GYC 2017: Arise

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The 21st Century Challenge

Doug Venn

1. God’s Call to the Cities

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, Arise, in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

My name is Pastor Doug Vinn, and welcome to the 21st Century Challenges and God's Plan for the Cities.

And right now I'd like to start early as a bonus session because we have 2 years worth of material to go through in only a few moments.

So with that, let's bow our heads and pray.

Our dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much for this gift of time that we have to come and reflect on your ultimate plan here at the end of time, to go to the cities, the essential work of this time.

And so forgive us as a faith family for neglecting and being allergic to city work.

And so during this time I just ask that your Holy Spirit guide us so that way we can see your plan and your call for the cities.

This is my prayer in Christ's name, Amen.

I serve at the General Conference with the Global Mission Urban Center and from that platform I then coordinate 1 of our initiatives for the General Conference called Mission to the Cities.

And with Mission to the Cities, it's a chance where we are following Christ's way of working the cities, as it says in Ministry of Healing, that we are to, on page 143, that we are to come close and work with the people on a personal level, and that what is needed for this time is a new view of God's and His grace and love.

And so from that platform, we then follow Christ's method alone, of mingling with the people, sympathizing, of ministering to needs, of winning confidence, and then inviting people to come follow me, come follow Christ, and in that discipleship process.

From our global mission platform, we are most interested in working together with every ministry, every department of the Adventist family in a way that will then ultimately result in starting new groups of believers.

So we follow Christ's plan of ministering to needs, but then we are always thinking about kingdom expansion.

And that kingdom expansion is just like what happened in the New Testament when new groups of believers were popped up where?

Okay, so this is where right now, today, during this workshop, you're going to hear from the streets of North America and so I'm so honored to have some of my friends from we're going to hear from the team from northern New England first then we're going to hear from the Northern New England Conference.

Then we're going to hear from the Pennsylvania Conference, their Urban Center of Influence.

And then we're going to hear from Upper Columbia Conference.

But before, right now, at GYC's request, before we get started into that seminar, I wanted to introduce you to a dear friend, and her name is Tene Nielsen.

And she is coming from the Office of Volunteer Services, or Adventist Volunteer Services.

And Tene, I just wanted to introduce you to her.

If you would like to connect with any of these ministries or maybe there's other ministries that you would like to find out on what are the opportunities for service and you can come to our booth and talk to team and sign up there at AdventistVolunteerservices.org.

And that way, you can find those direct calls that are available now.

Or If you are like the team in Northern New England Conference or Pennsylvania Conference or Upper Columbia Conference, maybe you're coming from that perspective and you need volunteers, you need professionals, you need urban missionaries.

You can also talk to Teen about having a call to make that need known in that platform.

And so that's where Teen is a dear friend and you'll love to get to know her.

So stop by the booth or stop by the website, AdventistVolunteers.org.

And so my propaganda is on the handout, so you can get that.

So we're going to invite Northern England to come forward how we're going to divide this seminar up is that at each of the 3 ministries urban mission settings have a unique contribution that's different, but it's part of the beautiful plan that Christ has outlined for us in the spirit of prophecy.

And so from that I want you to be thinking a 360-degree view here because each 1 has a beautiful part of that and that's why I've invited them to come and share today.

So Pastor Ted Huskins is the Executive Secretary of the Northern New England Conference.

Tony and then where is, ah here we go, and here is Natalie And so we're gonna hear from them.

Pastor Vin introduced me as the Executive Secretary of the Northern New England Conference, and that's true.

I am a missionary to northern New England.

I'm originally from Western, North Carolina I've been in northern New England a little over 4 years now and My wife and I came literally to be missionaries.

We live in a little town called Kenny Bunkport, Maine.

It is the summer residence of George and Barbara Bush.

In the little town that I live in, there are 5 churches.

This 1 that you see on the screen, Aquaholics, is a surf and wakeboard shop.

That's just down the street from my house.

So 4 of the 5 churches in my little town are no longer churches.

That's the 5 churches that are in my town.

And that's not unique to northern New England because we are the most post-christian, post- modern segment of the entire United States.

Just to give you a picture of what that looks like, George Barna's organization did research on it and there you see the dots you see on the screen are the 10 most post-Christian cities in America.

Number 1 on the list is Portland, Auburn, Greater Portland, Maine.

Number 1 on the list 57% of people self-identify as post-Christian.

Number 2 on the list is Boston, Manchester, New Hampshire.

56% of people self-identify as post Christian.

Number 5 on the list is Burlington, Vermont, 53% post Christian.

