the image of God, yet we are fallen. In our fallen state we do not glorify God. Thus we need new birth and God-ordained development. Such development is both natural and supernatural. Growing out of these understandings, our aim must be to promote the kind of growth which will enable us to more fully glorify God.<br /><br />The greatest need of the human race is to regain the completeness of the image of God which was lost in the Fall. The reason we are not able to glorify God in all that we think and do is because we have been children of the Devil. Christ died and rose again in order for us to be restored. We must be born again into God's family. Then we need to grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. This is the aim of Christian education -- to be born into God's family and to mature toward the likeness of Christ. Our aim is to promote natural and supernatural growth. Yet, we know that we shall not be like Him until we see Him as He is. In some sense, then, we can never fully achieve the aim of Christian education this side of heaven.<br /><br />Growth is an inner, active and continuous process. Yet too often Christian educators understand the aim not as an inner process, but as promoting outward behavioral character traits. Often our aim is merely to impart bodies of information. Fads in teacher education tempt Christian educators to aim at pre-determined behavioral objectives. Secular trends in educational measurement tempt Christian educators to aim for measurable and quantifiable results. But our measurements are only of religious behavior or religiosity, rather than inner "heart development." Since we are able to observe and quantify much educational activity, and since we feel our aims must be measurable, our unconscious aim becomes educational activity rather than inner, active and continuous growth toward becoming all God intends us to become. Outward behavior is not a guarantee of inner spiritual growth. (In spite of what my mother taught me, cleanliness is not an indication of godliness.) People with polite character traits are not necessarily godly people. Some of the most evil people throughout history have been knowledgeable of the Bible. Satan probably would have no trouble getting a perfect score on our Bible diagnostic exams.<br /><br />To be sure, outward behavior must change as we become more Christ-like. But such behavior is an indication of heart development, and is not an aim. When the indicator, or outward, behavior becomes an aim, we are really teaching people to become pharisaical.<br /><br />On the other hand, some Christian educators are reacting so strongly against behavioristic aims that they say aims are not necessary at all. Some say we should just teach the Bible and let the Holy Spirit determine aims for the learner. Yet Scripture does give us aims.<br /><br />Aims are not end points, but directions. We can never check off the list of the fruit of the Spirit as something finally accomplished. We can never fully say we have accomplished love, so now it is time for us to get to work on joy, and next year peace, and maybe before I die I'll get to self-control. Growth in grace is never fully achieved in this life, but it does give us an aim or a direction. Faith, hope and love do not evidence themselves in pre-determined and fully predicted behaviors. Our aim must be to promote a process rather than to predict a product. That process is growth -- both natural and spiritual growth.<br /><br />God has given the human teacher a part to play in promoting growth, yet he or she is responsible for only a part of the process. Although Bible knowledge is important. But Lois LeBar taught that the Bible is a means for promoting growth and is not an end. Our greatest danger in Christian education is that we make the means the end. The result will be merely external or "outer" development. Is it any wonder that most of our efforts in Christian education do not produce "inner" results.<br /><br />The aim of the teacher, then, is to stimulate conditions which are most likely to foster the process of growth.<br /><br />It may be appropriate for our organizations or businesses to have pre-determined objectives and measurable standards. But we should not confuse organizational aims with educational aims of ministry.<br /><br />I fear that we carry over our understanding of management objectives to the task of Christian education, which is primarily an inner process. Such a management philosophy in Christian education will produce hypocrisy rather than spiritual growth. If we see the aim as a product, we still aim for knowledge, skills, habits or character traits, all of which may or may not be an indication of true inner development. A product understanding of aims may be the reason why nominal and lukewarm Christianity is growing so rapidly in our evangelical churches.<br /><br />In order to renew Christian education we must rethink our aim. The aim to foster the God-ordained process of development.