Johannes Sieber - The mission remains!

Johannes Sieber

The mission remains!

How we win the next generation

for a life with Jesus

Johannes Sieber

The mission remains!

How we win the next generation

for a life with Jesus

Editor: Rita Born

Cover design: spoon design, Olaf Johannson

Cover photographs: Benjamin Zanatta, unsplash.com

Matthew Gerrard, unsplash.com

Illustrations: Johannes Sieber

Letterings: Matias Oppliger

Composition and production: Edition Wortschatz, Cuxhaven

© 2021 Johannes Sieber

Edition Wortschatz, Sauerbruchstraße 16, 27478 Cuxhaven

www.edition-wortschatz.de

The Rasta Man 7

Part 1: The mountain 21

The world around us 23

About you and me 25

You are a mistake 51

What tomorrow will look like 67

Part 2: The dynamite 83

Let’s start at the right place 85

The Kingdom 91

Mission Impossible 119

The implementation of the disciples 141

Part 3: The blast 171

Transformative encounter 187

Discipleship as mission and mandate 203

Family as a form of design 221

Change. Now! 233

Bibliography 235

Can you remember a time before YouTube? I do. One of the first videos I saw on YouTube was about a man with rasta’s. He looked a little wild, like he came straight out of a skate park. This man would walk around the streets asking people if he could pray for them. Often he would even tell people where theyhad pain. The passersby were very surprised that this man knew where it hurt. When this wild guy started praying for the people, they were even more amazed. For the pain gave way, and they could move as if they had never had an injury or pain. In these videos of Todd White1, this happened not just once, but over and over again. This attracted my interest. So it did seem possible to experience the things I heard about in church and read about in the Bible. Later I experienced such things myself – more about that later. Then I heard about movements in Asia where hundreds and thousands of people came to faith and whole places and countries were changed. Therefore, it is possible to experience spiritual awakenings, as we read about them in books from the past.

How do you feel when you hear such things? What does it stir in you when you hear stories of the past and of faraway places where God is working mightily? As for me it triggers an incredible hunger to experience this myself. But I also feel a tension: for a long time I only knew theoretically about the work of the Holy Spirit. I listened to sermons that urged me to avoid this or that, or about beautiful theological flights that probably should have motivated me. I often asked myself: What does this have to do with my life? How do I get to where I can experience these things myself that I saw in the videos? Don’t you feel like there’s more to what we can experience with God? Is the church just a place where the mighty deeds of God are reported, or is it a place where you and I can experience it for ourselves?

In the Bible, tremendous things happen all the time, for example in the story of Philip. Philip inspires me and makes me hungry. He went into a city and healed the sick, cast out demons and called for repentance. This gave such a tremendous uproar that the whole city was turned upside down. The Bible says, “And there was great joy in that city.”2 That city experienced a transformation. Philip could do no more than you and I, was neither more giftednor more famous. He had the same Holy Spirit as you and me. That makes me eager to experience the same adventures as he did.

A priest once said that where Jesus went, revival and change happened; where he himself went, they would offer him a cup of tea. What happens when you come to a town? Do people bring you coffee or do you bring radical transformation?

I live for revival to happen through me and the people I am surrounded with. We want to be available to the Holy Spirit so that He can use us for whatever He wants to do. We long for revival. What about you?

Don’t you think something should change? Who is actually right, the Bible that says we can experience the same things as Jesus and the apostles did back then, or we who do not experience them? One of the two must be corrected, right? Either the Bible or I. But I don’t want to correct the Bible, because it is God’s word. If we believe the Bible, then this question cannot leave us cold.

Imagine that you lived 2000 years ago and you were one of the disciples who went around with Jesus. You can choose which of these disciples you want to be. Let me take Andrew. Andrew was a passionate guy who was hungry for God. The message from John the Baptist went straight into his heart. After that, he met Jesus and had an incredible encounter with Him that he never forgot. Andrew was there from the beginning, he quickly realized that Jesus was the promised Messiah. He experienced the miracles and signs that Jesus did. There was, for example, the healing of a man born blind, the multiplication of food, or the thousands of paralytics and lepers he healed. Jesus also raised the dead Lazarus. A highlight was when they went to the villages without Jesus and experienced the same things. Then they captured Jesus and mistreated him in the cruelest way and nailed him to a cross. Andrew was there and couldn’t believe what was happening. Was this to be the end?

On the first day of the new week, Jesus was alive again, because he was raised from the dead. One event chased the other: sorrow, grief, joy, overwhelming emotions. Finally, Jesus says to the disciples: Go and do the same as I have done. Make disciples of all nations, heal them, and cast out demons from them! A few days after Jesus said this, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples. At the latest, no one could stop Andrew now. Everyone must hear and experience this! Such power now lived in him that whole cities were turned upside down. Andrew did what Jesus had told him to do. He did not deviate an inch from it. Even when they persecuted, tortured and finally nailed him to a cross, he held fast to what Jesus had said. As he hung on the cross, he lived two more days preaching to his tormentors until he died.3

Let’s assume Andrew is beamed into our time, into the 2020s. He walks through a modern city with all the unknown. But here, too, he has only one passion. He wants people to know Jesus and become his followers. He approaches people and heals the sick. Suddenly he meets someone who is already following Jesus. Andrew is gripped by an incredible joy and curiosity. He has met someone who is already following Jesus. Andrew immediately wants to know where this guy is meeting with other believers today. The answer irritates him, because he tells him that he will not have another small group until four days from now and that it is not really meant for strangers. Andrew is disappointed but doesn’t give up. As a result, he is invited to the service on Sunday at 11 o’clock. Andrew asks if he can come to the prayer service when the sun rises. No, is the answer. Because they will be setting up first, and the band still had to sound check. Andrew thinks to himself that this is probably something new that he doesn’t have to understand.

So Andrew shows up at this modern building a few minutes before the service.