Our Very Dear Friends and Family and Barnabas Group Leaders, now also receiving this communication,
Thank you so much to so many of you who have responded to my letter written from Hyrax Cabin on the Kariege River in the Eastern Cape. I do try to respond personally to these letters as I am able, but in the nature of things I don’t always get to reply to all. If by any chance you have written to me, and I have not personally acknowledged or responded, please receive apologies, get your mercy machinery going and excuse my oversights! But also know that it is such a joy and delight to hear from so many from all over the world who are praying for Carol and me, also for the African Enterprise ministry, plus the Lord’s work in Africa and so on.
Courageous Humans, Nature’s God and the Fourth Person
Today is a good day because it is Valentine’s Day, and Carol and I have a Valentine dinner date tonight, and have exchanged cards and gifts with each other. I didn’t however give Carol one Valentine message which said:
“I’ll walk the deserts of Palestine,
I’ll drink a bottle of Turpentine,
I’ll even sit on a Porcupine,
If only you’ll be my Valentine!”
Carol’s gift to me was a wonderful set of seven or eight books on the Antarctic which she picked up at a second hand bookshop for R150! They are absolute jewels and I have reveled in these last few days in reading Ernest Shackleton’s South, the story of his 1914-1916 ill-fated journey, which though at one level a failure in terms of achieving objectives, was one of the most historic and exciting success stories in terms of the human spirit and monumental human courage, as well as an interesting spiritual principle.
It was early January 1915 when his ship The Endurance stuck in ice in the Weddell Sea and they floated on a vast ice floe a distance of 560km in the next 16 months before finally being able to take to the lifeboats and get to the famous Elephant Island. The rescue voyage of Shackleton and five other men in the little lifeboat James Caird (see pic below) as they sailed 1,300 km to South Georgia, being buffeted by mountainous waves and gales and beneath cloud cover which made navigation monumentally difficult, is one of the great adventure stories of all time. Their desperate venture succeeded, but landed them on the wrong side of South Georgia so that Shackleton and two others had to take a never-before-done journey over the glaciers and mountains of South Georgia over to the other side and down to the Stromness Whaling Station. A staggering saga.
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| Adventurer James Caird leaving Elephant Island |
Anyway, I wanted to encourage you, if you are in any storms or valleys, with the moving statement Shackleton made in the following terms: “When I look back at those days I do not doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but also across the stormy White Sea which separated Elephant Island from our landing place on South Georgia. I know that during that long march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it often seemed to me that we were four, not three. And Worsley and Crean had the same idea.” Later Thomas Crean, one of the threesome, wrote simply to a friend: “The Lord brought us home.”
This affirmation is so reminiscent of the experience of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 9:24 reported the king as “astonished” and saying to his counselors “did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered the king, “true, oh king” he answered “but I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Is not then our Lord Jesus the same, yesterday, today and forever, whether with Daniel’s three friends or with Shackleton and his colleagues, or with us now. Jesus still walks with us. Shackleton also added: “We had pierced the veneer of outside things. We had seen God in His splendours, we had heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.”
Anyway, I must also report that I had a very happy experience, for which I believe a number of people prayed, when I made my Antarctic presentation to a full Hilton College Theatre with nearly 500 people present on the evening of Saturday, February 5th. I so enjoyed telling of the early explorers and showing the splendours of the Lord’s work in Nature and then moving from Nature to Nature’s God and on into the biblical world view of our Lord Jesus being indeed the Agent of that creation. “Without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). “All things were made through Him and for Him… and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).
Oh, wow! It is so exciting to grasp.
The Blessings of God
Still in the arena of books, I told you last time the wonderful adventure I had in Gordon MacDonald’s book entitled The Life God Blesses. With that principle much in mind, I have been thinking since the beginning of the year of what it takes for God’s blessing and Hand to descend not just on individuals but on Christian organizations, congregations, local churches, or even denominations.
I have especially been taken up with Ezra, Nehemiah and the book of Revelation.
Thus the Ezra text can report how: “The king granted (Ezra) all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was upon him.” Then at 7:28 Ezra says: “I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was upon me.” 8:31 says: “The hand of our God was upon us and He delivered us.” If you look up Ezra and Nehemiah you will find this endlessly repeated. The hand of God was the central factor.
