The World Christian Gathering Of Indigenous Peoples
Another C. Peter Wagner/Third Wave Venture
by Sandy Simpson, 4/16/02

Sandy Simpson is a commissioned missionary with Liebenzell Mission USA working out of Hawaii primarily with Micronesian islanders from the islands of Guam, Saipan, Yap, Palau, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae and the Marshalls.  Sandy grew up as an MK in Palau where his family came out as missionaries in 1962, learned the language and became so much a part of the culture that he was asked at one point to become a Palauan citizen.  He has written music in Palauan as well as translated songs and other materials, done concerts and preached in the Palauan language.  Since 1989 he has been working in Guam and Hawaii serving the people of the Evangelical Churches of Micronesia in leading Bible studies as well as doing counseling and visitation.  Sandy is also the director of the Apologetics Coordination Team (ACT) of which the Deception In The Church web site is a ministry that was established to help island church leaders grapple with the onset of the apostate Third Wave movement.  Sandy read over 200 books on the history and culture of Micronesia and Polynesia in the writing of a treatise on Micronesian music with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and CAHA which is a video script detailing the use and advancement of music in Micronesia.  This treatise is available at MARC in Guam.


This is an article in rebuttal to a series of programs on "Word to the World", a five minute radio show by Danny Lehmann.  Danny is the director of YWAM Honolulu.  These programs were aired on KLHT 1040 radio in Honolulu, HI in late 2001 on the subject of indigenous peoples movements and in promotion of the upcoming World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples to be held in Hawaii in October 2002.  YWAM is an arm of the "New Apostolic Reformation" of C. Peter Wagner and George Otis, Jr. and has been promoting the idea that God revealed Himself to all indigenous peoples prior to the Gospel having been preached to them by missionaries, and therefore Western missions need to give proper recognition to indigenous peoples, and in particular their cultures which were mistakenly thought to be heathen and worshipping demonic powers.  This fanciful rewriting of history has dire consequences for the Church because now this concept is being extended to cultures yet to be reached with the gospel such as the Muslims.  YWAM is now allowing Muslims, who profess to believe in Jesus Christ, to go back to their mosques, bow down toward Mecca, worship Allah, believe that Mohammed was a true prophet of God, and to continue to read the Koran right alongside the Bible.  With a wave of their magic wand they have now included many Muslims into Christianity by calling them "Messianic Muslims" which is quite an oxymoron if you think about it.  This is not evangelism but anti-evangelism.  Paul didn't allow those in Ephesus to go back to their temples and to their goddess, just as God did not allow the Israelites to worship Baal while thinking of him as YHWH.  I know of one woman recently in a Muslim country who changed her ID card to read "Christian" instead of "Muslim". Now that is standing up for what you believe in!  The Lehmann/YWAM brand of Christianity being promoted on the following series of shows is unbiblical and, in some cases, heretical.  All the people involved in Lehmann's show also have strong ties to the Third Wave revivalist movement and if you visit their web pages you can see clearly that they are endorsed by Third Wavers.

This article consists of the entire transcripts of the ten radio shows in black with my commentary in blue.  I have highlighted portions of the transcript myself in bold upon which I am mainly commenting.  Where the people on the radio show emphasized words themselves I have capitalized them.  You can click on the program number to listen to the original program from the Calvary Chapel web site in RealPlayer format.


WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 541
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann:  Good to have you with us again today on our broadcast on Word to the World.  For the next several program were gonna have a series of exciting interviews with three friends of mine who are involved in reaching and ministering to indigenous peoples in different parts of the world.  First of all we have Leon Siu who's from Aloha Ke Akua in Hawaii ministering to the Hawaiian peoples here in the state where we're having this interview.  We also have Richard Twiss from Wiconi International, he a Lakota Sioux Indian and ministers to some of the First Nation peoples and we'll be explaining that term to you in just a moment.  And then we have Terry LeBlanc the director of Aboriginal Programs for World Vision Canada and also the head of My People International.  He a Mitmah/Acadian Indian, if I got that right, you guys can correct me, but we want to jump into this whole issue of indigenous peoples.  This might even be a new term but its something I've been hearing for the last several years in Australia talking about the Aboriginal peoples, in New Zealand with the Maoris and you folks all have a common denominator and that is a heart for the peoples that you come from and the peoples that you represent.  And first of all, Richard why don't we hit you and ask you about this term First Nation as opposed to Native American or Native Indian or something like that.

Richard Twiss:  Well people always ask you, you know, what do you like to be called?  American Indian or, so I always say well you know it's sort of a problem for people of color, cause we don't know what to call white people, are they white people, Caucasians or haoulies or Pale Faces or and you know I always say and if we get it right this week I'm sure it'll change next month and then we'll have to learn a whole new on so it isn't just what do we call whatever.

(SS: What kind of an attitude is this?  Is this payback time or something?  Two of those terms are derogatory.  Is American Indian or Native American derogatory?)

But First Nations I think is a more accurate reflection of the sovereignty of God.  It says in Acts chapter 17 down around verse 26 that God is, some translations would put it, has predetermined set times and set places for their habitations, speaking of people groups. And so I think that God put us here first in terms of all those anthropological migrations, how we got here is up for grabs, but we did get here first which is in the sovereignty of God.  So I think it's a better picture rather than American Indian, which is a sort of a national citizenry identity, or Native Americans which was more of a colonial kind of thing, so I think First Nations would be a good term for the body of Christ to begin using as they think about native peoples.

Danny Lehmann:  And there's some real exciting things happening within all of these different people groups, is that right?  With people starting their, we've used the term, "redeeming the cultures" where people are starting to get an identity of who they are as peoples, as nations.

(SS: Can a culture be "redeemed"?  There is no mention in the Bible of redeeming any culture other than the nation of Israel.  Redemption in the NT is for the individual.  This term is mentioned by all the other men on the program on their sites and articles.  But Lehmann defines the term to mean people "starting to get an identity".  Therefore as he defines it this redemption has nothing to do with Christ at all.)

Richard Twiss: Right and First Nations I think speaks of that whether it's First Nations Canada, First Nations US, First Nations Hawaii, First Nations Australia, so there are First Nations but within that there is a stirring in the heart of God in these days and Native people are emerging to take their rightful place alongside of the rest of the body of Christ as coequal partners.

(SS: There is a "stirring in the heart of God"?  How does Twiss know this?  Are there anything but equal partners among those redeemed by Christ? Matthew 20:12  'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.' The point of this parable is that Jesus said that God has made everyone equal.  We are all redeemed, have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and have eternal life.  Where is the inequality in the body of Christ?  There may be inequality in the world, but should that bother us as regenerate Christians?)

Danny Lehmann: Now this could be a caricature that we have of those of us that don't have a clue about indigenous peoples and how to reach them but we usually think well, the indigenous peoples are another mission field within our midst and we label them alongside of other minority groups like we're gonna reach this particular group and you have a little bit of a different slant on that, is that right Richard?

Richard Twiss: Well the Bible says that, you know in Psalms 137 or 39 that we're fearfully and wonderfully made and that God knew us when we were in the earth when we were yet formed.

(SS: Psalms 139:15-16  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. This is talking about individuals, not nations.)

