GLUE

What It's All About, Part II

As it turns out, my experience on the plane, Saturday, October 20, (see post entitled, What It's All About) was only the beginning of a historic week of salvations we were blessed to witness and record at Mosaic.

That same evening, we hosted an evangelistic crusade for the Latino community living in and around our church. Nicky Cruz was the featured speaker and that night, more than 40 people embraced Christ by faith.

The following day, Sunday morning, Dr. Daniel Sanchez served as a guest speaker at Mosaic and 12 more individuals responded to invitations to receive Christ offered at the end of both services.

By Thursday, October 25, Mosaic's short-term missions team in Antioch (East Asia) sent us a text message to say that they had led nine individuals to the Lord in a span of only four days, including a Muslim woman who was blind. This is truly remarkable; for when we began going to Antioch, there were only 100 known believers among the 9 million or so Asian Muslims in the entire country. Since Mosaic started targeting the city of Antioch (the true name of this town is intentioanlly withheld), however, God has used our people to help bring a dozen people to Himself.

But wait, there's more!

Cesar Ortega, Mosaic's Pastor of Latinos and Benevolnce, led a Guatemalan to Christ that same day, and by the end of the week, Amos Gray, Mosaic's Youth and Children's Pastor, reported that four had come to Christ after hearing him speak at a Lutheran high school in Nebraska.

All totaled then, some 67 people came to Christ via the efforts of our people from Saturday, October 20 through Friday, October 26! And I share such things not in anyway to boast, but only to comment once again on the power and pleasure of God that is uniquely displayed via a people who walk, worship and work together as one in Him via the local church. Indeed, it is the healthy multi-ethnic church that provides us the most effective means for reaching an increasingly diverse, sectarian and cyncial world in the 21st century.

Why I Wrote the Book

Advance orders of Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church are now shipping from the warehouse and the book will be in stores by the end of the month. Recently, I was asked to comment on why I wrote the book. Here's what I said ...

"I wrote this book with a concern that individuals, church planters and reformers establish healthy mutli-ethnic churches built on the solid foundation of the word of God, i.e., a theology (or, ecclesiology) of church planting and development through which Jews and Gentiles walked, worked and worshipped God together as one.

"For more than fifty years, however, church planters and reformers have been encouraged to establish local churches built on the homogeneous unit principle, a principle which states that churches grow fastest when they are homogeneous. And despite the integration of public schools, the workplace and neighborhoods, the local church still stubbornly clings to homogenity. Yet as America grows increasingly diverse, it will be forced to adapt in order to remain relevant and effective in the proclamation of the gospel. Good intentions will not be enough to inspire systemic change.

"So while churches do indeed grow fastest when they are homogeneous, I am not at all certain that they do so biblically.

"In the twenty-first century, I believe it will be the unity of diverse believers walking as one in and through the local church that will proclaim the fact of God’s love for all people more profoundly than any one sermon, book, or evangelistic crusade. And I believe the coming integration of the local church will lead to the fulfillment of the Great Commission in this century, i.e., to people of every nation, tribe, people, and tongue coming to know him as we do."

This, then, is the core of the book's message. This is the prayer of Christ (John 17:20-23ff.).

Illustrating Ephesians 2:11-22

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said. The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

"After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately , it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," she explained."Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

This is a real story that shows that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another. Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20, 21)

Updates on the Movement from Around the Country

On Saturday, October 6, more than 200 people will attend a Mosaix Global Network (MGN) Conference in Houston, Texas. My good friends, Pastor Ed Lee of Mosaic Community Covenant Church and Pastor Rodney Woo of Wilcrest Baptist Church, are among those who have worked long and hard to bring Mosaix to Houston. In fact, Rodney's enthusiasm was expressed in an email I received from him yesterday which read in part ...

Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that as of today (October 2) we have approximately 230 people enrolled for the Mosaix Conference. Some of these are volunteers from Wilcrest and the other sponsoring churches. We are receiving calls every day. We were able to get on a the second largest Christian radio station in Houston and one of the largest secular radio stations for an hour in a talk show format. Pretty amazing.

By the way that day, I will be in Chicago speaking to 150 or so folks gathering for the 11th Bienniel Multi-cultural Ministries Seminar sponsored by the Multi-cultural Ministries Bureau of the Central Territory (Midwest region) of The Salvation Army.

I also heard today from Mike Leonzo, pastor of Living Water Community Church in Harrisburg, PA. Some 100-150 people are now expected to attend an MGN Conference scheduled for Saturday, October 13, to be held at Lancaster Bible College in Lancaster, PA. Our dear brother, Jonathon Seda, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Dover, DE is also a part of the conference leadership team. Both multi-ethnic churches have other good news to report: Living Water, planted in 2001, has just moved into a 20,000 sq. ft. facility, the first they have built on 28 acres of land they own in a prime location just outside of the city; and Grace Presbyterian has just hired Kenny Foster, their first African American pastoral staff team member to oversee Community Outreach.

Congratulations to these faitfhul men who are puruing the multi-ethnic vision!

Congratulations are also in order for Pastor Richard Ellis, founder of Reunion Church in Dallas, Texas, which is celebrating it's 10th anniversary on Sunday, October 7. This multi-ethnic congregation meets each week at 10am in the Dallas Convention Center Theater, and following the service Sunday, everyone is invited to remain for lunch. Richard writes ...

