Every Tribe and Tongue

A new ministry is building an online community to expedite Jesus' goal of making disciples from every tribe and tongue.

Using open-source wiki technology and an army of volunteer translators, Gospel Translations is looking to provide online access to Gospel-focused books and articles in a variety of languages.

Wiki is a code framework used for collaborative Web sites like Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia where registered users can contribute and edit articles.

Gospel Translations builds its English library by partnering with ministries that allow the use of their copyrighted content (See list here). Then, volunteer translators convert the resources into other languages on the site.

The goal is to quickly and efficiently provide a knowledge base for Christian leaders in parts of the world where there is a dearth of suitable theological materials or where traditional print distribution hasn't kept up with the demands of the rapidly growing church.

The leaders of the effort say the Christian center of the world is shifting away from its traditional seat in the West as the evangelical populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America multiply exponentially.

In some of these areas, the Bible is the only Christian literature available. In places like China, many resources are published, but they're regulated by complex rules.

The emotional fervor of Christianity can spread like wildfire, but if a spiritual movement is not based on true discipleship, it's ultimately an exercise in fanaticism. Yes, God's Word has everything we need for the process of discipleship, but a broader base of knowledge provides protection against heresy and a check against the temptation to interpret difficult passages based on presupposition rather than truth.

The one spiritual commodity the West has available for export is biblical knowledge. What would my spiritual intellect be without the insight of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity? How would I have started to understand the supremacy of God in day-to-day life without John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life? If not for Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What, who would have colorfully explained the mystery and wonder of finding identity in the person of Jesus?

Resources like these need to escape the stuffy libraries of ungrateful and complacent hoarders like me. This new platform gives them a chance - through telephone lines, underground wires and fiber optic cables - to really spread their wings.

Projects have already begun in Arabic, Russian, Bahasa Indonesian and other languages, including an entire portal in Spanish. See the complete list of languages on the homepage.

Click here to become a translator.

Watch Gospel Translation's intro video below. It is an initiative of OpenSource Mission:

A Changing Blogscape

If you're coming to the blog for the first time in awhile, you'll probably notice that some things are different. I've added the graphic at the top to stave off the blackness that ruled the homepage before. And that header also doubles as a link that will take you back to the homepage from any post page.

I've also added buttons at the right side of the page that will soon have a chronological listing of posts from the three trips that I blogged extensively about. This will allow me to recycle some of my earlier content and will give readers the opportunity to check out in an orderly fashion some older stuff they might've missed. I'll be working on these pages throughout the week, and they should be functional by next weekend.

Also, I've moved the subscribe form closer to the top of the page, "above the fold," as it were, so you can see it more clearly. If you want fresh updates from this site, type in your email.

I realize that a lot of my content is pretty personal, so I wanted to organize the site so the few people that visit can find their way around better. I thought about switching to Wordpress because it makes it easier to separate pages, but there are a lot of features I like about Blogger, and I figured it would be more of an adventure to learn how to do more with html and CSS code than to cop out by starting afresh. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a changing blogscape that will attract more readers and give a better experience to those who visit from time to time.

Web Developments

This semester I've enrolled in a digital media production class where I've learned some of the secrets to building websites. I'm still a beginner, but you can sample some of my work and see what you think. My home page is bursting with information about me, and it has some previews of my music as well as pictures from a lot of my trips, and if you really want it, my resume in both html and PDF formats.

The Chinese minorities site is a new project, and it focuses on people groups with whom I've had direct contact. I've only updated three of the people groups so far, but I'm thinking about doing all 56 minorities that are registered by the government, focusing on things not mentioned by other sites. Forays into my web designs will give you a much needed break from the China narrative. If you don't have Chinese characters enabled, the design suffers a bit. I think I'll improve it when I have some knowledge of photo-editing software.

Tell me what you think about the sites. The personal site has a feedback page, but you'll have to come here to bash (or praise) my minorities site. Here we go:

Minorities

Personal

Outside the Walls

Sign broken, come inside for message.

Recently, while driving past a local church, I read the preceding message on their sign. "Hmm, clever," I thought. But as I kept driving and thinking, I began to question their method of outreach to the community.

Are people really going to come in just because the church boasts a sign with a witty saying? With cars whizzing by at an average of about 60mph, the sign has a maximum of about ten seconds to capture the drivers' attention and thought. In this short window of opportunity, is this the impression we really want to leave? That the saving message of the gospel must be heard inside the walls of the church?

