GLS 3a: McNeil “Courageous Leadership for Catalytic Times”

Global Leadership Summit Session Three A: Rev. Brenda Salter McNeil  (She was one of the featured speakers at Lausanne III in Cape Town. Video.)

She’s talking about globalization, and how important it is to know what is going on in the world.  It is important to be a global Christian.

We live in catalytic time.  Various forces are making our world more connected.  How are you responding as a leader to the horrific social issues created by globalization?

Her talk is organized around Acts 1:8 Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, even to the ends of the earth.

In Jerusalem we have to face people like ourselves and call ourselves to justice and equality.  Tell ourselves and our friends and our family not to be racist.

Judea represents the place in our world that is quite to home but not quite home.  It is the subcultures that exist in the same society between different political parties.  Ministry in Judea is not simple.  We must help the people in Judea.

Samaria are the issues that are hostile to us, where we not in control.  It is the place of sex trafficking, child soldiers, and corporate greed.  We need to get involved in all these issues.  We will receive spiritual power to face these issues.  We need the Holy Spirit.  Go as a learner.  Ultimately we should go to the ends of the earth.

Without a catalyst we won’t be moved to deal with these issues.

God wants to bring people together through globalization so that the church has to deal with these issues.  In response we should:

1. “Pray for a Divine Mandate.” “God break our hearts for what breaks your heart.”

2. “Name your Catalytic Events.”  Crisis is an opportunity for God to move in.

3. “Mobilize people to go!”

[Do we care about lost or unreached people knowing Jesus too?  I think Brenda cares about this, but it would be nice to hear her say it.]

GLS 2b: Mayor Cory Booker “Stand Up”

Global Leadership Summit Session Two B: Cory Booker Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

What does it mean to standup for something?  You will always face adversaries.  The world will try to reduce you to meritocracy.  But you are original.  Don’t let the world tell you who you are.  Rise.  We are here because people before us had vision and courage to stand up.

The only way to make change in the world is to start with oneself.  Right now in this moment, in any given set of circumstances, you can change the world.

[I bet this guy is going to run for president some day. You heard it here first.  He was really rockin’ the US constitution there at the end.]

GLS 2a: Len Schlesinger “Action Trumps Everything”

Global Leadership Summit Session Two A: Len Schlesinger

[I had a hard time understanding his point. Read below at your own risk.]

Leaders try to get people from “here” to “there.” 

Before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, he spent 3-5 years working on it and living it, hammering it out.

What is the “here?”  Global poverty, poor education, world hunger, unemployment that leads to violence, inadequate political processes.  How can we change it?  Create an alternative future, a better human future.

Entrepreneurship: believe in the future by creating it first.  Entrepreneurship is a disciplined that can be earned.  We are all entrepreneurs.

Most stories of successful entrepreneurs (Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg) are nonsense.   Its not all about silicone valley.  The half-life of Fortune 25 companies is 10 years.

Successful serial entrepreneurs (according to studies) have a low appetite for risk.   Most don’t start with a clear vision. They don’t necessarily start original businesses, they just do things better.  42/50 successful entrepreneur teams just got together at first because they liked each other- there was no idea.

How can we all practice entrepreneurship? 

Understand the natural limitations of everything you have ever learned all your life.  The future cannot be extrapolated from the past.  Believing this can paralyze people.  We must live with unpredictability. 

If you can’t predict the future, create it. How?  Take small steps with what you’ve got at hand.  Limit the risk for each step.  Learn from each step.  Start with things you care about.  Successful entrepreneurs are always doing what they want to do.

Start worrying about what you want to do next, not what you’re doing now.

Failure doesn’t mean game over, it just means try again with experience.  You will learn things that nobody else knows.

Lead where you are.

GLS 1: Bill Hybels “5 Critical Questions of Leadership”

Global Leadership Summit Session One: Bill Hybels

Disclaimer: These are my notes. They might not be exact quotes from speakers, and some of it below is just my reflections or summary.  But I’m trying to capture during the session what the speaker is saying.

Purpose of the Summit: When leaders stop learning, they stop leading.  When a leader gets better, everyone wins.  Every leader can get better, if they want to.

5 Critical Questions of Leadership:

1.  What is your current challenge level at work?

Everyone is at one of three levels: Under challenged, appropriately challenged, or dangerously over challenged.  Which one are you? You do your best work if you’re a little bit more than appropriately challenged.

