by | Sep 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
In 1983, Ed Pousson picked up Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World prayer guide and read an entry on Singapore. In it, the Southeast Asian country was described as the ‘Antioch of Asia.’
The American missionary and his Malaysian wife, Lai Kheng, had previously lived and served in Malaysia and were planning to make their home there after leaving the mission field.
Reading about Singapore changed the course of their lives.
“It was a defining moment for both of us,” Pousson said. “We prayed and decided on the spot that when we returned to Asia, Singapore would be our home.”
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse nation, says the Lausanne Movement’s State of the Great Commission report. Christians make up 17 percent of the population, while 26 percent are Buddhist, 18 percent are Muslim, 8 percent are Hindu, and 6 percent follow a Chinese traditional religion like Daoism (Taoism) or Confucianism, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Christians in Asia are most likely to be familiar with witnessing to their faith in contexts of religious difference,” the Lausanne report also noted.
The nation’s multicultural makeup and its location along major shipping routes are often cited as some of its strengths. It’s easy to draw parallels between Singapore and the biblical Antioch, capital of the Roman province of Syria—a cosmopolitan, multiracial, and multireligious society that served as a major trading hub and commercial center that connected various cultures, said Pousson.
The blend of cultural influences from both the East and West has helped Singaporeans to be globally connected and culturally sensitive, said Manik Corea, national director of the Singapore Center for Global Missions.
These cultural and geographical qualities have also primed Singapore to become a popular missions base for the region. Mission agencies like OMF, OM, and Wycliffe are based there, and believers from surrounding countries go there to study at seminary or attend conferences.
As the Christian population in the country grew in the 20th century, the number of missionaries sent out also increased. Since 2010, however, missionary-sending activity has plateaued, according to the World Christian Database.
Singapore’s mission force is slowing down as fewer people take up full-time missions and as missionaries grow older, data from a 2019 National Missions Study of 158 churches shows.
The prophetic call for the country to be an Antioch of Asia has helped and also hindered mission efforts, said the Singaporean Christian leaders CT interviewed. Many also emphasized an urgent need to boost young believers’ missional mindsets.
Mythic roots
Regarding Singapore as “the Antioch of Asia” or one of its other iterations—an Antioch of Asia or an Antioch for Asia—has permeated Christian consciousness in the country for decades.
The prophetic saying is often attributed to Billy Graham, who visited the country for an evangelistic crusade in 1978. Others claim that this was prophesied by David Yonggi Cho, the founder of the world’s largest megachurch in South Korea.
But no concrete evidence of the phrase’s origins exists.
“As far as I am concern[ed], I did not hear from Dr. Billy Graham in 1978, between [the] last week of November and mid-December, while he was in Singapore, that Singapore will be ‘the Antioch of Asia,’” said Alfred Yeo, then general secretary of the Singapore Billy Graham Crusade. There were no papers or reports from the event that shared this either, Yeo added.
Other leaders of the 1978 evangelistic gathering, like then vice chairman of the organizing committee, James Wong, said otherwise, noting that Billy Graham “prophesied that Singapore would be like Antioch in the New Testament, sending missionaries to all of Asia.”
A Singaporean friend of the Poussons who attended the evangelistic meeting at the National Stadium in 1978 “would swear on a Bible” that he heard Billy Graham utter that prophecy, said Pousson. “That’s the only thing he remembers hearing Billy Graham say.”
The phrase has been referred to at Christian conferences, written about by renowned local pastor Edmund Chan, and featured in magazine articles (including one published at CT in 2020).
This idea has become embedded in the psyche of the Singapore church, whether valid or not, said Mark Syn, author of the book On Being the Antioch of Asia: Global Missions and Missions Partnership Through Asian Lenses.
“Many Singapore Christians and mission leaders I know believe passionately that Singapore carries a divine mandate as God’s ‘Antioch of Asia,’” said Corea, the missions center director.
“They believe God has called the Church in Singapore to be like the original in the book of Acts: the launchpad of Paul’s many missionary journeys and his original sending base.”
Corea himself is “not bothered” about who gave Singapore this prophecy but says it matters whether this title has divine sanction and, if so, how Singapore ought to live it out in a way that’s faithful, appropriate, and realistic.
While Antioch served as a base for Paul’s three missionary journeys, the city was slowly eclipsed by other major cities like Nisibis, Edessa, and Alexandria, which became important missionary-sending places, explained Andrew Peh, lecturer in mission and world religions at Singapore’s Trinity Theological College.
“This accolade is a little bit self-aggrandizing,” he said.
A modern marvel
Apart from being seen as an Antioch of Asia, Singapore has received other accolades over time, ostensibly giving the country an edge when it comes to spreading the Good News and equipping people to do so.
As “Asia’s wealthiest nation,” Singapore has the second highest per-capita GDP in the world. Christian churches reflect this wealth as well. A survey of more than 2,500 attendees of 24 churches conducted between 2009 and 2011 affirmed another article’s claim that “mainstream church-goers typically come from privileged backgrounds, while mega-church-goers tend to belong to the emerging/new middle class.”
