by Steve | Oct 2, 1968 | Archive - 1968
Archive: Methodist Apostle in the Land of Lightning
By Harold Spann
Pastor, First United Methodist Church, San Augustine, Texas
1968
These days, it is rare to find a Methodist church excited about world missions. Recently, Mrs. Porter Brown, head of the Board of Missions, sadly admitted that missionary success stories are few and far between. But the “vision glorious” has not entirely disappeared. One outstanding example is found in San Augustine, Texas. Here Methodists have reversed the anti-missionary tide, and support a daring and creative program of salvation-centered world outreach. – Charles W. Keysor, Editor
It is a long way from the comfortable home of a banker in St. Paul, Minnesota, to a communal dwelling where the whole village lives under one roof on the banks of the Rio de Oro (River of Gold) in Colombia, South America. But this is the journey that Bruce Olson, 19 year old youth, made in less than a year’s time when the Holy Spirit spoke and he obeyed.
Christ had become thrillingly alive and real to Bruce when he was a sophomore in high school in St. Paul. One night alone in his bedroom, he slipped to his knees a seeking, hungering boy. He arose a short time later filled with joy and peace in the Lord Jesus. Not only did he receive Christ as his personal Savior that night, Bruce also dedicated his life to the Lord for the Christian ministry.
In 1961, he was studying ancient languages at the University of Pennsylvania. The Holy Spirit spoke with such urgency that Bruce yielded to His insistence that he go at once to some foreign field for missionary service. The call was distinct and clear that he should go to some aboriginal tribe who had never heard the Name of Jesus. Though he had not finished his education and was only 19 and without many funds, he bought a one-way ticket to Venezuela. He landed at Caracas with only $72.00 in his pocket – and the assurance in his heart that this was the first step on the road of God’s choosing for his missionary service.
What now? This was the question that confronted this boy in a strange land among a people whose language he did not speak. A $22-a-day hotel soon soaked up his meager funds, but God gave him a friend who took Bruce into his home. This friend introduced him to the Venezuelan minister of health, who employed him on the spot with a month’s salary in advance. In this job he helped to vaccinate Indians in the Oronaco River valley. He also attended classes at the University of Caracas, where he taught Greek to supplement his income and where he eventually received his university degree.
Confronted with the threat of expulsion from the country because of the lack of legal papers, Bruce was given another friend by God. This friend he met one day in a crowded sidewalk cafe in Caracas. The well-dressed gentleman who took a seat at his table and heard his story patiently turned out to be none other than the personal secretary to President Romulo Betancourt, President of the Republic of Venezuela. It was not difficult for him to help Bruce solve his problems with immigration officials.
During the few months he had been in South America, Bruce had heard of a fierce nation of Indians in the mountainous jungles along the Venezuelan and Colombian borders. From the early forties to 1960 they had wounded over 800 oil company employees. Sixty-eight of the workers had been the fatal victims of the Indians’ deadly spears and arrows. Bruce was somewhat shaken when God told him to go to these Indians, the Motilones. No white man had ever contacted the Motilones and lived to tell of it.
Less than a year from that night that he landed at the Caracas airport, Bruce Olson walked alone into the jungles of Venezuela in search of the dreaded Motilones. Night fell suddenly and a frightened 19 year old made his bed on leaves he had ripped from trees with his bare hands. In his excitement about entering the jungles he had forgotten a can opener. So he had to pound his sardine cans on a rock in order to suck the juice from the tins.
For three days he forced his way through the jungles. From the brow of a high hill on the fourth day he saw a little village below. Rushing down the hill, he shouted in Spanish greetings to the old men who came forward to meet him. He soon learned that they neither spoke nor understood Spanish. He tried Latin, Norwegian, and a few others, but they only laughed and flopped their lips at him in mockery.
A few days later, the chief and the young men returned to their village from a hunt, and Bruce found himself a prisoner of the chieftain and warriors who demanded his immediate death. These were not the Motilone but the Yucco Indians. His life was spared when the old men convinced their chief that he could not kill the white man who had learned to play the sacred tunes of the Yucca on his little flute.
By injecting penicillin into some of the sick children of the village, Bruce was able to heal them and to gain the trust and support of these Indians. After 6 months with the Yuccas he persuaded three of the more daring young Indians to guide him to the edge of the Motilone territory, still farther to the north in the jungle.
After four days on the trail, Olson and his guides were suddenly under fire by a barrage of sharp, four-foot arrows, sent singing through the air by the strong five foot bows of the Motilones. The three Yuccas began to run. One of them was hit in the arm, but kept on running. Bruce began to run too. Then he was struck deep in the thigh by an arrow. He fell to the ground and God spoke to his heart reminding him that he had come here for just this reason, to contact the Motilones.
