Last week I was part of the 12 Cities, 12 Conversations gathering at Saddleback Church. These conversations are about issues that are relevant to the future of the church and are being held in strategic cities across the US prepping for the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town in October of 2010, where over 4,000 global church leaders will convene to discuss issues facing today’s church.
Instead of posting an entire transcription of the Saddleback Conversation, I’ll be posting the key issues addressed during the conversation and include quotes from each of the panelists, which included…
- Rick Warren, Pastor and Founder of Saddleback Church
- Skye Jethani, Managing Editor of Leadership Journal
- Kay Warren, author and activist
- Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church and founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach
- Dr. Michael S. Horton, professor Westminster Seminary
- Jena Lee Nardella, Executive Director, Blood:Water Mission
- Miles McPherson, Senior Pastor of The Rock Church, San Diego
- Dr. Soong Chan Rah, author of The Next Evangelicalism
The first portion of the evening focused on the future of the US and Global Church:
In 1900, over 80 percent of the Christian population was Caucasian and over 70 percent lived in Europe. Now, according to historian Dana Robert, “The typical late twentieth-century Christian is no longer a European man but a Latin American or African woman.”
What are the implications of this shift for the North American church’s mission strategy?
Kay Warren: One of the major implications is that the issue of women being in the majority is going to create interesting conversations and could make people uncomfortable. However, if the Church doesn’t draw in her daughters we are going to lose them.
Miles McPherson: We need to ask, “what can brown do for you?” We need to look at how white Christians presented Christ to the brown world and question how the brown world could reciprocate. Demographically, America is changing. People who feel uncomfortable with brownness have to deal with it. They need to ask people who are a minority what it’s like. We need to have relationships with people who are different than us. We can learn and offer much to one another.
Soong Chan Rah: By 2023, the majority of children born will be non-white. It’s a reality. We are going to see a multiethnic America. The Church is moving faster towards diversity ahead of society at large. The concern is that given these demographic changes globally and in the US, are we going to see a corresponding shift in power? Will this impact whose leadership we follow, books we read, etc. We still find that the books, theology and ecclesiology that are influencing churches are driven by white Americans. There’s a disconnect in the Church between the global reality.
Although the North American church still has an abundance of resources, statistically it’s not growing as rapidly as the church in Asia, Africa, or South America. What can we learn from our sisters and brothers in these parts of the world about mission?
Miles McPherson: Other cultures don’t have the distractions we have. Although the North American church has many resources, statistically we’re not growing as rapidly.
Michael Horton: In churches in other cultures, we’re finding that they are no longer taking every movement and fad coming from North America. They’ve figured out that they have got to have a more deeply- rooted faith. One of the greatest challenges to evangelism in our own churches and the rest of the world is our consumerism.
Jena Lee Nardella: We have a lot to learn from the global church. Why is the Gospel so real to them? What is it about not being the most educated, wealthy or powerful? What does it mean to be a western Christian and look at my relationship with God not so individualized but as a community? What does it mean to live and worship God with a community…a “you all” not a “you.” We are so hyper-individualized in American culture.
Jim Belcher: Once the Gospel gets connected in culture, revival takes place. We’ve learned to out of the way and let the nationals lead their own churches and movements. We say it happened by accident in China. Missionaries were pushed out, but the church thrived because of indigenous leadership. Home churches, underground churches, etc. We often forget that how the Gospel moves and spreads. What would it mean for us to connect with our culture with the mindset of being a missionary? We need to think like missionaries again because we’re living in post-Christian America.
Miles McPherson: In America we’ve created a “you can have your way” mentality when it comes to Christianity. We don’t want to confront pain, conflict, and instead focus on being politically correct and accepted. We’ve created many conditions we have to meet before we are going to live for God. When you go to a poor country, people will take what you can get. When you have money, you have options. We have too many options and too much arrogance to think we can have God as we want it..
Soong Chan Rah: We have an incomplete view of the Gospel in North America because of our affluence. We have an incomplete gospel here in North America unless we are in conversation with people who are suffering
Jena Lee Nardella: Africans pity Americans as much as Americans pity Africans. They see our consumerism and recognize what they have is a gift from God.
Kay Warren: Kay shared the story of an exchange she had with a Kenyan woman who said she felt sorry for Kay. When asked why, she said, “When you need something you buy it… when I need something I pray.”
Our faith is really so shallow. We don’t know what it’s like to believe that God really is our source. Millions of people know God in ways we don’t know Him. They have a dimension to their walk with God that is different.
Our affluence has decreased our dependence on God.
We need the church around the world to show us what it’s like to pray and depend on God in ways that we don’t. The North American church doesn’t need another fad or program… the Church around the world to teach us to pray.
Skye Jethani: We need to do a better job of distributing to those in need. We need them for their simplicity of faith and their ability to live in dependence in their faith in God.
The Lausanne Congress is meeting in Cape Town this October. 4000 delegates from 200 countries will be there to discuss the issues facing the global church. What do you hope comes from this gathering? What do you hope will be the impact on the US church?
Jim Belcher: We need to focus on being more unified around the core elements of the Gospel and spend far less time arguing and being divided. Until we experience the unity God is calling us to know we aren’t having the witness God is calling us to have to the world.
Miles McPherson: The Gospel is not information, it’s a person… Jesus Christ. So many people miss that.
Jena Lee Nardella: Shared this quote, “If you’re coming to save me you are wasting your time. But if you believe my liberation is found in your liberation, let’s struggle together.”
–
Obviously, some great thoughts and ideas here… to sum up my take on the first part of the Conversation…
- We are now living in a post-Christian America, which is going to call for a radical redefinition of what it means to be a Christ-follower and will dramatically change the Western Church.
- Our affluence and resources have become a hindrance to us in Western culture, we need to spend time learning from believers in other, under-resourced countries of what it means to live a life completely dependent on God.
- We don’t need to export programs or even charity… we need to lose our “savior” mentality when it comes to engaging in missions, we need to rather take a posture of learning and share what we have freely and learn as much as we can from the global church.
More to come!
Follow the Conversation by visiting 12cities12conversations.com or follow it on Twitter @12Conversations.
Photo courtesy of Randy Chen.