“Singapore churches are affluent,” Syn agreed. “That certainly has helped with funding missions.”
The nation’s multicultural society has often been seen as another advantage for mission work. Chinese people make up three quarters of the country’s population of about 5.92 million, while Malays are the next largest and Indians the third.
Growing up in Singapore with an awareness of the need to respect and live harmoniously with people of different cultures and religions was helpful in his cross-cultural mission endeavors, says Corea.
While serving at a church plant in England’s East Anglia, Corea pioneered an international student ministry at a university. “Personally, I found it easy to befriend international people and to get along with people, despite their different mannerisms, customs, religions and perspectives,” he said.
He was also able to adapt well to a different culture when he served with his wife in Thailand for 13 years.
Yet Corea doesn’t think Singapore’s multiculturalism is always beneficial, because there is a propensity to create ethnic enclaves, especially as the majority of people—and Christians—are ethnically Chinese.
“It is possible—and I have witnessed it—for people to live within almost wholly Chinese communities, go to Chinese schools or churches, and not have friends outside their own ethnic grouping,” he said.
In Corea’s view, Singaporean Chinese Christians do well as missionaries in nontraditional roles like community development, business as missions, or tentmaking. “Singaporean Chinese are typically pragmatic, goal- and crisis-oriented, good at business in general, and [good] at organizing things in a focused way,” he said.
And while the country is as multicultural as it is global, its current approach to missions is “fairly parochial,” as many Singaporean believers tend to focus on serving within Asia, says Syn.
“They say, ‘Oh, we can fly anywhere in Asia within seven or eight hours,’” Syn shared. “I would love it to grow up in that respect. … I would love to see Singaporean missionaries going to Europe and Africa in larger numbers than they are.”
Singapore has the most powerful passport in the world, granting its citizens visa-free access to 195 countries.
“Our passport gives us access to so many parts of the world, more than most countries,” said Ng Zhiwen, a pastor who leads transdenominational missions movement Antioch 21. “If we are not participating in God’s mission, then we will not be found to be a faithful steward of all that God has blessed us with.
“We believe that we have been blessed to be a blessing to the nations, in the spirit of Antioch.”
A galvanizing force
Like Ng, many of the leaders CT interviewed say that conceiving of Singapore as an Antioch of Asia has served as a good rallying call for the church, despite its puzzling origins and potential for developing hubris.
The gospel arrived in Singapore in the 1800s through British missionaries from the London Missionary Society. In the early 20th century, fiery Chinese evangelist John Song’s preaching in the country stirred up a nationwide revival, and by 1938, Christians comprised 11.1 percent of the population.
The 1970s saw the birth of the charismatic movement in Singapore alongside the growth of evangelical presence in the country.
“The Graham Crusade was really the peak [of evangelical fervor],” said then honorary chairman of the event, Benjamin Chew. “I definitely see a greater evangelical influence in Singapore in the ’80s.”
Still, the first local missionaries from Singapore were sent more than a decade before Billy Graham landed on its tropical shores.
In 1965, the year the country became an independent republic, Singaporean believers Kate Cheah and Tan Kai Kiat each left for Hong Kong on separate missions. Cheah served refugees in the notorious walled city of Kowloon, while Tan ran a medical mission there for a year, said Ng.
More recently, other Christian leaders have advanced Singapore’s prophetic calling.
The Antioch 21 movement, which Ng now leads, was founded by Rick Seaward in 2003 to encourage the country to live out its calling as Antioch of Asia.
“I believe that Singapore is supposed to be an Antioch of Antiochs,” Seaward wrote in an article for local Christian publication Salt&Light in 2018. “We are called to challenge other cities and nations to be Antiochs.”
The movement was relaunched in 2021 and led by Joseph Chean, former YWAM Singapore national director. He gathered pastors and leaders in the marketplace, education, health care, and mission agencies to pray and seek the Holy Spirit’s leadership in guiding the Singapore church, and he also established a sub-movement, Joshua 21, to mobilize believers aged 40 and below to go to the unreached, said his wife, Kim Chean.
Seaward and Chean died in separate car accidents: the former in Três Pontas, Brazil, in 2018 and the latter in Istanbul last year. But their vision for Singapore as an active missionary-sending base persists through the Antioch 21 movement, which declared 2023 to 2033 “the decade of missions.” The hope is to raise up a new generation of workers to go to the least reached places of Asia and beyond, said Ng.
“In the 1990s, the church of Singapore was one of the top mission-sending churches in the world,” Ng said. “Back then, there were 300-plus churches. Today, the number of churches has easily doubled.”
Ng’s main goal is to foster relationships among different churches and parachurch organizations to fulfill the Great Commission.
There are a lot more independent megachurches now, and not all of them are regularly engaged in missions, he said. The upcoming Antioch Summit in October, which aims to embolden believers to become “an Antioch to the nations,” has 600 sign-ups so far, said Ng.
