by Steve | Jul 5, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Waiting on God
By Margaret Therkelsen
I have made a wonderful, new discovery in my prayer life. It is best defined by one of the many injunctions given in the Bible, “Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 8:34-35).
Though rarely spoken of today and yet so desperately needed in our stress-torn society, this life-giving reality is the ancient experience of waiting on God. It seems as though there is so little time put aside for such waiting in our slick, fastmoving world. The difficult, yet so rewarding, experience of coming into God’s presence, and by the grace and empowerment of the Holy Spirit becoming calm, quiet and receptive to his presence and voice is the essence of all growth in grace. Is not the result of spiritual growth a growing awareness of God’s presence and hearing his voice?
The life of prayer has so many marvelous facets and different methods, according to our need at the time. The pouring out of our soul to God, as Psalm 62:8 says, is because of agitation, turmoil and unrest. We have to get things off our chest, and tell him exactly how we feel. There certainly can be no calm, quiet receptiveness until we communicate our needs or those of others.
The power of intercession, pouring out our anguish over a situation or person is part of the asking and seeking of Matthew 7:7. Tragically, however, we often fail then to wait on God. We do not allow him time to speak to us, to comfort us, to correct us, or to be present to us. We often fail to hear his response to our cries. Waiting allows God the opening or opportunity to manifest his wondrous presence.
Our fast-moving schedules keep us so nervous and overloaded that we find it difficult to sit down and relax and let go, to sit quietly and focus on one thing. We are accustomed to doing 10 things at once!
Yet I believe a new dimension of spiritual reality is released if we will wait on the Lord. The Psalmist David said it so well in Psalm 27:4, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Waiting on God is not natural for us; it is not easy for us; it is not always “fun” for us, but it is a profoundly transforming experience of spiritual growth. It is not for people of casual Christian living. It is not for rebellious, self-willed church members. It is for struggling, yearning Christians who want to be more like Jesus, and more fit channels through whom he will flow out to others in love and power.
Our guide is Jesus. He knew to the core of his being the absolute necessity of waiting on God. In his classic book called Waiting On God, Andrew Murray says about Jesus, “He had such a consciousness of God’s presence that no matter who came to him the presence of Father was with and upon him.” Jesus’ own night-long waiting on the Father as recorded in Luke teaches us how important the waiting was, because it allowed the Father to be totally dominate and in total control of him, to the extent that God the Father was the most real presence in Jesus’ life.
The first account of Jesus waiting on the Father, in Luke 4, is followed by testing. Each time we wait on God, no matter how long or short the period, Satan will be present to pull us away. He does not want our physical needs met in a godly way, but in our own way. Satan does not want us feeding on God. Waiting on the Lord allows the Holy Spirit to feed the inner man, and strengthen him (Eph. 3:16). As we wait, we partake of the Divine nature, and are sustained, changed and healed.
A second hinderance that comes as we wait is to let something else or someone else be our center instead of our Lord. It could be career, children, education, money or pleasure. Waiting on God allows the Holy Spirit to teach us how to worship and love only him with all our heart, soul and mind, and others as ourselves.
Yet a third hinderance is to use God’s power in foolish ways, to take what we get from God and use it for our advantage. Waiting on God daily allows him to cleanse our self-will and self-seeking. He develops a reverence in us for his holiness and power. We tremble before him and honor him as we wait.
Jesus waited on God to bring him forth from the grave (the seed falling into the ground as John 12:23-32 teaches). Waiting produces great confidence in God. It is a form of dying to self, and out of death comes God’s life.
But perhaps the greatest example of Jesus’ waiting is what he is doing now. As Hebrews 7:25 says, “He always lives to intercede for them.” As Jesus intercedes, he awaits his return to the earth as Lord where he will receive his bride—the church. In other words waiting is a part of divine providence and therefore it must be a part of our lives.
If Jesus is waiting on God the Father to bring forth the ultimate will of God, how much more do you and I need periods of quiet waiting and listening.
