Interview: Mission America CEO on Cultural Shift, Nat'l Mission Initiatives
Dr. Paul A. Cedar, Chairman/CEO of the Mission America Coalition (MAC), spoke to The Christian Post on Monday about the upcoming annual Christian leaders gathering in St. Louis. The conference, slated for Oct. 10-12, will focus on strategies to bring about a cultural shift from spiritual darkness to light in cities across the United States.
Speakers at the MAC gathering include the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Center; and Daniel De Leon, president of Hispanic Association of Bilingual/Bicultural Ministries.
CP: What is the purpose of the MAC annual conference?
Cedar: This is the 11th annual conference of the Mission America Coalition which is comprised of 485 Christian leaders from across the nation. It is the one time each year that we try to get together in one place, at one time with the purpose to advance the cause of evangelism in the United States and beyond.
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CP: How many people are expected at the annual conference?
Cedar: Probably about 150 people.
CP: Why was St. Louis chosen as the conference location?
Cedar: We try to meet in a city in the center of the United States. We have people coming from the North, South, East, and West so we found that it is easier to meet in a central city; that is a major reason.
Also, God is doing some wonderful things using city ministries in St. Louis so we want to recognize that.
The third reason is that we are in a strategic alliance with National Association of Evangelicals and some of our leaders also serve on their board of directors and so they are going to have a board meeting right after our conference meeting.
CP: What is the significance of this year’s theme – “Culture Shift: Have we passed the tipping point?”
Cedar: The Mission America Coalition has a number of ministry networks that focus on collaborative evangelism as well as various national initiatives that we’ve had over the years. Our current major national initiative is called “Loving Our Communities To Christ” (LC2C) which is now in nine pilot cities in various places across the country. They were launched at the beginning of this year and so they are in the beginning stages.
So the reason for this theme is that we are trying to focus on the strategy of prayer, care, and share to cause a cultural shift in America. Our culture is going the wrong way and much of it is focused on spiritual darkness. But our goal and prayer is to help bring spiritual light to cities and communities across the nation.
So this simple but potent strategy of prayer, care, and share first begins with individual Christians within local churches. We use the term that when the DNA of local Christians and local churches begin to change – so we are not merely looking inward but we are looking outward to those who never had the privileged to come to personal faith in Christ – there will be a cultural shift from darkness to light. Within that context, Christians [are] not merely focusing on themselves and churches are not only looking inward [but they are] being mobilized to begin this wonderful lifestyle that we think is very Biblical – a lifestyle of praying and caring for lost people which is the great commandment that Jesus gave us – to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. So prayer, care, and share the good news of the Gospel within the right context and appropriate time is our strategy; so that is the cultural shift we are praying for and working for.
CP: MAC also has an initiative called “Lighthouse Movement.” Is this another name for the “Loving Our Communities To Christ” program?
Cedar: The “Lighthouse Movement” was an initiative launched in 2000 and it still continues, but much of it has been folded into “Loving Our Communities to Christ.”
We don’t want to limit these programs only to these nine initial cities. There are many Lighthouses going on and many Lighthouse churches that are not yet involved in communities to Christ; so these are sort of transition days. We are prayerfully planning to launch in additional cities in early 2007.
CP: What do you mean by the term “launch?”
Cedar: ‘Launching’ means to begin or initiate in these cities. We have an advance team that goes into the cities and meets with pastors and marketplace leaders and helps them get started. These people are what we call national facilitators of the Mission America Coalition.
CP: You’re one of the speakers at the conference, and I was wondering if you could give us a preview of what you will be speaking about.
Cedar: You’ll notice that our agenda has three major plenary sessions focused on prayer, care, and share. I’m going to do the plenary session on prayer. Particularly, I will be speaking on praying for lost people and I’m going to share both biblically and practically how we can begin to pray for people who have never had the privilege to come to personal faith in Jesus Christ.
