Tony Salgado (another missionary to the D.R.) and myself went to the Mission conference held by the IMB at First Baptist Trussville, Alabama last week.
We were pleased with the general sessions, as well as the break outs. But more importantly, we developed some beneficial contacts. One in particular, Jeff Palmer, works with "human needs" and has a lot of experience at helping people with their physical needs while simultaneously helping people with their spiritual needs. His angle is akin to the old Chinese proverb, "Better to teach a man how to fish instead of giving him a fish." He has learned the hard way of how simply "giving" can actually be detrimental in many circumstances. He also has a lot of good contacts in the D.R., which will be great for us. There are a lot of physical needs in the areas we will be in, and I am looking forward to mobilizing willing churches to help out in this area in a long-term beneficial way.
The need for discipleship was reinforced at the event. Many officials admitted that the IMB had dropped the ball in many situations around the world due to their desire for speed with church planting. This went hand in hand with a book on missiology that I just read, called Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience by David Sills. I feel since the week God called us to this mission (2 years ago), He has shown us the need for discipleship amongst the Christians in the Esperanza area. The confirmation that we are receiving in this is great!
However, all was not well at the conference. Tony and I, as well as a few other attendees (from a church in Jax), and at least two IMB officials noticed the strong (overtly) emphasis that was being placed on the newest and best strategy/plan to fulfill the great commission. The arm of man is clearly being trusted in more than the arm of God in many cases. This is something I constantly pray we will avoid. The desire to do this is strangely tempting, and can sneak up on you as you hear the facts about numbers, and sociological reports, and what is working and what isn't. Before you know it, some phrase similar to, "If only I did this, the church would grow..." will enter your mind. However, I am convinced that many (not all) of these latest and greatest schemes are created due to the lack of prayer and trust in God's Holy Spirit and Word.
Another topic came up regarding oral learners. 70-80% of the world are oral learners. Most are illiterate due to choice or circumstance. Effective ways of communicating to oral learners are through story telling and catechisms. Oral learners are unfamiliar with the American's way of presenting sermons in points and deductive reasoning. We feel that a few of the places we will be ministering to are considered to be populated by oral learners, so I was all ears (no pun intended) when it came to this break out session. Everything was going great until I asked the presenter where this left expository preaching. His answer was basically that it left it back in the States. Now this disturbed me, because I greatly appreciate the need for the "exposing" of God's voice in preaching. I find expository preaching to best do this. Furthermore, I wondered how some of the Pauline epistles could be taught in story form. I asked many people afterwards in the hall ways, at lunch and throughout the day how they thought story telling and expository preaching could mesh, but I was not satisfied with any answers. I knew there would be someone at the conference the next day that could probably answer my question...David Platt.
That night I prayed for the opportunity to speak to David Platt (who would be there the next day to wrap up the conference). I knew the crowd would throng him, and everybody would be having a question for him like we had, but Tony and I still prayed. The next day, after the first speaker and just before Dr. Platt spoke, we had a break. To make a long story short (which I tell in the post, Prayers Answered at the Conference) we got that chance to speak to Dr. Platt before any other person in the whole place! And better yet, he gave me the answer I had hoped for and thought was God honoring. Basically, he said that both could be done, but that in some of the meat of the N.T. (amongst other places as well), the preacher needs to trust the power of God's Word by "exposing" the text. He did not think story telling was as beneficial in these areas. I honestly felt my heart flood with relief with his answer.
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