Margaret Therkelsen, a teacher and counselor, is the author of The Love Exchange (Bristol). This is the first of three columns on this subject.
by Steve | Jul 4, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Our Glorious Salvation
Restoring the Main Mast of a Storm-tossed Church
By Sandy Kirk
Black waves pummeled the ship, lifting her high, then plunging her into watery valleys. The storm mounted, the winds roared, the main mast split, and the vessel rocked and reeled violently. Panic swept through the crew. A young Anglican priest, chaplain of the ship, shivered in dark terror. In shame, he watched as a group of Moravians worshipped their God, filled with unutterable peace.
That young priest was John Wesley, on a missionary trip to the American Indians. When at last he reached Georgia, he asked the Moravian pastor for advice. But the Moravian shot back with some heart searching questions: “My Brother … Do you know Jesus Christ? … Do you know he has saved you?”
Wesley gulped, then stammered, “I hope he has died to save me.”
“But do you know yourself?” pressed the Moravian.
“I do,” he quavered, but later admitted, “I fear these were vain words.” Finally, John Wesley lamented, “I went to America to covert the Indians; but O! who shall convert me?”[1]
A Storm-tossed Church
Isn’t this where we are in our church today? Isn’t there a deep, aching void in the soul of the United Methodist Church?
Indeed, the ship of the Church has been tossed and pummeled by waves of religious turmoil. She’s been lifted on rising swells of political upheaval, plunged into watery valleys and flooded with unbiblical views. The main mast of the ship has been split, the church has rocked and reeled, and thousands of “people called Methodist” seem lost in the midst of the storm.
If the question were asked of the vast majority of United Methodists today, as the Moravian asked Wesley, “Do you know Jesus Christ has saved you?” what would be our response? Would multitudes falteringly say, as Wesley said, “I hope he has died to save me”?
Like our founder, could our own plaintive cry be, “We went to convert the world, but O! who shall convert us?”
Wesley’s New Birth
John Wesley did, however, seek the Lord with all of his heart. He was a soul athirst for God. Like David, he longed for the presence of God as the deer pants and longs for the waterbrooks.
And wondrously, even as a river flows down to the lowly, thirsty places of the earth, God delights in sending his river of life to thirsty, seeking hearts. For on that day, May 24, 1738, the Spirit of God descended like a fiery stream upon Wesley, and his “heart was strangely warmed.” In that one divine moment he knew he had been gloriously saved. He said, “An assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me …”[2]
From that time on, Wesley began to preach the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He was a man ablaze with a message. Along with his friend, George Whitefield, he began to spread the flame of the new birth experience throughout all of England. The Anglican Church was scandalized by their insistence that even baptized church members must be born again. In fact, George Whitefield was asked why he preached over 300 sermons on “You Must Be Born Again.” He responded, “because you must be born again!”
But what about our church today? How often do we hear a clear, clarion call to salvation? How often do we hear that simple but poignant call of Jesus, as well as the early Methodists— “You must be born again”?
Urgent Calls to Salvation
Our hearts were gripped with awe as Margaret Therkelsen, at a retreat in Lubbock, Texas, told of her preacher father in the hills of Kentucky. She described how her father and other Methodist preachers went out into the congregation, pleading with lost souls to come to Christ. Tears slipped down our cheeks as Margaret vividly told how the town drunk was converted to Christ because her little mother fervently prayed, then tenderly implored him to receive Christ at the altar.
My heart ached as I thought: what has happened to this kind of urgent pleading today? I recalled the story of the conversion of one of the world’s greatest preachers, powerfully saved through the urgent call of a Methodist layman:
The year was 1850. It was a blustery, cold, snowy morning when a teenage boy decided to walk to church in the village. The snow froze his face and stung his eyes till he decided to stop at a little Primitive Methodist church along the way. The pastor had been snowbound himself, so an untrained Methodist layman was preaching instead.
The layman began with the Scripture, “Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22). Then with simple, earnest passion, he said: “Look. … do not look to yourselves … Look unto me: I am sweating great drops of blood for you. Look unto Me: I am scourged and spit upon. I am nailed to the cross. I die, I am buried, I rise and ascend, I am pleading before the Father’s throne, and all this for you.”
The teenager’s heart pounded harder and faster as the layman spoke. Then the preacher leaned over his pulpit and looked at him. “Young man, you are very miserable, and you will always be miserable if you don’t do as my text tells you, that is look unto Christ.” Then he thundered with all his might, “Young man, look! In God’s name look, and look now!”
