ATLANTA (ABP) — Maybe it takes a Methodist from South Africa to tell a bunch of Baptists in the American South that they need to wake up to reality and “step outside your own little bubble” in order to hear God's call.
That's what Trevor Hudson told participants June 22 at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's general assembly in Atlanta. The outsider's exhortation seemed to fall on willing ears.
In fact, Hudson's speech — which complemented the session theme, “For the healing of the nations, Jesus wept” — was received with thunderous applause.
But listening to the groans of the world around us won't always be easy, Hudson said. He suggested that if Christians are going to open their hearts, they need to do something often difficult: Step out of their own little bubble and embrace the world around them.
“Please never turn your back on the world — never!” Hudson said.
Reciting the words of a popular chorus, he added, “'The cross before me, the world behind me' — that is heresy. Jesus is the light of the world. He lights everything up. Those songs betray the love of God for this world. God's loving arms encircle the globe. God is wanting to redeem the whole of creation. Listen to the groan.”
Hudson cited the eighth chapter of Romans, in which the Apostle Paul wrote that all of creation “has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
The groans, he said, come from creation, from Christians and, most notably, from the Spirit, which constantly prays the “prayer of Jesus” in Christians' hearts. He told the audience the Spirit's prayer calls for the kingdom of God to come quickly, for the “universe to be mended,” and for everything to be reconciled together in Christ.
Illustrating the global nature of their concern, assembly participants sang worship songs from Argentina, South Africa and Liberia.
Hudson said he thinks the Fellowship is moving in the right direction toward spreading the gospel.
“I have a sense that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is on a train, and it's moving,” he told participants. “I've really appreciated the energy that I sense in the movement. To me as an outsider, it seems that you're on a journey toward greater missional faithfulness, to deep recognition in your life of the inner and outer journeys of faith.”
The important thing about that “train” ride, however, is whether you have a ticket, Hudson said. Hudson defined the ticket as “an open heart” ready to hear the groans of the world and the Spirit.
Hudson has spent 34 years ministering in a congregation in Benoni, South Africa, “seeking to grow the people of God in a very turbulent context.” He said reconciliation shows the true love of Christ and makes a difference in the Christian life.
An advocate for social justice, Hudson started a project in the 1980s that gave white, middle-class South Africans the chance to experience the suffering caused by apartheid and poverty in their own country. The project is detailed in A Mile in My Shoes, one of Hudson's seven books.
After Hudson's address, CBF participants gave $23,095 to the CBF's Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Offering for Religious Liberty and Human Rights. Two thirds of the offering is designated for the Fellowship's religious liberty and human rights ministries, and one third goes to the Baptist World Alliance.
“As you know, religious liberty and human rights issues are at the center of our hearts and work,” Rosalynn Carter said via video. “We continue to advocate for those who do not have the right to vote, who cannot worship as they please or who dare not act as their conscience leads.”
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