Lynn Green

Tag: Youth With A Mission

  • The Dead are Raised and the Chinese are One

    The Dead are Raised and the Chinese are One

    Photo by Alan Cabello from Pexels

     

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

     

    Some of our experiences this past month

    I would like to recount one extra story to you and then the remainder of this report can be about our unprecedented meetings in Hong Kong.  Marti and I were at a youth prayer event in East Sussex for a day and met a man I had heard of but never met. Dennis was mentored by my dear friend, Guenther Krallmann, who lived with us at Highfield Oval for many years.  Dennis’s story of recent events was amongst the most encouraging we have heard.

    He was on a trip abroad with a group when he began to feel very unwell and steadily weaker.  He went to a doctor and after tests was told he had a ruptured appendix and would not be able to fly home the next day as scheduled.  Though that was the diagnosis, he felt strongly that he should fly home anyway.

    Three days later he was back in London and feeling weaker, so was taken to A and E.  He is the pastor of a praying church of about a thousand people in North London and the congregation were in prayer for his healing, but he declined and died.  He was certified dead, but the praying church cried out to God that they would not accept his death—that he MUST live!  As they redoubled their prayer, his body roused, he took a deep breath and shouted,

    “I will not die, I will live!”

     

    The shocked hospital staff opened his abdomen, cleaned up the infection as best they could and put him in an induced coma for five days.  When he regained consciousness, he was surprised and a little embarrassed to hear himself preaching.  As the hours passed, he discovered that he had preached a lot during the five days and that hospital staff and patients had been deeply impacted.

    He went on to tell me how so many of the people in his part of London were aware of his illness and now know the whole story.  But, he explained, “The thing I like the most is talking to the poor and marginalized on the streets where I am not known.  That is where God is moving the most!”  I am looking forward to more fellowship with Dennis.

    Hong Kong

    Our week in Hong Kong started in the same vein. We met a humble evangelist (I’ll call him Ahmed) working in some of the most closed countries in the Middle East.  He trained as a priest, but it was just a job to him until he met Jesus and was filled with the Holy Spirit and power.  He had to flee his country on the sub-continent because powerful people were seeking to kill him.  Life was very difficult for an exile in M.E. countries where the Christian faith cannot be freely proclaimed.

    At 2 a.m. one morning his phone rang and a man on the other end demanded, “Who are you!”  Ahmed, confused, asked the same question of his caller.  Eventually, the man explained that he was in a state of desperation and had suddenly seen a telephone number written in lights on the ceiling above his bed, so he called the number.  The caller demanded that Ahmed should come to him immediately, but Ahmed had no car and no way of getting there, so the man sent his driver the next morning.  That was the first of many miracles that opened a door to the most influential families in the region and many members of those families have become followers of Jesus.  They have even given him a large piece of property so he can train more people to be like him.

    Ahmed pastors a church of several hundred now.  One night he received a phone call from a desperate member of his church who was in a morgue.  A friend of his was very ill, had died and was taken to the morgue, but this man had a deep faith that, even though a death certificate had been issued and he was holding a copy of it, his friend was not meant to die.  Ahmed was still waking up and didn’t know what to do, but heard himself saying, “Lay your phone on your friend!”  He began to pray and rebuke the spirit of death.  After a short time, the friend who had died began to shrug her shoulders.  She went on to regain full health and is alive today.  That was one of three people recently resurrected.  (This report would be a lot longer if I told the details of those stories.)

    There is no doubt that “the harvest is ripe” in some parts of the world that we used to think were the hardest to reach.  The work of the Holy Spirit, often in signs and wonders cuts right through all the usual arguments and objections to the Good News.

    Mainly about the Chinese

    After a couple of days of preliminary meetings, we moved to the Asia World-Expo centre near the HK airport and were joined by nearly 10,000 Chinese.  The great majority were from the mainland, but others were from Chinese majority and Chinese minority nations around East Asia. The cultures, political views and values vary a lot between these nations and the tensions between Hong Kong and China was particularly acute.  (We were near or passing through demonstrations at both locations but never felt at risk.)

    Oneness

    The theme was around the prayer of Jesus in John 17, that we may be one as He and the Father are one.  I was so deeply impressed that the political differences could be openly discussed but without any heart division.  The mainland Chinese could explain that political dissent and demonstrations would never enter their minds.  Their approach to the Kingdom of God does not include political action.  After very honest discussions, they simply committed themselves to stand together, though that might mean arrest or even death.  It’s one thing to be prepared to suffer for our own convictions, but something much deeper to be prepared to suffer for convictions we do not share.  They have a deep understanding of the importance of oneness.  Those of us from Western nations were deeply challenged, as we so often are by the Chinese.

