wfn.org | Searching for the next Amos

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

30-November-1999 
99396 
 
    Searching for the next Amos 
 
    by Jerry Van Marter 
 
    Though he was a herdsman, not a prophet, Amos was called by God to 
prophesy to Israel and Judah.  God told Amos to pronounce judgement on 
God's people for their failure to care for the poor and weak among them and 
to ensure justice and peace for all the people. 
 
    Today, says Presbyterian mission worker Alice Winters, God is searching 
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for contemporary prophets of justice and 
peace. 
 
    Over three weekends in three U.S. cities this fall, a total of more 
than 1,000 Presbyterians gathered - as Winters, who ministers in Colombia, 
said - "to find and raise up those Amoses." 
 
    Entitled "Congregations in Global Mission: Stepping into God's Future," 
the Worldwide Ministries Division conferences were held in Seattle on Oct. 
21-24, in Houston on Oct. 28-31 and in Falls Church, Va., on Nov.  4-7. 
 
    In all three conferences, participants worshiped together, told stories 
of their congregations' involvement in mission in this country and around 
the world, discussed the challenges of engaging in mission a world growing 
increasingly more complex, and rolled up their sleeves and worked on the 
skills needed to motivate congregations to become what Winters - who led 
Bible study at the Seattle and Houston events - called "world Christians." 
 
    And she was no more willing to hear excuses from conference 
participants than God was when Amos protested that he was only a shepherd. 
"The call to mission comes to all people as they carry out their tasks in 
life and become aware of the problems they encounter in their communities 
and the world," she said.  "And as Christians become aware, God touches 
their hearts and calls them out to respond." 
 
    But if people don't respond when they encounter injustice, she added, 
"God will call up more Amoses" until they do. 
 
    The sense of call to mission figured prominently in keynoter Rodger 
Nishioka's remarks as well.  "We are here because God intended for us to be 
here," Nishioka, the PC(USA)'s coordinator for youth and young adult 
ministries, told the Seattle gathering.  "God calls all of us and our 
responsibility is to be faithful to that call." 
 
    But mission cannot be centered on human activity, Seattle keynoter 
Philip Wickeri said.  A former missionary to China and now professor of 
mission and evangelism at San Francisco Theological Seminary, Wickeri said, 
"Mission is not our mission - its God's mission.  Mission cannot be 
centered on human activities.  Mission is centered on who God is in Jesus 
Christ." 
 
    Mission, therefore, must be seen in the light of the cross, Wickeri 
added. "Our point of departure is God's grace to a world in desperate need 
- a world that is being redeemed and sanctified by God." 
 
    Taken in that sense, mission is a gift, not a task, Wickeri concluded. 
"Mission always begins with reception, as a gift of God's grace," he said. 
Once we understand that, we can take up mission as a new task of response 
to what God has done for us." 
 
    Mission as participation in God's sanctification and redemption of the 
world means working to help create a Kingdom - "on earth as it is in 
heaven" - of full equality, said Rosario de Lugo Batlle, pastor of Los 
Angeles Heights Presbyterian Church in San Antonio and the Bible study 
leader for the Falls Church event. 
 
    "The magnificent work of the cross and resurrection is the provision 
for the entry point into this Kingdom," she said, "and the conditions for 
entrance into the Kingdom are the same for everyone - rich or poor, male or 
female, pale or dark skinned - repentance and the forgiveness of sins." 
 
    Calling Jesus "the great equalizer," Batlle said "there is no room in 
the Kingdom for class differences - we all enter with the same advantages 
and disadvantages, without any earthly credentials except the credentials 
of Christ." 
 
    And because all are equal in God's realm, partnership is the key 
principle for mission, said Patricia Lloyd-Sidle, the PC(USA)'s coordinator 
for global awareness and a Falls Church keynoter.  Citing the story from 
Luke 7 where a sinful woman washed and anointed Jesus' feet while he dined 
with Pharisees, Lloyd-Sidle said such "radical role reversals are part of 
what God brings to bear on our world" so that effective partnerships can be 
built, regardless of who is the "host" and who is the "guest." 
 
    Lloyd-Sidle, whose responsibilities include the "Mission to the U.S.A." 
program, said, "As we become involved in mission by God's grace, we learn 
to be guests as well as hosts.  We learn to receive as well as give.  We 
dare to move beyond our comfort zone to welcome strangers into our lives or 
to be the strangers in the lives of others." 
 
    Lloyd-Sidle said that staying home to create hospitable communities in 
Christ's name is every bit as essential to mission as traveling across 
geographical boundaries to create such communities elsewhere. 
 
    Such a view of mission is what Wickeri calls "glocal mission" - 
congregations engaged in local mission with an awareness of the presence of 
the global community so that they are striving to understand the 
connections between their local problems and global issues. 
 
    Mission that is seen at once as both local and global is part of what 
Falls Church keynoter Samuel Moffett called "a remarkable upward climb from 
one-way Western missions to global missionary advance" in the 20th century. 
 
    Moffett, a former missionary to China and Korea and professor emeritus 
of ecumenics and mission at Princeton Theological Seminary, noted that 
Christianity has risen and fallen during the first two millenniums. 
Christians should expect both successes and failures.  After all, he noted, 
Jesus told his disciples, "In the world you shall have tribulation." 
 
    But, Moffett continued, Jesus continued, "but be of good cheer, I have 
overcome the world."  And so, Moffett said, "My final words to you are 
`Never give up.'  The mission is 2000 years old and it can start again with 
us." 
 
    He recalled the words of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant 
missionary to China in 1807, who, when asked if he thought he could make an 
impression on the Chinese responded, "No, but God can."  

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