“Everything that is not growing will slowly decay,” says Dr Bambang Budijanto, General Secretary of the Asia Evangelical Alliance (AEA), as he highlights the challenges facing the Church in Asia today. Following AEA’s 11th General Assembly in Mongolia, Budijanto and other Asian leaders have now published their reflections on what they see as the only way forward: repentance, focusing on discipleship within families and truly empowering younger leaders to participate in God’s mission.
Held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from August 7-12, 2024, the General Assembly brought together two hundred Christian leaders from national Evangelical Alliances across the region under the theme “Disciple or Die”.
Commenting on the radical choice of words, Budijanto emphasizes the dynamics of living faith and spiritual growth. “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, but to grow spiritually, we need to help others grow in Christ (discipleship). We grow by helping others grow; conversely, you will slowly die (spiritually) as long as you ignore the last command of Jesus.”
He emphasizes that “holistic discipleship is the only strategy Jesus gave the Church to fulfill its mission on earth as the Kingdom of God. There is no middle ground. Either a church is moving toward fulfilling its mission as the sign of the kingdom of God, through discipleship, or it is slowly decaying.”
Budijanto points to a 2015 study by Barna Research Group that found that only 20% of Christians in the US were involved in any discipleship activities. Similarly, a 2019 study by the Bilangan Research Center put the number in Indonesia at 37%, but the percentage was lower for the younger generation.
“The majority of ‘Christ-followers’ in the US, in Indonesia, and probably all over Asia and the whole world disregard discipleship and are contributing to the church’s slow decay,” Budijanto laments.
He considers the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 as “God’s gift for us” and the primary path to personal spiritual growth and the way for the Church to thrive and transform the world. “Only through obedience to the Great Commission, where every church prioritizes discipleship as its core business and every believer commits to discipling others, will the world be transformed,” he says.
Empowering younger leaders as reinforcements, not replacements
Sanya Ladaphongpattana from Thailand sees the emerging issues with lack of discipleship among the younger generation as a result of shortcomings of the older generation.
“We need to shift our paradigm and change our mindset paving way for younger generation to lead,” he says, adding that “the world and situations today are very different and need a ‘new wine skin’.”
He believes that most countries in Asia today have a common problem in the “crisis in leadership” that causes young people to stop going to church. He says that this is a key theme that emerged from his conversations with Christian youth in Thailand.
“They want to see role models, servant leaders who have character, which is quite hard to find,” he says. The General Assembly was a wakeup call for leaders “to reflect, repent and change our perceptions toward children and youth. To encourage and support them through discipleship, give them opportunities to lead and serve, allow them to make mistakes and grow.”
Rei Crizaldo from the Philippines, Coordinator of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Commission and a younger leader himself, echoed the importance of letting the younger generation get involved early on to allow them to be partners in leadership.
“Focusing on the young people has always been considered important. But what is often lacking is the intentional effort to consider the next generation not as ‘replacements’ for the coming future but as ‘reinforcements’ in the here and now,” he says, adding that it “demands a commitment to make spaces for them and involve them in ministry and in critical conversations wherein decisions about how ministry ‘for’ and ‘with’ them are being developed.”
He also emphasized the importance of equipping younger people with proper theology that speaks to their reality. He says churches need to “engage the young people not with more ‘entertainment’ but with deep ‘theological anchors’ they can rely on as they embark in a world drowning in information but starving for wisdom.”
Crizaldo calls for theology not to be restricted to specialists in seminaries but “something that is owned and nurtured by the whole people of God” and that addresses “everyday issues of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus” rather than technical points of doctrine.
“Good theologizing and effective disciple-making have to dovetail if Asia is to see disciples who can persevere through persecution and suffering on one hand and on the other address the growing number of false teachers and spread of strange teachings especially in digital spaces,” he says.
Discipleship must start in the family
Another key issue that several leaders highlighted is the need for family discipleship at home.
“One of the most profound insights that emerged from our table discussions was the essential role of authentic relationships in discipleship. We often strategize about programs and initiatives, but the foundation truly lies within our families and close communities,” commented John P. Mridha from Bangladesh who serves as a member of the AEA Youth Commission.