The boy looked. And in that moment Charles Spurgeon was gloriously saved.[3] One of the greatest preachers of all-time was born again because of the urgent plea of a Methodist layman.
But where are the fiery altar calls that convict the soul and draw one’s heart to Christ in our church today?
Could it be that multitudes of good, baptized Methodists are lost, and they don’t even know it? Could they be lost because we’ve forgotten our primary purpose: very few are telling them, “You must be born again!”
Have We Smothered the Baby?
It’s like the story of the couple who decided to hold a christening party on the night before their baby’s baptism at church. When the guests arrived, the infant was laid on the guest-room bed. A few guests came into the room, and, not noticing the baby, flung their coats across the bed. Several others threw their coats upon the bed. Soon the infant had been completely covered by heavy coats. The next morning, the newspaper told the tragic account of the baby that had been smothered to death at his own christening party.
Is this what we have done? Have we covered the Baby with our religious trappings and distracting political issues? Have we forgotten our main purpose—to spread the glorious message of salvation in Jesus Christ? Have we smothered the Baby in the midst of his own Church?
Repentance at the Foot of the Cross
We must come like little children to the foot to the cross—the place of true repentance.
Those whose hearts are burning with the desire to see our church restored, must ask God for a spirit of repentance, a gift from heaven of true, godly grief over the sins of the church. Like Daniel, who stood in the gap for the sins of his nation, we need to stand in the gap and repent over the sins of our denomination. Most of all, we need to weep over our heartless praying, our lifeless evangelism our passionless preaching, our listless alter calls, and our prideful divisions.
Secondly, we need to repair the mast of the ship; for in the midst of the storm, the main mast, the cross, has fallen from its central place. We need to once again lift high the cross of Jesus Christ and proclaim his glorious salvation. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Down, down, down with everything else … but up, up, up with the doctrine of the naked cross and the expiring Savior!”[4]
When at last the cross, with its blazing, magnetic power, is lifted in the church, people will be drawn to Christ. Said Spurgeon, “We slander Christ when we think that we are to draw people by something else but the preaching of Christ crucified.”[5] For it is not our polished preaching, our social benevolence, or even our miracles that draw a person to the Lord. Jesus said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to me.” Like fingers on the strings of a harp, the Spirit of God tugs and draws a person to Jesus when the cross of Christ is lifted.
We Saw It Happen
Because I believe this so strongly, I started teaching a course in our church called “God’s Masterpiece,” a study of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We looked at Jesus lifted up on the cross until we could almost feel his tears splashing upon our hearts; we could almost see the love spilling from his wounds; we could almost run our fingers over his scars.
Women wept in sorrow for the sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. Deep, cleansing floods of repentance swept through us until were washed of condemnation over past abortions, bitterness toward husbands, and guilt over sexual sins.
A young medical doctor, whose heart had turned hard toward God because of repressed grief over her mother’s death, looked at her Savior’s raw and bleeding wounds until her own wounds began to surface. As she gazed at Jesus Christ, the Divine Physician himself began to pour his healing oil into her broken heart. Within weeks, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and praying with others to be made whole.
A mother of teenagers opened her pain-filled heart to the love of her Lord and forgave her father for years of incest and abuse. An unbelieving nurse looked upon Jesus’ dying love until she received him as her Savior and was healed of the eating disorder, bulimia.
As we gazed at the blazing cup of wrath which Jesus drank in punishment for our sins, many wanted to know, “What can I do to be saved?” One lady said, “I’ve been Methodist all my life. I’ve believed in Jesus Christ, but tonight I ‘received’ him for the first time in my life.”
Amazingly, we found—as we looked with all our hearts at the cross of our Lord, the Holy Spirit began to come. Like a soft, summer breeze, he came, filling hungry hearts and causing people to fall in love with Jesus.
This is what can happen any place where the cross of Christ is lifted. If we will restore the main mast of the ship, the presence of the living Christ will come with a fresh visitation from God. Then we will begin to see revival, for revival begins at the foot of the cross.
O come, Holy Spirit—restore the cross to its central location till the glorious message of salvation spreads again through our storm-tossed church!
Sandy S. Kirk is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Good News. She is a Bible teacher and the wife of R. L. Kirk, pastor of St. Luke’s UM Church in Lubbock, Texas.
