USING POWER EVANGELISM IN CROSS -CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS
Illustration;About 40 percent of Americans characterize the nation’s moral values as
"poor" and 41 percent say the state of moral values is "only fair." Only 18 percent rank the situation as "good" or "excellent." Weekly church attendees
had an even more negative perspective about the nation’s moral climate - 52 percent of active church members ranked moral conditions as poor. Women held
a more pessimistic viewpoint than men with 45 percent calling the situation poor, compared to 33 percent of men. Americans 18-to-29 years of age were less critical of the moral condition. Only 28 percent saw the situation as poor, while 24 percent said it was good or excellent. Some 67 percent of Americans said the nation’s values are deteriorating.
- Gallup Poll - May, 2002
The percentage of American adults who preferred no religion in 1991 was 7 percent and that figure doubled to 14 percent in 1998, say Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer, professors of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
- American Sociological Review - April 2002
The probability of a person accepting Christ between the ages of 5 - 13 is 32 percent. There is a four percent probability of doing so within the ages
of 14 - 18; and a six percent chance from age 19 to death.
- Mark Matlock, PlanetWisdom.com
Introduction - Everywhere people are looking for power. They may look to politics, business, education, or even religion to find a source of power. Often people mistake status, influence, or force for power. Some will even look to various spirits in order to gain a sense of authority, influence, or control.
Cross-cultural communicators, in the past, have sadly neglected the issue of spiritual-power thinking that the use of reasonable Christianity is the best way to produce change. However, in most non-western societies, the issue of power is central to most people’s perspectives. To fail to know how to speak to the heart of people’s needs, is to fail to communicate the full message of the scriptures. Let us turn our attention to the quandary of using power encounters in cross-cultural ministries.
The term power encounter is generally traced back to Allen Tippett, a noted missiologist who taught at Fuller’s School of World Missions who had a twenty years of first hand experiences in the Pacific Islands. He makes the following observations about power encounters as a missionary in the Fiji Islands:
Case Study 1 - "In presenting the gospel the missionary advocated a plan of salvation. Much of this his hearers needed no convincing of. Sin and fear were real. They understood the need of salvation. They did not doubt the power of the God about whom the missionaries spoke. They knew that power (Like many of old) could save and it had come from outside of themselves. If the advocates of Christianity could offer something better than the religion they had followed they were interested. But the superiority of that salvation had to be proved by practical demonstration. Somewhere there had to be an actual encounter between Christ and the old god. To the Pacific islander this was best done by means of his own act of faith-a visual demonstration of a change of loyalty.
This encounter is the key to the first stage of missionary activity, the stage that brings the pagan across the line into the Christian camp. Those historians and other scholars who have scoffed at mission work because of the material accompaniments of conversion have completely missed this key to the missionary situation - the fundamentality of DYNAMIC ENCOUNTER." (Tippet, Solomon Islands Christianity and People Movements in Southern Polynesia, pp. 160-161)
Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, God allows some of His servants to use visual demonstrations of His power against the forces of evil. Take for instance Elijah’s challenge to the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal in I Kings 18:20-40 when he says to the people,
"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him... Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves (450 prophets of Baal) and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire - he is God!" Then all the people said, "What you say is good." Then the prophets of Ball, called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. " O Baal, answer us. they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." Then he stepped forward and prayed: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."
Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord he is God! The Lord he is God!
Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there."
Notice the Essential Elements in this Power Encounter:
1. Power encounters are often done in the assembly of many witnesses - "All the people were assembled" - There is something powerfully persuasive when the entire community came out to witness a confrontation between the forces of one god set up against the powers of the true and living God. When you are able to assemble with Godly people they can support you with prayer and testimonies of the power of God in their own lives. Satan likes the darkness, but that which is done of God is done in light. Even Paul told Timothy, "The things which you have seen and heard in me in the presence of many witnesses, the same entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)
How To Do Power Encounters:
In doing cross-cultural evangelism using power encounters in Africa several lessons need to be learned from this spectrum analysis:
1. Adjust your evangelistic preaching, teaching, and interpersonal styles to those of the social class, personal, and Christian background preferences of the audiences.
Learn to become all things to all men that by all means you may save some. (I Cor. 9:22)
2. Associate with people of the class you wish to reach in order to learn about their problems, perspectives, and priorities. This will enable you to identify with the people more from their world view subjectively and objectively. Use the incarnational model of Christ as your ideal example. (Phil. 2:1-11)
3. Ask God to give you several inside intercessors from the social class, personal preference category, and Christian background you wish to reach. Using mediators as bridges to these different dimensions will facilitate your communication socially, emotionally, culturally, intellectually, and linguistically.