Contact was made!
The Indians, five of them, stepped from hiding, their bows loaded and drawn. One of them ripped the arrow from his leg. Another demanded his death on the spot. An argument followed. Three of the five insisted that they take the white man to their chief rather than killing him. The three prevailed, and Bruce was carried a prisoner to the communal dwelling some miles down the trail.
Exhausted, he fell into a hammock (the only sleeping accommodations in Motilone land) and was allowed to sleep for several hours. He was a prisoner and treated much as a captured animal.
While with the Yuccos, he had drunk polluted water and contracted amoebic dysentery. He grew weaker by the day and finally realized that unless he escaped and got medical help he could not live. One moonless night, he slipped unnoticed from the house while the other 150 occupants were sleeping. Stumbling through the jungle blackness he came to the river nearby and began wading downstream. For 10 days, half delirious from fever and weakness he stumbled on, existing on wild bananas.
Finally he came to a colonist’s house on the edge of the jungle – to discover that he was no longer in Venezuela but in Colombia.
From Bogota, the capital of Colombia, he returned to Motilone territory by way of the River of Gold. He went upriver in a boat loaded with supplies. He made camp on the riverbank and placed gifts on a trail discovered nearby. A month passed. No sign of life and the gifts untouched. Another month and the gifts disappeared. He left other gifts. Then they disappeared, and where they had been he found several arrows stuck in the ground – a sign he had been warned to take seriously: it meant death!
He pushed a little farther down the trail and left other gifts. Then one day he found himself surrounded by several young Motilone men. Giving the Motilone greeting of the raised eyebrow and a smile, he found his captors smiling at him. They unloaded their bows and carried him to their communal house where he was given liberty and treated as a friend.
Again God had proven His faithfulness and reassured Bruce that He had called him to evangelize these people. Under the anointing of the Lord, he identified as completely as possible with the Motilones. They were impressed that the white man ate their food and went on the trail with them on their hunts. He ate monkey meat and even smacked his lips over the long, soft worms he ate with the Indians. He mastered the “art” of biting the head off the worms and sucking out the insides; of cracking large beetles between his teeth and sucking out their insides.
Beginning to learn a few words of their language, Bruce learned that they had a head chief in another of the villages farther into the interior. He asked to be carried to this chief. The Indians refused. At last they agreed and the long eight day walk on the trail began. Halfway through the journey, Bruce became violently ill with chest pains and nausea. One of the Indians asked how he turned his eyes to such a pretty yellow. He knew this was a symptom of hepatitis. By the time they reached the high chief’s communal dwelling, Bruce was too weak to walk. He had to be carried by the Indians. The chief took one look at the white man and demanded why they had not killed him. He ordered them to kill Bruce at once or the chief would do so with his own hands.
The Indians pleaded for his life, telling their chief that he could not kill the white man because he was sick. Motilones believe that if they kill. any person or animal dying with a disease, the Motilone will be cursed, and will never kill game again on the hunt. His arrows will break in midflight.
Despairing of living any longer because of his pain and weakness, Bruce one day heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance. The Indians were all frightened; they thought the copter was a great vulture coming to eat them. Bruce persuaded an Indian to carry him out into the clearing before the house and to spread his red plastic tent on the roof of the building. This the Indian did before he, too, fled into the jungle. The aircraft landed in the clearing and its two occupants one of whom, a medical doctor, loaded him into the craft and carried him back to civilization.
In two weeks God had healed Bruce sufficiently so that he headed back to the River of Gold and the Motilones.
This time the Indians received him almost as if he were a god. They believed that the great vulture bird had taken him away to devour him. And now here he was back, quite well and talking to them!
God has spared Bruce Olson from many deadly dangers, given him extraordinary wisdom, and blessed his work among these Indians. The Gospel has begun to bear fruit. Five years after the first contact, there was one real convert among the Motilones, a young man named Kobayra Bobarishora. “Bobby,” as he was nicknamed, was the son of the Indian who demanded Bruce’s death at the first contact.
But others are interested. Recently an Indian came from another village to inquire of Bobby if Jesus loved them too. When told that Jesus did, the Indian smiled and said, “Then I want to know all about Him.”
Within a few months the first Motilone will be teaching his own people to read and write. Soon the first health clinic and meeting place will be completed. Mule trails have been cut through the 2,000,000 acre territory and six mules carry supplies over these 95 miles of trail. Dugout canoes have been made and motors put on them to carry supplies from the edge of the jungles to the first communal dwelling. This summer, the second health clinic and meeting house will be begun. Soon the Gospel of Mark will be translated fully into the Motilone language.
Young Olson explained to the congregation of the First Methodist Church of San Augustine, Texas, in January of 1967 that his plan is to get the Gospel planted in the hearts of the people before civilization moves in with its vices and temptations.
