Lynn Green

Author: Lynn Green

  • “Thy Kingdom Come”

    “Thy Kingdom Come”

    Photo© Slava Bowman

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    AMAZING GROWTH IN WHAT USED TO BE “THE HARD PLACES”

    One of my good friends just came back from China after a trip to join with Chinese officials to launch the first officially approved study Bible in Mandarin, the main language of China.  He also met some pastors in the official Church and attended a service in a large church building that was constructed by the government.  The minister of this church said his biggest problem was finding a way to disciple the large numbers coming to faith in Jesus and attending his church.  He was baptizing another 100 new converts the next Sunday.

    My personal connections have been with the leaders of the unofficial Church in China.  A few years ago, when I was just getting to know some of these extraordinary people, the majority of them women, I was talking to one lady who has a great heart for the Chinese missions movement known as Back To Jerusalem.  Another person who knew her took me aside later the same day and asked if I knew much about her.  He then explained that she has been an extraordinarily fruitful person for decades.  “She knows what it is to lead 10,000 people to Christ in a day!”

    Do the Chinese people believe their prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done…” is being answered?  Surely they do!

     

    My recent article about the Middle East provides another context for that question.  Anyone can see that there is unprecedented growth in the numbers of people following Jesus.  The figures are not yet statistically impressive, but with hundreds of millions of people in that part of the world, only tens of millions would be statistically significant.  But the numbers are huge when compared to any time in the last 13 centuries.  Do the faithful there believe that the Kingdom is coming?  They certainly do!  There was such buoyant faith in the meetings I attended in the Gulf and in Egypt.

    THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT

    Our context always shapes our perspective.  Most people who live around where I live, in Europe (or islands off the coast of Europe, depending on your politics), would not think that the Kingdom of God is on the move.  Marti and I have lived in Europe for nearly 50 years now.  When we first came, it was during the exciting days of the charismatic movement.  We attended meetings of thousands of people from many different churches and denominations and excitement was in the air.  Soon after we moved here in 1971, over 25,000 people gathered in central London to proclaim the name of Jesus in the Nationwide Festival of Light.

    About 15 years later I helped convene 55,000 people for a prayer meeting that grew to global proportions and became known as March For Jesus. I think it was 1992 when I stood on a stage in Hyde Park, London and looked over a crowd of 100,000 worshiping people.  It certainly felt like the Kingdom was coming!

    DISTORTED CONTEXT

    On the other hand, I recently read an article by a British journalist, similar to articles I have read from time to time, in which he quoted the official statistics of church attendance and concluded that Christianity is disappearing in the UK and Western Europe.  He concluded with a well-worn sentence;

    “Will the last person leaving the Church please turn off the lights?” 

    That’s the way it seems from his context.  Context makes a difference. But I have to ask, are the statistics he is referring to reliable pointers to the health of the Christian faith?  The picture I see is quite different.  I see that:

    Much of the vitality of the charismatic movement is now expressed in small groups and congregations that meet in homes, school auditoria, town halls, business facilities, warehouses etc.  No one could accurately track the numbers.

    If we simply poll the traditional denomination HQs and measure the numbers meeting in official church buildings, the results are negative and can be extrapolated to the point when they will be zero.  But that picture is not representative of the Body of Christ.

    Because it is no longer socially important to attend church, those who do, most often do so out of genuine commitment to follow Jesus.

    There are church planting movements that are becoming more dynamic and statistically significant every year, especially in the Church of England.

    Almost every church in our town has grown significantly in the past decade and there is more mutual respect and unity than any time in recorded history! I hear that in town after town in Britain.

    I’M OLD ENOUGH TO DO A LITTLE HISTORY

    When Marti and I first moved to London, we could not find a church with obvious spiritual life. But we did find a curate (if you are not familiar with that term, it is kind of a trainee minister) at a small church with a big building by the name of Holy Trinity Brompton.  Nicholas Rivett-Carnac conducted small healing services and prayed for life in HTB.  Today that church has world-wide impact through the Alpha Course and has packed multiple weekend services to cope with the crowds.  It has also planted congregations that plant congregations that plant congregations… so that no one can count how many churches have been impacted.

    I conclude from all this anecdotal evidence that “social Christianity” has died in the past 7 decades but that genuine faith and discipleship has grown many times over.  I also conclude that the move away from institutional church and towards informal but consistent fellowship between believers is very hard to track and no journalists I know of have even made an attempt.

    THE BLINDNESS OF HUBRIS

    Speaking of journalism, there was a recent discussion about why the BBC should produce more religious broadcasting.  In the course of that discussion the head of religious broadcasting, James Purnell, identified himself as an atheist. He also confirmed that the BBC would be increasing the number of religious programmes.  However, in the light of “the steady decline of Christianity” they would be sure the programming is of a multi-faith nature.

