7-15-07 Strategy

7-15-07

P.E.A.C.E. Plan

We are traveling through time and space this summer to Antioch and the church there in AD 46. We saw that Paul and Barnabbas took that year to teach the church.  We imagined the theological foundation that they laid out and the philosophical framework that they constructed within which to make some decisions and commitments that would change the world (something every generation has to do). It was not completely up to our imaginations, we know from the Jerusalem Council in AD 50 and from the strategic trajectory that Paul and Barnabas took what some of the issues were.

•What was God doing? God’s nature was always missionary; always reaching to the lost.  They saw His hand with the Gentiles at Antioch.  They drew conclusions.

•Would there be two churches (Jew and Gentlie) or one?

•Will the church be multi-cultural, multi-racial or will cultural differences be the divisions of the church?

•They would have reviewed the mandate that Jesus gave and then they owned it. We know this because that is history records about these saints.

Up against great obstacles and tremendous challenges, they would see their world change as a result of their work.

“The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” (“Belonging to the party of Jesus” or “Christ followers” or “little Christ’s”. This name originated not from inside the church, but from outside. 

•The believers preferred to call themselves “disciples” or “saints” or “brethren”.  •The Jews called them “Nazarenes” (nothing good can come from there).

•It was the heathen Greeks  in Antioch that coined the title “Christian” making a Latin adjective out of it.  It was a noble testimony to the light in which the Church regarded Christ—honoring Him as their only Lord and Saviour, dwelling continually on His name, and glorying in it—so, I’m sure the church said, “Not bad!” and the title stuck.  And so they followed the Savior into the great unknown.

Acts 13: 2,3

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3     So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

The Problems:

The world is full of problems. Some are small and some are huge. There are five pervasive problems that affect billions of people.

These are the ones we want to tackle, believing God gets the most glory when we attack the biggest giants. These problems are so huge that they can only be addressed with total dependence on God and with all of us -- your congregation and mine, Christians all around the world -- working together to confront them.

Here are the giant problems:

1. The first global giant is spiritual darkness.

Here’s a startling truth: Billions of people have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ.

Ill. Ten volunteers

6.6 billion people in the world

1 of 10  -  authentic Bible believing Christian

2 of 10 – nominal Christains            (3 of 10 are Christians)

4 of 10 - live in proximity to Xn’s  (if the 3 would reach their sphere-7 of 10)

3 of 10 – unreached  (never heard of Jesus; no church, Bible or Christian)

            1.8 billion people in the world

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” -John 8:12

These people know nothing about Jesus or about God. If you were one of those who had never heard the name of Jesus, wouldn’t you want somebody to come, cross over the cultural divide, to do whatever it takes to tell you about our Savior, our Lord? 

The greatest giant in our world today is the fact that billions of people do not know Jesus Christ.

2. The second giant is the lack of servant leaders around the world.

Political & Business leaders - Around the world, there are plenty of people in leadership who abuse their power. Most leaders do not have the moral foundation to not resist corruption.  They abuse authority for personal gain. They refuse to use their power for the good of their people -- instead they choose to use it for themselves. This has created chaos in the world.

Leaders must have moral basis. They must have wisdom.

Proverbs 11:14

“For lack of guidance a nation falls, “

Pastoral leaders - In the developing world there are 2.1 million pastors and church leaders. Of those, 1.9 million have never had any training at all. Not only have these leaders not gone to seminary or Bible school, they haven’t even gone to high school or primary school. They have no training whatsoever -- and yet they lead the church. This must be remedied.
 
3. The third giant is poverty. 
 
More than half of the world -- that’s three billion people -- live on less than two dollars a day. One-sixth of the world’s population lives in slums. More than eight million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive.  Poverty can be categorized as moderate, relative, and extreme. 

•Moderate poverty – conditions of life in which basic needs are met, but barely.

•Relative poverty – a household income level below a given proportion of average national income.

•Extreme  poverty -  households cannot meet basic needs for survival.  Extreme poverty ravages our planet.

“Every morning our newspapers could report, “More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.”  The stories would put the stark numbers in context – up to 8,000 children dead of malaria,  5, 000 mothers and fathers dead of tuberculosis, 7,500 young adults dead of AIDS, and thousands more dead of diarrhea, respiratory infection, and other killer diseases that prey on bodies weakened by chronic hunger.  The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water.  They die namelessly, without public comment.  Sadly, such stories rarely get written.  Most people are unaware of the daily struggles for survival, and of the vast numbers of impoverished people around the world who lose that struggle”.   (-Jeffrey Sachs – The End of Poverty, introduction)

Those are heart-breaking statistics.

Proverbs 28:7 (NIV) says, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” 

It’s easy to live in a bubble and think the rest of the world lives like we do. When we go about our daily lives forgetting how most of the world lives, we tend to judge people for being poor.

Tell that to the parents of 10 million little girls who’ve been sold into prostitution in Southeast Asia. Their families exist in such grinding poverty they see no other way to feed their families than to sell their little girls into prostitution. It’s a horrible existence.
“The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty.” – Secretary of State Colin Powell

4. The fourth giant is disease.  
Billions suffer the effects of famine and drought. They are homeless, hungry, and helpless. They’re ill. We can do something about that.