But what brings the hand of God upon a person or a group of people? Sandwiched in the middle of the text we get some clues. Thus at 7:10: “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Clearly one of the prerequisites for the hand of God upon a person or a group of people is that their hearts are set to be students of the Word of God, and obey it, and teach its statutes and ordinances faithfully. The spiritual heart that produces this is obviously critically important.
Then chapter 9:22 notes: “The hand of our God is for good upon all that seek Him, and the power of His wrath is against all that forsake Him.” So seeking the Lord and not forsaking Him is another critical factor.
Prayerfulness and spiritual earnestness are likewise vital and we find it as Nehemiah prays: “Let thy ear be attentive, and thy eyes open to hear the prayer of thy servant which I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel thy servants” (Nehemiah 1:6). Nehemiah also took sin and the confession of it extremely seriously: “We have acted very corruptly against thee, and have not kept thy commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which thou dids’t command thy servant Moses” (Nehemiah 1:7).
I have also recently been looking again at the Lord’s letters to the Seven Churches in the book of Revelation. Here one sees again very clearly how the Lord views different types of sin in the ranks of His people. Thus the church in Ephesus is accused in these terms: “You have forsaken your first love… If you do not repent I will come to you and remove your lamp-stand from its place” (Revelation 2:4-5). It is a terrifying thought that God can remove the lamp-stand from a church or organization that does not truly and sincerely love Him with the passion of spiritual first love.
Or take again the church in Pergamum whose problem was false teaching (Revelation 2:14, 15). “Repent therefore!” (Verse 16). For the church in Thyatira the problem was “sexual immorality” (Revelation 2:20). All over Africa in Christian churches, organisations and assorted denominations, there is sexual immorality, dishonesty, corruption and failures of integrity. The Lord comments: “I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering” (vs. 21-22). To be honest, I find this scary stuff for all of us, whoever or wherever we are in the congregational, organizational or denominational scheme of things.
Then you have the church in Sardis which has “a reputation of being alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1). This sort of thing one sees everywhere. Adds the Lord: “I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent” (vs 3).
The Lord’s only strong affirmation comes on the church in Philadelphia which is told: “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my Word and have not denied my Name” (3:8). They are also commended in verse 10 for keeping the Lord’s commandments and enduring patiently.
And of course the final warning to the church in Laodicea is one we all need when the Lord rebukes them for being “lukewarm – neither hot nor cold.” To such He says: “I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Then a devastating indictment on spiritual self-satisfaction when the Lord says: “You say, ‘I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.’”
Personally I find these challenges very instructive and deeply challenging in terms of the church’s witness in Africa and South Africa at this time. Our God is not One we can trifle with. And no one, and no group, is immune from His judgement. Yet what blessings are promised in these Revelation letters if we will obey and follow the Lord truly, being faithful to His Word, teaching according to biblical principle and refraining from immorality, dishonesty or corruption!
While in the States last year I attended Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, an awesome congregation our U.S. family (Cath, Jonathan and kids) attend. I was very struck that Sunday by the Prayer of Confession in the bulletin which I cut out and pasted into the daily section of my own prayer diary for regular personal use. This is how it reads. Each of us can apply it to our own groupings:
“Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgement. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image; through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.”
Barnabas Groups
When I launched the Barnabas groups last year, I chose the name Barnabas (Son of Encouragement in the New Testament) because I wanted to meet younger leaders around the country whom I could encourage and whom I knew would encourage me. And certainly the highlight for me this year has been the encouragement and blessings I have personally received from the Barnabas groups, regardless of what input I may have been able to make to them. Thus for example it was wonderful the other day to have lunch at AE with Mrs Tracey Olivier, Founder of the Kingdom Business Network. An extraordinary younger leader. I was so blessed to hear her tell how our first session on our love for the Lord and our devotional life had led to a revolution in that department for her and her husband. She has also been teaching in assorted groups what I gave to them. This is the 2 Timothy 2:2 principle which I have tried to operate in selecting people for these groups. You remember how Paul says: “The things which you have heard from me, the same commit to faithful people who will teach others also.” This is multiplication and chain reaction.
