The Consequences of

a Truncated Gospel

Session 1
Introduction
 personal introduction
Welcome to this course: “e Integral Mission of the Church” (project on
corresponding PowerPoint). Before we start, let’s take some time to get to
15
minutes
know each other.
• Share a brief personal bio sketch with students so they know who you
are, where you’re from and what ministry and professional experiences
you have.
• Get names and church affiliations and ministry involvement of each
person. Have each person answer the following three questions (on
corresponding PowerPoint). Cut student’s answers short, if they begin
trailing. Give a demonstrative example: “My name is Jean-Luc Krieg and
I’m from Ivory Coast and Switzerland. I’m a member of an independent
house church in Tepalcates, and an ordained Baptist Pastor. Currently I serve
as the Field Director of Servant Partners Mexico, a mission agency, and as
Executive Director of Transformación Urbana Internacional A.C.”
• What’s your name and where are you from originally?
• What’s the name of your church and where is it located? (Use
this question only if training is done with members from different
churches.)
• What’s your current ministry involvement?
• Once everybody has introduced themselves, distribute small note cards
to every student and have them write on it their answer to the question:
“What do you expect from this course and how do you hope to
grow?” (project question on corresponding PowerPoint). Give students a
couple of minutes to answer the question and then collect note cards
from students. Once the note cards have been collected, pick two or
three students to share their answer to the question.

prayer and worship

I want us to begin this course and each subsequent session with a short
time of prayer and adoration to lay this course before God… so that God
10
can use it and bring forth much fruit from it. e reason we’re here is
minutes because of our God and the wonderful mission he has called us to
participate in! Let’s worship God and pray that he will fulfill the
expectations and ways you hope to grow that you just wrote down.
• Sing 2 - 3 worship songs. (Project on PowerPoint.)
• Pray out loud for the course and for God to reveal himself through it
and have each student pray for his or her neighbor at the same time that
God may reveal himself and his purposes in a deeper way, give vision
and renewed passion for his work on earth to be done.

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 plenary exercise
As we start1 this course on “e Integral Mission of the Church” I’d like
us to think first about the word “Mission.” (Write the word ‘Mission’ on
whiteboard.) What is “mission”? What do you think is our mission as the
20
minutes Church?” I’m interested in hearing your answers to this question. But to
do so, let’s do a little exercise together2:
• Draw a simple sketch of a church on a whiteboard. e church should
be drawn fairly large so that there is room to write inside it. en draw
a big circle around the church, representing its surrounding community.
• If the participants are church planters or theological (Bible-
school) students, ask the following questions: “If you were going
to plant a church in this community, what would you see as your
church’s mission? How would you present the Gospel? What
would you want to see happen within the course of five to ten
years?”
• If the participants are members of a local church, ask the
following questions: “What do you think is the mission of the
Church? To make this question more concrete, let me ask it in
the following way: What do you as church see as your mission in
this community? How have you and do you present the Gospel?
What would you want to see happen within the course of five to
ten years?”
• Inside the picture of the church on the whiteboard, write the answers
(using key words) that have to do with changing individuals or helping
the church to grow. Outside the picture of the church, write (using key
words) the answers that have to do with changing the community and
society that are outside the church. Once participants have no more
words to add ask them: “Do you think some of these activities we wrote
on the whiteboard are more important than others?”
Allow participants time to respond and note their answers on the whiteboard.

• Which of these activities are carried out most often in your church?
Allow participants time to respond and note their answers on the whiteboard.

• What do you think should be the overriding mission of the church?

Allow participants time to respond and note their answers on the whiteboard.

• To get a better handle at this question, let me ask a similar question:

“What are God’s intentions for the world? What is God’s mission?”
Allow participants time to reflect on these questions and respond.

ank you for your thoughts and insights. And I believe that all the things
you said are important, though I believe that your vision of God’s mission
will include more things than listed on the white board by the end of our

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 course. Indeed, the goal of this course is that we can get a much deeper
understanding of God’s intentions for the world and what part is ours to
play to make his intentions and visions come true.

what is god’s mission?

“What is God’s mission?” (Project question from corresponding PowerPoint.)

