East Blasts West!
I think I was in a very significant meeting yesterday. I was in a room with around 15 pastors from all over the world. Many of these men have churches in the tens of thousands. You wouldn’t know their names. They’re leaders from the global church. Very different from American church pastors. No one talks numbers unless asked. No one talks building projects or any of that. Their primary metric is how many churches planted and how is it transforming the society. They all start house churches and mega-churches. They see absolutely no conflict in the two. They love everything and everyone that’s sharing the Gospel.
They met to discuss strategy with a western man and I just happened to be invited. I was in a group and discussed and expressed what I’ve seen privately countless times. The meeting went from a highly organized western event being presented to them and for them, to come and bring constituents from all over the world, to grinding to a halt, to entering into chaos, and then emerging with a sense of focus.
The response of the men “Why are all these white and western men leading if you want us? Why are they all the speakers?” They said they were tired of being polite and nodding, that the church in the East could no longer blindly come, spend her time and money to listen to us in the West give directions as if we knew it all. It should be a partnership. Emotions flared. Passions were ignited—the meeting came alive. From sitting there and listening to the “speakers” to massive engagement. If you understand Eastern and African culture, to speak out against the leader is a huge thing and for them they had to violate their own cultural norms to do it. But, there is something in Christianity about speaking the truth in love.
The leader of the group was masterful. He was interrupted and challenged and had he been like most westerners, he would have tried to gain back control—he didn’t. Neither did he respond negatively when opposite opinions, perhaps to his own, were shared. He stayed calm and listened. He encouraged the men to speak. He listened, he took ideas, and he asked the men in the room to shape the event. I felt like I was a part of something very significant. This man was close to these men, and it was a small group so it was a safe place for them to share as a group as they did. On one hand, I felt I should leave. On the other I really sensed God in the room and this would be a huge learning experience for me for the future so I sat and listened for the most part - but I did open my mouth some - hey I’m Bob Roberts - what do you expect!
I believe not only is the church in Asia and Africa rising up reaching people, but also it’s foolish to think she won’t be giving directions to the future. It’s absurd to do our western things. Instead, we should be taking our queues from her and listening. Putting an African man or Asian man on the board and saying they have a voice if they want it will not cut it! All I could think about was the major Christian organizations that are still being led by old paradigms and a small group of westerners trying to engage the world. How much the world has changed, how many leaders outside the West have emerged, and how we are operating as if it’s the same. We give lectures on how it’s changed, but we haven’t changed. We have, as one man said last night, “a new paradigm with an old methodology.” I see a future major explosion coming between the East and West. The East feels all this pent up frustration when we show up and tell them how we’re going to reach them. We are in a dead state here in the West, but still telling them how to do it when their churches and the Gospel is exploding!
This isn’t over. I think I may have been present for the first firing of the shot heard round the West. Will they change us and bring us into the future? I’m not so sure. My fear is they will ignore us, and we will be left out of the greatest move of God since the first through third centuries. Please, my brothers, keep sending your missionaries here and your leaders—we need you more than you need us.
Globalization has changed everything and to the advantage of the Gospel, but not to the advantage of Western religious power. The new template is the domain of society. The new center is the East. The glocalization of the Gospel will never again allow the mass marketing of one or two forms of evangelism or outreach. Instead, it will provide a platform for the delivery of multiple forms of outreach that, believe it or not, are going to be more tribal and specialized and effective. The platform has to do with connectedness and delivery as opposed to program and control. It will lead to diversity and speed at the same time. It will be the Gospel moving in a thousand different ways all at once, but all connected—you might say—a body!
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Oct 4, 2007 at 08:36 AM
I could not agree more. We, particularly in the US have struggled with the fact that we are not attached literally or figuratively to most of the rest of the world. Our industrialization has shaped us and we cannot break out of the assembly line. I was watching briefly last evening "The War" on PBS, and I am amazed at how we are still shaped by the paradigm that was created as we entered WW II. It as if our churches flowed right into the movement of assembly line churches, and we assumed that everyone else in the world could have no better ideas than what we had come up with. Now, the rest of the world is kicking our butt in almost every other area, and yet we think that our view of church should not adapt? How arrogant! We must sit, listen, observe, and learn. But what we can do is serve. This is the bridge between all cultures. To really serve requires that we do all these other things first. Our view of serving is "telling" rather than learning. We must change, and adapt, or else we will become - if we are not already - irrelevant.
Oct 4, 2007 at 08:56 AM
Hallelujah. I'll never forget sitting with a worship leader from Abba Love in Jakarta. He was amazed (not using that in the positive sense) about how such a superstar worship leader culture had emerged in the US. He called it "borderline channeling." It's as if our Western entertainment culture has naturally bridged over into our perspective on worship leaders so that we think certain people can channel the presence of God better. Of course, we couch it nice Christianese terms like "they're annointed." Abba Love has no superstars we would know, but they worship with a passion that comes from being a Christian set-apart in the largest Muslim country. Simply amazing!
