Training Disciples for Outreach Ministries

Church and School in Partnership: Training Disciples for Outreach Ministries

Johann Matties, MB Mission European Mission Development

Church, school, mission – what is most important in the Kingdom of God? To me this is not a ”chicken and egg” debate to find out what presupposes what. I trust this the following is our shared conviction: God is all in all, bigger than the universe. His primary agent on Earth is the church, the visible community of God, the bride of Christ, the revelation of God’s power and wisdom to the visible and invisible world, the recipient of every promise and blessing, heir of the Kingdom.

The school is an instrument of the church. So are outreach ministries. But we are not talking about a linear projection, beginning from the church as center, when we list church, school, and missions in this particular order. Truth is - we deal with a circle! Please allow me to illustrate.

In Ephesians 4:11 we read that “it was he (Jesus) who gave some to be apostles.” In the words of our theme, it was Jesus who gave some to be involved in outreach ministries. The apostolic ministry is one rooted in the church but operating outside of it, beyond it. An apostle is someone, who is a ground breaker, who sees opportunities where the church has never gone before. In our own organizational values we at MB Mission also talk about risk taking obedience as a mark of missions. (Illustration: New MB Mission in Paris, France).

Peter Kuzmich, a theologian and seminary president from Croatia, once said (and I translate from a German translation) “Hope is the ability to hear the melody of the future. Faith is the capacity to dance to that music.” In line with this claim mission in turn is, when you pack your family and travel across countries and cultures to a party no one is organizing and you have received no invitation too.

The question arises: Can any of the capabilities above be taught? In church? In school? Can we plant churches, grow disciples, have them bear fruit, fruit that will last?

1 Cor 3:7 (NIV) we read a sobering observation: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” During my studies in the Fresno MBBSeminary I invited an Iranian friend from a charismatic church to be part of my ministry discernment committee. He at first did not understand the purpose of the exercise: “If the Holy Spirit sends you to Asia, who are these people to say no?” As Anabaptists, hard-working and enduring as we are, we continue to read until we are assured in verse 9: “For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.” There is a huge role God has for us in forming disciples at all levels.

Biographical reflection:

When my family moved from the Soviet Union into the promised land of Germany, three of my siblings skipped a year in school. In my very first exam in German I was best in class. These unexpected successes came about in a rural Northern-Caucasus region through teaching Sunday school in German. Besides memorizing scriptures memorizing grammar gave me a better outlook on life.

Youth work in the Frankenthal MB church was something of a Bible school: We actually had regular exams, often about some encyclopedical knowledge. Combined with the three year part time Bible school my church upbringing taught me Bible knowledge, trained me in formulation my faith and in public speaking. We had to read the Bible in a year. Since I had a life outside of my vocational training, I read the Bible during lunch breaks. Within that year my fellow lunch eater and trainee from a broken family gave his life to Jesus.

Fresno Pacific College surprised me with true hospitality, appreciation, and respect. They halved my tuition to bring me to their campus. Of course they did it so I could come. But they also did it, so that the educational experience of their local student population would be enhanced, by me, as am international student, bringing my values and experiences to the table. When they went so far, to buy a flag of Germany and put it up for me in front of the Special Events center, they gave more value to my life then I have ever expected to discover. Here I was introduced to the concept of a community of learning.

The seminary confronted me with the complexities of life. Hans Kasdorf new about my upbringing and my inner tensions and became an invaluable mentor. Since back in the nineties we got busy pushing borders, I started longing for a peaceful territory. The seminary also provided me with a pear group I still bank on wherever my global ministries take me.

After I checked in with Paul Hiebert and the option of doing a PhD at Trinity in Chicago, I resolved to let the education go for a t least ten years. After five years of formal education in California I had to be honest enough to admit that academia had answered all questions I have ever had, but that I have in the process lost sight of real life.

