Bruce Olson

It’s starting to read like a Bruce Olson fan club around here. This guy started out like so many other kids, only most don’t end so well. I heard someone say once that, when it comes to ministry, many people come late and leave early. By this he meant they usually get there too late and give up easily because they don’t know what to do.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? If you are inclined to second guess yourself all the time, I suppose you listen to higher authorities and believe them when they tell you to come home. You tend to figure they are older, wiser, have more experience and all that plays into your fears. But what if God really calls you to a thing? Olson didn’t have any experience when he went out either, except that he didn’t leave and he didn’t give up. He came close in the early days, but he stayed. Why? Because he knew the voice of God inwardly. He was convinced and could not shake that voice.

It’s clear that this must have been the case. He, like us, wondered how much of God’s speaking must have slipped past him. Look at what he wrote.

…How could anyone notice the voice of one lone turkey in the midst of this din?

The Motilone had seen my confusion and had signaled me to stop and listen quietly. When I did, it took several minutes before I began to pick out which sounds were which — animals, birds, insects, humans. Then, slowly, the separate voices became more and more distinct. Finally, after more patient listening, I heard it. Behind the hue and cry of the jungle, behind the voices of my companions, behind the quiet sound of my own breathing, was the haunting, reedy voice of the piping turkey, sounding for all the world like it was calling to us from inside a hollow tube.

It had been a poignant moment for me, a moment that had spoken to me of much more than the Motilones’ highly developed sense of hearing and my own lack of auditory discrimination. It had made me wonder what I’d missed — not only in the jungles, but in my own spiritual life. How much had I overlooked when I’d failed to patiently “tune in” to God’s subtle voice in the midst of life’s clamor and activity?

In the years that followed, the piping turkey had come to mind many times as I’d struggled to discern God’s voice and sense his quiet, often barely detectable presence in the seemingly chaotic situations I encountered. But over time, I had learned enough patience to be able to see God in the subscripts of life. And I’d learned from experience that even when I couldn’t see or hear what He was doing, I could trust that He was always there, always working out His sovereign will, even when I was too overwhelmed by the “noise” to notice or appreciate His complex orchestrations. [Olson website, "Hostage! Part One"]

When he set out, there wasn’t any of this global, missional, incarnational, sacramental, whatever-else-is-left questioning that people do today. His mission wasn’t to “change the culture” of anyone. It wasn’t to “change the world” either. It was to do the will of God — what God laid on his heart. It was to be a part of what God was doing — not to come up with philosophies about what the church needs to do. Call it “individualistic”, but while some would throw up roadblocks fearing that with too much individualism we might get “off”, maybe they are the ones getting people “off” in the first place. Shouldn’t we be learning to hear the Holy Spirit? And how can we know unless we sit down and listen to Him?

Even when Olson was taken captivity by guerrillas, it made no difference in his service to God. The questions were always the same. He wanted to know what God asked of him each and every day.

It may seem bizarre to some people, but the truth is that it never once occurred to me that it was God’s responsibility to rescue me miraculously from this situation. Instead, I believed it was my responsibility to serve Him right where I was. What I asked of God from day to day was very simple, very practical, and I suppose quite typical of me: Father, I’m alive, and I want to use this time constructively. How can I be useful to You today?

This was to be my prayer, as well as my “strategy,” throughout the long months of my captivity. But it was nothing new; it was how I approached every day of my life. [Italics mine.]

If we all followed this direction, perhaps we would fulfill the purpose that God is orchestrating.

It started during a discussion about native peoples around the world and how the English and Spanish “Christians” pushed them out. One lady spoke of the Maori, another spoke of Canadian tribes. These ladies are walking the old trails of the indigenous cultures to see what they can learn of the spiritual heritage of these people. One person said they knew someone whose Native grandfather sat in the Canadian forest one night waiting to die when he received a vision of Christ and was healed. When the first missionaries arrived, these people had already incorporated images of the cross and of the man with the wounds in his hands, feet and side. The missionaries told them they had to lay all that aside and embrace the new religion. What was that about? Even since John Fenn posted that bit about how God has revealed Himself to Gentiles through the ages, I can’t help wondering.

