Passion for the harvest without the hunger for the Lord of
the harvest can have disastrous consequences; personally and collectively. Many mission movements were birthed out of
the hunger for God. But the passion for mission eventually
dislodged the hunger for God in these movements creating manmade/controlled/driven
organizations and structures that valued political loyalty and financial
security more than the foundation of the word of God and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit. The missionary era of the 19th
Century gave birth to a church still struggling to free itself from the shackles
of spiritual colonialism. The church
growth movements of the 20th century gave birth to a market driven
spirituality of the mega-churches currently reeling under the quest for humanism
and sensual pleasure promised by the prosperity preachers of success.
As the 21st Century progresses, there is still a
new movement on the horizon; this movement had been fermenting itself quite
some time in China, and now it has come of age in India, Africa and in other
places. This movement is called “church
planting movements”. This movement does
not count church members; it counts churches, not in hundreds, but in thousands
and even hundreds of thousands. It seems
that in these movements, the individual member does not matter much, what
matters is the maximum number of churches being planted in the shortest
possible time by all means; “whatever it takes” is their mantra. There is hardly a movement among these
movements that does not claim to have planted thousands of new churches in one
year. David Garrison in his booklet, “Church
Planting Movements” documents the success stories and the common strategies of
these movements. He even warns us that
if we question the viability and the authenticity of these movements, we might
be questioning the very workings of the Spirit of God himself.
In spite of Garrison’s warning, even while admiring the
workings of God in these movements, one is compelled to wonder the kind of
church such movements are birthing by discouraging the pursuit of knowledge and
theological education. Knowledge and
theology are surrendered at the feet of mystical and Charismatic understanding
of God as a healer and miracle worker; a god greater than the gods these
societies were worshiping prior to their experience of being either healed of
the disease or delivered from the spirit possession. While these experiences certainly ring the
doorbell of human heart for the entry of the gospel, the speed in which these
movements are claiming the growth leaves little place for the knowledge based
Christian faith outlined in the pages New Testament. There is very little space for those
converting to Christianity to actually come to a genuine knowledge of Christ;
all they know about Christ is that he is a healer and miracle worker. Faith in miracles is the weakest foundation
to build a Christian life; unless there is a cognitive conviction, the
emotional excitement does not last long.
Therefore, my question to these movements is; “Is your
passion for mission greater than your hunger for God?” Once our passion for mission dislodges our
hunger for God, then, political craftiness and financial incentives become the
driving force in missions and ministry.
Many missionaries refuse to handover their mission work to the natives,
not because the natives cannot do the job, but because the missionaries are
fearful of the loss of political power and financial security. This also applies to the pastoral ministry;
there are pastors who have overstayed their welcome in their current churches. Yet, they refuse to move on. They rather fight for their place at the
expense of the well-being of the church members.
Such pastors have lost the hunger for God; they cannot imagine of living
without the power and the financial security the church provides for them.
Apostle Paul was driven not by the passion for mission or
pastorate but by his hunger for God; it was the love of God that compelled him
to go into the mission fields and pastor any congregation. But when the right time came, when he
realized that his passion for mission might dislodge his hunger for Christ, he
was able to leave the mission field and give up the pastoral position in
promising cities. His aim in life was to
know Christ and for that case, he was willing to forget his past and press on
towards the future. He found his
identity not in what he did but who he knew.
How about you? What
gives you the value and the worth? What
do you value; your work or your relationship with Christ? Do you know Christ to the extent that he
alone would be sufficient for you to be fulfilled and satisfied? Or do you need your missions and ministries
to be fully alive?
No comments:
Post a Comment