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Why didn't they ask Evans?




A classic Agatha Christie title or, of more relevance to this post, why didn't we listen to Newbigin??

Hindsight is a wonderful thing though it can also be quite a frustrating thing, depending on what you are trying to do. For example, for the Church in the UK who are now seeking/needing to reach out into an increasingly multicultural society we find, on the whole, that we are not equipped to do so by and large.

However, consider the following extract concerning Bishop James Edward Lesslie Newbigin (8 December 1909 – 30 January 1998) who was a British theologian,missiologist, missionary and author.

He returned to England in the early 1970's from his long missionary service and travel in India. He tried to communicate the serious need for the church to once again take the Gospel to post-Christian Western culture, which he viewed not as a secular society without gods but as a pagan society with false gods.

Now imagine this. Everyone listened, every Church geared itself up and prepared itself to communicate the gospel through compassionate words and actions and equipped itself to learn from, and communicate with, peoples of other cultures eg 'cross-culturally'...

I wish people had. We would be in a much better place to model how to:

Reconcile differences in our increasingly fragmented multi-cultural society.
Help minimise suspicion of those who are different
Know how to learn and understand people in order to function better in the globalised world we live in
In addition as a Church we would be better placed to:

Communicate relevantly the transforming message of the gospel to those who are now coming into our communities
Offer meaningful hospitality to the strangers in our midst
Be open to explore new patterns of church in order to disciple effectively those who find a new hope and faith in Christ
This raises two questions in my mind, which we would all do well to ponder:

Why don't we listen?
Who, and what, are we not listening to today?
My prayer is for humility, discernment and an open heart into which the Spirit can speak, lead and guide. I pray that for the whole Church as well.
Press on!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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