Other ongoing nationwide movements like LoveSingapore have also placed a strong emphasis on Singapore’s role as an Antioch church. In a video prayer devotional released last year, Jeremy Seaward, pastor of Victory Family Center and Rick Seaward’s son, highlighted the importance of having an Antioch spirit. He referred to Acts 13:2–3, where Barnabas and Saul were set apart for God’s work.
The Antioch church’s example here is instructive for Singapore, says Corea.
“The struggle is for Singapore churches to realize our gift may be to give away the best of what we have for the sake of new, greater centers and movements of God happening in places other than home.”
Missing the mark?
Several key trends, however, have placed Singapore’s prophetic role as Antioch of Asia on shaky ground.
One such trend is the aging missionary population, which is also noticeable in other countries like South Korea. Fewer than 1 in 5 career missionaries in Singapore are under 40 years old, and more than 1 in 3 are 60 and above, according to the 2019 National Missions Study.
Another trend is a decline in long-term sending and a rise in short-term missions. “The notion of being a ‘career missionary’ is virtually nonexistent now,” said Syn, the author.
Singapore’s requirement for its men to enlist in mandatory military service when they turn 18 may well affect the duration of time spent in the mission field.
Missionaries often choose to return to the country to fulfill these obligations. Those who serve abroad are often required to place a bond of at least $75,000 SGD (around $58,000 USD) with the government when their son turns 13 years old if they intend to stay overseas for two years or more, says Corea, whose family returned to Singapore from Thailand when his son was that age.
Other leaders are less convinced of the detrimental impact that mandatory conscription might cause. “It’s hard to say, because the majority of our mission workers are female,” Ng said.
Young Singaporean Christians, meanwhile, may be less inclined to embark on longer-term missionary work because “they lack strong convictions about the lostness of people without Christ” or don’t want their children to miss out on Singapore’s excellent education system, said Lai Kheng Pousson.
Some families are bucking the trend. Chean’s daughters, 19-year-old Ashley and 21-year-old Olivia, are open to becoming long-term missionaries.
Ashley visited 14 countries, including Macedonia, Kosovo, and Lebanon, this year while attending YWAM’s discipleship training school, and Olivia will enter the same program when she completes her studies.
“Missions is certainly in the hearts of the girls and myself,” said Chean. “They see the benefit of setting aside time to focus on growing as a disciple.”
Yet one danger with the popularity of short-term mission trips is that missionaries may be “cultural novices [who] repeat the ethnocentric, imperialistic mistakes of the past,” Syn said.
Singapore’s enjoyment of religious freedom has led many missionaries to share the gospel in other cultures without recognizing or understanding the religious dynamics and composition of the people there, added Peh, the lecturer.
Many short-term mission trips also do not go to unreached people groups (UPGs) but tend to focus on visiting existing ministries or adopting projects in other countries, said Syn.
Findings from the 2019 study reflect this trend as well. “More than 60% of churches are not engaged in UPG work, and there has been limited take up of such work over the last 6 years,” researchers from the National Missions Study wrote.
To some leaders, the history of how the Singapore church was founded is precisely why the need to boost mission efforts across the country is critical.
“We were once an unreached nation, and it’s our privilege to pay it forward by also continuing the work to go to the unreached,” said Ng, the Antioch 21 movement leader.
The Poussons, who are in their 70s, continue to pray, preach, teach, and write in Singapore. They hope to inspire young believers to “take up the Antioch challenge [and] be like Paul: strong in spirit, strategic in thinking, sacrificial in lifestyle, and servant in posture.”
“We love Singapore,” they affirmed. “This miracle of God is blessed to be a blessing. To whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48).
“This little red dot [a moniker for Singapore’s depiction on a world map] has a big responsibility to go bless the nations through Good News and good works.”
The post The ‘Antioch of Asia’? appeared first on Christianity Today.
by | Sep 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
For years, integral mission—a theological vision that saw evangelism and social justice as inseparable components of Christian life, or as “two wings of an airplane,” as Ecuadorian theologian René Padilla once wrote—has been a legacy of the Lausanne Movement in Brazil. The concept was developed in the 1970s by members of the Latin American Theological Fellowship and motivated Brazilian evangelicals to fight street violence in Rio, battle alcohol abuse in indigenous reserves, and deliver homeless people from drug addiction, among many other achievements.
Recently, however, the legacy of integral mission theology (IMT) has come under scrutiny in Brazil, for generational, demographic, and theological reasons.
In June, the Lausanne movement held a conference in São Paulo to present its Great Commission report, an exhaustive survey of trends affecting global missions efforts. Leading up to the event, evangelicals debated on social media whether the event would become a kind of “funeral for IMT.”
Most of the speakers were young and had joined the movement only in recent years. And no one mentioned “integral mission” from the main stage.
This reality did not escape the observations of longtime Lausanne leaders, who were focused on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the inaugural conference, which will be held next week in Incheon, South Korea.
“Some of us are going to Lausanne 4 with this question in mind: what will become of integral mission?” said Valdir Steuernagel, one of the most prominent Brazilian names in evangelicalism and a senior executive advisor of the Lausanne Movement.
