For the second year in a row now we have greatly enjoyed The Oh Hellos Christmas Album. If there are others out there who also find themselves strangely moved by contemplative and festive indie folk music infused with biblical themes, be sure to check out this album.
A Proverb Appropriate for Christmas
The bigger your roof, the more snow it collects.
Regional Oral Tradition
Or as Uncle Ben from Spiderman so famously said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Growing influence and means necessarily come with greater responsibility, and yes, even greater problems. Too much snow and a roof that’s not strong enough can even lead to collapse. So a wise man knows the importance of a strong roof and speedy removal of the snow if it’s getting too high.
Merry Christmas to everyone who might read this post! And may your roof, literal and proverbial, not collect too much snow.
Satanists and Sovereignty
I continue to be amazed at the means by which Jesus draws his lost sheep to himself.
We have been getting to know a young believing couple. The wife is from our city and the husband of the same people group, but from the country next door. They came over last night and combined a family visit with some crucial help for me. Every time I teach or preach in the local language, I try to follow a pretty laborious method of preparation. I’ve learned the payoff in terms of clarity and language growth is worth it in spite of how time-intensive this method is. First, I study the text. Second, I write out an English manuscript. Third, I translate that manuscript on my own into own best attempt of the local language. Fourth, I invite a local believer to walk through my local language manuscript with me to iron out the different grammar mistakes and to help me achieve more indigenous phrasing. Fifth, I review the local language manuscript multiple times so that come time to teach, I’m not overly tied to it and have some freedom for spontaneous elaboration. I’m still not as free as I’d like to be when I teach in the local language, but I try to be as clear as possible.
I can’t overstate how helpful step four has been for me, reviewing my local language manuscript with local brothers. And how kind God has been to provide someone for me every single time I have taught over the last several years. Sometimes it’s come down to the wire, but God has always provided me with this kind help. The feedback has at times been hilarious (“Did you mean to say salvation donkey?”) and at other times saved me from very embarrassing mistakes (“Yeah, that’s a sexual innuendo here, please change that sentence!”). My new friend was gracious to come by last night and provide this crucial service for me and for the group of believers I’ll be teaching Christmas night. My hope in this lesson is to encourage them that just as the presence of God as Immanuel came into this world unconditionally, in the same way the presence of God remains with us believers unconditionally. It’s too easy for us believers, after being saved by grace, to think that we now must earn God’s presence and love through our good performance. And this keeps us from healing and growth and change as we pretend that we must be worthy of God’s favor by working on our sin enough or by ignoring our own brokenness. On the contrary, it is his unconditional presence with us that enables us to heal, to change, and to grow.
But I digress. The main point of this post is to share one of the more unusual ways that I’ve heard of the Spirit drawing someone to himself. Namely, by using a Satanist. My friend who helped me with my lesson was drafted into the military as a young man. Previously, he had had some religious questions. But as usual, the mullahs discouraged him from asking the hard questions of Islam. He was then placed in a military unit where his bunk-mate was a former Muslim and now practicing Satanist. Though a bit alarmed at this kind of roommate, my friend’s curiosity was piqued. Here was someone who had asked lots of hard questions and had left the religion of his birth to follow a very different path. This particular Satanist proved to be very knowledgeable in comparative religion and was the first person who explained many biblical truths and stories to my friend. But he had a particular vehement hatred of Christianity and wore an upside down cross necklace.
One day my friend asked him why he hated Christianity so much when he had grown up in Islam and had abandoned that religion. Wouldn’t it be most natural to hate the religion which you yourself rejected, not a religion of foreigners? After all, Islam claims to be an Abrahamic religion in the same line as Judaism and Christianity. His answer disturbed my friend deeply.
“We don’t worry about Islam because it’s just another religion invented by men. We hate Christianity because Jesus Christ and his power are real and he is our true enemy.”
This led to many conversations where this man was able to convincingly demonstrate his claim that Islam was just another man-made religion. Though my friend didn’t become a believer for a number of years more, he was deeply impacted by these conversations with his Satanist roommate. It gave him a deep hunger to find a Bible for himself and read it. But the fact that it was illegal made finding one quite a challenge. You can’t just go around casually asking store keepers if they are selling contraband. That’s a good way to get an appointment with the secret police. He finally found a Bible and got in contact with some local believers here in our country, coming to faith about a year and a half ago.