4. Realize that you are not a prisoner of your theological training or presuppositions. Sometimes, people think that just because they have received certain theological slants from their teachers in Bible College, seminary, or church that they are frozen in some dogmatic form and function. Consider the wide sweeping changes that Paul must have made in coming out of his legalistic Pharisaical tradition to become one of the greatest cross-cultural evangelist who ever lived.
5. Use human character stories to illuminate your evangelistic preaching through testimonies of people who have been changed through the power of Jesus. Give people the dark sides as well as the light sides of their lives. Show the courage the essential struggles that had to take place before the person was at a point where they were ready to surrender themselves to Christ. Paint a real picture of a full range of emotions and attitudes that the person wrestled with before seeing the power of God transform them. People love to read about Peter the Apostle for his sheer ability to overcome his many weaknesses. Help your audiences see how the hopes of people are always crushed when they fixed their attentions on anything but Jesus Christ. Describe the obsessions, imprisonments, and miseries of those who are chained by the powers of darkness.
6. Do not grow discouraged if you meet with rejection, opposition, or disappointment in your initial attempts. Many cross-cultural missionaries have to struggle for years to overcome the cultural, language, social, and ethnic barriers. Do not take rejection personally, remember, "If they rejected Christ they will reject you.
7. Seek counsel from experienced deliverance ministers. These are men who have labored long in the struggle against the forces of darkness. Be sure that you are learning from several counselors as Proverbs advises us, "IN the multitude of GODLY counselors there is victory."
8. Do not let your old emotional hurts weigh you down. Satan will throw every opposition possible at you during your deliverance ministries - sicknesses, criticism, threats, intimidations, accidents, etc. Take the promise of Jesus seriously when He said, "In the world you will have tribulations. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!" (John 16:33) So go in His name, the name which is mightier than any name - Jesus Christ.
9. Fight the spiritual warfare with the weapons of the spirit and not of the flesh. Eph. 6:10-18 gives you the necessary arsenal to use during your spiritual conflicts. Do not rely on the strength of your personality, knowledge, or wisdom. Instead, pray at all times in the Spirit for His power to fight the battles for you.
10. Find ways to turn your difficulties into victories. Part of the testimony of great deliverance ministers is their ability to see by faith how God can turn everything into good as they love God and fit into His greater purposes. Learn to be creative in seeing that when the electricity fails, the film equipment breaks, or the rains threaten to drive the people away, God is greater than he who is in the world. (I John 4:4)
Case Study 2 - In a certain village of Zaire, the people worshiped at a sacred tree. However, when the Pastor declared that he was going to chip down the tree people became afraid of what the spirits would do to them. They begged the Pastor not to do it, but he believed God wanted him to confront the evil spirits in a power encounter show-down. The Pastor said, "I must chop it down as it represents evil in our village. If the tree is allowed to remain, demons will continue to have sway over most people’s health and hearts."
The next day, all the people were summoned to watch the Pastor in action. They figured that as soon as the Pastor struck the first blow with his ax, he would die on the spot. After a week no one experienced any harm from the destruction of the sacred - idol tree. Soon youths from distant villages came to listen to the Pastor who dared to challenge the spirit powers of the sacred tree. He was willing to confront the powers of darkness in public as he told his congregation, "Jesus said, ’First bind the strong man and then you will be able to conquer the whole house.’" He explained that the people had been held captive by the powers of the demons who inhabited those trees for years and now they were free to trust Christ’s and His greater powers. The public element of the challenge gave validity to his words.
2. A man of God should challenge the people to stop wavering in their beliefs - A man of God must present the people with a choice between serving the god of darkness and the Lord of light. We need to present people with a clear decision between going to hell or heaven. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me." (John 14:6)
Case Study 3 - West Calanton saw only 5 converts in 15 years of ministry. But when a Pastor taught the missionaries to command the territorial demons to flee that area, things began to turn around. The Pastor said, "Command the evil spirits that unless they obey you, that you will send them into the abyss of hell through the power of Jesus Christ, the power of His resurrected Spirit, and His sacrificial blood. 1,500 converts were soon seen coming to faith in Christ as they were freed from their overwhelming oppression by demonic powers. Lots of resistant people may be more open to the gospel as we rebuke the demons in Jesus name, freeing people from fears that are holding them back from decisions for Christ.
