Participants: Gary Krause (Host), Mike Ryan, Andres Flores
Series Code: GMS
Program Code: GMS000023
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00:01 What happens when a missionary from Mexico
00:03 decides to start an urban church plant 00:06 in one of America's largest cities? 00:09 We'll find out about that and much, much more 00:12 coming up on Global Mission Snapshots. 00:26 Just before He went up to heaven, 00:28 Jesus gave us a command. 00:31 He gave us a mission. 00:34 Jesus said, go. 00:37 Go unto all the world, telling them of His love. 00:42 This is our mission. 00:44 This is our "Global Mission." 00:51 Hello and welcome to Global Mission Snapshots. 00:53 I'm Gary Krause. 00:55 When you are growing up 00:56 what did you think of as the mission field? 00:59 For me it was the South Pacific Islands, 01:02 for others it may have been South America, 01:04 or Africa, or Asia or somewhere else. 01:07 But what about children today? 01:10 I hope they will start naming places such as New York City, 01:13 Hong Kong, Paris, Sydney, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, 01:18 Mexico City with more than half 01:20 the world's population now living in cities. 01:23 Major urban areas are the new mission fields 01:27 of today and tomorrow. 01:29 On today's program we'll be talking 01:31 with Pastor Andres Flores, who is starting 01:34 an urban church plant in the city of Chicago. 01:37 We also be talking with Mike Ryan, 01:39 a vice president of the Seventh-day Adventist church 01:42 about the mission to the cities initiative. 01:46 For many years now Global Mission has been 01:48 focusing attention on the cities 01:50 as you'll see in this video Megalopolis. 01:54 In 2005 the world church voted a program 01:57 called Hope for The Big Cities. 02:00 And the vision was that the gospel of Jesus 02:04 will go to millions and millions of people living cities. 02:08 Today, more than half 02:09 of the world's population live in cities. 02:13 For so many years the Adventist church 02:15 is growing in rural areas but we haven't done well 02:17 in the cites and one of the major Tell The World 02:21 initiatives is to focus on sharing 02:24 the good news of Jesus in the cities of this world. 02:34 As a church today we face a great challenge 02:37 and it's not that we haven't seen it coming. 02:39 In 1990 when Global Mission was established church leaders 02:44 identified five key Global Mission challenges. 02:47 One of those challenges 02:49 was the huge urban areas of the world. 02:55 Today, more than half of the world's population 02:57 live in cities of at least one million people. 03:00 Cities are growing at an alarming rate 03:02 and they are growing fastest in developing countries 03:06 many in the 10/40 Window. 03:08 Today, the five largest cities on earth 03:10 are Tokyo, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, 03:14 New York city and Mumbai. 03:17 By 2015 they will probably be Tokyo, 03:21 Dhaka, Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Delhi. 03:27 Dhaka, Bangladesh is one of the world's 03:29 most densely populated cities. 03:32 More than 14 million people call it home 03:35 and they are only about 800 Adventists. 03:38 If you sit in a market and watch the rickshaw 03:41 go by every 10 seconds in down town Dhaka 03:44 you would have to wait two days 03:46 before you saw one carrying an Adventist. 03:52 Istanbul, Turkey links to Europe and Asia 03:54 the West with the East. 03:56 This city grows at a rate of 1400 people everyday. 04:01 More than 13 million people live in Istanbul. 04:04 A city that's both Muslim and Secular. 04:07 It's a city of contrast and compromises. 04:10 And among these 13 million 04:12 people there are only 80 Seventh-day Adventist. 04:16 And of those 80 only 15 come 04:19 from a Turkish background. 04:24 Paris, France is called the city of lights. 04:26 You'd hear the light 04:27 of the Adventist church is still dim. 04:30 The church is making great strides to reach out 04:33 to its urban neighbors yet the challenge 04:35 they face is immense. 04:41 Jakarta, Indonesia, the largest city 04:44 in the largest Muslim country in the world. 04:47 Home to 18 million people the rich and poor, 04:51 the religious and secular. 04:53 There is one Adventist for every 1500 people 04:56 here yet only small handful 04:58 are from the majority Muslim population. 05:05 "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, 05:09 because they were harassed and helpless, 05:11 like sheep without a shepherd." 05:15 I guess my appeal to church members 05:17 and also to the church leaders is that they might 05:21 make the people of the cities their neighbors in heaven. 05:25 I would ask in a very special way 05:27 that we would place a special emphasis on bringing 05:31 Jesus to the lives of people who live in urban areas. 05:36 To learn more about mission around the world, 05:38 please visit AdventistMission.org 05:43 My guest is Elder Mike Ryan, 05:45 the first director of Global Mission 05:47 now a general vice president or the General Conference. 05:49 One of his many responsibilities is to care 05:52 for strategic planning for the world church. 