Rolando Lidorio is a Presbyterian pastor who has served as a church planter in Ghana, Africa, for nine years and currently leads a missionary team among several indigenous ethnic groups in the Brazilian Amazon. He is also a consultant for the World Evangelical Alliance and other organizations in evangelism projects and church planting in residential areas.
During the Saturday that concluded the Fourth Congress on World Evangelization of the Lausanne Movement, Lidorio was the speaker for the devotional time of that day. Previously he introduced what he called “the five waves to reach the unreached in the first century” based on Acts chapter 1 to chapter 28, which was the chapter that he focused his speech on.
He explained that “first was a wave of spiritual power. In Acts, chapters 1 and 2, during Pentecost, the church received power from the Holy Spirit to make Jesus known and worship Him among all nations.” The “second wave was a wave of suffering,” where “many were sent to prison, others died. But it was also used by the Lord to take the gospel to Samaria and other places (...) In Acts 8:1-3, we see types of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering,” he stressed.
The third wave was indicated as “a wave of sending out workers”. Based on chapter 13 he pointed out that “the local church listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit and sent Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles”. There he focused on the fact that Paul and Barnabas were already “serving the Lord when they were called by Him for the mission”. So he took the opportunity to advise the churches and ministries to pay special attention that the missionaries to be sent should be “people who are already a blessing to the church”.
While explaining how the version of the Bible (NIV, the New International Version) that he used translated an expression in Greek, he pointed out that “they were already a blessing to the local church when they were called to missions. I think we see a principle here: do not send those who are not a near blessing. Church leaders, missionary leaders, mobilizers, don't send those who are not first a blessing.”
The fourth wave “is a wave of church multiplication” and added: “Paul and his team plant and encourage several churches. And these churches were used by the Lord to plant others, such as the church that was planted in Philippi, which was a new church that helped the church planters in Thessalonica and elsewhere. This promotes exponential multiplication.”
The fifth wave was syndicated as “a wave of reaching the ends of the earth.” In Acts, chapters 27 and 28, “Paul was going to Rome, hoping to go through Spain and beyond to reach the unreached. And as we know, other apostles went to various places sharing the gospel of Jesus and planting churches, such as Thomas in India, Matthew in Ethiopia, and John in Greece. So, by the will and power of God, these five waves carried the gospel to many nations, people groups, and languages in the first century.”
He then connected this history to the present time and said that in the last chapter of Acts there are “four statements made clear”. And he listed: “the first statement is that the gospel will face opposition”. He recounted that in Acts 28:16 the Bible relates that “Paul was in prison and under house arrest, guarded by a soldier.”
“And today, in the 21st century, the gospel will not be proclaimed without facing pressure, oppression, opposition and persecution. So let us and our family members, churches and organizations be prepared to embrace three very important core convictions, even under pressure,” he said and continued, “the first conviction is a theological conviction: to know from Scripture who God is and how he answers questions in times of war, persecution, natural disasters and personal suffering.” And he noted, “I think we have another principle here. Theological convictions build a spiritual and practical foundation for a missional church.”
He spoke of another conviction, “a physiological conviction, especially in relation to God's call. His call to mission is not transferable. We cannot delegate what God has placed in our hands to do,” he pointed out.
And another nugget surfaced from his speech: “God has called his church to the impossible. We can say that making disciples among all nations, proclaiming the gospel in all languages, being faithful at all times, is only possible with his promise: 'I will be with you always, always.' So the conviction is theological, but also personal, knowing that God has a plan and a purpose for his people in every circumstance of life”.
He further exhorted to remember “that throughout the book of Acts we see how the gospel relates to culture. And I could summarize by saying that the gospel is supercultural. It contains the whole truth about people and their society as presented in the Scriptures. The gospel is also multicultural. It draws people from all nations and all languages around Jesus Christ. The gospel is not only supercultural and multicultural, it is also intercultural, promoting spiritual and practical fellowship among God's people. And that is why we are here.
From there it led him to break down the gospel as “transcultural, since it must pass from one culture to another through missions.” But also as “cultural because it is about Jesus himself, God who lived among us, learned our language and paid for our sins.” And finally, as “counter-cultural, because it confronts people in their own culture, producing a personal and eternal transformation.”
Thus, “because the gospel is countercultural, it fights against injustice, violence, discrimination, human oppression and spiritual poverty. And that is why it faces opposition.” And he warned that “we are not persecuted for what we do as Christians. People normally accept our actions, especially those based on love and compassion. We are persecuted for our difficult convictions, especially when we confess and proclaim that there is only one way, one salvation, one redeemer: Jesus Christ.”
At this point in his presentation, he pointed out the second statement in the last verses of Acts 28, which is that “the gospel will reach all nations.”