3. The man of God should challenge the false prophets to prove their powers - The man of God should not expect to sail through without opposition. He should realize that he will probably suffer persecution, resistance, and opposition of all kinds. Do not enter into the world of power encounters unless you are willing to finish the battle. With a strong faith, Elijah believed that whatever the prophets of Baal could do, God was able to show Himself more powerful. He was willing, committed, and believing that God would see him through successfully to a final victory.
Case Study 4 - One witchdoctor in South America told a Christian to jump in a fire to prove that he had the same God as Elijah. However, the Christian said, "You go first. Then I can see what kind of power you gods have to protect you." The witchdoctor backed down. Sometimes, we must use wisdom before resorting to confrontation in dealing the forces of evil.
4. The false prophets failed despite their efforts to draw upon their gods’ power.- Eventually, the truth will prevail over all falsehood. We should be bold, determined, and courageous to expose the deeds of darkness regardless of the dangers. Many people are eager to believe in the God of all power, truth, and authority. These elements are a priority for people who are conditioned to believe in what they see, experience, and hear for themselves.
Case Study 5 - One of the top sorceresses in an area of Niger Republic began to get sick and lose her powers. Her sickness started a chain reaction among other witches as they seemed to subsequently lose their powers and health. Terrified, the witch went to a Christian Pastor to seek advise. She said, "Pastor, please tell me what I must do to be restored to health. I am in such misery that I would rather die than live in this condition." The Pastor bowed his head and prayed. After he read the story of Jesus casting out the demon from the man named legion into the swine, he seemed to get a sense that something was wrong. He asked the woman, "What do you do for a living?" The woman replied, "I tell people their fortunes!" The Pastor said, "You must first burn all your charms, fetishes, idols, and renounce all of the forces of darkness that you have been relying on. Only then will Jesus relieve you from these sufferings!" The woman left discouraged. But, after three weeks she returned to the Pastor’s house with all of her charms and demonic materials. "Here, show me how to be delivered from these spirits, I have tried to kill myself and I cannot even succeed at that." The Pastor gathered several of his elders together for prayer. Together, they publicly burned all of the witch’s charms and directed her in renouncing all trust in the powers of darkness. She publicly gave herself to Jesus Christ. Instantly, she was healed.
5. Power encounters allow the people to see practical solutions not just theoretical ones - Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal for his ineffectiveness. Sarcastically, he suggested that perhaps Baal is too busy, sleeping, or on a trip. God, on the other hand, is a God who is never too busy, sleeping, or takes trips from His watchcare over us. He is a God who can respond in practical, real, and demonstratable terms.
Case Study 6 - Dick Hillis of Overseas Crusade told a story about a Chinese soldier who asked him to deliver his wife from demonic control. Although, Dick tried to deliver her, he failed each time. Finally, he realized the reason. The woman would continue to throw herself into the fire in order to placate her fear of the spirits of her father. Then it struck Mr. Hillis what he must do. He went to the soldier and his wife and said, "I need to assertively command these spirits to come out of the woman, but she must be willing to surrender herself to the control of Jesus first." After hours of confrontation with her husband, the wife finally consented to do whatever necessary to be set free from the powers of sin, Satan, and selfishness.
Only when Mr. Hillis took the full authority given to him through the scriptures, commanding the demons to flee coupled with the woman’s willingness to surrender herself to Christ, did the spirits leave. He learned not to negotiate with evil. Complete deliverance can only come when there must be authoritative commanding of the spirits to depart combined with a complete willingness to be delivered into the arms of Jesus.
6. Power encounter preaching was based on powerful public prayer - Elijah put his own reputation and that of God on the line when he prayed in public saying,
"O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."
Let your preaching, living, and praying be known to the people openly. His prayer was in obedience to God’s command and not just on his own initiative. Elijah asked God with great faith to show the people that He is the true God and to change their beliefs from Baal to the only true God.
Case Study 7 - Dick Hillis, a missionary to Asia with Overseas Crusade, told the people that they must destroy the idols in their houses or they would never experience total deliverance from the evil forces that plagued them. The people strongly resisted any attempt to throw away their idols for fear of punishment from the spirits of their ancestors. When they beckoned Dick Hillis to come to their homes to deliver the demons for them, he said, "Jesus gave us the authority through His name, His word, and His Spirit to overcome the powers of darkness, use it!" The people felt stymied until, the chief said, "I will show you how." He stood and declared, "Jesus, in your name, I command all of these forces to leave our village at once. We burn all of these charms before you. We ask you to show us your power is greater than the power of the spirits." Within minutes the villagers broke out in a spontaneous praise of God for the release from fear, doubt, and depression. Several were healed and all were eye witnesses to the change of disposition that their practical faith made in their faces. Truly God had not given them a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound minds. (2 Tim. 1:7)
7. There is a strong denunciation of the work of the devil and demons in power encounters - Elijah realized that the prophets of Baal were actually serving the devil and the demons. The prophets of Baal even mutilated their bodies and working themselves into a frenzy. They tried to propitiate their god by cutting themselves with knives to offer themselves as a living sacrifice in Satan’s service. This continued for three hours, but they got no response. God purposely blocked the works of the devil.