05:55 Welcome, Elder Ryan. 05:56 It's good to here. 05:58 Can you please tell us, 05:59 what is involved in strategic planning for a world church? 06:03 Well, that's a very short question-- 06:08 But a good one. Yeah. 06:10 Yeah, with a very, very big answer. 06:13 Actually strategic planning I think for any organization 06:17 is trying to look at the central business of that organization 06:23 and then go about determining how you are going 06:26 to be most effect even efficient at achieving that business. 06:30 Well, when you look at a church organization 06:33 we don't like to refer to it as business 06:35 but we like to refer to it as the gospel 06:38 and how are we gonna go about 06:41 communicating biblical truth. 06:46 And putting the strategic plan together 06:50 that office conducts a lot of research. 06:53 And that research it takes a look at church life 06:59 and it takes a look at institutes 07:01 and financial things and it means a lot of things 07:04 that we look at date that just is unbelievable. 07:06 But as we analyze that there are things that emerge 07:10 and we say, you know, these are very critical issues. 07:13 And of course we try to paint those in a big picture, 07:16 now it happens to be that Tell the World is the program 07:19 that came out of strategic planning 07:21 and it is comprised of three different pieces. 07:25 And the next question is a short one. 07:27 That is three pieces would be. 07:29 Yes. The first, you know, issue that we compare 07:35 this to fact that we have a program called Reach Up. 07:37 And that is communication between an individual and Jesus. 07:44 And much of the research that we have developed 07:48 we found something so that were a little bit alarming 07:51 about half of the church has a regular 07:54 Bible study program, regular prayer life. 07:57 And for a church organization to have about 08:00 half of its members involved in those activities 08:03 it should be of some concern. 08:05 And so there is a program that we now know 08:08 is revival reformation the 777. 08:12 You pray at 7'o clock in the morning, 7 in the evening. 08:14 And we are trying to vision to our church 08:20 the necessity of having that relationship with the Lord. 08:23 The second major focus is what we call the Reach-out Program. 08:30 And this is what Seventh-day Adventist 08:31 are typically been very good at. 08:33 And these are programs that are evangelistic in nature, 08:38 but it's not just what we typically 08:40 in the past have refer to this evangelism 08:43 which is kind of giving Bible studies 08:44 and public evangelism that includes those 08:47 but it also includes things like 08:50 the Life Hope Centers, the programs of literature 08:56 distribution, book distribution. 08:58 I can go though many, many different programs 09:01 of how we impact the community with the values 09:05 and the teaching of the church. 09:07 And I can describe that a lot more. 09:10 A third area is what we call Reach Across 09:13 and one of the things in the data that came out 09:16 is that when people come into the church, 09:21 there are many of them that stay for a period of time 09:23 and then they leave the church. 09:25 And we also found that young people, 09:28 who grow up in Seventh-day Adventist homes 09:31 they reach a certain age and then they also disappear. 09:36 And so we knew that this Reach Across program 09:39 had to began to address the issue of nurture 09:42 and retention and having people feel ownership in the church. 09:48 And so, you know, as we take a look 09:50 at these three areas there is many programs 09:54 that surround them and lot of data 09:56 that backs it up, but primarily this is really 09:59 what the churches focusing on. 10:02 So, Mike, we have the vision 10:05 that we need to be reaching up, 10:06 we need to be reaching up and reaching across. 10:09 How do we make sure that the actions steps 10:13 are in place so those are achieved? 10:16 Yeah, well, obviously there are certain bullet points 10:21 that were concentrating on. 10:23 And we will come back and assess 10:28 this through surveys and evaluation 10:31 is to whether we are making any progress 10:33 and we are moving that beachmark and improving it. 10:38 The more typical question 10:40 I have is what's the greatest need of the church? 10:45 Well, I, you know, I think revival and reformation 10:48 certainly is the foundation. 10:49 But probably one of the things that probably 10:52 concerns me and looking at a sort of a comparison of data 10:57 is that the data sort of indicates that little by little 11:03 we are loosing the culture of involvement. 11:07 It's easy for people just to come to church, 11:09 they go home, they go well, I've taken care 11:11 of my church obligation, paid my tithe, 11:13 gave my offerings and if you look at the early days 11:17 of the church and how the church exploded in growth 11:21 and we traveled to many places around the world 11:23 and through huge sacrifice made it go forward. 11:26 It's because every person had a job and that culture 11:31 of I've got to be involved and that urgency 11:35 might be veining just a little. 11:36 So that culture I think we have to rebuild. 