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AhrThis 10-09-126 |
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In
This Generation Looking
to the Past to Reach the Present Todd
Ahrend Colorado
Springs: Dawson Media, 2010, 336 pp. ISBN
978-1-93565-111-6 |
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Todd Ahrend is the
founder and international director of The Traveling Team, a ministry that
mobilizes college students for international missions. Todd has exposure in more than sixty
countries and has lived in the Middle East.
This book seeks to understand how to mobilize Christian students to be
World Christians. Todd studies the
leaders, the theology, the methods, and the issues of the Student Volunteer
Movement of a hundred years ago. He
draws wisdom from the past and considers the challenges of mobilizing young
people in North America today. The
book features a great deal of study and many excellent quotes. Section 1.
The Movers 1. The Story “Most
mission momentum has always come from students.” (20) Over the course of its existence, the
Student Volunteer Movement yielded approximately 20,000 missionaries plus
80,000 who stayed behind and supported those who went. (22) The S.V.M. produced more than 70% of the
missionaries from North America in its first 30 years. (23) 2. John R. Mott “Those who make history are those who submit to
the One who orchestrates it.” (26, quoting John R. Mott) 4. Luther Wishard “I have long been guided by a principle which has
served me at some important crises of my life, namely, never to move forward
until the door in front of me is open and the door behind me is closed.” (46,
quoting Luther Wishard) 5. A. T. Pierson “Every saved soul is called to be a herald and a
witness; and we are to aim at nothing less than this: to make every nation, and every creature in every nation, acquainted
with God. This is the first and
ever-present duty of the Church….” (54, quoting A. T. Pierson) Section 2 Theology 7. Salvation “We live in a completely different world where
the nations are at our door. The
result is that many Christians struggle to understand what their own personal
beliefs mean in the context of these world religions. … It is easy to say
someone is lost without Christ if they are on the other side of the ocean,
but what if they are on the other side of the lawn?” (64, 65)
“Today there are over 30 million immigrants
making up 11 percent of the total population of the U.S.” “This migration of peoples has played an
incredible role in Christian students’ understanding of salvation as they now
rub shoulders daily with people of other faiths.” (67) “Another factor that has influenced our view of
salvation is our desire to be politically correct. More and more commonly in the United
States, you are viewed as backward, ignorant, extremely arrogant, and shallow
if you hold that Christ is the only way.” (68) “A third influence is that in today’s pop culture
it is becoming in-vogue to be humanitarian. …what used to be seen as
distinctively Christian, is today done by those with no Christian motive or
understanding at all. Interestingly,
the secular world has shown more compassion than the Western Church in some
ways.” (68) Christians must choose among three
paradigms. Pluralism says the major religions are all legitimate responses
to that which is ultimately real. The story
of the blind men and the elephant illustrates this perspective. We are all after the same thing; we just
describe it differently. Nearly 2/3 of
evangelicals now support the idea of multiple paths to salvation! (74)
Inclusivism
claims that the death of Christ is necessary for salvation, but “it is
unnecessary for an individual to know personally about Christ or His cross in
order to benefit from the saving grace that He offers.” If a person is true to their own faith it
is counted as faithfulness to Christ. Exclusivism
says that explicit faith in Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation
and a person cannot be saved without an act of repentance. (See, for example, John 3:36, 2 Cor 5:18-19, Mark 16:15-16) According to this view (the author’s view),
“Those who do not have access to the message are without Christ and therefore
without hope both in this life and in the next.” (77) “In pluralism, God is nebulous as He is swallowed
up by human experience as the overarching standard of truth.” “Scripture is clear that response is
required of the hearer. The world believe is
used over sixty-five times in the gospel of John alone.’ (79) “The inevitable pitfall that many Christians will
succumb to (given that the majority of Christians are buying into pluralism
and inclusivism) is that of inactivity when it
comes to missions. Some are becoming
hostile to the idea of missions. In
light of today’s world, it is not enough to be exclusivists; we need to be engaged exclusivists.” (80) “There are three ways that today’s Christian
student must embrace an engaged exclusivist lifestyle: to be informed, be
conversant, and to be evangelistic.” (80) 8. Church Students today are devaluing and losing touch
with the local church in favor of campus ministries. “History shows us that when the local
church is doing its job there is an incredible increase in parachurch growth.” (88)
Parachurch groups are more homogenous and
action-oriented and need outside funding.