Granted, there is no harm in a little invitation to the service, but I fear that the mentality exhibited on the sign has become an ideology within the body today. Many times, when we say "outreach" or "evangelism," what we really mean is bringing someone into the sanctuary, plopping them on a pew next to us, and pummeling them with music, teaching, prayer, and exposing them to all the "feel-good" amenities that our churches offer today.

I don't know how many of us realize this, but most of the people being won to Christ throughout the world aren't responding to the gospel while listening to a church congregation mumble a rendition of the 1st, 3rd, 5th verses of "Just as I am" toward the end of the service. No, people are being saved in the rainforests and the deserts, in the mountains and in the valleys, in the frozen tundra and in tropical regions, any many other places God is moving throughout the four corners of the earth. God is making straight paths in the wilderness, raining down his love on barren lands, sowing seed for a great harvest.

Along with all this, he is preparing the way for his people to move outside the walls of our church buildings that have confined us for much too long. He is calling us to realize how we have misunderstood the task of the body of Christ. In the New Testament, the church is the body of Christ, a house of living stones being built into a glorious temple with Christ as its cornerstone (see 1 Peter 2). It is comprised of believers who spur one another on with the common goal of the kingdom's advancement.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that all unbelievers should be shut out of the church. Nor am I saying that we should not proclaim the gospel within the confines of our church buildings. But I am suggesting that the primary function of the church is to edify Christians and to prepare them for ministry, much of which should take place outside its walls. The central idea has always been to win souls to Christ as we go and after their conversion, to bring them into the church for discipleship.

Paul didn't wait idly for the world to come to him. He went out to preach the freedom of the gospel and to "make disciples of all nations" (Mt. 28:19). During the time of the early church, God didn't "add to their number daily" so that unbelievers would be exposed to the gospel (see Acts). Those being added were the fruits of the apostles' faithful preaching outside the church. When they went out, God brought the harvest in!

For the sake of Jesus' name, we must realize that God's work does not stop at the doors to the sanctuary. Contrary to the way we've lived for so long, we must understand that going outside beginning of ministry. Only then will our joyous lives--not our signs--be the advertisements that draw people not into a building, but into an adventurous and loving relationship with their Creator.

Burying Jesus

He was with the rich in his death, but he didn't enjoy their company for too long.

I've often wondered what it would have been like to be present at the crucifixion. Those closest to Jesus scattered, failing to understand what was going on. Would I have gotten it? Could I have grasped how this seed, planted in ground in death, would soon sprout to produce life beyond measure?

In my New Testament class today, we discussed Jesus' death and burial. This time period, the interim between the death and resurrection of the Lord, is the most spiritually empty epoch in the earth's history.

It's no small wonder then that two seekers of God's kingdom were afraid to reveal their affinity for the Lord. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea, members of the Jewish governing body and the wealthy aristocracy respectively, "feared the Jews" and so became secret disciples of Jesus. They must have cared for the gentle rabbi. Their respect led them to pursue a proper burial for him, a rarity for executed criminals. But as I was reading John 19:38-42, I noticed that, while well intentioned, their brand of faith produced some deathly effects. The fear of man puts--and leaves--Jesus in the grave.

The burial of Jesus is the last we hear from Nicodemus and Joseph in the gospels. We'd like to believe that after the resurrection, they turned from their fear and followed Jesus, forfeiting the riches of this world and their social standing for the everlasting glory of Christ. There's no way we can be sure.

But we can learn a lesson from them. No matter how much you respect Jesus internally, being ashamed of him before men will bury the resurrection power within. We must confess with our mouths that he is Lord, or we will never fully taste his salvation and power. The apostles never backed down from a challenge to proclaim the name of Jesus. In fact, they rejoiced because they "were counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name." So it should be with us.

The church today has buried Jesus beneath the sands of fear and timidity. We have become "secret disciples." Our inability to speak out has sealed the stone at the tomb's entrance. Only when we come out of our shells will we release the light of the kingdom of God into the dark world around us.

Are we to become ardent political advocates, protesting at every public event, frantically calling down the wrath of God on the world around us? By no means! But we should make the most of every opportunity we have to preach Christ resurrected, taking hold of the spiritual power and influence that comes from the unashamed proclamation of his Word.