I believe this is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves,
because if we don’t get the answer to this question right, a lot of things go
wrong, in our personal lives as disciples, in our churches, in our
communities and even in our nations! I’m not joking when I say this. If
we don’t get the answer to the question “What is God’s mission?” right, we
pay a huge cost for it. Even when we get it half-right, we still pay a huge
cost for it. I’d like to tell you a few sad stories that show what happened
and happens, when the missionaries and the pastors and the churches
don’t get the answer to this question “What is God’s mission?” right, or
just half-right. I hope you will realize in listening to these stories that
‘mission’ is much more than just a minor addendum to God’s overall
intent. I hope that you will walk away from this first session, challenged
to reflect more broadly about the question “What is God’s mission?”

present case study #1: rwanda3

(Accompany and illustrate story using PowerPoint slides, using video clip from
Hotel Rwanda.)
20
minutes
In the 1930s God began to work in a new way in the infant church in
Rwanda, East Africa. A public health worker, his younger brother, and a
hospital worker who worked in Gahini, Rwanda, began to seek God
through prayer and fasting and in this time were overcome by grief over
their own sinfulness and brokenness. As they repented and recommitted
their lives to God, they were filled with the supernatural power of the
Holy Spirit. eir lives became different and soon others wanted to know
what happened to them. In the years that followed, the blessing of revival
spread to the churches in the neighboring countries of Uganda, Kenya and
Tanzania. Tens of thousands of Africans came to know Christ as their
personal savior. Evangelism was strong and thousands of new churches
were planted! e movement of revival continued in East Africa and
reached its peak in the 1950s, but carried on through Pentecostal and
Charismatic revival movements for several more decades. is movement
altered East African Christianity and represented a new, vital Christianity,
shaped by African leadership. It has been termed the Great East African
Revival. By the early 1990s, 80-90% of people living in Rwanda called
themselves Christian and the influence of the church was significant.

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 Many of the highest politicians were members of churches. On a normal
Sunday morning between 50-60% of the population went to church.
Much of this Christianity was of a strong evangelical persuasion.4 In
many ways, one could say that Rwanda had become a Christianized
nation, one of the real "successes" of Christian missions and church
growth in Africa! Pastors and missionaries could applaud themselves on
their efforts! And truly, God had intervened miraculously; to the degree
that his children allowed him to.

en, starting on April 6th 1994, genocide broke out. No more than one
hour after the president of Rwanda was killed in a mysterious plane crash
on that tragic day, extremist Hutu factions within the government and the
military joined with extremist Hutu paramilitary groups across the country
to incite a murderous hysteria against Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Claiming that Tutsis had killed their president and were now coming to
slaughter all Hutu, these fanatical Hutu leaders tapped into decades-old
ethnic tensions between the two tribes and used government and military
forces, citizen militias and local mobs to start hunting down and killing
the Tutsis in their communities.5 In just 100 days, the Hutus
systematically slaughtered almost 1 million people, most of them Tutsis, in
a well-planned attempt at a “final solution”.6 Calling Tutsis “cockroaches”
who should be stamped out, rats whose babies should be killed,7 more
than two million were driven from their homes. One respected
commentator has estimated that 80,000-100,000 people took part in the
killing. Gary Scheer, a long-time missionary to Rwanda wrote in 1995:
“On Sundays in Rwanda, we used to see well-dressed neighbors walking
to church on every road. Yet, last year these same neighbors slaughtered
each other…. I don't assume that all those walking to church were all
walking in the steps of Christ, the Lord. But the influence of the church
was strong in the lives of 75 percent of the people. Why was there no
moderation, no dampening – just hatred and fear, farming tools becoming
weapons, neighbors cutting down each other as enemies?”

Hundreds of thousands of people, including men, women and children

fled to churches to seek refuge from the genocide, believing the killers,
many of whom were members of the same congregations, would not touch
them within the walls of these sanctuaries. ey did not realize, however,
that churches were targeted by the killers in order to desecrate them and
to destroy the people’s confidence in their protection. To cite just one
example from among hundreds: Before dawn on Wednesday 13 April
1994 Hutu soldiers of the Presidential Guard kicked in the doors of a
church east of Kigali. Inside were hundreds of Tutsi Christians huddled
together in prayer. e Hutu soldiers tossed hand grenades into the
packed congregation and opened fire with machine guns. ey then
systematically slaughtered the survivors with machetes, spears, bats and
bullets. Before the sun rose, about 1,200 Tutsi church goers had been
massacred. Most of the dead were children. According to Africa Human

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 Rights Watch, more Rwandese died in churches and parishes than
anywhere else! A horrendous thought to know that believers
systematically killed their brothers and sisters in Christ!

