Mission21

Part Three of a nessage delivered by Dr. A.D.Beacham, Executive Director of IPHC World Missions Ministries
14 May 2008
IPHC Fourth World Conference
Vancouver, B.C.

Read Part One here; Read Part Two here

In his The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries,(5) Stark revealed key factors by which Christianity in its infancy impacted and helped transform the world.

• Early Christianity was primarily a movement among the middle and upper classes, particularly in urban areas.
• When epidemics, fires, earthquakes, and ethnic violence spread through densely populated cities, the Christian commitment to love ones neighbor gave Christians a reason to stay in the mess, while rulers, philosophers, and pagan religious leaders fled to the countryside. Yes, many Christians died nursing their neighbors, but others became immune and established networks of care, love, and faithfulness. This “standing in the gap” led to numerous conversions.
• Christianity raised the status and value of women by prohibiting infanticide and abortion. It was because of Christianity that female population rates grew in the Roman Empire and the foundation was established for the greater dignity and influence of women.
• Stark puts it well: “To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.”
• Referring to the Antioch of Acts 13, Stark concluded, “No wonder Christian missionaries were so warmly received in this city. For what they brought was not simply an urban movement, but a new culture capable of making life in Greco-Roman cities more tolerable.” (6)

Stark's closing chapter is titled “A Brief Reflection on Virtue.” In looking for the ultimate factor in the rise of Christianity, he noted: “Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations. And it was the way these doctrines took on actual flesh, the way they directed organizational actions and individuals behavior, that led to the rise of Christianity. The simple phrase, 'For God so loved the world . . . .' would have puzzled an educated pagan. And the notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues - that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was something entirely new.” (7)

That analysis of the church's increase in her first three hundred years is instructive. People, and ultimately human principalities and powers, were influenced and changed because there were people who really had been transformed by grace. God's kingdom became the touchstone of their lives. Because they were citizens of God's kingdom, they were free to truly live as redeemed transformed people in their culture and time.

Isaiah 54:2 still speaks to us. We have the Hebrew verb form of the hiphil imperative to “enlarge the place of our tent.” The hiphil denotes a causative element. Something, Someone, is at work causing us to enlarge the place of our tent. That Someone is the Holy Spirit. But there are also others who are stretching out the curtains of our dwellings. These “others” are the multitude of the children of the desolate in Isaiah 54:1. They are the ones wanting to hear the Good News; they are the ones pushing at the curtains of our tent. They are wanting to hear us say, “Yes, Yes, Yes. There is room for you as we remove the obstacles that stand in the way of our tent expanding!” Amen. _______________

(5) Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1996). See also Stark's insightful One True God: The Historical Consequences of Monotheism.
(6)Stark, 161, 162.
(7) Stark, 211, 212.

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Part Two of a nessage delivered by Dr. A.D.Beacham, Executive Director of IPHC World Missions Ministries
14 May 2008
IPHC Fourth World Conference
Vancouver, B.C.

Read Part One here

I have seen among the over one hundred nations where we have a presence that this tribe has a divine inheritance that is our God-given responsibility to take. Yet, there are over 190 nations recognized by the United Nations. It burns within me to see an IPHC Spirit-filled and anointed presence in each of those nations. There is a sphere of spiritual authority in each nation that is ours to claim as an act of obedience to increasing our Lord's Kingdom.

Now, we all understand that IPHC Ministries is but one of countless movements over the past two thousand years that the Holy Spirit has raised up as witnesses to, as Paul put it in Ephesians 3:10, God's “manifold wisdom.” We are but one tribe among many tribes that have carried the banner of Jesus Christ. We are wise enough to know that we are not the only “church.” We are wise enough to know that God's Kingdom is bigger than the sum of its individual parts.

But we also recognize that this tribe, IPHC Ministries, is part of that kingdom, and we have an “increase-role” in this kingdom. Being “kingdom minded” is more than just thinking outside our own denominational lines. It is the recognition that the completion of the divine mandate to this tribe is part of what it means to be “kingdom minded.”

Over the past eighteen months Isaiah 54:2, 3 as been stirring in my heart: “Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited.” Listen to the verb litany: “enlarge; stretch out; do not spare; lengthen; strengthen; expand.” Listen to the promise, “Your descendants will inherit the nations and make the desolate cities inhabited!”

Though our tribe is only 110 years old, God in His manifold wisdom decreed that this tribe would exist in this portion of history. What does that say to us? God is calling us to have a “global-tent” spirit and mindset. Here are some thoughts on what that means for us:

In April, 2005, NT Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote The World is Flat. (2) Most in this room have experienced first-hand much of that he describes in terms of technology, multi-national organizations, communications, etc. But he is not the only one talking about a flat world. The church has also been talking about it.

Last year Bob Roberts, Jr., pastor of Northwood Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in a Dallas suburb, wrote a book with the engaging title Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World.(3)

The operative term is “glocal.” Roberts writes that “Glocal is another term for the flat earth that describes the seamless integration between the local and global.” The real passion of this book, and its 2008 sequel, The Multiplying Church (4), is that the established church will increase God's Kingdom as people become real converts and disciples of Jesus Christ, transformed by His power. It does not matter the nation or ethne grouping. Real kingdom expansion occurs as transformed people realize that their occupation is the place where their vocation, their unique gifts and calling by God, is gracefully released right where they live and work. Roberts suggests that the church and world doesn't need more preachers, it needs more disciples!

Today the world is flat due to multi-national businesses, instant communications, relatively easy travel and commonality of languages. But 2000 years ago the world was made flat because people from all languages, ethne, and politics, had a personal, life-changing encounter with the One who put death to death.

In the coming hours of this gathering, we will turn our hearts towards the challenges and opportunities before us around the globe. As we listen, I think Rodney Stark, a Baylor University sociologist, helps us as we reflect on our place after two thousand years of church history, a period today which is remarkably like the first three hundred of the church.
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(2)Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).
(3)Bob Roberts, Jr., Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007).
(4)Roberts, Jr., The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
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Continued in Part Three

Part One of a nessage delivered by Dr. A.D.Beacham, Executive Director of IPHC World Missions Ministries
14 May 2008
IPHC Fourth World Conference
Vancouver, B.C.

In his 1989 novel, The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett tells the story of building a Gothic cathedral in 12th century England. The cast of characters includes a monk, Philip, who leads a small cell of monks. Using Matthew 25 and our Lord's parable of the talents to admonish the monks not to allow their humble environment to limit their capacity for excellence and growth, Philip rebuked them, “God expected his servants to increase his kingdom, not merely to conserve it.”(1)

That insight on the parable made me think about this gathering and how over the past thirty years IPHC Ministries has been grasping what the fictional monk understood. Starting with Target 2000, followed by Mission 21, we have been on a journey that continues to break the biggest barriers we encounter: mindsets, attitudes, fears and uncertainties. In facing these barriers, one word has served as the pen-sword to carve our thinking: Multiply. In this context I draw your attention to a few observations.

First, I want to ask you the question that I have been asking myself since becoming World Missions Director. The question arose on a visit to Egypt in December, 2005. I was deeply moved by the perseverance and obvious love of the Lord among our brethren in the Gospel Preaching Church, IPHC Ministries in Egypt. In a country where too much public acknowledgement of Jesus Christ can mean prison or death, these people, young and old, singing praises to Him as the Lord of lords remains indelibly printed in my memory. That experience stretched me and through it I began to ask myself, “What holds us together, what unites us, as a movement across national, ethnic, cultural, and language lines as we multiply around the globe?” In reality, the implications of that question have only grown through discovering the diversity of the IPHC family represented in this meeting today. But I suggest to you there are at least these things I have identified that function to unite us:

• Theology. Doctrine is important and we are all in this room because we subscribe to a common theology. We are here because we are Pentecostal, and we are not ashamed or embarrassed to be Pentecostal! Acts 2 and the imperative call of the Holy Spirit is a reality for all of us. Also, we are here because we believe in holiness. While the application of that varies according to various cultures, the spiritual reality of our corporate and personal lives lived in intimacy with our Lord, and reflected in our love for one another, is a bond that is found around the world. Because of this, there truly is a “bond of the Spirit” that transcends generations, languages, cultures, nationalities, and politics.
• Relationships. Though we have email and better phone communications, through the accessibility of travel we have learned on-going value of face-to-face relationships. It is through these relationships that different histories interact to form a new history to the glory of God. But we have also learned over the past ten years the significance of peer-to-peer relationships, such as leader to leader, and anointing to anointing in the various aspects of five-fold ministry. In this gathering today we have teachers, pastors, evangelists, prophets, and apostles who are relating as peers.
• A Community Larger Than Ourselves. While we respect our different cultures, and the nomenclature of our particular legacy, we nonetheless realize the Holy Spirit has brought us together in affiliations, partnerships, and mergers for a cause bigger than our own identity. This identity leads to the final element:
• A Common Vision. We are individually and jointly committed to seeing the kingdom of God increase in the spheres where the Lord has planted us. We are sending missionaries across the globe to serve one another; something that will grow much larger in the coming years. Here today we have Filipinos who have gone to Cambodia, Mexicans to Belgium, Ukrainians to Turkey, Costa Rican to Romania, and many more.

In my own mind, I have found the metaphors of “family” and “tribe” to be functional tools in describing IPHC Ministries. Sociologists tell us that it is through family that we gain our values; it is through tribes that we get our identity.
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(1) Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, 1989), p. 96.
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Continued in Part Two

On February 25, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released their study on religion in America. Their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey was conducted between May and August 2007. More than thirty-six thousand people were interviewed, making this one of the largest samplings of any recent religious survey.

The broadest findings of the survey conclude that the American population is religiously diverse and very dynamic, with significant switching between and within the major religious traditions in the U.S. That is hardly news to anyone who is actively involved in a local church's ministry. It is also obvious from church growth studies, especially of larger churches, that large churches can turn over up to 30% of their congregation each year!

However, what this study does show, with convincing figures, is the degree of change taking place in the American religious community and where those changes are taking place. This is the second major religious study in which participants specifically mention the IPHC as the denomination of choice. The study estimates that we make up a little less than .3 percent of the total U.S. population. Our current reports indicate a U.S. membership of about 257,000 members with 319,000 adherents.

Key findings of the survey

• Roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.
• Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.
• The number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%
• Individuals who are not affiliated with any particular religion make up about one-sixth (16.1%) of the adult population. They thus comprise the fourth largest “religious” tradition in the United States, nearly approximating the number of members of mainline Protestant churches.
• The Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of different denominations loosely grouped around three fairly distinct religious traditions - evangelical Protestant churches (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline Protestant churches (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%).
• Those Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion have seen the greatest growth in numbers as a result of changes in affiliation.

Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the “secular unaffiliated,” that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the “religious unaffiliated,” that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population).

Age-related findings

• The survey findings show that more than six-in-ten Americans age 70 and older (62%) are Protestant but that this number is only about four-in-ten (43%) among Americans ages 18-29
• Young adults ages 18-29 are much more likely than those age 70 and older to say that they are not affiliated with any particular religion (25% vs. 8%).
• If these generational patterns persist, recent declines in the number of Protestants and growth in the size of the unaffiliated population may continue.
• Latinos represent roughly one-in-eight U.S. Catholics age 70 and older (12%), they account for nearly half of all Catholics ages 18-29 (45%).
• People not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions. Among the unaffiliated, 31% are under age 30 and 71% are under age 50. Comparable numbers for the overall adult population are 20% and 59%, respectively.
• By contrast, members of mainline Protestant churches and Jews are older, on average, than members of other groups. Roughly half of Jews and members of mainline churches are age 50 and older, compared with approximately four-in-ten American adults overall.
• Members of Baptist churches account for one-third of all Protestants and close to one-fifth of the total U.S. adult population. Baptists also account for nearly two-thirds of members of historically black Protestant churches.

Regional insights

• The Midwest most closely resembles the religious makeup of the overall population.
• The South, by a wide margin, has the heaviest concentration of members of evangelical Protestant churches.
• The Northeast has the greatest concentration of Catholics,
• The West has the largest proportion of unaffiliated people, including the largest proportion of atheists and agnostics.

Family & Gender insights

• Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
• Among people who are married, nearly four-in-ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).
• Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families; more than one-in-five Mormon adults and 15% of Muslim adults in the U.S. have three or more children living at home.

African-Americans

Of all the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three-in-four belong to the “religious unaffiliated” category (that is, they say that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives), compared with slightly more than one-third of the unaffiliated population overall.

Non-Christian diversity

• Immigration is adding even more diversity to the American religious quilt. For example, Muslims, roughly two-thirds of whom are immigrants, now account for roughly 0.6% of the U.S. adult population; and Hindus, more than eight-in-ten of whom are foreign born, now account for approximately 0.4% of the population.
• Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one-in-ten of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.
• In sharp contrast to Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism in the U.S. is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts. Only one-in-three American Buddhists describe their race as Asian, while nearly three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to Buddhism.
• Jehovah's Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition. Only 37% of all those who say they were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses still identify themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses.

The complete report is available for download free of charge from the Pew Forum website. The full report includes the following sections:

• The Religious Composition of the United States
• Changes in Americans' Religious Affiliation
• Religious Affiliation and Demographic Groups
• Detailed Data Tables
• Classification of Protestant Denominations
• A Brief History of Religion and the U.S. Census

These summary findings are excerpted and adapted from the survey. Pew Forum deserves special recognition and appreciation for publishing this report online, in its entirety and free of charge (download here). Other studies of this magnitude usually charge anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars in order to read the full report. Not only have they made the report available for download, they also have an interactive section on their site that allows you to search for specific results. Thank you, Pew Forum, and may the Lord richly bless all your endeavors.

Logon and share your opinions about this survey.

• What surprises you most about its findings?
• Does this survey reflect the dynamics taking place in your local church?
• How will these results affect our efforts to share the Good News?
• What does this survey portend for our own church in the future, if anything?

Thank you for sharing.
The Editor