    I was WRONG

    That brings me to my confession.  In 2012, an American with the reputation of a prophet conducted a prophetic act at the same Expo centre.  He gave Chinese leaders a very large decorative key and proclaimed that the anointing for leadership was passing from American hands to Chinese hands.  When I watched a recording of that, I was unhappy.  There were a several reasons for my reaction, but my main thought was about nationalism.

    Christian leadership has often been skewed by nationalism.  In fact, we were at the Expo again in 2013 to offer our apology and express remorse for British nationalism which led to the opium wars of the 19th century. The loyalty of some missionaries to the British Empire damaged the purity of the gospel for two centuries. I have seen damage done all over the world when British, or Dutch, or French or American nationalism and superiority were packaged with the Good News.

    To view that ceremony of apology and the emotional responses of Chinese people (video bellow)

    There is no doubt that Chinese nationalism is generally on the rise.  It is very common to hear Chinese people say that they used to be ashamed of being Chinese, but now they are proud of their growing power and achievements.  But for the past six years we have been in close fellowship with many senior leaders of Chinese church networks—some of which number in the millions.  We love and admire and joyfully submit to their extraordinary love, gentleness and power in the Holy Spirit.

    Yes, I believe an anointing for global leadership in the Body of Christ is on the Chinese.  But it is not the kind of leadership that some Western nations have exercised.  These are humble servant leaders who are easy to underestimate.  They often don’t lead from the front, they lead in prayer and spiritual authority.  They do not push themselves forward, but they eagerly serve when needed.

    Oneness Equals Authority

    There were no guest speakers to draw the crowds to this event and there were few plans for the sessions.  We met for three and four-hour sessions to worship and see what God would do.  We expected that He would bring about deeper unity in the global Chinese family and that’s exactly what happened.  It occurred through brokenness, worship, celebration, weeping, joy and bold proclamations.

    From the Scriptures, especially John 17 and Ephesians 1-3, we know that we are meant to have great authority on the earth, but we also know there are conditions. The foremost condition, and the hardest one, is that we might be one.  Anyone who has lived the Christian life for very long knows that the oneness of John 17 is impossible in human terms.  Now we have witnessed that the Holy Spirit can impart that oneness, doing what is not possible for human beings.

    Help Needed!

    From the beginning of the events in Hong Kong, some of us Brits and other Europeans felt that we wanted to ask the Chinese to come and help us.  By the end of the event, we were desperate for their help.  When I expressed that need to one of the senior leaders whom I know best, she beamed her welcoming smile back to me and said;

    “We have wanted to do that for a long time!”

    Where to from here?

    There were about 20 Brits in the Hong Kong meetings and we are not the kind of leaders who can announce a meeting and get everyone to come.  How do we proceed?  We are asking God to show us.  What we do know is that God is not finished with Britain, the rest of Europe or other Western nations.  He wants to do a redemptive work in our nations too.  Join us in prayer that we will move in unison with the will and purposes of God!

    Lynn Green.

  • Reconciliation Walk

    Reconciliation Walk

     

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

     

    Tre Sheppard helped me make this video in 1995.  He did a great job of putting it together and I am grateful to the people at ywam.tv for digitizing it recently.  It is still a relevant subject for a few reasons.

    It is very important that Christians in the western nations should understand how many Muslims, and Jews, see Christianity.  There are reasons for their feelings of enmity and we should humbly acknowledge that.  As everyone knows, history shapes the present and if we do not make efforts to address historical sins, there is little hope that the consequences will fade.  This video is a brief summary of the events of the first Crusade and their impact on Muslims, Jews and Eastern Christians—all of whom were victims of religiously inspired violence under the banner of the Cross of Jesus.

    The following year, hundreds of Christians from Western nations journeyed to Turkey to convey a message of apology face-to-face. That initiative continued for over three years, through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank.  It culminated in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, exactly 900 years after the Crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem and slaughtered all its citizens.  In the context of the twisted understanding of the Roman Church at the time, their actions were thought to be “evangelism”.

    Let us walk in humility!

    Defusing the bitter legacy of the Crusades. Lynn Green retraces the history of the first Crusade and proposes an appropriate Christian response for today. The Reconciliation Walk was an independent initiative led by Lynn Green, an American who has been living in England for 25 years.