But Rwanda was known as a "Christian" country! It had strong churches.

Many of the country’s top politicians were church-going people. So where
were the Christians? Couldn't they stop the carnage? What about the
celebrated East African Revival? Didn't it alleviate the racial hatred?
What really happened? e tragic is that many of the church leaders were
among the last people to denounce the genocide. While not actively
involved in the killing, many did nothing to prevent it or even to condemn
it.8

Now, some may say that the Hutus responsible for this genocide were not
really Christians; they were merely nominal Christians. While this may be
true for many, a good number of those actively involved in the genocide
were regular members of independent, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Baptist,
Presbyterian, Anglican, and Methodist churches – just like you and I! Let
me share another story closer to home, to illustrate that the Rwandan case
study is not unique.

present case study #2: guatemala

(Accompany and illustrate story with PowerPoint slides.)
15
Over the last 30 years a tremendous growth of the evangelical church has
minutes
happened in Guatemala. Formerly a strong bastion of Roman
Catholicism and indigenous religions, the percentage of evangelicals grew
from 4% of the population in 1970 to over 30% (some even say 40%) by
2006. Tens of thousands of new churches have been planted in just over
three decades. ere seems to be no other word to describe these events
than the word “REVIVAL”.

Many mega-churches with several thousands if not tens of thousands of

members and beautiful edifices have sprung up, decorating the capital’s
and other urban areas’ skylines. Powerful radio and television stations
proclaim God’s word 24 hours/day, transmitting their talk-shows, sermons
and devotionals for the edification of people throughout Guatemala as
well as faraway countries via Satellite. Testimonies abound that share of
frequent occurrences of signs and wonders; of people who have been
miraculously healed of physical and emotional illnesses and prospered
financially.

ankfully, Guatemalan leaders have not kept this blessing to themselves.

Of all countries in Central America, Guatemala has sent out most
missionaries to other parts of the world (get number). Evangelists and

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 church planters from Guatemala have become an example to many other
Christian leaders in Latin America. Countless church growth seminars
have been held in Guatemala City in the past decade, and people from all
over Latin America have come to learn how to grow cell-churches, how to
develop impressive media programs, and how to raise leaders.

Hearing this first part of the story, things look good. Some of you may
even want to say: ‘Wow, that’s what I hope will happen in Mexico.’ And
indeed, we ought to give praise to God that many people have accepted
Jesus as their Savior and that the church has grown in leaps and bounds!

Yet, despite this fantastic growth of the church – there is a less well-known
side to the story. And this less well-known side of the story unfortunately
throws some cold water over the flames of passion about what occurred in
Guatemala over the last 30 years. We have to ask ourselves the question:
What has been the impact of this growth of the church on the country?
Has the Gospel really changed people, churches, communities and the
nation? Is the nation significantly different today than it was thirty years
ago?

Let’s look at four indicators that measure quality of life and morality in a
nation to see whether the Gospel has made an impact in Guatemala
beyond altering the skylines of its cities and towns with big churches: the
indicators are health, poverty, corruption and justice.

• Life expectancy in Guatemala (at 65 years) is the lowest in Central

America, 12 years less than in Costa Rica. Under-5 mortality (45 per
thousand) is the highest in Central America. Guatemala also has the
highest prevalence of chronically malnourished children in Latin
America (44 percent) and the highest indices for stunting (height for
weight) in all of Latin America and the Caribbean. How does this fare
with a Gospel that teaches that Jesus came to heal the sick?
• Compared with other countries with a similar GDP and per capita
levels, Guatemala stands out as having an inordinately high rate of
poverty. According to the most recent estimates, over 70 percent of rural
Guatemalan families lived below the poverty line in 2006, while for the
population in general the rate was at slightly over 50%. It is the fourth-
poorest country in Latin America behind Haiti, Bolivia and Honduras.
How does this fare with a Gospel that teaches that Jesus came to
proclaim good news to the poor?
• In terms of corruption, Guatemala occupies place 111 out of 163 nations
according to Transparency International, an organization that compares
corruption levels across nations each year. at makes Guatemala one of
the most corrupt nations in this world. How does this fare with a
Gospel that teaches that Jesus came to call his disciples to live righteous
and ethical lifestyles?

