Recently, Christianity Today has been making the observation that there is a growing movement of young, theologically Reformed people. I need to quickly correct that terminology – there are a lot of young people that are getting really into the Five Points of Calvinism; they’re not necessarily getting all of Reformed theology. (I may write about this later…)
That said, I love the fact that the five points of Calvinism are becoming popular again. People are digging into the Bible, seeing the value of reading theology, being centered on God’s glory, recovering the Christian intellect, it’s an awesome thing.
However, there’s one thing that really scares me about it. It seems like these young Calvinists don’t necessarily understand God’s Great Commission – to make disciples of every nation. Now, I don’t necessarily mean they don’t get evangelism. In many pockets, they do, and they’re very focused on being ‘missional.’
But they have forgotten that God cares much more about gathering his elect from every nation than he does about every individual in America. They’ve missed that God’s main purpose on this earth is to glorify himself in every people group – not in every person.
Why might that be? Let me offer a few suggestions.
1) They’ve confused Calvinism with the gospel and thus view evangelism as ‘convincing people of Calvinism’ – and see a ‘great need’ in America for that.
2) They have comfort as an idol and are taking advantage of grace.
3) They view themselves as ‘senders’ – because they want to be like their Calvinist heroes.
4) They don’t ‘feel called’ – and are thus functionally denying sola Scriptura; thus, they’re Five Pointers – but not Reformed.
5) There’s a desire to be ‘cool’ in American culture that supercedes the desire to become all things to all people to win some.
6) An ignorance of the hundreds, if not thousands, of unreached people groups around the world.
There’s probably more to it than this, but this is what I’m coming up with right now. Let’s remember – our goal is the spread of the glory of God in the Gospel of Jesus to every nation – and it’s because that’s God’s goal. Everything we do – the directions of our lives – need to be organized around that principle. Not everyone should go. But for all of us called to vocational ministry, permit me to suggest that it should be our default option.
Insightful. I think that one thing I've learned regarding this area is the nature of God's gifting his people to perform their own individual callings. Crusade doesn't teach much on this, and I would critique this part of Crusade more than anything else in the organization.
ReplyDeleteYoung college aged folks get pumped up about Calvinist doctrine because they see its beauty and it becomes very important to them. Or other students have a huge burden for the lost and that becomes very important to them. But many students are not gifted strongly in the areas that Crusade promotes - not everyone is called to be an overseas missionary. I have a huge burden for this but it was misery for me when I did it.
Even though there is a great need for evangelism to the nations it is most important for us to be obedient to God. Each person's obedience will be expressed through a faithful use of what God has called them to. That is where the body of Christ needs to discern and each person needs to prayerfully consider what God would have them do. Hopefully he will raise up laborers for the mission field that are according to his own choosing. The worst thign we could do is have a lot of people go to the mission field whose hearts aren't actually in it and waste literally hundreds of thousands of not millions of dollars on fruitless missions.
Great post Derek! I agree fully. I think that a lot of the reason is "They don’t ‘feel called’..." Kind of like the article we read at GTBSP, instead of feeling called OUT of missions people feel like they have to be called INTO missions. It's a pretty mad logic, but unfortunately every single church that I have visited teaches that way as well - simply instilling that thought process in their heads.
ReplyDeleteToodles,
Kenny
Bish (Brian), you raise some good talking points. Let me address them.
ReplyDelete1) Interesting comment about Crusade not encouraging people or teaching people to find their own individual giftings. This may be endemic to the fact that it’s a campus ministry, I think. Outside of the sign gifts (tongue in cheek a bit here), based on experience alone, it usually takes someone more than 5 years of active ministry (I may even say full time) to have any idea about their giftings.
2) I think that the lack of teaching on ‘finding individual calling’ may also be the result of a few differences in culture between 20th century America and 1st century Roman territory. We have the technology and financial ability to essentially do what we want; they didn’t. Second, they saw what they did fitting into the rubric of the community’s entire function more than we do. And third, appointment to positions of ministry was done under the church authorities, not as much by individual desire.
3) My fear about the excitement about Calvinistic doctrine is that it becomes something more exciting than the gospel, rather than being its handmaiden.
4) I won’t speak to your own situation, but misery/pleasure categories are not biblical means of making decisions. Consider Jesus’ call to pick up our crosses and follow him. Consider his crying out in the garden ‘not my will but yours be done.’ Consider Paul’s being constantly imprisoned and beaten. Consider Peter’s lack of desire to go to the Gentiles and its gradually being shifted (to the point of him writing his epistles to Gentile audiences).
5) You raise the idea that the body of Christ should be discerning in this. I agree. Let me stress, though, that there are authorities within that body.
6) If people’s hearts aren’t in missions, in general, they need to repent. If they are unwilling to suffer for the nations, they need to repent – they are not following Jesus, since that’s precisely what he did.
7) Unwilling missionaries are not necessarily fruitless missionaries. Jesus is responsible for the effects of the work, no?
I might also say that I think short term missions are dangerous - possibly more on this later.
ReplyDelete"4) I won’t speak to your own situation, but misery/pleasure categories are not biblical means of making decisions. Consider Jesus’ call to pick up our crosses and follow him. Consider his crying out in the garden ‘not my will but yours be done.’ Consider Paul’s being constantly imprisoned and beaten. Consider Peter’s lack of desire to go to the Gentiles and its gradually being shifted (to the point of him writing his epistles to Gentile audiences)."
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by this comment Derek? I agree with the rest.
What I mean is that we are called to suffer for the sake of the spread of the gospel to the world. So thinking through calling in terms of whether or not one enjoys the circumstances of the ministry is sin.
ReplyDeleteThat's illustrated when Jesus says to pick up our cross and followed him. As he went, suffered and died for the nations; so we also should.