God saw it differently. There was no other was for me to become a worker in Kabardino-Balkaria, but by enrolling in a doctoral program at the State University in Nalchik. This opened more doors for ministry then anything I could think off. Not by chance I saw my Dean become the head of the Republic’s government. In this school I found the editors for our Bible translation project, the Jesus film, the hymnal. Here I was introduced to the arts, history, and culture of the people group I came to reach with the Good News. Here I started publishing in local journals and book series. Here I, as a by-product, acquired Russian at such depth, that for many years later I was able to work in the editorial team of Russia’s largest Christian magazine. In this university I understood something I began to appreciate at FPU: Schools themselves are close to ideal places of outreach. They bag to be a platform.

Schools do teach. Schools do equip. While church too many is becoming a weekend activity, where people are talked at, school is the area of interaction, innovation, a place to field questions and launch on an individual and collective quest for truth.

Jesus was also a teacher. He taught with authority, like no one. But at the same time he was a discipler. He talked with his disciples, but he also walked with them. Jesus took his friends to the experience on the mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:27-36). And the disciples fooled themselves by thinking they can now stay in the ivory tower and have offices next to Moses (J.D.) and Elijah (DTh). But Jesus does not spare them the encounter with evil at the foot of the hill. As significant the Sunday experience was, the experience with the crowds of Monday were just as important.

Looking at Jesus I realize how many lectures of discipleship I still cannot teach. We can only pass on, what we have received ourselves. And sometimes character formation happens when no one can work from experience. My MB Mission co-worker Trever Godard recently shared a story from his time when he was a missionary in Columbia. Trevor and some of his students decided to participate in some outreach ministries in Peru. When they came close to the border they were told that the only highway in the area is under control of some guerilla group. There was no way they could proceed. During his morning prayer time Trevor God gave him a text from Exodus. To provide an escape to the People of Israel, God parted the Red sea. In faith Trever took his students on the road and crossed over into Peru. He later found out the road was only open for a couple hours. Neither Trevor nor his disciples will ever forget that day and the God, who revealed himself to the people of Israel. Only when we observe ourselves act, do we see what we really believe. Character formation does not happen, when our faith and convictions are not tested. Church and school need to be places in which a disciple is allowed to fail and get up, and keep going.

Summary

I am wrapping up: Apostles have a vision beyond the existing church. On one hand they are vehicles carrying God’s grace just like anyone else in the church. On the other hand you can tell sometimes from your first encounter that they are designed for off road use. If they will work in accordance with their call, the church will in time reap dividends by becoming a more apostolic community. One will also be able to observe how they are investing themselves in people: just like Paul did in Silas and Timothy. Discipleship takes place when we use our spiritual gifts to grow the capacity of others to use their spiritual gifts.

How can the church help these messengers? By calling them out, nurturing them, supporting them. How can school assist outreach ministries? By teaching languages, human geography, world religions, appreciation for cultures, by providing marketable skills, and by requiring international, intercultural experiences.

Today there is a plethora of intercultural emersion options. An excellent one is spending a semester of study abroad, for example at LCC in Klaipeda/Lithuania and SPbCU in St. Petersburg/Russia. I am sure there are also great possibilities for intercultural involvement in our schools in Asuncion, Bogota, Bonn, Curitiba, Fresno, Kinshasa, Osaka, Shamshabad, and Winnipeg, just to name a few. Back in 1989 I ended up going with YWAM for a summer semester in Hong-Kong. All my team members seemed to come from Mennonite schools in Goshen, Bethel, Hillsboro, and Fresno. What a gift that was to me. During that summer I got on staff of Lausanne II in Manila and so the most representative gathering of Christians in world history. Four times I had an opportunity to bring in Bibles to the underground church in China. Outreach ministries will grow if all of you will mandate that your students leave the nest and learn to fly.

I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel with an unwavering confidence in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding of the contemporary alternatives to the gospel; who will relate the one to the other with freshness, pungency, authority and relevance; and who will use their minds to reach other minds for Christ
John Stott
Your Mind Matters