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 • Guatemala is one of the most scenic countries in Central America. But
it is also one of the most unjust societies in the region. A 2004 United
Nations report concluded that the Guatemalan government failed to
resolve 200,000 deaths and disappearances during the country’s 36-year-
civil war, which ended in 1996. People who were implicated in the
deaths remain unpunished – justice has not been upheld. Indeed,
widespread political violence and corruption scandals continue to
dampen investor confidence. Axel Suquen, executive director of
Asociación Vida, an evangelical development agency asserts: “e system
of political and social development in Guatemala is exclusive, oppressive
and corrupt. It affects the integral life of people, especially the
indigenous communities in the rural areas.” How does this fare with a
Gospel that teaches that Jesus came to expose the lies and injustices of
the powerful and confront the oppression of the unjust?

Now, you may say that just a third of the population are evangelicals – so
the reasons that the situation is still as dire, is because the non-Christians
have not been ready yet to change their lifestyles and follow God’s
commandments yet. However, as more people will become Christians,
and the percentage of Christians to non-Christians tips, things will
definitively change for the better. Believe me, I would love nothing more
than for this to be true – if not the facts spoke against this assessment.

General Efraín Ríos-Montt, a military general who became leader of

Guatemala’s military junta after a staged coup in 1982, was responsible for
some of the worst atrocities of Guatemala's 36-year civil war. His
scorched earth strategy against Mayan campesinos killed tens of
thousands of civilians, who were suspected of harboring sympathies for the
guerrilla movement, and resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 villages.
e UN-backed official Truth Commission (the Historical Clarification
Commission) maintained that this was a campaign of deliberate genocide
against the indigenous population.9 e indigenous woman-leader
Rigoberta Menchú was given the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her
activism against Rios-Montt’s scorched earth strategy. Based on the
number of people killed per capita, Ríos Montt was probably the most
violent dictator in Latin America's recent history.10 Guess what – Rios
Montt is a Pentecostal pastor of the California-based Church of the
Word, with close ties to U.S. evangelical Pat Robertson who runs the 700
club and the Christian Broadcasting Network., as well as Jerry Falwell
before he died.11 He said that the true Christian had the Bible in one
hand and a machine gun in the other.12

e sad story is not finished. In 1991 Presidential candidate Jorge

Serrano-Elias, a leader in the neo-pentecostal Elim church, promised
reform and a change to corruption! Since he was an evangelical, many
evangelical churches mobilized their people to vote for him, saying: “One
of our own is standing for President! So let’s support him because he will

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 see to it that things become more moral in our nation!” One of my
friends, David Ruiz, who is the International Director of COMIBAM,
was invited to hold Bible studies in the Presidential palace soon after
Serrano-Elias took office. However, after just four months the President
discontinued the Bible studies. In 1993, only two years into his
presidency, Serrano faced corruption charges, revelations of immorality
and protests over his economic policies. Discontent and protests against
the government grew so strong, that Serrano-Elias had to flee the country
after an autogolpe.13 He is still considered one of the most corrupt
presidents of Guatemala in recent decades. He now lives in exile in
Panama.

What a sad testimony! Isaías Cruz, a Quiche brother from north-eastern

Guatemala aptly reflects on the state of the church in Guatemala: “We
don’t really need more churches like the ones among my [Quiche] tribe.
ere are churches on every street corner in some villages. . . . e problem
is not evangelism, but immature believers and weak churches. We have
babies making babies!”14

group exercise: discuss further case studies

Unfortunately, Guatemala and Rwanda are not rare cases. While the
church worldwide has done a commendable job of doing what she set out
to do—evangelize, save souls for heaven, and plant churches15 the slogan
30 ‘Change people, change society’ has not proven itself to be true. Hard data
minutes
shows that having more Christians in a country does not necessarily
ensure a just and moral society.16 In the following group work we will
briefly highlight four more countries with substantial Christian
populations to prove this point:

• Divide students into groups of four to six and distribute the student
workbook, where session one, e Consequences of a Truncated Gospel: e
Examples of Zambia, Brazil, Korea, and the United States is found. (If the
class is small, divide them up into a total of four groups.) Assign each
group one of the brief country case studies and have them read through
it as a group.
• Once they’ve read through the case study, have students react to these
case studies and discuss why they believe that despite significant church
growth the Gospel has not been able to transform the society of these
respective countries.
• Have them also discuss whether or not the Gospel has transformed their
communities and why they think this is so?
• Finally, have them reflect and dialogue about the following question
from Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin: “If your church closed up tomorrow,
would anyone notice? Would your city protest? Would your city weep?
Would anybody – apart from your church members – care?”

