UN Report

Those of you who remember our evacuation from Togo back in April and May may be interested in this report from the UN about the levels of violence. Please pray for those who still wait in fear to return, and for what appear to be recent moves in the government toward greater openness and democratization.

Coming Home to a Hug

A number of my fellow bloggers have linked to Greg Kendall-Ball’s post citing a 1955 Good Housekeeping article about what makes a good wife. Most of the suggestions have to do with how a wife greets her husband when he comes home from work. It’s amazing how times have changed.

I was interested to see this BBC report on a contemporary study that shows that, in a less gender-biased way, they were on to something. It seems that coming home to a hug and a supportive environment can help both men and women deal better with the stresses of the work. But I don’t think we really needed Good Housekeeping or the British Heart Foundation to tell us that.

Correction and Credit

Correction:  The correct link for the Tammany Oaks relief blog is http://toccrecovery.blogspot.com .  My earlier link worked, but the text in the blog itself was wrong.

 

Credit:  The centripetal/centrifugal distinction originated, I believe with Johannes Blauw in a 1962 book, The Missionary Nature of the Church:  A Survey of the Biblical Theology of Mission (New York:McGraw-Hill), at least that’s who Guder cites.

Centripetal and Centrifugal

It’s often been said that the Old Testament concept of missions is centripetal while the New Testament idea is centrifugal.  If you’re like me, you’ll have trouble keeping those terms straight.  Centripetal has the idea of a force pulling something towards its center.  A pretty convincing case can be made that the Jewish people, even up until Jesus’ day, did not engage in very many active efforts to bring non-Jews into the community of God’s people.  Instead, the dominant vision was of an eschatological drawing of all peoples to Zion.  Isaiah 49:6 is an exception, which speaks of God’s salvation going out to the ends of the earth.  But that was always something that would come later, and something that God would take care of.

When we get to the New Testament, however, there is a different vision.  A vision of actually Going to the ends of the earth to make disciples of all the nations.  Jesus uses the wording of Isaiah 49:6 to talk about the intentional witness of the Christian community.  Just as a centrifuge spins and scatters its contents, the good news of Jesus is to be scattered to the ends of the earth.

As can so easily happen, however, we need to avoid making a false dichotomy between these two.  Didn’t Jesus say that when he is lifted up, he will draw all people to himself?  That sounds centripetal to me.  And that city set on a hill?  The light works both ways – both to draw people to it, and to reach out and pierce through the darkness, giving hope to those who are lost outside the city gates.  It’s a tragedy if we just set inside our comfortable church buildings and wait for God to bring people to us.  It is equally a tragedy when we fail to embrace those he does bring.  When those who are lost are drawn to the city gates, what if they remain shut, and newcomers are excluded.  Could it be that newcomers to our churches ever feel that way, as they struggle to get past the walls of our warm, intimate fellowship?  Is that fellowship ever warm and intimate to those on the inside, but cold and intimidating to those trying to get in?

Here’s another passage from Guder that might help pull some of this together:

“The New Testament model for this understanding of incarnational evangelization is Jesus himself.  In his encounters with people, he constantly revealed his love for those to whom he ministered.  He dealt with individuals as individuals, he communicated with his hearers in terms they could understand, and he did not always say everything there was to say.  He accepted the measure of faith that was brought to him and worked with that faith, regardless of how immature or inadequate it might have been.  What Jesus said and what he did were congruent, and the heart of his message was that God was a loving Father to whom the prodigal could return home, just as he was himself a friend to whom the outcasts, the prostitutes, and the publicans could come and find help.

The network of relationships within which we live is the primary place where evangelization is tot take place.  This is where every Christian is a witness.  But it is also the harder place to say the witness, because congruence between being, doing, and saying is hard to achieve.  It is, ultimately, easier for the preacher to go straight from the study to the pulpit and proclaim the word.  But it is more incarnational to go from the study to the people, to share in their life, and to share one’s life with them, and then to grapple with the ambiguities and shadowy sides of normal life—and out of that crucible to go into the pulpit and evangelize.