Then on a day when I was beset with a number of serious challenges a grand word came in from Siyabulelo Nana, a young man in East London who had been in our first Port Elizabeth group. He told about the strong growth in his own devotional life, and that of his wife, and then added: “The Lord’s Prayer is one of the biblical model prayers which you have encouraged us to put into service, to pray it regularly and sincerely. You told us that the Lord’s Prayer is our prayer therefore we must pray it both with our families and alone in our quiet times. Thanks for that exhortation. Then I started to pray the Lord’s Prayer using Professor Dallas Willard’s version which you gave us. ….I also had the privilege of preaching on the Lord’s Prayer on January 31st and my next opportunity to preach it is on the 13th February.”
He then told of other books he is now reading on the Lord’s Prayer and how he is teaching through it in a small group of 30 people. He had also been listening to my five DVDs on prayer which I delivered at the New Wine Conference in Sligo, Ireland back in July. He shares too how he has begun to engage in spiritual warfare using a wonderful prayer of Derek Prince which I gave them all and which Carol and I have used on and off pretty regularly, and which I have now reintroduced into my daily scheme of things. Finally, Siyabulelo told us how he has got an East London group ready which is “looking good.” He says: “All the individuals I have approached are positive and excited, even more so with the notion of your availability to them and giving input into their lives.” Finally he is setting up for me to preach to the pastors fraternal in East London and then in a couple of churches. He has also been studying my little theological book entitled Getting to the Heart of Things and has latched onto the chapter on The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.
I only share all this because I know many of you in different places around the world have been praying for these Barnabas groups and I want to tell you that the Lord is answering prayer. Thank you so much. Don’t stop. Then just today I heard from Juliet Calcott out of the Pretoria group and she said that the night after the first group “I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep. The best word I can think of is ‘reignited.’”
So others of you out there in the Barnabas groups, I just want to say thank you. You have all done already so much more in my own life than I could ever do in yours. I bless you all in Jesus Name.
Lausanne Congress
At the end of last year I was doing a series of reports on the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation held in October in Cape Town last year. You will remember how some 4 000 leaders from almost 200 countries came together to look at the challenges of mission and evangelism in our world at this time.
The first part of The Cape Town Commitment dealt with the theological side of things, and I touched a bit on that in those first few reports. (Incidentally, if you want to read up more on the Lausanne Congress please go to their website which is www.lausanne.org) Then the second part of The Cape Town Commitment is a call to action. So what I want to do now is give you a few quotes out of this section and I will keep doing that for a while in each of my forthcoming prayer letters.
I. Truth and the Person of Christ
Jesus Christ is the truth of the universe. Because Jesus is truth, truth in Christ is (i) personal as well as propositional; (ii) universal as well as contextual; (iii) ultimate as well as present.
As disciples of Christ we are called to be people of truth.
a. We must live the truth. To live the truth is to be the face of Jesus, through whom the glory of the gospel is revealed to blinded minds. People will see truth in the faces of those who live their lives for Jesus, in faithfulness and love.
b. We must proclaim the truth. Spoken proclamation of the truth of the gospel remains paramount in our mission. This cannot be separated from living out the truth. Works and words must go together.
II. Truth and the challenge of pluralism
Cultural and religious plurality is a fact and Christians in Asia, for example, have lived with it for centuries. Different religions each affirm that theirs is the way of truth. Most will seek to respect competing truth claims of other faiths and live alongside them. However postmodern, relativist pluralism is different. Its ideology allows for no absolute or universal truth. While tolerating truth claims, it views them as no more than cultural constructs. (This position is logically self-destroying for it affirms as a single absolute truth that there is no single absolute truth.) Such pluralism asserts tolerance as an ultimate value, but it can take oppressive forms in countries where secularism or aggressive atheism govern the public arena.
We long therefore to see greater commitment to the hard work of robust apologetics. This must be at two levels.
a. We need to identify, equip and pray for those who can engage at the highest intellectual and public level in arguing for and defending biblical truth in the public arena.
b. We urge Church leaders and pastors to equip all believers with the courage and the tools to relate the truth with prophetic relevance to everyday public conversation, and so to engage every aspect of the culture we live in.