“Witnessing families being the bedrock of mission and discipleship underscored the truth that ministry begins at home. It’s in these intimate settings that faith is nurtured, values are instilled, and future generations are equipped to carry the torch of the gospel forward,” he says.
Crizaldo agrees: “Discipleship of the next generation cannot continue to be ‘outsourced’ to the church and its leaders, it will have to commence at home, with the primary responsibility for discipleship formation taken up by the whole family.”
The church should consider the potential of parents and the elderly as the primary force for life-to-life disciple-making, he says.
“This attention towards the importance of the ‘family’ as an immediate site for discipleship all the more becomes important as today’s generation, the GenZs and Alphas, have less and less experience, exposure, and even fascination towards traditional Christian routines, such as participation in weekend church services.”
In a joint reflection, Gwen De Rozario-Seah and Grace Hee who serve as Directors of the AEA Family & Children Commission and AEA Women’s Commission respectively, also highlighted the great missional potential that lies in families: “Spiritually healthy families are missional and will help accelerate the great commission in an exponential way.”
However, they lament that “unfortunately, the opposite is true” and warn that “if we continue with this ‘great omission’ and do not take intentional discipleship of families seriously then our members will continue to have a ‘church centric’ mindset, believing that it is not their responsibility to reach the lost or disciple their families.”
They express concern about the trends of domestic abuse in Christian homes, the rise in porn addiction and the “slew of ideological and societal challenges facing the next generation” that they believe will only worsen, unless there is a change in paradigm.
“Dysfunction in the family will impact the church of today and beyond,” De Rozario-Seah and Hee say.
Recognizing that many church leaders today are struggling with retaining their second, third or fourth generation members who have grown up in the church, they caution that “the turning away of hearts most likely started long before the day they walked away from Christ.”
“We had ‘left the back-door open’; because parents, grandparents were not intentional about family discipleship and the church omitted to equip them. Family discipleship must be at the very foundation of our generational discipleship strategy.”
Despite these challenges, Budijanto is hopeful that change is possible if the Church becomes a place where the older and younger generation come together in following Jesus Christ.
“We envision expanding intergenerational discipleship movements and initiatives, fully involving members of the younger generation in helping to lead these movements with a new vision (Acts 2:17),” he says.
“We pray for revival, a significant movement of the Holy Spirit, mission movements, prayer movements, and discipleship movements to sweep across Asia and beyond in these coming years.”