Well every people group has a purpose and every nation is to know God and to make Him known.

(SS: The Bible does not say that every people group or nation's purpose is to make God known.  The Word does tell believers to make God known among the nations.)

But throughout the history of missions in North America and everywhere in the world indigenous people have perpetually been put in the position of the mission field never fully recognized as been given gifts and callings and anointings to be coequal participants in this great thing we call the great commission.

(SS: How can someone have a gift, calling or anointing unless they are called first?  This displays a bad attitude toward missionaries who give their lives to bring the gospel to First Nations. This is also a straw man argument as most First Nations churches were nationalized long ago and they are fully capable of reaching out to their own peoples as well as other people groups.  Why lay the blame on North American missions?)

And so God is changing that and so Native people need to be seen as coequal partners and the Church really needs to stop seeing us simply as the mission field and begin looking for opportunities of partnership in these last days.

(SS: This is exactly where most missions are today, in partnership with local nationalized churches.  This is a straw man argument.)

Danny Lehmann: And maybe not give us some kind of token appreciation but really see ourselves as valid mission partners.

(SS: Another straw man argument.  Missions do see national churches are being valid mission partners, in fact it is the Western missions who have been pushing First Nations to do mission outreach for decades.  This type of attitude only causes division, and does not help the cause which is already in motion.  YWAM, on the other hand, in advocating the types of methodology of C. Peter Wagner and Chuck Kraft, which these First Nations representatives are only parroting, is actually causing First Nations peoples to have no respect for those who gave their lives to bring the gospel to them in the first place, not only Western missionaries, but their own people!)

Richard Twiss: Exactly, exactly.

Danny Lehmann:  Well, for time constraints we've got to wrap it up for today but we'll be back again tomorrow with Leon Siu, Richard Twiss, and Terry LeBlanc to be talking about reaching and working with indigenous peoples for the cause of world evangelization.  God bless you, we'll be back again tomorrow …

(SS: This proves my point.  "World evangelization" is a term of the New Apolostolic Reformation of C. Peter Wagner.  It has no relationship to world "evangelism".  Evangelization is primarily interested in the Christianization of culture, evangelism is preaching the gospel.)

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 542
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann:  The Bible says in Matthew chapter 28 verse 19 to go and make disciples of all the NATIONS and many times on our broadcast we've pointed out that the word "nation" in the Greek does not refers to countries but refers to people groups.  And today in our studios, as yesterday, we have three leaders from what we might call the Indigenous People's Movement representing different indigenous peoples. We have Leon Siu from the Hawaiian peoples, Richard Twiss from Frist Nation peoples mostly in the US and then Terry LeBlanc up in Canada.  And, uh, Terry, one of the things we were mentioning off the air was Richard and yourself are trying to kind of blur the lines on that boundry between the US and Canada, is that right?  Why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the things God's doing among indigenous peoples in the US mainland and the Canadian mainland and also a little bit about this World Christian Gathering of Indigenous Peoples.

Terry LeBlanc:  Yeah, the line isn't an acknowledged line for many of our tribes who are, what we would consider now, trans-border tribes and, you know, had commerce freely back and forth across the forty-ninth parallel.  So the use of First Nations doesn't acknowledge that sort of geographic territorial issue but rather acknowledges our collective work together.  And, uh, it connects to the World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People because it's an acknowledgement of the place and the habitation that First Nations, Indigenous people of the world held.  Richard mentioned yesterday Acts 17 and talked about people being given their particular dwelling or habitation by God and it was for a specific purpose, and Richard alluded to that yesterday, and it's, be did this so that people would seek Him, perhaps reach out for Him and find Him though He is not far from each one of us, Acts 17:21.

(SS: Acts 17:21  (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)  The verse he meant to quote is Acts 17:27.  Let's look at this whole passage these guys are using to justify what they are doing:

22 ¶ Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23  For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24  "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28  'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man's design and skill.
30  In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31  For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
32 ¶ When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."
33  At that, Paul left the Council.

(1) For Richard Twiss to say that  the Great Spirit as the Holy Spirit (on the 700 Club) and for Hawaiians like Daniel Kikawa and Leon Siu to pray to Io as Jehovah (Gospel In The Stars by Mike Oppenhiemer, Let Us Reason Minsitries) cannot be justified by this passage since Paul used an unnamed and unknown god for his illustration.  Io and the Great Spirit are named gods, therefore they are false gods that have been worshipped instead of YHWH and certainly instead of Jesus Christ.  (2) God will not overlook the sin of those who have made other gods in the image of God, but they must repent.  Unfortunately there is basically no talk about repentance by these indigenous people's advocates.)

There's a myth that we have labored under for centuries in indigenous communities and the myth is that we were a godless heathen people (Note: obviously something was cut from this dialog right here!) that God hadn't somehow had a purpose and a plan for us nor had he visited our peoples.

(SS: Myth?  First Nations worshipped false gods and made idols to them.  God has a purpose, and it is for them to be saved through Jesus Christ!)

That we were completely void of any knowledge of Him, but the Scriptures tell us clearly that, not only did He create the entirety of the world and all of its peoples, but He made Himself known to them.  (Another cut)  And so the question ought not to be "was God here in our lands?" but "what was He doing and what's the evidence of His work among the people?"  and that's really what the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples is, at least in significant measure, about.  It's about exploring, expressing and celebrating the presence of God among the peoples and the fulfillment of that presence in the person, the work, the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And that's what we're doing.

(SS: Let's face facts.  God can be seen in His creation, but we He cannot be our "Abba" Father and we cannot be His children without Christ.  We are ALL dead in our sins, First Nations, Second Nations, etc.  Anglo Saxons, French, Germans, American Indians, Aboriginal peoples, island peoples … ALL DEAD!  Our cultures could not nor will they bring us to salvation! We ought to be celebrating Christ, not celebrating cultures that did not truly acknowledge God but worshipped idols and others gods.  We would not have the knowledge of salvation without Israel, and without regenerate missionaries who preached the gospel to nations that were deep into the occult and heathen practices.  To now not acknowledge that fact is to attempt to bring back religious and cultural ways that are not glorifying to God but to other gods.)

Danny Lehmann:  You know I think it's interesting in the book of Revelation the Bible doesn't say we're going to be all one block of one color of people, it says every kindred, tongue, people, language and nation will be there as languages, peoples and cultures in heaven.  And we often wonder what that's gonna be like.

