MISSIONS TEST 2: Means, Motive & Opportunity
Dony K. Donev, Cup & Cross Ministries International
The following World Missions series were sparked by a partial sign with the words “Missions Check,” we saw in Atlanta on our way to a mission’s trip to Europe just a weeks after the great tornado of 2011. We’ve observed the events that followed for over a year now, thus launching these series with a purpose. After serving in various ministry positions around the globe as a part of the Church of God for over 20 years, we have built a solid platform as a response to current problems and issues on the mission filed. In the past seven years alone, our ministry team has survived several consecutive denominational splits, and coming on the other side still preaching Jesus Christ and Him risen, this is what we have to state…
In times of hardships, when every church, family and person are tested and tried, missions must remain the front line of our church, the harbor for the lost and the heartbeat of God within us. In fact, missions are the only spiritual process that keeps a church alive during crises. For without a heartbeat after the Heart of God, a church is simply dead and dying…
But how do we know if our church is indeed missional and not mission-minded in name only? How do we know if we pass the MISSIONS TEST? Here are several guidelines:
(1) MEANS: Follow the Money
They did in the book of Acts right when the first mission wave in the early church was gaining speed. Literally! And while money is not the foundation of missions, merely its means to accomplish the plan of God, it sure helps to have it when you are in the mission field (speaking of one’s own experience).
The transparent report of church’s finances show a lot about the church itself. If the larger flow of finances is pointed inward, being used for church and family only, your church is not missional. To put it simple, the moment you vote to decrease money for missions, you are decreasing the mission’s outreach of your church – how far your church reaches with its mission. Yes, overspending must be always eliminated and smart stewardship of any missional budget is essential, but they should never alter the flow of finances to missions toward the internal needs of the church; because the rerouting back to the intended recipient will be virtually impossible. For such shift inevitably affects not just numbers and members, but the very ecclesial identity redefining the church from a missional extravert to a cognitive introvert congregation.
(2) MOTIVE: Follow the Structure
The missional structure of a church is initially invoked by an internal, organic, process of motivation produced by our very identity as a people of God. Prominent psychologists today tell us that the internal motivation is that pure, primitive, productive force which drives us from within. And it is no different in missions, where a fine line between calling and career is drawn. For once Missio Dei becomes a professional occupation for a primary payout, the point of missions has already been lost. And if the point of existence for a church structure is not the mission to the world, the church is probably not fit for the Kingdom. So Jesus told the rich young ruler.
A lesson learned from the drying banks of Rio Grande. We can trim a river, direct it and guide it to serve our needs, to produce power for electricity, to provide watering for farming, but it will soon loose its God given source of internal power to flow and will dry out. Altering the natural structure of missions if and when needed, must be done with the understanding that it may ultimately dry it out from within. Therefore, changes in the structure and praxis of missions should only be driven by a return to the first, primary model invoked by the search of God’s heart for lost men and under the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit.
(3) OPPROTUNITY: Follow the Spirit
Spiritual power comes from one source only – prayer in the Spirit. Spiritual power for missions must be prayed for, waited for, expected and exercised, anticipated and acted upon. And while individual prayer affects both the person and the church, nothing moves the Heavens like the continuous, corporate prayer of a congregation. This is what we learn from the day of Pentecost. And based on this, is the true test for mission readiness: The last time you had a church wide meeting, with the sole purpose to pray for the missionaries you’ve sent, is the moment your church ceased being missional. For being missional is “not an act, but a habit” – not a price, but a process. And not a single goal, but one constant going and striving toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
As a partner in the Great Commission, our church must carry a message, not merely a political involvement or social concern, but of a spiritual message, both in origin and in practice. For if you preach what you’ve not prayed through, you preach nothing but yourself. And if you have no message to share with the world, your mission endeavor is but a religious vacation to a foreign land. Therefore, our prayer for missions is foremost one constant call to the Spirit for new opportunities in the harvest. For it is ultimately God, who creates the opportunity of Missio Dei as His severing plan for saving the world. And if a church is to follow the call to be missional, it must abide in a relationship with God – the visionary, initiator and empowerer of missions. (Mission Ready, 2014)
Related articles:
Missions Test 1: Mission, Method & Message (2012)
MISSIONS TEST 3: Missionary Testament (2012)
MissionSHIFT (Part 1): Paradoxes in Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 2): Free Will Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 3): WebMissions – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2011)
M3: Missions for the Third Millennium – A Public Position (2010)
8 Simple Rules for Doing Missions in the Spirit (2009)
Church of God Eastern Europe Missions: Leadership, Economics and Culture (2009)
Read also: Why I decided to publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
MISSIONS TEST 1: Mission, Method & Message
Dony K. Donev, Cup & Cross Ministries International
The following World Missions Series were sparked by a partial sign with the words “Missions Check,” we saw in Atlanta on our way to a mission’s trip to Europe just a weeks after the great tornado of 2011. We’ve observed the events that followed for over a year now, thus launching these series with a purpose. After serving in various ministry positions around the globe as a part of the Church of God for over 20 years, we have built a solid platform as a response to current problems and issues on the mission filed. In the past seven years alone, our ministry team has survived several consecutive denominational splits, and coming on the other side still preaching Jesus Christ and Him risen, this is what we have to state…
A people is a group owning a vision. Vision is what we do today in order to have a better tomorrow. Mission is the things we do to accomplish the vision. And if mission without a vision is blind, mission without a message is blind without a tongue. It feels and it hears, but it can never fully perceive and speak to be heard.