8. There is often a highly charged emotional atmosphere present in power encounters - Do not think that you can do the work of power encounters without your whole heart, soul, strength, mind, and emotions. Elijah enjoyed taunting the prophets of Baal. When he asked God to call fire from heaven down, instantly it consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the altar, and even the surrounding soil and water. Spontaneously the multitude of people cried out with amazement and acknowledged that the Lord He is the true God. Immediately, Elijah commanded the people to slaughter the 450 prophets of Baal, which they did with enthusiasm. Allow God to fill you with His Spirit and speak and act with great boldness during the power encounter with the forces of evil.
9. Elijah involved all the people in the power encounter event - He invited all the people to come near and observe what he would do. He then involved the people in the experience by asking them to help reconstruct the altar to the Lord. Elijah selected 12 stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Though the tribes were divided into two nations they were still one in God’s purposes with a single covenant. He also had them dig a trench to hold about one-third of a bushel of seed. He then commanded the people to soak everything down with water on three separate occasions. All of this must have taken a great amount of work and time on the part of the people. But Elijah wanted them to be a part of the miracle so they would remember it forever.
10. Elijah followed up the power encounter with another one - When you are blessed by God with one power encounter, you must stay pure, holy, and abiding in Christ in order to perform other demonstrations of the power of His Spirit. Previously Elijah had predicted the drought to Ahab. However, now Elijah directed the king that there would be a heavy rain. Ahab rode off down the mountain to celebrate the end of the drought by eating and drinking, but Elijah walked to the top of the mountain to pray for more rain. His posture reflected the sincerity of his heart as he asked God to do another miracle for His glory. Since rains normally came from the west off of the Mediterranean Seas, Elijah instructed his servant to look in that direction. God answered Elijah’s petition as he persevered in prayer. At first the rain was small, but soon the whole sky grew black and a heavy rain descended. As Ahab ran away from the rain, he was overtaken. However, Elijah overtook both the rain and Ahab by running approximately 25 miles with divinely supplied energy. He thus had showed God’s power both over Baal and that of wicked Queen Jezebel and Ahab.
11. New Testament power encounters are always done for the purpose of increasing Christ’s kingdom - Some people get the false notion that power encounters are for entertainment, self-promotion, or fund raising purposes. Jesus gave us the real goal in which His power should be manifested through Acts 1:8 and his great commission in Matthew 28:19, 20. With a pure life and with the promises from Jesus given in Matthew 28:19,20, "All power in heaven and earth has been given to me, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing, teaching, and being reassured of my presence and power. Make your power encounters purposefully directed toward evangelism, discipleship and the planting of Christ’s church through quantitative and qualitative growth endeavors.
12. Demonstrate that the people’s old religions have lost their real power, ability to intimidate with fear, validity, and authority in power encounters - Notice that Elijah gave the prophets of Baal a great opportunity to use every trick in their book to demonstrate what their god could do. He even suggested that Baal may be busy relieving himself (Literally the Hebrew translation) or on a trip with Phoenician sailors implying that he had limited capacities to come to their aid. For six full hours of chanting of lightning, though it commonly comes to Carmel mountain, they saw no response from their innocuous god. If you do not do this, the people will be tempted to go back to their former religions thinking this one time power encounter only is an aberration from the norm.