Originally from Webpage 'Christian Daily International'
CCD reprinted with permission
亚洲福音联盟（AEA）秘书长班邦·布迪扬托（Bambang Budijanto）在强调当今亚洲教会所面临的挑战时说：“一切事物若不成长都会慢慢衰败。”
在外蒙古举行的亚洲福音联盟第11届大会结束后，布迪扬托和其他亚洲领袖发表了他们关于教会唯一出路的思考：悔改、注重家庭内部的门徒训练以及赋能年轻领袖参与上帝给的使命中。
大会于8月7日至12日在外蒙古乌兰巴托举行，来自亚洲各国福音联盟的200名基督徒领袖参加了大会，主题是“要么门训，要么死”（Disciple or Die）。
在评论这一激进的主题时，布迪扬托强调了活出信仰和属灵成长的动力。“信仰始于人聆听上帝的话语，但为了实现（信徒的）灵性成长，我们需要帮助别人在基督里成长（门徒训练）。我们通过帮助他人成长而成长；反之，只要你忽视耶稣的最后一条命令，你就会慢慢死去（灵性上）”。
他强调说：“整体做门徒训练是耶稣赋予教会的唯一策略，以完成教会作为神的国在地上的使命。没有灰色地带。教会要么正在通过门徒训练履行其作为神国标志的使命，要么正在慢慢衰败”。
布迪扬托指出，巴纳研究集团（Barna Research Group）2015年的一项研究发现，美国只有20%的基督徒参加过任何种类的门徒训练。同样，比兰甘研究中心（Bilangan Research Center）2019年的一项研究显示，印尼的这一数字为37%，但年轻一代的这一比例更低。
布迪扬托感叹道：“在美国、印尼，甚至整个亚洲和全世界，大多数基督徒都无视门徒训练，这也是教会缓慢衰败的原因之一。”
他认为耶稣给我们的大使命是 “上帝赐给我们的礼物”，是个人灵性成长的主要途径，也是教会复兴和改变世界的方式。他说：“只有顺服大使命，每个教会都将门徒训练作为其核心工作的优先事项，每个信徒都致力于对他人进行门徒训练，世界才能发生转变。”
增强年轻领袖的力量，而不是取代他们
泰国的桑亚·拉达蓬帕塔纳（Sanya Ladaphongpattana）认为，年轻一代缺乏门徒训练的新问题是上一代人的不足造成的。
“我们需要转变我们的范式，改变我们的心态，为年轻一代的领导铺平道路，”他补充说，“当今的世界和形势已大不相同，需要‘新皮袋’。”
他认为，当今亚洲大多数国家都有一个共同的问题，那就是 “领导力危机”，它导致年轻人不再去教会。他说，这是他在泰国与基督徒年轻人交谈时发现的一个关键因素。
“他们想要看到榜样，看到有品格的仆人式领袖，而这是很难找到的。”他说，大会给领袖们敲响了警钟，要求他们“反省、悔改并改变我们对儿童和青年的看法。通过门徒训练鼓励和支持他们，给他们领导和侍奉的机会，允许他们犯错和成长”。
雷·克里扎尔多（Rei Crizaldo）来自菲律宾，他是世界福音联盟（WEA）神学委员会协调员，也是一位年轻的领袖，他也认为让年轻一代尽早参与进来，让他们成为领导者的同工非常重要。
“关注年轻人一直被认为是重要的。但往往缺乏的是有意识地将下一代视为此时此地的‘同工’，而不是未来的‘接班人’”，他补充说，”这就要求我们承诺为他们留出空间，让他们参与事工，参与重要的对话，在对话中决定如何‘为他们’和‘与他们一起’开展事工”。
他还强调了装备符合年轻人现实的神学的重要性。他说，教会需要 “让年轻人参与的不是更多的‘娱乐’，而是深刻的‘神学支柱；，当他们踏入一个信息泛滥却缺乏智慧的世界时，他们可以依靠的支柱”。
克里扎尔多呼吁神学教育不是神学院的专利，而应 “由上帝的子民共同拥有和培育”，并解决 “作为耶稣门徒而活的日常问题”，而不是技术性的去解决教义问题。
他说：“如果亚洲要看到能够在逼迫和苦难中坚忍的门徒，那么一方面需要让好的神学和有效的门徒培养结合起来，另一方面要解决越来越多的假教师和奇怪教义的传播问题，尤其是在数字空间中。”
门徒训练必须从家庭开始
几位领导人强调的另一个关键问题是在家庭中做门徒训练的必要性。
“我们在讨论中得出的一个最深刻的见解是，真实的关系在门徒训练中起着至关重要的作用。我们经常就计划和倡议制定战略，但真正的基础在于我们的家庭和亲密的社区，”来自孟加拉国、担任 AEA青年委员会成员的约翰·姆瑞达哈（John P. Mridha）评论说。
“见证家庭成为宣教和门徒训练的基石，突出了事工始于家庭的真理。正是在这些亲密的环境中，信仰才得以培育，价值观才得以改变，后代才有能力将福音的火炬传递下去。”他说。
克里扎尔多表示同意这一观点： “下一代的门徒训练不能继续’外包’给教会及其领袖，它必须从家庭开始，由整个家庭承担门徒训练的主要责任。”
他说，教会应该考虑以父母和老年人作为终身门徒培养的主力军。
“由于今天的一代人，即Z世代和Alpha世代，对传统基督教惯例（例如参加礼拜）的经历、接触甚至兴趣越来越少，因此这种对’家庭’作为门徒训练的直接场所的重要性的关注就变得更加重要了。”他说。
美国教育协会家庭与儿童委员会（AEA Family & Children Commission）主任格温·德·罗扎里奥·西亚（Gwen De Rozario-Seah）以及美国教育协会妇女委员会（AEA Women's Commission）主任格蕾丝·姬（Grace Hee）在联合反思中也强调了家庭中蕴藏的巨大宣教潜力： “灵命健康的家庭具有使命感，将有助于以指数级的方式加速大使命的完成”。
然而，他们感叹道：“不幸的是，事实恰恰相反”，并警告说：“如果我们继续这种‘巨大的遗漏’，不认真对待家庭的门徒训练，那么我们的成员就会继续抱有‘以教会为中心’的心态，认为向失丧之人传福音或对家庭进行门徒训练不是自己的责任”。
他们对基督徒家庭中的家暴、色情成瘾的增加以及 “下一代面临的一系列意识形态和社会挑战 ”表示担忧，他们认为除非改变模式，否则这些问题只会更加严重。
德·罗扎里奥·西亚和姬说：“家庭的功能失调将影响当今和未来的教会。”
他们认识到，当今许多教会领袖都在为留住在教会长大的第二代、第三代或第四代成员而努力，他们提醒说，“人心的背离很可能早在他们离开基督之前就开始了”。
“我们‘留了漏洞’，因为父母、祖父母没有有意识地进行家庭门徒训练，教会也没有装备他们。家庭门徒训练必须成为我们这一代门徒训练策略的基础。”
尽管存在这些挑战，但布迪扬托仍心存盼望，如果教会成为老一代和年轻一代共同跟随耶稣基督的地方，改变是可能的。
“我们设想扩大跨门徒训练运动和倡议，让年轻一代的成员充分参与进来，以新的异象（使徒行传 2：17）帮助领导这些运动。”他说。
“我们祈求复兴、圣灵的重要运动、宣教运动、祷告运动和门徒训练运动在未来几年席卷整个亚洲和其他地区。”
中文翻译转载自《基督时报》
亚洲福音派领袖：在家门训是兴旺福音和扭转教会衰落的关键点
