Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Okay. So as we've mentioned, we will be hearing more so that you can be more informed,
and we have two speakers that will come up, and they will introduce different parts of
the world. We have Henry Lee and Peter Tarantal, who will come up and who will share with us.
And Henry will start.
>> Haven't we been amazed with what God is doing in the Muslim countries from last night
till this morning? Haven't we been shocked with what the devil is doing in the Muslim
countries?
Out of 14 years of working among Muslims, mobilizing churches in Korea, in the States,
I came to realize that Muslims haven't been missing peoples to God but to his people.
And I deny one -- I traveled to Turkey for the first time in my life, and I was really
shocked when I traveled to the country. The country is full of people who are dying without
knowing Christ. Seems to be really invincible. No one can break their heart for the Gospel.
And I passed by the mosque built in 13th century, and I was really horrified. How can they hear
the Gospel? But God just reminded one day in reading the Bible, the same encouragement
he did to Paul in Corinth. “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking, and do not
be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you or harm you for I have many people
in this city.” I was so encouraged with the promise of God.
That promise was true at the time of Paul. That same promise is true as today, to Muslim
countries.
What God is doing in Muslim countries, unless we really pay good attention on what God is
doing in the Muslim countries, we're going to be easily misled by what we hear from newspaper
and media. Since 9/11, Christians all over the world started looking at Muslim world,
not with love and compassion but with suspicion, doubt and lots of reservations. But however,
if we start looking at the Muslim country with eyes of Jesus, we will be incredibly
encouraged with what God is doing in Muslim world -- what God is now doing in the Muslim
world. There is some encouragement and highlights in the Muslim world today. That must be good
news. Whenever we think of Muslim ministry, it seems to be mission impossible, but God
is on the move. God is drawing many, many Muslims to his kingdom these days.
I went to Bangladesh last year and I saw many, many Muslim background believers and 500,000
formerly Muslims confessed Jesus is the true Savior. What about Central Asia? Many, many
Kazakhs, Uzbeks and nominal Central Asian Muslims have come to the Lord. We're there
to say, more Muslims have come to Christ in the last 40 years than in the entire history
of mission combined. God is moving. The mission was impossible, but now mission is possible.
God is on the move. God is doing incredible things. We shouldn't be deceived what we hear,
where we are, but God is working among Muslims.
But at the same time there are a lot of persecutions. A friend of mine, colleague, disciple whom
I discipled for three years Artula Salaymanauf, one of the biggest churches in southern Russia,
was shot to death when he came out of from his church building. We know some expatriate
workers laid their lives for God, but there are many, many MBB leaders are at risk to
lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel. That's so encouraging to us. At the same time,
whenever I travel to the Muslim world Christian minorities who have been living in the Muslim
countries such a long time used to be caught in fear, hatred and vengeance, but God is
mobilizing them to be the light and salt of the Gospel to the Muslims who are living in
their neighborhoods.
We had a one-week long seminar in Cairo several months ago. I just invited some Korean workers
and other workers, expatriate workers, but ten Egyptian brothers and sisters came and
attended the seminar with the purpose that they're willing to go to other neighboring
Muslim countries to share the Gospel. And God is on the move.
But what is the challenge which we face in the Muslim world? I want to say one statistic,
number. More than 300 Muslim unengaged peoples exist on earth right now. What does ‘unengaged’
mean? They do not have long-term workers. They do not have the Bible translated into
their languages. They are away from the access of the Gospel.
I am the director of mission agency. I'm real bad guy to Christian parents in Korea because
I do not send them to the mission field. I do send them to the missing peoples, Muslim
unengaged peoples. Whenever I travel in Dagestan in North Caucasus, I've seen many peoples
who are going to die without hearing any single chance the Gospel in their lives. 80% of Muslims
are dying without having good Christian friends in their lives. That's the reality of the
Muslim world. That's what God is challenging you to see the great need in the Muslim world.
Brothers and sisters, you have heard enough about Muslim world, but it's not enough. One
of my ways of challenging people is repeating over, over the same message, until when? Until
we take actions, until we take our lives for the glory of God. Amen.
>> Good afternoon. About 2,000 years ago the Gospel came to Africa. Remember Jesus came,
went to Egypt, Simon of Cyrene carried the cross of Jesus. The Ethiopian eunuch came
back to Africa. And so the Gospel came to Africa, and if you study Thomas C. Oden, professor
of Yale's book “How Africa Shaped the Western Christian Mind,” you will see just the contribution
that Africa has made to Christianity. However, part of our challenge is that the Gospel never
penetrated from North Africa into Africa in sub-Saharan Africa until a couple hundred
years ago, and in the last while Christianity and the church in Africa has just exploded.
Think about this. In the year 1900 there were about 8 million Christians in Africa. Today
there are close to 500 million Christians in Africa. God is doing an amazing work on
this continent, and yet there are still so many challenges.