[1] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1872), Vol.l, pp. 23, 74.
[2] Wesley, Works, p. 103
[3] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon at His Best, Tom Carter, compiled (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), p. 249.
[4] Ibid., p. 46.
[5] Spurgeon, p. 301
by Steve | Jul 3, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Mission Impossible
Is Teenage Discipleship an Oxymoron?
By Duffy Robbins
Mention youth ministry among the average group of pastors or church members and watch how the room comes alive—all of the excitement and expectancy of an appointment for oral surgery.
Around the group, would-be Isaiah’s are thinking, “Lord, here am I; send somebody else!”
It’s understandable, of course. Our society’s response to teenagers over the last 50 years has taught us that these people are drug-crazed, sex-hungry rebels, differing from other lower primates only because they have opposing thumbs, people whose spiritual aptitude ranks barely above plant life.
What it really boils down to is that most of us think of “teenage disciple” as an oxymoron, one of those little phrases like “freezer burn,” “jumbo shrimp,” “congressional action,” “Plymouth Reliant,” “rap music,” or “United Methodists.” Some see “teenage disciple” as just that kind of contradiction in terms.
Yet, the mandate of our Lord is to go into all the world and “preach the good news to every living creature.” No matter how you exegete it, that’s broad enough to even include 14-year olds!
Somehow, we in the United Methodist Church have got to regain a vision for evangelizing and discipling teenagers. We must believe it is possible. We must embrace it as our mandate. We must strategize to make it a reality.
In the words of researcher George Barna:
“Traditionally, we pour the bulk of our funds for outreach and evangelism into ministry to adults. Existing research shows that most people accept Christ before they become adults. With the population aging and with fewer and fewer young adults to reach, we may wish to make a concerted effort at reaching adolescents during the coming decade. If we are striving to efficiently utilize limited resources, we may find that this represents our best approach to evangelistic outreach” (Frog in the Kettle, Regall).
The Process Doesn’t Always Look Like Progress
Perhaps one of the reasons that ministry with teenagers can be sometimes so disheartening is that we’re not completely clear about what we’re looking for. Anyone who has ever had the wonderful experience of parenthood will relate to the fact that it isn’t always so easy to envision the “finished product” of new life and maturity when it’s still early in the process.
I remember when my wife first contracted pregnancy, she didn’t choose to make this happy announcement by putting a daisy on my pillow, or booties in my lunch bag. This wondrous news came to me one morning when I was awakened by the sounds of my wife in the bathroom throwing up. As I stumbled into the bathroom she looked up long enough to proclaim with a smile, “I’m pregnant.” Now, I try to be spontaneous and open-minded, but in all honesty, that moment confronted me with mixed emotions. There was my wife with her head bowed over our toilet bowl with a big smile on her face. I’m asking “what’s wrong with this picture?”
What was wrong, of course, is that the process doesn’t always look like progress. Seeing your wife with her head bowed over a bathroom fixture struggling with morning sickness, it’s difficult to realize that someday that same head will be bowed in prayer at your child’s confirmation. It’s hard to witness this moment of nausea and see it as a moment of splendor. Part of me that morning standing in the bathroom wanted to say, “Oh, this is awful,” part of me wanted to say, “Wow, this is awesome.”
It’s those same conflicting emotions that greet us when we are involved in making teenage disciples because the process doesn’t always look like progress.
Too many of us in the church see the hassles, the pain, the grief and mess of youth ministry, without understanding that beneath ‘this process is a work of splendor. It may not look like it right now, but God is at work here. Even in the midst of this trauma, new life is stirring.
It’s probably significant that when Paul writes to the immature Christians in the church at Galatia, his exasperation takes on the tone of an expectant parent, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).
It would be wonderful if youth ministry were only about those great breakthrough moments of new birth and recommitment. But, if teenage discipleship is ever going to be a reality, there will be all those months and years of care and nurture in between that begin with “gestation” and pre-evangelism and continue all the way through the bumps and falls of learning to walk alone.
Kids and God: How Teenagers Grow Spiritually
For most pastors and churches, the only way to regain our vision for that long-term process of teenage discipleship is to learn to see beneath “the nausea and pain” of everyday youth ministry, and recognize that God is at work in this process of sometimes unapparent splendor. That can happen only if we take time to reflect on some of the ways that God brings about spiritual growth in the lives of teenagers.
