Connecting Worlds

I am writing this while in the airport in Kazakhstan with missionary Joyce Chellis and her son Travis. Travis is leaving after his 2-week visit to his mother. It’s his first time to visit the place that has been home to his mother for nearly 13 years now. We had a nice chat on the way here about his experience. He said it sort of “gives a face” to what his mother has been doing. He had heard her stories, seen pictures, read letters. But now he can connect her life with his own experiences here.

This makes me mindful of one of the difficulties for the missionary that may catch a person by surprise. When you live some where for an extended period of time, it becomes an important part of your life. People become dear friends and the list of shared experiences grows in the place of ministry. And yet there are also friends and family back in the home country with a list of shared experiences. So the missionary and the missionary kids (MKs) feel in a way that they exist in two totally distinct worlds.

With our own family, we saw how our children eagerly desired that there would be connections between the worlds. The first time that their grandparents met some of the other members of our team on home leave in the US was a huge blessing. Finally the two worlds had at least some connection. I remember when Sherry Waid, a friend from our home church in Kentucky, came to visit us two years into our life in Kazakhstan. She experienced our life and met our friends. It was a huge blessing for us to have the connection and it created a bond with her that continues on today 10 years later, even though we don’t often have a chance to see one another.

So I’m wrapping this up as Joyce says “bye” to Travis, knowing now that when she speaks of the people and village she has grown to love, he will have a greater connection to this important part of her life. That will be a blessing to both of them that will now be shared for the rest of their lives.

A Question of Allegiance

I recently responded to an e-mail from Vince Rutherford, a good friend, supporter, and former long-time missionary to Pakistan who had some questions for reflections based on his recent reading of Paul Hiebert’s book Transforming Worldviews. (This is a book I would highly recommend for an understanding of missions). Hiebert identifies the difference in a “bounded set” approach toward thinking of the Kingdom of God as opposed to a “centered set.” The former focuses on the boundary – either a person is “in” or they are “out.” This is the most common approach the church has taken to the question of salvation. However, Hiebert argues that the more Biblical approach is a “centered set” where the focus is on the Kingdom center – Jesus Christ. A person is either moving toward that center or moving away. Whether or not there is a boundary becomes less the issue.

Vince repeated Hiebert’s question: “Can a village person become a follower of Jesus after only a very basic hearing of the gospel story?” Vince followed with his own musings: “I am wondering about the many people around the world who have heard a bit and have begun to pray in Jesus name for help in their problems. Are they ‘in the Kingdom’ even though they are only near the edge?”

I believe Hiebert was right on with the distinction between bounded and centered sets - as a math major, I like his use of those concepts! When one begins to understand that distinction, then it certainly does challenge all sorts of assumptions of what it means to be "in" or "out" - even those words themselves fall short of being good descriptors.

I believe for the final question, we have only to look at the Scriptures. Did the Samaritan woman, the man possessed by legion, the thief on the cross, etc have sufficient information to be considered a "follower of Jesus?" What they had was a real encounter with Jesus - not a propositional confession. That encounter was sufficient for them to shift their allegiance to Christ. I've found that speaking of allegiance to or alignment with Christ is more in line with Kingdom thinking than the more limited terms we tend to use when thinking of personal salvation. Certainly "born again" and "saved" are Biblical images - but they are not the exclusive ones that are used. They just fit more with the bounded set approach, so as children of the Enlightenment and modernism, we've tended to focus more on them at the exclusion of other images.

What this way of thinking does is really free us from assuming the burden of being the judge. It really is not (nor never has been) my responsibility to determine who is in and who is out. My responsibility is live my life in such a way that people will be introduced to Christ and have a genuine encounter with Him, such that there is a changing of their allegiance. Then in community, we work through the implications of this shift of allegiance on our lives. Our tools for that are His Word, the guidance of the Spirit, the community of faith, and (giving away my ecclesiology) the community of faith through the ages.

The Thrill of Discovery

A few of us are out here in California attending training in experiential learning and facilitation. Yesterday we got to practice our newly acquired skills on some college kids at a low ropes course. At the final debrief, one of the gals in my group said it was so neat how I didn't seem to have an agenda, but simply asked questions and allowed them to think through the issues for themselves, rather than giving them answers or even forcing them into certain answers.

It was so interesting to see how it worked. As our instructor encouraged us, to "trust the process." I was surprised how much discipline it took on my part to listen to the young people and tailor my next question or comment based on what they were saying, rather than thinking so hard about where I wanted to go that I didn't even hear them. Yet I found with patience and true listening, the insights they came up with were as good or better than content I could have delivered. Their excitement of discovery was enormously higher than if they had just received content from me. And the cool thing was that my enjoyment of hearing them come up with these insights actually was higher than the enjoyment of delivering the info myself.

It is good to be reminded that the One who had all knowledge spent three years giving teachings in the form of parables and often in the form of questions. Talk about content! He could have spent all three years lecturing and still not covered half his content. But instead, He lead the disciples (and us) on a journey of discovery. So often we forget this as we consider training and discipleship.