Those are the 3 major population centers in the Northern New England Conference and we're all within the top 5.

Almost all of the dots you see on that map are in the Northeast, New York, and New England.

Only Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California make the top 10.

We are the gates of hell in northern New England.

A post-Christian is someone who hasn't gone to church in 6 months, except for a wedding or a funeral.

A post-Christian is someone who doesn't read the Bible.

A post-Christian is someone who's not sure they believe in God or not.

They either self-identify as atheist or agnostic.

A post-christian is someone who probably doesn't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

A post-christian is someone who doesn't believe in the virgin birth.

We meet them every day and they are far from God.

And we have a passion to reach these people.

Unfortunately most of us as Seventh-day Adventist Christians have a Judeo-Christian biblical worldview And we come into all of our relationships with a Judeo-Christian worldview.

And then on top of that, we add a layer of what I call Adventist culture.

We have our own food, we have our own clothing, we have our own language, and we take all of this in and we start, the way we dress, the way we talk, the way we eat, and we start talking, and their faces glaze over because they think we have just dropped in from Mars.

And so because of that our churches are in northern New England which are for the most part small churches, rural churches.

They don't They don't understand how to talk the language and how to relate to people with purple hair and 500 piercings and tattoos and that come from just a totally different world view.

Not only are they post-Christian but they are post-modern.

And I'm not going to get into that if you want to know what post-modern is come to my booth and talk to me about it.

And we have to learn how to speak the language and talk to these people.

And the only way that we're going to be successful in doing it is through centers of influence and planting churches that will understand and reach these people.

And so we are looking for church planters who will come in almost as if with the mindset I'm going to a foreign country, I'm going to learn the culture, I'm going to understand the people, and I'm going to mingle with them, and I'm going to seek their good, I'm going to be friends with them whether they become a Seventh-day Adventist Christian or not.

If it takes years, I'm going to be their friend.

And I'm going to love them and I'm going to model Christ to them.

2. God’s Call to the Nations

My name is Pastor Doug Venn and you are now part of the workshop the 21st Century Challenges and this 1 is entitled God's Call to the Nations.

So let's bow our heads and pray as we get started.

Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love for this planet that you came to not only save us from our selfishness, but to give us a plan to spread that joy, that hope, and that promise to everyone on this planet.

So give us a clearer vision of your call to the nations as a result of our time together.

Well, good morning, GYC, friends, and Those who have a heart for the nations, we are going to have in this seminar, we're going to have a small introduction of how you can get directly involved in overseas mission opportunities.

Then we're going to have a short introduction on why from the scripture we are mandated, and this is a part of who we are as Seventh-day Adventists, of our call to the nations.

And then we'll go in and hear from the front line, from Captain Gary Roberts, who has come from Indonesia to share what is the situation on the front lines and what opportunities and how he's seen God work and what are the challenges that God is bringing and teaching.

So, first of all, how can you get directly plugged in into overseas foreign mission?

Well, and that's why I have my good friend, T.

Nielsen, here from the General Conference Office of Volunteer Services or AdventistVolunteers.org.

And so if you would like to learn on ways and opportunities to serve, and whether it's Indonesia or other places around the world, you can plug in on that website, Adventist Volunteer Services, or stop by our booth, and that way you can then talk to Teen about how you can start serving.

If you are maybe an organizational leader here and you have need for volunteers to come and to join you, whether they're professionals or whether they are people who, whatever skills or opportunities that you need.

I know in Bangkok, when I was church planting there from 2006 to 2012, I had 30 volunteers come through the AVS system to help us with our city work.

And we had calls for lawyers to come teach legal English for the Supreme Court justices of the nation of Thailand.

But I couldn't find any lawyers to do that.

But we did find media professionals, whether videos, videographers, photographers, those young adults would come from all over the world and joined us in helping us with our city work plan there, and that was through the Adventist Volunteer Services.

And so that was something I know I experienced the blessing of that structure that the World Church has.

And so that's a great way for people to plug in.

And so go to the website or come by our booth and check that out.

I'd like to open God's Word now, and I'm going to ask my 2 helpers to help disseminate a sheet here, a quick Bible study.

It's really important to understand what's our motive for going overseas.

And if we understand who we are and as Seventh-day Adventist believers and as a movement of Bible prophecy, It'll help us understand why God is calling us to serve the nations.

As I have, if Nat, sorry, Marianne, if I could get a copy too, thank you.

You'll notice here on this Bible study guide that I just looked here at every time we see that phrase nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

And you'll see here the various times you can do this study at home or those listening online, you can search on your favorite Bible software or the search, the free Bible software that's on the internet.