“As we read in verse 24 and verse 28, Paul quotes Isaiah as saying that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen. The gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations, to those who are near and to those who are far off, to those who accept and embrace it, and to those who are offended and reject it. If God grants grace to his church in partnership, one of our top priorities must be to reach all unreached people groups in our generation with the gospel of Jesus,” he said.
He recalled Gisbertus Voetius, a 17th century Dutch theologian, the first Protestant missiologist, who said in one of his books that the whole church of Christ is “ecclesia et missio” in Latin, meaning “called and sent.” That is to say that “the whole church of Christ is called by the Lord Jesus for salvation and sent by the Lord Jesus for proclamation.”
The third statement “is that the gospel is proclaimed freely and boldly”. He also mentioned that apostle Paul served for two years receiving all who came to him and sharing the gospel with them.
“And we read in the last verse of the book, verse 31, which says, 'with all boldness and without hindrance.' With all boldness, courage and without hindrance, freely. Those are impressive words, 'with all boldness'. Let us consider this, brothers and sisters: we have faith. We believe in Jesus and we know him. We have spiritual power. The Holy Spirit lives in us. We have the Scriptures, the Word of God that guides us,” he emphasized.
He also said, “We have the church, our community of faith that animates us. We have the gospel, God's method of transformation. So, in a sense, we have everything we need.”
“There is something else mentioned by Jesus and the apostles that we must seek” - according to Lidorio – “pray to receive it and make sure you don't lose it, because without that it is very difficult, or we could even say impossible, to fulfill the mission. And that important element is courage, also translated as boldness. In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 18 to 20, Paul asks the church to pray for him. And he had only one prayer request: that he would have courage to preach the mystery of the gospel.”
To the question he himself posed as to why Paul, the most courageous and daring preacher we know, asked the church to pray for him to have courage to preach the gospel, he synthesized: “It is because courage to testify about Jesus is not something we have naturally. It is not a result of knowledge, training or experience. It comes from God. That's why we need to pray, for Him to give it to us. I think we don't preach enough because we don't pray enough.”
The last statement revealed “is that the gospel is all about Jesus.”
“In verse 31 it says that during two years under house arrest, Paul proclaimed the Kingdom of God and spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ. Not about the trial, not about the church, not about his own biography, but about Jesus Christ. He took every opportunity, even the most profitable ones, and intentionally, I mean intentionally, presented Jesus to all who came to him as Lord, their redeemer. The gospel is about Jesus. We need to guide this statement well. I'm convinced that one of the main challenges today is our own heart.”
“I am convinced that we need to talk more about Jesus and less about ourselves,” he stated emphatically.
“I would like to end by posing a question: How do we proclaim the Gospel in the world today? Under the conviction that Jesus and his message have been guided by generations of people of faith. Not only by logical conclusions, but also by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Lord uses research analysis, His strategies, and we need to be deeply grateful for that, but along with that. It is imperative to be led by the Holy Spirit, even when things are not logical, when they don't make sense,” he said.
“We are not called to pray. We are called to have a life of prayer,” he urged. If you are involved in this remarkable challenge of making Jesus known among all nations, it is crucial that you personally have a life of prayer, being people of unity, without criticism and with more partnership, without competition and full of love. Not just working together, but loving to work together, not just promoting strategies together, but caring for one another. And, finally, being people of courage who share and live the gospel, testifying about Jesus with all our strength, with all our life, with all our actions, with courage.”
At the end of the speech Lidorio shared a moving testimony, saying:
I worked in Ghana, West Africa, for nine years, mostly in the Combat Limo community, with Bible translation and church planting in the northeast of the country. After a few years learning the language and culture and learning from the Ghanaian brethren how to be a missionary, we shared the gospel in our village and surrounding areas. One day we gathered under a tree in our village for a time of worship. And toward the end of our time together, I noticed a disabled woman, crawling in my direction. As a child, she probably suffered from polio, and with disabled legs, she used her arms and hands to crawl.
She later shared that ever since she first heard the gospel, she felt a great fear of death, repeatedly saying, “I need Jesus.”
That morning she decided to come to our village, which was far away, to learn more about Jesus during our worship time. But everyone refused to help her. So she came crawling through the bush for many hours. When she arrived, she was covered in mud. Her hands were bleeding from the sharp stones. And I remember very well that she was on the ground, so tired, while the women of the church helped her to clean herself and she covered her face with her hands. She prayed and gave her life to Jesus Christ. It was an incredible day.
But as I returned home that day, I asked myself: What kind of power can make a woman go through the mountain and the rocks, under pressure and being mocked, to give her life to Jesus Christ? What kind of power is that? Brothers and sisters, it is not the power of any preacher, any church, any organization, any movement; it is the power of God. The power that can transform any situation, the power of God.
Let us pray. Let us ask for help to fulfill the mission that we have, and as we read the last verse of Acts, with all boldness and without hindrance.
First published by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition.