11:39 And many people say, well, 11:41 are we gonna be able to afford this Tell the World? 11:43 Man that's a lot of programs. 11:45 You know, it really does some take much money 11:47 if we pay attention to the culture of involvement 11:50 because our greatest resource is the involvement of members. 11:54 Thanks, Mike, for joining us. 11:55 It's a privilege. 11:57 Elder Ryan has left us with a challenge 11:59 that we can talk about mission, we can pray for mission, 12:05 we can support mission financially, 12:07 but are we involved? 12:09 Is that something the is part of our life 12:11 that we think it's important enough that we give our time 12:15 to help make disciples of men and women. 12:56 Some 50 years ago, Adventist missionary 12:58 spent 40 days traversing the rough jungles 13:01 of Papua New Guinea, to reach out to people 13:03 who would never before heard the name of Jesus. 13:06 They heal the sick, feed the poor 13:08 and provided spiritual heeling to God's children. 13:11 Today this same trip can be done in 15 minutes. 13:14 Thanks to a mission plan that was paid 13:16 for with your mission offerings. 13:18 The mode of transportation may have changed, 13:20 but the message of hopping Jesus is still the same. 13:33 We are finding an urban mission 13:35 that we need long term 13:37 on the ground commitment to Holistic Ministry. 13:40 It's no good to use what I call, drive by evangelism 13:44 and I'm delighted that Andres has joined me today. 13:47 And, Andres, you have a commitment 13:48 to Holistic Ministry in Chicago, how did it start? 13:55 The passion to break the status quo 14:00 in terms of what was happening in that area, 14:04 in Chicago, interjected the passion for 14:07 dealing a conference, the passion 14:09 for the Lake Union Conference and my own personal passion, 14:12 the passion of some of my friends, 14:15 that we deiced, you know, 14:17 the sense of urgency is driving us. 14:20 Well, if it a Holy Spirit 14:22 that is driving us to do something different. 14:26 We approach missions, 14:27 urban missions in a different way. 14:29 So your background has been as a youth pastor 14:32 for the Seventh-day Adventist church. 14:34 But you and some friends, past church leaders 14:36 together kind of this vision that we can do something here. 14:41 Now this is just a recent plan, 14:44 you only started like last year right? 14:46 Yes. I mean, our first service 14:49 was October 28th, so over three months now. 14:52 Okay, now on any given Sabbath, 14:56 how many people from the community 14:58 do you have with you and how many sort of like 15:00 already established Adventist church members? 15:02 So we have returning Adventist, we have ex-Adventist, 15:06 we have people from the community, 15:07 we have homeless people. 15:09 In total we would probably have 80 to 90 people, 15:13 that turn in every Sabbath. 15:15 We have, you know, we have 10-15 kids, 15:19 but these are young adults and many of them 15:22 are just new to the community. 15:25 And so in less than a year 15:28 you have this group of people active, 15:31 involved focusing on Jesus. 15:35 Tell me what sort of activities 15:39 are the group involved in? 15:44 We are very interested in developing 15:47 relationships with a local community. 15:49 So the biggest most important activity 15:53 we have right now is called Free Hugs. 15:55 Free Hugs. Yes. 15:56 Okay, tell me about that. 15:58 So all we do is we send teams of young people, 16:01 young adults to a community to offer people free hugs. 16:06 And what they do is just embrace them and they are just happy 16:11 to offer human contact recognition and validation 16:15 to people in the community. 16:16 And once I heard that it is worse 16:19 to be starve of human contact than to be an in starve of food. 16:24 So are the communities really embarrassing that now? 16:27 We even have regulars, we have people at every week, 16:30 weekend they look for us, they look for this group 16:33 from Epic Church, and they are looking 16:35 for us in Facebook and Twitter. 16:37 They are creating Twitter hashtags about our church. 16:42 This is on church people talking about Epic Church. 16:45 So you have people from the church 16:49 going standing on the street 16:51 with a sign up offering free hugs. 16:54 Okay, and so friendships have developed from this? 16:59 Yes, of course. 17:00 We have people that-- we have as a matter of fact 17:03 I can probably think about 17:05 three different families units or individuals 17:07 that have attended our services as a result of this activities. 17:13 We have a photographer that is offering 17:16 to take free pictures of the group. 17:18 Professional photographer and he is contacting us through 17:21 Facebook and been very interested 17:23 in knowing more about Epic. 17:26 Now the name Epic where does that come from? 17:29 It means "Every Person in Christ." 17:32 Every Person in Christ, because our mission 17:34 is to have disciples, making disciples, 17:37 disciples having people to be in Christ. 17:41 But it also it's an illusion to our narrative approach 17:44 through preaching and to relations, 17:47 relationships, which means you know, 17:50 epic is a poem, it's a narrative. 