The Insanity of Obedience by Nik Ripken

Author:Nik Ripken
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Ministry/Missions
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Of course, these scenarios are broad generalizations, but they closely fit patterns that showed up often in our interviews. At the most obvious, basic level, the lesson is that God uses different methodologies in different places to make Himself known. At a deeper level, however, the lesson is that we must take the time to discern what God is doing so that we might join Him as He works. God always uses spiritual avenues open to the supernatural within a culture. He takes it and transforms it for His purpose. Our task is to learn from Him, then teach the Bible in ways which hopefully open up many spiritual avenues for salvation through Jesus alone.

Closer to our own experience, we can see how Western workers typically take a post-Pentecost mind-set and impose it upon a pre-Pentecost world. Western workers might want to talk about church structure while a seeker wants to know who Jesus is. Western workers might emphasize the second coming of Christ while a seeker is eager to understand why Jesus came the first time. Western workers might camp out in the letters of the apostle Paul when the Old Testament and the Gospels might actually be a fruitful place to spend time. Western workers might insist on a literate and educated clergy when most seekers and potential leaders are oral communicators. In general, Western workers focus on what they know and what they have experienced within their own home culture. Nothing could be more natural than that.

Unaware, and perhaps unintentionally, we transfer everything we know, everything we have experienced, and everything we have built in a post-Pentecost world (church buildings, Sunday schools, choirs, literacy, seminaries, and youth camps), and we assume that these are the only avenues for witness in every culture and in every time. We do this because it is through these events, channels, and structures that we found Jesus and grew in our faith, and we have difficulty imagining a scenario where others might come to believe in Jesus through some other approach.

It is fascinating, but MBBs and HBBs do the very same thing. MBBs might assume that every seeker has had dreams and visions. HBBs might assume that every seeker is eager to experience physical healing. Western workers might assume that the important questions are the same in every time and in every place. What matters most, however, is discerning the unique ways God might be using in a specific time and place. Such discernment takes time and it takes great humility. It also requires a willingness to listen carefully to others as they pursue God’s call. This discernment almost always requires language learning and cultural acquisition. Until we take the time to discern what God is doing in another culture, we run the risk of substituting our own certainties and our own strategies for the activity of God.

This is especially true of church culture in the United States. Most pastors can easily explain how people who were born within the church family come to faith in Jesus.

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