October 31, 2011 – Miami, Florida, United States…Libna Stevens/IAD
Going against the grain can be difficult and painful, yet Seventh-day Adventist leaders in the Inter-American Division (IAD) recently vowed to do just that.
Nearly 100 IAD church leaders agreed to take on the monumental task of reaching the more than 100 populations in the territory who still have not heard the gospel in their own language. Leaders committed to the new aggressive focus during the territory-wide Adventist Mission Summit, held at the IAD headquarter office in Miami, Florida, Oct. 23-26, 2011.
The unreached populations or people groups in some 1,000 areas throughout the territory speak some 700 languages or dialects, a task that has leaders wide-eyed and hungry for the difficult challenge.
“No more running away from the difficult,” said Pastor Israel Leito, president of the church in Inter-America as he spoke to Adventist Mission coordinators and church presidents as they began the summit. “We will look for the most difficult places in Inter-America and attack those places with the truth. We want to turn for the better in fulfilling the mission of the church,” he added.
Fulfilling the mission of the church has been the driving force of laypeople and ministers who work tirelessly to preach the gospel in their communities throughout Inter-America, yet leaders said it is not enough to reach people groups such as the Hindus and Muslims in the Caribbean, the Mayans in Guatemala and parts of Mexico, the Aztecs in Mexico, the indigenous people in Venezuela, and even communities in the large cities.
“We have not been obedient to God’s perspective and God is calling us back to obedience to His intentional view, His original plan was for the gospel to be preached to every tribe, every tongue and every nation,” said Pastor Samuel Telemaque, Adventist Mission director for the church in Inter-America and organizer of the summit.
It’s about being the voice for the unreached, added Telemaque. “Adventist Mission is seeking to give a voice to be an advocate for these people in terms of giving attention and sharing the gospel,” he explained “It’s the organization looking in terms of its resources, in terms of redirecting some of its financial resources, human resources towards reaching these people.”
Throughout the summit, Pastor Telemaque stressed that “God needs voices in the church that will become serious advocates for reaching the unreached.”
Those voices will depend a lot on leaders who are more aware now of the challenge and who captured the purpose and focus the Adventist Mission Summit on the unfinished task to reach and plant churches in un-entered areas.
Church presidents and Adventist Mission coordinators from throughout the 21 unions in the IAD, as well as dean of students from Inter-America’s 14 universities, received some 40 hours of training on the Biblical foundations, the history and structure of Adventist Mission, how to assess and analyze the mission context, urbanization and church planting, presenting Christ to the secular mind, assessing and analyzing the mission context, sharing Christ with the Hindus, Muslims, Jewish, and more.
Speakers from the Office of Adventist Mission at the General Conference included Delbert Pearman, planning director, Rick Kajuira, communication director, Nancy Kyte, marketing director, Lester Merklin director of Global Mission Islamic Study Center, Rick McEdwards, drirector of Global Mission Religious Study Centers, Kebler de Oliveira, director of the Center for Secular and Postmodern Studies. Reinaldo W. Siqueira of the Brazil Adventist Theological Seminary, Charlene West of Quiet Hour Ministries, Benny Moore and Kathi Jensen from ShareHim Minisries, as well as Don Noble from Maranathan International were also among the speakers during the summit. Experts on reaching Jewish people, as well as Hindus and Muslims, featured several seminars.
Awareness comes from answering the “how to” reach unreached people groups through the various expositions and presentations, according to Pastor Telemaque.
Moving from the easy to the hard
It is about moving from the easy to the hard, commented Telemaque. “Evangelism is the easy, and mission is the hard. That’s why greater emphasis needs to be on the greater hard,” he said.
The traditional evangelism method of sharing the faith within the Spanish, English and French territories of the IAD will not be the method to reach the unreached, emphasized Telemaque. “And it’s not about the number of baptisms, it’s about establishing God’s presence in particular communities. So from that presence, the church can begin to extend its influence in the community and people can come into Christ by the twos, or threes and the fours, however long it takes.”
From the summit, the IAD will soon conduct a contextual analysis of the territory in terms of identifying all the unreached people groups in their linguistic structure, according to Pastor Telemaque. Take Guatemala with its 26 Mayan tribes, each one speaking a different language, with only six tribes penetrated with the gospel, the challenge is major, he adds.