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Agenda Item #6:<br />We Must Rethink Our Methods.</strong><br />(Box D)<br /><br />If the aim of Christian education is to foster a process, then the means for promoting the process is of utmost importance. In a certain sense, fostering the means for promoting the process becomes the aim.<br /><br />Learning is an inner, active, continuous and disciplined process. Thus, we should begin with the felt needs of learners rather than from the theoretical knowledge of Scripture. The Bible is a means for promoting maturity in Christ and was not intended by God to be an end in itself. Such thinking is radical. Christian education methods are still too often characterized by tactics which intend the learner to be passive. Our methods are so dependent on external motivation and external behavior that we may actually hinder inner growth in grace. Too often we seek to control outer behavior rather than to compel active reflection. We use gimmicks to get the attention of the student, but such gimmicks seldom lead to an inner sense of need.<br /><br />We must begin with the felt needs and experiences of the learner. We must then help the learner to see his or her own experience in light of the authoritative Word of God. When we compare Scripture with experience, we sense disequilibration. Such disequilibration can be used by the Holy Spirit to convict us and motivate us to put our experience and life more into submission or equilibration with Scripture. The process is often best done in a community of learners. The job of the teacher is the Word, the Spirit and the body of believers. The essence of interaction must compel thinking and action in the learner, relating experience to the Bible.<br /><br />Methods based on technology have only limited potential. Technology can be useful for transmitting information, but usually by itself, does little to foster the process of critical reflection and action in the learner.<br /><br />Neither are romantic teaching methods sufficient. such methods tend to focus only on experience, without stimulating reflection on content.<br /><br />Social learning theory provides an inadequate model for method. Scripture must be free to critique society. Modeling by itself is not a good method for stimulating critical reflection between Scripture and experience.<br /><br />Methodology in Christian education is in need of renewal. Too often we accept methods merely because they seem creative, make us feel good, or seem to be "at the cutting edge" of technology. We must rethink our educational methods.<br /><br /> * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br /><br />I fear for the Church around the world. Almost everywhere the Church is plagued by apathy. Half-hearted Christianity is becoming a dangerous epidemic. There's a war going on! The Church is in trouble, and we Christian educators, who can provide resources for the battle, are ourselves complacent and in need of renewal. We must seriously rethink our purposes, our motives, our understanding of persons, our aims and our methods. We must move beyond our narrow organizational horizons and rekindle this strategic vision. Discussing the agenda must be only the first step.<br /><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11633934#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Adapted from a talk given May 22, 1988 for the celebration of the Price - LeBar Endowed Chair in Christian Education at Wheaton CollegeJim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-35082702414064019292007-05-29T15:03:00.000-05:002007-09-13T12:21:00.948-05:00Measurable Objectives, NO! - Faith Vision, YES!Dear Missionary: are you longing for fresh vision? Do you experience a lack of appreciation for your ministry, loneliness, cultural frustrations and sickness can make your original missionary call seem like it came in a different lifetime. Several times during our lifetime we need to <strong>rekindle our original vision, our ultimate purpose for existence and for ministry</strong>. But in praying for a fresh faith vision should we not strive to try to predict and control future outcomes with measurable objectives.<br /><br />I have found that much of the popular teaching on goal-setting can be discouraging rather than inspiring. As a mission executive I once wrote an evaluation for a missionary couple. Their home church wanted to know their measurable goals for the year and wanted to know whether the missionaries had achieved these goals. The same couple told me that last year the church had cut their support by $600.00 because they didn’t produce hard numbers of the people saved through their ministry.<br /><br />Why is the missionary world so far behind the word of secular business? Tom Peters, famous for the book <em>In Search of Excellence</em>, writes in a recent article:<br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:100%;">"Plans? Goals? Yes, I admit that I plan and set goals. After I’ve accomplished something, I declare it to have been my goal all along. One must keep up appearances: In our society “having goals” and “making plans” are two of the most important pretenses. Unfortunately, they are dangerous pretenses -- which repeatedly cause us to delay immersion in the real world of happy surprises, unhappy detours, and unexpected byways."