75 årige Bill Tober (bildet) bruker pensjonisttilværelsen foran dataskjermen, og vitner om Jesus for mennesker fra Kina, India, Pakistan og andre land. Det skjer fra hans hjem i Adams i Tennessee. Og mange mennesker blir frelst gjennom Bill Tobers arbeid hvert eneste år. Arbeidet startet opp når Bill Tober nådde pensjonsalderen, og han og kona flyttet til hennes hjemby. Tober som hadde arbeidet som kapellan i den amerikanske marinen, følte at han fortsatt hadde mye arbeidskapasitet igjen. Han skaffet seg internett og begynte å surfe. Det han fant på ulike chat-kanaler var nokså begredelig, men han begynte å snakke med en del av de han traff på nettet og la ikke skjul på at han var en kristen. Etter hvert begynte han å omtale seg selv som "Kapellan-Bill" eller "Pastor", og mange ville snakke om tro. Eller de ba om forbønn. Internett har gitt Bill Tober, som tilhører First Baptist Church i Clarksville i Tennessee, muligheten til å vitne om Jesus i såkalte "stengte land", hvor det ikke er mulig å sende tradisjonelle misjonærer. Hvert år kommer mange til tro. Finnes det en baptistmenighet i nærheten av dem, setter han de nyfrelste i kontakt med denne menigheten, eller han ber misjonærer fra sørstatsbaptistene til å følge dem opp. Flere av de som blir frelst blir også fulgt opp av Bill Tober personlig via epost og via chatte-kanaler. Bill Tober bruker seks til 12 timer foran skjermen hver dag. Kanskje en ide å ta etter for de som har datamaskin, og som kunne bruke den til å nå andre med evangeliet? Eller som vil drive misjon i Kina, India eller et muslimsk land uten å reise selv.
Nå er jo problemet at over nettet så må man føre en reel dialog, noe som er langt mer krevende enn tradisjonelle former for misjon og evangelisering.
SvarSlettBla. er man nødt til å ta imot alle slags spørsmål, og når det skjer gjennom nettet så blir også nettopp alle spørsmål stilt.
Det betinger også at du tar menneskene på alvor, og bryr deg og involverer seg i deres tanker og problemer.
Personlig kjenner jeg til flere som er sterke tilhengere at aktiv, utadrettet misjon som er mer eller mindre motstandere av dialog fordi de mener det ikke får særlige resultater, og vil heller ha en konfronterende, prekene henveldelse til folk, også når man møter dem på gata, i kjøpesenteret eller andre steder, og minst mulig spørsmål som om du ikke har hindret i å komme enten ignorerer, eller bare besvarer med en halv setning før du fortsetter prekenen.
Dette har vært holdninger jeg har hørt fra folk som har vært aktive i evangelisering, og som har undervist om evangelisering.
Personlig tror jeg problemet er at det krever en større overgivelse i meditasjon over både Guds ord, og problemstillinger man står ovenfor, og krever laaangt mer overgivelse enn tradisjonell evangelisering og preken hvor man kan fortsette å leve som vanlig uten å tenke noe mer på det utenom den halvtimen, eller de timene du konkret er ute.
Mvh.
Lars
A new way of being together
SvarSlettby Little Brother Ian Latham
"FAITH gives us new vision, new tastes, new ways of living".
So wrote 'Brother Charles of Jesus', as Charles de Foucauld came to call himself. That was in Nazareth, in 1900, where Charles was exploring for himself (and for us in our here-and-now - for Charles was always conscious of those who would follow the furrow he was tracing) the meaning and implications of his re-discovered faith as a follower of Jesus.
An explorer
Charles, in fact, was basically an 'explorer'. He had explored Morocco at the risk of life (it was then a country whose interior was closed to Europeans), but his whole life was an ardent and passionate (the word 'passion' recurs constantly in his writings) journey of exploration. He explored, unconsciously, the deep emotions of childhood, love and belonging. the deprivation of being orphaned and exiled. He explored consciously, but without faith and without aim, his selfhood in adolescence and as a young man. He sought for 'the truth' ("My God if you exist, make me know you")and being found by Another and having given himself to that Other, he began again to explore the mysterious 'call' he had received: what did his "Beloved Brother and Lord Jesus" wish him to be and to do? Having experienced the passionate love of his "Beloved Brother and Lord Jesus", he had found the 'treasure', but he had to explore, progressively, its contents, by reflection and life-commitment, and to do so continuously until death.