For Senior Leaders in an organization: step it up.  Add something to get you more challenged.  You leadership gifts will atrophy if you’re not challenged enough.  BUT if you’re over-challenged, you will break down.  Senior leaders need to set the example.  If you’re stressed, your performance will increase, but if you’re over-stressed your performance will decrease.

Under challenged people/leaders usually leave their organization.

2.  What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?

I need to field and develop a fantastic leadership team for our fantastic ministry for our fantastic God.  But some people can do a lot of damage if they have bad attitudes.

How long should a person with a bad attitude be allowed to stay around?  Your team needs to set a limit, a time frame, in order to deal with it.

How do you deal with under performers (people who don’t carry their weight)?  Bill says three months.

The single most challenging issue is to deal with people who don’t have a high capacity, even though their great nice people.  Some people don’t have enough “elasticity” to grow, and thus limit their organization.

If you don’t deal with challenging people, your fantastic people will be really discouraged.

3.  Are you naming, facing, and resolving the problems that exist in your organization?

Denial is destructive.  Acts 2-4: there was a problem. Racial profiling, unequal distribution.  Acts 6: the leaders said we’re going to address this problem.  They built trust.  Acts 6:7 then the church grew even more.

We need to call problems problems and deal with them.  Part of your job is to look problems straight in the eye and address them.  All ideas, initiatives will decelerate eventually.

4.  When was the last time you examined the core of what your organization was all about?

What is our main thing?  Are we clear about our core?  It is easy for churches to lose the plot.

Churches are in the life-transforming business.  There is only one power able to do this- the gospel.  But what is the very message of the gospel?  You need to talk about this with your team.  What are the 5 words that best describe the good news of Jesus Christ?  Bill’s 5 words: 1. Love, 2. Evil (we have to discern evil, especially within us), 3. Rescue “substitutionary atoning work” of Christ 4. Choice (each person has to choose), 5. Restoration, God is trying to restore this broken world.

When teams talk through this they get more excited about it and more passionate about declaring it.

5.  Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?

What book or issue or talk or crisis rocked your leadership lately?  We don’t learn or grow without getting seriously challenged.

How you finish in leadership is how you will be remembered.  Make the next 5 years your best 5 in leadership.

Encountering the World of Islam, Online Course from Sept. 5 - Dec. 4

From Encountering the World of Islam:

EWI is a 12-week course for people interested in learning about God's heart for Muslims and about the history and culture of the Muslim world.

Encountering the World of Islam presents a fresh perspective on the Islamic faith to the body of Christ in the United States and internationally. Students work to understand Muslims from a variety of perspectives, wrestle with what it means to be a good neighbor to a Muslim, and think about how to communicate the gospel as good news to Muslims.

EWI Online's 12 lessons follow the 12 chapters in the book Encountering the World of Islam. Course includes lectures by expert speakers with experience living and working among Muslims and hands-on assignments, all facilitated by an online classroom.

Live EWI class locations can be found here.

To learn more about EWI Online classes, click here.

When: September 5th, 2011 8:00 AM through December 4th, 2011 11:00 PM

Gospel Clothing Part III

First, see Gospel Clothing, then Gospel Clothing Part II.

Here is part 3, from David Wells:

It is the task of theology, then, to discover what God has said in and through Scripture and to clothe that in a conceptuality which is native to our own age.  Scripture, at its terminus a quo [starting point], needs to be de-contextualized in order to grasp its transcultural content, and it needs to be re-contextualized in order that its content may be meshed with the cognitive assumptions and social patterns of our own time.

Read the whole thing.

This is such an important concept, especially for those who want to preach the “pure gospel” to Muslims.

Global Leadership Summit

This week my wife and I will be attending the Global Leadership Summit:

The Global Leadership Summit exists to transform Christian leaders around the world with an injection of vision, skill development, and inspiration for the sake of the local church.

I’ll try to blog about some of the key moments or insights from the conference.

See this interesting article about the Summit in Fast Company: How Willow Creek Is Leading Evangelicals by Learning From the Business World.

“Incarnational” Mission?

Some people I really respect, such as Andreas Köstenberger, argue that the term “incarnational” as used to describe our mode or model of ministry is unhelpful and misleading, because it makes Jesus’ specific mission of atonement for sin less unique and trivializes the actual incarnation event.  But I think the term is great.  As Alan Hirsch says, “The implications of the incarnation for mission are massive.”