A mission is distinct by the method via which it brings its message. These three are ultimately and intrinsically connected. If mission is what we do, method is how we do it, then message is what we want people to know after we have done it…
But the method of bringing the message quite often changes the message itself. Thus changing, adapting and altering the ministry method must be done with careful consideration of the long-term shift they create not merely in our mission, but on our own Pentecostal identity as well. While adjustments may be needed in missions as the world around us changes, the message must remain the same at all cost. For who is the source and the ultimate agent of change, except the author of the message – God in whom there is no shadow of change?
A good number of churches in the 21st century are choosing to abandon their mission programs as dysfunctional and obsolete in order to follow a more corporate-based model of becoming mission-sending agencies and/or partners with such. While this may be financially and structurally beneficial, such paradigm cannot work for any Pentecostal church with local or global representation without changing forever its corporate identity.
At the same time, there is no need to restart or reset missions, for Mission Dei is not a circular, seasonal or repetitive process in human history. It is solemnly based on the ultimate, one-time event of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This salvific monument on the stage of eternity neither needs, nor will it ever repeat and recycle itself again into history. And it most certainly does not need our human participation to be reset into a new century. The only restarting that is ever needed is our own resubmission at the old rugged cross on Calvary.
Changing our missional structure to fit, the ever-changing world we live in, is a reaction, generally done post-factum if not too late. And any reaction is simply not leading, but following. Which bids the question, is the church leading in this world or is our mission being reduced to the needs of the current social system. For the Bible still calls us to be not conformed to this world, but transformed by the mind of Christ. To be not merely a culturally relevant church, but a Bible-based alternative culture in a sinful world.
The lesson of the contemporary and culturally relevant church should have been learned centuries ago by Byzantine Orthodoxy. For it is not the change of the world that affects the outcome of ministry, but the change of the church by transformation within. And it is there that the preservation of our cross-fixed, blood-washed, and power resurrected identity must remain constant and unchanging. Thus, we find simply irrelevant, any call for a culturally relevant church, which causes the change or yet even the loss of the message of eternal salvation.
Related articles:
Missions Test 2: Means, Motive & Opportunity (2012)
MISSIONS TEST 3: Missionary Testament (2012)
MissionSHIFT (Part 1): Paradoxes in Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 2): Free Will Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 3): WebMissions – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2011)
M3: Missions for the Third Millennium – A Public Position (2010)
8 Simple Rules for Doing Missions in the Spirit (2009)
Church of God Eastern Europe Missions: Leadership, Economics and Culture (2009)
Read also: Why I decided to publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
Prayer for Bulgaria: 7 Dead after Suicide Bombing at Bourgas Airport
July 18, 2012 – Bourgas, BULGARIA
At least seven people are dead and dozens are injured after a suicide bombing targeting Israeli tourists vacationing in Bulgaria. The bus was carrying mostly Israeli youth when it exploded on Wednesday July 18, 2012, police and hospital officials say. Two pregnant women and an 11 year old child are among the injured.