As I reflect on his story, I see once again how resourceful and creative the Spirit is in what he uses to draw Jesus’ lost sheep. One of my friends was deeply impacted by watching a cartoon version of Les Miserables as a child. It was the Muslim dictator’s favorite novel, so he approved some TV versions. Another saw the Jesus film on television, which a local political party was airing as a thank you for the support of the ethnic Christian minority. Yet another friend stumbled on K-Love Christian radio online and was first wowed by their production quality, and then eventually began to be moved by the message of the songs. Others even had bible-verse quoting Jesus action figures as part of their story. But a Satanist? What a strange and powerful demonstration of the Spirit’s power to use anything as part of his call. Totally sovereign. What a source of hope for those searching for Jesus’ sheep in a very broken world.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (John 10:16 ESV)
Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
A Better Shot at Seizing Heaven
Patrick devoted the last thirty years of his life – from, roughly, his late forties to his late seventies – to his warrior children, that they might “seize the everlasting kingdoms” with all the energy and intensity they had lately devoted to killing and enslaving one another and seizing one another’s kingdoms. When he used that phrase in his open letter to the British Christians, he was echoing the mysterious saying of Jesus, which seems almost to have been uttered with the Irish in mind: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” In the gospel story, the passionate, the outsized, the out-of-control have a better shot at seizing heaven than the contained, the calculating, and those of whom this world approves. Patrick, indeed, seems to have been attracted to the same kinds of oddball, off-center personalities that attracted Jesus, and this attraction alone makes him unusual in the history of churchmen.
Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, p. 123
Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash
You Need Pain Medicine? Why?
We’d like to believe that medicine is a hard science, unaffected by something so, well, unscientific as culture. In reality, culture exerts massive influence over how equally-intelligent doctors and healthcare professionals think about and practice their craft. The day my youngest was born gave us some rather unforgettable illustrations of this truth.
When my wife was pregnant with our third child we were hoping for a natural birth and planning to have the baby in our adopted Central Asian city. But very few doctors here are experienced now with natural birth and most vastly prefer C-sections. Still, we were hopeful as we planned for the birth at one of the premier private hospitals in the country. Then we found out that the cord was wrapped around the little guy’s neck. This and other unexpected developments meant we needed to change our minds in the middle of the night and prepare for a C-section. At this point they told me that I needed to go be prepared in case something went wrong in the surgery and my wife lost a lot of blood. They told me to go down to the lab with a slip of paper. At that lab I would be given a cooler full of ice. Then I would need to leave my wife alone (in stalled labor) to trek across the city with my cooler to the blood bank, pick up two units of blood from the blood bank, and bring them back to the hospital. I remember asking, “Wait, you don’t store blood here at this hospital? How can that be? What about emergencies?” They assured me the twenty-four-hour blood bank would be open (it was 3 a.m.), and no, they didn’t have any blood at the hospital. And no, they didn’t have a phone number for the blood bank.
I called up a local believer who worked as a policeman and was often awake all night. Thankfully, he came to our rescue and went to the blood bank on our behalf. Turns out the twenty-four-hour blood bank was shut down for the night. So our wonderful friend spent the night in the hospital parking lot and then went back and banged on the blood bank gate at the hour they were supposed to open. They didn’t have my wife’s blood type on hand. “Go tell them to call their relatives to come and donate the blood for them.” At this point my friend had had it and basically threatened to bring the wrath of the police down on their heads if they didn’t produce the needed blood ASAP. And somehow they were able to suddenly scrounge up one unit from somewhere. He rushed it back to the hospital and made the hand-off. I delivered the blood and worriedly told the nurse that they only had one unit. She replied with a strangely cheerful, “Well, Inshallah she won’t need it!” All I can say is, Praise God she didn’t.
Later on that day, the little guy already born through a successful C-section, the doctor paid my wife a visit. By this point, my wife was in quite a bit of pain from the surgery. She asked for some pain medicine. The doctor cocked her head and in all earnestness said, “You need pain medicine? Why?” And then prescribed a couple of Tylenol. We learned very quickly that the locals don’t really use heavy duty pain meds. In fact, they often send women home on the same day that they’ve given birth. This is super normal to them and they discharge women with their IVs still attached, who then hobble down the street and are likely buy some fresh flatbread on their way home. Our local friends and the hospital staff were quite bemused at the strange foreigners that opted to spend three nights in the hospital. “Nobody does that!” We were quite stunned ourselves both at the pain tolerance of the local mamas and the lack of any meds stronger than an ibuprofen in one of the best hospitals in the country.