(SS: (1) First of all Danny sets up another straw man argument.  No Christians that I know of, except perhaps certain cults, believe that only white people go to heaven.  (2) This is the premise of Danny saying that cultures can be redeemed.  Here are the verses he is obviously referring to:

Revelation 21:24  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
Revelation 21:26  The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
Revelation 22:2  down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

The word for nations in Strongs is defined this way:

probably from 1486; TDNT-2:364,201; n n
AV-Gentiles 93, nation 64, heathen 5, people 2; 164

1) a multitude (whether of men or of beasts) associated or living together
1a) a company, troop, swarm
2) a multitude of individuals of the same nature or genus
2a) the human family
3) a tribe, nation, people group
4) in the OT, foreign nations not worshipping the true God, pagans, Gentiles
5) Paul uses the term for Gentile Christians

Nowhere does it mention the cultures of the nations, only that they are of one genus, tribe, nation, people group.  The healing of the nations is not the healing of cultures, which are pagan.  Cultures of tribes of people are corrupt and we should not be gloryfying them because culture cannot be redeemed.  God redeems people and heals nations, but nowehere in the Bible does it say God redeems cultures or heals cultures.  Cultures are traditions of men.  Notice the difference from the Greek word for "nations" and the Greek word for "tradition""

3862 paradosiv paradosis par-ad'-os-is
from 3860; TDNT-2:172,166; n f
AV-tradition 12, ordinance 1; 13

1) giving up, giving over
1a) the act of giving up
1b) the surrender of cities
2) a giving over which is done by word of mouth or in writing, i.e. tradition by instruction, narrative, precept, etc.
2a) objectively, that which is delivered, the substance of a teaching
2b) of the body of precepts, esp. ritual, which in the opinion of the later Jews were orally delivered by Moses and orally transmitted in unbroken succession to subsequent generations, which precepts, both illustrating and expanding the written law, as they did were to be obeyed with equal reverence

Traditions or culture is a giving over to teachings.  The teachings of the world's cultures, with the exception of Israel, are corrupt and lead to destruction.  Again, we must not glorify culture but glorify Jesus Christ who redeems people and will ultimately heal the nations (not cultures).)

And I think that what you folks are finding is that I know as a North American Evangelical, I can say that often times I tend to think of God in Western terms because that's what I was raised with and yet God transcends all the cultures.

Terry Leblanc:  Absolutely.  When we look around God's quote creation all the other stuff all of the other stuff out there we see incredible diversity.  So there are roses and chrysanthemums and petunias and all of those sorts of flowers and different trees and all of the stuff, it's all diverse.  And yet all brings glory to God in it's own special way, and that's true of human beings and cultures as well.

(SS: So all cultures bring glory to God?  What about Nazi Germany?  What about Saddam Hussein and Iraq?  What about cannibals in Papua New Guinea?  What about American "culture"?  This is absolutely not true.)

God's created us with diversity and David Garrett from Scripture and Songs said it this way, he said "God is now calling forth from among the indigenous communities of the world that good deposit which he has made in them of their cultures, their languages, their musical expressions and all of that sort of thing which has previously not been brought forth and He's asking for it as an expression of praise and worship unto Himself".

(SS: (1) This begs the question: When did YHWH ask for all this strange fire to come before Him in praise and worship?  Did God call the Israelites to worship on the high places like the pagan tribes around them?  Did God call the first century Christians to worship God with dances they used to do in the temple of Diana?  Where is the Scriptural basis for bringing cultures as worship before the Lord that are using dances, songs, chants and symbols dedicated to others god to now worship God with?  Didn't the Levites get punished for bringing strange fire before the Lord on their own initiative?  We had better have solid Biblical backing for doing these kinds of things, otherwise we may be under God's judgment! (2) The next argument would be that the Western church has been bringing its culture as worship before the Lord so why not First Nations?  The answer to that is that true believers become a part of God's culture governed by His Word and where Western culture has infiltrated the church it is also sin.  The vestiges of the Romish view of the separation of the priesthood and laity is in evidence all over our churches and it is something that ought to be dealt with.  But that doesn't excuse bringing more ungodly and unbiblical practices in.)

So that's really what the gathering is also about is bringing those elements of diversity, of cultural and musical and linguistic diversity to honor and praise the Lord Jesus Christ.

Danny Lehmann:  Fantastic!  Well, I hate to wrap this up but for time constraints we must.  We'll be back again tomorrow …

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 543
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann:  Good to have you with us again today for Word to the World.  We had to cut off yesterday for the sake of time constraints an exciting interview with three friends of mine, Leon Siu, Richard Twiss and Terry LeBlanc representing the Hawaiian peoples, and different First Nation tribes in North America and we've been talking about North America last couple of days.  Leon, let's switch it over to talk about the Hawaiian people.  What is God doing among the Hawaiians? We know there was a massive revival here about 160 years ago.  What's happening recently?  I heard there's some exciting things going among Hawaiians.

(SS: To use the word "revival" in the context of the gospel first being preached in Hawaii and the first people professing faith in Christ is either a misuse of terminology or deliberate.  For something to be "revived" it first has to be "vived" or made alive.  The First Hawaiians to be saved did not know the gospel AT ALL.  Therefore they could not be "revived".  But in the context of this discussion it looks like Danny means that the Hawaiian people were already believers in God (Io?) therefore they simply needed to be "revived".  Either way this is a misleading statement.)

Leon Siu:  There's some great things going on, but I wanted to return first to the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples. This was mentioned yesterday by Terry. And that particular gathering is an actual physical gathering of people who come together to praise God and to lift up our hearts as indigenous peoples to God and to ask God to please move among our people to show us how we can be effective in moving among our people.

(SS: A physical gathering as opposed to what?  A spiritual gathering, a paranormal gathering?  This leaves the door open to speculation on this point.)

There have been three gatherings so far.  One in 1996 the original one in Alteroah in New Zealand hosted by the Maoris.  The second one was 1998 hosted by the First Nations people of North America, and then the third was in Australia in the year 2000.  The fourth is gonna be here in Hawaii in 2002.  So I just wanted you to let people know that we have thousands of people come together in their native regalia to bring their gifts before the Lord and to praise Him and to interact amongst each other, to encourage one another and to seek God to see what He wants us to do as indigenous peoples in reaching our …

Danny Lehmann: (Interrupts) I think a lot of people can hear when we talk about missionary work going "over there" so to speak and we can say well we need to be all things to all men that by all means we might save some and so forth with regards to missionary peoples, but I know I've talked to Thais before, for instance, and they say "Well, I can't become a Christian because I'm Thai and Thais are Buddhist and I say "Well, you need to become a Thai Christian." But it's much easier for a Thai Christian to tell a Thai Buddhist that he can become a Thai Christian than it is for me.

(SS: Isn't a Christian a "follower of Christ"?  To be more accurate it should be stated that he is a Christian from Thailand.  A "Thai Christian" implies that his Christianity is somehow contingent on both Christ and his cultural identity.  It can also imply that he need not give up anything to follow Christ.  Did missionaries or do missionaries now go out to the mission field and tell people they are American Christians?)

Leon Siu:  Correct.

Danny Lehmann:  And I think you folks can bring across something to us that we might be able to understand properly and how do people relate to their own people in their own culture and you're seeing this in the indigenous people's movement.

Leon Siu:  And especially here in Hawaii.  One of the keys that triggered this great revival that you mentioned, a great awakening that happened in Hawaii 160 years ago.  By the way this is one of most complete revivals that ever happened anywhere in the World.

(SS: This is not accurate.  After the outreach of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to Kosrae and the Marshall Islands, the ENTIRE island of Kosrae professed faith in the Lord and all other religious practices were abandoned for quite some time afterward.  I don't believe that was the case in Hawaii.)

By the time the end of this particular revival there were like 90% of the Hawaiians were Christians.

(SS:  Again, the use of the word "revival" is not correct.  Also I doubt these facts are true based on missionary records.)

