Notes - Oscar Muriu at GRACE

Pastor Oscar Murui, lead pastor at Nairobi Chapel, spoke at Grace this past weekend. Here's some rough notes and I've added some comments that you might be interested in at the bottom.

Nairobi Chapel -
church planting vision - 300 church plants by 2020
200 in kenya
60 in african capital cities
30 outside the african continent including europe

epicenter of christianity used to be europe, and used to be the us

seismic changes
1 - global south
75% of all christians now live in underdeveloped countries
epicenter is now in africa [timbuktu]
23,000 new christians a day in africa
6,000 a day leave the church in america and europe
New Shape of World Christianity - Mark Noll
more people on sunday in church in china than in all of europe

generosity of american and europe to send missionaries to the developing world
impact of missions in s hemp

2 - maturity of churches in south hemp
go back to europe to evangelize
2005 - more missionaries being sent in global south than north
please recognize the maturity of these churches
see them as partners
not young fledgling ministries anymore
true partnerships need equal maturity *

partnerships
south - familial - marriage for life, independent become same identity
north - business - goals, time limited, achiever oriented
bible - fellowship - koninia - I Cor 12

1 - the goal of the church is interdependence
body
each part depends on each other
when something does its own thing, its called cancer

2 - missions today must build in reciprocity
give and receive
"if it works in the west, export it to the rest"
work hard to be generous to receive
dependency - i have nothing to give

3 - mutual respect and humility
pituatary gland
smallest organ but does something unique and great
in gods economy, the smallest churches have something to learn from

1 - What he said about partnerships was powerful but I appreciated what he said about maturity the most. Partnerships should take into consideration how mature each organization is and whether they are at the same maturity level.
2 - It can be a very tricky ordeal for someone who grew up in the developing world to talk to suburban Americans about missions. It requires someone who is extremely thoughtful, wise and culturally adept. Oscar is all of that and more.
3 - Deanna and I have thought about reverse missions for many years. I've only met a handful of people that have the ability to host teams at an expert skill level. In our circles, that is the next big accomplishment. [If you seriously want to try this, get in touch. But after this summer is over...]

Related: 10 Mins with Pastor Oscar, Center of Christianity [more recent article]