17:52 So we are here to tell the narrative, 17:53 the great controversy theme of our Lord Jesus Christ. 17:57 Wonderful. Now you've mentioned 17:59 that you are connecting with homeless people 18:00 but this is an a downtrodden neighborhood 18:04 by any stretches of the imagination 18:05 and this is actually quite an expensive 18:07 neighborhood you are working in. 18:08 Describe the area where are you working. 18:11 Yes, this is one of the centers for hipsters. 18:16 So Chicago is one of the most important centers 18:20 concentrations for hipsters. 18:22 They live there, they are post modern 18:24 artistic people, very highly interested 18:27 in the arts, highly interested in music. 18:30 So we are connecting with them. 18:33 They are young adults, they are professionals. 18:34 But the NGOs who have diversity, 18:36 you also have very poor people congregating especially 18:41 on the actual park-- on the actual wicker park. 18:45 So you have this conversions of culture, 18:49 you have poor people, rich people, professionals, 18:52 young people you know, kids though converging 18:56 into the wicker park areas just an interested neighborhood. 19:00 Yes, quite a mission filed. 19:02 It is. Where are you meeting? 19:04 What sort of facilities that you are meeting in? 19:06 We rent the auditorium of a school. 19:09 The pre-school auditorium, we meet every weekend there. 19:14 So it's more of an open environment. 19:16 Poor people come, they feel at home, 19:18 it's not regular church sitting. 19:21 Right, so you are not walking in with four walls 19:23 and a chair and peers and people wearing suits and ties. 19:27 Yes, absolutely, some more relaxed environment. 19:30 Okay, Andres, thank you so much 19:32 for joining us today and wishing you Gods richest blessing 19:35 for what you are doing. 19:36 My pleasure. And viewers at home, 19:38 this is mission as Jesus conceived it. 19:42 As Ellen White tells us, "Christ's method 19:45 was to mingle with people, show sympathy, 19:49 minister to needs, win confidence, 19:52 and bid people to follow Jesus." 19:54 And it's not easy, the mingling, the showing sympathy, 19:57 the ministering to needs this takes makes time 19:59 and it takes commitment. 20:00 And I invite you to please pray for Epic. 20:04 Pray for Pastor Andres, pray for his team 20:08 and the many people who are coming to know Jesus Christ. 20:28 Church at Epic church is pretty amazing. 20:30 For one thing the people there are so friendly. 20:33 I tell you they go through the same exact things 20:36 I go through and that makes me feel so comfortable. 20:38 I could just to be me. 20:44 Epic church is we need because it encourages people 20:46 to take their interest and talents and use it for God. 20:49 To get to know who God is through them subjectively. 20:59 I've been so incredibly bless by the short amount 21:01 of time that I've been at Epic. 21:02 I just come to see Jesus and I definitely like to. 21:05 This is see that He is someone who is just 21:09 so loving and has a personality. 21:11 I can't express just how beautiful 21:12 its been each weekend that I've come. 21:14 This whole experience has just been epic. 21:22 I wasn't sure if this was gonna be the right church for me, 21:26 and after five minutes I knew that I was in the right place. 21:30 I found friends and family. 21:33 They really care about me. 21:34 I'm really happy to be part of the Epic family. 21:39 Your definition of Jesus is going to shape, 21:41 your definition of church. 21:43 But really what we find in the Bible 21:44 is an amazing epic Jesus Christ that this moving the community 21:49 is letting to disciples and His followers 21:51 know about His personality. 21:53 Epic Church is all about facilitating young people 21:57 to embrace Jesus as their own saver. 22:00 We are so passionate about helping to develop 22:02 a stronger relationship with Christ. 22:04 Develop new disciples and plant 22:07 new churches for down of His name. 23:08 If you enjoy stories of Global Mission pioneers, 23:11 missionaries and mission, then we would like to send 23:14 you a copy of the mission stories for kid's DVD. 23:17 It maybe designed for children, but parents 23:20 and grandparents love them too. 23:22 If you live in North America simply call our toll free number 23:26 1-800-648-5824 or visit our website 23:31 and ask for the mission stories 23:32 for kid's DVD, or offer number 304. 23:37 Don't forget to clearly state your name and address. 23:41 Well, that's it for today's program. 23:43 I hope you've been inspired and challenged 23:45 by what you've seen. 23:47 From the countries of Asia, and Africa to the cities 23:49 of North America, God's mission work is still moving forward. 23:55 So on behalf of the Adventist Missionaries 23:56 and Global Mission pioneers serving in countries 24:00 all around the world thank you for your continuing prayers 24:04 and financial support for Frontline Mission. 24:07 As we close we say thank you 24:10 with this music video called Gracias. 24:12 Until next time, I am Gary Krause 24:14 for Adventist Mission. God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17