Christian Leadership in
Crisis in South and South East Asia
My wife often asks me the
question what keeps me awake till late night? I often say, the mission of God or
God’s work in reaching the unreached. When some times I go to bed late night
like 2 or 3 O’clock or while I sleep only few hours per day I know it was my
desire to join with God in what He is doing. Today as I think about the
alarming need for training International Christian leaders especially in South and South East Asian countries, I am awake with this idea until I deliver the idea to my friends circle.
Do you know the fact that
there is only one formally trained Christian leader for every 450,000 people
outside of United States of America? In the 10/40 window, there are 5
million pastors who don’t have any access to any biblical training.
50,000 new churches are established every year in 10/40 window. This alarm
the need for more training and training centers in South East Asia. Now it is
more easy to train them using the new training modules designed through
Internet and information technology.
I can personally identify
with this need, when I was working with a Christian organization,
trying to reach the unreached walking on the foot, traveling by train and constantly
moving from one place to another, speaking a different languages, literature
distribution, open air preaching, I had no formal biblical training. I made lot of mistakes but I had more trust in God and dependents on God for every
need, including words on my mouth, food, shelter and even safety. I had
witnessed many people coming to know the Lord first time in their life through
our work.
When we deal with the
growing third world Christians we think they only need the outdated, irrelevant
Christian literature. We often say in the theological circle, the third world
theologians are around 20 or more years outdated than the western growing
theologians. C.S. Lewis once said; “ The
world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians
writing good literature”. Most of the challenge faced by the Christian
leadership in South East Asia is that they need to compromise themselves to
outdated and irrelevant resources.
Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan
women in John: 4: 22 says; “You worship what you do not know; we worship what
we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” Tell me, how will the 400+ million people who live in India and have never heard the gospel once, know the gospel, until someone tells them and guides them to the truth. Sometimes how we tell the truth in the postmodern framework is also relevant. I always remember when I think about reaching
the unreached and developing the native leaders in South East Asia “why every
one hear the Gospel twice before every one has heard it once. It is our
Christian responsibility to join with God in obeying HIM in going or in the
process of sending or disobeying because 97% of the unreached live in 10/40
Window.
Connect with me: binu.peniel@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment