Archive April 2008
Muros Altos en la Imaginación
¡Muchos saludos desde Córdoba en la Argentina! Ya era tiempo escribirles algo en el Castellano para mis amigos lectores hispanohablantes. Si está leyendo este blog, puedes entender un poco el inglés y te recomiendo leer lo de ayer para tener el context de donde estoy.
Hoy cumplí mi participación con el equipo de liderazgo en las oficinas del Centro de Entrenamiento Cristiano (CEC). No puedo decirles lo mucho que me he gozado pasar este tiempo con este grupo tan formidable. Ha sido una enorme bendición. Como les he dicho, estoy hablando sobre los equipos multiculturales. Mañana salimos para la sierra y una conferencia incluyendo a otros obreros de ellos, un grupo de aproximadamente 120 personas.
En ese contexto de los equipos multiculturales, estaba leyendo en Proverbios 18 y lo siguiente me llamó la atención.
Torre fuerte es el nombre de Jehová; a él correrá el justo y será levantado. Las riquezas del rico son su ciudad fortificada, y como un muro alto en su imaginación. Antes del quebrantamiento se eleva el corazón del hombre, y antes de la honra es el abatimiento. Proverbios 18:10-12
Me parace que estos versículos forman una unidad, un contraste de confianza. El justo confía en el nombre de Jehová. Aunque quebrantado, será levantado. Su torre fuerte es el nombre de Jehová. El rico confía en sus riquezas, es elevado en su propio corazón, pero se quebrantará. No ve lo que le viene porque su confianza falsa es como un muro alto en su imaginación.
Esta última frase es algo profundo. Como un muro alto en su imaginación. Me pregunto cuantos muros altos hay en mi propia imaginación. Son los enemigos invisibles que radican en mi mente.
Hablando de los conflictos entre culturas, pueblos, idiomas, actitudes, generaciones, iglesias, misiones y denominaciones, hemos estado hablando de como guardar la unidad entre creyentes auténticos. Una cosa que tenemos que hacer es quitar estos muros altos en la imaginación .. estereotipos, prejuicios, heridas personales, y tantas cosas más.
Me hace pensar en una de los problemas de los israelitas en al Antiguo Testamento que puedes ver tantas veces lo los libros de Samuel, Reyes y Crónicas. Siempre corrían a los lugares altos para establecer sus ídolos y el Señor siempre les juzgaba. Si vamos a guardar la unidad del cuerpo de Cristo y tener impacto a nivel global ya es tiempo para derribar esos lugares altos y esos muros altos en nuestras imaginaciones.
For my English speaking friends:
Today I finished my part of teaching the leadership in the offices of the Christian Training Center (CEC) here in Cordoba, Argentina. I can’t begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed being with this great group of people. It’s been a tremendous blessing. As I have been telling you, we have been discussing multicultural teams. Tomorrow we leave for the mountains and a conference involving still more CEC workers, about 120 in all.
In this context of multicultural teams I was reading Proverbs 18 when the following caught my attention.
The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit. Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility. Proverbs 18:10-12
These verses seem to form a unit, a contrast of confidence. The righteous man trusts in the name of the Lord. God himself is his strong tower of defense, and he finds refuge there. The rich man trusts in his riches, is lifted up in his own heart and then destroyed. He doesn’t even see what is coming, because he has built up a high wall in his own conceit. Literally, he builds up high walls in his imagination.
That last phrase is profound. High walls in the imagination. I ask myself how many such high walls exist in my own imagination. They are the invisible enemies that dwell in my mind.
Speaking of conflicts among people, languages, cultures, attitudes, generations, churches, missions, denominations, we have been discussing how to guard the unity among genuine believers. One thing we must do is to take down these high walls in our imaginations of stereotypes, prejudice, personal hurts and many such things.
This makes me think of one of the continual problem of the Israelites that we see so many times in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. They were constantly setting up high places for their idolatrous images and God was constantly judging them. If we are going to maintain unity in the body of Christ and have a global impact, we simply have to tear down those high places and those high walls in our imaginations.
I might not get back to you in the next few days. Keep checking and I’ll pop up again as soon as I can.
Cordoba at Last!
Thanks for your prayers. I made it to Cordoba with no complications. In fact, we had a great tail wind and the 11 plus hour trip from Houston to Buenos Aires was an hour less. That gave me plenty of time to change airports here. Think switching from JFK to Newark or LaGuardia in New York City. Same deal. So, a little after 1:00pm I walked out of the baggage claim in Cordoba to find my ride waiting.
What’s happening here? I was invited to minister to the staff of Christian youth organization that is based in Cordoba and has ministry throughout the southern cone of South America. Last year I was one of the speakers for the first ever Urbana type event in this part of the world (Urbana is held in the USA every third year as a major mission event aimed at college students). This week their full time staff is meeting and they have asked me to deal with the issue of multicultural teams. This team is composed of Latin Americans from several of the southern cone countries, primarily Argentina and Chile with representatives in Peru, Paraguay, and Bolivia. They also have staff from Germany. Switzerland and other European countries. That’s a lot of culture and languages floating around!
On Thursday, we head to a retreat center about an hour and a half from here up in the mountains. There, we are expecting around 120 other staff and volunteers from these same southern cone countries. There are also a number of short term European missionaries here. One young lady from Austria is here representing her particular Austrian mission board. She is in charge of short term missions. So, it’s a great opportunity to work in a living laboratory! I spoke for two one hour sessions this evening and I think it was well-received.
In the first session I spoke on the Macedonian Call from Acts 16. Do you remember how Paul and his team had two doors shut as they tried to visit churches? They had to sit down and go before the Lord for guidance. That’s when Paul had his famous vision of the Macedonian man calling for him to come over and help. The team crossed over into Europe as a result and the world was irreversibly changed.
Here’s the funny thing — Paul saw a Macedonian man in the vision, but there was no man waiting for them when they arrived. A woman was waiting for them! Her name was Lydia. I have often wondered if Paul would have gone if it was a woman he saw in the vision. God really stretched him. The application was how God doesn’t reveal his whole plan all at once. He leads us a step at a time and many of those steps are a real stretch, as in this case.
In the second session I talked about the Bible that lies on the other side of systematic theology and how we often see only the doctrinal details of the New Testament and fail to see the bigger historical and cultural context. Using Romans as an example I discussed how we (correctly) see Romans as a great doctrinal foundation of the Christian faith. When Paul wrote the book, though, he was not thinking of establishing some great doctrinal discourse. He was upset because the church in Rome was culturally fragmented to the degree they couldn’t even meet together. Paul wanted to go to Spain with the Gospel and needed the base of operations in Rome to facilitate his journey. In essence, the book is a manual on multicultural relationships, as is a great part of the New Testament.
The leader, founder and chief visionary of this group is Thomas Vögelin who is a Swiss missionary married to a German. They have four great teen aged kids and I am having a blast getting to stay in their home. These are wonderful people! I met Thomas a few years ago in a conference in Madrid, Spain and that is where he invited me to come to their first event last year. This week they will also be doing the initial planning for their next major event in 2010. You can check it out at www.elcec.org.
Well, it’s late and I’ve only had a couple of hours sleep since Sunday night. Those long flights are the ones where you wish you could beg, borrow or steal an upgrade. I was fortunate enough to have an empty seat next to me and that made it a bit easier to get a short cat nap. I didn’t know whether I would be able to hook up to the net tonight, but it did work out. I’ll try to post something tomorrow and let you know what’s happening.