By the same token, it is easier to approach a total stranger, develop a conversation in which a ‘testimony’ is given, and then present the gospel.  It is far more difficult to live with one’s ‘neighbors’ daily and to put words on one’s convictions, explaining who one is and why one lives in a certain way, called Christian.  It is, of course, more ‘natural’ to say the witness in such a way that the gospel surfaces out of the interactions of daily of daily life.  Through his relationships, the Christian explains and shares himself” (pp. 146-147; emphasis mine, ap).

 

More on Witnessing

I’ve been reading Darrell Guder’s 1985 book Be My Witnesses, and it’s helping me grow in my understanding of what it means to be a witness of Jesus.  This relates to my earlier post where I was questioning how that witness might look in a North American context. I’ve marked more quotable quotes than I could possibly reproduce here, but here’s a section I that I think sums up pretty well a lot of what Guder is saying.

“Much that is witness, and that bears the authority of the Holy Spirit working through it, will not necessarily become verbal.  The day-to-day example of that witness lived out by obedient Christians in all the spheres of life is perhaps the  most powerful and most persuasive form of witness.  Ethics understood as witness will point to the lordship of Christ in many situations in which speech is not possible … .  [The “saying”] of the Good News must emerge out of being and doing the witness.  In other words, being and  doing the witness provide the context and also the validation for  what we say. ….

To stop with being and doing, which is the tendency of many Christian movements today who have problems with ‘evangelism,’ is to reduce drastically the biblical mandate and the very nature of the Good News.  We are seeking to define the saying of the witness in such a way that it will not be isolated from the total scope of witness. But we must insist that our definitions are incomplete, and our concept of the church is less than biblical, if we do not focus the task of witness ultimately on the verbal communication of this Good News.  The witnesses (martyroi), as the witnessing community, must address the witness (martyria) to the world.” (pp. 133-134)

I think this is what Sandi was saying in her comment – that we need to be the kind of people and serve in a way that our verbal witness can be heard.  And Greg was right in saying that our witness must be heard as Good News.  In my encounter at the pool, I rushed headlong to an application that should come at a much deeper point in a relationship.  There just wasn’t that opportunity.  Whether I was speaking without thinking or following the leading of the Holy Spirit in that specific situation, I don’t know.  Somehow we have to find a balance between coming across as close-minded bigots and presenting Jesus as just one item on the religious menu that can be chosen or passed over.  Maybe that balance won’t be so hard to find when we learn to genuinely love those to whom we bear witness, and to be guided by the Holy Spirit in being, doing, and saying the witness.

 

Tammany Oaks Relief Blog

The Tammany Oaks church in Mandaville, Louisiana has set up a blog to communicate with volunteers and inform those who are interested in the relief efforts they are doing.  Tod Vogt, my dear friend and former teammate is a minister there.  Go to tcocrecovery.blogspot.com .

Public Domain

Temperatures are warming back up in Togo, so yesterday we took a couple of hours in the capital city of Lomé to go to the swimming pool. Just as we were about to leave, we struck up a conversation with Togolese man who lives in New York. Two of his six children were with him and his wife, visiting a “home” that they barely know. This man said that his father had previously been the Togolese ambassador to the United Nations before dying in a plane crash over Ivory Coast, which he said was an assassination. I have no idea whether this was true or not, but this gives you an idea of how the conversation went.

He asked what we were doing in Togo and we told him that we were missionaries. He asked what church and we told him. He volunteered that his mother had gotten the whole family involved in Eckankar, and that was the religion he practiced.

I don’t know very much about Eckankar, but I have browsed through one of their leaflets. Best I can tell, it is an eclectic, new-ageish personality cult that preaches that truth is in all belief systems and they can help you cull out the truth—for a fee. Most of the adherents are African intellectuals (and, from my limited contacts, quasi-intellectuals).

