discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 71
Churches in the West, and especially in the United States, must work
on enhancing their “receivers.” We have overworked our “transmitters.”
The arrogance reflected in one-way communication of the gospel ultimately
creates a deafness to what the Spirit is saying through other parts of the
body . . . We desperately need to assume a humble, learning posture. 22
A Global Blessing
One of the most remarkable blessings I have ever experienced in a
classroom came through a young man from China. Jon (not his real
name) had been under the tanks in the Tiananmen Square uprising.
His two companions had been killed by tank treads. Jon, however,
fell under the raised middle portion of the tank. Although his back
was torn open, he survived and escaped. Under the ministry of another
Chinese Christian, Jon heard about Jesus and accepted Him as
Savior. God called Jon into the ministry, and he enrolled at the seminary
where I taught.
Life was not easy for Jon. To pay his school bill, he worked long
hours in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. At one point, lacking
money to enroll for the following semester, Jon came to my office to
say that he would have to leave school. A few days later, I shared his
plight with a class. As we prayed for Jon, a remarkable thing happened.
Some students began to weep and pray, others confessed to
shallow spirituality. One young man said he needed to be sanctified
wholly. We gathered around him as he found victory. Revival came.
It was the most memorable day of my teaching career. God came to
bless and encourage because of the life and ministry of a young
man from China. Later, when I told Jon what had happened, he, too,
began to cry. What had seemed a trial became a triumph because
God’s people listened and received the blessing of God through
Jon’s life. We had learned that mission really is a two-way street. Revival
may come as we learn to listen to fellow Christians from
around the world. 23 —Charles Gailey
The Curse of Dependency
A Global Church 71
During the last two or three centuries, the Church has struggled with issues
of financial dependency. While Peter could say “silver or gold I do not have” to
a lame beggar (Acts 3:6), churches in more wealthy areas of the world cannot
say that today. On occasion that wealth has been more of a curse than a blessing.
Western mission organizations have set up structures that were relatively expensive
to maintain, causing national churches to struggle when they attempted
to take over those obligations. Other things that foster dependency include a