Even a capsule sentence can reveal one’s view of God and the world. “The God I pray to,” said an American astronaut, “is not so small that I expected to see him in space.” (John Glenn, Jr., was retorting to the gibe of Gherman S. Titov, Soviet cosmonaut, “In my travels around the earth … I saw no God or angels.”—Newsweek, May 21, 1962). Each man is thus stating the ABC’s of his particular Weltanschauung that nations variously aligned in global cold war express in fuller combinations of meaning. Each man also reveals something of the orbit that defines his daily life. Amid the enthusiastic acclaim of thousands who lined the great avenues of the nation’s capital, Astronaut Glenn could well afford to be humble; he knew his God was present. Later in addressing Congress he evinced the freedom of spirit to show himself as one among peers. The glowing 50,000-degree shock wave of re-entry friction had been less than a foot ahead of his carrier, making the possible loss of the Mercury’s heat shield an earlier test of his faith and character. The calmness of this man so humanly alone in space was remarkable.
But was he really alone? Carefully executed plans had prepared a complex tracking system of 16 centers, manned by skilled scientist-technicians who actively stand by through each moment of every space flight. And at Cape Canaveral the Mercury Control Center coordinates all phases, keeping in touch with the network of auxiliary centers and with the man in space.
At each center all personnel unite to achieve those common goals that relate to the total space project. Short-range objectives and responsibilities for individual centers and workers are clearly defined. Progress, as it appears from above and below, is communicated back and forth between spacemen and tracking engineers. Said Astronaut Scott Carpenter, for example: “I felt staging (the dropping away of the booster stage). Do you confirm?” Gus Grissom: “We confirm staging.” Or, in the earlier trip it was Astronaut Glenn: “I can see the whole State of Florida just laid out like a map. It’s beautiful.” Personal contact is reinforced by constantly projecting the spaceman’s face on a screen in the centers.
The Church which Jesus Christ came to establish is, in some ways, like a system of tracking centers. God as Holy Spirit would control all. Focus is upon Christ Jesus, and his purposes scripturally revealed determine the tasks to be achieved. The worldwide community of local churches tries to help twentieth century man to enter and maintain his true orbit, that is, knowledge and fulfillment of his true reason for being. For this purpose the Church relies on the revealed Word of God for its presentation of an authoritative and valid Christian world-life view.
The Church’s function involves (1) teaching the truth of this Bible directly and through demonstration; (2) leading individuals into relationship with the living Lord; and (3) guiding them effectively through growth, training and outreach to participate in sharing this life in Christ with others around the world.
The Church As A Tracking System
The purpose of the Church’s ministry is to aid every man in gaining his proper life orbit. For the Christian is convinced that God is adequate for all the demands of his life, caught as it is in the cultural dynamics of the twentieth-century space age. Man finds his life orbit first of all by reestablishing his relationship with God. Only this triune God is all-wise and all-powerful. He alone is sufficient to control man’s life and to meet man’s needs as he lives out all human relationships. God is transcendent yet immanent, the Creator who has called the worlds into being and maintains them in space and time. As sustainer of all life this God can safely bear and uphold man’s space encapsulated life through its twentieth-century flight to His own deserved glory and to man’s present and future blessing. He who fashions the snowflakes’ diversity and beauty is no less skilled in forming and guiding the course of life for the world’s endless range of complex personalities. He who controls the history of nations is no less competent to overrule individual environment and to direct the total process of development for his glory.
God, manifesting himself in the incarnate Son, has overcome the power of sin and Satan, death and hell through his vicarious atonement, thereby dealing conclusively with man’s gravest problems. He who was “… in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15), as risen, glorified, and interceding Lord gives new power along life’s way. He invites man to come boldly for help in time of need.