PRINCIPLE #1: God Doesn’t Always Act When He’s “Supposed” To
If you were asked to reflect back to two or three key spiritual events that brought you to your current relationship with Christ, what would you say? Some might mention a worship service. Others might mention a camp. Quite often, people think back to some crisis experience. What I bet you will often observe is that very few of the key memorable events in your spiritual odyssey are the kinds of events on which we spend so much time and concern in ministry.
Seven years ago I was returning from a trip to Boston with a van load of my youth ministry students from Eastern College. We found ourselves in a blizzard that turned a rather easy six-hour drive into a nerve-wracking twelve hour ordeal of slips, slides and close calls. When we finally got to our exit off the Skuykill Expressway in Philadelphia we ran into a gridlock of backed up cars that trapped us in the van for another six hours! There we sat—twelve of us—praying, singing, freezing, in a van that had no bathrooms.
Finally, several days after our eventual return to campus, students were to write a reflection paper about which part of the course had the greatest impact on them spiritually. Naturally, I expected them to cite some profound insight from one of my lectures. But instead, it was unanimous: the most spiritually powerful part of the course was being trapped on the Skuykill Expressway in a snowstorm for six hours!
I couldn’t believe it. All those incredible lectures (I know good stuff when I hear it), all those wonderful interviews in Boston, and they felt that the most important spiritual benefit came from sitting in a van in a snowstorm. Well, needless to say, the next year we just drove up and parked on the highway for six hours; but, it also reminded me of an important fact about spiritual growth in the lives of young people: God doesn’t always act when he’s supposed to.
While most of the students I’ve worked with may attest to a particular speaker or sermon as having been significant in their Christian journey, there would be precious few who could actually recount what was the topic of the sermon or the text of the study. And yet, it is these kinds of matters that seem to constantly preoccupy us in pastoral ministry.
PRINCIPLE#2: The Bulging Tummy Principle
One of the frustrations of expectant fatherhood is watching the stomach of his pregnant wife for nine months and except for the huge bulge, there doesn’t appear to be any sign of progress. Every now and then, Mom reports a kick or a move and this sets off gawks of anticipation. It’s easy to think from one month to the next, “Well, nothing is going on in there today.” And then, all of a sudden … BIRTH HAPPENS!!
That waiting process is not unlike working with teenagers in ministry. Youth workers spend a lot of time just waiting around. Every now and then there’s a kick or a move, and you start to get hopeful. But most of the time discipling teenagers is about praying, loving and caring for kids while waiting for God to work. And often it looks like nothing is happening.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I left a junior high Sunday school class discouraged and thinking, “Boy, that was a great class today; I wish God could have been there.” And then, of course, months or years later, through some prayer or passing comment or vow of commitment, we get a chance to see that the cumulative effect of those years of faithful nurture had a deep spiritual impact in the life of a student.
One of the reasons that youth ministry has gotten such a bad rap in the church is that we want quick results. We want something that can be written on a report, hung on a wall, or stood up in front of the congregation. But teenage discipleship is not about quick results. It’s about being there and offering patient care and nurture while God does his work in the life of a teenager.
That’s why I like this sign that hangs in my office. It offers a variation on a familiar bumper-sticker theme: GRACE HAPPENS!
PRINCIPLE #3: Negatives With A Positive Effect
Have you ever taken the time to reflect on how many of the key events in your spiritual growth seemed to be negative and painful at the time? I have had countless conversations with adult youth workers who will recount three significant events in their own sojourn with Christ and will admit that at least one of those three events seemed counterproductive at the time.
At a recent youth leaders’ workshop in North Carolina, one youth worker shared how his own encounter with God came through a serious sports injury that forced him to re-evaluate his identity, his plans and his life goals. At the time, he remembered, “It seemed like a lousy break. Now, I can see it was the beginning of God’s restoring me to wholeness.”
That is very important for us to remember in youth ministry. We are so busy worrying about teenagers’ bad decisions and difficult times. Maybe, in John Wenham’s words, we need to be reminded that “God whispers in our pleasure, but shouts in our pain” (The Goodness of God, Inter-Varsity Press).