This season, the Motilones will market their first agricultural products. And sometime this year dairy cattle will be brought into the territory for milk and meat.
In June four missionary recruits left San Augustine to share in the Motilone ministry. The four, Mrs. Myra Kennedy, Miss Carol Anderson, Rev. and Mrs. Tim Walker, are all from Texas. They will work for at least one year among the Motilones.
Unknown to most of the world, a quiet but mighty miracle of redemption has been taking place. The heavy weight of evangelizing this Indian nation has rested on the shoulders of one consecrated young man who risked all to be faithful to the call of God. Through the faith and obedience of Bruce Olson, a great light has begun to shine in another of earth’s dark places. Bonds of fear, superstition and hate have been broken from the minds and hearts of the Motilones.
To talk to Bruce Olson is to know the deep humility of his life and to savor the salt of his faith. To hear his story and witness his passion for the souls of this primitive people is to inhale in our twentieth century the fresh Christian air of the first century.
by Steve | Oct 1, 1968 | Archive - 1968
Archive: Jesus is Lord
By E. Stanley Jones
Condensed from A SONG OF ASCENTS by E. Stanley Jones, Copyright © 1968 by Abingdon Press. Used by permission.
Now in his 80’s, E. Stanley Jones is Methodism’s most famous missionary evangelist. Author of 25 books, his globe-circling ministry has led countless thousands to Christ. As a keynote to observance of a Christ-exalting Christmas season, we off er this excerpt from “Brother Stanley’s” exciting spiritual autobiography. — Charles W. Keysor, Editor
My faith has been reduced to simplicity: “Jesus is Lord.” They say that all great discoveries are a reduction from complexity to simplicity. The false hypothesis is always complex, for you have to use a lot of words to cover up the falsity, but the truth is always simple … My life answer has been found; I have an answer which is the Answer, and it works; the universe and life approve of it: “Jesus is Lord.” That is the greatest reduction from complexity to simplicity I know – the whole of religion in general and the whole of Christianity in particular reduced to three words: “Jesus is Lord.”
The earliest Christian creed was just that: “Jesus is Lord.” “If you confess with your lips … ‘Jesus is Lord’ … you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 RSV). “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (I Corinthians 12:3 RSV). In both these places “Jesus is Lord” is in quotation marks, showing that it was the earliest Christian confession, probably the earliest Christian creed. This was particularly amazing, for it grew up among the Jewish people whose characteristic and central saying was this: “Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4). “God” was “Lord.” How did these fiercely monotheistic [one God] people come to the conclusion that “Jesus is Lord”? Not easily. They were compelled to it-the facts led them to an almost unwilling confession. They saw that the touch of Jesus upon life was the touch of God. He was doing things that only God could do. So from their very reluctant lips came the confession, “Jesus is Lord. ”
But the moment they said it, everything fell into place – God, life, destiny, future, present, past – everything made sense. They had the key that unlocked everything, everything in Heaven and on earth. Jesus is still that key. Lose Him and you lose the way to live, to think, to be, to love. Keep Him, surrender to Him, obey Him, and you have the key – the way to live. …
Apart from Jesus, you know little or nothing about God, and what you know is wrong. If you don’t see God in the face of Jesus, you see something else than God – and different. Jesus is the self-revelation of God: God meeting us in understandable form, human form, the Word become flesh. God is a Jesus-like God.
A Hindu said to me: “We can talk about God; you talk to us about Jesus.” He was right. For apart from Jesus your ideas of God become strange and uncertain. When you lose Jesus, you lose God.
A Unitarian said to me: “Will you come to our Unitarian conference – help us to get God back into Unitarianism? We are losing God and becoming humanism.” I replied: “This is interesting. You who have specialized on God have lost Him. I, who specialize on Jesus, have found Him.”
I can’t tell where God ends and Jesus begins in my experience, for the more I know of Jesus the more I know of God. I can go from one to the other without any sense of difference. They do not rival or push each other out – they are one.
Jesus is the starting point: You cannot say God until you have first said Jesus. You can’t say Christ until you have first said Jesus, for the Jews had a nationalistic view of Christ; He was to be the conquering Christ. You cannot say the Holy Spirit until you have first said Jesus, for apart from Jesus, divine power has always bordered on the strange or weird. You cannot say the Kingdom of God until you can first say Jesus, for the Jews expected the Kingdom of God to be David’s kingdom – a nationalistic mold. Jesus universalized it and made it God’s Kingdom. …
Jesus is Lord in three directions: He is Lord of the past, Lord of the present, and Lord of the future.