Only as God the Holy Spirit floods man’s being can he meet the corroding influences of this sin-cursed world. As a responsible creature who has forfeited his ability and willingness properly to serve God and neighbor, he requires the Spirit’s supernatural restoration and empowerment. Ever-present sins—pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth—show their ugly faces in multiplied forms and in various ways as the individual attains progressive maturation levels. Contributing to maladjustments, spawning in undesirable environments, sin darkens, distorts and perverts man’s mind, his emotions and his will. But historic Christianity offers as a protagonist the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It offers a remedy for sin in Christ’s accomplished atonement and present intercessory ministry. It offers the hope of life eternal with God.
The Need For Leaders Today
Today every area of life cries for leadership. Knowledge and its mastery have soared to an unprecedented degree. But leaders through the morass of uncertain goals and values are few. We need men and women not only of knowledge, but of perspective and commitment, men and women who know and who do the will of God.
The world frequently turns aside from Christian leadership, for the revealed standards of sacred scripture cut across the relative and changing values of secular society. A Christian knows the established relationships, principles and norms that should determine man’s thinking and action. Unfortunately it is usually only the crisis times that encourage the world to seek out truly Christian leaders and their guidance. So Joseph was summoned in the time of Pharaoh’s need. Daniel came to assist Nebuchadnezzar. A little Syrian maid directed leprous Naaman to the prophet and his ministry.
Individual Christians with proper qualifications have similar opportunities for leadership today. Even more frequently groups of believers may work together for a Christian impact. The responsibility is unchanging: under God’s direction to apply the basic principles of Christian truth to the problems of daily life. The effectiveness of such leadership depends in large measure upon the quality of a church’s ministry in teaching and training individuals and groups for their responsibilities. In short, leadership depends upon Christian education. The educational procedures followed in the home, the church and in school determine to what extent the Christian world-life view will be understood, believed and lived.
The Task Of Christian Education
What, then, is the specific task of Christian education? Basically, it consists in communicating an understanding of the Word of God. As Dr. Jan Waterink, the internationally-known psychologist, has stated: The aim is “the forming of man into an independent personality serving God according to His Word, able and willing to employ all his God-given talents to the honor of God and for the well-being of his fellow-creatures, in every area of life in which man is placed by God” (Basic Concepts in Christian Pedagogy, Eerdmans, 1954, p. 41).
Of the 60,000,000 enrolled in Sunday school throughout the world in 1961, how many actually entered the orbit of personal relationship with the living God? How many came into an understanding of the Scriptures in terms of this relationship? How many matured into persons whom God could entrust with Christian leadership? How many were thwarted in their Christian growth because of inadequate and unrealistic training? How many God-given talents were left dormant or unused because of prejudice or selfishness? Each local church must answer these questions and search its corporate conscience.
According to the 1962 Yearbook of American Churches, 283,885 Sunday schools in the United States enroll 3,637,982 teachers and officers to instruct a total of 43,231,018 pupils. How many of these pupils are learning the truth of the Bible directly and through application in life situations? How many know a living Lord? How many are being trained to participate effectively in the life of the local church and to share Christ with others around the world?
The Church includes all races, all nations, all peoples, all ages. It enfolds the senior citizen, the exceptional child, the employed and unemployed, the married and unmarried, the child, the adolescent, the adult. Each has a life to be lived, each has problems to be faced. In the Church the love of God must be experienced through the love of men and women, boys and girls, through shared responsibilities and social cooperation to the glory of Christ. Here individuals must be trained. Here their needs must be met through worship, instruction, and service. The Church must be a preview of heaven.
If Christians are to live for the glory of God, individuals and groups must spread out from these training centers to share the Gospel in word and life. Similarly, the practice of intercessory prayer must embrace fellow believers around the globe to the strengthening of the entire body of Christ.
The Church’s physical resources, its organization, program and leadership, all aspects of its life and ministry are essential to its tremendous assignment. All exist for but one purpose; they must present the content of the Christian world-life view, demonstrate its validity for this twentieth-century space age, and encourage its acceptance for individual and social realization of man’s blessing and God’s glory. The Christian who assumes his responsibilities toward God and man is the essential, basic entity.