Oct 4, 2007 at 09:21 AM
[...] You need to read this from our lead pastor Bob Robert’s blog. A personal story of a similar experience: [...]-----
Oct 4, 2007 at 09:30 AM
I couldn't agree more Bob. People often look to NorthWood as innovators. The reality is that most of the "innovative" things people see us doing are simply lessons we've learned from our brothers and sisters in Christ outside of America. For me, my passion is being the most effective steward of the resources including opportunities God has given me. I want to learn from people who are being effective. Where do we see the church growing exponentially right now? Outside America. Why wouldn't we look to our brothers in Africa and Asia?
I also commend the moderator of the group you mention. It takes real leadership to facilitate open discussions. Over my years in the corporate world I saw the most innovative ideas come from meetings where their was healthy tension. If there is no tension of contrasting ideas among people who love each other and are committed to each other, you really won't capture breakthrough ideas. This moderator let the tension flow and look how it impacted the group. As you continue to reflect on your experience yesterday I suspect you'll going to discover even more lessons that may not be quite as obvious at first glance.
Oct 4, 2007 at 09:36 AM
The lesson's we can learn from the East are endless. In my encounters with Believers from the East it appears that they focus on what really matters... Changing the World... not all the petty things that we tend to focus on. My prayer is that we in the West will watch, learn and unite together to make difference in the World.
Oct 4, 2007 at 09:38 AM
Spot on Bob! We in the West still have much contribute in the near term, but we must understand that new center is the East. And there is much for us to learn from our brothers and sisters from the East.
Oct 4, 2007 at 10:23 AM
I agree with Mike about the moderator as well.
"Disagreement DOES NOT equal disloyalty," Mike always says. He really believes this as I can tell when he and I are debating something. "Tell me what you really think" is an attitude I see exhibited by Mike as our exec pastor all the time. It has always driven me nuts in the course of 18 years in ministry to go into any meeting and have someone say, "Well I willing wish you wouldn't have presented that." I always want to scream, "Why are you paying me if you don't want the idea that I think is the best regardless of how painful it is for us to all hear?" Obviously this moderator showed incredible maturity. Sometimes some incredibly tense meetings are the best payoffs one can have because the real work is getting done.
Oct 4, 2007 at 10:50 AM
Bob, I have always felt that the answer to our deepest issues lies in the wholeness of the body of Christ. By that I mean, we each bring a piece of the answer from which we get a more complete perspective of the truth. The East in this sense, is the ying to the West's yang. We need each other but we have both crowded the stages and marginalized their voices. We have much to learn!! They have so much of the answer. Thanks for bringing this blog to us.
Oct 4, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Bob has named the elephant in the room. As Randy alludes, we are still stuck in the industrial age with our evangelical focus on big structures and personalities. We have all the answers just ask us! The arrogance of our ignorance!
One of our non-Christian partners in Asia once said to me: "Your organization is the first group of Americans not to give me a list and tell me what to do." I was at a board meeting in South America another time and a man from Chile led devotions, asking us to read Philippians 2:1-5 as a letter from the Church of the global south to their North American brothers and sisters.
We should not forget that Jesus gave the command to love before He gave the command to go. If you can't love, don't go! And, by the way, loving means reaching someone where they're at, loving them in a language and logic that they understand (as Jesus did repeatedly, but esp. in John 4). If I love an Asian in an American way that my Asian brother/sister does not understand, I have not loved. Put differently, as Randy suggests, we've got to do a whole lot more listening and learning as we remember that our individual identity cannot help but be rooted in our neighbor's identity...if I don't love my neighbor in a way s/he can understand, I'm not loving God.
Oct 4, 2007 at 11:46 AM
As I read Bob's blog I kept thinking back to conversations I've had with believers throughout Asia and the Middle East over the last decade. There is a desire in the East to have a true partnership with the church in the West, but nothing remotely similar to the way we have partnered in the past. True, Kingdom collaboration is what leaders from the global church long for. They don't need a Western partner to direct, organize or teach them. They see the tremendous resources the church in the West has been blessed with and realize that we have many times over the resources needed to impact the holistic needs of our world. They see us wasting our resources on expensive programs and excessive lifestyles. And while we waste our time and our resources, the suffering church around the world is moving on without us. Are we willing to change our values, regain our credibility and become relevant in this new flat world? The global church isn't waiting for us, but they are praying for us.
