simnow july 2014
DESCRIPTION
INSIDE: The new era in mission, where are the missionaries?, It's an upside down world and more! Read it today.TRANSCRIPT
Also Known As -
SIM’s reason for beingRecently a group of SIM leaders
gathered in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia to pray about, reflect on
and discuss what might be God’s
direction for SIM’s future. We
considered papers by missiologists
and other experts. Our members
around the world were asked for
their thoughts and opinions, and
joined in a week of prayer that
included fasting on one day. We
were seeking the face of the Lord,
wanting to understand in a new
way his heart for the nations.
For more than 120 years God
has guided SIM, in different ways
at different times. As the world
changes, and mission contexts
(both sending and receiving)
change, it has become imperative
that we discover God’s purpose for
the Mission in our generation. The
questions of why SIM exists, why
we mobilize, recruit and fundraise
– and why we ask you to join us –
have become urgent ones.
In Malaysia we looked (page 2)
the
BIG WHY
By Dr. Joshua BogunjokoSIM International DirectorBy Prayer
JULY 2014
SIMNOW
Serving In Mission
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
New era in mission P2
Where are the missionaries? P3
It’s an upside down world P4
Anyone to anywhere P6
New face of mission P8
Mission across the river P9
Calling or not P10
Howdy neighbour P11
moving God’s people into God’s mission
INSIDE:
www.sim.ca
THIS ISSUE: deployingmore people
INDIAq
2
(From Page 1) for clarity, and we were not
disappointed. The Lord worked in our
hearts and minds, challenging us in so
many ways. When God called our
pioneers to Latin America, Asia and
Africa, they joyfully responded because
of their love for Christ and the lost. This
great love remains our heartbeat today.
SIM exists so that we may worship Christ
in heart, word and deed. We live to:
Make him known and make disciples
where he is not known irrespective of
barriers and compelled by his great
love.
Serve his churches in fulfilling his
mission across cultures.
Enable those he calls to participate in
his harvest irrespective of where they
come from or where they go.
Our pioneers did not go out thinking
of the steps they were taking as sacrifice,
but rather as worship. Though they
sacrificed much, to them it was a sweet-
smelling offering to the Lord. As David
Livingston said, “If a commission by an
earthly king is considered an honour,
how can a commission by a Heavenly
King be considered a sacrifice?”
We step out today with the same
u
u
u
The focus of this edition of SIMNOW is ‘deploying more people’. It’s an important topic because the opportunity before us today to reach the lost throughout the world has never been greater. One of the exciting moves of God in our times is the number of missionaries from the Global South, or the developing world, who are crossing boundaries; geographical, political, and cultural, with the Good News. Yet, truth be told, the number of Canadian missionaries participating in global mission has been flat since 1999. This trend is a significant concern.
The Bible points out two key aspects of missionary mobilization. One is the ‘goer,’ who responds in obedience to God’s prompting and joyfully leaves home crossing into another culture with the gospel. The other is the sender or the church. Both are required.
Following Pentecost, the goers didn’t go. They didn’t obey Jesus’ command to take the gospel into all the world for almost 14 years, despite receiving the promised Holy Spirit. The church, the sender, wasn’t spiritually ready to send, and the gospel didn’t advance. It wasn’t until a multi-cultural group of believers, who bonded together in the city of Antioch following persecution, began to fast and pray for mission that the very first two missionaries were sent out.
earth. Churches can trust us, knowing we
will provide ministry opportunities,
personal care and supervision for those
they are sending.
SIM has the privilege of having a
footprint on every continent except
Antarctica. So we’re well placed to
enable people, irrespective of where
they come from or where they go, to join
others who are making Christ known
around the world.
We focus on people who live and die
without the gospel. We disciple new
believers into churches, that they might
effectively reach their society and others
beyond.
This clarity of purpose and reason for
being will guide us as we trust the Lord
to help us continue to serve his churches.
Join us in the
worship of Christ in
hearts, words and
deeds. n
people that are needed.
We've developed a Pastor's Forum -
we call it ‘the link’. It links groups of
pastors and mission committee leaders
together on a mid-week morning for
discussion and sharing. What we bring
to the forums are SIM global and local
missionaries who share issues they
believe have significant impact on the
Canadian church. Usually this focuses
around ‘mission fields becoming mission
forces,’ and, ‘our country is now a
mission field.’ But ‘the link’ is all about
listening. We listen to what Pastors and
mission committees think, and the
issues they are struggling with in their
church. It makes for lively conversation!
Care to host a ‘link’ in your church?
Care to join a mid-week ‘link’?
Contact me at or
call 1-800-294-6918.
n
heart of worship, willing to give up family and home for Christ. We go to distant places because the King of Kings has commissioned us. We offer our skills, gifts and lives, as we proclaim the gospel and reach out to those in need. We exist to worship Christ in the “everydayness” of life.
How is our worship demonstrated? We strive to make him known and make his disciples where he is not known, irrespective of barriers and compelled by his great love. We respond to this love by proclaiming the Good News.
As a part of Christ’s Church, we have gifts and expertise in cross-cultural ministry. Our work enables churches to respond in joyful obedience to his commission and command to be witnesses to the uttermost parts of the
SIM is engaging with pastors to bring clarity and a sense of urgency to mission. Our sense is that the church in Canada has become pastoral rather than apostolic; inward looking rather than outward, and it needs to be challenged to remember it’s first love and reason for being. Barna Research (2004) found only 15 percent of senior pastors had mission as one of their top 3 priorities. We gratefully acknowledge the compassion and generosity of the church and yet the fact remains, it isn’t just tithing, its
„ a new era in mission
3SIMNOW
where oh where have the missionaries gone...where, oh wherecan they be?
JOHN DENBOKExecutive DirectorSIM Canada
- FEBRUARY 2014 - 46 SIM leaders met in Malaysia.
Over the 6 days, the SIM leaders, along with missiologists and other guests, reflected on and discussed SIM’s purpose in this generation and prayed for God’s guidance
about the future.
“One of the exciting moves of God in our times
is the number of missionaries from the Global South,
or the developing world, who are crossing boundaries;
geographical, political, and cultural, with the
Good News. Yet, truth be told,
the number of Canadian missionaries participating in global mission has been flat
since 1999.”
„ m
ob
ilizi
ng
ch
urc
hes
we linkwe listenwe lunch
link
the
2
(From Page 1) for clarity, and we were not
disappointed. The Lord worked in our
hearts and minds, challenging us in so
many ways. When God called our
pioneers to Latin America, Asia and
Africa, they joyfully responded because
of their love for Christ and the lost. This
great love remains our heartbeat today.
SIM exists so that we may worship Christ
in heart, word and deed. We live to:
Make him known and make disciples
where he is not known irrespective of
barriers and compelled by his great
love.
Serve his churches in fulfilling his
mission across cultures.
