I am preaching through the book of Acts and one of the surprises to me has been in seeing where people are converted.
The big theme of Acts is the continuing, spreading and multiplying of the word of God (Acts 2:47, 6:1,7, 13:49, 19:20). The Ascended Christ is building his church to the ends of the earth, and nothing can stop it. In many ways, Gamaliel in Acts 4 ironically summarises the whole of the book: “If it is of God, you will not be able to stop it”. Acts is a gloriously encouraging book. The gospel goes out as prophesied from ‘Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)
The Church of Jesus Christ is unstoppable – His Kingdom stands and grows forever. The purpose of the Book of Acts is to give us confidence; to fill us with optimism. It is a realistic optimism, however. Hand-in-hand with this growth comes persecution and suffering. This comes from both inside and outside the church. The tone of preaching in Acts is confrontational – the Jesus whom you crucified and killed… God has raised and exalted (Acts 2:36,4:10). Basically, you couldn’t be more wrong in your assessment of Jesus. The response called for is repentance: a radical change of mind and heart regarding Jesus. The preaching in Acts is far more direct than how we preach today, regardless of the audience.
We find in Acts that God reaches people by sending missionaries to their cultures or extracting people from their cultural roots in order to hear the gospel. These missionaries see Churches established – Conversion in Acts is being added to the church. What is striking is that most people converted in Acts are converted away from their natural home.
In Acts 2, most of the 3000 converts in Jerusalem were away from home, representing 13 different ethnic/ language groups.
Acts 2:8-11: 8 “And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
These nations are from the North, South, East and West of Israel. It seems that in the context of Pentecost, the gift of speaking in other tongues was given in the first instance for evangelistic/ missionary purposes so people could hear the Gospel in their ‘own tongue’.
In Acts 6, it would seem that Stephen, who was Greek, was probably converted in Jerusalem.
One of the obvious examples is in Acts 8 with the Ethiopian eunuch and the beginnings of the church in Africa.
In Acts 9, Paul’s conversion is away from home on the road to Damascus.
In Acts 10, Cornelius, probably from Italy, was converted in Caesarea in Israel. Acts 11- Antioch – there are elders from several different ethnic groups.
Acts 13. Barnabas, from Cyprus, seems to have been converted in Jerusalem.
Acts 16:13-15 – Lydia was from Thyatira- modern-day Turkey.
It is not universally the case, there are examples of people being converted at home (the lame beggar in chapter 3, the Philippian jailor), but there are not many. Timothy is a wonderful example of being brought up in a covenant home, nurtured by his mother and grandmother in the Scriptures (2 Tim 1:5). In many ways, he is a pattern for the ongoing life of the church as children are reared within covenant homes. There are also the household baptisms where we must assume that those within those homes were locals too. However, in Acts, predominantly the people who were converted are away from their homes. The outsiders come to faith in Jesus when away from their familiar environment.
I think we see this pattern continuing today. In part, this occurs because when people are away from their cultural roots, they are often open to considering alternative worldviews and different answers to the big questions in life.
It helps us to understand why conversions are happening in the UK amongst different groups of people.
The diaspora – those working/living away from their home or displaced because of persecution/ restrictions on personal liberty. For example, in our context of West London, we are seeing a greater openness amongst Persians. The freedom of being in the UK has meant that many Persians have professed faith and joined churches. I keep hearing of Iranians and Afghans being converted in churches all over the UK. In God’s sovereignty, there seems to be a greater openness to the gospel amongst Muslims from Persia than in other parts of the world.
In our congregation, we have a worker amongst Japanese people, and his studies show that very few Japanese people are coming to faith in Christ in Japan. The cultural pressures are so great that Christianity is not even seen as an option; but in the global cities of the world, Japanese people are to a greater degree willing to engage with the gospel. The numbers of people being converted are not huge, but they are significantly more outside of Japan than inside.
The last 30 years have seen the fruitfulness of ministry to international students in the UK – particularly Chinese people. I am told that many of the senior leaders in the Chinese church were converted whilst studying abroad.
In the UK, it would also explain why over the last century student evangelism has been so fruitful in seeing people converted and leaders discipled. One could argue that camp work also falls into this category, with young people away from their homes.
In thinking through this pattern of ministry from Acts, it is a strong argument for the importance of cities. It is certainly one of the reasons why churches ordinarily grow more in cities than those in more rural environments. Our cities are full of people from all over the world. That brings huge problems and pressures, but also wonderful opportunities for the church. It has been said before, but the world has come to our doorstep.
We should have confidence that in places where there is a large amount of people moving in and out, there will be greater fruitfulness in people coming to faith. It should also lead us to earnestly pray for those churches in areas where the population is not moving and is static. In many ways, that is far harder soil to be labouring in for the gospel. There are ministers who are faithfully labouring in places and towns where there has been very minimal growth in churches for years, and yet they are still holding out the light of the gospel faithfully. These men and their churches are heroes. These churches need our encouragement.
For those of us in churches where there is lots of movement of people in our areas, it should help us see the importance of welcoming the nations. Thinking through how can be as welcoming as we can be.
We might not be able to speak their language, but in the way that we greet people we can express easily our gladness that they have come to us. Showing hospitality to strangers; asking people back into our homes; or if that is terrifying for them and us, asking them if they want to meet up for coffee. We have found English as a second language classes a wonderful way of showing compassion and mercy to those in need. I think however, it’s important that welcoming can be done in really simple ways, it doesn’t need to be programmatic. Small churches in many ways can do this more easily and naturally than larger churches.
I’ve never been to a church that doesn’t think it is welcoming. In fact, most churches pride themselves on being welcoming, but that hasn’t always been my experience and neither has it been yours. It’s something that needs constant attention and thinking and rethinking through. We mustn’t presume we are welcoming.
This truth that people are being converted away from home must encourage and motivate us. It is very easy to look at the hostility of our culture and media towards the Lord Jesus; to see the smallness of churches; the apathy of so many, and the disaster of our mainline denominations. The Lord is building his church, he’s calling the nations. His gospel is unstoppable.
God is the one who makes nations great and destroys them (Job 12:23). He raises up kings, and also brings them down (Daniel 2:21). The Lord is sovereign over the flux of people coming in and out of our cities and he is calling his elect from every tribe and tongue and nation. He is the one who is adding to his church.
I don’t think we should hand this work over to the Parachurch ministries. It is the church that the risen and ascended Jesus adds to. There are no para-church organisations in Acts. We have allowed parachurches to hijack missions which is rightly the Church’s place. There may historically have been good reasons for this but particularly in the area of what the Lord is doing in our cities and the simplicity of what is called for, there isn’t the need for parachurches in this work.
The book of Acts presents us with an unstoppable Jesus, an unstoppable gospel and an unstoppable church.