Lynn Green

Category: Current Events

  • What Happened In Japan

    What Happened In Japan

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

    How do we know when there has been a breakthrough in “the heavenlies”? 

    We know various scriptures refer to fighting “principalities and powers” and that Old Testament stories sometimes refer to, or illustrate, that idea.  But for most of us, the spiritual realm, or the heavenlies, is hard to understand.

    In spite of my limited understanding of this dimension, I can say with some confidence that there was a spiritual breakthrough in Japan during the first week of May, 2015.  Though the population of Christians in Japan has been stuck for many decades at less than one percent, that is about to change.  Watch this nation because many more people are going to become followers of Jesus.

    Just a few decades ago the Church in China was also stuck at less than one percent with persecution and martyrdom eroding the numbers fast.  In spite of those very hard times, the Chinese church has grown more than 100-fold. So it will be in Japan.

    My confidence is based upon what we experienced in Kobe, Japan over a period of four days.  The four thousand people who gathered spent the great majority of the time in worship, and the Chinese setting the tone with their love for Jesus.  They were there in good numbers and for the first time so were the Koreans.  (These nations have invaded, dominated and plundered one another for centuries with Japan usually being the most powerful.)  The worship flowed into times of repentance, forgiveness and commitments to love one another.

    Their mutual commitments were formalized in a statement in all three languages by which they covenanted to love on another no matter what politics, media or any other influence might do.  There were hundreds of pastors from all three nations and also from Taiwan and other East Asian nations all hugging one another in heart-felt commitment.

    There were other breakthroughs too.  These cultures have not had loving family models.  Most men are aloof, harsh husbands and fathers.  People in leadership positions are expected to be even more stoic and inscrutable.  So when a senior Japanese pastor talked humbly and transparently about his failings as a father, it softened everyone.  When his two sons joined him on stage to express their forgiveness and their admiration, we could sense how their humility was changing a culture for the better.

    This year marks the 70th year since WWII and 400 years since thousands of Japanese Christians were martyred.  Israel was exiled in Babylon for 70 years, and then restoration began.  So it will be with Japan.  With leading believers from China, Japan and Korea joining together in unity, we can expect extraordinary growth in the Kingdom of God in all of the Far East.

    On a more personal note, I was surprised and deeply moved by a conversation with a leading Chinese “father”.  He is the senior leader of the largest network of churches in China and he greeted me with a big hug and tears.  Through an interpreter, he explained that our presence at the Hong Kong Gathering in August of 2013 had imparted a new level of missionary vision for the Body of Christ in China.  We had already been told that the government had given him a passport for the first time in his life, so the trip to Japan was his first time to be allowed out of the country.  (He has been in prison for much of his adult life.)  He went on to say that the government in Beijing has had a change of mind about the role of the Church and about foreign missionaries— at least partly based upon viewing the video of our act of repentance for the Opium Wars at that same event in 2013.  I was amazed!!

    This entire journey with the Church in East Asia has been another illustration of a powerful truth:   God often presents us with a task that seems sacrificial, but when we say yes, He makes it a joy and also makes it more fruitful than we could ever imagine.  God is good—all the time!

    Lynn Green

  • Are We Being Misled?

    Are We Being Misled?

     

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

    President Obama has very carefully avoided speaking about Islamic terrorism and has repeatedly stated that “we are not at war with Islam!”  But the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, recently said,

    ‘France has been struck very much at its heart by terrorism—jihadist terrorism and radical Islamism, because let us call things like they are.”

    (Read the whole article, it is worth the time:  http://www.wsj.com/article_email/sohrab-ahmari-frances-anti-terror-free-market-socialist-1425080405-lMyQjAxMTA1NjI5ODcyOTgzWj)

    What’s going on?  Who is trying to mislead us?

    I don’t really think Mr Obama is attempting to deceive us, but he might be under-estimating our ability to understand the divisions within Islam.  It is not really that complicated until you attempt to get into the detail, but we don’t need to for our purposes here.

    I also want to give him the benefit of the doubt, given his responsibilities and who he has been meeting with.  He recently hosted a summit meeting on terrorism and gave his most comprehensive speech right after it finished last week.  He made a very strong point of saying that we are not at war with Islam and that this is not about religion.  For that he received repeated applause from those who had just emerged from the summit with him.

    I have been in meetings like that.  In fact my Reconciliation Walk team hosted symposia with all the senior religious leaders in Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem.  Some years later, I was at the Common Word event at Yale University.  These were each very interesting and helpful, but I have to admit that only the people we call “moderates” turn out to events of this nature.  I met some really interesting people at these meetings and made friends that have lasted for years.

    On several occasions at these events, when the subject of violence and terror came up, I heard the confident assertion, “that is not Islam”.  These were the moderates speaking.  They come from very different schools of interpretation from those who identify with ISIS or Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab or Boko Haram or the countless other violent splinter groups that we have yet to hear from.