And one of the keys to that was that the missionaries that were here at the time bringing the Word allowed the people to express themselves in the way that God made them.  In other words the Hawaiians are very expressive, quite emotional and rather than put a cap on that and stymie that impulse to just cry out to God or to weep or wail they allowed it to happen and a s a result the Hawaiian people felt free to just respond to God as to who they were.  When they were convicted, they wailed, they cried.

(SS:  This is true in some places, but by in large it was not the case when you read about mission work around the world.  Are we to assume then that the only reason Hawaiians wanted to become Christians was because they were allowed to weep and wail and be emotional? )

And so that was one clue and what we're seeing today is a movement of God among the people of Hawaii, many who are not, have not been Christians, have not received the Lord Jesus Christ into their own hearts but have become Christians since and these are people say for instance involved in the political movement here in Hawaii, the independence movement, where these were activists who were quite adamant with where they wanted to go with the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government, but these activists have since, in the last few years, God's touched their hearts.  And now their looking to serving the Lord in what their doing so the Lord comes first and this is just a sovereign move of God that is happening among some of the indigenous people here in Hawaii.

(SS: Without getting into the validity of the move for independence here in Hawaii, is it being stated that now those involved in this movement are doing it to serve the Lord?  How does what they are doing have anything to do with the Lord's kingdom?  Is this really an example of "revival" in Hawaii?)

Danny Lehmann: We'll be again tomorrow …

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 544
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann:  It tells us in the book of Revelation chapter 5 and chapter 7 that every kindred, tribe, tongue, people and nation will stand around the throne of God and I've reflected on that before and realized that their gonna be there as tribes and nations and I've pictured in my mind that we'll most likely be there in our native regalia and some people will be playing diggerydoos and some people will be playing electric guitars and some people will be dancing the hula.

(SS: This is nice and fanciful, but seriously, will we have electrical generators in heaven?  Will Hawaiian women be swiveling their hips around in front of God?  Will they be calling Him "Io" (the bird god of the Hawaiians) when they see Him as He is?  Perhaps a further reflection on this verse would show that it is talking about different peoples and not different cultural practices that are learned practices and traditions of men that have no place in the worship of God Almighty.  Yes, people from every nation and skin color will be there, but I can't imagine bringing our cultural activities before God as worship.  We are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, but our culture must be one that embodies ALL of the precepts of the written Word of God.  That means that Christians from the US will not be sitting in pews, but it also means that Christians from Hawaii won't be there doing the hula which is a dance to "Pele".)

And we have with us a native Hawaiian Leon Siu from Aloha Ke Akua ministries and he's been sharing with us a little bit about what God is doing among the Hawaiian people and we also have representatives from the Lakota Sioux tribe as well as the Mitmah Acadian tribe up in Canada, and so we just want to let you guys just go for it and tell us what God's doing among your peoples and how we can rejoice with you and pray for you with regards to reaching indigenous peoples.

Leon Siu:  Thank you, uh, this is Leon.  A few years ago some friends and I were contemplating how we would be able to reach indigenous peoples and we thought that what was prevalent at that time was a misconception among, within the church of God's presence here in the islands.  The misconceptions that, as was expressed earlier, was that God didn't arrive until the missionaries arrived.  You know, and so when we started to look at this we started to look into our culture and see what things within our culture what God had originally intended for this particular group of people, Hawaiians.

(SS:  The Gospel certainly arrived with the missionaries, and the Gospel is the only way to be saved.  Is Leon Siu thankful for those missionaries who, in some cases, gave up their lives and their families to bring the Good News to Hawaii?  It doesn't sound like it at all.  Instead Leon Siu and his friend, Daniel Kikawa started looking to "culture" to find ways in which God was speaking to the Hawaiians before the missionaries arrived.  Shouldn't they rather be looking to Scripture, to the prophets, Apostles and most importantly, Jesus Christ, to know how God speaks and about His character?  Did God reveal Himself to Hawaiians differently than other peoples?  If so, did they know the plan of salvation and about Jesus Christ?  Or is it culture that will save them because they make up myths about how God spoke to them through it?  Is Jesus Christ the only Way, Truth and Life for Hawaiians or is there another "way"?)

And we found beautiful things, this is this whole concept of "Aloha" the concept of "Hoa Pona Pona" making things right between people, with God involved in the process.  All of these things we found were not only quite Biblical but also very much steeped within the cultures.

(SS: There are nice things in every culture, and these keep people from disorder and chaos and make life more pleasant to live in general.  But the Hawaiian culture also had many evil things.  Are we then to say that God instituted the culture of the Hawaiians?  No, the culture of the Hawaiians is little different from the cultures of the rest of Polynesia.  There are the good, the bad and the ugly things, but all in all the Polynesian and Micronesian peoples were slaves to demonic gods that they worshipped ... gods of their own making and demonic gods in the form of animals, trees and many other natural things.  The island peoples were enslaved to these cultural and religious ways and some were overjoyed to find that Jesus Christ could liberate them from the bonds of culture and religion, which were inextricably tied together.  This is why there was such a good response to the Gospel message brought by the Congregational Church missionaries.  But now, frankly, since Hawaiians sold out to Western ways, they do not like losing certain aspects of their culture and in blaming the West for it, they have forgotten the freedom they have in Christ and are slipping back into cultural and religious ways that will only bring back the false gods they worshipped for thousands of years before Christianity arrived in the islands.)

So these are clues that we felt God had left and evidence that He'd left as well as processes He had left in which our Hawaiian people can respond in a very natural way to God and really set things right between them and God.

(SS: This is the crux of the heresy of the First Nation's movements.  They actually believe that God set forth His plan of salvation through their cultures!  They believe that through their cultures they can "set things right between them and God."  This goes against the core doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, therefore it is heresy.  Lest they forget:

2 Corinthians 4:4  The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

How the Hawaiian indigenous groups led by Daniel Kikawa and Leon Siu get around this is by making up a mythology, that is not based in fact, that they are some kind of lost tribe of Israel, therefore they apparently didn't need the gospel presented to them or need to be saved by Jesus Christ. They will be redeemed somehow like Israel.  What they fail to realize is that Israel must also acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Messiah for them to be redeemed individually and as a people.  Hawaiians are Gentiles.  They are a branch off the tree.  If they do not repent and acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord they too will be cut off.  God did not leave the plan of salvation with the Hawaiian people.  He left the evidence that He is the Creator, but there is no way to have a relationship with the Creator and for Him to become their "Abba" Father without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and belief in Him, and there is no way to be saved without that Gospel being preached.

Romans 10:14-15  How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

I certainly don't hear these men proclaiming "how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news"!)

Danny Lehmann:  And most of us are familiar with Don Richardson's work that he's done "The Peace Child" and "Eternity in Third Hearts" and several of these quote unquote redemptive analogies that are in cultures and I think we need to realize these are in most if not all cultures.

(SS: People need more than an analogy to be saved!  They need the Word of God preached to them, as Paul taught us.)

Leon Siu:  And so this has been the key to the movement here in Hawaii as well I'm sure as in other places.  So the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples brings us together.  And, by the way, for those of you who are interested in contacting the World Christian Gathering you can do it over the Wiconi web site which is Wiconi.com.  Wiconi.com.