Enable those he calls to participate in
his harvest irrespective of where they
come from or where they go.
Our pioneers did not go out thinking
of the steps they were taking as sacrifice,
but rather as worship. Though they
sacrificed much, to them it was a sweet-
smelling offering to the Lord. As David
Livingston said, “If a commission by an
earthly king is considered an honour,
how can a commission by a Heavenly
King be considered a sacrifice?”
We step out today with the same
u
u
u
The focus of this edition of SIMNOW is ‘deploying more people’. It’s an important topic because the opportunity before us today to reach the lost throughout the world has never been greater. One of the exciting moves of God in our times is the number of missionaries from the Global South, or the developing world, who are crossing boundaries; geographical, political, and cultural, with the Good News. Yet, truth be told, the number of Canadian missionaries participating in global mission has been flat since 1999. This trend is a significant concern.
The Bible points out two key aspects of missionary mobilization. One is the ‘goer,’ who responds in obedience to God’s prompting and joyfully leaves home crossing into another culture with the gospel. The other is the sender or the church. Both are required.
Following Pentecost, the goers didn’t go. They didn’t obey Jesus’ command to take the gospel into all the world for almost 14 years, despite receiving the promised Holy Spirit. The church, the sender, wasn’t spiritually ready to send, and the gospel didn’t advance. It wasn’t until a multi-cultural group of believers, who bonded together in the city of Antioch following persecution, began to fast and pray for mission that the very first two missionaries were sent out.
earth. Churches can trust us, knowing we
will provide ministry opportunities,
personal care and supervision for those
they are sending.
SIM has the privilege of having a
footprint on every continent except
Antarctica. So we’re well placed to
enable people, irrespective of where
they come from or where they go, to join
others who are making Christ known
around the world.
We focus on people who live and die
without the gospel. We disciple new
believers into churches, that they might
effectively reach their society and others
beyond.
This clarity of purpose and reason for
being will guide us as we trust the Lord
to help us continue to serve his churches.
Join us in the
worship of Christ in
hearts, words and
deeds. n
people that are needed.
We've developed a Pastor's Forum -
we call it ‘the link’. It links groups of
pastors and mission committee leaders
together on a mid-week morning for
discussion and sharing. What we bring
to the forums are SIM global and local
missionaries who share issues they
believe have significant impact on the
Canadian church. Usually this focuses
around ‘mission fields becoming mission
forces,’ and, ‘our country is now a
mission field.’ But ‘the link’ is all about
listening. We listen to what Pastors and
mission committees think, and the
issues they are struggling with in their
church. It makes for lively conversation!
Care to host a ‘link’ in your church?
Care to join a mid-week ‘link’?
Contact me at or
call 1-800-294-6918.
n
heart of worship, willing to give up family and home for Christ. We go to distant places because the King of Kings has commissioned us. We offer our skills, gifts and lives, as we proclaim the gospel and reach out to those in need. We exist to worship Christ in the “everydayness” of life.
How is our worship demonstrated? We strive to make him known and make his disciples where he is not known, irrespective of barriers and compelled by his great love. We respond to this love by proclaiming the Good News.
As a part of Christ’s Church, we have gifts and expertise in cross-cultural ministry. Our work enables churches to respond in joyful obedience to his commission and command to be witnesses to the uttermost parts of the
SIM is engaging with pastors to bring clarity and a sense of urgency to mission. Our sense is that the church in Canada has become pastoral rather than apostolic; inward looking rather than outward, and it needs to be challenged to remember it’s first love and reason for being. Barna Research (2004) found only 15 percent of senior pastors had mission as one of their top 3 priorities. We gratefully acknowledge the compassion and generosity of the church and yet the fact remains, it isn’t just tithing, its
„ a new era in mission
3SIMNOW
where oh where have the missionaries gone...where, oh wherecan they be?
JOHN DENBOKExecutive DirectorSIM Canada
- FEBRUARY 2014 - 46 SIM leaders met in Malaysia.
Over the 6 days, the SIM leaders, along with missiologists and other guests, reflected on and discussed SIM’s purpose in this generation and prayed for God’s guidance
about the future.
“One of the exciting moves of God in our times
is the number of missionaries from the Global South,
or the developing world, who are crossing boundaries;
geographical, political, and cultural, with the
Good News. Yet, truth be told,
the number of Canadian missionaries participating in global mission has been flat
since 1999.”
„ m
ob
ilizi
ng
ch
urc
hes
we linkwe listenwe lunch
link
the
The map of global Christianity that our grandparents knew has been turned upside down.
At the start of the 20th century, only ten percent of the world’s Christians lived in the continents of the south and east. Ninety percent lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. But at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world’s Christians live in the non-Western world—more appropriately called the majority world.
More Christians worship in Anglican churches in Nigeria each week than in all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Britain, Europe, and North America combined. There are more Baptists in Congo than in Britain. More people in church every Sunday in communist China than in all of Western Europe. Ten times more Assemblies of God members in Latin America than in the U.S.
The old peripheries are now the centre. The old centres are now on the periphery. Philip Jenkins brought this shift to popular attention in The Next Christendom. Yet many Christian leaders of the global South resent the implication in Jenkins’s title. They have no desire to be another ‘Christendom’— wielding monolithic territorial and political power. Nor do they wish to be any kind of threat to the West, but rather to help Western Christians in the struggle to shift from survival mode to mission mode — in their own lands.
Can the West be re-evangelized? Only if we unlearn our default ethnocentric assumptions about ‘real’ Christianity (our own) and unlearn our blindness to the ways Western Christianity is infected by cultural idolatry. It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is often harder to receive than to give. That reverses the polarity of patron and client and makes us uncomfortably aware that what Jesus said to the Laodicean church might apply to us in the West: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17).
Most of the learning and unlearning we must do in this new era is no more than relearning the original nature of biblical Christianity, which very quickly became polycentric. Acts 1:8 can give the impression that the early church spread out in ripples, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. But in fact, Acts tells a more complicated story. Antioch was where followers of Jesus were first called Christians, and it became the centre of westward-oriented missionary work. Paul saw Thessalonica as a radiating centre for the message in Macedonia and Achaia. Ephesus
Normal Christianity
Normal Mission
God with a Mission
In this, too, we will be relearning the multidirectional nature of mission in the Book of Acts. Our preoccupation with concentric circles has obscured the more complex pattern of mission and movement that Luke shows us in Acts.
What held together these crisscrossing lines of missionary movement all over the international Mediterranean world? Carefully tended relationships of trust. That is what lies behind the letters of recommendation and the exhortations in 3 John to treat travelling church planters and teachers “in a manner worthy of God” and to respect their self-sacrificing for the name of Christ. Indeed, 3 John is a much-neglected missional tract for our times. We need to recapture this relational, partnering, reciprocal style of missional interchange.
