Challenges and Opportunities for the Global Church

"I think, what we have found what has evangelistically and most powerful and most effective is the church being the church. And so as, brothers and sisters, we love God's Word and seek to live lives in conformity to God's Word and love each other, that is hugely, I think that's hugely important. I think there is such breakdown in society that even normal godly family life is an incredibly powerful witness." [00:12:31]

"Evangelism begins with people who think they're Christians. So, in a context like this, it's people who are hostile to Christianity. And in Kenya you have evangelizing in a context where very many people think they are Christians. So, the things we have heard from the pulpit here about the importance of the local church in guiding and defining the gospel become very important in a context like ours in making sure that there are very clear lines that are demarcating who are believers and who are not believers." [00:15:57]

"I think, yeah, that touches on something else that I think we probably may haven't talked about hospitality and the value of that. There's obviously an enormous value of that within the church, but I think evangelistic hospitality in opening up your home. You look at Luke's Gospel, and someone has said that in Luke's Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or going from a meal." [00:23:41]

"So, by God's grace, that's easier today than I feel like it was ten years ago or fifteen years ago, because there are an increasing number of like-minded churches in Nairobi. So, collaboration looks different in different areas. When it comes to church planting, you are kind of restricted in some ways to your denomination. So, people, who at least believe as you do on baptism, for example, when it comes to training pastors, you can start expanding that a little bit." [00:25:28]

"Yeah, I describe the situation not just in East Africa but even beyond in multiple ways. One, you have growing Islam that is very hostile and that we are seeing more and more, even in Kenya. So, that typifies most of what is unreached or even unengaged on the continent. So there might still be places where tribes are unengaged and they are not predominantly Islamic, but they are African traditional religions, but I'd say those would be the minority." [00:05:38]

"Another problem, though, our culture is not very hostile against Christianity, but it is secular; so that's a problem. And because the Hungarian society is very private, one of the challenges is how to reach people. So, what we found really, that kind of friendships or making contacts with people, getting to know you is one of the primary means to get the gospel to the people." [00:09:48]

"I think there is probably lots for us to learn on this. There is good fellowship amongst evangelical, conservative evangelical ministers in London. What you can do together as churches is probably a little bit more limited and we can be slightly tribal. I think that's one of the sins maybe we need to repent of. Well, certainly, I probably need to repent of that, but I think that there has been good fellowship over the years amongst the gospel partnerships, Banner of Truth, Proclamation Trust." [00:29:02]

"So, one of the ways I phrased it is to say things are worse than you think, and things are also better than you think. So, in our context, things are worse than you think in the sense that, you know, we talk about the prosperity gospel; it's a heresy. It's really, really bad. Yeah, you don't quite get how terrible it is. It's like demonically bad. It is like inexplicably, irrationally bad, like you can see entire groups of people being so deeply mislead to the point of, like, this, it's like you're under a spell." [00:31:50]

"I think what is surprising is there is a quiet work of God's going on, and so there are more gospel, Christ-preaching churches than there were. It's never reported. It's hidden, and yet, particularly in London, there have been an army of church plants. Many of them are small. Many of them are fragile, but there is a real work going on. I think there is in our little denomination, we have more younger men coming forward for ministry than we have places to put them, and that is really thrilling." [00:36:47]

"Of course, what you want him to see is really the glory and beauty of Christ. You want to see Him, the riches of His grace and, yes, Mark, the Gospel of Mark or Colossians, wonderful books of the Bible to do that. But I also wonder that in some specific context it would be useful to start, or at least to do a precursor in Genesis, because in our context it seems, especially with the growing number of biblical illiteracy, it seems that people don't know, 'Where do we come from? Who is the great God who created the heavens and the earth? What is the purpose we are created for?'" [00:41:56]

"We have a full confidence that even these details are in His fatherly hand, His all-wise hands, and nothing happens that is not in His will. So, we try to help, we try to encourage, but I also see that as our brothers and sisters went from our church in Western Europe, they also brought the gospel with them. So, there is the seed of the gospel also among the refugee crisis, which is, I think, encouraging." [00:10:48]

"And, you know, there is this startling phrase in Ephesians 1:23 that the church is 'Christ's body, the fullness of Him, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.' And it's really a wonderful doctrine about the church, that it's the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ is in the church. We strongly believe that, that all the graces, gifts of Christ can be seen and realized and experienced, yes, in the church community." [00:21:07]