Recently I caught up with a veteran Asian “missionary” for a chat. This veteran has been serving in many different Asian countries for almost 50 years. We were discussing the need to contextualize our missions’ efforts in Asia – especially in anti-Christian countries. And I was encouraged to hear that many Asian Christians are now realizing the importance of applying Bible principles rather than importing Christian practices and traditions from the West.
However, one statement that this veteran said caught my attention. He said that a group of Asian converts were remarking that “the church goes into a building on Sunday.” I was so caught up with this statement that I missed out the details of the incident.
Firstly, I was so amazed that this group of new believers clearly understood that the church is people, not a building. Though this truth is so clear in the Bible, our minds have been so corrupted by Western church tradition to believe that the church is a building. Most of us will say that “we go to church on Sunday.”
Secondly, I realized that most Asians (including those we despise as pagans) believe that there is no separation between the material world and the spiritual world. Therefore, to them there is no need to go to a building to worship God since He is everywhere. Again this truth is so clear in the Bible (Psalm 139:7-10) but we have been contaminated by the Western idea that God can be “analysed and classified” and the world can be neatly “divided” into material and spiritual realms. Most of us effectively “lock” God up in the church-building and we go on Sunday to meet Him. And for the rest of the week, we live as atheists!
We went on to discuss how most of today’s missionaries are sent out to plant churches (ie, buildings for people to go to worship) rather than obey the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
Please pray that we will learn to obey God’s Word from this group of new Asian Christians!
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The shock of everything is now starting to sink in and the dust is starting to settle some.
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That’s provided everyone is as mature as these new converts who are raring to go to share the Gospel after hearing it. It will definitely be the illustration quoted by our pastor 2 wekks ago on soul winning