Though the controversy over this concept may have reached fever pitch in Brazil, it goes back decades.
When integral mission was initially conceived in the 1970s, emerging from the first Lausanne congress in 1974, some evangelicals expressed concern about the implications of a gospel that addressed people’s material as well as their spiritual needs. Lausanne-friendly evangelicals were often accused of being influenced by Marxist thought or merely adopting a Protestant version of liberation theology.
These criticisms have persisted over time. In a 2015 video, Reverend Augustus Nicodemus, a former high-ranking leader in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, described integral mission as “a corrupted or, at the very least, incomplete reading of reality.” Eventually, division over integral mission arose within the national Lausanne network as well.
Increasing tribalism within domestic Brazilian politics has intensified the conflicts.
In April 2018, pastor Ariovaldo Ramos attended a political rally at which he prayed for Brazil’s embattled president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Shortly after that, the left-wing leader was sent to jail on corruption charges.
That same day, Yago Martins, an influential YouTuber and podcaster in the field of theology, lamented Ramos’s presence at the event on Facebook, using the situation to criticize integral mission. In his words, it was “nothing more than Marxist missiology and theological leftism.”
Eighteen months later, Lula was freed, and he regained the presidency in the 2022 elections. The impact of Ramos’s presence at that 2018 event, however, continues to reverberate in the Brazilian church and in the Lausanne Movement.
Ramos—a former president of World Vision in Brazil and founder of the Frente de Evangélicos pelo Estado de Direito (Evangelical Front for the Rule of Law), which describes itself as a Christian movement promoting social justice and human rights—had long been one of the main Brazilian faces of integral mission in Brazil. In the eyes of the opponents of integral mission, Ramos’s support for Lula was seen as evidence that it was a left-wing political movement, an assertion that Ramos rejects.
“The theology of integral mission has no partisan commitment under any circumstances,” he said. “When I went to that rally, I did so out of my convictions as a citizen. And when I visited Lula in prison, I did it because I was invited to a pastoral visit. No pastor can deny a visit to someone who is in prison.”
In the following years, political polarization worsened among evangelicals, exacerbated by the contentious 2018 and 2022 presidential elections. Critics on the right observed champions of integral mission conspicuously defending a president (Lula) who had allegedly broken the law. Those on the left asked why evangelicals were supporting a candidate (Jair Bolsonaro, elected in 2018) whom they viewed as making misogynistic and prejudiced remarks.
“It has been a very hard season. It has left wounds that are still open,” said the leader of one Christian social services organization, who asked not to be identified so as not to impede his group’s ability to collaborate with other ministries. “People who are admired and respected, including theologians and missiologists, started avoiding each other and even exchanged insults due to different political views.”
This polarization has had notable consequences.
“Today, few preachers use the term ‘integral mission.’ They may even address the topic, but they do not use these words so as not to be canceled, labeled, or excluded,” said Ramos.
Though Lausanne Brazil’s integral mission task force still exists and the national Lausanne network has not suffered any high-profile resignations, Ziel Machado, who attended Lausanne’s second global gathering in Manila in 1989 and currently serves as vice-chancellor of the Servo de Cristo Seminary in São Paulo, acknowledges that Brazil’s divisive political situation has undermined a community once characterized by cooperation and fellowship.
“The term ‘integral mission’is tarnished and is now part of the conflict,” he said. “Lausanne teaches us to think about reconciliation. But we can’t apply this principle if we don’t address our problems. We need to understand which areas are affected and what reconciliation needs to be made.”
About a year ago, Lausanne’s Latin America director, Daniel Bianchi, asked whether it was time to retire the phrase. “At this time it is necessary to recognize that the term ‘integral mission’ has become a kind of buzzword and has been used for many things to the point of almost losing its meaning,” wrote Bianchi, from Argentina, who assumed his role with Lausanne in 2017.
Fernando Costa, coordinator of the Lausanne Brazil executive committee and executive director of the Centro Evangélico de Missões, said that integral mission has weakened after the death of many of its pioneers, such as Padilla and Puerto Rican Orlando Costas. “This has become something of a dirty word. Anything that is not very healthy for the church is labeled as integral mission,” said Costa. “It’s unfair to integral mission, but no one will put their face forward to defend it.”
These tensions around the idea of integral mission and within Lausanne have occurred simultaneously with the explosive growth of evangelicals in the country. According to the 1970 census, Brazil had 4.8 million evangelicals, representing 5.2 percent of the population. Today, there are 3.5 million evangelicals just in São Paulo, the country’s most populous city. Overall, 63 million Brazilians, or 31 percent of the total population, are evangelicals, according to a Datafolha survey.
Most of these are converts—only 7 percent of the evangelicals indicated to Datafolha that they had attended church since birth. In contrast to the evangelicals of the 1970s, these newcomers are joining a movement that enjoys increasing influence in pop culture and politics.