13. Elijah challenged the people to turn their faith from Baal and toward the living God - Conversion involves turning from one faith, renouncing one’s reliance upon one belief system to Christ alone for salvation. There must be a sincere attitude of turning from idols to serve a living and true God, as Paul saw with the Thessalonican believers in I Thes. 1:7-9. Power encounters allow people to see how God’s power, authority, and protection are greater than those of people’s other "gods" whether they be charms, money, or prideful ideals. For example, Allan Tippett writing in his textbook, Missiology, cites an instance of how the king of Polynesian, Pomare, became a Christian through a miraculous power encounter:
Case Study 8 - "After many of the early missionaries were opposed and left the island in despair, people began to pray earnestly for the king’s conversion. When a fresh set of missionaries arrived some years later, King Pomare was in a more chastened frame of mind. He had been defeated in battle and had taken refuge on the neighboring island of Mo’orea. The missionaries accompanied him there and began to make headway with him. Pomare had begun to distrust his gods because of his lack of success against his enemies. He began to flirt with the missionaries, in the hope that their god was more powerful than his own and would bring him the military success he wanted. At the same time he was wary of abandoning his own gods entirely. Thus, though the missionaries had hopes of converting Pomare, they could not get him to abandon his gods publicly.
In view of the prospects, however, the missionaries arranged themselves on the side of Pomare and regarded his enemies as "heathen". In 1815, Pomare’s enemies on the island of Tahiti invited him to attend a conference with them. Pomare, accompanied by his supporters and some of the missionaries, sailed to Tahiti and, on a Sunday morning, he and his people attended a Christian church service conducted by the missionaries. During the service, the enemy was observed advancing with a large armed force, evidently to attack.The congregation became alarmed and the missionaries were prepared to break off the service. Pomare, however, ordered the service to be continued to its proper ending and stated that the enemy could be attended to afterwards.
The missionary writer, Rev. W. Ellis, had praised Pomare’s piety and faith in the face of the enemy. The truth is that any religious ritual that was broken off was regarded by the Polynesians as an ill omen for future success. The gods being invoked for assistance turned against their worshippers if the ritual was not properly completed. It was not Christian piety that induced Pomare and his followers to go on with the service but the fear of a broken ritual. At the end of the service both Pomare and his followers had plucked up courage in the hope that the Christian "god" would assist them in gaining victory.
From the outset of the battle which followed, fortune smiled on Pomare. The opposing leader, whose rank was immeasurably superior to that of Pomare, was killed with a musket-ball. On the death of their leader, the enemy retired and victory lay with Pomare and with the Christian god who had supported him. The power of Jehovah having been demonstrated, Christianity accepted by the whole island of Tahiti, and Pomare became king of the group. Pomare handed over the material symbols of his native gods to the missionaries to be sent to England to show the people of that country what fools the Tahitians had been." (Tippett, p. 264-5)
God used the power of prayer, the boldness of the missionaries, the threat of an enemy, the providence of God in destroying the leader of the enemies, and the demonstration of God’s greater power over the power of Pomare’s gods to convince him to lead his followers in a people movement to become Christians. Often power encounters are not planned events, but they happen when God is ready to show Himself strong in times of man’s greatest weakness. We need to be sensitive at any time, any circumstances, and with anyone who is ready to give God credit for the power and worship due only Him.
14. Notice, that power encounters are a complex combination of many factors working together at once - In order for the miraculous power encounter to be effective it must be a genuine work of God and not a counterfeit one. Just as the above example of Pomare was a powerful collective series of events so was Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal. Power encounters can never be reduced to a simple formula of rituals, rites, or liturgical functions.
Instead, power encounters are propelled with the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the faith of a man of God using the word of God in the will of God. Notice that in Elijah’s case, he initiated the power encounter, but in the King Pomare example, the enemies precipitated the demonstration of God’s power. We can never predict how the Spirit of God is going to use power encounters to bring about conversion, commitment, or grow in His church. God is still the one who owns the church and He makes it grow in ways that are suitable to Him.
Whenever someone purports to have a handle on how to manufacture power encounters through healing services, miraculous deliverances, or demon exorcism in his own ways, you know that God will not be pleased. God reserves the right to get all the glory for power encounters in His own way and timing. Still, we want to exercise the faith that is a vital ingredient in seeing God’s power unleashed through preaching, teaching, and general ministry of the gifts of the Spirit.
15. Be careful of counterfeit attempts to falsely manufacture humanly inspired power encounters - Trying to do God’s will in the flesh is always counter-productive. God was performing uncommon power demonstrations through the hands of Paul, to such an extent that people carried off to the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons he had handled. Immediately, their illnesses were removed and the evil spirits cast out. Then Dr. Luke tells us about some counterfeit agents of power encounters in Acts. 19:13 - 20:
"Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day, the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. (About $500,000) In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power."
Notice that God has severe penalties for those who try to distort His ministry through counterfeit power encounters. The amazing ability of God to turn deceitful men’s selfish endeavors into His glory never ceases to amaze me. The result was fear on the part of both Jews and Gentiles and a high regard for Jesus’ name in contrast with the phonies. At this time many Christians were still involved with sorcery, so this served as a stern warning against any who would dare compromise the sanctity of the truth. As a result many openly confessed their evil deeds and many grew in faith and commitment.