PAST: He cleanses the past of its guilt, reverses the propensities brought over into the present, and can release us from the inferiorities and failures of the past. He can cleanse the subconscious mind, which is a depository of the past, and give it new content and new bent. Jesus saves us from being prisoners of our past. Freud says that man is determined by the lower urges in the subconscious brought over from the past. In Jesus, that is no longer true. Existentialism says that since life is process, the present is dying to the past, so that there is no past. But experience says that there is a past, and a guilty past. The past is not dead, but comes into the present as guilt.
A businessman of the Middle West said to me: “I have an awful sense of guilt in my life, and night after night I’ve tied up my arm to the bedpost so I couldn’t sleep decently to punish myself and atone for my sins.”
My reply: “That hasn’t taken away the guilt, has it? ”
“No,” he replied sadly.
“My brother,” I replied, “you are on the wrong track. You are trying to atone for your sins by what you do, offering your suffering. You can’t find God by what you do; you can find Him by what He has done. He died for you on the cross, to get to you in spite of your sins and to offer you forgiveness. Empty your hands and take the gift of God.”
He looked incredulous. “Why that’s too cheap ” he said.
“No,” I replied, “it is very expensive. For if you take the gift you will belong forever to the Giver. …”
We prayed together. A few days later I received this letter: “I didn’t know that a man could be as happy as I am. All that sense of guilt is gone. I went to church the next day and sang the hymns I had never sung before. I had sung words; now I really sang the hymns. I went to work the next day with lightness of step I had never known, and for the first time in my life I let my full weight down on the universe. ”
A beautiful church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee is made up of broken pieces of waste marble, built into a sanctuary. The broken pieces of our life mistakes can be gathered up and built into a temple of God. He redeems the past as well as cleanses it. …
PRESENT: I know nothing, absolutely nothing so potent, so redeeming, so transforming as the direct and immediate impact of Jesus Christ upon the framework of human nature. It creates miracles of changed character around the world among all classes, among all degrees of culture, among all ages, among both sexes. Jesus is Lord – Lord where it counts most: in the realm of character and life. …
A woman told me she … went to a pagan psychiatrist. He said this: “You are strongly sexed – your libido is out of control. Take up smoking and drinking and that will distribute the load.”
She said, “I did take up smoking and drinking. And instead of getting better I got worse; for now I was fighting on three fronts instead of one. I saw the utter futility of all this, surrendered myself and my drives to Christ, and walked out of all three problems. I’m free – and happy. ” And she was! Jesus is Lord of the present. …
FUTURE: l face the future with confidence, even joy. Many are afraid of the future, afraid of two things – decay and death. But if you belong to Jesus Christ, you don’t belong to either one; you belong to Him, not decay, not death. Because if you live in Him, you are not subject to decay. The real person is not decaying if you live in Him. The shell may wrinkle; the substance is ripening. …
So I stand assured, assured that neither encroaching time nor approaching death can touch me – the real me – for I do not belong to time or death. I belong to the timeless and the deathless: I belong to Jesus Christ. …
Cecil Rhodes, when dying, said: “It is dark – very dark. ” Well, it is not dark to me to live in Christ. It is light, light – light that shall shine more and more to the perfect Day. …
In Jesus there are no sunsets, they are all sunrises. He is the “bright and morning star ” – not the evening star. He heralds the dawn – not the dark. Rufus Moseley, a layman, called on to conduct a funeral, went to the New Testament to see how Jesus conducted a funeral. He found that “Jesus did not conduct funerals. He conducted resurrections. ”
So Jesus is Lord – Lord of the past, Lord of the present, Lord of the future. Jesus is Lord of everything.
by Steve | Jul 6, 1968 | Archive - 1968
Archive: Five Methodists speculate on
What Has Happened to our Missionary Zeal?
THE CHURCH FORGETS CHRIST IS ESSENTIAL
says Dean L. Griffith, Wilmette, Illinois
Missionary zeal is dependent upon commitment to Christ. If there is no relationship with God through Christ, there is no zeal!
We often fail to communicate this essential ingredient, so the church-goer is frequently unaware that this commitment is both necessary and desirable. Robert Raines, in his book, “New Life in the Church,” expresses it this way: “This is no side issue, no optional matter of individual whim or fancy. Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘You must be born anew –unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nothing ambiguous or foggy or tentative, is there?”
If an individual thinks Christ is optional, how can Christianity have any vitality? If Paul had thought Christ was optional, we wouldn’t have a Christian church today! And if we feel Christ is optional now, we will not have a Christian church in the future. Christianity is always one generation from extinction. If it’s true that the trend in our church today is to change or ignore this basic premise of Christianity, how can we have a sense of urgency?