Ed Stetzer has a great series arguing that the term “incarnational ministry” is not only biblically justifiable, but necessary and incredibly helpful.  You can read it here: Why We Should Use the Phrase "Incarnational Mission" (Part 1 of 3), Part 2, and Part 3.

See also the Infinite Translatability of the Christian Faith.

Analogy

Al Qeada is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity.

Fasting and Sacrifice Evangelism Resources that Only Use the Qur’an

From the Arabic website: www.beautyamongtheruins.com.  These two are in English:

The Secrets of the Blessed Feast Id Al-Adha

The Acceptable Fast

Other resources at the website as well.  Those at the bottom use the Bible.

Amreeka

I watched the film Amreeka (2009) last night.  Go to www.amreeka.com for a preview and more info.  The film did a good job showing the Arab (and Muslim) experience of immigrating to and living in the US.  (I didn’t like the plot and the ending left me wanting more, but I did like Transformers 3 so I guess you can’t trust me.)

Welcome to our Muslim Brothers - !أهلا وسهلا

I have noticed that recently we have had a lot of visitors from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, and other nations.  I want to welcome our brothers (and sisters) from the Muslim world to Circumpolar.  I want you to know that although we have a general idea of where our visitors come from through viewing national ISP's, we do not precisely track your visits, so that you retain your privacy.  Even though we do not know exactly who you are, Allah does!  And we welcome you to this blog.  I hope that you find our discussions here to be respectful, appropriate, and truthful.  May we all learn what it means to walk the straight path (الطريق المستقيم) of 'Isa al-Masih, insh'allah!  Ramadan mubarak wa Ramadan kareem, insh'allah!

Ramadan Begins - 30 Days of Prayer for Muslims

Ramadan begins today, August 1.  Might I encourage some of you to fast for all or part of the month, asking the Lord to move mightily?

Learn all you need to know about praying for Muslims during Ramadan:
www.30-days.net 
www.30daysprayer.com

John Stott, 1921-2011

One of the great giants of the faith in our time.   John Stott passed away today at the age of 90.

Memorial website here.

Praying for Iranian Christians

It's actually a relatively new term.  To say "Iranian" and "Christians" together when referring to the ethnic Persian majority of that nation, and not to the ancient Armenian Christian minority, is really something amazing.  The fact is, tens of thousands of Iranians inside Iran are now professing to follow Jesus, and perhaps hundreds of thousands outside of Iran.  Because of this, we can now begin to speak of a new expression of Christianity arising that is authentically Persian (for more on this, have a look at Abu Daoud's article on Iranian Christianity).  However, as expected, there is a major backlash coming from the Islamic government in Iran.  The following video will help you get an idea of how to pray for our Iranian brothers and sisters who are suffering for their faith in Christ.  We need to pray particularly for Yousef Nadarkhani, a pastor with a wife and 2 young children who is facing the death penalty if he does not recant, as well as for Farshid Fathi, who has been in prison since December of 2010.   Our prayers for Yousef are very urgent, as his case, which is filled with intentional ambiguity on the part of the Iranian Islamic courts, is at a critical phase where he could be killed or released any day now.  Let us pray for him to have the peace of God to hold on to his faith in the face of hanging.

Related Posts:
Three Reasons the Church in Iran is Growing
Pray for Farshid and our Iranian Brothers and Sisters

Anti-Insider and Anti-C5 Post and Video

Here is yet another post and a video from the blog Biblical Missiology that is extremely anti “insider” and anti C4/5.  Unfortunately, the video picks on a few extreme examples and misunderstands, misrepresents, and over-generalizes the C4/5 position. 

Biblical Missiology may have some serious concerns and valid points, but it doesn’t help create dialogue and understanding to label those who disagree with them “heretical.”  Imagine if all the Calvinists/Arminians, Presbyterians/Baptists, Cessationists/Charismatics called the other a “heretic!”

A couple questions:

1. Do you think polarizing videos and posts like this from traditionalists help their cause, or hurt it?
2. Can you provide any examples of someone who embraces the Insider or C5 position presenting the traditionalist position in such a mean-spirited fashion?  Why do you think that is?

Zwemer on Yemen in 1911

Here.

Cape Town 2010 Short Documentary

This 14 minute documentary gives an overview of the Lausanne Movement's Cape Town 2010 Congress held in October 2010.

Movements that Change the World

Josh Reeves has a summary of the book here.  "The main purpose of the book is to outline what Addison sees as the five key elements present in movements that possess the capacity to spread the Gospel. The five elements identified in the book are White-Hot Faith, Commitment to a Cause, Contagious Relationships, Rapid Mobilization, and Adaptive Methods..."

Speaking of movements, you've GOT to watch this video.

The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Missions

"The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”

-Henry Martyn

Martyn was educated at Oxford, and he was deeply affected by the commitment of William Carey and the devotion of David Brainerd. He fell in love with his cousin’s sister in law, but he considered marriage an earthly joy that would distract him from missions. When he arrived in India in 1806, Carey recognized his brilliance, and encouraged him in translation work. In the next four years he was able to translate the New Testament into Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. Martyn died at the age of 31, having only one convert, and before seeing his translations make it to print. “He was one of the first Protestant workers to direct his energies almost entirely towards Muslims.”[1]

---

[1] Survey of Islam. Survey of Islam, Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. On the CDROM “The World of Islam: Resources for Understanding.” Global Mapping International: 2000.

Desiring God National Conference 2011

Speaking of the impulses behind this year's DG National Conference, Sept. 23-25 in Minneapolis, MN, Piper shares the Need, the Command, the Joy and the Name at stake.  That he would pick this topic - Finish the Mission - for his national conference says a lot about Piper's priorities.  I thank God for how he used Piper to call me into this work myself.  And I pray that he uses Piper to do the same for many others through this conference.  The slate of speakers is tremendous.  After getting to know Michael Oh, Michael Ramsden, and Jason Mandryk at Cape Town last year, I can assure you that they will deliver!  Giglio, Platt and Stetzer are no slouches either!

What is the Dajjal?

The Judeo-Christian "Civilization"!

The Recent “Bridging the Divide” Conference on Contextualizing to Muslims

Warren Larson posts his thoughts on the June 2011 “Bridging the Divide” conference here.  “Last week in the northeastern United States, “Bridging the Divide” brought together a group of about fifty people who have invested much of their lives in seeing Muslims come to Christ. The consultation, including five former Muslims, represented a wide spectrum of views on appropriate ways to reach Muslims…”

Hiebert on why it’s not always God’s will to heal

In the very influential article by Paul Hiebert “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” Hiebert uses a case study of an Indian pastor named Yellayya in Muchintala whose village had an epidemic of smallpox.  The village elders decided a water buffalo should be sacrificed to appease the angry Goddess of Smallpox.  A crisis developed when the Christians in the village refused to chip in for the cost of this sacrifice and when a Christian girl became sick herself.  Hiebert reflects on his prayers for healing for this little girl:

Church and mission must guard against Christianity itself becoming a new form of magic. Magic is based on a mechanistic view — a formula approach to reality that allows humans to control their own destiny. Worship, on the other hand, is rooted in a relational view of life. Worshipers place themselves in the power and mercy of a greater being.

The difference is not one of form, but of attitude. What begins as a prayer of request may turn into a formula or chant to force God to do one's will by saying or doing the right thing. In religion, we want the will of God for we trust in his omniscience. In magic we seek our own wills, confident that we know what is best for ourselves.

The line dividing them is a subtle one as I learned in the case of Muchintala. A week after our prayer meeting, Yellayya returned to say that the child had died. I felt thoroughly defeated. Who was I to be a missionary if I could not pray for healing and receive a positive answer? A few weeks later Yellayya returned with a sense of triumph. "How can you be so happy after the child died?" I asked.

"The village would have acknowledged the power of our God had he healed the child," Yellayya said, "but they knew in the end she would have to die. When they saw in the funeral our hope of resurrection and reunion in heaven, they saw an even greater victory, over death itself, and they have begun to ask about the Christian way."

In a new way I began to realize that true answers to prayer are those that bring the greatest glory to God, not those that satisfy my immediate desires. It is all too easy to make Christianity a new magic in which we as gods can make God do our bidding.

Al-Azhar's Grand Imam declares support for a constitutional, democratic state

From Ahram Online:

In a document that read more as a short constitutional declaration, Al-Azhar defends universal human rights and rejects 'the theocratic state' as un-Islamic and autocratic by nature.

Read the whole article.  Al Azhar is the leading Islamic school in the world today. 

I’m most interested in this statement by the Imam, “Islam has never, throughout its history, experienced such a thing as a religious or a theocratic state.”  That certainly challenges my understanding of Islam and Islamic history!

HT: JC