wfn.org | Frontier mission conference pushes outreach to those without the

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Note #6198 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

gospel
23-September-2000
00335

Frontier mission conference pushes outreach to those without the gospel
				
Mission to ‘unreached' is central to Presbyterian evangelism, leaders say

by David Hackett				
Executive Director, Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- Challenging Presbyterians not to be bystanders of what
God is doing in the
world today, "Out of the Box, N2 the World" -- a major Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) mission conference -- promoted mission to world cultures not yet
reached with the gospel.

	More than 510 Presbyterians attended the Worldwide Ministries
Division-sponsored Sept. 15-17conference, which featured sustained
affirmation of unreached people group mission efforts and  new efforts at
doing mission in partnership.

	General Assembly moderator the Rev. Syngman Rhee made a surprise visit to
the opening conference plenary. He congratulated the conference for its
focus on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior -- "the centrality of Jesus Christ
in our faith which is the basic foundation of our church" -- and on the
conference's emphasis on partnership.

	During the conference several people burst "Out of the Box" -- bounding out
of a door-sized cardboard box on the plenary stage -- to tell their own
testimonies about frontier mission. The first was General Assembly Council
Executive Director John Detterick, who related his admiration for all
Presbyterian missionaries, and in particular, those on the frontier
ministering to unreached peoples.

	He described his recent trip to Ethiopia where he saw what he called the
remarkable ministry of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionaries John and
Gwen Haspels among the Surma People. During his visit, Detterick recalled, a
fugitive warrior recently given government amnesty gave his life to Christ
in a move that set the Surma community abuzz.

	Recently retired Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship executive director the
Rev. Harold Kurtz keynoted the conference with what he called the "greatest
story ever told on the platform of human history." He said, "We have a
glimpse of the end of the story in Revelation so that we may find our place
in the story."

	After recounting the Biblical story of the gathering of the redeemed from
every tribe and nation and people before the throne of Jesus, Kurtz said,
"we gather to celebrate that you cannot define Presbyterian mission without
including mission to the unreached."

	Kurtz recounted the dramatic growth of frontier mission in the PC(USA)
since the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship was founded in 1981. But much
more still needs to be done, he added.

	"It will take more than recovering our confessional and historic roots in
mission," Kurtz said. "We need to recover passion, fire, and conviction --
the passion that sent the missionaries of the past out in incredibly
difficult circumstances, the fire in the belly  to take the gospel to all
the world symbolized by Calvin's image of a burning heart, and the
conviction to diverge from our no-conviction culture that would make us
perpetrators of hopelessness. ... The missionary gospel isn't about throwing
money into the world. It's about throwing lives into the world. The gospel
of Jesus Christ is worth giving your life for."

	PC(USA) mission co-worker Rev. Christine Goodman Callison presented a
ringing affirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a pluralistic
world. Goodman Callison and her husband Greg Callison serve in Berlin,
Germany with a team reaching out to the 50,000 Kurds of Berlin.

	She said, "It may be politically incorrect to claim Jesus as the unique
Savior of the world, but it is Biblically correct and true. ... Is the time
for spreading the story about Jesus Christ  over? No, it is not. Is Jesus
just my (and your) personal Lord and Savior, or is He the Lord and Savior of
all people everywhere? Are we Presbyterians right or are we arrogant to be
taking the story of Jesus to the ends of the earth? What place does the
Gospel of Jesus Christ have in our pluralistic world today?"
	Goodman Callison said, "We need to differentiate between cultural and
religious pluralism, each with positive -- and negative --  dimensions. We
want to affirm a cultural pluralism which welcomes the variety of cultures
and life-styles as an enrichment of life, as expanding our own horizons.

	"But religious pluralism is a different issue. When, by religious
pluralism, we mean the freedom to worship and express one's own religious
convictions, then we must affirm this. But most often religious pluralism is
used in a way that suggests that the differences between religions are not a
matter of truth or falsehood, but of different perceptions of the truth,"
Goodman Callison said.

	She described the western supermarket as an icon of this, with endless
variety of similar products, the brands of which are all of equal merit. In
contrast, she said, Christ is the truth for the world.

	"We hold our beliefs as personally committed subjects to be true and we
hold them with universal intent, which is expressed by making them known and
inviting all people to consider and accept them, in the same way that
scientists set forth theories, she said. "We present as truth the events in
Jesus life and we're willing to risk our reputation on Christ's teachings."

	The Rev. Oswaldo Prado, national coordinator for the AD2000 and Beyond
Movement in Brazil, gave a sweeping overview of the growth of the church in
Brazil and its mission history. The number of Brazilian Christians in
mission service, he said, has grown from about 200 in the mid-1980s to more
than 2000 today.

	"The time has come for the Third World to offer its sons and daughters to
the spread of the gospel," Prado  said. "We do not want to give up so great
a privilege. We want to see the earth full of the glory of God as the waters
cover the sea."

	Worldwide Ministries Division director the Rev. Marian McClure presented a
plaque of appreciation to Harold Kurtz at the closing conference plenary for
his role in advancing the cause of frontier mission, first as a career
missionary in Ethiopia for 22 years and then for founding Presbyterian
Frontier Fellowship and leading it until his retirement.

	In her closing address, McClure asked the audience to consider where God
has intersected their lives, and noted that Presbyterians are good at living
out Christian lives but need to learn to use their mouths in witness.

	She described how, while working on her Ph.D., she had searched for the
most significant factors that had brought about a Haitian movement enhancing
the democracy and well-being of a certain community during some of the worst
times under the Duvalier dictatorship. After extensive political and
sociological study, she felt she had to meet in person the leader of that
democratic movement, and find out what had influenced him.

	By listening to his life story, she unearthed the most significant event in
his life. When that man's life was in jeopardy, his life was saved by a
community of people who lived in the hills with their cows. The community
rallied together and sacrificed their cattle in order to get the money
needed to save this man's life.

	McClure noted the profundity of this example of helplessness without the
community, and the grace that community can bring. This is, she said, what
the frontier movement is offering the world. We become the surrounding cloud
of witnesses that intervenes and bears pain and nurtures life for the
indigenous peoples who cannot do it for themselves, she insisted. In
entering into frontier mission we create a web of grace, being used by God,
to intervene in other peoples lives who would be otherwise helpless, like
the movement's leader.

	Others sharing "out of the box" testimonies included Mansour Khajehpour, a
Seattle Presbytery commissioned lay pastor leading the Persian Church of the
Good Shepherd in Seattle, who described his own conversion and noted that
every member of the Seattle fellowship has come to Christianity from a
Muslim faith.

	Rev. Pablo Feliciano, a National Presbyterian Church of Mexico pastor and
president of the Hebron Foundation, described the growing mission awareness
of his church and his prayer that it send out more missionaries. "There is
no plan other than God's plan," he said, "and God's plan is mission. Let us
walk side by side to proclaim Christ together."

	The conference also included 40 seminars led by 47 leaders on a variety of
frontier mission-related topics.

	The Rev. Isaiah Jones, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto,
Calif., led worship, along with a number of local racial-ethnic choirs,
including Hispanic, Arabic and Korean church groups. An offering totaling
$4,381 collected during the conference was designated to an extra commitment
opportunity mission fund for frontier mission in the PC(USA).

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