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A SELECTED "NORTHERN LIGHTS"
MAGAZINE ARTICLE
(from Issue #492)
SIMPLY MOST IMPORTANT
by Arlyn van Enns
"MIINA ITWE, MIINA!" rasped the mortally-wounded
hunter in his Cree language. He had just heard the first Bible verse of
his life. "Say it again and again!" Then, "Can you remember
anything more?"
"Not much," his niece replied, "except for,
'The one who comes I will never send away.'"
The old man asked, "Did He say this was for Crees,
too?"
"I remember that well," said the young woman.
"Everybody could come, Crees as well as English."
"Raise my head," the bleeding man told his wife.
To his niece he said, "Hold my hand. It is getting so very dark that
I cannot see the road. I have no guide. What did you say was His
name?"
"Jesus," she replied, weeping.
"Jesus," the elder whispered, and he was gone.
The story is adapted from an article by George McPeek,
published in Indian Life. The only reason the niece, a Christian
woman, had managed to hear the Gospel at all was because of a then recent
successful pioneer church plant (close to a thousand miles away) within
her own people group.
Pioneer church planting, including Bible translation, is
simply the most important activity ever engaged in by mankind. The Great
Commission is a cross-cultural church development commission, because no
one has made disciples anywhere until a local church has either been added
or established.
Christian leader and author David Womack says, "There
is only one way in which the Commission can be fulfilled, and that is by
establishing churches in every cultural group."
Even the truest evangelism may still result in a "one
generation wonder" if it is not followed with careful, permanent
church development which alone "carries the potential to renew whole
extended families, and transform whole societies." (Hawthorne,
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: Study Guide, Carey Library,
1999, p. 85)
Arlyn & Annette van Enns serve in church development in northern
Alberta.
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