Since the average Christian almost never opens his Bible, he is usually totally unaware of what God expects of him. And he is equally unaware of what God promises and desires to do for him which is, “infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine …” (Ephesians 3:20)
Often people do not realize that communicating the Gospel message can be shared in love with the same results that it has had for 2,000 years. The needs of human nature today are essentially the same as the needs of man 2,000 years ago. The redeeming, revitalizing impact of the acceptance of Christ is just as real as it was in the first century of Christianity.
If a man does not have a vital relationship with God through Christ, or does not have daily prayer (which is simply two-way communication between God and man), how can he possibly respond to the last spoken words of our Lord, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations … “? Those words mean nothing to us until Christ becomes ????he Lord of life. Then they become not only His command to us, but, more importantly, He gives us the desire to communicate His love to others.
As individuals come to a point where they are willing and desirous to have God in the central position in their life, He begins to change their attitudes and ambitions. He gives them a vast love and concern for other people. And, finally, He does so much for them that it spills over to others so they, too, can experience the love, the joy, the peace, and the purpose that Christ came to give every man who would receive Him.
I wonder if our church today needs to hear these words again … “You do not love as you did at first.” (Revelation 2:4) Has our love lost its zeal? Who has a deep and growing love relationship with another person and then hides it from the world? The layman needs to know that he has equal privilege and responsibility with the ministry to share what God has done and is doing for him.
Surely, God is not dead! But if His influence is so dead in our lives that we no longer care to communicate our faith, we need to take another look at our beliefs. God is looking for men – any man, and every man –who will respond to Christ!
WE ARE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT OURSELVES
thinks Gerald Lundeen Pastor, West Branch (EUB), Bradford, Pennsylvania.
Erie Conference Director, of Christian Education
From mythology, we recall the story of the Greek warrior, Achilles. His mother was told that she could make her son invulnerable by dipping him beneath the waters of the river Styx. She did so – holding him by one heel. Achilles fought battle after battle in the Trojan War without being harmed. But the end came when a poisoned arrow of the enemy was shot into the heel that had not been dipped.
I am convinced that Satan is not overly concerned about how much the Church today faithfully attends divine worship; how many beautiful buildings are built; nor how many church budgets are over-subscribed. I am sure that he isn’t too worried when we fill each night of the week with committee meetings, circle meetings, class meetings, scout meetings, and what-have-you (in fact, I wonder if he isn’t laughing with unholy glee as he sees Christians madly dashing from one “church activity” to another – finding little time in between for personal communion with God).
But it does seem that the Devil gets quite upset when we share God’s “good news” with others. If Satan can keep us from witnessing, he will have struck us in our “Achilles Heel.” As long as we confine our beliefs to ourselves, he has no problem. But as we win others to Christ, we find Satanic opposition.
First of all, we have a theological problem. We somehow need to recapture the truth that man without Christ is eternally lost. We have tried to come up with a new theology that man might possibly be able to lift himself out of his dilemma by his own efforts. The biblical truth is that man needs Jesus Christ. Without this basic theology, it is no wonder that our sense of urgency has vanished.
Another problem we have is that of inadequate and outdated promotion. The Church today is behind the times – we need to realize that we are living in a century of tremendous progress and that there is a need to keep up with the latest developments in the promotion of missions. A technological revolution is taking place: every available means of communication and promotion should be employed by the Church to promote missions!!
Our third problem is selfishness. Most churches today have a very “active” program going. This drains the life of its members so that not much time, effort and money is left to go elsewhere! We become ingrown – promoting our own program, solving our own problems, and raising our own budgets. However, time and time again it has proven true that the Church which has a concern for the lost around the world will also have an outstanding program at home.
WE ARE LULLED BY A “COMFORT ABLE” GOSPEL
thinks Mrs. Malvin Jackson St. Joseph, Missouri
Does the average Christian of today realize the awfulness of being LOST? If we would ponder the Bible-given facts of an eternity without the Lord Jesus Christ, would we not have more zeal to win others to Him, here and in every corner of the world?
Compassionate hearts are aroused and everyone comes to do all he can when a child becomes lost in a wooded area, or in a city where danger lurks on every side. Why do not we, as Christians, feel this much concern for the spiritually lost? At one time, not too far removed, our preachers were inspired to preach to the congregations the horrors of Hell. This being clearly set forth frequently, gave an urgency to win souls, here and abroad. Since this preaching is outmoded in most churches, an apathy has come over many Christians toward mission work. Instead, the needs of the local congregations have taken precedence. Building expansion and like needs demand time, energy and money so mission work is left lagging.
Could it be we are being lulled to sleep with the “comfortable gospel” which only presents God’s side of love and patience, and avoids the word which plainly states that we have a jealous God who has commanded us to “go into all the world and preach the gospel” and that “he that winnest souls is wise?”