    About 3,000 walkers participated over the 3-year period, with people coming and going in small groups, from many different denominations and nations. It began in the spring of 1996, as teams of walkers entered Cologne, Germany, where the Crusades were launched in March-April 1096, led by Peter the Hermit.

    The 2,000-mile three-year walk across Europe and through the Balkans, Turkey, and Syria ended in Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, the nine-hundredth anniversary of a Crusade massacre of Jews and Arabs. Recorded in 1996, by Procla-Media, and captured from VHS in 2019.

    resource: UofN Legacy

  • Why is YWAM so Small?

    Why is YWAM so Small?

     

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

     

    I often meet with leaders of denominations, mission agencies or other Christian organizations and one of the most common questions is;

    “How big is YWAM?”

     

    For several reasons, that’s a hard one for me to answer.  For example, just yesterday a couple visited us and, during conversation said, “We will always be YWAMers.”  They haven’t been full-time YWAMers for nearly 40 years!  I hear comments like that everywhere I go.  How many people feel that they are part of the big YWAM family?  Well, it must be hundreds of thousands, or more likely, millions.  Do we count them all?

    A deep sense of belonging

    That sense of belonging to the YWAM family is a result of a few unusual factors.  Probably the most significant one is the “doorway” into YWAM—the DTS (Discipleship Training School).  Every person who has an interest in becoming a part of YWAM is immersed for five or six months in a learning community focussed on knowing God and loving one another, then making Him known to others.  Back to that later….

    Though the question could be answered different ways, most people who ask are wondering how many full-time YWAMers there are.  The most honest answer is;

    “We don’t know; we quit counting several years ago.”

     

    But, I f I had to guess, I would go along with Loren Cunningham’s estimate, which is about 35,000; but that estimate was made in 2010 and it must be considerably larger now.  Upon hearing that estimate, it’s not uncommon for people to say, “That must make it the biggest mission agency ever, right?”  Again, I don’t know, but that might be right.

    The whole Church to the whole world.

    What I do know is that I never imagined YWAM would look like this.  When about 4,000 of us gathered in Thailand last year, I could hardly contain the feelings of amazement and gratitude.  It wasn’t only about the size; it was seeing so many people of all ages from scores of nations.  There were worship teams from so many languages, people who have made such huge sacrifices and those who are reaching the needy and reaching those who have never heard and also those who hunger after truth and need to “see Jesus” in someone.  How we have grown!

    50th Anniversary of multiplication!

    The massive, sustained growth of YWAM began the year I attended the first School of Evangelism in Lausanne Switzerland.  There were 23 students in our school.  (We will celebrate the 50th anniversary of that beginning next month in Lausanne.)   When we had finished, the Lord directed us to pioneer YWAM in the UK.  Marti and I asked Loren how we should go about it and he answered, “Why don’t you pray about starting another SOE.”  That was a demonstration of such high trust!

    A great strategy

    It was also the beginning of a strategy:  start a multiplier for missions that will not only train young people to reach the world, but each multiplier will start other multipliers.  A few years later, we began to develop Discipleship Training Schools—multipliers planting other multipliers.  Now there are more than 600 locations where DTSs and other courses are being run and from which new locations can be pioneered.

    But we are still so small!

    The current world population is about 7.7 billion.  Of that number, 2.4 billion would call themselves Christians.  Compared to those numbers, the number of missionaries is very small—only about 440,000.  That is one missionary for every 17,500 people.  That’s the math.  To think about how many there should be, we need a little more math.

    How many missionaries should there be?

    We can only think about this sort of question in a general way, but here is my perspective.  God commands his people to give and the threshold for that is a tithe—10%.  If every Christian did that, we could support a tenth of the total number of Christians.  That would be 240 million full time workers!  But that is not realistic because we also spend money on buildings and other material needs.  So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s say that half of our giving goes to material needs.  That would mean we could only support 120 million workers.  Then again, many of those would work in the context of people who have already become Christians; they might be pastors or church administrators or youth leaders. 

    All those roles are vital to the continuing growth of the followers of Jesus—and the Christ-like growth of existing Christians is a vital part of our witness to the world!  If we follow that reasoning and keep it simple, then the number of missionaries would be reduced to 60 million.  Based on that thinking, Christians should be able to support more than 100 times as many missionaries as we do now.