    We can understand that position.  For example, I was born into a Pentecostal church.  This was a movement that exploded into view in the first decade of the 20th century and by 1912 had been rejected by the Roman Catholics and all the main Protestant denominations.  The Protestants met together and decided that the movement was demonically inspired, so not worthy of the name “Christian”.  The Pentecostals defended themselves by quoting the Bible and claiming that they were more Biblical than the others.  A hundred years later, Pentecostalism is accepted as part, a very large part, of the Christian faith.

    I appreciate those Muslims who are revolted by the violence of ISIS and I am sympathetic when they say, “that is not Islam!”  But the self-appointed Caliph of ISIS, a man with a PhD in Islamic Law, will refute that claim by quoting the Koran and Muslim traditions.  He and his followers will confidently claim that they are the only true Muslims because true Islam requires territory and people ruled by the strictest interpretation of Sharia and presided over by an all-powerful Caliph.  That is what they now have in parts of Iraq and Syria.

    So, back to the question:  Is President Obama attempting to mislead us?  No, I don’t think so.  He just wants us all to be clear that Muslims are not our enemies.  There really are a lot more peace loving Muslims than violent ones.  However, he inadvertently misleads us when he says the terrorists are not Muslims.  We cannot say that and it doesn’t help to try.  These  violent groups are comprised of people who are convinced that they are living out the mandate of the Prophet Mohammed more accurately than any people on earth.

    We are not at war with Islam and we are not at war with all Muslims, but some Muslims are definitely at war with us!

  • Leader, Know Thyself!   

    Leader, Know Thyself!   

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

    How well to you know yourself?  You may say “Very well; I live in here”.

    Actually we are all aware that getting to know who we are, what strengths we have, the skills we should develop and what weaknesses we have, is a process;  one that is sometimes fulfilling and exciting, and sometimes discouraging and painful.  It happens intensely for most people during their twenties, with quite a lot of that intensity carrying on into their thirties.  By mid-forties most people should have a pretty good idea of their strengths, weaknesses, abilities and their spiritual gifts.

    Wise people and teams have written numerous books on the importance of discovering what you are good at, and then developing your strengths and gifts until you become highly skilled.  The converse of that is to know your weaknesses, and recognise that you will need others alongside you who have strengths where you are weak.  It was a great help to me when, a few years ago, someone pointed out a serious flaw in our society, and especially our educational processes, which tend to highlight our weaknesses; then we are encouraged to work on improving where we are weakest.

    I was never much good at art.  I just don’t have the fine motor skills to draw paint or sculpt.  No matter how hard I worked at school, I was never going to be an A student in art.  (When Tracey Emin’s “Bed” became famous, I thought I could do that, so perhaps I could be an artist after all.  But that is another subject.)

    I don’t need to be good at art, because other people are and I am designed to work in teams, adding my strengths to the strengths of others and overcoming our weaknesses in the process.  When I need a webpage design I can get someone else to provide it!

    So, none of us can “do it all”, even though some people give the appearance that they can.  We can each focus on our strengths.

    But what happens when a person is sure they have particular strengths, but really they don’t?  Or perhaps they are ambitious to develop skills where they just don’t have the strengths to do that.  I worked with a person who was an outstanding organiser.  She was especially good at managing large events.  She made very difficult tasks seem easy, but she, for some reason, seemed to despise those abilities and rather wanted to be the person up front.  In the end, this outstanding organiser became the senior leader of a small group of people, which gradually declined until nothing was left.

    What do you do when you are convinced you can do something well, or can at least learn to do it well, but others see you don’t have the aptitude, or strengths to do that role well?  This is such a difficult question!

    On the one hand, it is possible that for one reason or other those others don’t like us, or have some prejudice against us, and with malicious intent they seek to tear us down.  Perhaps they are ambitious, and we are seen as a competitor.

    On the other hand, there aren’t many people like that, and we are likely to have others who will speak to us honestly and truthfully. So we should be eager to listen to those who know us and can give us helpful advice about our strengths and weaknesses.

    However, even when good feedback is available there are a few people who just don’t know themselves.  Their own opinion of themselves is seriously at variance with who they really are.  I won’t attempt to analyse why it happens, because I think there are a great many reasons why a person may try to develop in a direction for which they are not equipped.  When it happens, that person can waste years of their life, and end up having failure after failure.   Or at best they will keep working at a role, especially in leadership, that doesn’t suit their strengths.

    Here are some signs that a person might be ambitious in the wrong direction:

    1. You find yourself under tremendous stress, and consistently wondering if you are doing OK.
    2. Quite a number of reasonably trustworthy people try to point you in another direction, or perhaps you sense that they are not fully satisfied with your performance.
    3. If you have reviews, they are not encouraging.
    4. You find yourself fending off those negative reviews or criticisms by attempting to discredit those who produce them.
    5. You find your life is not going in the direction you want, but you genuinely feel it is other people’s fault.
    6. You begin to wonder why it seems that everyone is prejudiced against you.

    Joy Dawson, one of the people who helped lay the foundations of Youth With a Mission, once said that;

    “humility is being willing to be known for who you are”. 

    I believe that; but we often know things about ourselves only as we see then through the eyes of others.  We were actually designed to live in open and honest families and communities.  However, it takes a deep humility to hear and believe others when what they are saying is different than we want to hear.