Modern day living for the Christian consists of constant rush, – work meetings, schedules, ad infinitum, until our minds can be diverted from the prime concerns. Therefore in addition to the realization that we need be working for the evangelization of the whole world “while it is still day,” our attention needs continually to be brought to this phase of our Christian responsibility.
It has been our privilege, for several years, to entertain in our home, missionaries from various places throughout the world. This has caused mission work to be very real to our family. As we recall the first-hand experiences the missionaries have shared with us, we realize the needs of their work and are compelled by the Holy Spirit to pray for them and their work.
Our zeal has lessened toward missionary work in The Methodist Church, but if it is to be carried on in future generations, we had best get our churches involved in an enthusiastic missionary education. Enthusiasm is contagious – especially when it 1s motivated by the Holy Spirit.
OUR MISSIONS HAVE BEEN DE-PERSONALIZED
says Robert W. Hughes, Pastor, United Methodist Church Bridgeton, New Jersey
Someone said the difference between a thing being possible or impossible is the two little letters ‘im.’ Let me suggest the zeal for missions which Methodists once had has diminished largely because we have become more concerned with ‘im’ than we are for the lost of this world. This is true in at least three areas.
First, once we were a people with a real love for the Word of God. Now we exert a certain pride in being a people who have no particular doctrinal emphasis. We have become a people who have, by our Biblical ignorance, failed to heed the command of our Lord to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” (Matthew 28:19) Unlike Wesley, the world has not become our parish to the extent that we see the universal need for salvation as he did. The world population now exceeds 3 ½ billion, and the projected estimates indicate that somewhere after 2000 A.D., 7 billion people will live on this planet. We need to return to our first love. (Revelation 2:4)
Second, the ignorance of God’s Word has created cold-hearted churchmen. Indifference to the mission field and its challenge are the result. When we have no vital Christian experience which is grounded in the Word of God, we become self-centered and indifferent to the needs of others. This indifference can be illustrated in these statistics: If each American Methodist family would give 5% of a $4000 annual income to missions, we would be able to contribute $620,000,000 annually to this cause. This is approximately 21 times more than we are doing now!
Third, the zeal for missions has 46 GOOD NEWS been dulled because of institutionalism. We have lost contact with the mission field. Because it has been de-personalized, we do not give, nor do we pray. It is hard to pray or to give with much zeal simply to some generalized place. The institution, as important as it is, does not take the place of people.
To recapture our lost zeal, we as Methodists need to return to the Biblical basis for missions and seek to reclaim our lost first love for Him. A commitment of one’s self to Christ will cause us to give if we cannot go, to pray much if we can give but little, but above all, it will open our eyes to see the fields that are white to harvest! (Matthew 9:37)
THE CHURCH HAS SHUT OUT GOD’S SPIRIT
says Leonard Fugate, Pastor, United Methodist Church Hornick, Iowa
Our missionary zeal is flagging today! The main underlying cause is the lack of the working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals. This produces a lack of evidence of His working in our congregations in the organized church.
One secondary cause is the organizational structure, which tends to impersonalize missionary giving. In our Methodist structure, only in Advance Specials does one get the feeling that we are giving in a personal way. The balance of our benevolence giving, which is much larger than Advance Specials, as the average layman thinks of it goes into a huge pot and is given out arbitrarily. Thereby we lose the advantage of the feeling of personal giving.
During my seminary years I had the occasion to become acquainted with a number of congregations of various denominations. The one thing that stands out in relation to their missionary programs was the fact that those with the greatest missionary zeal, also showed evidence of the greatest activity of the Holy Spirit in their congregations. (Mainline denominations, not Pentecostals.) One had a benevolence budget which was greater than their operating budget. There I found an attitude of Christian love and fellowship in action such as I have seldom, if ever, found in our own denomination.
If we possess the Christian love which Christ desires of us, we cannot divorce missionary zeal from His Great Commandment. He said there were two main principles of living: the first, to love God with our entire personality; the second, to love our fellow man as much and in the same way as we love ourselves.
Missionary zeal has a direct relationship to, and is a good indication of, the spiritual condition of a congregation.
I recommend two books to every Methodist who is interested in spiritual renewal in our church: “Your God is too Small” by J. B. Phillips; and “New Life in the Church” by Robert A. Raines. Phillips says that without a power from outside, Christ’s teaching remains a beautiful ideal, tantalizing but unattainable. But if we want to co-operate, the Spirit is immediately available. Raines says: “The loss of mission appears in the local church, which is usually content to grow in physical stature and in favor with its immediate environment … Thus we lose our individual concern in corporate irresponsibility. That the average church member and the typical local church have lost their sense of mission is ultimately a judgement upon us who are leaders of the church.”
by Steve | Jul 5, 1968 | Archive - 1968
Archive: Books to Help You
Here are some books other Methodists have found helpful and stimulating
Conducted by Associate Editor Michael Walker, Associate Minister, Walnut Hill United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas
What About Tongue-Speaking? by Anthony A. Hoekema (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1966, $3.50) is reviewed by Bob Stamps, Associate Minister, First Methodist Church, Carrollton, Texas.
