Many spiritual topics that captivate the global church are often ignored in the American church today to our detriment.
It’s easy for us to focus on the needs of our own churches. After all, this is where and to whom God has called us to serve. Yet, God’s design is for us to contribute to and benefit from the global church.
In September 2024, 5,000 believers from more than 200 countries gathered in South Korea for a week of exhortation, collaboration, worship, and prayer at The Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. The participants included many believers who represent Christ in their workplace in addition to church and ministry leaders.
The Bible teaching and discussions were robust. This was a diverse gathering, so the teaching and writing did not match any denomination perfectly. But this group was intentionally biblical and gospel focused. We share many areas of ministry focus with the global church. But it’s striking how many topics captivate the global church that many in the American church ignore today. Here are five of those points of emphasis.
1. The importance of the Holy Spirit
In the same way Jesus’s followers waited in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit, the global church points to the importance of waiting for the Holy Spirit today. In America, we’re quick to pursue our mission in our own strength. Yet the mission is not possible without proclamation that is faithful to Scripture and affirmation of the role of the Holy Spirit.
Our theology may say one thing, but our behavior is often more focused on our work and our plans than God’s presence. We desperately need the Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of people within our churches and among those who are not yet followers of Christ.
“Coram Deo” is a Latin term for the presence of God. Our goal should be to constantly live in the presence of God. We are not just asking the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of others, God has called us to constantly rest in His presence and ask, “What should I do?”
When this takes place, it’s common for it to prompt personal and corporate repentance and seeking forgiveness from others. In the words of Bishop Efraim Tendero, CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance, “We need to revise the view of Jesus’s presence from mere security to inculcate accountability.” In God’s presence, we have no secrets.
Spiritual disciplines can help us step into God’s presence. Such habits can draw us to listen to God and to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. This is far different than what global leaders observe in our western cerebral ecclesiology.
2. The need for prayer
Similar to the emphasis on the Holy Spirit is the frequent dependence on prayer heard throughout the global church. A believer in Hong Kong prayed for her coworkers only to find them coming to her with questions and seeking spiritual guidance. A believer in Iran prayed and fasted for two months before she was called to a place six hours away where she found people hungry for the Lord.
S.D. Gordon, a devotional writer in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century wrote, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Starting with prayer demonstrates the humility of saying, “We can’t, but God can.”
The growth of the church in South Korea and the large number of international missionaries they send to reach the nations coincides with a high value they have placed on prayer. It’s common for their churches to have early morning prayer meetings every weekday. A Korean missionary in Madagascar frequently spends his Saturday mornings—the one day with no prayer meeting—prayer walking his city. This heart for seeking God’s heart drives the mission.
Ronaldo Lidorio, missionary to peoples in the Amazon, pointed out, “It is impossible to accomplish mission without courage.” That courage comes from God, not training, knowledge, or experience. We need to pray often, asking God for courage to share and live out the gospel. “We are not called to pray. We are called to a life of prayer,” said Lidorio.
3. Our role in facing injustice
Lidorio also pointed to the reality that “because the gospel is countercultural, it finds injustice.” As believers uncover and begin to address this injustice, they face opposition and persecution.
The question is not whether there is injustice in our world today. It’s rampant. The question is not whether God cares about injustice. He does. The question is whether we as believers are engaging with the people and problems in our community to make a difference in the name of the gospel.
The global church assumes the problems in your context are problems believers are actively seeking to make a difference in. That brokenness is not just a context for ministry. Rather, proclaiming the gospel while displaying love for the broken is integral to the mission. Believers seek to impact spiritual, mental, and physical brokenness in the workplace, in the community, in politics, and in the environment.
When someone raises an issue of injustice in America, Christians are quick to point out when it’s not our fault. Instead of this more self-focused response, we would better reflect Christ’s compassion if we saw local issues and asked, “How can I help?”
4. How to stand with those facing persecution
Scripture tells Christians to expect suffering because of their faith. One reason American Christians experience little suffering is because we’re not radical. Christ’s teachings are radical. They go against human instinct to claim and protect “what’s mine.” They put others first. If we engage in areas of injustice, we’ll suffer for it.
Indeed, Americans have a high level of religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution, but contrary to what many in our culture may think, this freedom is both the freedom to gather and to scatter, spreading the Word and will of God in our communities. As we engage in going into our communities to declare and display the gospel, there will be resistance to this message. But such resistance will likely still pale in comparison to that experienced in many places in the world.
What can we do? Being informed is an important part of embracing the global church. Praying for believers experiencing persecution is a tangible way to help. A church in Madagascar has a weekly prayer meeting for the persecuted church. A believer in Singapore attends a regular prayer meeting for Muslim background believers who often face family and community rejection when they identify with Christ.
America still has power and influence in the world. Asking our government to pressure other governments to give their citizens religious freedom is another tangible way to seek to transform society.
5. Our need for the global church
Standing together with the global church and its persecutions could be nurtured as a spiritual discipline. Doing so draws us closer to God and His activity around the world even in adversity. Jesus Christ is the head of His Church. This includes believers in all places. As members of Christ’s body, we are designed to identify with the global church, learn from each other, share with each other, and be in relationship with each other.
The Bible describes us as being one bride and one body. We need other churches around the world in the same way your church needs each member. This doesn’t mean we know about every church, stay up to speed on every hardship, nor invest in every cause. But it does mean our local churches work best when they’re seeking to be relationally connected with parts of God’s global church. There are burdens among global churches that your church is equipped to bear. There is good news among global churches that your church can celebrate.
Hopefully these five insights from the global church can improve our faithfulness where God has placed us to serve.
For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott McConnell is the executive director of Lifeway Research.
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