Many of these new converts are Pentecostals (in Brazil and Latin America, Pentecostals and independent Christians are counted among evangelicals), who represent about 65 percent of evangelicals in the country. These groups have been underrepresented in the Lausanne Movement, in part because in the past they didn’t have their own seminaries or colleges, instead relying on less formal frameworks to train their pastors and missionaries or using institutions operated by other groups, such as Baptists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans. This lack of scholars has in turn meant that Pentecostal positions on theology and missiology have been less visible.
Indeed, Brazil’s largest evangelical denomination, the Assemblies of God, was, until a few years ago, averse to theological scholarship and resistant to academic environments. More recently, many Assemblies of God members have sought theological training. “This has brought them closer to groups like Lausanne,” said Marcos Amado, who led the Lausanne Movement in Latin America from 2011 to 2013. But it has also created the challenge of integrating a different type of theological tradition into a cooperative environment.
Many Pentecostals attended Lausanne’s June Great Commission event. “What I saw was a young crowd very eager to serve Jesus. They have plans. They want to be an influence through social media and spread [the gospel] to as many people as possible,” said Amado.
Costa said that many leaders who are heavily involved in missionary work had limited knowledge of Lausanne’s history. “We are working with these individuals who are shaping the Brazilian missionary movement, to bring them closer to the theoretical and theological understanding of mission,” he explained. “They are discovering the identity of Lausanne along the way.” To do this, they rely on the mentorship of a group of experienced missiologists who have partnered with Lausanne for decades—older and more experienced participants like Valdir Steuernagel, who attended Lausanne’s 1989 global event at Manila.
But is there any chance of restoring the image of integral mission, in Lausanne Brazil or elsewhere?
“The injury that the theology of integral mission has suffered will be healed only if there is repentance. It may come,” said Ramos. “I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict people of sin, righteousness, and judgment.”
For Steuernagel, this conflict is part of the Lausanne Movement’s maturation process: “There is always tension in these meetings. If you take away the tension, I think you also kill the spirit of Lausanne.”
The post Brazilian Evangelicals Are Split on Lausanne’s Legacy appeared first on Christianity Today.
by | Sep 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
It was our first Christmas season as a family of four, and we were excited to attend our new church’s lessons-and-carols service. As my husband carried our infant daughter into the service, I noticed my son marveling at the decorations and the music. I could see him taking it all in with reverence and delight.
After a few hymns my son didn’t know, it was clear he wanted to sing something familiar. Unfortunately, his song of choice was not in our hymnal. As he continued to express with increasing urgency and distress a desire to belt out “Jingle Bells,” I gently shushed him, offering a coloring book and suggesting we sing together somewhere else or after the service had ended.
The couple in front of us turned around as he began to cry. The woman made eye contact with me, glaring as she firmly said, “Maybe you should just leave.” Shocked, we collected our children and moved as quickly as my postpartum body would allow.
As we exited, I found myself in tears. The group of women setting up refreshments outside the sanctuary rushed over and reassured me that our family was always welcome. One of them took my son’s hand and offered him a large piece of cake. The next day, our pastor texted me to let me know he’d heard what had happened and was sorry we had experienced that. He reiterated that our family was always welcome.
Unfortunately, this kind gesture isn’t typical for many families like ours.
My son and I are autistic, and multiple members of our family are neurodivergent—a term that refers to brain-based differences such as autism, ADHD, learning difficulties, and more. To put it another way, we often experience the world differently than the people around us. My son and I are both sensitive to our surroundings and notice subtle patterns that others might miss. For him, this also means he may experience intense fear and distress when he perceives a threat, but he also experiences joy and delight more acutely than most of us.
In recent years, I’ve noticed an increase in conversations about inclusion and hospitality within the church. Indeed, the church is called to hospitality (Heb. 13:2) and care for the marginalized in our communities (Luke 14:12–14; Matt. 25:35–40). I’m grateful for these conversations.
At the same time, we often overlook the need for churches to better welcome and include adults and children with disabilities in all areas of church life. One estimate suggests that 80 percent or more of churches have no form of disability ministry, and yet nearly all churchgoers and pastors say someone with disabilities would be welcome at their church. It feels uniquely challenging for my family to join this conversation—to advocate or seek accommodation—because our disabilities are not externally visible.
In 2018, a robust national study indicated that children with certain chronic health conditions are far less likely to attend church than their typically developing peers. Specifically, children navigating “invisible” disabilities such as autism, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other types of mental health issues and neurodivergence were the least likely to attend church.
Other studies have found that the majority of parents surveyed indicated that their children with disabilities had been excluded at church. Parents have also reported leaving churches or refraining from church activities because a child was not included or a church seemed unwilling to learn more or make accommodations.
Yet throughout Scripture, we see Jesus reaching out to forgotten, ostracized, or otherwise excluded individuals—healing and restoring them to their communities and loved ones. When Christ encountered a blind man in John 9, he made it clear the disability was not a punishment for sin. Instead, our Savior said, this man’s disability was “so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3).
