The Gospel in a Flat World

On Monday, May 18, 1998, Kevin, Molly, Lucy, Amanda, and Noah Heinz bid farewell to their church family and set out on a journey to Kazakhstan. This had been preceded by a special commissioning service on Sunday, May 17. The text for the message that morning was Romans 10:14 (“How Shall They Hear?”). Kevin and Molly Heinz wanted to take the gospel to a place where few, if any, churches were found. Kazakhstan, with its decades as a part of the Soviet Union and its Muslim population, offered a challenging opportunity to bear witness to the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all things. It was not easy making the adjustments from suburban life in American to the harsh realities of a new culture and a new language (actually two languages, Kazakh and Russian). In September of 2000 Beth and I visited the Heinzes in their adopted city of Almaty. They were in the early stages of planting a church and encouraged us with their zeal to reach the Kazakh people.

Seven years later on August 22, 2007 Beth and I again crossed through ten time zones and returned to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Kevin and Molly were there to meet us at the new airport. But this was only the beginning. We saw new automobiles, new construction, and newly paved roads everywhere. There is a wave of prosperity sweeping over this central Asian metropolis. But best of all there is a new church in the city. It is the Kalkaman Bible Church. On Sunday morning the little flock met in a newly renovated house a few miles from where the Heinzes live. The service started shortly after 11:00 a.m. with Byeram, a man whom Kevin has been discipling, playing skillfully on the dumbra (a stringed instrument) and leading worship in song. Lifting their voices in praise to God was Keray, age 72, holding his little blue hymn book close to his aging eyes joined by Kuderbye, the converted alcoholic, Goolmeira, Byeram’s wife, and others. There were testimonies and prayer followed by a message from Kevin from Exodus 20 explaining the purpose of the Mosaic Law in the redemptive plan of God. Molly helped Beth and me to understand what Kevin was saying because he was teaching in Kazakh. Only seven years ago Kevin and Molly were trying to function in the market place with incomplete sentences and halting Kazakh. One was teaching and the other was translating a language, which only nine years ago was an unknown tongue to them.

Traveling to other countries, experiencing different cultures, and hearing languages which we cannot understand is an adventure. But the real joy of it all is spending time with God’s servants who have taken up their cross and followed Christ. This has led them to people who have not heard about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and how, through simple faith in Him, they may have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We call those who go cross-culturally to do this, missionaries. Some quibble over the use of this term and argue that all Christians are missionaries, or at least are supposed to be. In a sense that is true. All of Christ’s people are sent to tell the good news. But the word missionary has a time-honored use in describing those who have gone beyond the boundaries of their country to places and people around the globe. Some go and others send, but every believer in Jesus Christ is to be meaningfully involved in world missions. Thomas L. Friedman in his best selling book, “The World is Flat,” describes how ten forces have “flattened the world.” By flattening he means a new kind of globalization that has taken place in the last ten years, namely, one in which “people can plug, compete, connect, and collaborate with more equal power then ever before…flattening forces are empowering more and more individuals today to reach farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and that is equalizing power – and equalizing opportunity, by giving so many more people the tools and ability to connect, compete, and collaborate.”

The church of Jesus Christ has opportunities that were unimagined fifty years ago. Airline travel makes it possible to fly to a country like Kazakhstan, over eleven thousand miles away, in a relatively short time. It may not feel this way when you traverse multiple time-zones. Within twenty-five hours Beth and I were able to leave Atlanta and arrive in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Compare that to traveling by boat and train. Add to this the internet phenomena. Digitalized communication has changed everything. The Heinzes’ constantly updated Web site and e-mail accessibility have given them a virtual presence to us their sending church. Think of the days when missionaries “disappeared” for four years at a time, or even longer ago when they packed their earthly goods in coffins and never came back home. A new day has dawned. Now church members can visit their missionaries on the field and come back with a better understanding of how missions works and all within a matter of days, not weeks or months. Do you think this could make a difference in the degree to which a local church enters into world evangelization? I think so. This is not to say that technology can do things for us which only God can do. The early church didn’t have jets and computers, but it did admirably well in turning the Roman Empire upside down for Christ’s sake.

Berachah Bible Church has much to be thankful for. God, by his infinite grace and mercy, has moved a family out from our church and placed them half a world away as ambassadors of reconciliation. We can rejoice that the Heinz family is joyfully establishing relationships, building communication bridges, and sowing the seeds of the gospel for Christ’s glory. We stand along side Kevin and Molly Heinz in seeking to answer the four questions raised in Romans 10:14-15; “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” Because Jesus Christ is the culminating act of God in redemptive history, faith must be placed in Him if one is to be delivered from the wrath of God. There is no other way for sinners to get into God’s heaven other than through the saving faith in Jesus Christ. Since calling on the name of Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, God has put in place the means by which the gospel may be heard and believed. Through His infinite wisdom God has made us as Christians instruments in His hands. There must be someone to proclaim the hope that is in Christ. God is not going to write the message of the cross in the sky. It takes a messenger who is sent. We in the church of Jesus Christ are both of these, messengers and senders.

God has flattened the world, as it were, by creating modes of transportation and communication that connect us to the nations on this planet in extraordinary ways. My prayer is that we will have the discernment and zeal to make the best of our opportunities in this lost world before we stand in the presence of Jesus Christ to be judged according to our faithfulness.

Dr. Howard E. Dial
Berachah Bible Church