Who was this Jesus?
As a Trappist, his first faith commitment, Charles learnt the discipline of prayer and community and so found time and space to reflect. Who was this Jesus? The human embodiment of God’s Being and Love ("our religion is all love"), the 'man of Nazareth, the carpenter, the son of Mary', the 'poor man', 'one of us'. In fact, meditated Charles, Jesus is, quite simply, "God, the workman of Nazareth". The 30 years or so of Jesus' life in Nazareth, and the life—long (and indeed permanent) identity of Jesus as the 'Nazarene' struck Charles with ever increasing force.
A new discovery
It was a new discovery. Strangely, for some 1900 years, this basic truth had - and in the main still has - escaped notice: never, of course, denied or forgotten, it had simply rested 'on the back burner', waiting for the right moment to be brought to light and to be lived. What is this simple but so profound truth? That God has chosen to become involved with his people, to be with them as one of them: not as the rich one, hut as the poor one, the one without name or status, the anonymous one ("can anything good come out of Nazareth?"). But we know nothing about Jesus’ Nazareth life? Precisely: the Nazareth life of the Nazareth person, then as now, is not news-worthy. And, later, it is this precisely, the anonymous ordinariness of Jesus, that shocked his contemporaries when he proclaims, in public acts, the coming of the Kingdom ("isn’t this [only] the carpenter, the son of Mary...").
Where is this Jesus?
But where is this Jesus? Charles, as a Trappist in Syria, was sent to visit a poor Armenian family: he saw there, suddenly, the living 'image' of Jesus' family life and social situation. Conscious now that "my vocation is Nazareth", he had to ask to leave the Trappists and go, physically, to Nazareth, to try to find the present 'where' of Jesus. Jesus, he knew, was present in the Scripture and especially in the Eucharist but had he not said, "Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me"? Charles speaks again and again of the 'pull' on him to live this double presence: presence of Jesus in his own person, drawing us through his death and resurrection to the Father, and presence of Jesus in 'his', and so 'my', brother and sister. In each case, what matters is the 'being with', 'the relationship with': with the other as one person to another person.
A tough job
Seeing this, and 'pushed' by a Poor Clare abbess and by circumstances, Charles leaves Nazareth, receives ordination as a priest and returns to North Africa: to a small Saharan oasis, Beni Abbes. There he has built a small mud and palm building, comprising chapel with sand floor, a few tiny cells and a courtyard. It will be a place of adoration and of hospitality. Soon, he called it the 'Khaoua', the 'Fraternity' and writes, "pray God that I may truly be a 'universal brother', a brother to each and all in this part of the country, be they Christian, Moslem, Jew or pagan". An easy ideal but a tough job in the class-structured, colonial situation of the day. For to be and to relate as a 'brother' is to see and treat the 'other'; as an equal, as of the same intrinsic value and human worth, be that other slave or master, colonial officer or local nomad chief. The possession and ill treatment of slaves was an obvious challenge which Charles took up, in the face of the expected bitter opposition of their 'owners' and the discontentment of the French authorities. Justice was at stake. But justice was also at stake in any lack of due respect for the other as having the right to be 'other' and to be acknowledged as such. Charles, with humility and humour, noticed and recorded his failures: "I have lost patience with so—so—so who talks and talks!"; "I retreat when faced with fleas!"; "I have preferred to spend time with Commandant X rather than with a nomad visitor!"...
Brother and friend
While the 'brother' relationship respects the other as equal, the relation of 'friendship' builds on this to see and treat the other as 'one with oneself', making their concerns one’s own and moving forward together to a common destiny: "I have called you friends". Charles, particularly in his last years in the central Sahara (in Tamanrasset, then a scattered grouping of "some 20 to 25 hearths"), aimed to be both brother and friend. How? By being with and sharing the life of the Touareg; by spending hours each day in the painstaking recording of their language, their poetry, their traditions, in a word, their culture; by dialoguing with them on all matters concerned with their daily life, their welfare, their social and political future, their religious practice... For example, he taught the women to knit and he urged the men to recite an Islamic form of rosary, as well as engaging in long conversations (against his temperament) with passing visitors, children or adults...