The blast occurred shortly after someone boarded the vehicle transporting Israeli tourist from Tel Aviv around 5:00 PM local Bulgarian time. A total of 146 adults and 8 children were traveling with “Air Via” charter flight 392.
According to BBC News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed “All the signs lead to Iran” and “Israel will respond forcefully to Iranian terror. Iran has made no public comments to the Israeli accusations.” Russian InterFax published an immediate denial of the accusation on behalf of right wing Shi’a Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah.
This terrorist attack is unprecedented for any country member of the European Union. The targeted location at the Black Sea, and not the capital Sofia, is the closest possible border point between Europe and the Middle East. For the Bulgarian people, this attack is as traumatic as the 9/11 attack was for the American people.
Meanwhile, the United States condemned the deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, as White House press secretary Jay Carney said Carney declared that the US stands with the Israeli people and the people of Bulgaria.
In January, 2012 there were reports that Israel had asked Bulgaria to tighten security for Israeli tourists traveling by bus. This followed a reported discovery of a suspicious package found on a bus with Israeli tourists traveling from Turkey to Bulgaria. CIA Director Petraeus also visited Bulgaria on unannounced trip in June of this year.
Currently, the Bourgas airport has been closed and flights are being diverted to Varna. All airports, bus and train stations remain under a close watch after Bulgaria’s capital mayor called for tightened security measures.
Bourgas is a Black Sea port city just over an hour drive from our base location of Yambol, Bulgaria. The First Pentecostal church on the Balkans was founded in Bourgas in 1920 by Assemblies of God missionaries, Donisey Zaplishny and Ivan Voronaev and consecutively lead to the establishment of the Bulgarian Church of God in 1928.
Read more:
Netanyahu Vows ‘Forceful Response to Iranian Terror’: All signs are that Iran and Hizbullah are behind blast, on the 18th anniversary of the AMIA attack in Argentina that killed 85.
FOX News: Explosion targets Israeli tourists in Bulgaria
The TIMES: Israeli tourists killed in bus bombing
Novinite.com: Israeli Tourists’ Bus Blast in Bulgaria Terrorist Attack
CNN: Official: Three dead in Bulgaria bus blast
Haaretz: 7 reported killed in terror attack against Israelis in Bulgaria
BBC: Explosion hits a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria
The Jerusalem Post: 3 dead in suicide bombing on Israeli bus in Bulgaria
AFP: Three dead in Bulgaria bus blast
Financial Times: Bulgaria bus blast kills Israeli tourists
White House: Statement by U.S. President on the Terrorst Attack in Bulgaria
U.S. Department of State: Statement by Secretary of State on the Attacks in Bulgaria
Our Ministry Map in Bulgaria
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Why I Decided to Publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
Dony K. Donev
Pentecostal Primitivism is the title of my master’s thesis completed over a decade ago. It was significant to me because the research changed my perspective on Pentecostalism completely. Traditionally, we have assigned our faith paradigm to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. But Pentecostal faith is much simpler and straight forward. The Pentecostal experience simplified the way we see our faith, being less in our own reach and persecution of reality, and more in God’s control; less me-centered and more God-centered. Although it originates from Wesley’s renewal theology of sanctification, Pentecostals are not methodistic as Wesleyanism tends to be. With this in mind, I wrote Pentecostal Primitivism as a proposal for a 21st century reclaiming of the original model of Pentecostal faith, which could be described in the simplified triangular formula of power, prayer and praxis.
Our Ministry Map in the USA
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From ETERNITY to HERE (Review and Reflection)
Dony K. Donev
To write this review of Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here for The Pneuma Review has taken almost a year. In order to critique (even review) one’s work, you must know it. And not merely to have read it once or even twice, but to understand in depth the presuppositions that have led to its writing and the goals set with its publication. The way this is done is through studying the very mindset behind the author’s complete works. For the reading of a book must turn into a journey or it will never get you anywhere. Have I done all this – most probably not, but I sure tried. So, here is the result of my journey.
In times of postmodernism, when metanarratives, and especially Biblical metanarratives, are being deconstructed and questioned by just about every secular movement, there has been a consistent attempt to explain the story of the Bible again to a postmodern and unchurched generation in a way they would actually understand.