16. Give people opportunities to respond publicly to a choice to serve God or idols - One of the most dynamic elements of Elijah’s power encounter was his invitation to the people to make a decision for God or Baal. Too often we end our sermons, lessons, or family devotions without giving people a chance to make a decision between alternatives. We somehow expect people to make the transfers from theory to practice. Instead Elijah presented a challenge to the people by declaring:
"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.
Illustration: For seven years I served as an associate Pastor in three "Baptist" churches in southern California between 1976-1982. Not one Sunday passed when the Pastor gave an invitation, of some kind, to the congregation. This conditioned the people to respond in numerous ways to the preaching of the scriptures. It was in effect a mini-power encounter with the forces of their conscience. Choices have a way of refining our allegiances. I remember one Sunday, our Pastor called for young people to commit themselves to missionary involvement. From that simple invitation, 15 young people came forward who are now involved as full time Christian workers.
James tells us to be doers of the word and not merely hearers only who deceive themselves." (James 1:22) There is something uniquely consistent with power encounters - they present people with dramatic choices. Failing to choose is failing to decide for when it comes to will of God. Jesus made it clear to His followers, "If you are not for me, you are against me." Power encounters have a powerful way of bringing about change through challenging people to choose which directions their lives will take! A wise man once said, "To know what is right, but to fail to do it is as bad as doing wrong."
17. Power encounters allow people to make spiritual decisions in culturally approved social-cooperative events. All people are influenced, to varying degrees, by their cultural norms. However, when spiritual decisions are made in socially approved cooperative manners, they take on special significance. Social cooperation is helpful in revealing the deeper level of what is sacred to a people. Events give us insights into how people approach their supernatural beings. Not only do we get clues into the beliefs, but also the sanctioned practices of the people through socially-approved events.
Application; This is one of the reasons why God uses public power encounters. The Lord knows that this is one of the most meaningful ways of bringing about His revelation to the people.
Wholehearted community involvement in a spiritual decision is catalystic for long lasting change. This is one of the reason why it is wise to delay public baptism of an individual until his family and clan can be baptized with him. This allows the person to be brought into the family of God with a socially approved community that can help nurture his faith in meaningful and supported manners. Trying to rush people into making public declarations of their faith when there is not the socially approved networks to culturally sustain him, is often a cause of pre-mature crippling of a new believer.
Wholehearted community ritual services like baptism, celebrations, and public power encounters create an atmosphere of likeminded believers who need each others support. Allan Tippet writing about People Movements in Southern Polynesia (p. 164) points out the importance of public cooperative events in reinforcing beliefs of the new Polynesian believers in a remarkable case study. He stresses the power encounters have a real way of demonstrating the superiority of the power of God over the power of former gods:
Case Study 7 - "Malietoa (The family head) had accepted Fauea (The missionary) and the teachers, had cared for them and built them a chapel. The day before its opening he assembled his family, for it was on the family level that he had determined to act. He announced his intention of becoming a follower of the Christian God. The family, after discussion, approved. Socially all was correctly done; but in his own mind he was still not quite certain, and therefore determined to exclude his sons from the experiment... If all went well then the sons would follow their father in demonstrating the power of God over their former gods’ powers.
It would seem then that the natural point for power encounter was the reverence and taboo of an animal in which their god was thought to dwell... Their health, their security, their prosperity, their perpetuity all depended on their reverence and observation of taboos connected with their sacred animal.
The sacred animal was a fish and on the appointed day the forbidden food was set before the Malietoa. The incident created tremendous excitement. Friends and distant relatives had come from afar to witness the daring spectacle. Many expected all who ate to drop dead there and then. Those of the family who were to share the experiment were in some cases so frightened that they dosed themselves with oil and salt water as possible antidotes to the power of the sacred fish. But Malietoa and a few others with him took no precautions. As a POWER ENCOUNTER it had to succeed or fail on its own merits. By partaking as a social unit the encounter involved both Malietoa as an individual and his family as a group. They ate. The excitement subsided. No evil befell them. Thereafter for many the sacred fish became a falsehood. Malietoa’s sons could endure the separation for no more than three weeks, and then pleaded for the family’s permission to take the same step.
