Gathering - Tuesday, May 8
Throughout the Amahoro Africa Gathering in Kampala Uganda, we will be posting daily summaries of the conversation written by Aryantungyisa Otiti, a freelance journalist from Uganda. Enjoy!
Monday night
The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel
Claude Nikondeha shared how dissatisfied he got with the gospel he grew up hearing as a son of a Free Methodist preacher. This gospel did not seem to respond to the poverty, hatred and inequality he saw in his life and yet appeared to keep Christians hopeful in these circumstances. Jesus was supposed to be coming back soon and so Christians were supposed to be ready for heaven and forget about the troubles of the world they were living in – for a short span of life.
In spite of the fact that it was presented as a choice between the church and the world, Claude felt he wanted both, he wanted to study and build a career but also be a Christian but in choosing further studies he seemed to be choosing the world.
As destiny would have it, in his pursuit of ‘the world’, he met the Jesus he had been hoping to find, the Jesus who cared about salvation and going to heaven but also cared about life here on earth. He realized that what he had wished was true, the Kingdom of heaven begins here and Jesus cares about life here too.
Claude went on to challenge the participants about the true meaning of the transformational gospel. The Jubilee in Leviticus 25 was God’s way of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, of curbing the greed of the rich. They could not amass much wealth because they had to give back in the fiftieth year. That was God’s vision of the kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. In instructing the rich young ruler to sell all he possessed and follow him, Jesus was teaching the principle, ‘I am only good when you are good.’
He challenged participants to extend Jubilee to one another to give back whatever they could, to sell all they had and give to the poor because the transforming power of Jesus is at work now. Jesus is jubilee and we need to show true love and build a viable kingdom.
After Claude’s talk, participants were challenged to put in practise right away what they had and a participant felt led to remind them about the early church how they shared what they had. A love offering was taken and participants gave of their money. (This money will go to help those who experienced financial difficulties in getting to the conference.)
The evening closed with the sharing of communion.
The second day of the Amahoro Africa Gathering started on a warm note after last night’s fellowship. Participants were challenged to practise the wholistic gospel and are thinking about what it means to sell what they have and give to the poor, what it means to really follow Jesus and extend jubilee to one another, what it really means to build God’s kingdom here on earth.
Tuesday
The Gospel of Reconciliation vs the Gospel of church growth
Antoine Rutayisire who is leader of the African Evangelistic Enterprise in Rwanda and also serves on the Reconciliation Commission gave the first address after a time of praise on Tuesday morning.
Antoine emphasized that reconciliation is for every individual from every nation and not just for nations like Rwanda. Further more, reconciliation is not an event but a lifestyle, an everyday experience and should be everybody’s lifestyle.
Born a Rwandese Tutsi, Antoine calls himself a practitioner of reconciliation and not a teacher of reconciliation. His father was killed when he was five and he hated Hutus more and more with each passing year. He was however looking forward to becoming a Catholic priest and serving God and going to heaven when he died.
Antoine examined what went wrong with the gospel preached before the genocide and believed by 90% of the people in Rwanda. He suggested that the message preached was selective and partial, presented in an intellectual way and presented by messengers who themselves did not practise what they preached, they preached love and were disunited.
He emphasized the need for a new perspective of sin which is the root of alienation, a new perspective of the message of the cross. He challenged participants to be ambassadors of reconciliation, to live as a holy nation here on earth, to love each other and so let the world see that we are His.
Trevor Ntlhola – South Africa
Trevor, a black South African shared his painful experience with apartheid. He grew up in Soweto, the largest Black township in South Africa. He became a Christian in 1984 and was told politics and Christianity do not mix. His racial status demanded an engagement in politics and his heart loved Jesus but the Jesus he preached was irrelevant to life in the streets of Soweto. In 1988, at a time he thought he had no problem with racism, Trevor visited a church he thought was a black church and he found white people there too.
He noted that we need to get out of our comfort zones to really know how racist we are. ‘Reconciliation is a muddy path,’ he added, it is not easy and we cannot have it without a situation.’ As God would have it, that was the visit that started his journey of repentance and reconciliation. And on this journey Trevor has experienced the Jesus of the Bible who is relevant to all of life’s situations.
Trevor shared some of his experiences on this journey and concluded with a challenge to participants reconciliation is revolutionary and is a constant healing process and we need each other for God to use in healing us.
Jurgens Hendricks from South Africa and Faustin Ntamushobora of the African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries also addressed the Gathering before a time of questions in which participants were able to make comments on the presentations and ask questions.
Small groups continued discussions through the afternoon. Where do we go from here? What are the next steps for the Emerging Church in Africa? How do we build the Kingdom of God here and now? In what ways do we need to be reconciled one to another? The conversation continues!