III. Truth and the workplace
The Bible shows us God’s truth about human work as part of God’s good purpose in creation. The Bible brings the whole of our working lives within the sphere of ministry, as we serve God in different callings. By contrast, the falsehood of a ‘sacred-secular divide’ has permeated the Church’s thinking and action. This divide tells us that religious activity belongs to God, whereas other activity does not. Most Christians spend most of their time in work which they may think has little spiritual value (so-called secular work). But God is Lord of all of life. ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,’ said Paul, to slaves in the pagan workplace. In spite of the enormous evangelistic and transformational opportunity of the workplace, where adult Christians have most relationships with non-Christians, few churches have the vision to equip their people to seize this. We have failed to regard work in itself as biblically and intrinsically significant, as we have failed to bring the whole of life under the Lordship of Christ.
a) We name this secular-sacred divide as a major obstacle to the mobilization of all God’s people in the mission of God, and we call upon Christians worldwide to reject its unbiblical assumptions and resist its damaging effects. We challenge the tendency to see ministry and mission (local and cross-cultural) as being mainly the work of church-paid ministers and missionaries, who are a tiny percentage of the whole body of Christ.
b) We encourage all believers to accept and affirm their own daily ministry and mission as being wherever God has called them to work. We challenge pastors and church leaders to support people in such ministry– in the community and in the workplace – ‘to equip the saints for works of service [ministry]’ (Ephesians 4:12) - in every part of their lives.
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Well, friends, that’s your little bit of extract from The Cape Town Commitment for this letter. The full text is on the website. Do look it up. Anyway, please study these few paragraphs and seek to absorb and apply them wherever you are.
AE International Board
Next week in Johannesburg on Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd February our AE International Board meets. There are some very critical issues in purview relating to our forward movement as a ministry and it’s a long time since I felt we had a more strategic and critically important IB. May I ask for extra special prayer from discerning believers that we would know the Lord’s clear calling and purposes and people for the forward movement of this ministry at this time. I know you won’t fail us in this regard. This is a particularly important and pressing prayer request which comes from my heart to yours wherever you are. Especially pray wisdom for Steve Lungu, our International Team Leader, and Jonathan Addison (Australia), our Chairman.
Fun and Lessons in India
Carol and I are overwhelmed with the wonderful invitation from our son-in-law Gary Kirsten and our daughter Debbie to go and be with them in India for a couple of really fun weeks of the Cricket World Cup. We will move around for those days with Debs and Gary and the Indian team, Gary being its Coach as most of you would know. It will be very, very special indeed. Wow, imagine a breakfast with Sachin Tendulkar or M S Dhoni! We would certainly jump at that provided there wasn’t too much curry powder in the porridge!
In the early part of this adventure, and in a gap time between a couple of games, Carol and I are going to shoot up to Kathmandu in Nepal on Tuesday March 1st and on Wednesday 2nd, Lord willing, with the Lord hopefully sweeping away all clouds, (remember to pray for it!) we are going to fly out and see Mount Everest. Carol may parachute down to Base Camp and I will try in my next letter to have a picture for you of her going up the North Face of Everest pulling herself from one crag to another with one of her crutches! “Go girl, go! I am praying for you!,” I will shout to her from the plane.
We will also for two days be in Pokhara close to the Annapurna Himalayan range and to the mind-bending Annapurna Mountain peak itself. We will be meeting missionaries in Nepal and other Christian leaders in other parts of India where we go. I am very eager to continue my learning adventure of lessons from the Indian church which has so much to teach us. My time there in June 2008 with a couple of AE colleagues was life-changing.
We get back to South Africa in the third week of March. I am preaching on the 20th to the Methodists at Metro Church Pietermaritzburg, followed by a week of writing, then Hilton Baptist Church on the 27th. Then more Barnabas groups in Cape Town, (30th March), in George (31st March), PE, (1st April) and maybe East London on the 2nd.
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Carol’s Health
Your prayers for this mean so much to us. However, in the last year or so, amongst her assorted health struggles, Carol has had a 37% blockage developing in an artery on the right side of her neck. This has been a cause of concern for us. But Carol has very specially laid hold on the Lord in prayer for this. Earlier this week when she went for a checkup, the doctor was amazed to report that this blockage had gone and she was basically normal. Other aspects of the whole checkup were very encouraging as well. Praise God for His goodness.
That’s it for now, dear friends. It rejoices our hearts to know that you will be praying for us in these days and especially lifting African Enterprise to the Lord as we face some major issues of personnel, mission strategy, and the rolling out of our so-called Global Change Project.
And just remember wherever you are, and whatever is happening to you in terms of storms or valleys, as Shackleton, Crean and Worsley, as well as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo, reminded us, the Fourth Person is always there.
Loving greetings from Carol and all possible blessings on each one of you,
Michael
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