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1. My Heart Beats for the Loving Heart of God
If I did not know that God loved me, I would not be here. If I did not know that He loves me beyond anything I can ever earn or naturally belongs to me, I would not be here. The Bible verse, John 17:23 is taken from the last prayer that Jesus prayed for His disciples before He went to be with His Father. I remember I was quite a young Christian and a very young staff member when I was preparing a Bible study on this chapter. Then I read this verse which says, "I in them, You in Me, may they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved Me." I could not believe what I read. Jesus says to his Father that "You loved them" -- His disciples -- "even as much as You loved Me".
There I was, I knew who I was, I knew what I was made of. And then Jesus Himself says that God loves me as much as God love Him. It was a shocking lighting coming into my life. Then I started to read the Bible and this message is very clear. Why else would He have given Jesus if He did not love you as much as He loves Jesus?
This is the basic/solid foundation upon which I have based my life and Christian walk all these years. I often have to return to this reality in my life, just to draw on everything that He has given in His love for me.
If we, as the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ or Agape Europe, cannot or do not believe that this is true in our individual lives, we will not change the world. We simply will not change the world. But, if each of us truly believes that God's love is so unique and so enormous towards us that He gave Jesus for me, we WILL change the world. For me this is the number one thing for which my heart beats. If there is nothing else that I can do except to speak about this, that would be the fulfilment of my life.
This is something that we need to underline especially now a we are talking about plans and goals that we have to the year 2000. We do not live from our goals. We live from God's love. If we try to do is visa-versa we will die. That is why my heart beats for the loving heart of God, for the loving heart of the Father. He has the heart of a father towards you and towards me.
2. My Heart Beats for Renewal and for Revival
I was 14 years old when I became a Christian. It took place during a youth revival in my hometown of Pori, on the west coast of Finland. In the early ´60s there was a youth revival. In one year the number of church youth in my hometown grew from 10-20 to more than 200. It was this environment in which I received my faith. And, because I became a Christian in this kind of context, I feel that God has given me what I call a "spiritual birth gift" of a thirst and hunger for revival. No matter where I have been serving the Lord, whether as a pastor or a staff member, I have not been satisfied unless I have something of this happening as a result of my ministry.
What do I mean by revival or renewal? Just simply that people come into a fresh relationship with Jesus Christ. By the way, my wife Aulikki, became a Christian at that same time, as well as Riitta Aaltonen. From that revival, there are many missionaries around the world, but that is another story.
My main message here is that somehow God has put this desire on my heart, and I will not be satisfied in my present work unless I see this happening. This is a prayer and this is what I yearn and thirst after.
When I talk about spiritual renewal, it has several dimensions.
It is personal.
Me. Each one of us. That God would really revive our hearts. I received some money last Spring when I reached a certain milestone in my age. My family gave some money to me to buy a mountain bike. Finally in September I had the time to do it. Since then I have been enjoying a tremendous new dimension in my life -- moving faster and further than I could do by jogging. I was once biking through the woods surrounding Kandern, and I suddenly felt that God gave me a prayer and I have been praying this prayer ever since. The prayer is that God would give me "glimpses of his grace". Glimpses of his grace, so that I would constantly have a little touch of his presence. I cannot say what He will give, but this desire of "give me" so that I can experience and can go out with a fresh presence of Him.
I also pray this for all of our staff.
If we are talking about reaching post-modern Europe with the gospel message of Jesus Christ, what is the most crucial tool, vehicle or channel to do this? It is a person who loves Jesus. It is a staff member who loves Jesus and in whose life this love to Jesus can be seen. That is why we, as staff, need to pray and to work towards being constantly renewed in our faith so that our lives would be renewed and refreshed by the grace of Christ.
We need to pray this for all the churches and Christian organizations in Europe.
There is a lot of resources in Europe. There are many Christians in Europe who would like to be more alive in their faith, but they are stuck somehow -- frozen solid. The European Christian community is a "deep frozen" resource for God to revive this continent. And that is why that one of our objectives is to plan our work in such a way that God can melt this deeply frozen resource. Shortly before we did "Here´s Life, Finland" in the early 1980's, God had given a wide charismatic spiritual renewal into the church of Finland. In those days God gave the picture into my mind that He is melting these resources and He is asking us to build the channels through which the water can flow. And, this is what happened. We have been called to build channels through which God´s Spirit can work. We need to pray that God will give these resources to us.
That is why one of the special emphases in our European plan is "Harvesting Resources". In this, I understand that we go to Christians in Europe, through God´s grace and the message that He has given us we can help them become revived and renewed. Then we become channels for awakening of the world.
3. My Heart Beats for the Vision (Acts 26:19)
Since I became a Christian in my teenage years, I have been driven by vision. What do I mean with "a vision"?
When the Apostle Paul was facing King Agrippa in Acts 26:19, he answered to the king with a long testimony, and then summarized, "Consequently, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision," or "I could not but obey this heavenly vision". But, what is this "heavenly vision"?
Is it 5,000 MPTAs (Million People Target Areas) around the world? Is it 211 Level One Campuses reached in Europe? No, that is not the "heavenly vision". Let´s look at what the Apostle Paul told King Agrippa. If you look at Paul´s testimony in Acts 26:12ff, Paul shares his testimony.
1. Jesus
He saw a light from heaven then he heard a voice saying, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." His heavenly vision was Jesus coming to him and revealing Himself to Paul. This is the heavenly vision. Jesus revealed Himself to Paul -- "I am Jesus".
2. Servant and witness
The second thing in this heavenly vision that Paul shares, is that Jesus says, "I have appeared here to appoint you..." As a National Director. No. As Training Co-ordinator. No. It says, "I have come to appoint you as My servant and as My witness". This is the call that we have. When Jesus appeared to Paul He did not call Him to be the apostle to the Gentiles, rather He called him to be "My servant and My witness".
