Must Challenge Barriers to Reach World

KEYSTONE, CO (June 22, 2005) - What does it mean to be mission friends? What barriers do Christians need to break through to become even more effective in reaching a rapidly changing world?

Those were among the questions intended to inspire those attending the second of three evening worship services during the 120th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

The evening focused on world mission initiatives and included the commissioning of short-term and project ministries. A procession of 32 flags at the beginning of the service was a visual reminder of the breadth of the denomination's love for others. An opening prayer offered in Spanish by Jorge Julian Perez, the president of the Federation of Covenant Churches in Colombia, was an audible reminder.

"The Covenant church around the world - that is what we celebrate tonight," said Curt Peterson, executive minister of the Department of World Mission in opening the service. The connectedness among those who leave and those who stay behind and support was celebrated and emphasized during the service. In a departure from tradition, the commissioned missionaries stood among the gathering of more than 400 for the laying on of hands and prayer. People prayed over the missionaries as they felt led.

Those commissioned included project missionaries who will start new works in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Having made seven mission trips to Mexico with First Covenant Church in Rockford, Illinois, a family of four is leaving to do short-term work with an affiliation of churches there.

But even as the work was celebrated, two pastors from the multiethnic, multi-campus NewSong Church in Irvine, Los Angeles and north Orange County, California, drew from Luke 5:17-26 (the man on a mat lowered through a roof by four friends so that Jesus could heal him) as the text for their remarks. "They were mission friends," said Adam Edgerly. "They were going to get their friend to Jesus by any means necessary."

Edgerly and David Gibbons (upper photo) asked, "What does it mean to be a mission friend?" Gibbons began by focusing on the person who was lowered through the roof. "A mission friend is about letting your friend carry your mat," he said.

In the past, leaders have been told to lead out of their strengths, "and we bought it hook, line and sinker," Gibbons said. Biblical leadership actually means leading out of weakness and the pain that people have experienced. "That pain becomes our platform for our proclamation of the grace of God," Gibbons said.

Being a mission friend means doing whatever it takes to serve others, the pair noted. Edgerly shared how the leadership team at NewSong had struggled in their relationships with one another. The church's one-word mission statement is "reconciliation," but the team members learned they had not been reconciled to one another after suffering hurts. The team shared hurts and became reconciled and committed to serving one another, no matter the cost, Edgerly said.

Mission friends also break through barriers as symbolized through the four friends' determination to lower the man through the roof. Gibbons suggested seven barriers the church must break through to continue reaching others:

• Comfort: "For too many of us, we like it just the way it is," Gibbons said. "There's no way you can make a difference unless you are willing to sacrifice everything."
• Conflict: "If you're healthy, you're going to have conflict," Gibbons said, but whether people are willing to address the conflict will determine their ability to serve. "Unless you can deal with it, you're not going to be considered authentic," he explained.
• Culture: Christians need to be "third culture" people who are able to dwell among different cultures simultaneously. Those cultures may be ethnic or generational, he added.
• Cash flow: "We say we can't do something because we don't have enough money," Gibbons said, adding that "we actually are in a state of atrophy" if strategic planning is based on money.
• Control: "We have an aversion to chaos," Gibbons said, but innovators have always been comfortable with chaos. "Innovation never happened from the center; it always happened from the fringes."
• Church/Christianity: The gospel first must be about compassion before proclamation. Around much of the world, the words church and Christianity turn people off because people associate the words with the crusades and warring.
• Centralization: "Our tendency always is to go inward and to build a fort around it, to build big walls," Gibbons said. "God is infinite. There has to be some form of mystery if we're intersecting with God."

Gibbons is seeking to break through those barriers himself as he and his family at the end of August help plant an international church and initiate a coinciding community development work in Bangkok, Thailand.

Jim Gustafson (lower photo), former Covenant missionary to Thailand and former executive minister of the Department of World Mission, is helping to develop the project. He told the gathering at the beginning of the service, "The Covenant is an arrow shot into the world from the bow of God."

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