The incident led many people to dispense with their personal sacred charms or break other taboos, and to put themselves under the instruction of the Christian teachers. The movement gained momentum. Chiefs took the initiative; and thus it was that when Williams arrived after twenty moons, he found villages all around the coast where large groups had eaten or desecrated their sacred fish, built chapels, and were awaiting the return of Williams with more teachers. Their gods had been discarded, evil spirits had been cast out, and the houses swept-and were empty. (Tippett, p. 164-5)
God used the power of an indigenous family head to serve as a dynamic example of power encounter for his own people. This often is one of the most effective kinds of power encounters when a native believer uses his faith to risk even his own life for the sake of Christ. Jesus said, "Unless a man is willing to forsake all that he has he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33) There is something that releases an extra measure of God’s power through the faith of one who is willing to sacrifice everything for His faith in Christ and His purposes. Contrary to popular thinking, this involves intelligent planning, weighing of one’s options, and a bold faith in harmony.
Application; Sacrifice is only good when it is done in the context of wise planning. Similarly planning always involves risk in executing the strategy. The greater the risks, the larger the rewards. A power encounter may involve planning and sacrifices in time, possessions, reputation, status, family, money, effort, pride, etc. Like Paul we must come to a point where we say, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of the grace of God." (Acts 20:24)
18. Public performance of powerful spiritual beliefs is key for the maintaining of moral in a collectivistic society - Whereas individual western societies encourage the private practice of spiritual beliefs, non-western communities cherish public displays of their moral and spiritual values. For morals to carry weight in many non-western societies people must be able to see them openly demonstrated by the people of influence. Power encounters involve more than just overcoming the forces of evil. They are useful mechanisms for sanctioning certain moral and ethical practices. This may be a planned event or it may come when we least expect it. Peter Wagner gives us a powerful demonstration of how subscribing to the moral values of evil can be destructive in contrast with the constructive powers of Jesus Christ:
Case Study 8 - When Pak A (a church planter, a term for a missionary with a specific vocation of beginning and organizing new churches, in Central Sulawesi entered a certain village to share the gospel, he found himself face to face with a powerful witch doctor known throughout the area. The witch doctor was determined to stop the spread of the gospel on the spot. With the village people looking on, he pointed his finger to a calendar that was hanging on a wall about ten feet away. Then he challenged Pak A.
"Watch the power of my gods," he cried, "then show me what your God can do" With that the calendar was instantly torn apart.
Pak A was shocked. But... he tuned into the miraculous power of God in signs and wonders. He opened his heart to the Holy Spirit, and received instructions directly from God. He spoke gently but firmly to the witch doctor and those gathered around.
"The evil spirits always tear things apart and destroy them." he declared. "But the good God came to correct them and help us."
With that he pointed his finger at the torn calendar and a miracle happened. Instantly the calendar was put back the way it originally was!
No wonder Pak A continued successfully to plant churches in Central Sulawesi.
Application: Power encounters have a way of reinforcing positive moral value and denigrating negative ones. We need to be bold in our faith to allow God to show Himself strong for good, righteous, and constructive purposes.
19. Power encounters are direct confrontations to the control of Satan who has blinded the minds of the unbelieving - Doubtless, one element of Satan’s strategy is to keep people from understanding God through His mighty power. The devil energizes the lost, but of this they are unconscious. It is for this reason that the devil uses deception to try to limit men’s appreciation of the power of God. He even tries to keep most of the world deceived about his true nature, purpose, and status. Naturally, we can expect a great amount of opposition anytime we engage in power encounters for Jesus Christ’s sake. 2 Cor. 4:3,4 says this about Satan’s strategy:
"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
Case Study 9 - Recently, a girl in Imo State, Nigeria, whom we will call Comfort for confidentiality, had a serious encounter with the evil spirits. One day as Comfort was going out of her house she was approached by a stranger. The woman stranger gave her a key and told Comfort to use the key anytime she wanted to visit her. The next day, Comfort picked the key up and suddenly found herself standing by the banks of the Aba river. There she met the woman stranger coming up out of the river. After some persuading, Comfort accepted the woman’s invitation to visit her home under the water. During these seven days of absence from her home, the church members fervently prayed for the girl’s safe return.
After a week, something miraculous happened. The family heard a loud crashing sound on their roof. When they ran outside, they saw that something had hit their house with a tremendous force. When they came back into the house, they were shocked at what they saw. Standing in the middle of the room was Comfort. However, Comfort immediately began to slither around the sitting room floor like a snake, out of her mind. Later, the family discovered that Comfort had been possessed by evil spirits during her seven day associations with the spirit world. She told of beautiful mansions and a money making machine that could make anyone instantly wealthy. There she said, the spirits have manufacturing machines that allow them to produce anything they like. Even though the family was eventually able to cast the demons from Comfort, she remained unable to function normally for months. Her mind distorted the truths she formerly knew to be sacred.