Other plans include designing each church to use two percent of their membership as specially trained laypeople who will live among the people groups in un-entered territory, an approach which is completely different training from evangelism, said Telemaque.
Additional plans will include 100 students from throughout the universities in the IAD to be involved in a church planting movement. The project will entail training students and preparing them for short-term mission trips throughout un-entered territory.
For Linley Beckles, director of campus ministries at the Adventist University of Southern Caribbean in Trinidad, the church planting movement will provide an additional opportunity to strengthen the outreach program he has been leading for more than a decade. Already, hundreds of students have taken part in mission trips every year to build brick homes and schools throughout the Caribbean islands of Tobago, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Vincent, as well as in Mexico and Brazil.
Challenges Ahead
For Dr. Kern Tobias, president of the church in the Caribbean Union, the summit was effective in highlighting the critical areas of concern that the church must address for reaching un-entered territories.
“The time has come and the church must address this mission further,” said Dr. Tobias, who leads a church enormously challenged to reach nearly 500,000 practicing Hindus and more than 100,000 Muslims spread out in Barbados, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad.
Dr. Tobias is thankful that the Office of Adventist Mission is investing by establishing a Center for Hindu studies and Muslim studies in Trinidad to serve the territory and the world church. Already there are two Adventist experts living there, establishing relationships with religious leaders and the people.
In Guyana, the church has made strides with the indigenous people groups and “there are now soul winners among their own people embracing training and orientation to continue sharing the gospel,” reported Tobias.
Dr. Tobias said the church must remain open and patient in the new orientation.
“This will be a long-term investment, it’s hard work and we must be patient with the pioneers who are going into these unreached communities,” Dr. Tobias added as he offers advice to fellow church leaders. “We must be respectful of the cultures that people have and seek to understand their believes and their cultural heritage, while not being judgmental in what we say and what we do that may be different as to how we operate as Christians.”
The job is clear-cut to Dr. Tobias and that is to clear the way for the experts to get the job done. He adds that the different approach is not about setting a six-week or six-month goal in baptizing new believers, it has to be about operating with a different philosophy and allowing the experts to teach the effective way. “If three people get baptized, we celebrate it. When no one gets baptized, at least we see people closer to an understanding before we went in.”
Among the wide-eyed leaders ready to do what it takes to approach unreached communities in the jungles of Venezuela was Pastor Josney Rodriguez, president of the church in East Venezuela.
There are more than 100,000 indigenous people in our territory reachable by rough roads, boat, or airplane. His struggle is not just for the church to penetrate these communities but retaining them.
“It’s no so much the different cultures but the secularism creeping into their communities. So one of our greatest challenges is to keep them in the church,” said Pastor Rodriguez.
During a recent 100-year celebration of the church in Venezuela, leaders sat down and strategized to send medical staff, health brigades, and friendship campaigns to reach the people. Rodriguez is optimistic that in five years the church will double its members in La Gran Sabana, in east Venezuela. So far there are some 5,000 Seventh-day Adventists in 25 churches there.
The bigger challenge for Rodriguez and his pastoral and laypeople force is reaching the nearly 800,000 Arabs living in the territory.
“My eyes have been opened to the grand task of bodly reaching these unreached communities and this summit was critical for aiding us in addressing and creating more awareness among our church leaders and members back in my home country,” explained Rodriguez.
Other people groups to reach are the large cities with Jewish, Chinese, and Arab communities, and indigenous people throughout Inter-America.
Large Cities to reach
Pastor Telemaque, who holds a Masters degree in inter-cultural studies and is pursuing a PhD. in Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary, is not concerned about the “massive resistance, the massive opposition that reaching people groups may bring.” He continues to be optimistic about the future of Adventist Mission in Inter-America.
“Our church [in the IAD] is going to continue growing in terms of quality, and grow the edges of the Division, the edges, its outskirts, its frontiers not touched.”
Entering large cities like Bogota and Medellin in Colombia, Caracas in Venezuela, and Monterrey in Mexico as well as Mexico City will prove a huge challenge, so the church will have to depend on God, said Telemaque, and focus on God’s perspective of reaching every community.
“It will take moving with passion and conviction,” he said. “It will take creating an atmosphere in a particular context through the ministry of Christ.”
To listen to presentations and view resources presented at Inter-America’s Adventist Mission Summit, go http://adventistmission.interamerica.org/
To view photos of Inter-America’s Adventist Mission Summit, click here