I don’t know whether this story is true, but today we hear many stories similar to it. We have been hearing how God has been reaching Muslims through dreams in our day. How does God prepare a people to receive Christ? Were there not righteous Gentiles that God sent Peter and Paul to?

I decided to give it a go myself after looking up the Native tribe who gave their name to the town I live in. More is available now than when I was a child learning these things — still not enough. I don’t know what they believed, but they were a semi-settled people who farmed about 200 acres. How uncivilized could that be? They built 30 houses on the banks of a spring and lived here in the spring and summer, moving to other places in their range the rest of the year. I wondered what happened to them. I came across a video of a lady whose father had traded with them. According to the video, the group entered into a U.S. treaty in affiliation with the Wichitas after they had “fallen upon hard times”. They subsequently moved to a reservation in Oklahoma.

I wondered what that meant, “fallen upon hard times”. Why did they need to look to the U.S. Government for help? They never needed it before. Did the influx of white settlers make it impossible for them to farm? It was said in one account that they had “caused trouble” for the whites on the Trinity River. I’d like to know why they “caused trouble”. What did they believe they were doing by it? Are they happier now or do they wish they could go back home?

I wondered where they fit into this concept of a spiritual heritage. Some people in the original discussion suggested that those of us who can’t walk in the physical footsteps of Patrick, Columba, and Aiden ought to seek ancient paths through the host people of the land we are in. This presupposes a rootedness to the land itself. I wondered what kind of paths those might be? Did God speak to the natives or only to those whose hearts were turned towards Him? Can we really assume that all ancient paths are safe to walk in?

The native tribe I researched had some ways that didn’t make me feel particularly comfortable. It was said that they were occasionally given to cannibalism. One wonders how enlightened they could have been? Perhaps they already had some concept of eternity or redemption. I remember an obscure story in my family about someone who had been given the shin and foot of one of the enemies of this people with friendly instructions: “Eat it. It will make you strong.” Perhaps they might have at least grasped Holy Communion in that case.

What’s behind the stories? Who and what were these people? And why, after all the trouble to dispossess these people from the land, do we name everything after them as if doing so lends some ethnic pride to our communities? What illogical behavior. Is it some kind of consolation prize to them? They are never heard from nor welcomed again.

I drove to the site where this tribe is said to have had 30 houses. I had to see for myself. I’m not for absolutely certain it was the place, as there seems to be some dispute on the exact location. I decided to go to that place deliberately — it was rather deserted. I hoped, as a woman alone, I would not be assaulted. There was no place to park on the street, so I risked a spot behind a vacant building. I walked a short ways until I came upon a stream. If this was the place, it was uglified by the litter, the bottles, the cans, and milk cartons. Part of the ground had been hollowed out and reinforced long ago with concrete. The sedimentary rocks formed a perfect hollow for defense and looked like good arrowhead material. I could imagine that long ago before the land was cleared children must have formed beautiful memories playing along the stream banks and listening to the soft gurgling of the water.

I stood for a few minutes. “Well, God, is this it? Is this the place?” I pulled out my Irish penal rosary beads (alas, I got them because they remind me of those in bondage)and prayed for this people I have never met but whose land I occupy. I asked God many things about these people in the next few minutes. Perhaps one day He’ll answer all my questions.

Back at home, I pulled out the make-believe pipe for a make-believe smoke and a think about the whole idea of “roots” and “heritage” and what that means to us. Some who live in the lands of their ancestors have a great sense of being rooted there, and the means by which they received their faith seems tied to that land. Others of us can never go back exactly to what we were because we aren’t the same people as our ancestors — we are so mixed. I’m not even sure we are supposed to go back to exactly what things were. I read once that travelers leave their land because they are not typical of the ones who stayed behind. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Some people left who didn’t want to go — like the convicts who settled Georgia in the U.S. and Australia.

But….I keep thinking of Tolkien’s words, “Not all who wander are lost.” Sometimes I even like being a bit rootless. Well, how can I really use that word? I obviously know more about my roots than maybe any three people put together. I find them immensely important for knowing why I am here, yet my roots are not rooted. I would have many disagreements with those I came from, too. What is that about?