So many times I will ask my youth-ministry students here at Eastern College to share their story with me about how they came to discover Christ was real, and chose to serve him in some kind of vocational service. It’s uncanny how many times I hear them point back to what at the time could only have been described as a tragedy.
They will point back to a situation that must have seemed to their pastor or youth minister at the time as the final nail in their spiritual coffin. I can’t help but wonder if those pastors and youth ministers have since heard that the tragedy of those high school years was only the earliest labor pain of God bringing a whole new life into reality.
PRINCIPLE #4: Acting Their Age
Several years ago, Gordon MacDonald gave expression to the pessimism many feel about youth ministry when he stated in an article for Youthworker Journal that “Genuine commitment doesn’t happen during the teenage years …” It’s certainly a sentiment easy to understand. How many times has a parent said, “Hey, it’s great that he wants to go down to the city and clean up a vacant lot, but if this thing’s for real how come we can’t get him to clean up his room?”
In response to this skepticism, let’s begin with the obvious: teenagers are quite capable of making commitments—very serious commitments. The kid that sits in his room and practices his guitar for hours, the girl that practically starve herself to lose weight, the guy that runs three miles a day for football, the girl who gives up every night for four months rehearsing for the school musical—all of these teenagers have made very real commitments.
What confuses and discourages us, I think, is that we misunderstand what it means when a teenager makes a commitment to Christ.
I remember 22 years ago falling in love with this beautiful bright-eyed blonde. I knew immediately that she was THE ONE, but of course, I didn’t want to tell her that right away because it would seem shallow and insincere. So I waited and didn’t tell her l loved her until our second date!
To make a long story short: I married her. It has been over 22 years since that first night when I told her I loved her. And guess what? This morning, one more time, I told her again, “I love you.”
What is important to understand is this: when I told her this morning that I loved her, I really meant it. And, when I told her more than 22 years ago I loved her, I meant it. But, what I meant when I really meant it 22 years ago, is quite different from what I meant when I meant it this morning. Since that first time I made a commitment to her, much has changed. We have been married, and we’ve had two babies. I am more aware of what there is of me to give to her, and I am more aware of what there is of her for me to love. That doesn’t mean that my commitment to her at age 18 was insincere or phoney. It just means we’ve matured.
One reason that pastors and youth sponsors tend to be skeptical about teenage discipleship is that we evaluate teenage commitment by the standard of our commitment. When they say, “I’m committed,” they don’t mean what we mean when we say “I’m committed.” That doesn’t mean the teenager’s commitment is not real. It just means they need time to grow and mature.
A Real Possibility—A Real Challenge
For the United Methodist Church in general and for every local church in particular, the opportunity and possibility of teenage discipleship is very real. There is some excellent youth ministry being done right now in some of our UM congregations around the country. But far too many churches are letting this opportunity go unclaimed. Admittedly, the process does not always look like progress. And it’s hard to recruit volunteers and raise money on the basis of a few “kicks” every now and then.
But, I can hope that by understanding how teenagers grow spiritually, we can begin to reaffirm our belief in a God who wants to change kids’ lives. The potential is virtually unlimited, but as a church and as workers we must really believe: “Grace Happens!”
Duffy Robbins is chairman of the Youth Ministry Program at Eastern College in Sr. David’s, Pennsylvania. He has written two books that speak directly to these issues of programming to make teenage disciples, Youth Ministry That Works, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL and Ministry of Nurture: Helping Kids to Grow Spiritually, Zondervan/Youth Specialities, Grand Rapids, Ml. Duffy is a contributing editor of Good News magazine and will write a column entitled “The Next Generation.”
by Steve | May 8, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: First New World Missioner front Cuba
by Cheryl A. Capshaw
For the first time since a New World Mission program was initiated by the United Methodist Board of Discipleship in 1975, a Cuban pastor is participating.
The Rev. Rinaldo Hernandez, Havana, is among 23 missioners from 18 countries who are visiting churches and communities across the United States during March and April.
At an orientation session held in Nashville, Hernandez said recent events in Cuba have brought a recognition of 30 years of discrimination experienced by Christians there. He said that in October “the Communist Party abolished the law by which (Cuba) had been declared an atheist state” and now “many party members have been visiting the churches.”
