NTM

While we are in orientation here, one of our biggest thrills is to meet fellow missionaries coming out of the bush for some break here in HQ.  We’ve treasured the time to pick their brains about bush living, church planting and different aspects of tribal ministry.  We had a family over for lunch the other day and I asked them about some of the oppositions and tensions in their village.  This particular tribal location has a vibrant growing church…at the same time, there is a sizable opposition group.  The believers and the missionaries have been verbally challenged and physically threatened.  We asked them how they are doing in the midst of these issues.

They replied…”you know, a little persecution is good for the church.  It has helped the faith of our guys to grow stronger.  Having opposition means you are doing something right.”

Persecution in the early church is as common as Chris Tomlin’s songs in our church today.  Every book in the New Testament was written in the midst of heavy persecution.  We as church planters teach the tribal believers to model after the early church.  Isn’t it amazing that persecutions actually affirmed to the tribal believers that what they have believed is true!  Jesus said to his followers in Matthew 10:17, “all men will hate you because of me”.

When was the last time we heard “persecution” as an element in a church planting model?  I’ve been through numerous church meetings…I never once talked about “persecution” as an agenda item.  I imagine if some day…some kind of “persecution” hits our church back home…I’ll probably be calling emergency elders meetings, forming crisis church task force,  organizing prayer meetings so that God will  remove the hardship.   It just dawned on me over lunch that day that God’s plan is a little different than ours.  Now, I am not saying we somehow need to intentionally look for hardship or persecution…we should thank God for the freedom we have to worship Him.  But you know what?  My heart longs for the day when I’ll be able to sit down with my tribal brothers and sisters…and I’d be the learner, they’d be the teacher and just listen to their unique faith experience and glean from it.

Romans 5:3-5 sure rings true, doesn’t it?

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 9:53 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.