I guess I have mixed feelings about the earth itself. I don’t think of God as immanent in the earth. I think of Him as transcendant, the earth being His fingerprint, and He being immanent in His people. I do consider history in the earth as so many echos that one can still hear. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” so I am prepared to expect rootlessness and wanderings as part of the deal. I don’t think it means resigning oneself to dualism, but to recognizing that all things are ours, yet we are not owned by them.

Speaking of “land”, there are so many concepts of land rights. Scriptures acknowledge land rights of a family. Is it because God believes this or because He worked within the understanding of the Hebrews? Some would take it as a blueprint. Native Americans had no concept of land ownership. Australian aborigines believe their people belong to the land. It matters from a cultural perspective when cultures clash, but does it ultimately matter to a God whose kingdom is not of this world?

We have to be practical, but we also have to be incarnational. I plan to go back and have a study of Bruce Olson. Much as I agree with Brian McLaren that we ought to be evangelical, incarnational, missional, etc., I’ve had my fair share of disagreements with emergent church, too. (Come to think of it, Rick Warren and emergent church tactics within the institutional churches do rather remind one of the methods of the original missionaries in this land — “Become like us or out you go.” I meet many people who have been displaced like this.) Bruce Olson is the one man I can think of who actually embodied all these things. As far as I can tell he never hashed out a theology or a formula. He spent his time praying and actually listening to God. I’m coming to believe that God just wants us to trust Him and look to His hand as a dog looks to its owner.

Now, as I finish this thought, it occurs to me that maybe I ought to consider myself a “Bruce Olson” among the “natives” in current North America. The church culture here looks pretty wild and untamed to my eyes these days.

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” [J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Today I struggle over here with wondering how valid my cultural comfort is in determining what people, church situations I should be involved with. Sometimes I do wonder about the line between things moral and things cultural. It can be daunting to address these things when you are face to face with them.

And where are the markers when we talk about the authenticity of the faith? Was chatting with a lady about how some speak of the traditions of a particular place at a particular time as informing their faith. Then there are many of us who feel most informed when we think in terms of first century Judea. But, as the lady pointed out to me, there has never been a time when the faith was not borne along on someone’s culture.

Jesus told the Syrophenician woman that he was sent only to the house of Israel. Yet she prevailed and He blessed her, too. So, is this any indication that God is as willing to bless our non-Jewish, non-first-century informed lives as He was to reach out to this woman? Do we study the NT to find out how to properly “do” the faith according to the culture and means that existed then, or do we read it to understand the heart of God in our culture today?

Scary topic. Scary implications. It seems I have stumbled upon some kind of intersection of the faith here — a really scary one, I might add, with lots of cross traffic. Now do I want to live in the middle of the intersection, cross to the other side, stay on my side and wave at people as they pass by? It’s very hard to live in the middle of a busy intersection, isn’t it? Might even be downright dangerous.

This might sound like a question that only the liberal church would address, but I find myself thinking once more of Bruce Olson and the Motilones again. Funny how that guy has impacted my life. As an evangelical, he certainly had to grapple with that issue. And I am now going to go smoke a metaphorical pipe and have a think about the whole thing. Can it be that I have long missed a vital component to our witness on earth?

Methinks I smell an adventure coming on and perhaps when I return I shall tell ye all about it.

A long time ago I posted an article on George Mueller’s “strategy for showing God”. Unfortunately, due to a malfunction somewhere in the system, it was not updated and I lost three months’ worth of posts. Ouch. That hurt. Mueller, as you may know, is famous for the orphanages he ran, though he actually did a lot more besides. John Piper wrote a wonderful article on Mueller, which I linked to at the time and here I link again. I insist that you read it, for if you don’t, I’m convinced that your Christian journey will be stunted forever. (My goodness, I am treating my readers like my children. “Eat your vegetables or you’ll go blind.”)

Mueller’s reason for opening the orphanages was not merely to change the world for the better on a humanistic scale. In his own words, he gave as his main reasons for doing so:

1. That God may be glorified, should He be pleased to furnish me with the means, in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him; and that thus the faith of His children may be strengthened. 2. The spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children. 3. Their temporal welfare.