A radical conversion
Charles' inspiration was Jesus' way of relating: treating each person with respect and admiration, and considering the other as one with oneself — the 'brother' and 'friend' ways of relating, lived to the end ("laying down one’s life for one’s friends"). He had to live and act in the world of his time, the world of European colonial expansion in Africa and of the 'militant' Christian spirit which saw the other as the enemy to be conquered. We may question this or that attitude and practice but it is certain that Charles underwent a radical mental conversion. The Touaregs, he discovered, considered the French colonisers as 'pagans and barbarians, men without religion who came to rob and destroy', and he came to understand and appreciate their view; before, of course, he had seen the civilising and Christianising role of his countrymen’s penetration, though increasingly disillusioned by their irreligion and injustices.
Charles refused to leave, to abandon his being with the Touareg, in spite of known and obvious danger. As he had long wished, he was killed, having long united his death with Jesus' death, given for 'his' people. For as one said, "You are now one of us". Following his death, a local chief wrote to his sister "Charles the Marabout [holy man], our friend, has died not only for all of you, he has died for us, too. May God have mercy on him, and may we meet in Paradise".
In our secular and interfaith culture, Charles shows us a new way of being together and of relating together. His legacy is today lived, however inadequately, by small groups of lay people (the on1y groups directly founded by Brother Charles), by diocesan priests and by various religious communities including the 'little brothers' and 'little sisters of Jesus'. But Charles’ message and hope is addressed to us all:
"Be patient as God is patient, loving as God is loving.. reject harshness, bitterness, condescension, the militant spirit which sees those who differ as enemies.. The Christian programme is simple: love, love; goodness, goodness.. see in every human being a beloved brother/sister and friend."
We only have to do that... But we do have to do it!
http://www.jesuscaritas.info/feature/feature2001-02-007.shtm
Lars:
SvarSlettUlike evangeliseringsarenaer krever ulike metoder. Internett har sine fordeler, og sine begrensninger. Jeg synes det er flott at denne pensjonisten våger seg på et for ham kanskje ukjent medium, og lærer seg til å beherske ny teknikk. Han forteller selv at han har lært alt fra begynnelsen av. Og har lært med å prøve og feile. Det er sannelig sprekt når du er 75! Og han oppnår jo resultater. Han ser mennesker frelst, og takket være denne 75 åringen er de blitt himmelborgere. I det siste har jeg snakket med flere som gjerne vil gjøre noe konkret for Jesus, men det er ingen som spør etter dem i noen menighet eller annen sammenheng. Kanskje er dette noe de kunne gjøre? Mange behersker jo engelsk i dag, og i mange "stengte" land er de veldig ivrige etter å lære seg dette språket. Kanskje vi kunne se en hel gruppe med nett-misjonærer vokse frem. Om du som leser dette skulle ha behov for mer informasjon for å komme igang, må du gjerne ta kontakt, så skal jeg sette deg i kontakt med mennesker som kan hjelpe deg videre.
Joda, om det ikke kom klart frem så er jeg ubetinget positiv, og jeg synes det er et stort problem at altfor mange blir pensjonister, eller erklært udugelige i Guds rike, mens de har gaver og talenter de er kalt av Gud til å bruke til hans ære.
SvarSlettFremfor alt er det jo et stort tap for menighetene at disse passifiseres.
Mitt innlegg heller ment som en refleksjon på hvorfor dette ikke er så lett som det øyeblikkelig kan virke som.
I utgangspunktet vil man jo nemlig kunne si at alle kristne burdte kunne evangelisere minst en halvtime på nettet i uka med anonymt nick, men det er ikke fullt så enkelt som det virker ettersom at når man får med mennesker å gjøre så kalles vi svært fort til mer enn "hit and run evangelism".
Mvh.
Lars
Lars: Du har helt sikkert rett i at nettevangelisering ikke er lett. Som du påpeker: Det handler om mennesker, unike mennesker. Men det er flott at Gud reiser opp noen til å gjøre dette. Jeg takker Gud for det.
SvarSlett