I’ve previously heard “the works of God” in this passage defined as the miracle of the man’s ability to see. But what if, when we read passages like this, we consider that the miracle and works of God are also the restoration of community and dignity? I often find myself reflecting that perhaps the work of God and his church lies in enabling all of his image bearers to fully participate in the life of the church, regardless of ability.
Lamar Hardwick, an autistic pastor, writes in his book Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion about the importance of making a culture shift alongside practical and tangible changes so that everyone can participate in church life. Like me, Hardwick received his autism diagnosis as an adult.
Physical improvements can certainly be made through facility upgrades, such as ramps, elevators, accessible restrooms, and designated areas for people with mobility needs. Churches can also offer sensory accommodations and communication aids, such as sign language interpreters, assistive listening devices, and large-print bulletins. We can create accessible educational programming, provide training for leadership, and support caregivers.
But this isn’t enough, Hardwick emphasizes. True inclusion requires a culture shift—a movement toward a radical sense of belonging and welcome that values the perspectives of individuals with disabilities and advocates on their behalf.
Inclusion begins with recognizing that every person, regardless of ability, is created in the image of God and has gifts to offer the church community. Rather than viewing individuals with disabilities as needing charity, we are called to recognize their full humanity and the ways they contribute to our collective worship. Galatians 3:28 reminds us that in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (ESV). This unity includes people of all abilities.
A few months after the lessons-and-carols service, my son was “promoted” from the nursery to children’s church. It wasn’t a seamless transition. He made it clear he didn’t want to go yet, and we agreed that perhaps he wasn’t ready.
We found ourselves at a loss for what to do during the service. We would color and read books in our church’s small library or take walks around the church building. He would pick flowers out of the weeds and offer small bouquets to me as we chatted. One Sunday, as we walked toward the outdoor chapel, he bent to pick a dandelion. As he presented the yellow flower to me, he asked, “Why did God make things different colors?”
I stumbled through an answer, sharing that colors serve many purposes in both nature and the built world—from pollination of flowers to communicating which snakes are venomous to knowing when to stop and go at an intersection. I remember looking at his small outstretched hand, holding still more flowers, realizing that perhaps I wasn’t answering in a way that conveyed the Father’s affection for us. I took the flowers into my own hand, tucked one behind my ear, and added, “But sometimes God just wants us to enjoy beautiful things too.”
There is a movement in the design world to create spaces that are universally accessible from the outset, and designers like Susie Wise and Sara Hendren would argue that the tangible manifestation of this culture shift has to do with how we create and curate our physical spaces to cultivate belonging in the built world. For example, when we place a dumpster next to the accessible entrance, what are we conveying about how we value individuals with disabilities?
The church has the opportunity to radically transform our communities toward belonging—to make every aspect of the way we engage universally accessible and uniquely beautiful for every member of the body of Christ so that no person is limited from fully participating in the life of the church.
Inclusion is not just a moral imperative; it is a lifelong spiritual practice. By intentionally creating spaces where individuals with disabilities are welcomed and celebrated, the church can become a true reflection of the kingdom of God, where all are valued and all belong.
Sunita Theiss is a writer, communications consultant, and homeschool parent based in Georgia.
The post Becoming a Church for People of All Abilities appeared first on Christianity Today.
by | Sep 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
“Pray, believe, and receive—or doubt and do without” was a phrase I often heard in my Christian circle. And although it was not intended to be a harmful adage, it became one.
That is, after I worked at a ministry where I was bullied, isolated, and left to fend for myself. When I finally decided to quit, friends and family still expected me to keep going to church. But I was so wounded from what I had experienced that the thought of attending church literally made me sick to my stomach.
I prayed and believed but didn’t receive. And every time, I felt shame and guilt. I couldn’t help but think, “Maybe I didn’t pray hard enough. Maybe I doubted without realizing it.” And whenever church peers repeated this adage, it caused a visceral response in me. I didn’t have language to convey why this statement bothered me so much at the time. But I do now.
As a therapist working with religious trauma, I have encountered many individuals who shared stories about experiences that didn’t quite classify as spiritual abuse but were equally unsettling. I began investigating this phenomenon further through my doctoral studies and soon stumbled upon a term to classify these experiences: spiritual bypass.
Spiritual bypassing is when a person uses Scripture, religious concepts or ideals, and spiritual mantras to “bypass” the pain he or she is experiencing out of a desire to ease their pain—for example, when we experience a loss and we say to ourselves, “God’s got this. His ways are higher than mine.” While this statement does hold truth, the statement may encourage us to “bypass” a healthy process of dealing with our feelings or thoughts about the loss.
However, as I studied this concept, I recognized spiritual bypassing can also be done toward another person—for example, if someone is expressing the hurt of his or her loss to a friend in the faith and that person responds with, “God’s got this. His ways are higher than yours. You just have to trust him.” This can cause the wounded person to feel dismissed, disregarded, shamed, and even spiritually gaslighted.