Oct 4, 2007 at 12:04 PM
Bob I totally agree with your thoughts. I have been saying this as a leader in the worldwide workplace movement and to pastors in the U.S. We in the west do not have a choice. We can either recognize what God is doing around the world and join Him or be left out. In the US institutional church we are just moving around the chairs on the deck while the Titanic is going down. Total attendance is in a nosedive. The place where the church of Jesus Christ is growing is in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. We are declining in the U.S. and relying on programs and buildings. We are entertaining our people to death. The Spirit of God can not work when we try to do it all in our own efforts. I love seeing what God is doing in Asia. Only my family draws me to return to the U.S. Wake up America!!
Oct 4, 2007 at 12:42 PM
Bob, Kent & others. Amen, Amen. Having visited Hong Kong, Malaysia & Singapore & visiting with friends and co-laborers from around the world, the lessons learned, the inspiration to greater things & the sense of America's passing into lesser significance is overwhelming. An associate made the observation a few years ago that since the time of Christ, every time there was a regional shift where 'jobs' moved from one part of the globe to another, the Gospel went with it. The likely true 30+% growth of Gross Domestic Product among some Asian nations in some ways parallels the numbers the Lord has been adding to His church.
While in Hong Kong, sitting with 4 Americans & 25+ Asians, a local business man mentioned in passing that China would soon take the center stage, in terms of world power. I expected the Asians present to look around at the Americans to observe our responses. No one bothered to look. I believe it was because for them, this is an absolute given 'no brag, just fact'. The spiritual parallels are inescapable. China may already have more practicing Christians than the US. Intuitively, I think the day when China overtakes the US as a missionary sending nation is very soon, if not already here...The case for our nation's perceived uniqueness [in God's eyes] grows weaker with each passing day. 'The center' has moved east by almost every measure.
Oct 4, 2007 at 03:41 PM
I am part of the church planting residence program this year at Northwood. I am also from Central America (Honduras) and I am here as a missionary to my own people (the Hispanics in the US). Now, to the subject in the blog: A little over a hundred years ago, American missionaries took the gospel to Central America. For that we will always be grateful. But I think one of the mistakes in the past was to make the American culture equal to the gospel. We inherited hymn books and ministry paradigms (tradition). I think that the problem is that we think that our culture and values are better that those on other cultures. That thinking is leading us to think that we are better Christians because “we got it right ” but as we all know, it is not about my culture or my values. It is about Jesus and being like him. Only when we understand that is that we will be humble enough to learn from each other. After reading all the posts I know that I am “preaching to the choir ” But let’s state it one more time: we have a lot to learn from each other, specially our brothers and sisters from the East.
Oct 4, 2007 at 04:17 PM
I think Bob has definitely and boldly dealt with a significant reality in the global church. I have done church planting and leadership training in more than 55 countries, including leaders from more than 120 other countries. I am continually amazed at the commitment and sacrifice I find among highly committed and mostly unknown leaders who are individually leading teams that are bringing thousands of people to Christ every year. I am personally in contact with leaders whose ministries did not exist two years ago and have already planted hundreds of growing churches in places many of us have never heard of.
But, I think there is another voice that needs to be heard in this debate. In all of the new work that is developing globally, the constant source of criticism and opposition is traditional local churches, not American churches, that want to control what the emerging church is, what it believes, what it does, and what it looks like. These controlling churches were birthed out of our Western mission efforts, and have taken what they have learned from us and compounded it, and in some cases, extrapolated it far beyond anything most of us would be comfortable with. “Western ” is not defined by geography. "Western" is a mindset that says "my way is best" in any and every circumstance.
I do not believe the real issue is between East and West or Asia, Africa and America. I think the real issue is Bible-only obedience-based discipleship that redeems families and culture, transforms communities, and has ongoing impact on the emerging church in such a way that it is at odds with any form of traditional church that places church/denominational doctrine and church/denominational tradition above the authority of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
I am seeing the same emerging emphasis on obedience in the West that is already in full bloom in Asia and Africa. The challenge is to transmit the Gospel as purely and without culture as possible, and allow the Word and the Holy Spirit to birth the church in each cultural context, without interference from any source, whether American, Asian, or African.
When we come to the place in our faith that we trust the Holy Spirit to do His job when we do our job of proclaiming the Gospel only, and not our doctrine or opinions, we will see amazing things. The church will be exactly what the local people need. It quickly and easily replicates because it is not carrying heavy cultural baggage from outside sources. Local people who have no acquaintance with traditional church find a group of people who are like themselves, yet blessed with love for God and love for their neighbors that is acted out in every area of life and draws others inexplicably to the Savior.
So, it is not just any Asian, African, or American church or church leader we should be listening to. We need to measure what each is saying by the Word of God, determine if there is a high call to obeying all the Word, not just bits and pieces of it, and notice if the Holy Spirit is at work in their midst and in their mission as it touches other cultures that are significantly different from themselves. When I find this -- I listen. I learn. I am blessed.