It is amazing to look back over the past ten years and see how God continues to sustain this body of believers we call Reunion Church. Many lives have been affected and changed in so many ways. No one could have done it but God. We give him all the credit and glory due His name.

Elsewhere in DFW, Jim Spoonts, Executive Director of MGN, tells me that some 75 or so will attend an MGN Conference on Saturday, October 20, in Dallas/Ft. Worth. This is the fourth year in which MGN has conducted this conference in the area.

And finally, did you notice that our good friend, DJ Chuang, was quoted last week in a Los Angeles Times article entitled, Asian American Pators Often Minister Across Culture Gap? According to his blog, "the angle of this story was the challenges that 2nd generation pastors faced in doing ministry." It is not coincidental that within the last two weeks, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and now the Los Angeles Times have all called attention to the movement in one way or another!

It all goes to show as I state in my book, that " ... in the twenty-first century it will be the unity of diverse believers walking as one in and through the local church that will proclaim the fact of God’s love for all people more profoundly than any one sermon, book, or evangelistic crusade. And I believe the coming integration of the local church will lead to the fulfillment of the Great Commission, to people of every nation, tribe, people, and tongue coming to know him as we do. This, then, is the core of our message. This is the prayer of Christ."

Segregated House Churches in the NT?

Concerning my last post (Segregationist Rhetoric and Christian Jargon, 1957), Colin Thomas asked ...

"How would you answer the objection to the scriptural sanction of multi-ethnic churches (I think initially raised by Peter Wagner), that when Paul wrote his epistles he wrote to groups of churches which would of been ethnically and culturally distinct, e.g. when he wrote Romans it would of been passed to a Jewish house congregation and then to a Gentile house congregation? Therefore the great exortation to horizontal unity in Ephesians was between different congregations?"

Here's my response ...

Thank you for your good question, Colin. It is true that Paul's letters were circulated among the churches in the first century. However, I do not at all agree that segregation within the church, i.e., "a Jewish house congregation" and a "Gentile house congregation" existed at this time.

It is possible that such a conclusion is drawn from a misreading of Paul's farewell comments to the elders of the Ephesian church as recorded by Luke in Acts 20:17-21. In the transition from verse 20 which ends, "... but have taught you publicly and from house to house," and verse 21 which begins, "I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance ..." some may not recognize that these are two separate points.

In other words, Paul is not saying that he taught Jewish and Gentile Christians in separate houses, only that he has proclaimed the gospel to Jews and Greeks alike. Notice further that he called for the elders of the (singular) church of Ephesus (verse 17) and it is the people (Christians) of this one church that he has taught both publicly (as, for instance, in the School of Tyrannus, Acts 19:9) and from house to house in a small group setting (as we often find in churches today), in no way implying a segregated church (verse 20). Indeed, to assert such things, in my view, is to read into the text that which is not otherwise stated or intended.

And such an argument most surely flies in the face of all that Christ envisioned (John 17:20-23ff.), the integrated environment at Antioch (Acts 11:19-26; 13:1; see also 11:18) and Paul's prescription for the church throughout the book of Ephesians (see specifically 2:11-4:6). For instance, if Paul had in mind one Church comprised of segregated house-to-house congregations, why would he write, "And in Him, you (i.e., Jewsish and Gentile converts), too, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit," (NIV).

Such things are further explained in my book. In fact, here (in bold) is an excerpt you may find helpful.

"Paul’s experience in Ephesus begins with a brief stop there en route to Syria. As was his custom, “he ... entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews” (Acts 18:19). Though invited to remain in the city, he deferred, promising “to return ... again if God wills” (Acts 18:21).

It was on his third missionary journey that Paul fulfilled this promise. Coming into the city, he encountered twelve men—disciples who had been baptized only into “John’s baptism” (Acts 19:1–3, 7). Discovering, however, that they had not yet received or even heard of the Holy Spirit, he offered them a more complete explanation of the Gospel. “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,” (Acts 19:5).

The timing of their introduction in Acts makes it probable that these men were disciples of Apollos, whose ministry in Ephesus is reported to have taken place between Paul’s second and third missionary journeys. Apollos had been instructed in the way of the Lord (Acts 18:25), and though fervent in spirit, his understanding was limited; according to this passage, he was “acquainted only with the baptism of John.” In addition, Luke tells us that in Achaia, Apollos “powerfully refuted the Jews in public,” (Acts 18:28). We can assume he had done so in Ephesus as well.

Following this event, Paul again entered the synagogue, “reasoning and persuading [Jews] about the kingdom of God,” for a period of three months (Acts 19:8). According to the next verse, there were some who believed and some who did not. Those who did believe were taken from the synagogue to be taught in the School of Tyrannus, to which Paul transferred his public teaching ministry for the next two years. And it was through Paul’s teaching there that “all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks,” (Acts 19:10).

Consequently, the multi-ethnic nature of the church at Ephesus began to take shape. In Acts 19:17 we learn that the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified among both Jews and Greeks who lived at Ephesus. Even Paul himself speaks to the diversity of the church in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:21).

From the beginning, then, the church at Ephesus included both Jewish and Gentile converts. Together with the tone and tenor of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, such passages argue strongly for a community of inclusion at Ephesus."

I hope these thoughts help others, too, in further consideration of the Biblical mandate for the multi-ethnic local church. Thanks again, Colin, for the question.