So in my unlearnedness in such matters, I decided to post my thoughts on a private forum to see what I might glean from others who have trodden the path of public service before me. So far only one person has responded, but perhaps others will join in. I posted my query because I am tired of straddling the fence on mission projects and causes. There are so many public service projects going on, and half of them I think are as rooted in humanism as anything else even though they have the banner “Christian” over them. In fact, the world has come to expect that the church is there to serve its “felt needs”. While I sympathize with the world in its plight, I do not want to be sucked into slavery trying to save it from itself.

When I was younger I was very interested in many relief projects but my interest was shot down by others on the grounds that 1) to do practical things for people was not going in the “power of the spirit”, i.e., miracles, and 2) it was based on pure humanism.

As to the first, I was thinking the other day about when Jesus told His disciples they would do greater miracles than He did. Jesus couldn’t do miracles in some places because the people lacked faith. But the ones He did the greatest miracles in didn’t believe in Him. When He was sought out by people who wanted to do His works, He told them that the work of the Father was that they should believe on Him. He also said, “Blessed is he who has not seen and yet believes.” Most of the people who have believed in Jesus have died without ever witnessing a true miracle. When you consider how many converts have been made without seeing a miracle, that has to be a great miracle out of the “power of God”. Ironic.

The e-letter that I mentioned by John Fenn in the previous post made me reconsider point number two. He was addressing universalism. He made a very good case concerning God’s provision for those living without knowledge of either the spiritual law or of the specific knowledge of Jesus Christ. He spoke of these “lovers of the truth” who instinctively obey the law written in their hearts as those who will flow into the truth when they hear it and be born again into the kingdom. Paris Reidhead (“Ten Shekels and a Shirt“) made an equally valid point about those living in darkness who knew more about God than he ever imagined, who knew all about the judgment of God and didn’t care — “monsters of iniquity” he called them. It must have been daunting to learn that he went to Africa to help people who didn’t want to be helped. Living in the ungrateful society we inhabit in the West, it is easy to fear that the people we serve may all be of the second variety, but what if many are also of the first kind?

Bruce Olson discovered the first kind among the Motilone Indians of Colombia. How else could it be that they had any idea they needed to know the way back to God? How could they have had a true prophecy among their people that one day God would send them a yellow-haired prophet to show them the way? They already involved God in the affairs of their everyday lives. They just didn’t know who He was exactly. When Olson showed up, they were ready to believe.

If Fenn is correct about how God operates among lovers of the truth who have not yet heard or understood Jesus Christ, it changes the paradigm completely of who we think we are serving in the “dark” world. We know, of course, that we ought to do good until all people in a general sense and that we ought to do good in particular to the brethren.

Gal 6:10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all [men], especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Too often this thinking degenerates into helping only those members of the same “club” which some call “church”. In that “church” are often people as dysfunctional and liable to suck us away as those unwashed masses in the world. Then you have to wonder who are you helping and to what end? It’s not always an easy answer, in any case.

Here I have to bring up the Sermon on the Mount. It is the favorite for religious modern liberal activists. They tend to see this as THE gospel of Christ and very often it is a Cross-less gospel. The point, according to them, is to make the world a better place by making people care for one another. They have no problem loving their neighbor, and in fact, lift love of neighbor ahead of loving God, which is backwards of the commandments. Often they try to enforce love of neighbor through politics according to their own understanding about how to fix others. But Jesus was not talking about a matter of enforcement or changing society. He was talking about a personal choice as He addressed a select group of people — mainly those of the household of Israel.

On the other hand, there is some practical good in teaching the unbelieving to look on one another’s best interests. It won’t make them righteous, but it does make the world a bit more liveable. It brings to mind where Paul talked about praying for those in authority:

1Ti 2:2 For kings, and [for] all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

It wasn’t for the sake of society at large, but so the saints could function well. Society enjoys the positive fallout of the peace of the saints. Reidhead noted that the happiness of mankind is a byproduct and not a prime product of the kingdom of God. God’s purposes always come first and society-at-large reaps the benefit.

