The brethren chose Alsen to be the chairman during our meetings. He welcomed everyone, introduced the four Christian teens from Perkins, OK (Travis, Cole, Rachel and Kalyn) and their leaders (Brady and Ashley). These teens have been blessed with beautiful singing voices, and so we asked them to sing 3-4 songs each evening to open our meeting, and then the same 3-4 songs again following the lesson (which gave me a few minutes to quickly look over the Bible questions that had been submitted). Alsen would give a synopsis of the song’s message in Bislama before each one was sung. It was great to see the interest in the faces of the locals, as well as to hear them in later days walking along and singing these new songs.
The topic for our meetings was “?Jos Blong Masta Jisas Kraes I Olsem Wanem?” (i.e., “what is the church of our Master Jesus Christ like?”). Thursday night’s lesson was entitled “Lukaot Long Giaman Doktrin” (“beware of false doctrines”), in which I taught from Matthew 7:13-27. The thrust of the lesson was to note that when Jesus came to the earth to establish His church, He first took the time to give some very significant warnings: look out for the wrong road, the wrong teacher, the wrong practice and the wrong foundation. In context, all of these “wrongs” are based on false doctrines. So often in the religious world we tend to accept any and all teachers and their teachings as long as they sound good to us, without ever stopping to consider whether or not they are right or true. Before we can really get into the truth regarding the Lord’s church, we have to acknowledge that there are pleasant-sounding errors out there (presented by wolves in sheep’s clothing).
Friday night’s lesson was entitled “Denominationalism.” Though utterly and totally foreign to the New Testament, the system of belief commonly referred to as denominationalism was introduced to Vanuatu long ago. As such, much like in America, the vast majority of locals simply take the philosophy for granted. This evening, we asked whether Jesus wants denominationalism or unity in His church. Even a casual reading of passages like John 17:11,20,21; Acts 4:32; Ephesians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 1:10, 4:17, 7:17, 11:16, 14:33, 16:1; and Galatians 5:20 show overwhelmingly the error of the idea that the church is a conglomeration of denominated groups, each holding to its own set of practices and doctrines. It breaks my heart to see the religious division that exists in Vanuatu, and it has been our goal from day one to promote religious unity - just as Jesus would have it. Such unity will only come when we agree to stand firmly on His word - nothing more and nothing less.
Saturday night’s lesson was entitled “Stat Mo Fasin Blong Jos” (the church’s institution and characteristics). Based on the conclusions of the previous two nights’ lessons, that there are pleasant-sounding false doctrines out there, and that Jesus died for His (one) church, we were then prepared to consider what Jesus tells us about that church in the New Testament. It’s a simple concept really - find out what the Lord’s church looked like and acted like in the first century, and replicate it. We noted from Scripture that the Lord’s church exclusively sang a cappella in worship, met each Sunday, partook of the Lord’s supper every week, honored God’s plan for male spiritual leadership, and had no earthly headquarters. If we are going to be the Master’s church, we are going to have to do things His way. To do otherwise is to establish a man-made church.
Sunday night’s lesson was designed to be the conclusion for the meeting, and asked “?Hu I Wantem Go Long Heven?” (who wants to go to heaven?). The New Testament says that those who want to be with Jesus in heaven need to have their sins washed away, and God’s plan for said washing is Jesus’ blood. We come into contact with that cleansing blood when we enter into Christ. Ephesians 5:23 says that Jesus is the head of the body, His church, and that He will ultimately save that body. I led those present in a study of the conversion stories in the book of Acts, to consider what those individuals did when they made the decision that they wanted to go to heaven. It is glaring that each and every one was baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. The conclusion practically goes without saying - we need to do as they did if we too want to go to heaven to be with our Master for eternity.
Overall, I felt the lessons went really well, and were well received. I did my best to make them sound, simple and applicable. While I had hoped we would have more visitors, we did have a crowd of 20-30 local adults each evening. We plan to conduct similar outreach efforts each time we are back in the village, and hope this constant exposure to the truth will result in many more obeying the gospel.
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