    New Levites

    I am well aware that some Christians question the idea that there should be missionaries who are supported by giving from others.   They point to some of Paul’s passages in the epistles where he stresses that he worked hard to support himself and others who were with him.  There is certainly a time and place for self-support through hard work, but Paul also asked for, and received, support from churches and individuals.  Jesus and his disciples, along with the many who were sent out by the early church, continued in the Old Testament tradition of 11 tribes supporting one tribe, the Levites.  They lived primarily on the giving of the others.

    Every Christian is called to be an ambassador for the gospel and that is how the Church is meant to grow, but God still calls some to be the “new Levites”, undistracted by other obligations.

    There is enough money

    My point is, there is enough money in the hands of Christians to support an exponential growth in the number of missionaries, and there is an obvious need for more “labourers in the harvest”, which is what Jesus told us to pray for.

    Ten-fold growth

    There is another reason why I claim that YWAM is far too small.  About ten years ago, a few mature and reliable friends of YWAM contacted us over a period of a few months with the same message.  They did not know one another, so there was no human collaboration; God was speaking to us.  The message was that we were going to experience ten-fold growth, so we should get ready.  Another messenger put it slightly different, they said, “Get ready for 200,000 new missionaries!”

    I am sure God has spoken to other mission agencies with a similar message and He will also be directing and empowering new ministries to emerge all around the world.  But this article is about growing YWAM.  How do we go about that? Or, I might be wiser to ask, “How does God want to increase the number of workers in YWAM?”

    We multiply multipliers

    That first community-based training school in 1969 was the key to growth.  Then, when Loren encouraged some of the students from that school to go to other nations and start similar schools, it was the key to exponential growth!  That growth will be healthy when each of the training centres operates with the same vision and values.  The most important of the values is that each student should come to know God and be equipped to make Him known.   

    The YWAM DTS Centre is given the responsibility to assure the quality of the training at every location.  In addition, groups of elders—globally, continentally and in smaller geographical areas—guard the values and vision.  It’s a great equation for growth without sacrificing quality!

    Thousands of YWAMers are engaged in training others and my plea through this article is to them:  Keep multiplying workers for the harvest!  IN ADDITION, make sure you have a vision to plant more training centres.  If every team leading a training centre has plans to start more training centres, it won’t be long before we have multiplied ten-fold.  Then, the day will come when we are training a million workers at any given time.

    The Lord will multiply other missions and organizations at the same time so that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

    And God said, “GO FORTH AND MULITPLY!”

    Lynn Green.

  • The Send (Brazil)

    The Send (Brazil)

     

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

     

    A Youth movement of astonishing proportions is occurring around the world.  At the moment, it is under the radar here in Europe, but I want to tell you about it and also to encourage you to pray that the young people of Europe will also engage with this very significant development.

    Essentially, it consists of at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of committed Christian young people who really believe that they can change the world for the better.  The most obvious manifestations of this movement are occurring in large events. Many know about Soul Survivor for example here in the UK but that is just one example.

    A few months ago, there was a Missions called “The Send” in a stadium in Orlando with about 55 thousand people in attendance.  The sense of God’s presence reported by all who were there was palpable and there were countless healings, young people committing themselves to Missions and astonishingly committing themselves to adopt a million children over the next several years!  A commitment, which is linked to their deep concern over how many babies are killed in the womb.

    The YWAMers and others who have formed a collation for “The Send” felt God saying they should go to Brazil next.  While I was in the Middle East with some of them just a few days back, they opened registration for a stadium event in São Paulo.  The stadium has a capacity of 65 thousand.  In the first few hours the website was open that capacity was exceeded.  Those who registered had to pay too, and still it was exceeded.  They closed the registration site after 28 hours because nearly 125,000 had registered or tried to, only to find that all places were taken within the first few hours.

    The Send Brazil (Trailer)

     

    Whilst in the Middle East I met with some of the younger leaders who are organising event.  They had just finished praying about what to do about their “problem”.  As I write they are exploring the availability of two other large stadia in São Paulo.  This Brazilian “The Send” will happen on February 8th and has already served to illustrate that a great Missions movement has arisen in Brazil.  I am excited about that!

    Word about “The Send” is spreading rapidly around the world.  Now it’s not hard to imagine that a million new missionaries could be added to the “labourers in the harvest”.  In our life-time, we could see the scriptures available to every home on earth.  And the good news about the grace of God in Christ Jesus could be proclaimed to every person on earth!

    Lynn Green.