So let me just mention a few of the challenges, and then I want to speak about the opportunities
that we have. Of course the first challenge for us must be how do we reach the least reached
people groups on this continent? If there are 500 million Christians, it means that
there are still close to 500 million who are not yet Christians. Many of them are now in
North Africa, and here is my challenge to us as Africans who live in sub-Saharan Africa:
Let us not miss the opportunity of doing that which is on God's heart lest we fall into
the same situation as North Africa did 2,000 years ago. And in 50 years' time, and I trust
this will not happen that Jesus will come back before then, maybe North Africa or somewhere
else, they will have to send people to come and evangelize us. And so there's a call of
God upon us as Africans to take this Gospel.
This year has been a significant year in the history of Africa, the World Cup being hosted
in South Africa and also Cape Town 2010 Lausanne taking place right here in Africa on the tip
of Africa. Surely God must be saying something to us as Africans. Do you know what the World
Cup song was? "Waka, waka, it's time for Africa," and it really is our time.
So the first challenge is the challenge of the missing people, and Moss Ntlha, who is
the General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, and I, we were just at a parallel conference
to Lausanne at a church close by, and we were challenging our fellow brothers and sisters
that somehow the message that the whole church should be involved in taking the whole Gospel
to the whole world hasn't hit us yet.
Let me just speak to my brothers and sisters from the townships in South Africa. 11 years
ago we held a consultation, and we said, how are we -- as black people in South Africa,
what contribution are we going to make to world evangelisation, and we came up with
a number of initiatives, and I'm sad to report, I think we have made a marginal impact. And
there's a renewed commitment at the meeting that I was at today. Let's take seriously
our mandate to take this Gospel from Africa to the ends of the earth.
So it's the challenge of the missing people. It's discipleship. We on this continent need
again for the church of Jesus Christ to be discipled, because if you live on this continent
or even if you don't, you will know that on the continent where the church is growing
at such a phenomenal rate, yet we have the highest rate of ***/AIDS positive people.
We have the highest number of conflicts. We have poverty at unprecedented scale. We have
corruption as you cannot believe. So the challenge is before us that despite us as a church having
grown so much, we need to teach people what it means to live as people of God.
Another challenge for us is doing this together. Well, I have good news for you. There is a
renewed commitment that we need to work together, different organizations, different churches,
linking hands with our brothers and sisters from the global north to finish the task of
world evangelisation, to reach out to the missing people.
Four years ago we had the Movement for African National Initiatives, of which I and some
of you are a part, meet in Nairobi, Kenya, and again our theme was ‘Africa's time has
come,’ and we need to take seriously our mandate and the call of God for us to take
up our responsibility as Africans to make a concerted effort in reaching the nations.
One of the things we are doing, and some of my colleagues are here, we have started a
country assessment process whereby we are going country by country, region by region
to assess what is really happening at grassroots level in terms of the church growth, in terms
of where the challenges still remain, where are the people still to be reached, and hopefully
by the beginning of this next year we will be done with this process, and when we meet
for our next consultation in Abuja, Nigeria, we will be able to say brothers and sisters
of Africa and our global partners, this is the real true situation.
Let us join forces to reach the missing peoples, not only of Africa -- let me make this clear.
Our commitment is not just to evangelize Africa. Our commitment must be that Africans must
take the Gospel everywhere, and right now you will know that the largest church in Europe
is run by an African. And so here’s, my caution to the rest of the world, the Africans
are coming. Get ready for us.
(Applause)
Not only are we going to put on a good world -- did we put up a good World Cup, and now
we're going to put on the best Lausanne Congress ever. We are going to send Africans to come
and help you in reaching people with the Gospel.
I close with just one short story to show you how this can be done, but before I do
that -- the Africans -- before I do that, Timothy Olonade is here, and I am thoroughly
thrilled by the commitment from the Nigerians to mobilize 50,000 Nigerians to go from here
to the Arab-speaking nations, to the Arabian peninsula.
A couple of years ago a colleague of mine went to a rural church in Zambia because one
of their members wanted to join the organization. The church took up an offering of $2, and
he thought, this is impossible. They will never be able to support anyone. Eventually
they came back and they said, no, let's pray about it, and they came back, we want to send
this person. They said give us a month's time. It was going to take $500.
They came back within a month and they said, "We told all the people in the church if you
have two pairs of trousers and two shirts, that's all you need, two skirts, sell the
rest." After two weeks they still didn't have enough. They said, we eat three meals a day.
Let's fast for one meal, and the money that we would have spent, let's use that to support
this this brother. They haven't missed one support payment. If a small rural church can
do it, then surely the global church of Jesus Christ can do it.
Kent said the problem is the local church who needs to do this, and I believe every
local church can do it. May God help us. Thank you, Kent.