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 • Have each group select one speaker to present a summary of their case
study and findings before the entire class. Select at least four ‘group
leaders’ to present their findings.

plenary summary

As we look at these case studies from around the world, we need to ask
ourselves some questions: Why has the fantastic church growth in nation
after nation not led to the transformation of society – but instead – church
10 growth wasn’t able to hinder genocide in Rwanda; it wasn’t able to
minutes
decrease child mortality rates in Guatemala; it wasn’t able to make
Zambian Christian politicians more interested in seeking the welfare of
the entire country instead of just their own families and party associates; it
wasn’t able to retain young Koreans in church; it wasn’t able to make
American evangelicals positively different from the rest of society? Why?

Don’t get me wrong: In all of the countries mentioned today, there are
wonderful churches, organizations and women and men of God, who do his
will and bring glory to his name by truly transforming their communities
and mobilizing people to advance God’s Kingdom. Indeed, God is acting
mightily in many of these countries because of the faithfulness of these
churches, organizations, women and men. Yet, God could do much more, but
can’t, because the majority of their fellow Christians are missing something
important! (Emphasize this point throughout this session.)

e same questions, then, should not only be asked about Rwanda,

Guatemala, Zambia, Brazil, Korea and the United States. ey should be
asked about our missionary enterprise in general. On the one hand, since
the 1970s we are seeing the highest level of new converts and church
plants in world history, especially in the evangelical/Pentecostal/
charismatic wing of the church.17 at is truly good news, and I, for one,
am excited. Indeed, there have never been more professed Christians,
more churches, and more large churches in all of world history than today.
And, yet, nation after nation is so very broken.18 Many countries of the
world in which this growth is taking place are countries of growing
brokenness, political instability, corruption, material poverty, and disease:
Philippines, Nigeria, Haiti, Kenya, Nicaragua… the list could go on!

If God intends His church to be the principal instrument to advance His

Kingdom’s agenda, we would expect to see the growth of the church linked
to evidence of His Kingdom’s presence, right? Instead, we often see less
evidence of God’s will being done. Something is wrong. So what has
gone wrong?19 Why has the church not transformed the world around it?
20

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 Some of you may say: Maybe the majority of the church around the world
is not praying fervently enough. I’m sure there is great truth to this
observation. But then again, the Korean church is the best example of a
praying church. Yet, like the Western church before it, it is collapsing
before secularization and loosing many of its younger members who no
longer see the church as relevant to their lives. ere must be something
more to it.

So the question is there again: Why is transformation not happening more

today? Even in our own communities? Is it possible that we – the people
of God, the people of the church – the pastors, missionaries, evangelists
etc.—are not fulfilling God’s intentions, that we are not being the church
that Christ intends,21 that we don’t really understand the full dimension of
God’s mission and vision for this world? Is it because most of us have
simply exchanged one religion for another – Humanism for Christianity;
Catholicism for Pentecostalism; instead of changing our lifestyles and
renewing our minds and worldviews? Is it is because we have not been
telling and living the whole story of God’s transforming mission? But
what then is God’s mission?

conclusion and presentation of purpose and outline of

course
To answer these questions and outline a way how we can truly make a
transformative difference in our cities and nations is the purpose of this
30
minutes course. At the end of this introductory course, then, I pray that you will
have been able to grow in understanding and then in practice in the
following three areas:22

• To enable you to grasp and embrace God’s intentions for his creation;
understanding his integral mission and vision for this world and
humanity in particular. Indeed, without fully grasping God’s intentions
– his vision and mission for the world – our vision and purpose are
skewed.
• To help you understand what makes the world the way it actually is;
making a frank appraisal of the world’s corporate sin and what has gone
wrong and keeps going wrong. Without appraising the world as it
actually is, we lack a realistic context for understanding what our job is.
• To enable you to gain tools and better understand what we’re called to
do; what our responsibilities are, so we can work in the world and help
to draw it toward what God intends, so that transformation can truly
happen in our communities, cities and nations. So we can participate in
expanding God’s Kingdom so that ‘God’s will be done on Earth AS IT
IS in Heaven’, like Jesus commanded us to pray.