It is important to deal with Satan with the power of the word of God, the authority in Jesus name, the power of the resident Holy Spirit in believers, and the blood of the lamb that cleanses us from all sins. Satan seeks to kill, slaughter, steal, and destroy, only Jesus can overpower him through our faith. (John 10:10)
21. Power encounters usually include some type of deliverance from the powers of darkness - Perhaps one of the reason that Elijah experienced such instant success in his day is through the dramatic deliverance of the people from the grip of fear of failure to worship Baal. When the 450 prophets were shown to be emissaries of the devil, the people did not hesitate to put them to death. They were looking forward to someone to deliver them from their powers. Peter Wagner writes about one such urban evangelist named Carlos Annacondia of Argentina in the April 1991 edition of Evangelical Missions Quarterly, p. 134-135:
Case Study 10 - "After observing the ministry of Carlos Annacondia for several years, I am prepared to offer a hypothesis: Annacondia may well be the most effective city-wide, interdenominational crusade evangelist of all time... I follow the lead of Donald McGavaran in arguing that biblical evangelism means bringing unbelievers to a simultaneous commitment to Christ and also to the body of Christ... Like Billy Graham and Luis Palau, Annacondia secures a broad base of interdenominational support from pastors and other Christian leaders. Like Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, he has had no formal academic theological training. Like Reinhard Bonnke and T.L. Osborne, he features miracles, healing, and deliverance from spirits in his meetings.
If I am not mistaken , the major difference is Annacondia’s intentional, premeditated, high energy-approach to spiritual warfare. A permanent fixture of Annacondia’s crusades is what has to be one of the most sophisticated and massive deliverance ministries anywhere. Under the direction of Pablo Botari, a wise, mature, and gifted servant of God, literally hundreds of people are delivered from demons each of the 30-50 consecutive nights of a crusade... To the uninitiated, it looks like total confusion. But to the skilled, experienced members of Annacondia’s 31 crusade ministry teams, it is just another evening of POWER ENCOUNTERS in which the power of Jesus Christ over demonic forces is displayed for all to see.
Many miraculous healings occur, souls are saved, and so great is the spiritual power that unsuspecting pedestrians passing by the crusade meetings have been known to fall down under the power of the Holy Spirit."
Wagner takes the Wilkes Spectrum from Peter Wilkes, Pastor of the South Hills Community Church of San Jose, California to demonstrate the principles of power - deliverance evangelism. It essential takes into account people’s world views and correlative social class in effecting the type of evangelism that yields the greatest results:
Conclusion - When Jesus left earth, the last words He gave to His disciples guaranteed them of the power of the Holy Spirit for cross-cultural evangelism. He said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and unto the utter most part of the earth." Westerners need to realize that Jesus did not emphasize reason, but power. Non-westerners should take notice that this power is unleashed in cross-cultural evangelism and not for selfish exploitation. This is our assurance that the Lord will empower us to do supernatural exploits in overcoming all opposing forces to His will. Many people have misused, abused, distorted, or neglected this power in their ministries with tragic consequences.
However, by using some of the above guidelines in using power encounters with cross-cultural ministries we can maximize our effectiveness for His kingdom’s qualitative and quantitative growth. Power is manifested in love, prayer, the word of God, but always through the name of Jesus. There is nothing more powerful in the world than a man possessed by the power of Jesus Christ. No spiritual weapon can destroy him, no other power can conquer him, in the will of God. Perhaps the key is found in prayer. Prayer provides power, poise, peace, purpose, and promised results.
Bibliography
1. Augsburger, David Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures, p. 273-280, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1986,
2. Fritz, Paul 504 Sermons Illustrations For the Nigerian Pastor, Great Commission Publisher, Jos, Nigeria, 1989
3. Kraft, Charles Christianity With Power, p. 96-100, Vine Books of Servant Books, Ann Arbor, 1989
4. Setiloane, G. How The Traditional World-View Persists in the Christianity of the Sotho-Tswana in Christianity in Independent Africa, pp. 402-412, London.
5. Tippett, Alan Missiology, p. 160-180 and 264-280, William Carey Library, Pasadena, 1987
6. Wagner, Peter Spiritual Power in Urban Evangelism: Dynamic Lessons From Argentina, p. 130-135, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, April, 1991
