DOING THE JOB WELL

Cross cultural sensitivity demonstrated by Senior staff of GLA

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” 

John 10:10. 

The first week of September this year, gave me an opportunity to attend the sixth Global Missions Health Conference held in Africa, organized by Living in Abundance (LIA) International in Nairobi. Sharing from the theme of; “Pursuing Wholistic impact” in a key note address was the Retired Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya Rt. Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi who opened the conference with the message in the text above.

I thought for while about how the verse of choice would speak to the theme of Pursuing Wholistic impact, and aware quite frankly of how the emphasis on abundant life by many prosperity gospel preachers can end up sounding like a super impressive life in the bliss, of complete enjoyment and honey moon in the here and now forever and Amen; a life portrayed mostly of no pain, no suffering, no frustrations or disappointments but a complete fanfare of abundance of material possessions. I thought about how this abundance mentality is presumed to be a benefit of higher faith, sustained by a positive mindset, both in utterance and deeds even if it meant disguising pain, suffering and present state of reality with the frustrations in the world.

To my amazement, the Archbishop went on to invite the participants to consider several calls within the theme among which he mentioned; the call to Obedience, Holiness, forgiveness,  unity, service and preaching the Gospel so that men are called to salvation.  Later that evening, I spent quite some time reflecting about the Words of Jesus in John 10:10 and thought about the exhortations implicated in the text for missionaries at the Missions frontline.  

A call to Gospel proclamation

Firstly, Jesus declared himself as the giver of abundant life and any other means His hearers would trust as leading to loss or taking away of life. In contrasting to the thief who comes only to steal and take away, Christ came to give a rich and satisfying life. This life in Him is eternal (John 3:16, 36), and overflows from the renewed relationship with God through receiving forgiveness of sins, and embracing His Son Jesus Christ who is the gift of love for all who believe, and which grows through the abundant deposit of the Holy Spirit to blossom to bear fruit of righteousness (Galatians 6:22-23) and remains expectant in assurance at the full reality of this abundant life when Christ returns.

 "In giving the people we serve less than the Gospel is participating in the mandate of the adversary"

I believe the description above, causes us to emphasize the priority of Gospel proclamation as the primary tool for pursuing Wholistic impact. In proclaiming and challenging men to respond to the good news of the Life Christ offers they can be truly considered to have received the seed for Wholistic impact. It is an error to entirely hid to the words of St. Francis of Asis that; “Preach the word if necessary use words”. This phrase shouldn’t cripple us from keeping the main thing the main thing. Christ commanded preaching the Gospel; making Disciples, and teaching them to obey all His commands (Matthew 28:16-20).

  As such the kind of abundant life that is described in terms of monetary and material state of wellness is but a robbery of the life from those we serve. In giving the people we serve less than the Gospel is participating in the mandate of the adversary, whose only interest is stealing humanity’s only hope of salvation, killing the hopes of men being saved and eventually condemning them eternally.

It is rightly stated by many that wholistic impact is achieved when the people’s knowledge of God and themselves (Head), their affections, convictions, emotions and attitudes (Heart), and their skills, creativity and art of work (Hand) are set free to a full potential of impact by the Gospel of Christ for the Glory of God. Transformation begins to truly be seen in families, communities and nations when the Gospel has influenced those aspects of a believer.

  I am convinced that, we will see little to no impact of Wholistic impact at the missions’ front line if we pay no attention to preaching the Gospel of Christ, discipleship and multiplying by conversion into the faith those who have not confessed Jesus as Lord. The Gospel is the only power of God for salvation of all who believe (Romans 1:16-17). We are challenged to not settle for less than this task of sharing Christ with the people our moneys, professional services and acts of charity and care are impacting.  It will be a job well done, if the best good we can be to people, whether sick, poor or deprived or physically incapacitated or a minor is giving them the abundant life that is only found in Christ.

"The Gospel is the heart of Wholistic impact"

THE QUEST FOR PROFESSIONALS AT THE MISSIONS FRONTLINE

THE QUEST FOR PROFESSIONALS AT THE MISSIONS' FRONT LINE

Someone must simply go!

This was a strong line of words that echoed through the quiet airs of the three halls packed with hundreds of rapt students during the Professionals in Missions seminars we ran in West Nile, Northern and Central regions of Uganda this year. The Seminars are some of our platforms for mobilizing students and Christian professionals for missions’ involvement and support.