The author’s opinion is perfectly obvious from the very outset of the book. He opposes speaking in tongues. His opposition is based on the theological assumption that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit were eclipsed in the life of the Church after the death of the Apostles.
The stated purpose of the author is to “make a Biblical and theological evaluation of the phenomenon of tongue-speaking.” His evaluation begins with a look at church history. “When did tongue-speaking begin?” “Among whom did it occur?” “When did it end?” “When has it re-occurred?” Such are the questions he asks of the church historians.
The author points to the fact that reference to tongue-speaking is scanty indeed after the first 200 years of the Church. And when it does appear, it seems only to occur “on the fringe,” never in “the mainstream” of the historic Church. This was so, of course, until 1901 and the outbreak of the modern Pentecostal movement. And, more recently, the rise of the neo-Pentecostals among the older, established denominations. This study of church history relevant to the issue at hand is quite valuable, especially regarding the “charismatic revival” of this generation.
From church history, Dr. Hoekma turns to the opinions of the Pentecostals themselves. He attempts to point out, as clearly and precisely and objectively as possible, what significance tongue-speaking has for Pentecostals. His method is a careful examination of their own works and testimony. This section of the book is well documented and thoughtfully developed.
Next, the author exposes the Pentecostal position and experience to the light of Scripture and finds it wanting. He constantly insists on the necessity of adjusting and interpreting experience by the standard of Scripture, rather than molding an interpretation of Scripture by experience. This is certainly a valid insistence and must be heeded by both Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals alike.
He exposes as invalid the traditional Pentecostal dictum that all should and must speak in tongues to be truly spiritual. He also points out that nowhere does Scripture tell us to seek to speak in tongues. In fact, he insists that Scripture places the experience as the least desirable of the gifts of God. He further renounces as non-Scriptural the notion held among many Pentecostals that the Holy Spirit does not enter the life at Conversion, but rather at the time of a later work of grace. Also he brings out many excesses and abuses of this gift and calls them to Scriptural order.
Dr. Hoekema follows his Scriptural evaluation of tongue- speaking with a theological one. In this section, he makes some rather interesting and forceful statements in contradiction to Pentecostal theology. Most of his statements are well thought through, substantiated by fact, and persuasively presented. However, at the heart of all his theological reasoning is the statement: “It cannot be proved with finality that the miraculous gift of the Spirit, which include tongue-speaking, are still in the Church today.”
Several arguments are advanced to defend this statement, but the whole discussion seems to revolve around the purpose for the Divine dispensation of Charismatic gifts upon the Church. Dr. Hoekema contends that God’s purpose in giving them was essentially to authenticate the authority of the Apostles. Thus, the gifts themselves were no longer needed by, nor given to, the Church after the death of the Apostles. Dr. Hoekema is hard pressed to support such a position by Scripture. At this crucial point, his argument limps feebly. It appears that Hoekema himself has become guilty of a gross blunder – that is, stretching Scripture to suit his theology.
He attempts to close his book positively by pointing out what we can learn from our “Pentecostal friends.” But his polemic dies hard. However, he does acclaim the zeal and warmth of the Pentecostals as desirable for the “whole church.” Also, he stresses that the Church should never reach the place that she does not feel the need for more of the Spirit.
What shall we say finally as regards this volume? Pentecostals and Neo-Pentecostals would do well to read it and heed its sound criticisms. Non-Pentecostals should read it critically and objectively, keeping in mind that nowhere does God tell us to despise any of His gifts, not even the least of them. Certainly even the least of God’s gifts is greater than the most desirable gifts given by men. One should keep in mind, as well, that even to the abusive Corinthian church, Paul said, along with stem admonition, “forbid not speaking in tongues.”
Wesleyan Christians can find added insight in the words of John Wesley concerning the miraculous gifts of the Spirit:
“And these gifts, the Apostle allows to be desirable; yea, he exhorts the Corinthians, at least the teachers among them, … to covet them earnestly, that thereby they might be qualified to be more useful either to Christians or heathens … It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were common in the Church for more than two or three centuries … The cause of this was not, (as has been vulgarly supposed,) ‘because there was no more occasion for them,’ … The real cause was, ‘the love of many,’ almost all Christians, so called, was ‘waxed cold.’ The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ, than the other heathens … This was the real cause, why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were no longer to be found in the Christian Church; because the Christians were turned heathens again, and had only a dead form left.”