Perhaps what we most need to learn,
clearly became a key metropolis for Christian witness in Asia Minor. Paul was eager to make Rome a base for planned work further to the west in Spain. Jerusalem was simply one centre among many.
Christianity has never had a territorial centre. Our centre is the person of Christ, and wherever he is known, there is another potential centre of faith and witness. So, as mission historian Andrew Walls has said, the emergence of genuine world Christianity and the ending of Western assumptions of heartland hegemony simply marks a return to normal Christianity, which looks much more like the New Testament than Christendom ever did.
With the growth of the multinational church, mission is becoming multidirectional. The U.S. remains the largest single contributor of Protestant cross-cultural missionaries. But which country is the second largest? Not a Western nation, but India. And it is possible that India has overtaken the States in the number of those involved in truly cross-cultural mission — both within and beyond India. There are many more Korean missionaries than British, and some Nigerian evangelical mission organizations are larger in personnel than most Western ones (while operating on budgets that are a fraction of their Western counterparts’). Already, 50 percent of all Protestant missionaries in the world come from non-Western countries, and the proportion is increasing annually. So you are as likely to meet a Brazilian missionary in North Africa as a British missionary in Brazil. Indeed, the ratio of Indian missionaries to Western missionaries in India today is probably 100 to 1. Mission today is from everywhere, to everywhere.
So another piece of unlearning we must do is breaking the habit of using the term mission field to refer to everywhere else in the world except our home country in the West. The language of home and mission field is still used by many churches and agencies, but it fundamentally misrepresents reality. Not only does it perpetuate a patronizing view of the rest of the world as always being on the receiving end of our missionary largesse, but it also fails to recognize the maturity of churches in many other lands.
Christianity probably reached India before it reached Britain. There was a flourishing church in Ethiopia a century before Patrick
Multidirectional Mission
since we so easily forget it, is that mission is and always has been
God’s before it becomes ours. The whole Bible presents a God of
missional activity, from his purposeful, goal-oriented act of Creation to the completion of his cosmic mission in the redemption of the whole of Creation — a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible also presents to us humanity with a mission (to rule and care for the earth); Israel with a mission (to be the agent of God’s blessing to all nations); Jesus with a mission (to embody and
fulfill the mission of Israel, bringing blessing to the
nations through bearing our sin on the Cross and anticipating
the new Creation in his Resurrection); and the church
with a mission (to participate with God in the ingathering of the
nations in fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures).
But behind all this stands God with a mission (the redemption of his whole
Creation from the wreckage of human and Satanic evil). The mission of God is what fills the Bible from the brokenness of the nations in Genesis 11 to the healing of the nations in Revelation 21-22. So any mission activity to which we are called must be seen as humble participation in this vast sweep of the historical mission of God. All mission or missions that we initiate, or into which we invest our vocation, gifts, and energies, flows from the prior mission of God. God is on mission, and we, in that wonderful phrase of Paul, are “co-workers with God.”
This God-centered refocusing of mission turns inside-out our obsession with mission plans, agendas, goals, strategies, and grand schemes.
We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is, “Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?”
We want to be driven by a purpose tailored for our individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
We wrestle to “make the gospel relevant to the world.” But God is about the mission of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.
We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of
5
evangelized Ireland. There were churches in Eastern Europe centuries before Europeans reached the shores of North America. There have been large Christian communities in the Middle East for 2,000 years.
So it is discourteous (at best) and damaging (at worst) when Western mission activity ignores all such ancient expressions of the Christian tradition and lumps all lands abroad as the ‘mission field,’ in comfortable neglect of the fact that the rest of the world church sees the West as one of the toughest mission fields in the world today.
This is not, of course, to suggest that countries of ancient Christian churches need no evangelism, any more than we would exclude nominal Western Christians from the need to hear the true gospel. But the real mission boundary is not between ‘Christian countries’ and ‘the mission field,’ but between faith and unbelief, and that is a boundary that runs through every land and, indeed, through every local street.
church God expects for his mission in all its comprehensive fullness.
I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission.
We invite God’s blessing on our human-centered mission strategies, but the only concept of mission into which God fits is the one of which he is the beginning and the end.
Most of all, we need to go back to the Cross and relearn its comprehensive glory. For if we persist in a narrow, individualistic view of the Cross as a personal exit strategy to heaven, we fall short of its biblical connection to the mission purpose of God for the whole of creation (Col. 1:20) and thereby lose the Cross-centered core of holistic mission.
It is vital that we see the Cross as central to every aspect of holistic, biblical mission — that is, of all we do in the name of the crucified and risen Jesus. It is a mistake, in my view, to think that while our evangelism must be centred on the Cross (as of course it has to be), our social engagement has some other theological foundation or justification.
Why is the Cross just as important across the whole field of mission? Because in all forms of Christian mission, we are confronting the powers of evil and the kingdom of Satan — with all their dismal effects on human life and the wider creation. If we are to proclaim and demonstrate the reality of the kingdom of God and his justice, then we will be in direct conflict with the usurped reign of the evil one. In all such work, social or evangelistic, we confront the reality of sin and Satan. In all such work, we challenge the darkness of the world with the light and Good News of Jesus Christ and the reign of God through him.
By what authority can we do so? On what basis dare we challenge the chains of Satan, in word and deed, in people’s spiritual, moral, physical, and social lives? Only the Cross. The Cross must be as central to our social engagement as it is to our evangelism. There is no other power, no other resource, no other name through which we can offer the whole gospel to the whole person and the whole world than Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
Relearning the Cross
n
SIMNOW
By Chris Wright
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.Chris Wright is the international director of John Stott Ministries. Founded to equip and train pastors and leaders in the majority world, the organization provides Wright with a front-row seat to the extraordinary changes taking place in global Christianity.
anupside-
downworld an
upside-downworld
„ where do we deploy? I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what
kind of me God wants for his mission“
“4
The map of global Christianity that our grandparents knew has been turned upside down.
At the start of the 20th century, only ten percent of the world’s Christians lived in the continents of the south and east. Ninety percent lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. But at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world’s Christians live in the non-Western world—more appropriately called the majority world.
More Christians worship in Anglican churches in Nigeria each week than in all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Britain, Europe, and North America combined. There are more Baptists in Congo than in Britain. More people in church every Sunday in communist China than in all of Western Europe. Ten times more Assemblies of God members in Latin America than in the U.S.
The old peripheries are now the centre. The old centres are now on the periphery. Philip Jenkins brought this shift to popular attention in The Next Christendom. Yet many Christian leaders of the global South resent the implication in Jenkins’s title. They have no desire to be another ‘Christendom’— wielding monolithic territorial and political power. Nor do they wish to be any kind of threat to the West, but rather to help Western Christians in the struggle to shift from survival mode to mission mode — in their own lands.