Monday night
The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel
Claude Nikondeha shared how dissatisfied he got with the gospel he grew up hearing as a son of a Free Methodist preacher. This gospel did not seem to respond to the poverty, hatred and inequality he saw in his life and yet appeared to keep Christians hopeful in these circumstances. Jesus was supposed to be coming back soon and so Christians were supposed to be ready for heaven and forget about the troubles of the world they were living in – for a short span of life.
In spite of the fact that it was presented as a choice between the church and the world, Claude felt he wanted both, he wanted to study and build a career but also be a Christian but in choosing further studies he seemed to be choosing the world.
As destiny would have it, in his pursuit of ‘the world’, he met the Jesus he had been hoping to find, the Jesus who cared about salvation and going to heaven but also cared about life here on earth. He realized that what he had wished was true, the Kingdom of heaven begins here and Jesus cares about life here too.
Claude went on to challenge the participants about the true meaning of the transformational gospel. The Jubilee in Leviticus 25 was God’s way of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, of curbing the greed of the rich. They could not amass much wealth because they had to give back in the fiftieth year. That was God’s vision of the kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. In instructing the rich young ruler to sell all he possessed and follow him, Jesus was teaching the principle, ‘I am only good when you are good.’
He challenged participants to extend Jubilee to one another to give back whatever they could, to sell all they had and give to the poor because the transforming power of Jesus is at work now. Jesus is jubilee and we need to show true love and build a viable kingdom.
After Claude’s talk, participants were challenged to put in practise right away what they had and a participant felt led to remind them about the early church how they shared what they had. A love offering was taken and participants gave of their money. (This money will go to help those who experienced financial difficulties in getting to the conference.)
The evening closed with the sharing of communion.
The second day of the Amahoro Africa Gathering started on a warm note after last night’s fellowship. Participants were challenged to practise the wholistic gospel and are thinking about what it means to sell what they have and give to the poor, what it means to really follow Jesus and extend jubilee to one another, what it really means to build God’s kingdom here on earth.
Tuesday
The Gospel of Reconciliation vs the Gospel of church growth
Antoine Rutayisire who is leader of the African Evangelistic Enterprise in Rwanda and also serves on the Reconciliation Commission gave the first address after a time of praise on Tuesday morning.
Antoine emphasized that reconciliation is for every individual from every nation and not just for nations like Rwanda. Further more, reconciliation is not an event but a lifestyle, an everyday experience and should be everybody’s lifestyle.
Born a Rwandese Tutsi, Antoine calls himself a practitioner of reconciliation and not a teacher of reconciliation. His father was killed when he was five and he hated Hutus more and more with each passing year. He was however looking forward to becoming a Catholic priest and serving God and going to heaven when he died.
Antoine examined what went wrong with the gospel preached before the genocide and believed by 90% of the people in Rwanda. He suggested that the message preached was selective and partial, presented in an intellectual way and presented by messengers who themselves did not practise what they preached, they preached love and were disunited.
He emphasized the need for a new perspective of sin which is the root of alienation, a new perspective of the message of the cross. He challenged participants to be ambassadors of reconciliation, to live as a holy nation here on earth, to love each other and so let the world see that we are His.
Trevor Ntlhola – South Africa
Trevor, a black South African shared his painful experience with apartheid. He grew up in Soweto, the largest Black township in South Africa. He became a Christian in 1984 and was told politics and Christianity do not mix. His racial status demanded an engagement in politics and his heart loved Jesus but the Jesus he preached was irrelevant to life in the streets of Soweto. In 1988, at a time he thought he had no problem with racism, Trevor visited a church he thought was a black church and he found white people there too.
He noted that we need to get out of our comfort zones to really know how racist we are. ‘Reconciliation is a muddy path,’ he added, it is not easy and we cannot have it without a situation.’ As God would have it, that was the visit that started his journey of repentance and reconciliation. And on this journey Trevor has experienced the Jesus of the Bible who is relevant to all of life’s situations.
Trevor shared some of his experiences on this journey and concluded with a challenge to participants reconciliation is revolutionary and is a constant healing process and we need each other for God to use in healing us.
Jurgens Hendricks from South Africa and Faustin Ntamushobora of the African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries also addressed the Gathering before a time of questions in which participants were able to make comments on the presentations and ask questions.
Small groups continued discussions through the afternoon. Where do we go from here? What are the next steps for the Emerging Church in Africa? How do we build the Kingdom of God here and now? In what ways do we need to be reconciled one to another? The conversation continues!
posted by LukeMiller at 2:07 AM
2 Comments:
You wrote: "Jesus was teaching the principle, ‘I am only good when you are good.’ "
Expound on that a bit.
Sounds like things are coming along great. How will the Rwanda "team" get to really see examples of how the gospel went wrong before and how it is being reinterpreted after?
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