This is exactly what I experienced in the church—and I know many others have experienced it too. Understanding spiritual bypassing provided a language for my own experiences and for my clients seeking treatment for religious trauma. Instead of spiritual bypass, we are called to love our neighbors in such a way that honors their hurt as well as draws them to Christ—with the eventual (not immediate) goal of helping them heal emotionally and spiritually.
The Good Samaritan story in Luke 10 (vv. 25-37) is one with which most of us are familiar. A man is attacked, brutally beaten, and left for dead. But the wounding does not stop there. It continues as both the priest and Levite “bypass” the man on the other side of the path. These men, who are well aware of the law “Love your neighbor as yourself,” choose to ignore the man’s need for reasons we can only surmise.
What we do know is that a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, is the only one who stops to help the man. He sees the man’s wounds and does not add insult to injury by passing him by on the other side. Instead, he draws near enough to see the man’s need and takes the time to bind his wounds with oil and wine—offering healing and relief specific to his wounds. And at his own expense, he brings the man to a place where he will have the time and space to heal.
Whether we are the Good Samaritan or the man in the road, this story reminds us of the high expectations Jesus has for his followers when it comes to caring for wounded neighbors.
In a previous article for CT, author Michelle Van Loon observes that “today’s pews are full of people who bear scars—or still-oozing wounds—from church hurt.” And when we spiritually bypass our church-hurt neighbor, we pour salt on their wounds instead of oil and wine.
As I researched spiritual bypassing, I found that most people have experienced this feeling of disregard and dismissal—as if their pain is invisible, much like the beaten man in the road—within the church or with friends and family members of faith.
I’ll never forget the woman who sat in my office during a session and said to me through clenched teeth, “My family keeps telling me I am being overdramatic and I am inflicting my stress and anxiety on myself. If I hear someone tell me one more time to ‘Be worried about nothing, but in everything by prayer, blah, blah, blah, I might just lose my mind.’” She stated these words made her feel “not seen, not understood, not safe.”
What were no doubt intended as words of life were, in fact, robbing her of life. This wounded woman wanted someone to validate her pain and her experience. She longed to be known.
In his book The Deepest Place, Dr. Curt Thompsondescribes “suffering with” someone as remaining present and accepting the person’s pain without following it up with spiritual platitudes. We allow them to know that we see them, care for them, are with them, and are willing to accept them just as they are—not as we are or want them to be.
Often, we spiritually bypass people because we feel uncomfortable with their pain or helpless to do anything about it. Out of our own insecurity, our instinct is to offer a Scripture verse, spiritual saying, or reminder of a biblical truth because it’s the only thing we feel capable of offering them in such a time. And although we might feel better about the situation afterward, we may not recognize the impact it has on the other person.
That is not to say there will not be times when someone reaches out to us for advice, wisdom, or words of encouragement. But unless we take the time to fully listen, recognize, and empathize with their pain, we will not know how to best meet their needs, and we may heap on them more harm than hope.
Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution for the wounded man, the Good Samaritan provided precisely what his specific injuries required by binding his wounds with oil and wine. Our actions and words toward our own hurt neighbors need to do the same.
I have learned this story the hard way in my own life. Before I experienced my own church hurt and before becoming a therapist or pursuing my doctorate, I was a small group and women’s minister in the church, who often talked with people about their latest struggles and hurts.
Once, I remember listening to a church member recount her story of church hurt, and my first thought was that those who hurt her did not use the biblical model of approaching someone with an accusation of wrong (Matt. 18:15–20). And before I could stop myself, I found those words spilling out of my mouth. She immediately responded with, “Oh, no! Do not use that on me!” I was a little befuddled because I thought she needed to hear that and it would support her case. Yet I was sorely mistaken because that verse had been used as a weapon against her.
This woman’s wound was oozing, and I was not only spiritually bypassing her hurt but also pouring salt in her wounds rather than oil and wine. And although I didn’t know it then, I recognize now that I was giving her what I thought she wanted or needed to hear rather than taking the time to listen for what she truly needed.
The Bible reminds us that it is wise to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19). Doing so enables us to hear the broken hearts of God’s children, but it also allows us to incline our ears to God and listen for the words he alone knows his wounded children need to hear. Scripture tells us that “If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides.” (1 Pet. 4:11)
The Samaritan did not question the beaten man, offer him advice on how to overcome his pain, or tell him to forgive his abusers. He simply soothed the man’s wounds and carried him to a place where he would have the space and time to heal.
Very seldom do any wounds heal overnight—whether physical or spiritual. They all need a certain amount of time and space to heal. The Good Samaritan understood this. He did not put a time limit on the man’s healing, even when it was at his own expense. He instead wrote a blank check for the innkeeper to do whatever it took to care for the man, for as long as it took.
This is the radical love we are called to show the wounded souls in our families, churches, and communities, or the people God has placed along the path of our daily lives. We cannot put a time limit on each other’s healing—even when it is uncomfortable for us. Trying to force someone to hurry up and heal can deepen their wounds or at least halt their healing.
