What God is Doing Amongst His People Today

A review of the papers for the plenary sessions at the Global Christian Forum  meeting in Limuru 2007, will help us understand something of the significance of the event.  One of the papers, by Rev Dr Wonsuk Ma , a Korean Pentecostal pastor, underlies this post.  It is called 'Discerning What God is Doing Amongst His People Today' and can be found on page 80 of Revisioning Christian Unity .

Ma writes of how

I quickly learned that "not all mission is created equal", and not everyone means the same thing when they talk of mission.  The biggest divide I soon encountered was the emphasis on human life in reference to death: one group has a mission to preach "life after death", while the other has a mission to work for "life before death".  This divide was particularly evident among the normal (or western) missionaries, and soon I also realised that "mainline" churches are distinguished from "evangelical" ones by their mission emphases.

Ma argues that it 'is logically apparent ... that these two approaches are complementary to each other, as we need to live our life both before and after death'.  Unfortunately, he explains, the focus of many evangelical churches has been upon conversion of other Christians as well as, if not more than, non-Christians.  This makes little sense in remote areas where there may be fewer than one church per village.

This divergence was reinforced by the different origins of the two approaches.  The liberal or mainstream approach to mission developed from the the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference .  During the same decade, the Pentecostal churches emerged as a movement from the poor at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles (illustrated).  This movement was attractive to the marginalised and the poor, and was in its turn marginalised and criticised by the mainstream churches.

This has resulted in the present primary divide between churches of the north and south.  The new churches of the south are not impressed by the mainstream traditions of the north:

• they emphasise both the spiritual and material aspects of the faith; integrating life before and life after death
• they have an equally holistic understanding of the natural and supernatural, with an emphasis on miracles and exorcism.
• Given their minority status in many countries, such churches need to have strong convictions to offset the high costs of faith.  This goes a long way to explain the differences between north and south over such issues as sexuality.
• These churches will for the same reason tend to take scripture at face value and not approach Biblical interpretation with the scepticism often found in the north.
• Northern churches tend to look inward to unity, in contrast to southern churches where the emphasis is spreading outwards

This is not to deny there are problems facing the southern churches.  Ma expresses concern about the possibility of Christianity being reduced to the old religion, where deities are used for human benefit.

This primary divide was explored in more depth by the second plenary speaker at the GCF meeting. 

Comments

[Vickey Silvers]

I am an editor for Christian.com which is a social network dedicated to the christian community. As I look through your web site I feel a collaboration is at hand. I would be inclined to acknowledge your website offering it to our users as I'm sure our Pentecostal audience would benefit from what your site has to offer. I look forward to your thoughts or questions regarding the matter.

Vicky Silvers
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