Others are visiting, too, he said. “We have received hundreds of people. We have been praying for something like this for 30 years.”
He explained that during the 1960s, when Cuba became an atheistic state, all 50 U.S. missionaries fled the country, along with 85 percent of the Cuban Methodist pastors.
“That left 12 pastors for 120 congregations. There was a call to youth to fill empty pulpits. They had to learn while they were in ministry. In the 1970s, things remained much the same, but in the 1980s, things started to change. There was a great hunger for the word of God,” Hernandez said.
Proudly noting that his church, which is located on a college campus, has 200 people attending, he pointed out that about half of that number are 30 or younger. “The generation that was taught that there is no God is the generation that is the church. It’s a challenging time and an exciting time to be a pastor in Cuba,” he said.
According to Hernandez, “It is difficult to be the church in a socialist society. It is not enough for people to have a house, clothing and food. Humans need something else. They need God.”
Evidence of the search for God, he said, is also apparent in a new interest in the ministry. “In 1978, when I was in seminary, I was the only student in my first-year class. I am now teaching a first-year class of 26 students. You have 56 students in seminary; 13 are Methodists.”
The New World Mission evangelistic outreach program brings Christians from around the world each year to the United States where they preach in churches and speak to community groups.
Other countries represented in this year’s program include the Philippines, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Germany, Tonga, Nigeria, Fiji, Brazil, Liberia, Switzerland, Estonia, Sweden, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland.
U.S. congregation that participate in New World Mission undertake three phases of programming: preparation, proclamation and penetration. It is during the second phase that each New World Missioner spends five days in each of three churches, preaching and meeting with church and community members.
Shirley F. Clement directs the program which has been sponsored by the Board of Discipleship’s section on evangelism since 1975. The next mission will be in 1994.
Cheryl A. Capshaw is communications director of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship, Nashville, Tenn.
by Steve | May 7, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: After the Storm in Los Angeles
While delegates to the General Conference passionately discussed the causes, effects and aftermath of the verdict of the Rodney King case, United Methodists in southern California were ministering to the needs of riot-torn Los Angeles. Two clergy couples are particularly involved in the restoration effort.
Enterprise United Methodist Church in Compton, California became a Saving Station, ministering to those affected by the riots and devastation. By utilizing professionals from within the church, Enterprise reaches the community by:
- offering hot food prepared by a professional chef and served on tables with flowers and tablecloths; providing food bags which include bread, milk, eggs, beans, baby food and diapers;
- offering medical care through doctors and nurses; and
- providing clothing to adults and children.
Open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the Enterprise ministry stations have aided more than 3,000 people.
The Rev. Lydia Waters says she has received much prayer and practical support from female and evangelical pastors in the area. “We have felt a lot of love from all of this,” she told Good News, “especially from the people in the Emmaus movement and the prayer chain at the Upper Room.”
In the heart of the destruction of south central Los Angeles, the Rev. Kenneth Waters, her husband, transformed his Vermont Square United Methodist Church into an emergency shelter. The day after the riots began the church became a collection and distribution center for food packages for hundreds of needy people.
“The evangelical response has been outstanding,” he said.
In nearby Orange County, the Revs. Gwen and Todd Ehrenborg, pastors of Spurgeon UM Church in Santa Ana, California, organized the area collection to help the front-line churches in Los Angeles.
“As soon as I heard what had happened,” says Todd Ehrenborg, “I called to see how we could pray, how we could help.” Lydia Waters told him that they needed food.
“We organized the Orange County food drive, because being a Christian means meeting the needs of the whole person—spiritual, as well as physical and emotional,” says Ehrenborg. “To me, this is what it means to be evangelical.”
According to the Waters, the clean-up effort has been multi-ethnic and inter-racial, as businessman and street people work together with shovels, rakes and trash bags. “It is cutting across all of the traditional lines,” says Kenneth Waters.
Waters wants United Methodists to know that “the violence in Los Angeles last week was the result of an overload of pain that comes from institutional violence. The victims live with the denial of opportunity, creative expression, and the security and love of a home environment. The pain has been increasing over the years.”
Despite the pain and suffering caused by the King verdict and the subsequent riots, Waters hope that good can come from the experience: “This should be an opportunity to hear the voices coming out of the inner city.”
Good News Media Service