</span><br /></em><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><em>"Meanwhile, the laurels keep going to those mildly <strong>purposeful stumblers</strong> who hang out, try stuff with reckless abandon-- and occasionally bump into something big and bountiful, often barely related to the initial pursuit.</em> (The Bookstore Journal, Feb. 1991)"<br /></span><br />If secular managers are rejecting the old management-by-objectives movement, why are we still trying to do missions-by-objectives?<br /><br />People with a passion for measurable objectives have a passion to control the details of the future. They have little tolerance for ambiguity, for the unfolding serendipitous opportunities the Lord may bring. Missionaries who are forced to write measurable objectives are tempted to “think small” so that they will be quite sure they will be able to be accomplished. Here are some problems with trying to control the future by precisely predicting outcomes.<br /><br />• <strong>Measurable objectives are often not outcomes but activities</strong>. An example of a measurable objective might be to hand out 100 tracts per day. Such an activity is measurable, but we don’t know the outcome. Do the tracts make people angry, cause a litter problem, or actually are used by the Spirit to bring conviction of sin. Measurable objectives are often <em>pseudo-aims</em> and are merely a to-do-list activity and not real goals.<br /><br />• <strong>Measurable objectives often reflect bad theology</strong>. Eternal outcomes for our ministry are in the hands of the Lord Jesus. For example, it reflects bad theology for us to set a measurable objective of saving ten people per week. When we say that our goal is to plant one church per year, we may get trapped into thinking about a mere building and forget about the inner qualities and true nature of the church. The church is a body of the people of God, whether meeting in a building or under a tree. Healthy churches are measured by the inner quality of faith rather than by the external quantity of numbers or buildings. It is heretical to attempt replace God so as to precisely predict and control inner spiritual qualities.<br /><br />• <strong>Measurable objectives grow out of anti-Christian philosophy</strong>. Dangerous philosophies are often below the level of our awareness. The Western world is strongly influenced by <em>logical positivism</em> which argues that all meaning must be verifiable by empirical data. <em>Behaviorism</em> claims that observable behavior is all that matters. The secular world tells us that what we can see and count is the only reality. But Paul commands us to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4: 18).<br /><br />• <strong>Measurable objectives stifle vision</strong>. If we know our support might be cut because we don’t meet predetermined objectives, we will aim at goals that are easy to attain. We will set goals that will make us look good at the end of the year rather than goals that grow from faith in a God of hope. Such goal-setting is a dreary guilt-producing exercise. People often produce measurable objectives out of fear and a desire to look good, or at least not look too bad in front of others.<br /><br />• <strong>Measurable goals encourage us to control and manipulate people</strong>. If all our energies are focused on a predetermined quantifiable goal, we tend to use people as mere objects to help us accomplish our goals. Leadership style becomes controlling when the task requires us to treat people as objects. Measurable objectives require leaders to control people and coerce them into accomplishing our goals.<br /><br />While measurable objectives are often mere activities, heretical, and discouraging, faith goals help us to focus on the eternal. Faith goals are visionary and can become a driving force for our ministry. Faith goals give us pictures of how the Lord God Almighty might use us to make an eternal difference in the hearts of people. We set faith goals by spending time on our knees in prayer. I often ask, <strong>“If God were to pour out his blessing on my ministry, what might it look like in the lives and hearts of other people?”</strong> What inner qualities of faith, hope and love might I see in others or in the church I am helping to plant. What qualities of the fruit of the Spirit might I see in my students?<br /><br />• <strong>Visionary</strong> <strong>Faith Goals grow out of good theology</strong>. Faith goals begin with a fresh vision of the God of hope. We are convinced that the promises of God are true and trustworthy. Because we believe in a God of hope, we must think big goals even if we are in the midst of difficulty. Faith goals grow out of a fresh vision of the Lord who loves us and wants to use us for his glory. Only God can predict and control the future.