I recently attended the Urbana Missions conference in St. Louis. This conference
is so large that it only happens every three years. More than twenty-two thousand
students gathered to learn more about what God is doing in this world, especially
regarding missions. Many prominent speakers enlightened us as to what our great
God is up to. One of the speakers was Oscar Muriu, senior pastor of a 3,000-plus
congregation, Nairobi Chapel, in Kenya.
Oscar shared some astounding statistics with us Urbana students. For example, there
are more missionaries from the 3rd world than from the Western church, and while
the African church gains 230,000 converts a day, the Western Church loses 6,000
church members a day. When he shared this, my heart was upset with the Western
church that has so absorbed culture that it has lost its prophetic voice and yet
overjoyed that the number of our brothers and sisters is growing phenomenally in
Africa. Oscar shared many other potent points, but what I will focus on is his reading
of 1 Corinthians 12:14-27.
All my life when I have read this passage, I have thought of the body of Christ being
those who participate in a particular church building. Some are administrators, some
are great singers, some are gifted teachers…but the cohesiveness and use of our
gifts strictly applied to the church building where we were members. The Holy Spirit
through Oscar convicted me.
God’s vision is far greater than just a single church building. For heaven’s sake,
the Church is the body of Christ, not a church building. The Church is God’s people
in community with each other, and that encompasses the global church, not just our
little corner on Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet. Oscar rewrote the 1 Corinthians
passage like this:
“Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the American
Church should say, ‘Because I am not African, I do not belong to the body,’
it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the Canadian
Church should say, ‘Because I am not Asian, I do not belong to the body,’ it
would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were
European, where would the sense of joy be? If the whole body were African,
where would the sense of organization be? But in fact God has arranged the
parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many
parts, but one body. The Canadian Church cannot say to the Asian Church,
‘I don’t need you!’ And the American Church cannot say to the African Church,
‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those Asian parts of the body that seem
to be weaker are indispensable, and the African parts that we think are less
honorable we treat with special honor. And the Latin American parts that are
unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable big
American Church needs no special treatment.
But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor
to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body,
but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers,
every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now
you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
As we mature as Christians and as a church, our goal is never independence, but
interdependence among the global church. America is the third largest mission field
today; it is the third largest pagan country in the world after China and India. While
the West is concerned with evangelizing the peoples of North Africa, Mideast and
Southeast Asia, the African church is concerned with going back to its old colonial
masters. Mission agendas are being rewritten. This concept is called reverse
missions. The African Church will always be dependent on the American church,
but as the body we must build up reciprocity. Every organ gives and takes.
This re-reading of scripture has changed the way I think about our individual church
and the church as a whole body. In fact, I’m disinclined to think of our little St. Andrews
body, or the church I attend in Waco, as a single entity in the world. We are a body,
a network, which needs to pray for each other, be in community with each other,
and
share among each other. In unity, the body of Christ is a force to be reckoned with,
with Jesus Christ our Lord at the head, and all authority in heaven and earth under
his
feet.
Check out http://www.urbana.org/u2006.session.info.cfm?session=3 to
listen to Oscar’s full talk, called The Global Church. Also, you can check out the many
other
messages from other speakers, who were all amazing, at:
http://www.urbana.org/u2006.webcast.cfm, on the right hand side of the page.
