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Tyndale University presents a series of recorded chapel services from Tyndale's very own faculty and guest speakers.
Thank you, Yau Man Siew, for such a kind introduction to me, and I am so delighted to be here at Tyndale. Haven't seen Tyndale in 15 years. So it's changed a lot. Wonderful to be here. I invite you to stop by my table in the lobby, where my book will be on sale, tell, some of those stories that I used to tell to Yau Man Siew's children. Let me introduce myself a little bit I talking about my passions. I'm known as a woman of three passions.
My first passion is for the millions in our world who, through no fault of their own, have never heard of Jesus. In missiology, in the discipline of missiology, we refer to them as unreached people.
My second passion is for the millions in our world who suffer intensely today, because they are willing to be known as followers of Jesus. This passion for the persecuted church was infused into me as a child born in China. And in a single day, Mao Zedong commanded, sent out the edict, 1000s of missionaries were forced from the country in a single day. And my family fled with the clothes on our backs. I know what it is to be a refugee, hitchhiked across southern China, and found our way to Canada. That's a story for another time.
My third passion is the next generation. I feel in my retirement years that God has called me to be an advocate, perhaps for some of you, whom God will raise up to take the good news to hard places. During the Soviet regime, God took me to Romania, which in those days was a very hard time for Christians, the 70s and 80s, when Nicolae Ceausescu, that fiendishly evil dictator was intent on destroying the church. And I've written a book about those years, available today. And it's the story of how God built his church, during those brutal years.
I've grouped my stories around several key topics, which are still very relevant in today's world, if God should call you to take the good news to a hard place. Some of these topics will be instructive for you, the primary one because the title is regeneration, is the fact that we modeled, we developed training programs around Paul's words to his disciple. And to several of his disciples. He said, The things I teach you, you teach to others, who in turn will be able to teach others. We started with six in a hidden place in Romania, and 40 years later, 1000s and 1000s of women have been trained across that country. Some of the other key topics that I developed in the book are the agonizing question, as to whether those who've never heard of Jesus, are really lost. I love to talk about singleness in mission, because I happen to be a single woman. I talk in another chapter about the ethics. And this is appropriate for our generation, the ethics of doing ministry, in countries where, if the government knew what we were doing, they would not approve. And in the brief time I have with you this morning, I have chosen to speak from yet another topic. And that is simply the role of the local church. I want to focus on the church this morning, more specifically, the local church.
Not too long ago, I was speaking at a retreat at Ambrose University, out in Alberta. And that was asked by a group of students, they said, "What was the most important thing you did, as a university student at the University of Calgary?" I didn't have to think for a minute. I said, "I went to church. I went to a specific church, and I made commitments to that specific church." Looking back on 40 years of ministry, I have to say to you that, it was that decision to go to church that has led me to the position I'm in today after 40 years of ministry, having not one regret. So when I'm asked what was the best thing you did as an undergraduate student, I'm very quick to say I went to church. Those students were exploring with me how to know if God has called. I call it that "tap on the shoulder". How does God speak? That's what they were exploring that day.
Some of the students in that little group that day confessed to me that they don't regularly attend church. Others admitted they find it hard to commit to one church and faithfully attend it. And some of them openly shared their disillusionment with your institutional church. Step back with me just for a few minutes this morning, to probably the year, a year, years before many of you were born, 1971. I had left home to go to the big city to go to university. I was 21. And I wanted to find a church. Someone recommended a church that was kiddy corner to the university campus. I walked through the doors of that church in 1971, my first week at university. And I have to say, to a degree, I've never left. Yes, the call of God has taken me all over the world. But I always come back to Foothills church. I fell in love with that church that day. I fell in love through the next years before. I had grown up in church, quite uninvolved, usually watching on the platform as adults did church for us. But this was different in this church. I was required as a young adult to get involved. I taught grade five Sunday school, I was on the planning committee for the college group. I fell in love with church. I was there every time the door was open.
Seven years passed, I finished my degree at University of Calgary and was hired by the public school board to teach French. I paid off my student loans, and life looked good before me. It was becoming a comfortable life, I was still very aware of the fact that God might have something unusual for me to do, but I just wasn't sure if I would know when He spoke. I wanted to know I was called. And one Sunday morning, I was 28 years old. When I arrived at the front door of the church, the chairman of the elder board was waiting at the door for me. He asked if I would stay after church, because the leadership wanted to talk to me. And I will never forget. Almost everyone had left. The elders gathered around me in the foyer of the church. And here was what they asked me. "They said, Miriam, we've been watching you for the last seven years, here at Foothills church. Are you planning to teach French the rest of your life? We sense that God's Spirit is upon you in a unique way, that you have gifts for ministry that you should be offering to the church. And we believed it, we believe it so deeply that we think we should encourage you to explore, furthering, furthering your life in ministry." I was stunned, that morning. I call that moment in my life a "hinge moment". I'm stealing a phrase that Winston Churchill used as he spoke of the battles of World War Two, he spoke of some of them as hinges of history, critical moments, turning points, moments, which Churchill said explained history. And friends, that, that moment in the foyer of my church with the leadership of the church around me was a hinge moment, a turning point. In an instant I understood why I was born.
Many years later, I became a little bit famous, as a single woman, talking about this love affair with the church. Because I'm often saying that the church has been for me everything a good husband would have been. Its loved me, prayed for me, protected me, provided for me.
I was talking about this at Trinity Western University not long ago, and someone met me at the church, church, at the venue, the door of the venue where we were meeting and said, with a wry smile on his face. He said, "Yeah, but there's one thing for you that the church can't do as a single woman", and I know he was referring to our need for emotional intimacy. Which, became for me another topic in the book that I have written. That Sunday morning 44 years ago was a hinge moment, a turning point, perhaps the most significant day in my life. What the elders of Foothills church did that day reminds me of a passage in Acts chapter 13. And I'll read that passage for you. A passage that talks about the church, listening to the Spirit of God, as they identified the rising generation. They discerned men in the congregation, at that time it was two men, upon whom the Spirit of God was resting.
Hear the word of the Lord is I read it. "In the church at Antioch." I'm reading from Acts 13, "there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul." Here's the important phrase, "While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them. So after they had fasted and prayed,” the church people, “they placed their hands on them and sent them off."
I love this story from the Antioch church in the first century. It was a happening place, the Christian church in Antioch. This was a city of half a million people, a culturally diverse city, Assyrians and Greeks and many ethnic groups were living inside the city walls. It was also a thriving center of learning. So I suspect that, I suspect that the new church in town attracted lots of students, it was kind of the place to be. They were curious about this new religion, "the Way". They were especially interested because Saul of Tarsus, that well known persecutor of followers of Jesus, was now one of the church's leaders. The authorities didn't know what to call these people. And so they sort of sarcastically called them Christians, followers of Christ. I don't have time this morning to take you into the beautiful picture of diversity in this congregation. There's, in the leadership was probably a migrant refugee. By the name of Simeon, he Lucius. Simeon was very likely a black man from Africa. And in verse two, it says that during worship, the Spirit spoke. Often, young adults ask me, "How does God speak?" It says, "as they were worshiping and fasting, the Lord said, set apart Barnabas and Saul for a project that I've called them to." The Spirit spoke, I believe, in that day, in what I sometimes refer to as insistent unanimity, an unmistakable sense of unanimity, unanimity that the Holy Spirit is making something very clear to the church. Barnabas and Saul had been among these people, for many months, exercising their gifts. And the church leaders began to realize that the projects, probably church planting, to which they were going to send some of their fellow worshipers, would need the gifts that Saul and Barnabas had. And it says that while they were in church, they heard the voice of God. I'm sure Saul and Barnabas were happy. They'd been in church that day.
Maybe you're expecting to hear from God, to clarify the purpose of your life. Maybe you think it happens, sitting out in a cave, out in nature and, but my experience suggests, that more often, God calls us when we are busy exercising the gifts he's given to us. And then in the in the middle of that activity, the Call of the spirit comes as the body of Christ affirms, or clarifies, your giftedness for a certain situation. I suggest you are more likely to get that clarification among the people of God in the local church. You want, do you want to discover God's plan for your life? It sounds simplistic. I say go to church, allow the people of God, alongside, whom you minister alongside, to clarify, to affirm, to challenge your own inner sense of God's call. And so I say to you this morning, unequivocally, I urge you to allow the local church to be a part of that discernment process as to how God wants to use you.
That day in 1978, was a hinge moment in my life. When I received that profound sense of God's call, standing in the middle of the leadership of a local church, and my testimony to you today is that, that affirmation, that day, of God's gifting has, is what has sustained me down through these 44 years of ministry, sometimes in a very hard place.
May God reveal to you through the body of Christ, His purpose for your life. Amen.