<br /><br />• <strong>Visionary</strong> <strong>Faith Goals seek eternal results</strong>. Missionaries with great faith goals live with a healthy tolerance for ambiguity. We are not in control of eternal results in the hearts and souls of people. Faith goals are difficult to predict with precision, because we may not see the results of our ministry until we reach heaven. But if the results of our ministry are only for this world, we are missing out on the most important goals.<br /><br />• <strong>Visionary</strong> <strong>Faith Goals grow out of prayer</strong>. There is no simple formula for deciding faith goals. Computer projections do not establish faith goals. Faith goals come from spending time on our knees. We need to be open to the mystery of the powerful hand of the Lord in our lives. Wait patiently for him. Ask the Lord for his vision for the future.<br /><br />• <strong>Visionary</strong> <strong>Faith Goals describe inner qualities rather than external quantities</strong>. I would encourage you to describe your goals as qualities. Don’t merely record how many people you wish to contact with the gospel, but describe what could happen in the lives of people when they give their lives to the Lord. Describe godly qualities in the lives of students you are teaching. Describe loving relationships between missionaries if the Lord would send a revival to your station. Describe a healthy church in your town rather than merely projecting numbers of believers. Then get on your knees and pray for this vision of blessing on your ministry.<br /><br />• <strong>Visionary</strong> <strong>Faith Goals grow out of team ministry</strong>. Faith goals are not individualistic but depend on the Body of Christ. Individuals are stimulated by the faith goals of others in the team. And because no one missionary has all the spiritual gifts needed to help the Body to function, we absolutely must work as a team. This team includes national believers and first-term missionaries as well as experienced veterans.<br /><br />Suggested action steps:<br /><br />• Begin with yourself. Spend time in prayer asking the Lord to give you a fresh vision of Himself. Ask the God of hope to rekindle hopes and dreams, and faith goals for ministry. Picture with eyes of faith how your ministry might develop if the Lord would wonderfully bless your efforts.<br /><br />• Dialogue with national church leaders and other missionaries. Be ready to enlarge your faith goals as you listen to the vision of co-workers. Share your faith goals with the team.<br /><br />• Continue wider discussions in your district or country. What is the Lord showing you as a family? Be willing for many faith goals. Don’t make this a mechanical exercise, but an exercise of the family of God catching a fresh vision of his glory and our task.<br /><br />When the Lord has given us faith goals, we are then ready to begin planning strategy. <strong>May the Lord rekindle enthusiasm for the his vision, renewed excitement for your ministry, and fresh appreciation for the Body of Christ</strong>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Adapted an Evangelical Missions Quarterly article 1994</span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-82770110397956384802007-05-17T09:22:00.000-05:002007-05-17T09:31:46.290-05:00Prayer & Praise Hymns for Ascension Day - May 17, 2007Come my soul, thy suit prepare;<br />Jesus loves to answer prayer;<br />He himself has bid thee pray,<br />Therefore will not say thee nay.<br /><br />Thou art coming to a King,<br />Large petitions with thee bring:<br />For his grace and power are such,<br />None can ever ask too much.<br /><br />With my burden I begin:<br />Lord, remove this load of sin;<br />Let thy blood for sinners spilt,<br />Set my conscience free from guilt.<br /><br />While I am a pilgrim here,<br />Let thy love my spirit cheer;<br />As my Guide, my Guard, my Friend,<br />Lead me to my journey’s end.<br /><br />Show me what I have to do,<br />Every hour my strength renew:<br />Let me live a life of faith,<br />Let me die Thy people’s death.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">John Newton</span><br /><br />><> ><> ><><br /><br /><strong>Ascension Day Hymn<br /></strong><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Tune: Hyfrydol</span><br /><br />Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,<br />His the scepter, His the throne;<br />Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.<br />Hark the songs of peaceful Zion<br />Thunder like a mighty flood.<br />Jesus, out of every nation,<br />Hath redeemed us by His blood.<br /><br />Alleluia! not as orphans<br />Are we left in sorrow now;<br />Alleluia! He is near us,<br />Faith believes, nor questions how:<br />Though the cloud from sight received Him<br />When the forty days were o’er,<br />Shall our hearts forget His promise,<br />“I am with you evermore”?