The following is an excerpt from a book that I received this weekend from an amazing lady, Betty Wagner, remind me to tell you more about her! The quotes are a little old (the book was published in 1999 but the spirit is there.

It was theologian Reinhold Niebuhr who wrote the original Serenity Prayer, back in 1943:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Contemporary believers might add another phrase when referring to the mission of the church: Give us the grace to recognize that change is often the work of the Spirit of God in building Christ's church by redeeming lost person's from every tribe and tongue and nation. And as Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, wrote, "This redemption is experienced in a rich variety of cultural contexts."

Let me give you a statistic that is profoundly affecting our methods at Wayfarer's Ministries. I quote Paul Hiebert, verteran missionary in India, who at this writing is chair of the department of Mission and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School:

In 1900, 95% of the church was in the West, and white. By the year 2000 it is estimated that 60% of the world's Christians will be in non-Western countries, a testimony to God who worked (during the traditional missionary movement) despite the flaws of his messengers and the flaws of their methods.