Can the West be re-evangelized? Only if we unlearn our default ethnocentric assumptions about ‘real’ Christianity (our own) and unlearn our blindness to the ways Western Christianity is infected by cultural idolatry. It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is often harder to receive than to give. That reverses the polarity of patron and client and makes us uncomfortably aware that what Jesus said to the Laodicean church might apply to us in the West: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17).
Most of the learning and unlearning we must do in this new era is no more than relearning the original nature of biblical Christianity, which very quickly became polycentric. Acts 1:8 can give the impression that the early church spread out in ripples, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. But in fact, Acts tells a more complicated story. Antioch was where followers of Jesus were first called Christians, and it became the centre of westward-oriented missionary work. Paul saw Thessalonica as a radiating centre for the message in Macedonia and Achaia. Ephesus
Normal Christianity
Normal Mission
God with a Mission
In this, too, we will be relearning the multidirectional nature of mission in the Book of Acts. Our preoccupation with concentric circles has obscured the more complex pattern of mission and movement that Luke shows us in Acts.
What held together these crisscrossing lines of missionary movement all over the international Mediterranean world? Carefully tended relationships of trust. That is what lies behind the letters of recommendation and the exhortations in 3 John to treat travelling church planters and teachers “in a manner worthy of God” and to respect their self-sacrificing for the name of Christ. Indeed, 3 John is a much-neglected missional tract for our times. We need to recapture this relational, partnering, reciprocal style of missional interchange.
Perhaps what we most need to learn,
clearly became a key metropolis for Christian witness in Asia Minor. Paul was eager to make Rome a base for planned work further to the west in Spain. Jerusalem was simply one centre among many.
Christianity has never had a territorial centre. Our centre is the person of Christ, and wherever he is known, there is another potential centre of faith and witness. So, as mission historian Andrew Walls has said, the emergence of genuine world Christianity and the ending of Western assumptions of heartland hegemony simply marks a return to normal Christianity, which looks much more like the New Testament than Christendom ever did.
With the growth of the multinational church, mission is becoming multidirectional. The U.S. remains the largest single contributor of Protestant cross-cultural missionaries. But which country is the second largest? Not a Western nation, but India. And it is possible that India has overtaken the States in the number of those involved in truly cross-cultural mission — both within and beyond India. There are many more Korean missionaries than British, and some Nigerian evangelical mission organizations are larger in personnel than most Western ones (while operating on budgets that are a fraction of their Western counterparts’). Already, 50 percent of all Protestant missionaries in the world come from non-Western countries, and the proportion is increasing annually. So you are as likely to meet a Brazilian missionary in North Africa as a British missionary in Brazil. Indeed, the ratio of Indian missionaries to Western missionaries in India today is probably 100 to 1. Mission today is from everywhere, to everywhere.
So another piece of unlearning we must do is breaking the habit of using the term mission field to refer to everywhere else in the world except our home country in the West. The language of home and mission field is still used by many churches and agencies, but it fundamentally misrepresents reality. Not only does it perpetuate a patronizing view of the rest of the world as always being on the receiving end of our missionary largesse, but it also fails to recognize the maturity of churches in many other lands.
Christianity probably reached India before it reached Britain. There was a flourishing church in Ethiopia a century before Patrick
Multidirectional Mission
since we so easily forget it, is that mission is and always has been
God’s before it becomes ours. The whole Bible presents a God of
missional activity, from his purposeful, goal-oriented act of Creation to the completion of his cosmic mission in the redemption of the whole of Creation — a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible also presents to us humanity with a mission (to rule and care for the earth); Israel with a mission (to be the agent of God’s blessing to all nations); Jesus with a mission (to embody and
fulfill the mission of Israel, bringing blessing to the
nations through bearing our sin on the Cross and anticipating
the new Creation in his Resurrection); and the church
with a mission (to participate with God in the ingathering of the
nations in fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures).
But behind all this stands God with a mission (the redemption of his whole
Creation from the wreckage of human and Satanic evil). The mission of God is what fills the Bible from the brokenness of the nations in Genesis 11 to the healing of the nations in Revelation 21-22. So any mission activity to which we are called must be seen as humble participation in this vast sweep of the historical mission of God. All mission or missions that we initiate, or into which we invest our vocation, gifts, and energies, flows from the prior mission of God. God is on mission, and we, in that wonderful phrase of Paul, are “co-workers with God.”
This God-centered refocusing of mission turns inside-out our obsession with mission plans, agendas, goals, strategies, and grand schemes.
We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is, “Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?”
We want to be driven by a purpose tailored for our individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
We wrestle to “make the gospel relevant to the world.” But God is about the mission of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.
We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of
5
evangelized Ireland. There were churches in Eastern Europe centuries before Europeans reached the shores of North America. There have been large Christian communities in the Middle East for 2,000 years.
So it is discourteous (at best) and damaging (at worst) when Western mission activity ignores all such ancient expressions of the Christian tradition and lumps all lands abroad as the ‘mission field,’ in comfortable neglect of the fact that the rest of the world church sees the West as one of the toughest mission fields in the world today.
This is not, of course, to suggest that countries of ancient Christian churches need no evangelism, any more than we would exclude nominal Western Christians from the need to hear the true gospel. But the real mission boundary is not between ‘Christian countries’ and ‘the mission field,’ but between faith and unbelief, and that is a boundary that runs through every land and, indeed, through every local street.
church God expects for his mission in all its comprehensive fullness.
I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission.
We invite God’s blessing on our human-centered mission strategies, but the only concept of mission into which God fits is the one of which he is the beginning and the end.
Most of all, we need to go back to the Cross and relearn its comprehensive glory. For if we persist in a narrow, individualistic view of the Cross as a personal exit strategy to heaven, we fall short of its biblical connection to the mission purpose of God for the whole of creation (Col. 1:20) and thereby lose the Cross-centered core of holistic mission.
It is vital that we see the Cross as central to every aspect of holistic, biblical mission — that is, of all we do in the name of the crucified and risen Jesus. It is a mistake, in my view, to think that while our evangelism must be centred on the Cross (as of course it has to be), our social engagement has some other theological foundation or justification.
Why is the Cross just as important across the whole field of mission? Because in all forms of Christian mission, we are confronting the powers of evil and the kingdom of Satan — with all their dismal effects on human life and the wider creation. If we are to proclaim and demonstrate the reality of the kingdom of God and his justice, then we will be in direct conflict with the usurped reign of the evil one. In all such work, social or evangelistic, we confront the reality of sin and Satan. In all such work, we challenge the darkness of the world with the light and Good News of Jesus Christ and the reign of God through him.
By what authority can we do so? On what basis dare we challenge the chains of Satan, in word and deed, in people’s spiritual, moral, physical, and social lives? Only the Cross. The Cross must be as central to our social engagement as it is to our evangelism. There is no other power, no other resource, no other name through which we can offer the whole gospel to the whole person and the whole world than Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
Relearning the Cross
n
SIMNOW
By Chris Wright
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.Chris Wright is the international director of John Stott Ministries. Founded to equip and train pastors and leaders in the majority world, the organization provides Wright with a front-row seat to the extraordinary changes taking place in global Christianity.
anupside-
downworld an
upside-downworld
„ where do we deploy? I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what
kind of me God wants for his mission“
“4
6
By Tricia De Boer
Countries where SIM places missionaries are being added all the time.