<br /><br />Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,<br />Thou on earth our food and stay;<br />Alleluia! Here the sinful<br />Flee to Thee from day to day;<br />Intercessor, friend of sinners,<br />Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,<br />Where the songs of all the sinless<br />Sweep across the crystal sea.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">William C. Dix 1866</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">><> ><> ><> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><strong>For Ascension Thursday</strong><br /><br />Hail the day that sees Him rise, Alleluia!<br />To His throne above the skies; Alleluia!<br />Christ the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia!<br />Enters now the highest heaven. Alleluia!<br /><br />There for Him high triumph waits; Alleluia!<br />Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia!<br />He hath conquered death and sin, Alleluia!<br />Take the King of glory in! Alleluia!<br /><br />See, He lifts His hands above! Alleluia!<br />See, He shows the prints of love. Alleluia!<br />Hark, His gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!<br />Blessings on His church below. Alleluia!<br /><br />Lord, beyond our mortal sight, Alleluia!<br />Raise our hearts to reach Thy height, Alleluia!<br />There Thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!<br />Find our heaven of heavens in Thee! Alleluia!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Charles Wesley 1739</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> </span>Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-20032805035979715722007-05-16T09:36:00.000-05:002007-05-16T09:39:02.535-05:00When Revival Comes . . .What will it be like when revival comes? We find a picture of revival in the book of Jeremiah.<br /><br />1• When revival comes it will not be because we are begging for revival, but it will come <strong>because we are hearing God’s pleading to come back to Him</strong>. We don’t have to bribe God with all-night prayer meetings and fasting to receive His spiritual refreshing. God is more anxious to bless than we are to receive His blessing (Jeremiah 3:12,13, 19).<br /><br />2• When revival comes there will be <strong>great confession of sin</strong>. Current teaching on inner healing puts a needed emphasis on forgiving people, but Jeremiah puts the emphasis on confessing our own ugly and embarrassing sins (Jeremiah 3: 13).<br /><br />3• When revival comes there will be a <strong>radical obedience to the word of God</strong>. We will see a difference in daily ordinary living. Revival will be much more than an emotional meeting on Sunday which has little impact on the daily grind of the week. Weeping with signs and wonders isn’t enough if it doesn’t result in holy living (Jeremiah 4:1-2).<br /><br />4• When revival comes we will have <strong>powerful missionary effectiveness</strong>. God promises that when His people come back to Him “then, you will be a blessing to the nations of the world, and all people will come and praise my name.” (Jeremiah 4: 2).<br /><br />Why is it that as we move into the third millennium, our world is still so lost? Seventy percent of the world’s people do not even pretend to follow Jesus, and two billion have never clearly heard the Gospel. What is preventing <em>the earth from being filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea</em>? <br /><br />The <strong>greatest problem</strong> is not lack of funds, a dearth of willing missionaries, poor cultural understanding, inadequate church planting theory, a deficiency of sophisticated technology or a scarcity of satellite equipment. I’m convinced that the only serious obstacle to the worldwide spread of the gospel is that <strong>we are spiritually lukewarm and desperately need revival.</strong> <br /><br />Christians who have lost their first love may still be active in church, may pray for missionaries, may give large amounts of money to support missions and may even volunteer themselves. But the world will not be changed by half-hearted Christians needing revival, no matter how active they are in the missionary enterprise. <br /><br />How can we change the world?<br />• Listen to the pleading of the Lord in our own heart.<br />• Confess our sins, no matter how embarrassing they may be.<br />• Radically obey the word of God, no matter what the consequences.<br /><br /><strong>Then get ready for an explosion of the Good News to all nations. By faith I see hundreds of millions of people from the most resistant cultures flocking to Jesus, when revival comes</strong>. <br /><br />Do you have a passion for world missions? Pray for revival to begin in your own life. Then watch out, because God wants nothing more than to pour out his blessing on all nations through you.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633934.post-88812715430011990692007-05-08T14:33:00.000-05:002007-05-08T14:38:31.459-05:00The Great Omission<div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,<br />baptizing them<br />in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit<br />and teaching them<br />to obey everything I have commanded you.