For some reason, it came pretty naturally for me to tell this man that Eckankar believes everything and nothing at the same time. He told me that I was exactly right. Well, that emboldened me to tell him a little more about Jesus being the only Way, at least that’s what Jesus claimed, and you either have to reject Jesus altogether or accept that claim. The man was not in the least offended by my boldness. He didn’t convert on-the-spot either, but I got the feeling that he would consider what I said.

My question is—why is it so easy to have this kind of conversation with Africans, and so difficult to have with Americans?

At least that’s the way it was for me eons ago when I lived in America.

I think part of the answer is that, in Africa, questions of eternal truth are still in the public domain. Africans accept that these things are part of reality and can be discussed publicly as freely as sports, the weather, and today’s news. Every Westener, on the other hand, seems to have his or her own copyrighted version of truth and has privatized these issues so that even intimate friendships are threatened when they are introduced.

I’m planning to move back to America next year, and I want to be able to share my faith as freely there as I do here in Africa, but I’m afraid that I won’t know how. So—those of you who are on the frontlines of the kingdom in that foreign land – Is it possible to discuss your faith in the public domain? How does the Holy Spirit open doors for you? Is it as difficult as I am imagining? Is there any value in this kind of spontaneous witnessing without any possibility of follow-up? These are some of my questions – any answers?

Preschool Starts

Jonathan was excited to begin preschool today.

American Grill in Togo

Nah...just kidding. A case of false hopes.

I have "My Yahoo" set to pick up on any news stories that mention my beloved country of Togo, so this morning I was suprised to see the headline "New Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar opens today" listed among the Togo-related healdliines.

I guessed pretty quickly this wasn't for real, and even had a pretty good idea why the link was there.

It seems that Applebee's Sonic-style carryout service is called ...


... Carside "ToGo."

Oh well, Maureen's cooking is better anyway. Had some great $1.50/lb beef filet (trimmed of excess fat after it's weighed and sold) and grilled shrimp (sold out of an iced bucket on the side of the road) last night. Can't beat it with a stick.

The Chicken Died

When I posted the photo below a couple of days ago, I didn’t really intend for it to go with whatever I was going to post next.  But I got lucky.

We just put our boys to bed after our weekly pizza and a movie night.  It was just before 8;00 p.m.  Although it’s Friday night, tomorrow is a school day.  We missionaries do our best to be unconventional.  Just as Jeremy was brushing his teeth before going to bed, he told me what happened on the way to school this morning.

“This morning on the way to school, I didn’t go through the cité; I just went straight.”

That might take a little explanation.  It’s pretty much a straight shot from our house to the building our team rented to use as a school.  But it’s a bumpy, often muddy dirt road.  With a little detour, Jeremy can ride most of the way on a quiet paved street that only has a few potholes.  This is in the cité, a housing development originally built for our local cement factory.  What makes this cité road even more attractive is the fact that the direct route has had huge mounds of dirt dumped in it.  They’ve been sitting there for a couple of weeks; we can only assume that a road grader is going to come through sometime to spread out the dirt to fill in the mud holes that have become bogs in the middle of that street.

But Jeremy decided to go the straight route.  He continued with his story.

“I ran over a chicken.  I killed it.  It died.”

“Was it a baby chick or a big chicken?,” I asked.

“It was about this big,” he replied, holding his hand about nine inches off the floor.

“It was kind of on purpose and kind of on accident,” he confessed.  “It was between the dirt pile and the side of the road.  I didn’t want to run off the road, so I ran over the chicken.”

I laughed until I almost cried.  Jeremy told me I shouldn’t laugh.  I told him that I wasn’t laughing at him, but at the chicken.

“Josiah says that every chicken belongs to someone,” Jeremy reminded me.

“I know it does, but they should keep their chickens out of the road,” I said, knowing full well that this is a totally foreign concept in West Africa and that I was being ethnocentric for even thinking it.

As Stephen, our team’s 7-year old bird watcher reminded me recently, “The chicken is the most common bird in Togo.”