We went home just as my wife started to develop severe debilitating pain in her neck. The outer layer of the spinal cord had been punctured too severely by the epidural shots and too much spinal fluid had leaked out, meaning she couldn’t sit up without incredible pain. She spent the next four or five days completely bed-ridden while I played nurse and hosted all of our local friends who had come to congratulate us and bring my wife a special post-birth recovery mash of flour, sugar, and oil.
The amazing thing about all of this is that our third-born turned out to be the most easy-going, sweet baby that we’ve had. To this day we marvel at his perceptive and kind nature (He’s a two year old now, and a cute curly-haired little ewok). Our other two were born much angrier, angstier babies. And yet he had, by far, the most traumatic birth experience of the three of them. We shrug our shoulders and attribute his easy-going nature to him being the only one to enjoy the delicious local diet while in the womb.
When it comes to the local medical system, we’ve had our fair share of shock and surprise, both in this situation, and later, when our daughter was hospitalized with new-onset type-1 diabetes. But in spite of the cultural differences, we do really thank God for the doctors and nurses in this country. There are some things we will always scratch our heads about. Sometimes we can see clearly how their culture has canceled out sound medical practice. But at the end of the day, they are a common grace from God. They’ve saved the life of one of my children and potentially of my wife and youngest as well. And to be honest, I’m sure we also have our own cultural blind-spots in the West that get in the way of good medicine.
And now I know. If local surgery is required, best to beforehand round up a crew of “relatives” with the right blood type just in case the only blood bank has run out. Forewarned is forearmed. I may still feel it is a very badly designed blood bank system, but as long as you know what to expect, even bad systems become, well, somewhat normal.
Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash
But Is Your Language Good Enough for Conflict?
In our previous city we once tried to host a reconciliation meeting in our living room. Two key families in our young church plant had fallen out with each other. So we tried to get them in the same room together with a respected believing brother who we hoped could help mediate.
We quickly learned why locals do not attempt this sort of meeting format, but rather depend on each party sharing their side separately with a “judge” who then gets them together, but only to pronounce the binding judgement. This set up prevents the angry parties from breaking out into a shouting match or a fist fight, both of which almost took place in the middle of our living room “reconciliation meeting.” The gravitas of the honorable judge figure demands they keep their peace, at least in the meeting itself. I’m not saying that the kind of reconciliation meetings where both parties get to share their side in front of one another are utterly impossible here, once believers mature in their faith. But we quickly saw that we were at that point completely unable to keep that meeting from spiraling out of control. Hard hearts and sharp words led to an almost complete disaster.
We had by that point come into the Advanced-Mid language level, the much longed-for goal of all of the first term families with our organization. But having reached that point where we were able to teach, evangelize, disciple, and befriend almost entirely in the local language, we still experienced a very frightening thing that night. Our language level was nowhere near strong enough to handle angry and arguing local believers who were right about to throw punches. We were, having supposedly “tested out,” utterly linguistically incompetent for that kind of situation. It was a sobering and humbling realization.
A few months later one of those local men embarked on a campaign of slander, half-truths, and deception against us that ended up splitting that fledgling church plant. Once again, we found our language ability woefully insufficient to keep up with this divisive man who was practically running circles around us.
Why do I share these things? Well, my wife actually inspired this post. In a meeting today she shared this story as a way to spur our team on toward pressing on in our language learning, in spite of the difficulty and cost. To do church planting work well in places like this, we simply must get to the point where we are able to navigate angry and emotional conflict language. Our experience that night was that our comprehension, usually up around eighty to ninety percent, had dropped down below twenty. And the emotion of the moment meant that our tongues and brains were stuck. We were unable to broker peace at the crucial moment. And yet as cross-cultural church planters, we absolutely need to be able to do that – and to be able to counteract the Titus 3 divisive man when he emerges. To stop proactively learning language when we get to a point like Advanced-Mid is to leave the young believers in great danger.
So, we must press on. If you have been overseas for a number of years, then you know well the toll language learning can take. It is awfully tempting to plateau, assuring ourselves that we have enough language to do fruitful ministry. Often we do have enough language to do fruitful ministry. The question is, do we have enough language to do the urgent ministry required when it all hits the proverbial fan? This is another question entirely.
Press on, weary language learners. That phrase, that verb, that idiom – it may the key to defusing a dangerous situation, to saving a church plant.
Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash
A Proverb On Not Abusing Hospitality
When you come a lot, the pot is empty.
