Lie #2
This is a 6 min read
Adapted, with copy right permission, from the book, The Insanity of Obedience by Nik Ripken
This is a 10 pt Series Click
My living room was too sparsely filled.
That’s what I was thinking about as I hosted CCWM Ministry Leaders from an unreached area of the world. It’s one of the most rewarding aspects of my work with CCWM, hosting Ministry Leaders in my home. There’s just something about a meal shared together that seems to melt away my preconceived ideas about a person and creates an environment where real conversation is accessible.
Random Side note: Contrary to popular perception, Ministry Leaders, AKA Missionaries, don’t always like all food they are given. Some even say, “No, thank you.”
That week I had fired off a mass text inviting everyone I could think of to come over for dinner and meet the missionaries. Three responded. (this matters, and you’ll know why by the end of this post.) Feeling a bit awful about this, after playing hype-man to our missionaries that I knew plenty of people who would love their stories of what God was doing with them in an unreached area I welcomed the small group into my home and wondered what I was going to do with enough Chicken Marsala to feed an army.
After dinner, we took our coffee into the living room and sat around to hear our missionaries tell us stories while our jaws dropped. The story that relates to this series was their call from God to get up and go to the hospital, where most patients were too poor to even get a bed inside. Many were dying of serious, late-term cancers, lying on blankets in the parking lot. He began to pray over them, and they were healed. Now it’s one thing to hear stories on podcasts, in books, or YouTube videos, but to sit directly across from a couple telling you, “We couldn’t believe it was happening, but it was!” sort of sends your mind spinning. Within weeks from that initial miracle, the Lord had practically cleared the parking lot of death, and He used these missionaries to make that happen.
What was the result? The Gospel was LISTENED TO keenly for the first time among an unreached people.
The Gospel was received by many although not all (proof that even a miracle won’t always pierce the heart of a person to surrender).
Churches were planted where there had been no church before.
The missionaries were never the same again.
So this got me thinking.
I had been a missionary in Mongolia for eight years. I prayed for many “miracles” and saw very few.
Why?
What had we missed?
Where had we gone wrong?
Why weren’t miracles showing up in Mongolia the way they were in India?
I’m almost certain you’ve heard it as well, how miracles are in abundance in some African and Asian countries but not here in the USA. Most of the time, this fact is followed up by an admonishment for our lack of faith or our sinful, distracted hearts. Although these may play a predominant part in our culture missing the miracles, Nik Ripen shares another perspective in LIE#2 in The Insanity of Obedience.
“This second lie forces us to grapple with our understanding, or misunderstanding of the miraculous: what the miraculous is, why miracles happen and whether miracles continue to happen today. ”
Nik writes:
“The Chinese House Church Movement is a story of the miraculous. Conservative estimates of believers in house churches in China begin at nearing one hundred million people. During my visits to China I have been astounded by the church growth happening in three particular church planting movements. In one location, more that 150 house church leaders were being trained. It was shocking to have them ask me,
“Is Jesus known in other countries or is He known only in China?” ”
Nik continues,
“ I began to share with them stories of believers in African and believers in America. It was exciting to watch them break out into spontaneous celebration as they were so excited that Jesus was also known in other countries! But the more I described faith, church, and practices in America the quieter they became. Suddenly, the house church leaders began to cry out:
“Why, Why God, don’t You love us like you love the believers in America? Why can we not experience the miracles that You grant to the believers in America?”
I could not believe my ears. I asked them to explain their anguish. Their experiences rivaled the stories of the apostles. Miracles of healing were common. Thousands were coming to faith in Jesus. Almost half of their pastors had served multiple years in prison for sharing their faith, and the often planted churches in those prisons! How could they possibly compare those miracles to what I had told them about America? They asked,
“Which is more miraculous?”
“That we can divide our Bibles book by book, giving each Pastor one torn-out section of Scripture or that you say that you can own dozens of Bibles, along with music, books and study materials?”
“Which is more miraculous?”
“That the Chinese are being healed by the hundreds of thousands and that maybe a thousand of them will come to discern that their healing has come from Jesus or that you have access even to Christian doctors, nurses, and health care any time you choose? ”
“Which is more miraculous?”
“That we move from house to house, meet on different days of the week and at different times during the day trying to avoid disruption of the church and arrest or that you can gather for worship all day every day and no one would ever think of arresting you or your pastor? ”
“Which is more miraculous?”
“That we view prison as our theological training ground or that you can study in special schools set aside just for believers and their training? ”
It was my turn to weep. I realized that what I had called “common” in my own country and in my own faith would be considered profoundly miraculous by most of the believing and persecuted world. In response to the second big lie, we would be wise to take special care in defining the miraculous. It is crucial that we see it, that we call it what it is, that we live in profound gratitude for all that God is doing, and that we recognize the depth of responsibility that accompanies miracles as great as these. “
~ Nik Ripken
As for that too sparsely filled living room shared with the missionaries two out of three of our extra guests were called into full-time missions in the months to follow. Perhaps those originally invited thought it was a bit risky to take up an invitation for dinner with missionaries, and maybe they were right, it might change your life forever.
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