“Everything that is not growing will slowly decay,” says Dr Bambang Budijanto, General Secretary of the Asia Evangelical Alliance (AEA), as he highlights the challenges facing the Church in Asia today. Following AEA’s 11th General Assembly in Mongolia, Budijanto and other Asian leaders have now published their reflections on what they see as the only way forward: repentance, focusing on discipleship within families and truly empowering younger leaders to participate in God’s mission.
Held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from August 7-12, 2024, the General Assembly brought together two hundred Christian leaders from national Evangelical Alliances across the region under the theme “Disciple or Die”.
Commenting on the radical choice of words, Budijanto emphasizes the dynamics of living faith and spiritual growth. “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, but to grow spiritually, we need to help others grow in Christ (discipleship). We grow by helping others grow; conversely, you will slowly die (spiritually) as long as you ignore the last command of Jesus.”
He emphasizes that “holistic discipleship is the only strategy Jesus gave the Church to fulfill its mission on earth as the Kingdom of God. There is no middle ground. Either a church is moving toward fulfilling its mission as the sign of the kingdom of God, through discipleship, or it is slowly decaying.”
Budijanto points to a 2015 study by Barna Research Group that found that only 20% of Christians in the US were involved in any discipleship activities. Similarly, a 2019 study by the Bilangan Research Center put the number in Indonesia at 37%, but the percentage was lower for the younger generation.
“The majority of ‘Christ-followers’ in the US, in Indonesia, and probably all over Asia and the whole world disregard discipleship and are contributing to the church’s slow decay,” Budijanto laments.
He considers the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 as “God’s gift for us” and the primary path to personal spiritual growth and the way for the Church to thrive and transform the world. “Only through obedience to the Great Commission, where every church prioritizes discipleship as its core business and every believer commits to discipling others, will the world be transformed,” he says.
Empowering younger leaders as reinforcements, not replacements
Sanya Ladaphongpattana from Thailand sees the emerging issues with lack of discipleship among the younger generation as a result of shortcomings of the older generation.
“We need to shift our paradigm and change our mindset paving way for younger generation to lead,” he says, adding that “the world and situations today are very different and need a ‘new wine skin’.”
He believes that most countries in Asia today have a common problem in the “crisis in leadership” that causes young people to stop going to church. He says that this is a key theme that emerged from his conversations with Christian youth in Thailand.
“They want to see role models, servant leaders who have character, which is quite hard to find,” he says. The General Assembly was a wakeup call for leaders “to reflect, repent and change our perceptions toward children and youth. To encourage and support them through discipleship, give them opportunities to lead and serve, allow them to make mistakes and grow.”