This knowledge that there are many seekers of the truth scattered in among those who love darkness shines a whole new light on what good we do as we engage in helping the world materially and socially. By this, I certainly don’t mean to imply that we involve ourselves in a sort of spiritual blackmail that the world must convert if we are to help it. But I do mean to say that our efforts are assuredly not in vain if we keep in mind George Mueller’s points of strategy. It is essentially the same strategy that applies to our helping ourselves.

Keeping these things in mind, it’s much easier to consider the Sermon on the Mount in its proper place, as secondary to loving God. I am convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is about the Lord of the work and not about the work of the Lord. Those who live out of its spirit, bring the kingdom of God near to the nations in the most mundane things.

I went back to the root in order to know my place in the Body. Beginning with the early Jewish church, I hit a snag. Ephesians 2:15 says that God made of Jews and Gentiles “one new man”. I mentioned in the last post my acquaintance who converted to Messianic Judaism. It does happen sometimes but not usually. He keeps many of the Jewish laws because he lives in Israel where doing so has relevance. But Paul tells us that God has made two stalks of humanity into one new man in Christ.

This made great sense when I realized that I could not be what I am not — a Jew. However, I could learn from the intersection of the Jewish-Gentile church. The Jewish believers kept the Law; the Gentile believers did not. There’s our answer: We should not strive to be what we are not. God never secreted His things away from the world even when He entrusted the sacred to the Jewish people. The sacred things were revealed in their lives in order that the world might know God.

It took some sorting through random bits of evidence before it hit me over the head why today’s house churches still don’t approximate the early church. It is true that when we meet with other believers for any reason we are “the Church”. However, this simple minded approach lacks any purpose or objective. My mind went into overtime when I realized that the intentional simple churchers I knew were essentially Protestant/Evangelical/Charismatic but in a home instead of a structure. Not much is different. They have the usual pot luck, worship and praise, sharing and prayer — it’s all rather predictable. I can walk into most any group and know exactly what’s going to happen even if I’ve never met these people in my life.

Then we have the really simple house churchers. They have no services and no objective other than to show up and share the Lord as He happens to intrude on everyday conversation. They are no less sincere or unlikely to pursue God than the others. These decry such distinctions as “sacred” vs. “profane”. Every affair of life is holy — but on the other hand, they have also lost the sense of worship in community. Sometimes I’m not sure whether the profane becomes sacred or the sacred becomes profane. They regard the Lord’s Supper as an ordinary part of a meal, though they do take it seriously, making appropriate remarks as the need arises. There is a certain value in learning some propriety, which I think they miss — it teaches us respect for others and for special moments set aside in community. The original Lord’s Table was not part of everyday life — it was part of a Passover Feast and the Lord did a new thing on that occasion. He used the wine and bread to institute a new covenant.

I have known groups that did their best to eradicate culture, believing it to be divisive. I think it a mistake. Groups that dispense with culture end up creating a new culture and becoming unnecessarily weird so that they have relevance to no one. Culture is good and necessary. It is the means by which we pass down the narrative of who we are and what we value.

Still, we cannot impose our culture on other groups. It has often been a practice of the institutional church to kill its message by this means. When Bruce Olson went to Colombia to work with the Motilone Indians, he found other Christian groups had also been there to no success. They wanted to force new believers into ways of relating that made no sense to them — strict programs and buildings that were square. The Motilones have round buildings and they give thanks to God whenever they pull up a root — hence, no need to say grace at meals as they have already said it. That, to me, is a lesson to embrace culture but never to put people in a cultural strait jacket.

Having said this mouthful about culture, it brings me to what I really want to drive home in the next post — something long, long neglected. And that is the very wonderful and beautiful role of culture in the Church. Far from being a hindrance to the Gospel of the Kingdom, it ought to be a furtherance. I will lay out in the next post what I believe will support that conclusion. I hope to turn the heart of the children back to the heart of the fathers. Hopefully, you will see the beauty of intentional community worship as well as the personal freedom it allows when living, breathing, playing, worshiping as “the Church”. We should begin to see some authenticity when we recognize our real “Fathers of the Faith”.