Richard Twiss:  And when they go they can just click on the button WCGIP.

Danny Lehmann: How about you folks from North America.

Richard Twiss:  Well, you made one comment earlier that I think I need to correct you talk about in heaven they'll be diggerydoos and drums, I don't think there's gonna be electric guitars, I think it's gonna be heaven unplugged.  All acoustical instruments.

(General laughter by all)

Danny Lehmann: I know some of out rock and roll friends who'd disagree with that one but we're not gonna  … (all talking, garbled)

Terry LeBlanc: And you know just picking up on the notion of that myth I mean one of the things that has been sort of an irritant in the hearts of many indigenous people around that world is that the Western cultures seem to acceptable as they are, as cultures within which we express our faith commitment to Christ, whereas indigenous cultures are almost uniquely denigrated and set aside as culture unacceptable in any way, shape or form within which we can express our faith in Christ and so indigenous peoples have not seen themselves in Christ many times because they have to see themselves in white skin in Christ and white culture in Christ and rejecting, in essence the very identity that God created them in and so it's kind of like how would feel to be told that you were discovered by someone who was lost, that kind of thing.

(SS: (1) I don't know any Western Christians or First World people who consider Western culture "acceptable as they are".  This is a ridiculous straw man argument.  (2) I don't know any missionaries, at least Bible-believing ones, who denigrate other cultures in our day and age, and who do not equally use their own culture as an example of something that is not Christ-like.  Denigration of other cultures may have been done in the past in some cases, but it has not been done for many years, and certainty by true believers in Christ. (3) I don't know any First Nation's people who can't see themselves in Christ because they don't have white skin.  What is this LeBlanc talking about?  His name means "white".  Does this make him any less Native American?)

Danny Lehmann: Right. And I think this is true when we go into other cultures and we talk to people that are especially from other religions and they feel like, well they have to put on, Muslims for instance, that you have to sit on a chair in church or sit on a pew.  Well that's offensive to a Muslim because they never sit in presence of God in Mosque.

(SS: Danny is apparently confirming the belief and new evangelization technique of YWAM that asserts that Muslims worship "God"!  Allah is clearly not YHWH and has no son!  Any other "god" than YHWH is a false god, in fact is demonic according to Scripture.  If this is what Danny is claiming, then this is seriously unbiblical and also shows a lack of knowledge about Islamd and the Koran.  If a leader in YWAM shows this kind of lack of understanding about Islam, what are churches doing supporting YWAM methods of evangelism to Muslims?)

And so what's the big deal about taking the pews out of the church.  And these are some of the things we're talking about as Paul said: Becoming all things to all men that by all means we might save some"  God bless …

(SS: Yes, "what's the big deal", Danny?  It isn't a big deal and has been done in many places all over the world.  We don't sit in pews in our Bible studies with Micronesians, and people all over the world sit, stand and jump in their worship services.  Many nationalized churches function very culturally.  This is yet another in a long unending line of straw men arguments set forth by Danny Lehmann of YWAM.

What is the context of the verse which Danny quotes (halfway) over and over again?

1 Corinthians 9:22  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

Paul is talking about living by the laws of the land he is in and not imposing the Law on everyone because He is a Jew.  He is not talking about becoming a Greek to witness to the Greeks, nor is He talking about becoming a worshiper of Diana to witness to them.  Let's look at the whole context:

19 ¶ Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
20  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
21  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law.
22  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
23  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Danny Lehmann is taking this verse out of context and trying to say that we should let the Muslims worship the way they want to so that we can effectively witness to them, but meanwhile not telling them that their god is a false and vindictive god of this world.  This is terrible hermeneutics!)

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 545
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann: We've got a exciting program lined up for you today with three of my friends from the indigenous peoples movement, there's actually lots of these movements around the world and they have been gathering for the last couple of years just as far as meetings go in these World Christian Gathering of Indigenous Peoples meetings.  They've been held in Australia, New Zealand, North America. The next one will be in Hawaii in 2002.  And one of the things that I wanted to prime the pump with a little bit today, folks, is this issue with regards to the concept that God is an American, God is Republican, God is a Westerner and we jokingly say that but I think there are things from our music to the way we worship to the way we view emotion to the way we view how we relate to one another, these are things that I have picked up in my travels out in the no-Western world but we have indigenous peoples right on our shores in North America in Hawaii.  How can we better understand these people and how can we better have a little more, as we say in Hawaii, "Aloha" toward these folks?

(SS: Another straw man argument.  I don't know any Westerner who says God is an American, Republican or Westerner.  If some indigenous peoples are saying this, which by in large they are not, then they are mistaken and they only have themselves to blame.  This is not being taught and I don't believe it was ever taught in the way Danny is presenting it here.)

Richard Twiss:  I think one of the first things is that the church needs to recognize that it is, according to 1 Cor. Chapter 12, a body, a many membered differentiated expressions of the one body and in terms of people groups and cultures it's no different.  But the tendency's because it's North America we do have all these dominant culture dynamics we tend to normalize those of European decent and minimize those of indigenous or aboriginal decent.  And so the church I think at this point in time needs to acknowledge that we desperately need our First Nation's brethren if, as the geographical expression of the kingdom in North America or the islands or wherever, if we're gonna be WHOLE then we us cause up until now, in terms of North America, we've been sort of a detached appendage, not really connected and thus our contribution is missing and because of that absence then the rest of the body of Christ is not whole, it's not complete.

(SS: The inference here is that the body of Christ is not "whole".  The body of Christ is made whole in the Holy Spirit, yet we must also help the weaker parts of the body of Christ.  But we must not state that the body of Christ is ever less than whole as it is Christ Who makes it whole.)

And so whatever the grace and giftings of the North American First Nation's peoples are, the rest of the church suffers and if one part of the body suffers then all the parts of the body suffer along with it.

Danny Lehmann:  You know, Richard, you know something I've studied in missionary history as well that often times when people are recipient cultures if the missionaries don't teach them how to become sending cultures then they continue to get kind of a welfare mentality and so forth, and I think that we have mistakenly, those speaking as a North American "houli" as we would call us in Hawaii, that we have a tendency to continually look on native Americans as the mission field.  And I was intrigued by an article that you wrote in a Christian magazine recently, Richard, on "Where in the world is Waldo?" and you used the Waldo illustration to say "Where are the First Nation leaders in our nation.  We recognize Latin Americans, we recognize black leaders, we recognize white leaders, but where are the, for Leon here, where are the Hawaiian leaders and where are the First Nation leaders from America.

(SS: Why is the fault or blame continually laid (for there not being more indigenous leadership from indigenous churches) on mission organizations?  The fault squarely lies on the indigenous nationalized churches.  I happen to know that in Hawaii and Micronesia the churches have been continually encouraged to reach out to their own island groups by island leaders with the gospel, yet many islands in Micronesia have not heard the gospel yet!  I hate to say it but if you are faithful in little then God can use you in much!  God is waiting for the indigenous peoples to reach their own peoples before they take on a larger role in other areas of the world.  This is a hard truth that First Nation's peoples need to deal with.  Stop blaming missions who have been doing everything in their power to persuade, encourage and fund mission efforts by indigenous peoples to indigenous peoples.  Doing the hula for North American audiences will not get the job of preaching the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth done!)