Rei Crizaldo from the Philippines, Coordinator of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Commission and a younger leader himself, echoed the importance of letting the younger generation get involved early on to allow them to be partners in leadership.
“Focusing on the young people has always been considered important. But what is often lacking is the intentional effort to consider the next generation not as ‘replacements’ for the coming future but as ‘reinforcements’ in the here and now,” he says, adding that it “demands a commitment to make spaces for them and involve them in ministry and in critical conversations wherein decisions about how ministry ‘for’ and ‘with’ them are being developed.”
He also emphasized the importance of equipping younger people with proper theology that speaks to their reality. He says churches need to “engage the young people not with more ‘entertainment’ but with deep ‘theological anchors’ they can rely on as they embark in a world drowning in information but starving for wisdom.”
Crizaldo calls for theology not to be restricted to specialists in seminaries but “something that is owned and nurtured by the whole people of God” and that addresses “everyday issues of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus” rather than technical points of doctrine.
“Good theologizing and effective disciple-making have to dovetail if Asia is to see disciples who can persevere through persecution and suffering on one hand and on the other address the growing number of false teachers and spread of strange teachings especially in digital spaces,” he says.
Discipleship must start in the family
Another key issue that several leaders highlighted is the need for family discipleship at home.
“One of the most profound insights that emerged from our table discussions was the essential role of authentic relationships in discipleship. We often strategize about programs and initiatives, but the foundation truly lies within our families and close communities,” commented John P. Mridha from Bangladesh who serves as a member of the AEA Youth Commission.
“Witnessing families being the bedrock of mission and discipleship underscored the truth that ministry begins at home. It’s in these intimate settings that faith is nurtured, values are instilled, and future generations are equipped to carry the torch of the gospel forward,” he says.
Crizaldo agrees: “Discipleship of the next generation cannot continue to be ‘outsourced’ to the church and its leaders, it will have to commence at home, with the primary responsibility for discipleship formation taken up by the whole family.”
The church should consider the potential of parents and the elderly as the primary force for life-to-life disciple-making, he says.
“This attention towards the importance of the ‘family’ as an immediate site for discipleship all the more becomes important as today’s generation, the GenZs and Alphas, have less and less experience, exposure, and even fascination towards traditional Christian routines, such as participation in weekend church services.”
In a joint reflection, Gwen De Rozario-Seah and Grace Hee who serve as Directors of the AEA Family & Children Commission and AEA Women’s Commission respectively, also highlighted the great missional potential that lies in families: “Spiritually healthy families are missional and will help accelerate the great commission in an exponential way.”
However, they lament that “unfortunately, the opposite is true” and warn that “if we continue with this ‘great omission’ and do not take intentional discipleship of families seriously then our members will continue to have a ‘church centric’ mindset, believing that it is not their responsibility to reach the lost or disciple their families.”
They express concern about the trends of domestic abuse in Christian homes, the rise in porn addiction and the “slew of ideological and societal challenges facing the next generation” that they believe will only worsen, unless there is a change in paradigm.
“Dysfunction in the family will impact the church of today and beyond,” De Rozario-Seah and Hee say.
Recognizing that many church leaders today are struggling with retaining their second, third or fourth generation members who have grown up in the church, they caution that “the turning away of hearts most likely started long before the day they walked away from Christ.”
“We had ‘left the back-door open’; because parents, grandparents were not intentional about family discipleship and the church omitted to equip them. Family discipleship must be at the very foundation of our generational discipleship strategy.”
Despite these challenges, Budijanto is hopeful that change is possible if the Church becomes a place where the older and younger generation come together in following Jesus Christ.
“We envision expanding intergenerational discipleship movements and initiatives, fully involving members of the younger generation in helping to lead these movements with a new vision (Acts 2:17),” he says.
“We pray for revival, a significant movement of the Holy Spirit, mission movements, prayer movements, and discipleship movements to sweep across Asia and beyond in these coming years.”
Originally from Webpage 'Christian Daily International'
CCD reprinted with permission
Time to Repent, Focus on Younger Leaders & Family Discipleship to Avert Church Decline, Asian Leaders Say