SIM is constantly looking for new ministry opportunities to place missionaries all around the world. “If there’s a way to do it, we’ll find it,” says John Denbok (Executive Director, SIM Canada). “There are so many in this world who have yet to hear the Gospel message. It is our role as a mission to get our people into those places.”
“A few years ago SIM’s many ministries were limited to 40 countries. Now the work has grown to 70+, and it is still growing.”
SIM missionaries are involved in a variety of different ministries but spreading the Gospel is the basis of the work. Ministry areas include:
Evangelism and church planting Health Education Relief and development Media Translation Theological education Administration “Often potential missionaries
will ask “Do you go to _____ ?” For security and other reasons we don’t publicise all the places where we work, but chances are the answer is “Yes, we go there,” or “we can get you there - and that includes right here in Canada where the world is on our doorstep.”
“Our focus is to ‘move more of God’s people into God’s mission’,” concludes John.
uuuuuuuu
n
Ecuador
Guatemala
Peru
Bolivia
Paraguay
UruguayChile
International Administration Burkina
FasoSénégal
Guinea
Liberia
Côte d'Ivoire
Ghana
Benin
Nigeria
South AfricaBotswana
KenyaEthiopiaEritrea
Pakistan
Nepal
China
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Philippines
KoreaTaiwan
Japan
Hong Kong
Niger
India
Mongolia
Sudan
Togo
CARUganda
Malawi
TanzaniaMadagascar
Réunion/Mauritius
SwazilandZimbabwe
MozambiqueZambia
New Zealand
Singapore
Papua New Guinea
MalaysiaThailand
Indonesia
Australia
United
Ireland
Kingdom Switzerland
Sweden
ItalyAustria
NetherlandsGermany
Belgium
FrancePortugal
United States
Canada
Angola
Namibia
South Sudan
Brazil
18,000+2,000+countries churchesmissionaries70+
moving God’s people into God’s missionServing In Mission
7
„ w
her
e in
th
e w
orl
d?
SIMNOW
SIMdeploysalmostanyone to almostanywhere
6
By Tricia De Boer
Countries where SIM places missionaries are being added all the time.
SIM is constantly looking for new ministry opportunities to place missionaries all around the world. “If there’s a way to do it, we’ll find it,” says John Denbok (Executive Director, SIM Canada). “There are so many in this world who have yet to hear the Gospel message. It is our role as a mission to get our people into those places.”
“A few years ago SIM’s many ministries were limited to 40 countries. Now the work has grown to 70+, and it is still growing.”
SIM missionaries are involved in a variety of different ministries but spreading the Gospel is the basis of the work. Ministry areas include:
Evangelism and church planting Health Education Relief and development Media Translation Theological education Administration “Often potential missionaries
will ask “Do you go to _____ ?” For security and other reasons we don’t publicise all the places where we work, but chances are the answer is “Yes, we go there,” or “we can get you there - and that includes right here in Canada where the world is on our doorstep.”
“Our focus is to ‘move more of God’s people into God’s mission’,” concludes John.
uuuuuuuu
n
Ecuador
Guatemala
Peru
Bolivia
Paraguay
UruguayChile
International Administration Burkina
FasoSénégal
Guinea
Liberia
Côte d'Ivoire
Ghana
Benin
Nigeria
South AfricaBotswana
KenyaEthiopiaEritrea
Pakistan
Nepal
China
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Philippines
KoreaTaiwan
Japan
Hong Kong
Niger
India
Mongolia
Sudan
Togo
CARUganda
Malawi
TanzaniaMadagascar
Réunion/Mauritius
SwazilandZimbabwe
MozambiqueZambia
New Zealand
Singapore
Papua New Guinea
MalaysiaThailand
Indonesia
Australia
United
Ireland
Kingdom Switzerland
Sweden
ItalyAustria
NetherlandsGermany
Belgium
FrancePortugal
United States
Canada
Angola
Namibia
South Sudan
Brazil
18,000+2,000+countries churchesmissionaries70+
moving God’s people into God’s missionServing In Mission
7
„ w
her
e in
th
e w
orl
d?
SIMNOW
SIMdeploysalmostanyone to almostanywhere
I am increasingly thankful for those who have been raised up to become Christ followers and who minister within their own nationality, peer or strata group.
Whether they are African, Asian or Latinos, these dedicated believers are vital and key in the countless SIM projects and church plants across the continents.
When the ‘foreign’ missionaries leave, they remain.
Where the ‘foreign’ missionaries understanding of cultural Biblical application is limited, theirs shine.
These are the unsung heroes whose wealth in their poverty gives them an understanding of sacrifice that some of us from the traditional sending countries are unable to grasp.
Allow me to introduce you to Rivaldo (15) and Samuel (20). Both these youth have been baptized in the last two years.
While the missionary they have worked with is on home assignment, they have taken up the challenge to continue to run a youth group among their peers. The youth group ministers to teens between the ages of 12 to 17.
This group meets every two weeks to play games, praise the Lord (Karoke style), and do an inductive Bible study in small groups.
In a recent survey the teens were asked why they attend. The answers ranged from ‘to know God’, to ‘because of a certain boy I have a crush on.’
The springboard of this group was a winter camp for High School students – an exclusive camp which targeted the only public High School in the Vitor
The face of missions has changed. There are now more missionaries from the majority world than from the west. I am so thankful to be part of SIM as we keep up with what God is doing.
Latin American churches are now inspired and challenged to mission. Our God is indeed global.
SIM has always been international, with more than 30 nations represented among our 2,000 missionaries, and this continues to grow. SIM is committed to sending missionaries “from anywhere to everywhere”, and sees the missionary world without borders.
We have the opportunity for global impact but missionaries from non-western countries often find that their financial support is limited.
Here in Lima Peru, we have Peruvians working in India, China and South Africa. How are these people supported?
We should consider investing our prayer and financial gifts in global ways.
Latin American missionaries are strategic for this time in mission history.
With their physical appearance, they blend in many areas of the world.
With their hospitable, loving personalities, they make deep friendships.
With their cultural backgrounds, they understand some issues at a deeper level, like terrorism, poverty, and family and religion being a strong part of who they are.
With their love for the Lord, they are willing to sacrifice for others to know Him.
Global challenge for supporters
u
u
u
u
Valley, in Peru.Following the second annual camp,
the needs and the spiritual interest of the students were obvious.