You can see here, the ones I wanted to focus on specifically is the ones in the book of Revelation.

And notice that this phrase is listed how many times in the book of Revelation?

Revelation 5-9, Revelation 7-9, Revelation 10-11, Revelation 11-9, Revelation 13-7, Revelation 14-6, and Revelation 17 verse Revelation 5, 9, Revelation 7, 9, Revelation 10, 11, Revelation 11, 9, Revelation 13, 7, Revelation 14, 6, and Revelation 17, verse 15.

But we as a movement, as a people of Bible prophecy, we always forget.

We have forgotten that this call to the nations is a part of our DNA as an end time movement.

The rest of the Christian family always goes to Matthew 24 and the Great Commission and so should we.

But as people of Bible prophecy, we should be propelled to the nations, to every kindred tongue, ethnic group, and even to the leaders, as it says in Revelation 10, verse 11, because there we are mandated to proclaim this message of hope and present truth to the kings of the earth.

So this is where here I take this, and I know as I did this research, it convicted me of our mandate for mission and overseas mission.

The spirit of prophecy outlines to us the blessing that we have when we have the reflex blessing, when we give our offerings, we give our life to those who have never heard to foreign countries, then we be here back home get a reflex blessing.

I want to say thank you to my friends John and Natalie Wood with Jesus for Asia for preparing these posters.

Here you can see 1 graphic here that 90% of all Christian giving goes here.

Yet more people live inside this circle than live outside, including the 90% of all the unreached people groups.

So the reality, and you can go to Joshua Project, you know, other online databases to see what is the reality of the world today for those who have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But as Seventh-day Adventists, we have a special mandate, and that is to proclaim the message of present truth.

In the TV show that I hosted and that John Wood filmed and that was commissioned by Gary Kraus at the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission, I Want This City.

I've been tormented and blessed by doing that show.

But here, we documented the trend here in North America of mission offerings.

And it is true, now that I've been working at the General Conference for the last year and a bit, that we have seen the profile of who is giving to foreign mission in North America.

And there is a faithful few, and they are the elder generation typically.

Unfortunately, GYC, the millennials, or your generation, have not engaged in foreign mission giving of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And there's some reasons for that, and I am wanting to engage, and that's why we're here today to let you hear from the front line.

Because there's a direct correlation to our faith experience and how we spend our time and how we spend our resources.

Because how many of you look forward to Jesus coming again?

Okay, every hand in the audience goes up.

But if we were to look and say, show us what is your giving plan, then that's where maybe some of you would be happy to show that and others would be, you know, say it's none of your business, Pastor Doug.

So this is where right now we as a people have as and I learned this also it's not just North America.

This is a global decline in mission giving and this right now we have to confess this.

We have to then also make a difference in how Christ can convert our hearts, realign us.

And that's 1 reason why I gave this biblical worksheet for those of you, my helpers will pass this out to you, to say that this mandate is not just 1 time in Matthew chapter 28, okay?

This is 7 times in the book of Revelation, and we who believe and proclaim that we are people of the book and people of Bible prophecy propelled, we should be at the forefront, a mission, a foreign mission, a foreign mission giving.

And so that's where right now, I just wanted to set that in the context of the situation.

So thank you to John and Natalie Wood and Jesus for Asia for your partnership and support throughout the years for foreign mission giving we looked at the Bible and We're now going to take a look here at where I was serving the last 10 years, and that's in Asia.

On this map, and thanks again to here, these are the different language groups of the, at this time it was the different countries of the Southern Asia Pacific Division.

And I always like to, when I explain this map, you see 3 colors, right?

And it's the stoplight colors red, yellow, and green.

All right, so what does green mean, drivers?

Okay, so what that means is in that language group, there, the gospel, there is the Bible, and we have Adventist pastors, and we have churches, and there's some infrastructure there.

So you can see there is some green there in Asia.

Yellow means that there's a few churches, but some of them, maybe they don't have the same capacity to help proclaim and prepare disciples, start new groups of believers, and starting new church planting, that expansion of the kingdom, to then continue.

And so you see a few places where there's yellow, or they're not growing or very slow growth because of the world religions or the different other contexts there.

But what do you see primarily on this map?

And this represents distinctive language groups that have yet to have a single living witness from our movement to go into to proclaim the message of Christ's soon return and what time it is in the prophetic clock, as well as then to share the grace on how we've been saved, and how Christ is our righteousness, and the beautiful gospel that the angel in Revelation chapter 14 is flying in the midst of having what?

So that's right now, we're going to, I want you to see that map.

Now on the screen, we're going to look here at another map, and then we'll give the time to Gary.