Terry LeBlanc:  Well, that true around the world too not just in North America.  Around the world you could ask the question: "Where are the indigenous leaders that have had impact and influence, not simply in their own indigenous cultural context, but in the broader church and you'd come up with few if any of us in the indigenous community that, over the centuries, have had a presence theologically in terms of biblical instruction, in terms of ecclesiology, of the church.  We've just been very absent.  And it's really been, in large measure, because we've not been perceived to be necessary.  The church has been perceived, in essence, mono-cultural.  And some variations and shadings within that, but mono-cultural.

(SS: First of all this is because First Nation's groups are a minority in terms of other groups.  Second it is not because of some bigotry on the part of the church, but because First Nation's churches have been struggling to simply evangelize their own people, as they should be doing without much help from outside.)

Danny Lehmann: And I know you folks wouldn't say this, but I would maybe say on your behalf "Hey, you guys were here first."  (Danny laughs)  I know you'd say "Amen" to that but it's true.

Richard Twiss:  No, it's true.  I think in saying yes to that I think it really is just acknowledging the sovereignty of God without causing any kind of political ideological issues it really is an acknowledgment of what God has done.

Terry LeBlanc:  That's right , it is.

Danny Lehmann:  We'll be back again next week to continue our interview with three of the leaders from the indigenous peoples movements around the world and we'll talk more about what God is doing in these peoples around the world.

(SS: If God is the one stirring up contention and competition among the nations and peoples of the world who call themselves "Christians" then it is not the God of the Bible.  If there was even a remote acknowledgment of the debt owed to mission efforts to the nations in the past, this might be a Godly idea.  But since it is an idea based in misinformation, veiled bigotry, and twisting of Scripture, this is certainly a movement to avoid like the plague.  There are many people groups around the world who ARE doing legitimate evangelism, but this is "world evangelization" - Christianization of otherwise pagan cultures of all kinds, including Western culture, and as such it needs to be roundly condemned by true believers in Christ.)

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 546
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann: Good to have you with us again today on Word for the Word.  We've been interviewing starting last week three leaders from the indigenous peoples movement namely Hawaiians, Native Americans in north America and First Nations people in Canada and out three leaders are Leon Siu, Richard Twiss and Terry LeBlanc and maybe they can mention their names as they begin to speak but uh Richard you wrote an article in a Christian magazine recently about "Where in the world is Waldo" and you used your boys Waldo drawings as an illustration of where in the world are the indigenous Christian leaders.  When we read Christianity Today or Moody Monthly or Charisma or whatever and we see some white, some black, some Latin Americans.  But where are the indigenous peoples and I think we have this caricature "Well, they're out on reservations somewhere and maybe they have their churches but they don't seem to be in the mainstream of Christianity in North America."  Can you comment on that.

(SS: Charisma Magazine is an unbridled bald-faced promoter of the Third Wave, and Christianity Today is not far behind.)

Richard Twiss:  Well it's really true in just a casual glimpse of around any Bible bookstore.  Look for the Native Christian authors or Christian magazine and there really aren't any.

(SS:  Are they claiming that there is a plot to keep Native American books off the shelves, or are there just not many books being written by Native Americans?  Or perhaps the books just aren't up to literary standards so have not been published?  Who are we supposed to blame in all this?  This sounds like whining to me.)

And so that absence is problematic in light of 3, 4, 500 years of missions when over 300 years not one North American leader, not one Hawaiian, not one Maori, not one aboriginal leader has been raised up in their country that the rest of the body of Christ views as a man or woman of spiritual stature.

(SS: If this is the case then the history books that include the Hawaiians bringing the gospel to Micronesia (along with Western missionaries) need to be rewritten to be make Richard's statement accurate.  There are many peoples from other nations that have gained great acclaim in the body of Christ for their service and testimony.  However, is this supposed to be our aim as Christians?  To get acclaim and fame?  Perhaps it would be wise for those who are whining to remember that many who are first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Sounds like they want their treasure now.  If that's the case the Lord may tell them they already have their reward.)

And I think it goes back to 1 Cor. Chapter 12 verse 21 where it says "The eye can't say to the hand "I don't need you."  I think your old American expression of Jesus Christ has said to the Native North American expression "We don't need you."  So if you look at a thing and you can't identify value in it you'll have no perceived sense of need for it.  And it you have no perceived sense of need for it then you get along without it.  So the church has been getting along without us for hundreds of years but I think we're at a time now as we sort of move into this new millennium not only is the chronological change but I think there's a period of grace now for the church to begin acknowledging there's a stirring in the hearts of many people, native and non-native, to begin looking at these issues again.

(SS: Perhaps this is because the need is still there for the Native churches to finish the evangelization process of their own peoples.  Let's not forget the amount of time, resources, and human sacrifice that went into discipling and building up First Nation's churches to the point where they can now reach out to their own and beyond. I frankly don't see the problem here.  Is it just that these guys want more recognition, more fame, more money, or what?  Do they want to be left alone, or do they want to be provided a stage for the display of their cultural activities?  Why do they think other people groups just can't live without them at this point?  They are as free to contribute to the larger body of Christ as anyone else.  No one is stopping them.  But why should people be forced to get involved in their cultural displays, especially if they involve Third Wave theology and animistic worldviews?  This doesn't help the body of Christ.  Perhaps it would be wise to get back to doing the work of preaching the gospel and discipling the nations and stop acting, frankly, like little disgruntled children!)

But the absence needs to be corrected if we're going to sort of move in.

(SS: Move into what?  Move into the body of Christ?  Only Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit can do that.  Move into fellowship?  Nothing is preventing them as far as I can see.  Move into leadership?  Leadership is something that God ordains and must be allowed on the basis of qualifications.  The Bible says a leader must be "qualified to teach".  From what I see of this group none of them fit that qualification because of their lack of ability to rightly divide the Word of Truth.  That is an absolute prerequisite for ministry.  For instance, let's stop taking Don Richardson's ideas as "gospel" and worry about what the Word of God says!)

And I think if you got really way out there you could say it has eschatological implications if this is a spot or a blemish or a wrinkle in the bride then how much impact does that potentially have on the return of the bridegroom.

(SS: Does any disunity in the body of Christ hold back the return of Christ?  I don't see that in Scripture. Christ is the One who washes our clothes clean.  The Holy Spirit is the one who presents us to the Father without blemish.  As long as we are on this earth we are living with the new man and the old man in one fleshly body.  We still struggle with sin, the world and the devil.  We are not perfect, only justified by the substitutional death of Christ on the cross for our sins.  We need to continue to confess our sins and stand in the faith, as well as live in the unity that the Holy Spirit has given those who are regenerate. What we don't need are people trying to force some kind of ecumenical unity that is based on bringing back customs tied to pagan gods.  I'm of Scottish decent (though I grew up as a missionary kid in Palau), but I would no sooner perform or force people to watch me dance around Stonehenge and do druidic dances and chants as my ancestors did than I would cut off my left foot!  There is no purpose to trying to impose cultural religious celebrations on the body of Christ that were dedicated to Io, a bird god of Hawaii or the Great Spirit of the Indians.)