(Sermons on Several Occasions Vol. II, New York: Carlton & Phillips, 1854. p. 266).
by Steve | Jul 4, 1968 | Archive - 1968
Archive: What John Wesley Might Say to the United Methodist Church
By Dr. Albert C. Outler
On Tuesday, April 23, 1968 The United Methodist Church was born, out of union between the Evangelical United Brethren and The Methodist Churches. Keynote address was delivered by Dr. Albert C. Outler, Professor of Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, Tex.
An expert on the theology of John Wesley, Dr. Outler told the editors of Good News that his sermon was an attempt to say what he thought the founder of Methodism would say to the new church. Space limitations prohibit publication of the entire sermon, but significant excerpts have been lifted from the body of Dr. Outler’s address titled “The Unfinished Business of an Unfinished Church” – Charles W. Keysor, Editor.
… Here we tum a new page in modem church history. And just as smugness is excluded from our celebration, so is cynicism …
We have much to be grateful for, nothing to be complacent about. Our joy this day is foretaste of a future that can be even more creative than we have yet dared to ask or think. This means that, as we tum from our ceremony of beginnings to the tasks that follow, our foremost need is for a vivid sense of the church we have been called to be.
By what norms shall we transform our covenant into genuine koinonia? By what principles are we willing to be guided in the agonies of growth that lie ahead?
One thing is for sure: what has served till now as our “status quo before” will simply not suffice for the upcoming future … The standing order is now too nearly preoccupied with self-maintenance and survival. The world is in furious and agonizing turmoil, incomprehensible and unmanageable. The church is in a radical crisis, and in the throes of a profound demoralization at every level: of faith and order, life and work. In such times, business as usual simply will not get the job done ….
The basic meaning of the word “catholic” is “whole,” “universal,” “open.” It reminds us that true unity not only allows for diversity, it requires it … It means … a community whose boundaries are set by the Christian essentials (the bare essentials at that) in which it is bad faith for anyone to deny full membership to any other, save by the canons of faith in Christ and the Christian discipline that derives from that confession.
This rules out all distinctions based on race, sex, class and culture – and so also all distinctions based on partisan emphasis on this doctrine or that, this form of worship or that, this pattern of polity or that. Here is the plain teaching of Wesley’s sermon on Catholic Spirit – a sermon we would do well to recall and to update in terms that might fit our own condition …
But catholicity by itself is not enough. The church is called to mission, and her mission is both her message and the demonstration of that message in her corporate life. Her message is not herself, either. It is her witness to the Christian Evangel: to the scandal and folly of Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ transforming human life and culture, Christ in the world, Christ for the world; Christ in us, our hope of glory!
Thus, the church we are called to be must be “truly evangelical” – a church ablaze with a passion that God’s Gospel shall be preached and heard and responded to in faith and hope and love by all who can be reached and instructed and gathered into the fellowship of God’s covenanted people.
The fullness of the Gospel embraces all human concerns everywhere and always. But the heart of the Gospel is startlingly simple: that God loves you and me and all men with a very special love, and that Jesus Christ is sufficient proof of this love to any man who will receive and confess Him as Savior and Lord …
The word “evangelical” is concerned, above all, with the faith that receives the Gospel wholeheartedly and in trust. It means faith as a gift from God, faith as man’s response to God, faith as the mortal foe of human pride ….
The church evangelical is, therefore, radically Christ-centered. It is disengaged from any final dependence on her apparatus of whatever sort, save only as it ministers to her central mission: that men may receive God’s gift of saving grace in Christ, and learn to live in the world in true communion with the Holy Spirit and with one another.
The church evangelical is a proclaiming church – but it is also a teaching church. Wesley often pointed out that the difference between his movement and the others –equally zealous in proclamation- was his provision of societies in which converts came to learn the meaning of the Gospel in depth and in concrete life situations.
We Methodists and EUB’s alike … are grateful heirs of evangelical fathers and brethren. But we can scarcely boast of having fully claimed their legacy.
A church falling behind in the race with an exploding … population is not “truly evangelical,” despite its self-advertisements. A church that counts her evangelical harvest chiefly in terms of members added to the rolls is not truly evangelical. A church, the vast majority of whose members do not really understand the great issues entailed by “the Protestant principle” – God’s sovereignty, man’s justification by faith alone, the witness of the Spirit, the life of grace, the authority of the Scripture as the prime source of divine revelation, and so forth – such a church is not only not truly evangelical, she is, indeed, partaker in the greatest tragedy of modern Christianity: the abject failure of the teaching church.
Here we are – Christians by name and sign-organized to the teeth and involved in titanic labors of all sorts. And yet … our people do not really know what the Christian faith purports; do not really believe in their hearts and minds what they profess with their lips. And of those that do, there are few who can give a rational account of it to themselves and others ….