    The really excellent news is that each of us is designed wonderfully with unique strengths.  As we discover those, sometimes by trusting the eyes of others, we can live joy-filled, productive lives.  We were created for harmonious relationships and when we unselfishly work in our strengths to help others and they compensate for our weaknesses, we function like a healthy body.  And that is the way it is meant to be!

  • ARE MUSLIMS THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES?

    ARE MUSLIMS THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES?

     

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

    Okay, so I am writing on a subject that has been written on by journalists and academics all over the world.  Still, I think I have some helpful things to say.

    Anyone who knows me knows that I have Muslim friends, have advocated on their behalf, have apologised to Muslims for the atrocities of the Crusades and the way Christianity has misrepresented Jesus, and have pointed out that the extremists do not represent the majority or even a statistically significant minority.  I do not believe that they are a true representation of Islam today.

    However, the Muslim community does have a problem.  They are being represented by that very small minority; at least partly because our press trains the cameras on them and holds the microphones to their mouths.  But it is not all the fault of our press; Muslims have also failed to understand and implement their most important priority in this time of great danger.

    Muslims turned out in their hundreds of thousands in many nations to demonstrate against the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. At the same time, in the week or so that elapsed between the massacre at the offices of the satirical newspaper and its next edition, a number of horrific and highly offensive events occurred:  Muslim extremists executed, by stoning, women accused of adultery—and videoed it for the world to see.  They threw two men accused of being homosexuals from the top of a building, with a baying crowd watching below.  They cold-heartedly executed more prisoners of the war they initiated and, in at least one case, the executioner was a child.  The Saudi Arabian authorities continued with the weekly instalments of lashes of a cane to the back of a man who dared to criticise Islam and the Saudi Royal Family.  His sentence was prison and 1,000 lashes!

    But there were no demonstrations against any of these acts of terror.

    So what incensed them so much against the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo and the Danish cartoons published a few years ago?  They have a very strong aversion to any depiction of Mohammed.  It is very similar to the Jews and the Old Testament commandment that they should make no image of God.  This is very important to them.  It is a sin as heinous as making an idol was to the Jews.

    I understand that as a Christian.  I was very offended quite a long time ago when play writes and film-makers seemed to be doing their best to offend Christians by depicting Jesus in various degrading ways.  At the time, we had blasphemy laws in the UK, but the “entertainers” seemed to know that they had powerful figures in the establishment on their side so they fought their indictments for blasphemy right up to the highest courts and had the result they had aimed for from the start—the blasphemy laws were struck down.

    I wrote letters, I contacted my elected representative, I signed petitions, but we lost.  Part of me is now okay with that because it is very hard for the law to define what language is acceptable and what is not.  When the law begins to describe what we can say and what we can’t, we are liable to lose important freedoms and to give more power to the state than we should.  Of course, there are some words and subjects that “the powers that be” have decided are currently off limits.

    For example, when I was a child we had a little saying when we were playing a game that needed someone to be “it”.  Eenie meanie, minie mo, catch a ni***r by the toe….  It was all very innocent and actually did not affect our attitudes towards African Americans in our school.  Notice that I can’t write that word now.  (I can write the F-word, which I could not write then, but I would rather not.)  Political correctness changes constantly because….well, that will have to be saved for another blog.

    So, should there be laws against depicting Mohammed?  If so, surely we should reinstate the blasphemy laws that applied to the Christian faith. But, with the benefit of hindsight, I would rather we did not have blasphemy laws, so I don’t want a law against depicting Mohammed.  In the effort to stop offensive speech, we can easily create laws that end up giving away precious freedoms.

    There are, however, many things that we are wise to avoid, even though they are legal.  I do not approve of this current issue of Charlie Hebdo, with its drawing of Mohammed.  It exacerbates already strained relations between Muslims and most citizens of Western nations.  In a civilized society, those who have the privilege of a public voice should not use it to intentionally offend a large segment of society that already feels marginalised.

    But, I said that Muslims have a problem.  Indeed, they do.  Though the majority deeply disapprove of the violence being done in the name of Islam, they have not managed to get their voice heard.  That is partly the fault of the press that we all read, listen to and watch.  But it seems to me that it is also a case of misplaced loyalty.  There is a deep sense of commitment that Muslims should stand with Muslims whenever there are accusations or attacks from outside the Ummah (the global Muslim community).

    But Truth trumps loyalty, at least it should do.  When we are loyal to those whom we know to be wrong, we become promoters of wickedness.

    My hope and prayer is that non-violent Muslims all over the world will face the fact that their failure to get their voice heard is not only too bad, but it is a great threat to them.  I deplore the idea that Western citizens should rise up against Muslims, but voices like mine can’t really accomplish very much.  We need to see hundreds of thousands of Muslims taking to the streets all over the world to demonstrate in condemnation of Islamic State, of Boko Haram, of Al Shabbab, Al Qaeda and all the other splinter groups whose violent depravity, expressed in the name of Allah is causing so much pain, loss and global anxiety.

    When they do, our press must cover it and make it high profile news!