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 Let me say just a couple more things to this third point. I pray that by the
end of this introductory course you will have become inspired as to how,
practically, churches can contribute to the transformation of their
communities and nations. Even more concretely, how, practically, you and
your church can begin to transform your community and city.

What is the church’s mission and what are its tasks in our cities or
nations? (Project question on corresponding PowerPoint.)

ere is no more important question for Christians to ask and to answer

than that, because its answer will shape all that our churches will be and
do and say in our city or nation.23 If we get the answer to that question
right, we can be assured that when revival comes to Mexico, it will
transform this great nation and not lead to results like in Guatemala or
Zambia or Rwanda.

Distribute Course Outline to all Participants and then briefly comment

on the major sections of the course.

Bad readings of the Bible have brought a lot of grief to people.

Incomplete readings of the Bible have produced a truncated gospel, which
has not been able to transform nations, like the ones we looked at today.

Our first task, then, is to look at how we are reading our Bibles, and
whether the glasses we’re reading our Bibles with are warped, or shaded –
and hence don’t allow us to read the Bible and understand God’s mission
in its fullness. (Pass around a pair of glasses with
warped lenses or heavily tinted lenses to make the
case and illustrate the point.) is is what we
will talk about in the next session. e eight
sessions following that, we’re going to develop
a biblical theology that is as big as the
universe itself; a theology that can truly
transform nations! In order to make a difference you’ve got to understand
the world as it should be – what God’s intentions and vision for it are.
But you also need to understand the world as it really is. One of the
amazing things is that Scripture – I also like to call it ‘God’s Story’ – lays
out very clearly the world is it should be and a profound description of the
world as it is. So during those sessions we’re going look at what the Bible
says God intends the world to look like, and what has gone wrong and
keeps going wrong, and how we can become part of God’s Story to put the
world to rights.

In the final sessions we’re actually going to deal with the question: So now
that we know more about God’s Story and his vision for this world – what
are we as the church really called to do? How do you make this theology
actually work on the ground? It’s not enough to have Christianity right in

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 our hearts and heads. We have to know how to carry it out and live its
message in our world, so that we are really making a difference and
empowering people to change their world!24 ese last three sessions are
more practical.

Once this course is finished – and I want to re-emphasize that it is an

introductory course – I would love to propose to those of you who are
interested to make this whole course come alive to take a follow-up course
that would be much more practical and hands-on, that we could even do
in your church. In fact, we train churches to become change agents in
their own communities and work with them step-by-step to make
transformation become a reality.

Show Church Training Flow Chart (on corresponding PowerPoint) and

very briefly explain it.

So now that you know the outlines of this introductory course on “e
Integral Mission of the Church” and what awaits us, I want to share what
my hopes are for this course. My hope is that as a result of this course you
will be able to get your church to develop a concrete plan of action for
your church and community and become engaged in transforming your
community and city. In fact, I would be very disappointed if this course
becomes just one more training that you go through, without making a
real difference in your ministry. I once taught a course on project design
and formulation to about 30 organizational and church leaders in Peru.
One of the participants stood up during one of the sessions and said: “I’m
glad for the training we’re receiving now. It is very helpful. However, if
we don’t go out and actually take the recommendations seriously and apply
them in our projects and ministries – we’ve all wasted our time. e
problem is not a lack of training here in Peru… but a lack of application.
If we all applied what we learned, Peru would be a different country!”

Jesus said something very similar in his parable of the two men who built
their houses. One built his house on sand, and when the storm came and
the floods came, the house crumbled. e other built his house on rock,
and when the storm came and the floods came, the house was able to
withstand the strength of the water, because it was built on good
foundations. To build our houses on rock, Jesus said, we need to apply
what we hear. All the lessons in this course, therefore, have concrete
applications and some homework, to solidify and reinforce what was
learnt. In this spirit I would like to propose something to you.

I want to ask you to sign the following covenant.

Pass our Covenant Form and go over it.