At least Jeremy didn’t threaten an endangered species.

Jeremy heads to school on his first day of 2nd grade. 

Baby Gives Birth

Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist the Enquirer-style headline.  In this case, a baby gave birth to a church.  Here’s the story…

Several months ago I visited the Soglogon church in Benin where I worked from 1993 to 2001.  At that time, the church shared with me a situation where a mother had died after giving birth by cesarean section, and the father was unemployed and unable financially to care for the child.  The church had taken it upon itself to do what it could to provide infant formula and medical care for the baby.  We were able to help a little, and a children’s Bible class in America heard about the baby and even sent a contribution to help with the care.

The baby’s family was very touched by the church’s concern, and several family members, including the father, began attending the church.  The baby’s father also led the Christians to his home village of Zounkpa where they began evangelizing.  Yesterday, a church was born in that village.  Nine people from Zounkpa were baptized to Christ, along with to eight others from Soglogon.

It was a big day of celebration.  We drove to the area from Cotonou on Saturday afternoon.  We arrived in Soglogon and helped transport tarp shelters, benches, and audio-visual equipment out to Zounkpa.  We returned to a motel, where we spent the night, while the local Christians showed Christian films in Zounkpa until the wee hours of the morning.  Sunday morning, we left our hotel at 6:15, picked up some more benches and people from Soglogon and drove back out to Zounkpa.  Things were a bit disorganized as we waited on a rented car to bring more Soglogon members and help with transportation for the baptisms.  Finally, we gave up waiting, and about twenty people loaded into our ten-passenger vehicle, ten or so others hopped on motor bikes, and we went the “back way” to the river for the baptisms.  The road was basically a bicycle path in high grass, but it was passable, and the trip was well-worth the thrill of witnessing seventeen baptisms.

We returned to Zounkpa for a three-hour worship service filled with great rejoicing and celebrated the first communion for the new Christians.  We left about 2:00 p.m. for the four hour drive home to Tabligbo.  We arrived exhausted by were filled with strength as we joined our teammates in worship and welcomed the Koonces who just returned from furlough.  We finally made it to the house about 8:00 p.m.

In thinking about the baby who gave birth to a church, I’m reflecting on the motives of the Soglogon church, or that Sunday school class, in helping that baby.  They didn’t start out trying to plant a church, or even to convert a family.  They did it because it was what Jesus would do--and look what He did.

Baptism at Zounkpa, Benin 

African Memories

Before I get into the thoughts I want to share today, I just have to acknowledge the overwhelming tragedy that has taken place on the Gulf Coast.  Right now, we are in Cotonou, Benin.  I went into a supermarket yesterday and CNN was playing on TV and I saw my first video from the area.  I was moved, almost to the point of tears.   Our prayers are with all those who have to rebuild their lives after this disaster, and with all those trying to help in managing the crisis.  We’ve heard that the friends we had in the area are safe, and for that we are very thankful.

I lived in Benin for eight years before our move to Togo.  Cotonou is the capital city, about two hours away from where we lived.  We would come here once a month or so for shopping, banking, and a little get-away time.  Yesterday, Maureen and I reappeared in the downtown shopping area for probably the first time in four years.  We were immediately greeted with welcoming voices saying, “It’s been a long time,” as the same vegetable sellers and even parking guards from four years ago and more are still there.  I walked into a butcher shop and the lady working there immediately exclaimed, “Papa Jeremy!”

Now I wish that I could say that their memory of me was somehow based on a special relationship I had with them or some impact I had on their lives.  The truth is, if I was shopping there, I was always in a hurry to get out.  It’s no fun to have people pulling at you, calling to you, buy this, buy that.  But yesterday’s experience helped me to see these people for who they are – people, who live and work and try to squeeze out an existence from very meager resources, whose greatest resource is the relationships they have with the people around them and who even value their relationships with arrogant foreigners who sometimes only tolerate them.  I pray for forgiveness from such arrogance, and that I will learn to value my relationships with “the least of these, my brethren.”