The great reversal

While recently welcoming our new world church leaders—vice president Pierre E. Omeler and his spouse, Myra—to the Ministerial Association, I told them, “Your old territory comprised the seven states of the northeast United States and Bermuda.” Then, pointing to a huge wall map of the world, I said, “Your new territory is the world.” To this, Ministerial secretary Ramon Canals responded, “Only by the Holy Spirit.”

A choice

The Holy Spirit certainly supplies the power, but we have a choice: reject it or rejoice in it. The Holy Spirit was given to Peter to include the Gentiles in gospel outreach. This was outside of Peter’s comfort zone, but he embraced the new reality. Not everyone since has acted the same. Peter rejoiced in the success of the gospel—the Gentile believers then outnumbered the Jewish believers. Not everyone since has reacted the same.

The reality we must come to terms with is that those who were once the objects of mission are now the pacesetters of mission. This is not cause for lament; this is cause for rejoicing. Praise God! The student is now the teacher. Former world church president Neal C. Wilson pleaded for a “move toward greater unity in our diversity” and for the church “to share equitably in evangelistic potential and in resources and decision making.”¹ And the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Union Mission believes that “the church is making a paradigm shift that is missionally focused and culturally relevant.”²

A charge

Ah yes, Papua New Guinea! Last year I conducted three Christ for Europe evangelistic campaigns. This year I conducted a PNG for Christ campaign. I was thrilled to see how PNG, a Commonwealth realm with nearly 400,000 church members, had prospered evangelistically. An excitement, a thrill, and a charge went through us as we witnessed some 300,000 persons being baptized during April and May. The two churches assigned to me, totaling 350 members, joined together for one campaign. By the grace of God, I immersed just over 400 persons. It was unbelievable!

Baptisms were far fewer in Europe, but commitment was not. Wherever I went in Europe, people longed for the everlasting gospel to be embraced by everyone everywhere—just like in PNG. Last week a colleague returned from conducting evangelism in Europe and rejoiced while showing us a baptismal photograph. When another colleague saw the photo, she exclaimed, “Is that Europe?” For her, seeing persons of African and Caribbean descent in Europe was cause for pause. But for immediate past world church president Jan Paulsen, this is cause for applause.

A change

“When Adventist Church growth statistics are cited in the West, some respond, ‘Oh, but that’s mainly among the immigrants—Africans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians.’

“So what? . . . The ethnic profiles of Western nations will never go back to what they were fifty or sixty years ago. . . . And it is of just such a mixture of people that citizens of the new earth are made. As a believing community, we must learn to be inclusive. . . . The change is here to stay.”³

It happened in Paul’s day. It’s happening in ours. Eugene Peterson paraphrases, “Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first” (Matt. 20:16, The Message). Let’s not be sad. It’s not about the mourning—it’s about the morning. It’s a corollary of the Great Commission. It’s a foretaste of heaven.