Local Oral Tradition
In a culture where generous hospitality is expected and celebrated, some will inevitably learn to abuse the system. This proverb helps keep locals in check, helping them make sure that they are not taking advantage of others’ hospitality. If things begin to be lacking – such as the warm repeated assurances of undying welcome, or, God forbid, the food – it likely means you’ve been coming too much. Wait a while to visit again and the “pot” will once again be full and overflowing.
Photo by Rajesh Ram on Unsplash
A Song of Welcome for the Unfaithful
When I saw the title of this song, “O Come, All Ye Unfaithful,” I thought it was a typo. But just before I texted my pastor who sent out the service plan to make a joke about it, I decided I’d look it up, just in case it actually was a real song. Not only is it a real song, it’s an amazing song.
O come all you unfaithful Come weak and unstable Come know you are not alone O come barren and waiting ones Weary of praying, come See what your God has done Christ is born, Christ is born Christ is born for you O come bitter and broken Come with fears unspoken Come taste of His perfect love O come guilty and hiding ones There is no need to run See what your God has done He’s the Lamb who was given Slain for our pardon His promise is peace For those who believe So come, though you have nothing Come He is the offering Come see what your God has done
“O Come, All Ye Unfaithful” by Sovereign Grace Music
The Cow As Local Shibboleth
Shibboleth [ shib-uh-lith, ‐leth ], noun
- A peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that distinguishes a particular class or set of persons. (Dictionary.com)
A shibboleth has come to mean a type of signal, usually verbal, that betrays what group someone actually belongs to. Having spent some years in the Philadelphia, PA, area, I know that locals pronounce water as wooder and call sub sandwiches hoagies. These verbal cues betray that they have been shaped by the dialect of a particular city. My wife being originally from the Rochester, NY, area, means that she happens to add and “L” sound into the word both, pronouncing it as bolth. Arabs usually can’t say the letter “P” and instead of Pepsi, they say bibsi. And Americans have an awfully hard time with the “Q” sound of Arabic, often mispronouncing the name of the country Qatar as kataar or gutter.
The term shibboleth itself comes from the book of Judges, from one of the many tribal conflicts that takes place in that book of uniquely highlighted human depravity.
Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim. And the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.” And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell. (Judges 12:4–6 ESV)
Alas, the dialect of the Ephraimites had lost the sh sound and so their tongues gave them away when they were asked to reproduce shibboleth, the Hebrew word for ear of grain. As one who struggled even as a six-year-old to pronounce the tricky American “R” sound, I feel their pain. But I only had to go to speech class and miss my 2nd grade Thursday afternoon movie. Once their lie was exposed and they were found out to be Ephraimites, they were promptly killed.
I was surprised to hear a very similar account echoed by my Muslim neighbors here in our corner of Central Asia. Our region, like many tribal and mountainous areas worldwide, has many diverse dialects. These dialects are supposedly all part of the same language (though linguists debate at what point a dialect becomes its own language). The dialect of our new city is surprisingly different from the dialect of our previous city, for being geographically as close as they are. We are currently in the throes of learning a whole new set of vocab that we thought we had already mastered. Turns out many of the words that are commonplace in our previous city are just not used here, and vice versa. I’m talking about words you use every day like spoon, nose, neighbor, y’all, and cow. Well, maybe we don’t use cow every day, but it would have been a word used daily until the very recent past. But the term for cow used in our city and our previous city are as different as the English words mail and saunter. In other words, there is no connection between them whatsoever.
Not too long ago there was a civil war between these two cities and they unknowingly performed a live-action remake of Judges 12. As they say, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But instead using shibboleth as a shibboleth, they used the words for cow instead. When someone was caught at a checkpoint professing to be a friendly member of the soldiers’ side, they were put to a linguistic test.
“Say cow.”
Their answer, at least until word got out, determined their fate. Their chosen word for cow, of all things, was the difference between life and death. Though civil war is always tragic, locals do find humor in this tale of their recent conflict. It seems to somehow appropriately highlight the absurdity of conflicts that really boil down to the basic competition between two tribes, and nothing deeper than that. “It was a stupid war,” locals will say. “To this day we really don’t know why it even happened.”
Stupid and inexplicable. Like most human conflict. In the new heavens and new earth, if we still have shibboleths, I’m sure they’ll only be used for fun. “So, you’re a Philly boy, eh? I caught that usage of wooder.” Thankfully, the age where shibboleths are used for evil will then have finally passed away.
Photo by Hilde Demeester on Unsplash
The Importance of an Inclusive Focus
If you have been called, sent, trained, and deployed to reach a certain people group on the mission field, how exclusive should you be in your focus? How many things should you make a commitment NOT to do so that you can achieve your aim?
There’s one phrase I keep finding myself saying as a team leader, “It’s an inclusive focus, not an exclusive one.”
When it comes to language learning, strategy, and teaming together, I find many are wanting to draw hard lines beyond what I’m actually asking for – and beyond what the Scriptures are asking for. The default often seems an embrace of an either/or mindset, rather than an steady emphasis on one thing wisely paired with an openness to the unexpected opportunities the Spirit might bring.
“If our goal is to share the gospel in the local language, we shouldn’t share the gospel in English, right?”
No, while we push to get to gospel fluency in our focus language, by all means share the gospel in whichever language is most effective for clarity and for that person!
“If our goal is to plant healthy churches among this people group, should I turn down my neighbor from that other people group if he wants to study the Bible with me?”
No, while the majority of our time needs to be focused on the people group we have been called to reach, let’s not use that calling as an excuse to not extend basic Christian love and discipleship to others that are open around us. Who knows? Maybe that unexpected person will be the key to breakthrough among our focus group. If there’s no partner who can study the Bible with that person, then you are the one who should do it.
“If I’m focused primarily on our house-church planting strategy, that means I shouldn’t mix with the international-church strategy people, right?”
No, cross-pollination and the visible unity of believers bring far greater benefits that outweigh the possible costs of mixing with likeminded believers who have a slightly different strategic focus. We need many faithful strategies to reach our city, and we need to be fluent in as many of them as possible. We need relationships of trust with those involved in different strategies as we will very likely need to lean on one another in the future – especially if the work really takes off.
“Because we are supposed to be devoting our time to language learning, evangelism, discipleship, and church planting, I really shouldn’t invest time in that life-giving hobby of mine, right?”
Once again, no. If playing the piano, rock climbing, or blogging (!) are life-giving for you, you’d better invest in that. These kinds of things are important for our wholeness and flourishing on the field. God has made us to do more than ministry – to create, to play, and to rest. We need to trust him as we invest in those things, especially when we can’t see any immediate ministry payoff.
In my experience, many default to an exclusive focus mindset and would not agree with my positions on the above questions. I believe this often comes from fear. If I don’t draw these hard lines, how am I to be protected from the dreaded mission drift? Well, mission drift is a real danger. It’s important that we regularly assess ourselves to make sure that we are primarily focused on the things we are supposed to be primarily focused on. That’s what team vision, meetings, regular rhythms, and goals are for. And yet the unintentional effects of an overly exclusive focus are often a lack of openness to what the Spirit might be doing in our context and frustrated colleagues who feel their consciences are being bound. Not to mention the fractured relationships and lamentable absence of healthy unity among likeminded groups on the field.
Far better that we embrace a posture of inclusive focus. We can learn that target language and freely share in English (or any other tongue) when we need to. We can labor to reach our focus people group and still find ways to serve the open among other people groups. We can focus on the strategy that we think will be most effective and still find healthy ways to partner with other strategies. We can still be faithful missionaries and pursue some life-giving hobbies for the good of our souls.
I think my greatest worry with an exclusive focus mindset is the assumption that we know the details of how the Spirit is going to bring awakening in our particular context. Don’t get me wrong. We know the main plan – Share the gospel, make disciples, plant churches, put it on repeat. He has been abundantly clear on that front and we don’t need to question “his heart for this land” in that regard. But why are we so cock-sure that we know the will of the Spirit in the minute details of lifestyle, strategy, and contextualization which are not made clear in scripture?
Given the unexpected ways the Spirit moves, it seems far wiser to embrace an inclusive focus posture. Be about learning your target language. Devote the bulk of your time to your people group and your strategy. But not exclusively. Rather, be about these things with an openness that acknowledges our own blind-spots, limitations, and inability to predict where the lightning of the Spirit will strike next – and that our particular work is not the only thing the Spirit is doing in our context.
Let’s make our plans with great intentionality and wisdom. And yet regardless of what missiology says, if the Scriptures have not made certain things a law, then please let us also not make them laws. Let us instead hold our focus intentionally and loosely, and not let it close us off to the unexpected work of the Holy Spirit.
Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash
Entrusted to the Dirt 