They lack the capacity for church discipline and instruction. We need better balance. 9. Truth A Barna survey
suggested that 33% of self-defined Christians agreed that the Bible, Qur’an,
and Book of Mormon teach the same truths.
The current concept of ‘truth’ is eroding students’ ability to think
systematically or logically. (97) “The growing perspective is that absolute
truth is simply nonexistent.” (101)
“Truth…is viewed as subjective and one is free to tap into emotions
and intuition to find it. …a plurality of truths can exist alongside each
other.” (102-02) “Today
on the college campus, propositional truth has taken a back seat to personal
truth.” (102) “The result is that
today spirituality is more of a consumer product instead of a collection of
consistent, reliable statements of fact.”
From this perspective truth is irrelevant to religious concerns. “This leads to a problem. Millions of Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims
oppose this overly user-friendly definition of truth in light of their
commitment to a set of propositions.
My Muslim friend would be highly offended if I told him that he and
the Buddhist are both correct. They both
adhere to their system because, in it, they believe the truth is found. The answer to conflicting truth claims is
not to rebuff the idea of absolutes, but to instead find out what those
absolutes are. Thus it is imperative
to understand that the foundation of Christianity is its claim to truth.”
(103-104) “Christianity contends that revelational
truth is intelligible, expressible in valid propositions, and universally
communicable. Christianity does not
profess to communicate a meaning that is significant only within a particular
community or culture. It expects men
of all cultures and nations to comprehend its claims about God and insists
that men everywhere ought to acknowledge and appropriate them.” (quoting Carl
F. H. Henry) “Truth is not only
absolute; it is knowable, comprehensive, and found in Scripture.” (107) Section 3.
Methods 15. Training “Every major decision you make will be faulty
until you see the whole world as God sees it.” (172, quoting Ralph Winter) 16. Prayer “The most enduring method that mobilizers of all generations can avail themselves to is prayer. It is
the only tactic with a pure, proven track record of success. If our aim is to raise
up more missionaries for the fields of the world, then prayer is indeed our
God-ordained course of action….” (176)
“The S.V.M. challenged students, ‘How many laborers have you and I
thrust out by our prayers?” (177) “Prayer and missions are as inseparable as faith
and works; in fact prayer and missions are faith and works. Jesus Christ, by precept, by command, and
by example, has shown with great clearness and force that he recognizes the
greatest need of the enterprise of worldwide evangelization to be
prayer. Before ‘give’ and before ‘go’
comes ‘pray.’ This is the divine order. Anything that reverses or alters it
inevitably leads to loss or disaster.” (179-80, quoting John R. Mott) 17. Short-Term Trips It took William Carey five months to sail to
India. A six-week mission trip would
have put William Carey about 400 yards off shore. A short-term mission trip was simply not
possible a century ago. “This is a generation of risk takers. If we can attach some purpose and meaning
to those risks—it’s almost irresistible.” (188) “One of the greatest contributors to the life
change that occurs through short-term trips takes place in intentional
debriefing. In order to fully
capitalize on this we need to proactively prepare short-termers to live more
effectively back home.” “In order for
follow-up to be effective, participants must be confronted with the question,
‘How will this short-term mission trip
alter my long-term vision for my life?’” (192) Section 4.
