Monthly Archives: June 2007

-Go Into All The World -Even Europe?

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Here is an interesting article about thousands of missionaries from the third world taking the gospel back to Europe. The domestic denominational churches of Europe are basically dead and empty on Sundays and have been for some time. The foreign missionaries are reaching out to the Europeans in new and fresh ways:

Churches in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, South Korea and the Philippines have sent thousands of missionaries to Europe to set up churches in homes, office buildings and storefronts. Officials from the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal church based in Nigeria, said they have 250 churches in Britain now and plan to create 100 more this year. Britain’s largest church, run by a Nigerian pastor in London, attracts up to 12,000 people over three services every Sunday.
The trend is vivid in Denmark, where charismatic preachers from Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, Iran and Latin America have set up vibrant Protestant and Catholic churches.

What a fascinating development. Thousands of missionaries from different countries and churches? Something like this can only happen if it is a genuine move of God. I have read at least a dozen articles recently which claim that Europe is going to be Muslim in 20 years. Maybe God has a different plan?

-50% of Southern Baptist Pastors Believe in Tongues?

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A surprising study shows that half of the Southern Baptist senior pastors actually believe in the gift of tongues. On the downside the study also shows that recent Southern Baptist seminary graduates are (55%) far more cessationist in their views.

The study also found that 66% of non-SBC Protestant senior pastors believe in the gift while only 33% said they didn’t.

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There is a far greater openness to the gift of tongues than what I believed was even possible; particularly among the Southern Baptists which have usually been characterized as being in the ‘cessationist’ camp.

If a similar poll was taken in 1906, I wonder how it would have compared to this one. I believe that it would have shown that opinions and practices have changed drastically in 100 years since Azusa Street. The gift of tongues is no longer an oddity practiced by poor and ignorant folks living on the other side of the tracks and worshiping in a barn.