Oct 4, 2007 at 06:46 PM
David I see those as two separate issues - one is for us in the West to learn to listen to those in the East, etc. with respect. What you are speaking of is the nature of the church and there is no doubt that you'll find elements of the western church all over the world introduced years gone by by the church in the West. I believe you are hitting on the real question though - of what an effective, a biblical and true church is - it's what you've taught me and many others on obedience-based discipleship. We still talk about your day with our staff. I was with a church planter today and we were talking about all the styles and kinds of churches and I told him, you know man - the best way to be relevant is to be obedient to what God is saying in that moment. David I wish you write more - you have incredible insights AND you're a practitioner. When you speak - I listen, I learn, and I am blessed!
Oct 4, 2007 at 11:00 PM
I'am KB from Korea. I'am in Church Planting Residence Program and I am also a Southwestern seminary student fallsemester of 2007. I have been working as a campus minister in Korea for 10 yrs. I served five universities in Seoul, Korea. I planted communities and made disciples there.
And I was sent as a missionary by my mission organization, Jesus Disciple Movement(JDM). Especially for the universities in the west side of the States. The reason why I came here is I can meet the nations in the States. Now, world is coming and getting together in the States.
I totally agree with Alan Hirsch's opinion. I think we(west and east) are all a body of Christ.
We can not be divided by ethnic, culture, and any other background. Who can have a right measure to divide us into particles? However, I think we must be transformed by the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
I think there are not west and east in Christ, and there are just Bible-driven-people and self-Bible-driven-people. You know what I am saying?
Yesterday, I asked my Church planting classmates how American(church) make disciples.
But I could not get the answer for my question.
Most people even know the importance of discipleship. But I think althoug we use same terminology, it could be totally different in reality.
I understand what Bob pointed out. but I think we have to learn each other, and respect each other. I think it does not depend on west and east. I shoud depend on How we react according to the Bible. I love Hebrew terminology, Ramid. It means not only teaching but also learning. we have to be humble each others.
Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on
others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than
yourself.(Phil. 2:3 NLT)
Oct 5, 2007 at 09:28 PM
KB is a humble man, and as a fellow glocalnet resident, I have a lot to learn from Him. I'm learning a lot about other cultures these days, and I've still got a long way to go. I like what he said about there not being an East or West. East and West can join forces to do it like it was done in the Middle East 2000 years ago in a place called Jerusalem. I'm excited about the convergence of ideas from both sides as we allow God's Word and Spirit to mold our lives and our methodologies.
Oct 6, 2007 at 01:14 PM
Bob,
Good and important insights.
It seems odd to me that, while the U.S. church is in such decline, we don't look to growing and vibrant churches globally.
Good word!
Ed
Oct 6, 2007 at 02:03 PM
We will - we're just not desperate enough yet -
Oct 7, 2007 at 01:35 PM
Bob... keep up the comments that get a glocal combo of western CP "who's who" commenting on your site... Seiple, Watson, Stetzer, Jeffares ... I'm glad as well to see the combo of your CPers who are not of the USA...
Oct 8, 2007 at 09:52 AM
Desperate enough yet? What will it be like when we are?
Oct 10, 2007 at 08:07 AM
I'm just amazed that I'm in conversation with Bob and Ed Stetzer - just a side note... That's cool!
I must say that I've been on many short term "mission trips" and I have come back wondering why I was more upset with Church work in the U.S.? I thought I would be encouraged by the trips, and be going there to encourage other believers, instead I saw the GAPING hole in my own Christian Consumerism. It was good for me, but the conviction would relax in time. I think you are on it Bob - leading the way, and not relenting. It's a drum that must be played loudly, and we must not see it as "Shor Term Missions" anymore. It's them and us, one, together. Learning and engaging in mission around the world on an everyday basis. I look foreward to applying these principles to my ministry life, future, and the future of our young church plant in Bend, OR.
Tim
Oct 10, 2007 at 12:20 PM
this is my first time weighing in on any of your writings Bob. i have thouroughly enjoyed them and on this one i could not agree more. It is to the East that we need to be listening and learning. One thing that was drilled into my head in school is to know your own discourse - whats my 'stuff' thats getting in the way of this right now - or more importantly getting in the way of God doing what He wants me to do. Our western discourse can be very problematic and hindering to those whom it effects in a negative way. Lets keep watching, listening, earning and then go and do.
Oct 12, 2007 at 04:49 AM
Andrew - Nikki (my wife) and I were at a moviet not long ago - a chick flick - one line in there made it worth all the while - "You can't truly understand your own culture until you get out of it and live in another." I think it's true for all of us -
Hey everyone, if you like this discourse - follow on on my blog October 12 - I know most people aren't talking about this - and if they do - it is talk or stating statistics - but I'm in some "engagement" stuff and will try to keep you in the loop in the conversation.
Jun 12, 2008 at 10:21 AM
I just wanted to say WOW! your site is really good and i'm proud to be one of your surfers
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