And so this is an issue for the whole church, not just native people.

Danny Lehmann:  I'd like to address this question to Leon, and maybe we can have Terry jump in after that.  I was talking to a Hawaiian leader one time about the Harvest Crusades and Harvest Crusades are mostly North American evangelical crusade, my friend Greg Lorrie runs them and we would wonder, we'd sit around in our meetings and wonder "where are the Hawaiian leaders?".  And I'd, we'd send them the same invitations we send everybody else and the Hawaiians are notably absent.  And one of the Hawaiian brothers said "Because you did not entreat them.  You did not go by their protocol.  You sent them a computerized letter which they are not going to respond to because culturally you need to entreat them as the people of the land."  What's your comment on that, Leon?"

(SS: Though it is true that in the past this would have been needful advice … to contact people personally in First Nations type cultures ... it seems to me that these same people have no problem answering job ads in the paper, going to secular concerts based on advertisements, buying things over the Internet responding to web site ads, joining a protest because of a paper circular they were handed, and even posting signs advertising "huli huli chicken" which they apparently expect to attract all kinds of people to buy their product, etc.  Unfortunately the fact that not many Hawaiians joined the Harvest Crusade is because of a lack of interest.  People just aren't interested in hearing the gospel as much as they are in being entertained.  This is why the Polynesian Cultural center has done so well.  People in ALL cultures want a show these days.  They'd rather go see Benny Hinn put on a healing spectacle than bring their friends out to hear the gospel. I also have to wonder if Greg Lorrie has heard what Danny Lehmann is saying about his crusades.)

Leon Siu: Definitely.  Hawaiians respond, or native people, most native people respond in a very different way.  We don't respond to a letter in the mail. That's something cold.

(SS:  I can guarantee you that Native Hawaiians respond to a letter in the mail from the IRS, from the bank, from their relatives, from anything that interests them.  This is ludicrous.)

We need to know who the person is.  In fact, you know, in Hawaiian for instance to ask a person's name you say "Kowai Ko Enoa".  Enoa meaning name.  Wai meaning water.  So the question is not "What is your name?" it's "Who is your name?"

(SS: We impersonal Westerners also ask "Who are you?"  What does that prove?)

See?  So when you get a letter from somebody you don't know who that person is.  You see the name and all that but you don't know who that person is.  So Hawaiians have a tendency to not to respond to someone they don't meet face to face and to someone that they can't share their hearts with and find out who they are.

(SS:  Standing outside the Benny Hinn crusade I saw many Hawaiians going in.  They had been invited only by an ad in the paper and by some churches announcing it.  Benny Hinn NEVER meets with anyone personally and in fact was spirited away in his limo to his $3700. per night hotel room right after his crusades with about $2 million dollars of island people's money in his chauffeurs from two nights of his event.  I just don't get it.  Why did the Hawaiian people respond to Benny when He NEVER meets people face to face, barely advertises, and then strips them of at least $50. per person each night of the crusade?  Apparently Hawaiians are able to respond without a face to face meeting IF THEY WANT TO!   I think face to face, personal communication is the best way to tell people about things. That's true in practically any culture, but especially true of First Nation's peoples … but this does not preclude people from responding in our modern world IF THEY HAVE THE DESIRE.  Hopefully Greg Laurie can make more personal contacts when he's here next time.  Hopefully Hawaiians will quit going out to be fleeced by con artists like Benny Hinn (who is now working with YWAM) and respond to the gospel message by people like Greg Laurie who is still preaching it.)

And all that. So that is one of the keys here that native peoples respond in a very different way to what Westerners seen would be a very simple and direct kind of thing, native peoples don't respond directly that way.

Danny Lehmann:  We'll be back again tomorrow ...

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 547
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann: For the last couple of days on our broadcast we've been talking about indigenous peoples, not only in North American among our First Nation people here but the Hawaiians, the Aboriginals in Australia, the Maoris in New Zealand.  These are people who are quote unquote the people of the land and then yesterday we talked to Richard Twiss who's a Lakota Sioux leader, tribal group in North America and we were asking Richard about an article that he wrote in Charisma magazine recently "Where in the world is Waldo?"  and in that he used his son's cartoon Waldo character to ask the question "Where are Native American leaders?"  Just as an white American leader I'd like to ask you folks, how can we better entreat you folks?  Yesterday we talked about you don't send computerized letter to a Hawaiian pastor asking him to be involved in a Harvest Crusade, you go visit him and you let him know who you are and you go face to face and tell us how we can help you, how we can minister to you.

(SS: Nothing like beating a horse over and over again.  Interesting that here we find out that they were not just talking about Hawaiians who did not come to the Crusade because they got a circular like everyone else, but it is the pastors who were offended because they didn't get a face to face meeting.  Shouldn't it be the pastors who are the most forgiving and trying to be the best example for their flocks?  Wouldn't the pastors want to invite people to go to a crusade where the gospel was going to be preached?  What is preventing them from finding out who Greg Lorrie is by tuning into the TV (like they do everyday of their lives) to listen to Greg Lorrie preach, or getting information off the web (which they use for other purposes just like the rest of us) or buying his book (like they buy other books)?  The second question is why we now have to "entreat" people that Western missionaries preached the gospel to since 1820 in Hawaii to come out for a Christian gathering?  Why then are these guys "entreating" people to come to the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples over the radio?  Will they be meeting face to face with all the pastors and people of Hawaii themselves to invite them?)

Terry LeBlanc: Danny just set a stage for that, perhaps for some of our listeners.  When a person out of a, and Anglo or European North American backgroud comes to Christ they aren't asked nor do they ask of themselves "What do I need to look at in my culture that I might have to set aside in order to serve Christ."

(SS: Complete straw man argument and a lie!  What is he talking about?  Do we not set aside beer parties, sinful activities of all kinds relating to tradition and culture in North America?  Do we stop hanging out with friends who are unregenerate and instead start witnessing to them, thereby many times losing them as close friends?  Has Terry ever heard of families struggling between one believing spouse and one unbelieving spouse?  Hasn't Terry noticed that North America has traditions and cultural activities just like Native Americans?  Maybe they aren't so obvious to him because he has been around them so long, but EVERY nation has a culture that ALWAYS has its good, bad and ugly features.)

I'm not talking about drinking, dancing, smoking, chewing, going with girls who do … those sorts of moral or value issues … but they aren't going to ask about their music, their language, their dress, and so on.

(SS: First of all, the first things he mentioned can also be very much a part of culture.  Fiestas in Guam, drinking beer here at Luaus, dancing the hula to Io .. these are not just moral/value issues.  Second Christians should and do ask about music.  They often stop listening to music that glorifies the American sub cultures of sex, violence, drugs, etc. and CHANGE their culture to one where they are thinking on things that are good, right and holy.  I don't know why he mentions language here because no one is forcing anyone to give up their language.  Native Americans are free, thanks to the freedoms of the US, to speak their language, write materials in their language, minister in their language to their people.  So are "Anglos".  We do make judgments about our dress and begin to change it to reflect the fact that we no longer follow the values of our culture in terms of exposing ourselves but we are concerned that we do not cause others to sin.)