Issues Then and Now Ahrend identifies eight obstacles:
19. I Have No Call “Missions, in this large sense is
the response of Christian obedience to the explicit command of the risen
Lord, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature.’ That order has never been
countermanded; it determines forever the nature and the measure of the
obligation of the Church. We have no
right to hesitate in obeying it. True
obedience will not go picking and choosing its way among the commandments of
the Lord.” (214, quoting the Report of the Toronto Convention 1902) 21. The Needs at Home “Napoleon once said, ‘It is a maxim in the
military art that the army which remains in its entrenchment is beaten.’ The non-missionary Church sins against its
own best interest and is inviting defeat. A stay-at-home Christianity is not real
Christianity at all.” (239, quoting J. Ross Stevenson from The Report of the
Toronto Convention 1902) “Here’s how it works: Close-up needs such as
those in our family or home church, press in so demandingly that immediate
needs begin molding life-shaping priorities.
Certainly, the immediate needs are real and working to meet them is
entirely legitimate. But too often,
the close-up hurts and needs eclipse even greater ones an ocean away.” (244,
quoting Steve Hawthorne) 22. Indifference “…the person who doesn’t believe in taking the
message of Jesus Christ to the nations, in the end, does not believe in Jesus
Christ. ‘No interest in missions means
no interest for that particular thing for which Jesus was
content to be born and to live and to die.’” (248, quoting an address from the Student
Volunteer Movement Convention, 1898) “Mott believed the role of a pastor should
include building a world vision into the life of every member.” (251) “Students need to hear that if they love God, it
is imperative that they embrace His love for the lost of the world. Not that they feel a love for them, but
that they love the God who loves them.” (253) 24. Support Raising “Raising support is not un-biblical as much as it
is un-American. We are a very
self-sufficient society, so some inherent fears are attached to the process.”
(270) 25. Destiny of the Lost “What students believe about the afterlife is an
incredible motivator (or de-0motivator) behind how they live their life.”
(275) “Scripture is far from silent
regarding the destiny of man and eternal punishment. All men are declared sinners, children of
wrath, and held under condemnation (Romans 3:23, 5:12; Ephesians 2:3). This means there are two destinies for
mankind, one of everlasting joy in the presence of God and one of everlasting
torment apart from God (Matthew 25:41, Luke 15:10, Revelation 22:3-5).” (276) Section 5.
Moving Forward 26. Connecting the Past to the Present Many methods of mobilization are similar to the
past with the exception of the internet and mission trips. Issues, however, are different. Obstacles include huge student debt, resistance
to support raising, doubts about the destiny of the lost, doubts about
whether Christ is the only way, and doubts about truth. We are technologically much more connected
and we have many more options for service.
Motivation has moved from duty to delight, focusing more on God
receiving the worship he deserves than the fear of Hell. 27. Seven Common Principles 1.
Prayer should be specific
in order to be most effective. 2.
Keep the Bible as the
primary means of recruitment. (“From
Genesis to Revelation the question is not where
can we find missions, but where is it not?” “His desire to use people to reach the
world is unquestionable.” (294) 3.
Excuses should be logically
and Biblically disarmed. “An excuse
represents a stopping point in the student’s Christian life…. One must deal with the underlying issue of
Lordship….” (297) 4.
Diversify your methods in
order to reach the widest possible audience. 5.
Be equipped to follow up
your efforts with resources.
Mobilization must take place in the context of relationship. 6.
Mobilizers must give a long-term challenge.
This is noticeably missing today. Frequently the main challenge is to
skip a meal and remember the hungry when students are asking ‘What can I give
my life for?’ (304) Cast vision for students! 7.
Encourage all Christians to
have a role in mobilization. “A mobilizer is a normal, everyday Christian who walks with
God, yet has a global perspective and stays on the home front to rouse others
to action.” (307) The
mobilize is a key player in raising up laborers. 28. The Goal and Getting There “What do we want to mobilize
this generation to do? We are mobilizing individuals to fulfill their role in the world evangelization, …a lifestyle of being engaged with God and
engaging the nations.” (312-13) “The World
Christian goal embraces a lifetime commitment to God’s purpose.” (314)
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