<br />And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”<br /></span></span></em></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;">Matthew 28:18-20</span></div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><div align="left"><br /><br /><span style="color:#000099;"><strong>The Problem</strong></span></div><br />If about two billion people call themselves Christian, why are so many Christians making so little difference? One would think that believers acting as salt and light in the world would stimulate global revival. How can meat become rotten with so much salt? Why is corruption often prevalent in countries where the church is so large? I wonder if a part of the reason is that Christ’s commission in Matthew 28: 19-20 has become the great omission. Christ commanded us to make the kind of disciples in every nation who will actually obey everything Jesus commanded. In spite of the growth of the worldwide church, we have barely begun to fulfill the real Great Commission.<br /> <br /><span style="color:#000099;"><strong>Evangelism</strong></span><br /><br />The last hundred years have been marvelous for world evangelization! The Lord has worked miracles in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of churches have been formed in almost every country of the world. Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World, challenged us with the great unfinished task of world evangelism, but he also encouraged us with news of how the Gospel has spread in the last hundred years. He estimates that only 30 million people in a world of over 6 billion people are totally without any kind of Christian witness. This means that over 99% of the people of the world live with a potential Christian witness. There are at least four billion people in the world who are not “born from above,” and we must not slow down in our efforts to bring the wonderful good news to every single person in the whole world.<br /><br />Evangelism is an important and absolutely necessary task. We thank the Lord for the recent emphasis on un-reached peoples, hidden peoples, the 10/40 window and people groups. But the great commission is not primarily about evangelism and church planting, or about completing some measurable task before the year 2010. The great commission commands us to make disciples in every nation who obey everything Jesus commanded! The great commission is about helping people to be like Jesus. Just as a baby must be born before it can grow, so baby Christians must be born again before they can grow into Christlikeness. <br /><br /><span style="color:#000099;"><strong>Our Task</strong></span><br /><br />The purpose world missions is to glorify God by making obedient disciples of all nations. World evangelism and church planting are necessary but not sufficient for obeying Christ’s commission. Maybe our most strategic task right now is to stimulate the development of leaders, theologians and missionaries from emerging churches who are able to make the kind of disciples who obey everything Jesus commanded.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#000099;">Are We Becoming Like Jesus?</span></strong><br /><br />It is one thing to realize that the great commission is a command to teach others to be like Jesus, but it is another thing to become like Christ ourselves. How can we claim to have a passion for missions when we ourselves are not evidencing a Christlike life? We will not be able to teach people to obey everything Jesus commanded if we ourselves are not obeying everything He commanded. It is difficult to teach others to be like Jesus if we are not ourselves growing in Christ. <br /><br />God has used national evangelists and expatriate missionaries agencies to plant millions of churches with about two billion people who call themselves Christians. Our hearts overflow with praise to the Lord for such blessing. But what are we doing to help new Christians become like Jesus? Today the priority task of world missions is to equip the church make disciples at home and in all nations. Let us not be satisfied when we have a church that is merely self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. Our goal is a church that is growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.<br /><br />If the worldwide church will catch a fresh vision of what it means to be disciples of Jesus, a great awakening will break out, the foundations of hell will be shattered, and Christ’s commission will be obeyed throughout the whole earth. Let us work and pray with every ounce of energy in us to fulfill Christ’s commission. Lord Jesus, send a revival in our own lives and in the established churches around the world, so that an awakened church may be used of You to make obedient disciples and truly fulfill Your command.Jim Plueddemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06469904928407006888noreply@blogger.com0