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 If you believe you can fulfill this covenant, then I know you will grow and
the course will be of great benefit to you and your church.
If you believe you can’t, then I’d rather that you be honest with yourself
and not continue with this course. Again, you’re simply wasting your time.
Better take the evening and rest or spend it with your family. In this
spirit, those of you who choose to sign this covenant form, I look forward
working with you. And I know that the Lord will help you bring fruit.

homework assignment and application

Read the article ‘How People View the World’ and answer the questions at
5
the end of the article in your Application Journal. I realize that this article
minutes may be somewhat complicated for some of you. We’re going to review it
next week, so I ask you to try the best you can to read and understand the
article and answer the questions.

Pray each day that God may use this course to help you become somebody
who can influence others and help your church become an agent of
transformation in your community. Jesus said that he wants us to bring
much fruit, IF we remain in him. So remain in him and pray that God
can use this course to help you grow in him.

closing prayer
Ask a participant to close in prayer.

5
minutes

total time:
180 minutes

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 personal notes

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 endnotes
1 e following may be used as an alternate introduction: “As we start this course on “e
Integral Mission of the Church” I’d like us to think first about the word “Mission”.
(Write the word ‘Mission’ on whiteboard.) What is “mission”? Mission is a word that we
use often and in many different situations. NASA, when it sends a rocket into space, calls
this “a mission to the moon”. George W. Bush, when Saddam was toppled in Iraq about
4 years ago, made a dramatic appearance, descending with a parachute onto an army ship,
and declaring his “Mission accomplished!” His remarks were rather premature, as we
now know! e Mexican ambassador to Germany is on a diplomatic mission to represent
Mexico’s interests to Germany. Most corporations, businesses and organizations have
what they call a “mission statement”; a statement telling what they are about… the
purpose of their enterprise. And then we don’t want to forget the actor Tom Cruise who
stars in three movies called “Mission Impossible!” where he tries to save the world from
evil people, has to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles, but finally makes the mission
he had been sent on come possible. e church too has many different uses for the word
“mission”. Some churches, when they start a small cell group in another section of town,
call this a “mission”. Others maintain, that the mission of the church is to teach, to pray,
to fellowship, to worship and to proclaim, based on what the early church did in Acts
2:42. Others yet, say that mission is what the Great Commission in Matthew 28 is all
about: Going to other nations to evangelize people and plant churches. Well, now that I
have confused you with so many different definitions of the word “mission”; what do you
think does “mission” mean? What do you think is our mission as the Church?”
2 Exercise adapted from Tearfund/ARCA, On Solid Ground, Facilitators Guide, 7
3 For a more in depth background analysis see Dewi Hughes, God of the Poor, 229-234;

Also, click on for a comprehensive Slide Show on Rwanda’s Genocide and the West’s
inactiveness.
4 J.J. (Dons) Kritzinger, e Rwandan Tragedy as Public Indictment Against Christian

Mission, Online, available at http://www.geocities.com/missionalia/rwanda1.htm

5 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 26
6 Miroslav Wolf, A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging, 1
7 Dewi Hughes, God of the Poor, 231
8 David Mays, RWANDA: Revival, Genocide and Hope, 244
9 Onlin e, available at h tt p://en .wik ipedia.org/wiki/Ef r a%C3%ADn_R

%C3%ADos_Montt, Wikipedia
10 In fact, in November 1982, shortly after his ascent to power, about 250,000 Protestants

gathered in Guatemala City to celebrate 100 years of Guatemalan Protestantism. Some

evangelicals saw the convergence of the centennial with the country's first Protestant
leader as a sign that God has appointed Ríos Montt to save Guatemala from communism
and lead it to Christ.
11 Online, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ef ra%C3%ADn_R

%C3%ADos_Montt
12 Online, available at http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal/countries/?

CountryID=84
13 Quoted in Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven
14 Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven, vi
15 Melba Padilla Maggay, Transforming Society, 20, 68, 141
16 In about 40 years 80% of the world’s Christians will be non-Western and non-White.

God's Kingdom is rapidly expanding throughout the Two-irds World.

17 Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven, vi
18 Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven, vi
19 Bob Moffit, If Jesus Were Mayor, 28
20 Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven, 65

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 21 Adapted from Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power, 4
22 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 129
23 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power

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