To begin with the obvious, the book is comprised of three narratives that already have been much openly discussed:
- The Bride of Christ
- The House of God
- The Body of Christ and the Family of God
The careful reader immediately notices the family-framed language of the description, which perhaps derives from the story of the first family in Genesis, where Viola begins to show the true message of the Bible. It is not merely the fall of Adam and Eve, but the whole creation being God’s very plan for redemption of the universe and the salvation of mankind. This perspective changes the understood purpose of the Gospel from preoccupied with the fall of humankind to God-centered missio Dei.
The description of the creating and joining of Adam and Eve is simply phenomenal as it recreates the plan of God for humanity and the universe from a Biblical point of view. And from the very beginning, the book resembles the expository apologetic style of Augustine in De Civitate Dei (as even the full title De Civitate Dei contra Paganos is promptly resembled by Pagan Christianity). But instead of being philosophical, what we have here is much more a narrative, very similar to the approach taken by St. Symeon the New Theologian.
The view of God’s love is very similar to the way Karl Barth treats it in his commentary to the Romans. Perhaps, because Viola sees it from his own experience of knowing God from God’s own perspective through God’s grace. And at times when speaking of the ultimate purpose of God for mankind and the universe, Viola, almost like Barth, walks a very thin line bordering universalism. And while it is true that God draws the creation to Himself through His love, any self-conscious theologian would make his listeners aware of the danger of universalism, except, of course, if he/she subscribes to such a soteriological view. So, I wrote Viola with the question if he subscribes to universalism and his response was “No.” And I guess it would be quite difficult to be a Universalist, while considering hell a real and unpleasant place.
The three discourses of the book have been much discussed since its publication, yet a few observations are in order. Part one represents an ageless romance of transcendent and eternal God who creates His bride and reconciles the entire creation with Himself in order to redeem her back to His love – a passion that passes through space and time like no other.
The second narrative shows God on a mission. And while the Creator is described as “homeless” and searching for a home within His own creation, His mission is only completed in making mankind His home. Thus, the creation searches with God and a deserted and wildered mankind is found by God only to find eternal rest in Him alone.
This introduces the third “new species” discourse that quite frankly resolves the dilemma of one whole generation, whereas the story of the Bible is reconciled anew with a postmodern human mindset shaped by a Star Trek, Star Wars, Matrix-like culture. The union of Adam and Eve also puts a completely new perspective on the Biblical role of women and it makes an interesting case for their equal roles in creation and ministry.
Disappointment has been expressed in the unchurched language used in the book to describe God’s emotions, but what about a sermon preached in 1741 by one Jonathan Edwards under the name “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? Yet, a warning is indeed in order as the beginning of the 21st century is marked by a surge of postmodern apologetics through which Christian authors address issues outside the institutionalized church (social, political and economical) with the language of the people. But this attempt often goes so “deep undercover” that it remains foreign even to the church itself. A prime example for this phenomenon was the “Purpose Driven Church,” which being a powerful address to the unchurched, often remains a mystery to many mainline Christians who simply could not separate themselves from the known church language. A fair warning would be finding a balanced way to present Biblical truths while keeping the language of the Bible itself as God intended it.
But even with the above, Viola’s story remains missional and concerned with Missio Dei not only for a selected few, but the entire mankind and the whole creation. And this brings the mission of God not to the foreign lands where it has been sent for centuries, but very much home where the real issue is. Embracing God’s love still remains the only spiritual ground where spiritual things do not replace the center of the Gospel – the incarnation of Christ Himself. And only then, the essence of being missional becomes the central dimension to the life and ministry of the church.
Viola views the loss of this dimension historically when the church was absorbed in the culture of Rome and Byzantium in a cultural ideology described by Eastern Orthodoxy as a symbiosis between church and state, which slowly, but surely removes Christ from the center of church and life. But this book is different from the rest, because it proposes a new ideological presupposition that encounters and resolve the deconstruction of church beliefs and praxis proposed by Pagan Christianity. Many traditional and even postmodern representatives of organized religion are terrified by the idea which Viola suggests, watching thousands of people leaving their churches to form not another church, not even a movement, but a new and phenomenal experience – a new phenomenon in the experience of God. For the claim that many current models of organized religion have reached a point of final capacity in the postmodern struggle of becoming more and more nominal may not be so farfetched after all.