My favorite period is during the mobilization stages when we get to interact with vast number of student leaders who hold very influential positions in their campuses. We get to encounter the burning passion for God among them and work with student organizations like FOCUS Uganda and Scripture Union and independent Christian unions that are doing commendable jobs in ensuring these institutions have Christian presence and viable discipleship and mentor-ship.

Little exposure to missions

Despite the great Christian presence, there is clearly lack of adequate exposure to Missions in a broader aspect among the students. We are encountered with the narrow view of Mission as only evangelism, the sad reality of the nearsightedness among some of the preachers who regularly occupy the pulpits of these Christian Unions, and the growing influence of the wealth, health and prosperity gospel and teachings which has widely spread like Gangrene.

I remember attending an evening fellowship with one of the Christian Unions where the preacher continuously emphasized on the need to operate in ‘Spirit and freedom’. He went on and on and on about prospering in acquisition of wealth, being sickness free and as expected even to declare on the basis of Psalms 82:6 that the members were gods and sons of the Most High God.  I was then to come and pass the announcement and invite them to come for a one day seminar which has a small fee they will pay. I seriously wondered if I should borrow the preachers’ powerful tones or simply go gently and say what I came to say then just leave. Realistically speaking, from the looks on the audience’s faces, I was not welcome. Gathering courage I went on to say there are two commands I want to share with you all today. First, the Greatest Command to love our neighbors as ourselves and second, the Great Commission to Go make disciples of all nations! One guy at the front row immediately exclaimed “The Great what?”  

I quickly realized I was dealing with a fresh knowledge to some of the students. So I had to mention in quick sentence those passages where our Lord Jesus explicitly or implicitly commanded the disciples to go and proclaim the good news. I was like, “you guys should know Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, or Luke 24:44-48, John 20:21 and Acts 1:8 by heart. Of course I was enjoying the silence; yes it was time for the missionary God to roar.

My point is that little is being said in the pulpits about responding to the great commission and the quest to forsake the world for the sake of the Gospel, follow Christ and participate in His passion for World evangelization. A lot of sermon is aimed at keeping the congregant comfortable, secure, uninterrupted, and thriving in disobedience to the commands of the Savior we claim to proclaim and believe. Such sermons seem to just reinforce the already selfish contemporary dreams of working hard be all those people we dream to be, get those things we dream to own but not what God is calling us to be, not what He is calling us to treasure most.  

Call for radical obedience

So then, the quest for someone to simply go in all sense becomes revolutionizing call to radical choice to obey Christ and live for His glory at any cost. Someone must simply Go! I first heard of this call in the very first seminar held in Kampala on April 2012. I was still a student Nurse at a college in West Nile. I remembered traveling for this seminar with a colleague friend with whom we both ended up signing up to serve in the mission’s field under Global Link Afrika. The call to go came very clearly to me that only sheer stubbornness could define any negative response to the message. I remembered just picking the commitment form and ticking the part for long term missions only. It is today that whenever I look at the files, I am reminded that it was all about saying Yes to the Lord of the harvest. It was obedience, in simple sense, and that is what’s kept me serving for the last three years. Indeed quoting Kevin Ombima a GLA missionary from iServe Africa, in a sermon during the Bible exposition for this year’s seminars teaching from Romans 10:14-15; He said; “Until the gospel of Christ penetrates into our hearts that the authoritative commission of Christ will become our consuming ambition; and it is until then that we will realize that the great commission is not a choice for us to consider but a command for us to obey”.

Many times we do not obey because we don’t hear the command clearly enough. But most of the time it is because we don’t want to hear the call to go. As someone said, we would respond by saying, ‘Here I am Lord, send someone else! I have discovered that the enormous pressures of this life have kept many of us from really stepping out of our comfort zones, and getting out of the salt shakers to be at our very best for the Lord our Savior. It is time, we wake up from our long sleep and take up our crosses and follow the Son.

But really, why don’t we go? I couldn’t give any better answer than Kevin, in the same sermon He said; “Friends, many times we don’t go because we don’t want to get out of our comfort zones, we don’t want to alter our priorities, we don’t want to sacrifice our possessions, we don’t want to risk our reputations and we don’t want to potentially lose our lives; yet these are what we are called to”.

The convictions for going!

Why does someone really have to Go? What is it about going that makes this emphasis relevant? Why do we take this message to the professionals?