My own experience with church hurt was especially hard for those closest to me to fathom because they were also in ministry. They offered all the standard phrases of spiritual bypassing: forgive seventy times seven, do not let the sun go down on your anger, turn the other cheek. And while they may have meant well, their words reopened my wounds again and again. They were asking me to go back into the very environment that had repeatedly hurt me.
I finally implemented boundaries so that I could heal. After not attending church for a year, I slowly reintegrated back into the fold where I had once served. Even then, I still experienced PTSD-like symptoms when I approached the church: rapid heart rate, knots in my stomach, and dissociation. I gave myself permission that even if I felt unsafe while sitting in the parking lot of the church, I could leave. And many times, I did. But it was through giving myself time and space that I eventually healed.
The church is filled with wounded people just like myself and many of my clients. After all, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (Mark 2:17). Week after week, people enter the house of the Lord with unseen wounds, whether fresh or festering. And for many, space and time may be all the oil and wine they need. But through our simple acts of compassion, our church-hurt neighbors can experience the healing love of Christ as he intends his love to be known.
Peridot (Peri) Gilbert-Reed is a licensed professional counselor and supervisor. She is also a certified trauma specialist focusing on religious trauma.
The post Don’t ‘Spiritually Bypass’ Your Church-Hurt Neighbor appeared first on Christianity Today.
by | Sep 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
An investigation into how leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) have dealt with sexual abuse by clergy has cost more than $12 million over the past three years, causing the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to put its Nashville, Tennessee, headquarters up for sale, the SBC’s Executive Committee announced on Tuesday.
The expenditures, which include $3 million spent fending off a lawsuit filed by a former SBC president, have led the committee to spend down its reserves in what its auditors have called an unsustainable manner. The group, which met in Nashville this week, also approved a loan to cover budget shortfalls.
Lawyers for the SBC will meet Thursday with attorneys for the former SBC president, Johnny Hunt, in a court-order mediation session, where the two sides will discuss settling their dispute. Hunt has claimed the SBC leadership ruined his reputation by reporting on his past sexual misconduct and for including him in a report on allegedly abusive leaders.
The Executive Committee’s fiscal woes come as the denomination is struggling to implement reforms ordered by the SBC’s governing body two years ago, designed to help churches better prevent and respond to abuse.
On Tuesday, members of the Executive Committee also voted to set up a new department to deal with the issue of abuse reforms, which will take over the reform effort from volunteers.
“Southern Baptists, we have had two task forces that have done difficult and important work, but it’s time now to stop talking about what we’re going to do and take an initial strategic step of action that puts into place an administrative response to this issue,” Jeff Iorg, president of the Nashville-based Executive Committee, told trustees. Iorg described the new department as a “beginning point of a workable solution” on the issue of abuse reform.
However, the fate of the “Ministry Check” website, a long-sought element of the sexual abuse reforms that was approved by the Southern Baptist annual meeting more than two years ago, remains uncertain.
A website, approved in June 2022, was supposed to include the names of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders convicted of abuse, those who confessed to abuse or have a court judgment for abuse against them, as well as those who have credible allegations of abuse made against them.
To date, no names have been added to the site, and SBC leaders have no current plans to update it and have taken no responsibility for it.
Instead, the Ministry Check site remains in the hands of a volunteer-led nonprofit called the Abuse Response Commission, which has no official ties to the SBC.
Josh Wester, a North Carolina pastor who helped start the commission, said names can’t be added to the site without a go-ahead from the SBC’s Executive Committee.
“When and if the EC notifies us they have cleared the hurdles on their end, we will make it live,” Wester told RNS in a text. Wester is the former chair of a task force, dissolved earlier this year after making limited progress, that had been charged with implementing abuse reform.
At the Executive Committee’s meeting on Tuesday, Iorg said that the committee had no ties to the Abuse Response Commission or any control over its work. Instead, he said, the committee would focus on hiring staff for the new department before taking up issues such as the Ministry Check site.
“Our first step will be to hire a full-time executive director,” Iorg said in an email. “Once that new leadership is in place, we will begin to take next steps, including enhancing resources available through that website.”
The Executive Committee’s new abuse reform department will be funded initially with $1.8 million provided by Send Relief, a humanitarian project led by the SBC’s two mission boards. A spokesman for the North American Mission Board said the funds will be given directly to the Executive Committee. In the past, the heads of the mission boards barred funds from going directly to the Abuse Response Commission.
Executive Committee trustees also discussed the ongoing costs of the SBC’s abuse crisis, including the Hunt lawsuit.
Court documents filed in the lawsuit show the lawyers for Hunt first reached out to the SBC’s attorneys in February to discuss a possible resolution. After a court order in early September, the two sides scheduled a mediation hearing for September 19 and will update the court by September 26.
The Executive Committee’s building, at 901 Commerce St. in downtown Nashville, was originally built for $8 million in the 1980s, on land donated by Lifeway, the SBC’s publishing arm, according to Baptist Press, an official SBC publication. The property also houses the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and a library and historical archive. The building was appraised for $31.7 million in 2021, according to The Tennessean newspaper.
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