There are several unique factors about the formation and growth of this youth group.
teams have been involved in these camps, and in meetings of this youth group, both internationally – as Maple Hill Baptist from Keswick, Ontario sent two teams and locally, as Colegio International from Arequipa, Peru (a city 1 hour away) sent a student team to minister to this group. 98% of the attendees are from non-evangelical homes. the group is thriving because these two young men decided to obey Acts 1:8 and are ministering in their Judea.
These two young men are only crossing the river to the other side of the Vitor Valley, but my husband and I see them as missionaries. Their desire is to make disciples. Their dependence is on the Lord.
They are still early in their Christian walk yet they have taken hold of the importance of making disciples.
There is no evangelical church in any of the three small villages on that side of the river.
It is not the responsibility of Samuel and Rivaldo to save anyone or to even establish churches, only to ensure that the Word is preached and exemplified in their lives. A tall order when working within your own peer group.
Our responsibility is to pray. We can trust God to answer as Rivaldo and Samuel are vehicles of Christ’s mandate just as were those first disciples on the Mount!
u
u
u
n
Global challenges for SIM
Latin American training materials have global impact
God is moving, but are we?
The problem in Latin America, and many other areas of the world, is not that there is a shortage of candidates! It’s the right time to come alongside the Church so that it can come alongside the candidates that God is raising up.
Pray for guidance as SIM reassesses procedures to welcome those from areas that have until recently only received missionaries. We need creativity and cultural understanding.
The SIM ‘Let’s Go’ Missionary Training Manual developed in Peru, has been in use for two years in Spanish and English. Other translations are in process. The Mandarin translation is reportedly halfway completed.
Our global God is using this small project created in Latin America to bless the Churches in the rest of the world.
A Mobilization Kit being developed in Peru, is also underway. The newer SIM offices around the world have many called and trained candidates, but their local churches need a better under-standing of world missions and their plan in it. This Kit will provide resources to mobilize the church worldwide.
God is moving among His Church in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Pray for the new missionaries from these continents to remain faithful to their call and that they will find the support they need for service - not only from their own church but from Christians around the world.
Thanks for your part in the global challenge. n
Our God isglobal
Are you?
Camp workersreach outacross the river
„ local deployment
98 SIMNOW
By Chris Conti
By Vegas Dargatz
“...we have Peruvians working
in India, China and South Africa...
the problem in Latin America, and many other
areas of the world, is not a shortage of
candidates!”
“When the ‘foreign’ missionaries leave, they remain. Where the ‘foreign’ missionaries understanding of cultural Biblical application is limited, theirs shine.”
„ the new face of mission
I am increasingly thankful for those who have been raised up to become Christ followers and who minister within their own nationality, peer or strata group.
Whether they are African, Asian or Latinos, these dedicated believers are vital and key in the countless SIM projects and church plants across the continents.
When the ‘foreign’ missionaries leave, they remain.
Where the ‘foreign’ missionaries understanding of cultural Biblical application is limited, theirs shine.
These are the unsung heroes whose wealth in their poverty gives them an understanding of sacrifice that some of us from the traditional sending countries are unable to grasp.
Allow me to introduce you to Rivaldo (15) and Samuel (20). Both these youth have been baptized in the last two years.
While the missionary they have worked with is on home assignment, they have taken up the challenge to continue to run a youth group among their peers. The youth group ministers to teens between the ages of 12 to 17.
This group meets every two weeks to play games, praise the Lord (Karoke style), and do an inductive Bible study in small groups.
In a recent survey the teens were asked why they attend. The answers ranged from ‘to know God’, to ‘because of a certain boy I have a crush on.’
The springboard of this group was a winter camp for High School students – an exclusive camp which targeted the only public High School in the Vitor
The face of missions has changed. There are now more missionaries from the majority world than from the west. I am so thankful to be part of SIM as we keep up with what God is doing.
Latin American churches are now inspired and challenged to mission. Our God is indeed global.
SIM has always been international, with more than 30 nations represented among our 2,000 missionaries, and this continues to grow. SIM is committed to sending missionaries “from anywhere to everywhere”, and sees the missionary world without borders.
We have the opportunity for global impact but missionaries from non-western countries often find that their financial support is limited.
Here in Lima Peru, we have Peruvians working in India, China and South Africa. How are these people supported?
We should consider investing our prayer and financial gifts in global ways.
Latin American missionaries are strategic for this time in mission history.
With their physical appearance, they blend in many areas of the world.
With their hospitable, loving personalities, they make deep friendships.
With their cultural backgrounds, they understand some issues at a deeper level, like terrorism, poverty, and family and religion being a strong part of who they are.
With their love for the Lord, they are willing to sacrifice for others to know Him.
Global challenge for supporters
u
u
u
u
Valley, in Peru.Following the second annual camp,
the needs and the spiritual interest of the students were obvious.
There are several unique factors about the formation and growth of this youth group.
teams have been involved in these camps, and in meetings of this youth group, both internationally – as Maple Hill Baptist from Keswick, Ontario sent two teams and locally, as Colegio International from Arequipa, Peru (a city 1 hour away) sent a student team to minister to this group. 98% of the attendees are from non-evangelical homes. the group is thriving because these two young men decided to obey Acts 1:8 and are ministering in their Judea.
These two young men are only crossing the river to the other side of the Vitor Valley, but my husband and I see them as missionaries. Their desire is to make disciples. Their dependence is on the Lord.
They are still early in their Christian walk yet they have taken hold of the importance of making disciples.
There is no evangelical church in any of the three small villages on that side of the river.
It is not the responsibility of Samuel and Rivaldo to save anyone or to even establish churches, only to ensure that the Word is preached and exemplified in their lives. A tall order when working within your own peer group.
Our responsibility is to pray. We can trust God to answer as Rivaldo and Samuel are vehicles of Christ’s mandate just as were those first disciples on the Mount!
u
u
u
n
Global challenges for SIM
Latin American training materials have global impact
God is moving, but are we?
The problem in Latin America, and many other areas of the world, is not that there is a shortage of candidates! It’s the right time to come alongside the Church so that it can come alongside the candidates that God is raising up.
Pray for guidance as SIM reassesses procedures to welcome those from areas that have until recently only received missionaries. We need creativity and cultural understanding.
The SIM ‘Let’s Go’ Missionary Training Manual developed in Peru, has been in use for two years in Spanish and English. Other translations are in process. The Mandarin translation is reportedly halfway completed.
Our global God is using this small project created in Latin America to bless the Churches in the rest of the world.
A Mobilization Kit being developed in Peru, is also underway. The newer SIM offices around the world have many called and trained candidates, but their local churches need a better under-standing of world missions and their plan in it. This Kit will provide resources to mobilize the church worldwide.
God is moving among His Church in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Pray for the new missionaries from these continents to remain faithful to their call and that they will find the support they need for service - not only from their own church but from Christians around the world.
Thanks for your part in the global challenge. n
Our God isglobal
Are you?
