Amen!

“The glory of God — and our joy in him— is the heart of mission.

John Piper writes,

The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Psalm 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy! (Psalm 67:3-4). . . Missions begins and ends in worship.

(Let the Nations Be Glad, 3rd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010], 36)

Lesslie Newbigin writes,

There has been a long tradition which sees the mission of the Church primarily as obedience to a command. It has been customary to speak of “the missionary mandate.” This way of putting the matter is certainly not without justification, and yet it seems to me that it misses the point. It tends to make mission a burden rather than a joy, to make it part of the law rather than part of the gospel.

If one looks at the New Testament evidence one gets another impression. Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact?

The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is more like a fallout which is not lethal but life-giving. One searches in vain through the letters of St. Paul to find any suggestion that he anywhere lays it on the conscience of his reader that they ought to be active in mission. For himself it is inconceivable that he should keep silent. “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). But nowhere do we find him telling his readers that they have a duty to do so. . . .

At the heart of mission is thanksgiving and praise. . . . When it is true to its nature, it is so to the end. Mission is an acted out doxology. That is its deepest secret. Its purpose is that God may be glorified.

(The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 116, 127, emphasis and paragraphing mine)”

From: Joy in God Is the Heart of Mission by Jonathan Parnell (Desiring God )

R.A.U.’s primary goal is to strengthen local churches and pastors so that they can plant churches in the many unreached villages in their geographical region. R.A.U. hopes to do this by bringing pastors, church leaders and planters for retreats and conferences for Biblical encouragement. Most pastors can only get away for short periods time. The R.A.U. compound will also serve as a base of operations to have such conferences throughout North Uganda, South Sudan, Northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, and Lord willing (North) Sudan as well as the surrounding nations. We believe this to be the most effective way for us to help plant churches in the many unreached villages (See 2 Timothy 2:2).

We believe sound Biblical training is paramount for the advancement of the gospel among the unreached. Please pray that we will remain faithful to  follow Jesus words in Matthew 28:18-20,  “And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Emphasis mine)

Matt Perman’s amplifies this point in his blog piece “How Lack of Theological Training in the Developing World Weakens World Missions”:

“Here are two examples from JP Moreland’s excellent book Love Your God with All Your Mind: The

I once attended a meeting of missionaries from around the world, at which a national Christian leader from Central America stood up and passionately exhorted North American mission agencies to stop sending evangelists to his country because their efforts were producing Marxists bent on overthrowing the government.

You could have heard a pin drop in that meeting, and confusion was written on everyone’s face. This leader went on to explain that the leading “Christian” thinkers in his country held to liberation theology, a form of Marxism draped in religious garb. Evangelical missionaries would lead people to Christ, but the liberals were attracting the thinking leaders among the converts and training them in Marxist ideology, which these liberals identified as the true center of biblical theology.

The leader pleaded with North Americans to send more theologians and Bible teachers and to help set up more seminaries and training centers in his country because the need for intellectual leadership was so great.

Here’s the second example:

Recently, I met a man from Fiji who was won to Christ by an evangelical missionary and who, subsequent to conversion, wanted to come to the United States for seminary training.

Unfortunately, there was no money for this sort of “intellectual” development in the evangelical missions strategy there, but theological liberals gave him a scholarship to study at a liberal seminary in Texas.

By the time I met him, he had given up his faith and was going back to Fiji with an extremely secular view of Christianity. His mission: to pastor a church!

Moreland concludes:

If evangelicals placed more value on the mind, we would give more to developing intellectual leadership around the world. Happily, some good things are now being done in this area, but we need to intensify our efforts in this regard, and this will happen only if we evangelicals come to value more fully Christ’s admonitions to be good stewards of the intellectual life”

“The God of the Bible is the God of history, and mission happens when the people of God partner with God in what He is doing. No missionary has his or her own mission. No mission society can have its own mission. It is our privilege to join the great mission of God.” (Dr. Paulson Pulikottil, Old Testament Professor, Union Bible Seminary, Pune, India)

It is indeed a privileged !

Please continue to pray for Sudan and South Sudan!!  From BBC News:

Video Here

“Sudan: 150,000 flee Abyei clash, says southern minister

People have also fled areas near the border fearing the violence will spill over into the south

The number of people displaced from Sudan’s disputed Abyei region after its seizure by northern troops has reached 150,000, a southern minister says.

“The situation is terrible – they are running in fear from brutal violence, without shelter,” Humanitarian Affairs Minister James Kok Ruea said.

The BBC’s Peter Martell in Juba says the figure is a huge leap from UN estimates of between 30,000 and 40,000.

Meanwhile, the north says it can start talks on the crisis this weekend.

The northern negotiator on Abyei, Al-Dirdiri Mohammed Ahmed, told the AFP news agency he hopes the negotiations will take place in Ethiopia on Saturday hosted by the African Union mediators.

Analysts fear the dispute over the region, also claimed by South Sudan which is due to become independent in July, could reignite the north-south war in which some 1.5 million people died.

On Thursday, southern President Salva Kiir said he would not lead his people back into conflict with the north over Abyei and said talks would be the best way to resolve the dispute.

Aerial assessment

Mr Kok Ruea said people had fled from Abyei, which is believed to have an estimated population of 110,000, and border regions since northern troops took over Abyei town at the weekend.

Our correspondent says the UN’s lower figure is based on people counted through aerial surveillance.

Detection is difficult because many of those fleeing are believed to travelling off the main roads, hiding in surrounding bush for fear of aerial attack by northern aircraft, he says.

A UN assessment report released on Friday said its air and ground patrols indicated the area was empty except for a “heavy presence of armed men”.

“The air assessment mission flew over 10 villages north and south of Abyei town,” the report said.

“No displaced populations were observed… burnt tukuls [thatch huts] in several villages were reported.”

Most of those fleeing Abyei were from the Dinka Ngok, a southern ethnic group who are the permanent residents of the region.

After this week’s UN Security Council trip to Sudan, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the occupation of Abyei was a violation of the 2005 peace deal which ended the 22-year civil war.

“There’s real concern that the government of Sudan may have taken a decision to continue to occupy Abyei for its own political advantage for an indefinite period,” the AP news agency quotes her as saying.

The UN has said it believes militiamen from the Misseriya ethnic group were responsible for shooting at one of its helicopters on Wednesday.

The Misseriya are northern nomads and one of two groups, along with the Dinka Ngok, to claim Abyei. The Misseriya were armed by Khartoum and used to attack the south during the civil war.

Under the 2005 peace agreement, Abyei was granted special status and a joint administration was set up in 2008 to run the area until a referendum decided its fate.

That vote was due to take place in January but has now been postponed indefinitely.

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.”

Please keep Sudan and South Sudan in your prayers! Thank You!!

From BBC News:

Sudan: Abyei seizure by North ‘act of war’, says South Sudan