This is where Gary, Captain Gary Roberts is serving right now.

Jim Howard

3. GROW [Your Church]

Just to make sure you know where you are, my name is Jim Howard and this is going to be a seminar about growing your local church.

And it's part of a week-long series shared by a few of us where we're talking about the 21st century challenge.

So anyway I'll have more to say about it but if we could just pause for a word of prayer and then I'll dive right in so let's bow our heads.

Father in heaven thank you so much for the time we have to spend here together learning and absorbing all that we can so that we can go back to our respective fields and go to work for you.

We ask your blessing on our meeting, help it to be practical, help it to speak to our hearts and may it be Lord that when we leave this place we will know that we've been in the presence of Jesus.

Well Let me just say a couple words of introduction for those of you who may not know me.

My name is Jim Howard again and I used to pastor in Ohio and then Michigan and served in Michigan for a number of years before working in the conference office as the Personal Ministries and Evangelism Director.

And so just this fall I was asked to be the Personal Ministries and Sabbath School Associate Director at the General Conference.

Oh, and hey, that's 1 of my new General Conference friends coming in now, Pastor Doug Venn.

He's the mission to the cities guy, by the way, in case you wondered.

A lot of what I'm going to share with you is going to be a hybrid of things past and present and future.

And so it's gonna be, you know, a lot of principles right now because the more I work at the GC level, the more I recognize the need to deal with principles so that no matter where you are in your various settings, you can apply them.

But I'm also the kind of guy that thinks nothing is worth anything unless it's highly practical.

And so when we're wrapping up today, if you have your mind set on another seminar in the next session, then you might want to email me or something to get the stuff I'm going to talk about next session.

Because next session is going to be even more practical, where I'm going to give a couple of tools or resources that can help you in your local church.

And, you know, I'm going to be setting the foundation for that in this session.

So, what I want to talk to you about is the Personal Ministry Strategic Plan in the general conference that has a new initiative called the Grow Your Church Initiative.

And the goal is for every church to be an active disciple-making machine.

We need to be machines as local churches.

Just churning out disciples that churn out disciples.

Yes, we want to win people, but I have a great burden, and anybody involved in personal ministries will have a great burden to not only win people but to get lay people active.

Because you're going to find out if you do enough study in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy that getting lay people active is essential for their own salvation.

And so I'm going to be talking about that a little bit and you know you can take some notes or whatever but I'm going to put my email up at the end and you can write down my email and if you want this presentation I'll just email it to you.

You can just send me an email, and I'll fire off the presentation to you that you can download.

So the Grow Your Church initiative is perhaps a little bit more localized version of the general conference initiative that hopefully most of you have heard of called Total Member Involvement.

How many of you have heard of Total Member Involvement?

We have total member awareness of Total Member Involvement, except for a few people in the back.

Now you, after today, after today, you will have all heard of total member involvement.

So we're going to talk a little bit about total member involvement.

I want you to understand why this is a burden.

You see, every department is tasked with getting members involved.

But as the Sabba School Personal Ministries Director, I want you to, or Associate Director, I want you to understand that total member involvement is the job of the Personal Ministries Department.

It's like technically the number 1 purpose of the Personal Ministries Department.

Let me show it to you in the church manual.

The Personal Ministries Department is to, what's that word?

Now, how do we usually use the word enlist?

And look who else is eligible for the draft.

Children in some form of personal outreach or missionary service.

The personal ministries department is tasked with the job of enlisting all members and children in some form of personal outreach service.

So this is at the heart of my burden and why I'm in the position that I'm in.

If every member was involved in some form of personal outreach service, just like it said that the personal ministries department is tasked to do.

That's the first time I'm going to ask you the question.

I'm going to ask you it again later so you might want to take notes.

Now, I want to show you a quote from Christian Service, page 69.

1 of my all-time favorite quotes by Ellen White, although I probably said that about quite a number of quotes, but this really is 1 of my all-time favorites.

Let ministers, that's what I am, teach church members that in order to grow in spirituality, now what are you wanting to grow in?

Must, You want to make sure you take note of that.

"...they must carry the burden that the Lord has laid upon them." The burden of leading souls into the truth.

This is a fascinating quote on a number of levels, but let me just break it down a little bit.

Back to Menu

Series

The 21st Century Challenge

1. God’s Call to the Cities

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Parts

1. God’s Call to the Cities

1h 6m

2. God’s Call to the Nations

48m

3. GROW [Your Church]

1h 7m

4. New Life in Old Methods

1h 4m

5. Who Needs a Right Arm

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine