Dear Abby;
A national co-worker of mine feels called by God as an evangelist. He is uneducated, but feels that he is an evangelist, and his peers agree. He has 20 years of fruit and acceptance by most of the regions' local Christians to back him up.
His present church - which he started - supports him and now he is striking out and working on other church plants. He is uneducated, unordained, but leads a team of people who have -humanly speaking - been the instrument by which over 30 former Religion of Peace-ers have come to the Lord.
He is called the "manager" and runs businesses to get into areas where, otherwise, he would be rejected. His lack of theological training makes people un-suspicious of him.
His group do not have legal permission to gather and once a group gets too big to escape notice he looks for a nearby legal church to adopt them into and thus the group becomes a branch of the legal church - to avoid persecution.
In total there are 3 churches being planted and several prayer groups that are gaining followers. Some are led by women evangelists because we keep trying to recruit male pastors but these keep backing away at the first threat of mob action.
During some of the times of teaching (done on a mat on the floor in the garage or homes that serve as churches) the believers take communion together. This communion does not seem to be administered by any one person but passed around by all the team members to the new beleivers (congregants). New believers often undergo a lag time before being baptized (often due to fear and often due to logistics...the secret place to baptize them in the mountains is 3 hours drive away). And sometimes they take communion after they profess faith but before they are baptized.
Sometimes they do not even meet at the same place, but change locations to worship ("how about your house next Sunday?")
There is also significant lay-person involvement and some churches almost seem to "spontanously generate" due to the Word of God spreading throughout isolated areas totally dominated by the Religion of Peace. Some even seek after Christians due to dreams of the Prophet Isa coming to them, and others seek out Jesus after even reading Surat 3 and reflecting upon it.
These believers are often from poorer classes, but they seem to have a solid understanding of the basics.
This unordained man and two female evangelists work together and do not call themselves a church but a church-planting team, called by God to plant other churches. There are several ordained pastors that help as well, but they seem to lack the boldness that these three main members exercise. During baptisms, the team invites an ordained pastor to assist and do the baptizing.
Sincerely,
Mr. Pragmatist;
A national co-worker of mine feels called by God as an evangelist. He is uneducated, but feels that he is an evangelist, and his peers agree. He has 20 years of fruit and acceptance by most of the regions' local Christians to back him up.
His present church - which he started - supports him and now he is striking out and working on other church plants. He is uneducated, unordained, but leads a team of people who have -humanly speaking - been the instrument by which over 30 former Religion of Peace-ers have come to the Lord.
He is called the "manager" and runs businesses to get into areas where, otherwise, he would be rejected. His lack of theological training makes people un-suspicious of him.
His group do not have legal permission to gather and once a group gets too big to escape notice he looks for a nearby legal church to adopt them into and thus the group becomes a branch of the legal church - to avoid persecution.
In total there are 3 churches being planted and several prayer groups that are gaining followers. Some are led by women evangelists because we keep trying to recruit male pastors but these keep backing away at the first threat of mob action.
During some of the times of teaching (done on a mat on the floor in the garage or homes that serve as churches) the believers take communion together. This communion does not seem to be administered by any one person but passed around by all the team members to the new beleivers (congregants). New believers often undergo a lag time before being baptized (often due to fear and often due to logistics...the secret place to baptize them in the mountains is 3 hours drive away). And sometimes they take communion after they profess faith but before they are baptized.
Sometimes they do not even meet at the same place, but change locations to worship ("how about your house next Sunday?")
There is also significant lay-person involvement and some churches almost seem to "spontanously generate" due to the Word of God spreading throughout isolated areas totally dominated by the Religion of Peace. Some even seek after Christians due to dreams of the Prophet Isa coming to them, and others seek out Jesus after even reading Surat 3 and reflecting upon it.
These believers are often from poorer classes, but they seem to have a solid understanding of the basics.
This unordained man and two female evangelists work together and do not call themselves a church but a church-planting team, called by God to plant other churches. There are several ordained pastors that help as well, but they seem to lack the boldness that these three main members exercise. During baptisms, the team invites an ordained pastor to assist and do the baptizing.
- This all seems to "un-reformed" - what do I do?
- Do I halt the progress I see and convince them to do things right?
- How right do they need to be before I vigorously support them?
- How wrong do their doctrines and practices need to be before I warn them and break company with them?
- What is a strategy for improvment on these efforts? How do I make these efforts more Reformed?
- As a friend and advisor, how much should I push them and.or tolerate things not to my liking. After all, I am a foreigner -how much should I try to make their decisions for them? Besides advice, how much should I push to improve their efforts? How much of my role is assistance and how much of if is to take charge?
Sincerely,
Mr. Pragmatist;
