Reflection on Perspectives

SIDE BY SIDE

I read a column by a woman in New York state who started reading War and Peace when she first went into lockdown and was sad when she finished it, because she thought the pandemic would be over by then.

I felt somewhat like that letdown reader when in May I completed the Perspectives class hosted by College Church (full name, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement), though I started the class in mid-January, before the pandemic and social distancing defined daily life. When the class switched from inperson to weekly Zoom sessions in mid-March, I thought, “Well, half the course is left. When we’re done in mid-May, perhaps life will be more normal.”

Of course, that didn’t happen. But as I reflect, the pandemic, while occasionally a disruptive backdrop, wasn’t a barrier to what God wanted me to learn and experience from the spring 2020 pandemic edition of the Perspectives class at College Church.

NOT AN ACADEMIC EXERCISE.

Perspectives is a 15-week class designed to help everyday believers understand and respond to the vision of God’s global kingdom purpose. When I signed up, I got a really thick book to read, 768 pages to be exact. Not as long as War and Peace, but it can feel like it.

Plus, they also gave me a 182-page study guide.

The course covered a lot of ground in four major “perspectives” on global mission—biblical, historical, cultural, and then for the final four lessons, what the syllabus called “strategic,” but I think could be labeled “personal.” As in, what are you, Perspectives student, going to do now? Perspectives is not meant to be an academic exercise. It’s meant to be life altering.

Here is some of how I’m wrestling with that “What are you going to do now?” question.

THE BIBLE IS A LOT MORE THAN STORIES

I grew up hearing and reading Bible stories. Not just in Sunday school, but at home where, once I could read, my parents gave me a story Bible. I especially loved the Old Testament stories of Israel’s kings, and literally read the cover off that book.

Bible stories are a wonderful teaching tool. But the first lesson of Perspectives told me we were moving well beyond storytelling.

To quote Ralph Winter, one of the editors of the Perspectives reader, “The Bible is not simply a bundle of divergent, unrelated stories . . . the Bible consists of a single drama: the entrance of the Kingdom.” –The Kingdom Strikes Back, Ralph D. Winter

I’m sure this truth has been preached and taught to me many times, but for some reason, I never let it sink in. However, during Perspectives, I spent 15 weeks seeing that from Genesis to Revelation, Scripture brings us one story: God’s plan to redeem his fallen creation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The entire Bible is a mandate, to use a Perspectives’ keyword, for spreading the good news of the kingdom. For me, this understanding brings renewed motivation and eagerness to read all of Scripture and dwell on God’s singular plan to bless all the nations.

SPEAKING OF “NATIONS,” WHAT THEY ARE, AND AREN’T

I had always understood the word “nations” to mean individual countries with defined borders. This was fine for middle school geography class, but it skewed my understanding of the Great Commission. When I read Jesus words in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” I thought that meant countries. Like India. China. Sudan. Albania. Ukraine. Ecuador. Because that’s where missionaries go, right?

In Perspectives, I learned over and over (they really want you to get this), that the Greek word used in Scripture for “nations” is “ethne” or “peoples.” As Steven Hawthorne, another Perspectives editor explains, “When it [nations] is used with the Greek word meaning “all,” it should be given its most common meaning: an ethnic or cultural people group.” –Mandate on the Mountain, Steven C. Hawthorne

Perspectives helped me recognize how “peoples” are talked about all through Scripture. In Abraham’s seed “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Messiah was prophesied to extend his kingdom over “all peoples, nations, and people of every language” (Dan. 7:14). And in what is the theme verse for Perspectives: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14)

For me, this means the “nations” we are commanded to reach are not just “over there” but right here, at home, in DuPage County, in Wheaton, in my neighborhood. I don’t have any excuse not to be on mission, such as, I can’t leave tomorrow to serve in Slovakia. Perspectives changed my idea of “where” to “do missions.” I discovered that location is not the point when I’m on mission, rather it’s living a life for God’s global purpose, wherever I am.

THE CONVICTION TO PRAY

A soft-spoken older man who had spent decades as a Bible translator of a language used by a remote tribe taught our third session. He shared a story about prayer:

He and his wife had been working hard with little success to make the necessary breakthrough of acceptance by the local tribespeople that would enable them to begin the steps of language learning and alphabet creation that could eventually lead to a written Scripture in the people’s mother tongue. One day though, his wife, who was also a nurse, had the opportunity

to treat a young boy gravely injured in an accident. When the boy miraculously recovered, the people of that tribe began to accept this couple who had come to live among them. Much later, the couple received a letter from one of their supporters at home in the U.S. She had been awakened in the night by an overwhelming urge to pray for them, and she had done so. She wanted to know, had something unusual happened at that specific time? The missionaries checked the day and time their supporter had prayed. It matched exactly the local time when the wife had been treating the injured child.