Camp workersreach outacross the river
„ local deployment
98 SIMNOW
By Chris Conti
By Vegas Dargatz
“...we have Peruvians working
in India, China and South Africa...
the problem in Latin America, and many other
areas of the world, is not a shortage of
candidates!”
“When the ‘foreign’ missionaries leave, they remain. Where the ‘foreign’ missionaries understanding of cultural Biblical application is limited, theirs shine.”
„ the new face of mission
It’s something I’ve been pondering lately. You know, this choice of ‘career’ is not an easy one. The constant moves, constant feeling of unsettledness, being away from friends and family, always needing to go out of our comfort zone to make new friends and then say goodbyes over and over and over again – it’s not easy!
This past year here at language school has been a challenge for me. I often ask myself “what in the world are we doing?” Then I get asked about my call, by yet another person. Sometimes, in the shadows, it’s hard to remember what we knew in the light. I’ve also been asked if I’m doing this because ‘I’ want to, or just because I’m supporting my husband in his decision. I’ve been pondering.
First, it is definitely a decision we
As a missionary, the main question we get asked, other than “where are you headed?” seems to be about our call to missions. How did God call you? What’s your story? Basically, why are you moving overseas?
made together! Yes, I am mainly in a supporting role at this time, but we made the decision to pursue missions together.
Secondly, what about ‘The Call’? What constitutes a call to mission? That is a hard question! I can’t remember a certain time when I felt God called me to missions. Nothing stands out in my mind to classify as ‘The Call’ I get asked about. As a young child, and then teenager, I wanted to do missions. And I did many short term mission trips. I wanted to go back overseas as an adult and do missions as well. Then God opened my eyes to the needs for missions right here in Canada! I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have a desire for ministry. Wherever I am, I can’t help but be involved in some sort of ministry. It’s part of who I am, as a daughter of Christ. I also have a desire for overseas missions, but nothing magical like ‘The Call’.
When I stop and ponder about what God says in the Bible, is there ever a time that ‘The Call’ is mentioned? All I can think about is Matthew 28:18-19:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commended you.”
Is that not enough? Is that not ‘The Call’? If so, then we are ALL called to go and make disciples! I am called, as a missionary, to go make disciples. For the time being, the call to do so is in Quebec. In a few weeks, Lord willing, it will be in Niger. A few years down the road? Only God knows. I may not have a magical moment where God wrote on the wall to tell me I had ‘The Call’, but indeed I AM CALLED.
And so are you. Now go and make disciples of all nations! Wherever you are, God has called YOU. Let’s pray and support and encourage each other as we fulfill that calling wherever God leads us individually.
The Meyer family were living in Quebec where Josiah was studying French. They have just arrived in Niamey, Niger where Josiah will be teaching at the Theological College.
Read more about their mission journey on their blog: meyersonmission.wordpress.com
n
u
u
A movement has started in SIM. It’s a movement that is here to stay.
Marcio and Elaine Silva are originally from Brazil but have come to Canada to be missionaries to the immigrant community in Hamilton, ON. Marcio knew that God was telling him to take his wife and two sons and leave both his country and church. He was a pastor for over 20 years so it was a call that didn’t come easy!
Neither was the location of ministry. Elaine wanted to go to a country in Africa while Marcio wanted to go to either Pakistan or India. So, instead, God sent them to Canada. Marcio laughs about it now because God completely met both their desires. “Canada is so multicultural that we are able to reach and interact with all different cultures.”
At first, Marcio wasn’t sure what God was asking of him and his family in Hamilton. He admitted that his ego was a little bruised when he didn’t immediately enter into pastoral care but he realized that God was using his skills and gifts in a much better way than he imagined! In fact, he is thankful for Culture Connections (Canadian ministry of SIM Canada) because it keeps him focussed on his role in outreach. The church he works with sees his gifts and abilities as a pastor, but he knows he has a unique calling
working alongside the church. He says that if he was solely involved
in a pastoral role, he would be focussed on the church congregation instead of reaching out to the neighbourhood.
So, what exactly, does Marcio and the rest of the Culture Connections team do? Well, everyone’s role in Culture Connections is different but they all share one single focus. Reaching Canadians through practical ways and working alongside the church to help reach others for Christ.
In Hamilton, there is a large immigrant population and Marcio is teaching the church how to connect in a relevant and respectful way.
He has seen God work in many wonderful ways in his neighbourhood. At times, he goes door-to-door inviting people to come to church for coffee, play games or other Church events. Much to Marcio and his son’s pleasure, soccer is another great way to connect with the neighbours around the church.
But Marcio doesn’t just want to invite people to the church, he also seeks to meet people where they are at. People at his church have asked him, “but how do I meet people? How do I meet people who need to hear the gospel?” He replies, “Who cleans your apartment building? Who takes your order at the restaurant? Who goes to the same grocery store as you?”
Marcio and Culture Connections believe that all people need to hear the
gospel. All people desire to be in relationship. The church merely needs to learn to be in the community and build relationships with those outside its four walls.
Another creative and unique way Marcio builds relationships is through driving lessons. He jokes that he is an expert driver because he failed his driving test 5 times! But through this practical outreach, he lets his neighbours borrow his car and learn to drive. Trust is built and relationships made. It is through these types of initiatives that the gospel is able to be shared.
There is much more to the work that Marcio and his family are doing, but he emphasizes that “we are not super-heroes but we can gain these people to the Kingdom.” And with that, a big smile stays on his face and he travels back home to Hamilton to have coffee with a group of new immigrants. That is his mission and he is content knowing that God has called him to a life greater than he imagined. n
u For the Silva’s (Member #029645) to remain in Canada and continue to reach their neighbourhood in Hamilton, they need an additional $2,800 support per month. Would you consider joining their support team? Please complete the response form or give online at www.sim.ca/givenow.
„ the call (or not) question
where are you headed?what areyou goingto do?
Brazilianswork withthe churchto reach new immigrantsto Canada
10
By E.T. Mair
By Anne Jisca Meyer
culture connections 11SIMNOW
It’s something I’ve been pondering lately. You know, this choice of ‘career’ is not an easy one. The constant moves, constant feeling of unsettledness, being away from friends and family, always needing to go out of our comfort zone to make new friends and then say goodbyes over and over and over again – it’s not easy!
This past year here at language school has been a challenge for me. I often ask myself “what in the world are we doing?” Then I get asked about my call, by yet another person. Sometimes, in the shadows, it’s hard to remember what we knew in the light. I’ve also been asked if I’m doing this because ‘I’ want to, or just because I’m supporting my husband in his decision. I’ve been pondering.
First, it is definitely a decision we
As a missionary, the main question we get asked, other than “where are you headed?” seems to be about our call to missions. How did God call you? What’s your story? Basically, why are you moving overseas?
made together! Yes, I am mainly in a supporting role at this time, but we made the decision to pursue missions together.
Secondly, what about ‘The Call’? What constitutes a call to mission? That is a hard question! I can’t remember a certain time when I felt God called me to missions. Nothing stands out in my mind to classify as ‘The Call’ I get asked about. As a young child, and then teenager, I wanted to do missions. And I did many short term mission trips. I wanted to go back overseas as an adult and do missions as well. Then God opened my eyes to the needs for missions right here in Canada! I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have a desire for ministry. Wherever I am, I can’t help but be involved in some sort of ministry. It’s part of who I am, as a daughter of Christ. I also have a desire for overseas missions, but nothing magical like ‘The Call’.
When I stop and ponder about what God says in the Bible, is there ever a time that ‘The Call’ is mentioned? All I can think about is Matthew 28:18-19:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commended you.”
Is that not enough? Is that not ‘The Call’? If so, then we are ALL called to go and make disciples! I am called, as a missionary, to go make disciples. For the time being, the call to do so is in Quebec. In a few weeks, Lord willing, it will be in Niger. A few years down the road? Only God knows. I may not have a magical moment where God wrote on the wall to tell me I had ‘The Call’, but indeed I AM CALLED.
And so are you. Now go and make disciples of all nations! Wherever you are, God has called YOU. Let’s pray and support and encourage each other as we fulfill that calling wherever God leads us individually.
The Meyer family were living in Quebec where Josiah was studying French. They have just arrived in Niamey, Niger where Josiah will be teaching at the Theological College.
Read more about their mission journey on their blog: meyersonmission.wordpress.com
n
u
u
A movement has started in SIM. It’s a movement that is here to stay.
Marcio and Elaine Silva are originally from Brazil but have come to Canada to be missionaries to the immigrant community in Hamilton, ON. Marcio knew that God was telling him to take his wife and two sons and leave both his country and church. He was a pastor for over 20 years so it was a call that didn’t come easy!
Neither was the location of ministry. Elaine wanted to go to a country in Africa while Marcio wanted to go to either Pakistan or India. So, instead, God sent them to Canada. Marcio laughs about it now because God completely met both their desires. “Canada is so multicultural that we are able to reach and interact with all different cultures.”
At first, Marcio wasn’t sure what God was asking of him and his family in Hamilton. He admitted that his ego was a little bruised when he didn’t immediately enter into pastoral care but he realized that God was using his skills and gifts in a much better way than he imagined! In fact, he is thankful for Culture Connections (Canadian ministry of SIM Canada) because it keeps him focussed on his role in outreach. The church he works with sees his gifts and abilities as a pastor, but he knows he has a unique calling
working alongside the church. He says that if he was solely involved
in a pastoral role, he would be focussed on the church congregation instead of reaching out to the neighbourhood.
So, what exactly, does Marcio and the rest of the Culture Connections team do? Well, everyone’s role in Culture Connections is different but they all share one single focus. Reaching Canadians through practical ways and working alongside the church to help reach others for Christ.
In Hamilton, there is a large immigrant population and Marcio is teaching the church how to connect in a relevant and respectful way.
He has seen God work in many wonderful ways in his neighbourhood. At times, he goes door-to-door inviting people to come to church for coffee, play games or other Church events. Much to Marcio and his son’s pleasure, soccer is another great way to connect with the neighbours around the church.
But Marcio doesn’t just want to invite people to the church, he also seeks to meet people where they are at. People at his church have asked him, “but how do I meet people? How do I meet people who need to hear the gospel?” He replies, “Who cleans your apartment building? Who takes your order at the restaurant? Who goes to the same grocery store as you?”
Marcio and Culture Connections believe that all people need to hear the
gospel. All people desire to be in relationship. The church merely needs to learn to be in the community and build relationships with those outside its four walls.
Another creative and unique way Marcio builds relationships is through driving lessons. He jokes that he is an expert driver because he failed his driving test 5 times! But through this practical outreach, he lets his neighbours borrow his car and learn to drive. Trust is built and relationships made. It is through these types of initiatives that the gospel is able to be shared.
There is much more to the work that Marcio and his family are doing, but he emphasizes that “we are not super-heroes but we can gain these people to the Kingdom.” And with that, a big smile stays on his face and he travels back home to Hamilton to have coffee with a group of new immigrants. That is his mission and he is content knowing that God has called him to a life greater than he imagined. n
u For the Silva’s (Member #029645) to remain in Canada and continue to reach their neighbourhood in Hamilton, they need an additional $2,800 support per month. Would you consider joining their support team? Please complete the response form or give online at www.sim.ca/givenow.
„ the call (or not) question
where are you headed?what areyou goingto do?
Brazilianswork withthe churchto reach new immigrantsto Canada
10
By E.T. Mair
By Anne Jisca Meyer
culture connections 11SIMNOW
The combined “SIMNOW #126”, “World Watch #66”, is an official publication of SIM Canada and is published 4 times per year. SIM (Serving In Mission), is an interdenominational evangelical protestant mission founded in 1893. SIM includes Africa Evangelical Fellowship, Andes Evangelical Mission, International Christian Fellowship, and Sudan Interior Mission. Send address changes to: The Editor, 10 Huntingdale Blvd., Scarborough, ON, M1W 2S5, Canada. Printed in Canada. © 2014 by SIM. Additional copies are available. Permission to reprint any material must be obtained from the Editor. E-mail: [email protected]. Subscription is free (Donations appreciated). Subscribe on-line at www.sim.ca or email [email protected]. International Editor: Suzanne Green. Canadian Editor: E.T. Mair. Designer: John Rose.
SIM Canada10 Huntingdale BlvdScarborough, ONM1W 2S5
TEL: 416-497-2424FAX: 416-497-2444FREE CALL: 1-800-294-6918EMAIL: [email protected]
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Fewer than 50 percent of Canadians have a Will. Fewer still have made arrangements to make sure the cash needed to do what they want is there to do it.
We call this ‘will funding’. You may call it ‘ease of mind’.
Your Will is that critical tool that sets out all kinds of plans for your family for the toughest of times. Among other things, it gives your executor the power to:
Pay off all your outstanding bills and loans Provide an income for your surviving family, and Protect your children if they alone survive
Have you ever wondered where all that money will come from? There are ways to create the cash you need for exactly when you need it.
And, you may be surprised to know that it
uuu
usually costs no more to create the cash to fund
your Will than it does to manage your Retirement
Savings Plan. It’s really worth considering.
If this makes sense to you, call me and arrange a
confidential ‘will funding’ meeting.
I am pleased to have met so many partners of
SIM that have volunteered their expertise and
time, to help SIM donors through various steps of
their lives. Kerreigh Ernst is one of these. He was
serving with AEF before it merged with SIM. He is
now coming alongside us once again.
Good to have him back,
serving with SIM and
serving you.
You can contact me at
1-800-294-6918 or email,
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Serving In Mission
„ estate planning
are you one of the 50% with ‘ease of mind’?
By Erwin Van Laar