First, why does someone have to Go?

Need for worshipers: John Piper, the Director and founder of Desiring God in an article on Mission said; ‘Mission exists because worship doesn’t’. Mission is a call to declare and proclaim God’s glory in all the earth. It’s joining God in the call to declare His fame and glory and love in the world. 1Peter 4:11

Redemption cry; The words of our Lord Jesus and Master; “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37-38, Luke 10:2). The Lord’s Assessment report for the harvest field says that, the harvest is plentiful and ripe but the laborers are few. The Lord, had come down from the Father (John 16:28) into the world that needed deliverance (Romans 28:22-24) and a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). But He only had to inaugurate His Kingdom and introduce a movement that would outlast any empires in the world history and establish a Kingdom that would last for eternity (Isaiah 9:7, 2Samuel 7:16, 1Chronicles 22:10, 2Peter 1:11, Revelations 1:6. This He could simply have done the easy way, but He entrusted us with this task of making the good news of this Kingdom known. He saw the enormous need and the loud cry of the whole world for a redeemer from the frustration and oppression it has been subjected to and decided it would have to be done by those He has called to be with Him whom He has discipled, and sent into the world.(Mark 3:13-14).

How do we respond to such a noble and enormous task? When we read about the ratio of the unreached population to the reached across the globe, how do we feel about them? When we watch in the news the sufferings and atrocities evil is causing this world, how quickly do we arrive at a humanly possible solution.; “The Harvest remains plentiful” and if knowing these figures is not compelling enough to cause a flame inside a Christian to stand to be counted for frontline missions, then I don’t know what possibly can.

Obedience to the Lord’s Command; These passages (Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:44-48, Acts 1:8, Romans 10:14-15), clearly reveal a command to go! We can therefore either assume we never read them and so stubbornly ignore them or twist them to excuse ourselves from obeying the words of our Lord. If we are to be called servants then, we are going to have to obey, submit, surrender and allow for our Master to interrupt us in our busy schedules and lives and willingly lay down our goals to pick up His, and to let go of our own purposes to pick up His and to do so with joy and pleasure knowing He is a good Master.

But how do we go? Why Christian professionals? We have insisted on recruiting young Christian professionals in our one year missions’ exposure program and will continue to do so for some of the reasons I will share with you.

The unique privilege of easy entry: The professionals have this unique privilege of easy access to local communities and people groups simply because of the abilities and the services they provide. I believe this concept of using our professions as entry point or vehicles for the Gospel is something that has proven viable in reaching the difficult and hard to reach places with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have had missionaries who stayed among the Aringa community in Yumbe District and have made families and friends with the Muslims because they were appreciated for their professional services.

Exceptional witnesses for Christ; Well learned Christians with Gospel-centered motivations and a cross driven lifestyles are an enormous source of attentions and admiration by the growing generation of youth today and how badly we need such men and women in our justice systems, academic and financial institutions, Churches and government offices in Uganda. If our generation of Christians could pick up this challenge and get to live out their faith within their professional spheres of influence, they surely would shine like stars(Phil 2:14-15). And proclaim the glories and excellences of Christ their Savior to this dark world without anyone questioning them (1Peter 2:9).

Enormous opportunities; The current refugee crisis in the world is quite alarming and I feel sorry for these people who have lost families and relatives and now are in foreign Countries, that are either receiving them or denying entry for them into their boarders. But, Uganda is privileged to be a hospitable Country and we are hosting over 1 million refugees from South Sudan and other Countries like DR.Congo and Burundi. These people are primarily and 24/7 accessible to the professionals like; Doctors, Nurses, social workers and government aid workers. The protocol to access them is tight, for the unauthorized greater majority of Christians except for the professionals who have such an enormous opportunity of access, witness and interaction that could mean a lot in spreading the Good news. But to see these opportunities one has to have been obsessed, consumed and overwhelmed with the passion to live for the glory of God. Of course there are ethical barriers to consider especially for the professionals but we have little excuse for not being good witnesses in the way we handle the resources distributions, showing love, creating rapport, and genuinely caring for these people.

The question remains if we are willing to hear the Master’s commands afresh like the ringing tones of our cell phones and respond with resounding yes to Go to the missions’ frontline and make disciples of nations for His Kingdom.

Nyakuni Solomon
A Student of Bachelors of Theology in Pastoral Ministry