3. Task
Then Jesus says, "I send you to the nations." That is the task. Many times when we talk about the vision, we have it up-side-down. We have our plans and think that is the "heavenly vision" and somehow we have been called to fulfil it. Then, at the bottom, is the message of Jesus. But this is not what we are called to do. We are called to follow the heavenly vision. The heart of the vision is Jesus, who reveals Himself to us, who has called us to be His servants and witnesses. This immediately lays the basis for our attitude toward our work, our attitude toward our fellow co-workers and everything. We are just servants. We are just witnesses. And then God calls us to whatever our calling is.
If we turn it up-side-down we will not survive. The task will crush us. But, if we have our vision in the right order: (1) Jesus, (2) being His servant and witness, and (3) the task He gives us, we are free to go. We dare to go anywhere because He is with us.
4. My Heart Beats for Koinonia -- for Fellowship and Unity Among Christians
I think that it is something very unique, that we as Agape Europe and Campus Crusade for Christ, Intl. are called to be bridge builders. People expressing God´s love. People who love all other Christians unconditionally. Why?
First, it is (1) the will of God.
We know that it is the will of God because Jesus gave His command to us to love one another. Jesus gave two commands: love one another, and make disciples. These are the only two imperatives that He ever gave to His disciples. So, we know that it is the will of God that we love all other Christians.
Secondly, unity among Christians is (2) an answer to the prayers of Jesus.
This is the whole prayer in John 17 -- He prayed that His disciples would be one with one another. Again we read that love among Christians is
(3) testimony,
"From this they will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." In Romans 5:5 we read that love is also a sign of
(4) being filled with the Holy Spirit.
That is actually the only sign that is common to all Christians -- of being filled with the Holy Spirit. In Acts 4 we read how love among Christians changed the world. Love is the
(5) power to change things and situations.
When I think about all of this, I think that no Christian has any right not to love another Christian. No matter how different he is and no matter how differently he thinks, if another Christian is sitting next to me, I have no right not to love him or her. This is such a big thing on the heart of Jesus, that my heart beats for it.
I think that if we, as staff members of Agape Europe, can be people promoting love among Christians, God will honour it. God will honour it because we become agents of the answer to the prayer of His own Son.
5. My Heart Beats for Movement Building
Having been in Christian work since I was 14 years old, now 25 years with Campus Crusade for Christ, I have learned and have had the desire to do my work in such a way that regardless of whether I am here or not, the work will go on. This is movement building. We are there, we do our work, we do it with other Christians, and then when we are no longer there, it goes on. The war does not miss one soldier. One soldier does not matter in a war. That is why we need to make ourselves "needless" (or unnecessary, dispensable).
When I think of movement building, I have learned that there are three levels in movement building that I have always aimed at being involved in.
Level One: Direct Movement Building, Direct Ministry.
It is something that we do and by being involved in doing it, we also control the process. This means when we have a campus ministry at a certain university, we do it, we are responsible, we build disciples and we create a movement which is lead by our staff team and our students.
Level Two: Indirect Movement Building.
It means that we are involved in doing it, but as a result, the people who have been doing it with us go out using our materials, they use our vision, they go and do the same thing we would otherwise do.
Third Level: Catalytic Movement Building.
It is even less direct and means that we have in our ministry people who have been involved in and seen what we do. They take the idea and have their own vision. They make their own materials. The go and do things regardless of us, we have no control of any kind over them, except that our vision has sparked and ignited them into action. And I say, "Hallelujah! Go brother and preach."
I think that if we are really serious about reaching our continent for Christ, we need to do our work in such a way that we continually build movements in all three levels. Otherwise we will fail. We are not big enough to do it alone. In some countries our ministry is very strong, perhaps even the strongest in the country, but in no country are we strong enough to do the job alone. It is very important for us when we build movements, that we do it in such a way that it takes place on all of these levels.
At EXPLO ´97 in Basel at the end of last year, we had 160 people from Russia. In the group that I was leading together with Rainer Harnisch, we had about 60 people with whom we have worked in different cities in the Volga and Ural regions. It was so exciting to see how God had inspired their visions and they go and evangelize like crazy. There is a movement going on, but I have nothing to do with it. I just see that is goes on. They go and start churches. One guy has a vision to start correspondence centres in 100 cities throughout Russia and Central Asia. He got the spark for this vision because he was involved in what we were doing and God has blessed him. We could tell story after story like this.
If we would have built it so that the Russians would have been dependent upon us in building movements, they would never have gone. So, we need to have this element, this vision, this spark that we can transfer to others.
6. My Heart Beats for the World Missions
There was another thing that I feel was sort of a "birth gift" that God gave into my heart. One of the first things that I was taught as a young Christian was to pray for missionaries and mission work all around the world, especially for the countries closed to the gospel. Since I was 14 years old, I have prayed for Russia, the Soviet Union, China, Muslim countries, Israel, etc. I just cannot imagine any genuine Christian community which would not be involved in World Missions. It is such a vital part of any Christian life. My prayer is that God would help us to revive this spark as well here in Europe. So that we would become communities, no matter how small our ministry is, that sends people out, because God blesses the sending and giving heart.
This is one of the clearest messages in the whole Bible. God blesses giving hearts. No matter what we give, He gives it back in one way or another. And this is why I think that we need to take this matter very seriously. I pray and it´s my objective that every national ministry will increasingly become a sending ministry.
So, these are the beats of my heart. I wanted to share these with you as it gives some sort of an introduction. Perhaps, as you see the spiritual background and heritage that I carry in my pockets, it will help you to understand why the European Plan was written as it was.
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