15,000 Africans die die each and every day of preventable, treatable diseases – AIDS, malaria, TB- for lack of drugs that we take for granted.  One very 10 seconds dies of AIDS.

Move in more closely on this reality. Listen to this report from Malawi-

            “…the doctor suggests we visit the medical ward, which lies just across the hall.  “Medical ward” is, in fact, a shocking euphemism, because in truth it is not a medical ward at all.  It is the place where Malawians come to die of AIDS.  There is no medicine in the medical ward.  The room has a posted occupancy rate of 150 beds.  There are 450 people in the ward.  These 450 people are fit into a room with 150 beds by putting three people in or around each bed.   In most cases, two people are lying head to toe, toe to head – strangers sharing a death bed.  Alongside or underneath the bed there is somebody on the ground, sometimes literally on the ground or sometimes on a piece of cardboard, dying beneath the bed. 

            The room is filled with moans.  This is a dying chamber where three quarters or more of the people this day are in late-stage AIDS without medicines.  Family members sit by the bed, swabbing dried lips and watching their loved ones die.  The same doctor who is treating patients across the hall is the doctor in charge of this service.  He knows what could be done.  He knows that each of these patients could rise from the deathbed but for the want of a dollar a day.  He knows the problem is not one of infrastructure or logistics or adherence.  He knows that the problem is simply that the world has seen fit to look away as hundreds of impoverished Malawians die this day as a result of their poverty”.  (Sachs, p. 8,9)

As humans, maybe we could say we hate it and are sorry, and that would be all. As Christians we must do more.  The compassion of Christ demands that we not ignore the plight of these people but that we respond with the very compassion of Christ who .

5. The fifth giant is ignorance.

Over half the world is still illiterate.

71% of those within the 10/40 window are non readers. 

How can a country grow and be strong economically when its citizens can’t read, can’t write, and don’t know the fundamentals of math and science that we take for granted?  It’s not a mystery that these countries can’t grow strong.

There’s a desperate need for teachers and schools and materials to help people grow. 
These five giants can be toppled. We can make a difference. We have to respond with a faith perspective. We can be very negative.

            Not my fault, not my problem. 

Ill. Jewish mother bought her son two ties.  He came down wearing one and she said, “What’s the matter, didn’t you like the other one?”

We can be very negative.

            Not my fault, not my problem. 

The true meaning of being strategic comes from two Greek words: stratos which means “in line” and agein which means “to lead.” Together they carry the idea of aligning ourselves and our resources with what God is seeking to accomplish. Being involved with God in mission is no simple task. It is hard, soul-searching and life-changing work. We all have a role to play in fulfilling God’s purpose in this strategic mission. Let’s get to it!

Luke 4:18,19

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

P.E.A.C.E. plan:

.

Planting Churches (spiritual darkness)

            OBC has set as a goal to plant 500  churches by 2020.  If every church could help plant just one.  If every existing church could just reproduce themselves strategically just one time… that would be enough.

            “The gospel for every people and a church for every village. “

The Bible says in Romans 10:14,  “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

            I heard J.P. Moreland say this week, “If current trends would continue, every person would be born again by 2030.  That won’t happen

            God has been allowing us the privilege of coming alongside national leadership and resourcing them and mobilizing them to plant churches where ther are none.  We have planted 4 here and many times that many in Minsk, Belarus  and Siliguri, India.  Through our missionary partners, we will continue to see this moving forward in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.       

 
Equipping Servant Leaders  (lack of servant leaders)
            business as mission

            Ill. Reach out in front of you and look inside the collar of the shirt and read the tag, let them know where their clothing was made.  Where are they from?

            Ill. all over Asia “new” business platform as base of discipling

                        Ill. Keeping your word no matter what

            Ill. God has been using us to provide training to yound pastors

Assisting the Poor (poverty)

“We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation?  Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears?  Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria.  Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children.  This is Africa’s crisis.  That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis”.   – Bono

Instead, we entertain ourselves with news about Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Spears’ latest jail experience.

Extreme poverty can be wiped off the face of the earth.  We have the resources.  Do we have the will?

Caring for the Sick and orphans (disease)

Ill. Man at the airport who said, “We are just a few months away from eradicating polio from Nepal.”  Amazing.

143,000,000 orphans worldwide (epidemic proportions)

(Adoption and Orphan Care Summit III) I believe that the church of Jesus Christ will rise empowered by her Lord and Savior to make a difference for the world’s fatherless.

Educating the Next Generation (ignorance)

            Most of the world’s next generation of leaders look to the West for their training.  We have the opportunity often to reach them from here through ISI.  In other lands, English, medicine, business, are in high demand. 

One billion ordinary Christians,

Empowered by God,

Making a difference wherever they are.

It is such a simple strategy that it just might work.

Action points:

1. Don’t worry about the numbers.  Deal with what is in your sphere of influence.
2. Sign up for Saturday’s brunch.  (“80 % is just showing up.”) Show up.  Open your heart to how God may want to use you as a sending partner.
3. Get a passport.  Take the first step of faith by getting ready for more direct involvement.
4. Put your business card in the offering plate as a symbolic gesture of willingness to use your professional skills for the Lord.  (business, education, engineering, medicine, law, ministry, a homemaker, what else?)