Of the various hats I have the privilege to wear at LAM's Miami Service Office, one that I have particularly enjoyed is doing the doctrinal interviews with potential missionary candidates.
Usually these meetings take place in the Miami office where I serve and where our potential missionary candidates come in for a few days of orientation to the mission before being accepted as missionary candidates. Last week however I had the privilege of meeting online with a missionary who has been on the field for 20+ years and was changing from his previous N. American missions organization to LAM. He had been working with HCJB, a ministry in Quito Ecuador that I had visited on my second summer mission trip during my senior year in High School back in 1988. He has been discipling young pastors and lay leaders for a number of years and is taking part in a church plant as well. During our conversation we touched on many themes that I had also experienced while serving in Chile, and have come up again and again over the years in working with LAM missionaries on the field. I love discussing theology when it is directly applied to daily life!
Anyway, LAM is an interdenominational missions agency, which means we work with most people and organizations who fit the standard definition of "Christian", and understand that we are saved by grace alone through Jesus sacrifice for our sins. In bridging numerous denominations and a variety of"practices" in the carrying out of Gospel ministry it's important to not only match a missionary by their ability (electrician, teacher, doctor, preacher, evangelist) but by their particular theology and practice (charismatic vs. cessationist or liturgical vs. non-liturgical worship etc). This leads to some very interesting conversations with those who are aware of the Latin American Church panorama and those who assume it is very similar to the US. In speaking with this particular pastor I learned about his experience in planting a church in an arena where the "principal" (biblical beliefs interpreted from scripture) and the "practice" the application and walking out of those beliefs on a daily basis are so often blurred to the point of no longer being distinct one from another. An example would be that in principal we must worship the Lord because he is worthy to be praised. The individual practice of whether guitars are permissible in worship as opposed to accordions may seem ludicrous to most, but do become issues with churches who raise the concept of practice to the level of principal.
As we wound up our conversation I reflected on how often our own churches fall into the same traps. Practice isn't necessarily bad, in reality "culture" is how we all simply do live a little bit different. But when it becomes divisive and a stumbling block for presenting the principal of the Gospel: Saved by Grace through Jesus Christ, practice is anything but what we're called to do. I rejoiced that God had given this pastor an understanding that we cannot force our practice upon others but we must cling to the principals of the Gospel and even share these in a John 13:35 understanding of loving one another. I also thanked God that I have the privilege of working alongside of men like this who are not ashamed of the Gospel but are willing to commit their lives to it be that in Ecuador, Cuba, South Florida, all the US and the rest of the world.
God bless and have a great weekend!
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In His Hands / En Sus manos;
