Local Preacher, You Need The Global Church

In 1969, John Stott had a counterintuitive idea. The fruit of this idea continues to hone and challenge my preaching all these years later.

Each time someone purchased one of Stott’s books or paid him to speak, those proceeds went to a ministry, Langham Partnership, to raise up theologians and preachers in the Majority World. The plan was more than a sense of noblesse oblige from a man with a privileged background; it was a prescient response to the changing face of the church. More than Christian charity, it was missional strategy.

When Stott was born, less than 20 percent of the global church was outside the West. By the time he published Basic Christianity, the number of Majority World Christians had more than doubled. The pace of change only accelerated, with nearly 70 percent of Christians residing outside the West today.

As secularism ascended in Stott’s homeland, he had the foresight to invest in the leaders of the emerging multiethnic, transnational church. His vision was to support indigenous church leaders who could theologize in their own tongue and then have that scholarship translated into English for the good of the whole church. The idea was for a true partnership to emerge between believers in the West and the Majority World.

On the occasion of Langham’s 500th publication, I want to share how God has used our brothers and sisters from the global church to encourage my preaching.

Apply Scripture with the Global Church

If you picked up a commentary on Judges by a theologian in the Philippines or one on Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians by a scholar from Namibia, what you’d read is the same biblical truth but applied to situations alien to an American reader. And one of the great lessons Stott left us in his classic book on preaching is that the wall between “exegesis” and “application” is porous.

Scripture is, in and of itself, applicable. Therefore, when a preacher shows that inherent applicability to myriad contexts, the preacher isn’t doing something beyond exposition. When a preacher considers how the gospel applies to a military coup or a famine or a natural disaster, he is plumbing greater depths and dimensions of God’s truth.

As we bring our backgrounds and struggles to Scripture, so do our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. Varying contexts lead to differing questions, and the biblical answers found by believers in the Majority World shed fresh light on familiar passages. To better understand God’s Word, we need the diversity of God’s people around the world.

The biblical answers found by believers in the Majority World shed fresh light on familiar passages.

Of course, some worry that an emphasis on diverse perspectives in sermon preparation is a slippery slope to relativism. The fear of relativism isn’t unfounded. In his article “Syncretism” in Langham’s Africa Bible Commentary, Nigerian theologian Lawrence Lasisi is certainly right to implore the preacher not to sacrifice the gospel’s exclusivity “at the altar of multicultural and religious relativism.” That’s a warning I pray we all heed.

While I agree that culturally inoffensive, milquetoast sermons are a problem in our day, exposing ourselves to Majority World voices isn’t the source of that problem. It’s a remedy. Reading non-Western scholarship has bolstered my confidence in Scripture’s truthfulness and relevance. The global church hasn’t softened my preaching; it’s sharpened it.

On the Reading of Global Books

Perhaps you’ve heard C. S. Lewis’s oft-repeated advice to read one old book for every three new books. The context of this advice is found in his preface to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation. There, Lewis writes,

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.

What Lewis says about “age” and “period” can equally be said of “place.” As he’s used the ancient church, so God has used the perspectives of non-Western theologians to call me to a deeper holiness, exposing my worldliness in a way only an outsider can. Their biblical reflection has unearthed idols in my heart—idols associated with comfort and wealth—to which I was previously blind.

Six Non-Western Resources for Preaching

If you’re convinced of the value of global-church reading but unsure where to start, here are a few resources to check out.

Ajith Fernando’s Joyful Perseverance. Fernando has given his life to ministry among the poor urban youth of Sri Lanka, and he’s one of my favorite preachers. The book offers wise counsel from a seasoned pastor on the spiritual gift of stick-to-itiveness in vocational ministry. Whether you’re at the front or back end of your ministry, you’ll be encouraged to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

Chee-Chiew Lee’s When Christians Face Persecution. Writing from Singapore, Lee lays out a sweeping biblical theology of suffering and invites the church today to offer the response God’s people have always had to persecution: perseverance. Lee challenges the church to anticipate the suffering that comes from the world and expect the strength that comes from the Spirit.

Christopher Wright’s podcast On Mission. How is the Spirit bringing reconciliation in the Middle East? How are our brothers and sisters in Ukraine applying the balm of Gilead to those living amid the rubble of war? Wright, Langham’s global ambassador and ministry director, takes the listener around the world to show how God is moving in unified, powerful, and often hidden ways.

David Bjork’s Every Believer a Disciple! This is a great resource if you’re looking for something to read with new believers. Too often, pastors have institutionalized the Great Commission to such a degree that we equate church growth with disciple-making. Yet it’s possible to recruit many people to an organization without making a single disciple. Writing from Cameroon, Bjork shows that God’s mission on earth isn’t just a foundation on which to stand but a baton with which to run.

Gilbert Soo Hoo’s 1–3 John: A Pastoral and Contextual Commentary. This is just one of scores of useful Bible commentaries found in Langham’s catalog. As part of the Asia Bible Commentary series, Soo Hoo deftly handles John’s epistles with exegetical skill and pastoral care. Writing in a Hindu context likely to misunderstand the incarnation as the visitation of a spiritual avatar, Soo Hoo shows that the early Christians recognized the divinity of the man Jesus as an exclusive, permanent reality. I used the commentary when I taught through 1 John some years ago and incorporated content I read into each lesson.

Yohanna Katanacho’s Praying Through the Psalms. This is a book unlike any I’ve read. Too often, Westerners approach the Psalter as if it’s an individual’s prayer journal. In reality, it’s a communal songbook. The Psalms aren’t meant to be read in isolation but prayed in community. This book joins a Palestinian Israeli believer as he prays through each psalm—reflecting, lamenting, and rejoicing. It’ll break your heart and steel your spine as your prayer life is joined with a believer’s on the other side of the world who’s reeling from loss.

These are but a few of the global resources that have revolutionized my preaching. Reading how Christians from the Majority World commend and confront cultural practices in their lands has better equipped me to engage the hopes and fears of my context with greater skill and fidelity.

At the church I serve, we often follow a liturgy developed by the Anglican Church of Kenya. Each week this liturgy puts in our mouths, “We have died together. We will rise together. We will live together.” It’s a beautiful reminder of that which is true not only in the local church, but in the global church. Scripture is God’s self-revelation to all people, irrespective of contexts. In reading diversely, we come to see the inherent unity of the faith and the human experience. We’re all baptized into the same body, we all fight the same enemy, and we’re all being built into the image of the same Son.