If, as I learned at Perspectives, the 18th-century Moravian community in Saxony could hold a 100-year ‘round the clock prayer meeting that resulted in the sending out of at least 300 missionaries, how can I not commit to at least regular, if not daily, prayer for the missionaries I know and for the ongoing spread of God’s kingdom?

In one of the five “personal reflections,” we were asked to write at intervals throughout the class, I wrote: “Many times in this class, I have been convicted and humbled by how little I pray, and how much more I should be praying for God to work here at home and globally. I have been challenged to understand and believe that prayer matters. Lord, teach me to pray, and build up the commitment in me to pray in faith that the Great Commission will be soon fulfilled.”

GOD IS STILL INTERESTED IN TRANSFORMING THE OBSTINATE

It feels next to impossible to adequately describe the full impact Perspectives had on me. One of our instructors described taking Perspectives as “like going through a car wash,” and while I laughed at his comparison, I would agree! In four months, our class experienced an incredibly diverse array of excellent instructors, a comprehensive survey of Scripture and over 2,000 years of mission history, and a fascinating introduction in how to engage different cultures. We found out what a church plant looks like among a newly reached people group (HINT: very different from our Western idea of church). We learned that throughout the seasons of our Christian walk, we can all be goers, welcomers, senders and mobilizers. We also had the privilege of interacting with others in our class, students of all ages, from all walks of life and with different levels of involvement in global mission.

But if I must point to one lesson that sums up the basics of what I walked away with, it would be from an article we studied about the book of Jonah. Johannes Verkuyl, a Dutch missions professor and missionary to Indonesia who spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II, wrote about Jonah as “a lesson in educating a person to be a missionary.”

In his article, The Biblical Foundation for the Worldwide Mission Mandate, Verkuyl explains that “the greatest hurdle to overcome in discharging [Jonah’s] missionary mandate was not the sailors, nor the fish, nor Nineveh’s king and citizenry, but rather Jonah himself—the recalcitrant and narrow-minded Church.”

Thus, Verkuyl concludes, “This is Jonah’s sin—the sin of a missionary whose heart is not in it.” I ask myself, is my heart “in it”? Perspectives is not trying to turn everyone who takes it into a “traditional” missionary, although many who take the course are already doing that or planning to. Rather, Perspectives is encouraging all its students to become genuine world Christians, believers who seek to live a wholehearted life of purpose that does its part in fulfilling God’s global kingdom purpose. God will fulfill his purpose, but he has invited us—including me—to join him.

As Verkuyl says so eloquently in his article, “While he never forces any one of us, he tenderly asks us to put our whole heart and soul into the work of mission. God is still interested in transforming obstinate, irritable, depressive, peevish Jonahs into heralds of the Good News which brings freedom.”

“God, transform me.”

Now almost five months since completing Perspectives, I’m realizing that the “return to normal” I had initially hoped for in May (while I know is fervently, and understandably, longed for by all), is perhaps not the most important thing God has for me as the seasons turn into winter and the approach of Christmas.

Some of the things I had hoped to jump into, such as oneon-one ministry with refugees, seem more difficult with the ongoing pandemic. But God is working on my heart to find intentional ways to be involved. Scripture is more meaningful and precious, and my need for consistency in time with the Word is always before my eyes. As a small step towards more focused prayer, along with the prayer guides from College Church, I’ve subscribed to a global prayer digest which helps make those seemingly far off mission endeavors up front and personal. I’m in daily prayer for the mission field on my own doorstep, including, especially, my own very young grandchildren.

And above all, I’m thankful, thankful that I’ve learned that just as God initiated and sustained his plan to bless all nations throughout all time, he is continuing to do that right now, no matter what else is happening, even a pandemic and everything else that is bringing unrest to our souls. Because of that, I can look at the future with gladness and hope.

About the Author | Susan Zimmerman

College Church member Susan Zimmerman is currently serving as a deaconess and Mom2Mom mentor. She is a wife and mom to two adult children and grandmother of two with a third grandchild arriving any day. She has worked in a variety of corporate and agency marketing communications positions along with doing freelance writing for mission and nonprofit organizations.

Spring 2021 Perspectives Class

Tuesdays January 19–May 11 | 6:30–9 p.m.

Highpoint Church, 1805 High Point Dr. Naperville, IL 60563

Register for the First Night Free at perspectives.org/wheatonperspectives

Contact: Melissa Warner at wheatonperspectives@gmail.com

COVID-19 Safety: The class plans to be in person and socially distanced with masks as able. Class will likely begin online and transition to in-person when safe to do so.

Perspectives is a 15-week class that will change the way you view the world around you. In it, you will have your eyes opened to the heart and purpose of God and how you can take part in his work all over the world, from the urban streets of America to the rainforest and deserts of distant lands. A fantastic array of pastors, theologians, international missiologists and mobilizers will challenge and inspire you to see just how big God is, and how much he desires that all might come to know him. Whether you are single, married, a student, a homemaker, a professional or retired, Perspectives will bless and challenge your life and direction.