    One third of the world’s population identify themselves as Christians!!  Where has this man been?

    Well, he has been in the context of the “educated liberal elite” many of whom have somehow come to believe they are in the majority, even though they are a very small minority in this world. His response in a recent interview demonstrates the approach of so many of the liberal elite to religion.  A broadcast journalist asked him, ‘Are you a religious man?’, to which Purnell replied: ‘I’m not…I’m an atheist but I think the issues around belief are incredibly important to how we live. But not important to how HE lives?

    These are the people who feed us information about our world, either directly or indirectly.

    But they do so from a sort of echo chamber of like-minded people and their context warps their perception and conclusions.  Almost everything they say about the Christian faith has to be seen through the knowledge that they don’t know nearly as much about the world as they think they do.  Constant immersion in the society of the highly educated elites dulls the senses.

    TWO WAYS TO SEE THE WORLD

    I am grateful that, over the decades, I have travelled to so much of the world on a very small budget.  So I don’t often stay in hotels; I am not hosted by powerful people; I don’t travel on private jets or in first class.  I usually live with local people at their level, eat their food, meet their families etc. On every continent and virtually every nation there is evidence that the Kingdom of God is growing—but that evidence is usually seen at grass-roots level.

    Once a person becomes either rich or powerful they can no longer see the world like that.  Sadly, most of our elite leaders have never lived at a time when they could mingle with normal people in different parts of the world.  They don’t know what it is to see reality without it being “managed” with political or financial motives in mind.  Wealth and power are terribly isolating!

    All that is about context.  You might continue to hear, from journalists and broadcasters in parts of the the developed world that Christianity is dying out.  Sympathize with the predicament of their context, but more importantly, remember, their view is usually blinkered.

    “THY KINGDOM COME” is being answered like never before in the history of mankind!

    Lynn Green.

  • Seismic Shifts in the Middle East

    Seismic Shifts in the Middle East

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Even though I have been travelling to the Middle East since the 1970s and have watched many changes taking place, I am astonished at the pace of change in the last few years.  I have been in the Gulf States and Egypt the past couple of weeks and have come back with the assurance that the prayers of countless intercessors are being answered  to a degree that I could not have  imagined.

    In Dubai I was with the YWAM family who are scattered around the Gulf area.  They are Chinese, Egyptians, Iraqis, Filipinos, Indians, Afghans, Brazilians, Germans, Danes, Brits, Americans, and so on.  I was so encouraged by the unity of believers in this part of the world, which is the heart of Islam, and by the number of traditional Christians who have become genuine followers of Jesus, as well as those who have been called from all over the world to minister in the Middle East.

    I was particularly surprised to meet Afghan workers. They were a couple who came to Christ as a result of the living witness of a Korean family in Kabul. Before they were married, the young man followed Jesus but his fiancée hadn’t decided to do so at the time.  Their lives were soon under threat by the Taliban who gave notice that they were going to bomb their home. Three times they had to leave their house at short notice, moving to a new location and leaving everything behind.  Finally this dear young woman, mother of three little girls, thought she would put God to the test, so she prayed for protection as a Muslim and saw no change.  Then she prayed for protection in the name of Jesus.  In a dream that night she saw her house surrounded by huge angels and knew that she was safe.  In the long run they felt that they should go to another country.  So miraculous provision and visas opened to them in the Gulf area and they are now discipling many others from Afghan, Persian and Tajik backgrounds.  One of the other leaders there says he has rarely seen anyone as fruitful as this young couple.  Again, this far exceeded my expectations.  When I was first in Kabul in 1970, the only known believers were a handful of blind people.  (The government did not object to a Christian helping the blind because they were social outcasts.)

    One of the most memorable moments in this trip was when an Egyptian leader said, “We have been praying for revival and God sent us ISIS.”  That may sound quite strange to many, but the rise of extreme Islam and the revelation of its cruelty and inhumanity has been a major reason for disillusionment and a hunger for change.  No one can accurately estimate the number of people who have turned to Christ in the last few years.  Some people would say millions; others would say no, it’s more like hundreds of thousands. But any figure needs to be seen in context—there were almost no Muslims deciding to follow Jesus until about twenty years ago.

    I could tell you many exciting stories like the South American who is a football coach in one of the least reached nations where visas are very hard to get, but the government has welcomed him with open arms.  There were so many encouragements during my days there!  Amongst them was the fact that many of the workers are under the age of 30 and are putting roots down for the long term.  Several of them have just finished two years of language school.  I was impressed with their commitment but also with the bubbling life that was evidenced amongst them.

    I had a little more than a day at home before I left again, this time for Egypt.  I have been to the Western Desert many times and I am always uplifted by the experience because, for more than 17 centuries it has been one of the world’s great spiritual centres.  Monks from the Western Desert took the gospel to Ireland.  Then, in the dark ages, monks in Ireland and Egypt kept the light of the gospel alive.

    There were understandable security implications for people from so many nations gathering there, even though great efforts were made to keep the numbers down.  When it was first planned, we learned that the Chinese wanted to bring 4000 and the Egyptians figured as many as 12,000 would come if the gathering were open.   When the security implications were considered, we made the event available by invitation only.  As a result, we were only about 1,000.  (But we believe more open events lie ahead.)  Around 3-400 of the thousand were Chinese, then about 300 Egyptians with the remainder coming from around 30 other nations.  The theme was the Isaiah 19 highway:

    23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24 In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing[b] on the earth. 25 The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

    As usual with these events, it is very hard to describe the significance of it.  I will do my best to explain that below.  What anyone would have experienced is an almost unique sense of family love between believers from so many different nations.  That led to a clear sense of spiritual authority for proclaiming that the Egypt to Assyria highway is open!

    I will try to explain a little more clearly:

    It is rare for followers of Jesus to gather from so many nations with only one purpose—to worship God together and then believe and obey anything he says.  When we do that, it seems that His priority is to prepare the Church, the Bride of Christ.  He does that by leading us to tear down the walls that divide us.  Nationality, race, language, culture and religious traditions all serve to separate us; but all those become insignificant when we focus on Him.  A powerful sense of love pervades and the usual gulfs between us disappear.  In that atmosphere, we are able to talk about sensitive subjects, such as Jews and the land of Israel, different views of the second coming of Jesus and different perspectives on current politics and events.  But the love and unity prevail even when we have different opinions on these important subjects.

    We must all be familiar with what Jesus said to his disciples, “This is how everybody will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.”  I have always understood that to apply to us as individuals and I am sure it does.  But recently I realized it could equally apply to nations or races or any groups that are traditionally divided against one another.  When Koreans, Chinese and Japanese believers love one another, it is a powerful demonstration that the good news about Jesus is supernatural and a powerful force for good.  The same would be true between Germans and French and British, or Israelis and Arabs.  I am convinced that such love has spiritual power.

    A lot has been said about spiritual warfare and the Ephesians passage is well known:

    “The warfare we’re engaged in, you see, isn’t against flesh and blood.  It’s against the leaders, against the authorities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.”

    Over the years, we have sought to wage this warfare in different ways.  Sometimes it seemed as if our efforts were futile and missing the mark.  However, when we gather as we did in Egypt (and have done in many other nations over the past five years) we know, beyond doubt that territory is being taken for the Kingdom of God and the “powers that rule this world” are on the run.

    A major factor in this spiritual power is the Chinese.  That part of the Church has been refined through suffering and they have a level of commitment and zeal that is too rare.  In addition, it just seems that God has decided to give them a gift for praying for the birth of new things in the Kingdom.  It is as if they are spiritual midwives.  In these gatherings, they worship will all their hearts and then pray and travail in the Spirit with all their hearts and new ministries or relationships or other breakthroughs occur.  Their spiritual leadership is indispensable and they have made covenant commitments to stand with both Arabs and Jews for the sake of the Kingdom.

    One final important point on this subject:  One of our good friends from Israel said, “The destiny of a nation is to be seen it its redeemed minority”, and Paul wrote that all things will be brought together in Christ.  That cosmic destiny is demonstrated when we worship together and love one another across the usual divides.  When people from different nations, races, social and educational backgrounds find genuine love and unity in Jesus, the King, it gives us a foretaste of the Kingdom to come.

    This has already been long, but I have to mention one more bit of encouragement.  I was visiting a friend whom I have known for about 30 years and, to my amazement, I discovered that he had a friendship with the man who has been announced as the next King of Saudi Arabia.  This Crown Prince has been in the news recently because he paid a world record for a painting—over $450 million for a Da Vinci depiction of Jesus.  That in itself is amazing!  Muslims do not approve of any pictures of people or animals.  Why would he risk the wrath of fellow Muslims?  More importantly, though, was the news I read last month.  Crown Prince Salmon was reported as saying that Saudi Arabia was no longer following strict fundamentalism.  He said they were breaking with their Wahhabi version of Islam and embracing what we would call moderate Islam.  So I asked my friend, “Do you know him well enough to know if this is a sincere change?”  He said, “Yes, I have a warm and growing friendship with him and he means it.”

    Yes, these are seismic shifts.  What will the next few years bring?  I know better than to try to make a prediction, but I am certainly eager to see it unfold!

    Lynn Green.

  • YWAM Communicator’s Circle Live stream

    YWAM Communicator’s Circle Live stream

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

  • Time Bombs – In Education

    Time Bombs – In Education

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Do you ever read something that contains a new thought, and then that thought begins to trigger little time bombs in your mind? That is, it continues to set off other new thoughts over the following days and weeks. Obviously that happens to me or I would not be mentioning it!

    EDUCATION FOR THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

    I read a statement which claimed that our current format for schools and education is the product of the industrial revolution. Leaders of formative industries needed to find a way to free adults from the responsibilities of caring for and educating their children so they could work in factories. So education, as we know it, developed as a by-product of the drive for economic growth and wealth creation.  Most of the workers producing this wealth were parents working long days while their children were in school.

    This cultural shift resulted in new and highly valued freedoms.  Boys were no longer destined to stay in the trade of their fathers and girls began a path to more opportunity than ever before.   I am grateful for all the wealth created; it has resulted in many benefits—better health, housing, food, literacy, democratic processes—the list could get very long.

    PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

    However, this must have some implications for how we think about education. I for one have long felt that the primary responsible for educating, training, developing children lies with parents and yet our current arrangement places that responsibility firmly in the hands of professional educators. They are the ones who have our children for the majority of their waking hours. Our cultural and financial expectations push us to turn our children over to others at a very young age.  We rarely know those “others” well enough to be confident about what they are teaching and whether or not they will model the values held by the parents.  They in turn have been shaped by professional educators and the content of what they teach is usually mandated by government policy and educational specialist in the sphere of government.  Is this a healthy thing?

    DESTRUCTIVE EDUCATION

    Most Christian parents on either side of the Atlantic over recent years will have been concerned about several aspects of the education of their children.  Recently, we have seen the shift towards sex education including redefining marriage, gender fluidity, normalising transgender medical procedures, etc.  These subjects are important.  However, equally or more important is the teaching of such foundational subjects as English literature, History and Science with a studied absence of any reference to God or any higher authority.  Our children usually absorb the idea that human intellect is the highest authority and that morals and values are relative and evolving.  Understandably, most Christian parents harbour some level of concern that the nature of their children’s education, if it is provided by State schools, does not build any sort of foundation of faith and is almost always actively destructive to Christian faith and behaviour.

    WHERE ARE THE NEW MODELS?

    At the same time, and paradoxically, the Christian community has a growing confidence in the intellectual integrity and consistency of their faith.  Yet we have little or no opportunities to impart that confidence to our children.  We are simply too busy to do that, and so out of practical necessity, we accept that professional educators will shape our children and to a great extent their beliefs.  I conclude that we have to “swim against the tide” and develop more ways to educate our children in the beauty of our faith.  We were created to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength”.  Without concerted, God-centred education, our children will not be likely to obey this, “the greatest of all commandments”.

    WHAT ARE WE MULTIPLYING?

    These thoughts have led me to think again about how we help less developed nations.  Christian missionaries and workers are often on the frontline of providing assistance, technology and finance to nations and peoples who are less developed. One of our assumptions is that they need schools like our schools.  Many Christians have committed themselves to developing education systems in poorer nations.  I have been to some of those schools and they can be wonderful.  The teachers are trained in the best of education principles but are also spurred on in their spiritual growth and their Christ-centred living.  But are we possibly imparting a system that is too vulnerable to follow the path of our developed nations?  Should we be looking at ways to engaged parents more in the process of developing their children?  Is the accepted format for education with at least five long days a week spent in school the best we can do?  Is the system itself somehow flawed?

    TAKING EDUCATION BACK FROM GOVERNMENT

    I am convinced that centralised, national governments are not the appropriate authority for overseeing education.  We will probably always want and need professional educators, but they should be directly accountable to parents.  We will have to work out more ways to develop good standards and oversight without abdicating our God-given, parental mandate. There are some workable models in developed nations so we are not starting from scratch.

    I don’t have any complete answers at this point, but I think change often begins with asking the best questions.  Maybe you have some questions to go along with mine.  Than after thinking about the questions we might start finding some steps towards a better approach to education, one that does not so thoroughly drive a wedge between parents and children.  We are suffering because of this separation which may not always be caused by education, but there is certainly an educational contribution to it.

    IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY

    If we continue to pray the prayer the Lord taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…” then perhaps He has some new ways for us to think about how His kingdom comes in the education and development of our children.

    Lynn Green.