Whereas in the Native community that question is up front right away.  Do I have to abandon my cultural identity in order to come to Christ and to express my faith in Christ.

(SS: The answer is yes and no.  Yes you have to abandon those things that are sinful in your culture and do not glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.  No you don't have to abandon those things that are cultural but are not tied to false demonic worship.  There is NO DIFFERENCE between what Native Americans have to deal with and what Western peoples have to deal with in this regard.  We all have to find out how God wants to be worshipped and abandon those things in our cultures that tend to glorify men, tradition, false religion, etc.)

And so one of the things that needs to be done is the acknowledgement that there isn't a single unique cultural expression of Christian faith that we all must demonstrate or participate in in order for us to be authentically in relationship with Christ and then authentically in relationship with one another.

(SS:  I think this has been acknowledged long before any of these guys were born and is certainly acknowledged today.  No one is going into First Nations churches and telling them what they can and cannot do.  What Terry wants to do, however, is force the rest of the church to do WHAT THEY WANT TO DO!  By doing this they are doing EXACTLY what they abhor.  The actual bottom line is that they want to be able to get the Third Wave revival movement into all churches and this is just another way to do it.  But they will find that many churches will NEVER be interested in the Third Wave and its twisted values no matter what packaging it packages itself in.  But unfortunately much of the Two Thirds World may well be taken in by these people who are marketing veiled bigotry and false assumptions in the guise of being in tune with your culture as Christians.  Let me state that the Two Thirds World churches ought to ignore these people and work out their issues the way they have always been worked out … by dialog.  We don't need these people who can't even get their facts straight to represent some kind of New World Order of Christianity.)

So starting at that point and looking at the other cultures and saying "What do I value in your culture that brings a dynamic expression of faith in Christ to our joint expression of Christian faith in the church" is a good starting place and then creating opportunities to partner out of that with others.

(SS: It seems like the theme of "partnering" comes up over and over again, yet it looks like this partnering is heavy on cultural expression and light to nonexistent on the [preaching of repentance and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, which hasn't really been mentioned in this series of interviews.  It is also a heavy emphasis of getting monetary support from churches, but it seems like that support will be put toward advancing culture instead of advancing the saving gospel, particularly among the people groups represented on this program.  Do churches need to support cultural displays or true evangelism?)

Richard Twiss: So I'd say like in the, in Los Angeles alone there's 100,000 First Nations people, Portland, OR there's 20,00, Seattle there's 25,000 and Toronto there's 60 or 40,000 and so, you know, the listeners here - how many native friends would they have, you know?  They're all around them but were sort of uh, we blend into the woodwork, we don't have geographic in the urban centers where we congregate so were sort of all around.

(SS: It is true that many people don't have a lot of friends from other cultures (I do).  But is it only incumbent on Christians from the West to reach out?)

So I would just say as a Christian know in that this is a great need in the whole church it has to begin with Joe and Betty with a burden to begin building relationships with First Nations leaders.

(SS: How about those in the First Nations?  Do they feel a great need to build relationships?  If so why haven't the been doing so?)

Cause they're out there and it would be so arrogant to think "Where are the native leaders" which is to say there aren't any well that's ridiculous.  There are hundreds and hundreds of them, we've just never heard of them.

(SS: Another straw men argument.  No Christian is saying that because we can't see or don't know Two Thirds World leaders that there aren't any!  That's ridiculous.)

So one of the things we're doing is we've started a series of national conferences on the mainland called "Many Nations, One Voice Celebrations".  And the vision is to partner with well-known national Christian leaders to create partnership opportunities so now we're introducing native leaders and native ministry organizations to the greater body of Christ by partnering with people like Don Richardson and John Dawson and George Otis and others like them of their caliber and now when the person comes we always pair a native and non-native speaker together.

(SS: This all sounds great until you get to the part of who is deeply involved in this movement, in fact who's agenda this movement is furthering.  This movement is not so much about native peoples as it is about building a global church with restored apostles and prophets.  All the leaders mentioned are deep into the New Apostolic Reformation headed by C. Peter Wagner, which is promoted worldwide by these organizations, especially YWAM.  Why would any biblical Christian want to be paired off with someone like John Dawson who teaches territorial spirit binding and spiritual mapping, or with George Otis, Jr. whose claims in his "Transformations" videos are fabrications and outright lies?  Even Don Richardson has slid over to the Third Wave side of the fence by endorsing people like Richard Twiss.  This is a movement that ALL Christians need to be careful to avoid and certainly not support.)

So when the audience comes they say "Oh, John Dawson or Don Richardson, we've heard of them but who's that native person, we've never heard of them before"?  But when it's all done they say "Wow, where have these native people been?  We've never heard of these people.  The Leon Sius and the Terry LeBlancs and the Art Whitehawks and the Jerry Yellowhawks and we've never heard of them yet they're there."  And so I would encourage the listeners here to begin looking for opportunities to begin building relationships with native believers in their communities and from there it can build to something very wonderful in terms of true biblical partnership.

(SS: I'm sad to say that this looks like a bid for fame instead of humble service.  It looks like a cultural display instead of a furtherance of the gospel.  It looks like ecumenical unity rather than true unity of the Spirit.  The Bible never states that we must partner with people from other nations.  It says that we are all together in the unity of the Spirit and should continue in that unity, but we don't become unified by attending activities that glorify culture.  We are unified by virtue of our death and resurrection in Christ.)

Danny Lehmann:  Praise God. This is good stuff, you guys.  We'll be back again tomorrow …

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 548
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann: Paul the Apostle said in 1 Cor. Chapter 9 that "he became all things to all men that by all means he might save some."  All men refers to all different kinds and types of men and the Bible of course talks about differentiations of men and women broken up into tribes and clans and nations and kindreds and families which will be standing around the throne of God according to the book of Revelation.  We've had with us the last couple of days on our broadcast three leaders from the First Nations movements among the Hawaiians and among the North American First Nations movements and I want to focus in on you, Richard, this is Richard Twiss from Wiconi Ministries.  Richard, I think often times people like myself and others, the only thing we know about indigenous peoples we think of gambling casinos on reservations, we think of rescue mission ministry and so forth, but I think you folks are saying "Hey, we've got something to ofer the body of Christ".  And how would the typical North American church entreat you folks so we can have some fellowship, some unity and then work together for world evangelization.

(SS: Here's the term "world evangelization" again from the C. Peter Wagner new paradigm shift and New Apostolic Reformation Third Wave movement.  Seems like these Third Wave ecumenical concepts are getting a big plug on Danny's show!)

Richard Twiss: Well, there's two things.  Terry LeBlanc mentioned how "What if the person listening to this program were to go to their church staff and say 'Are we supporting a native pastor through our denomination or our network of churches or how are we practically linked together?'"  That would be one way.

(SS: I have no problems with Two Thirds World pastors and churches raising money in North America or anywhere else.  The fact is that a lot of the support for many Two Third World churches already comes from North America and European churches.  I would frankly like to see Two Thirds World churches make more of an effort to support themselves and become self-supporting.  There is no reason why that can't happen.  In fact, I would like to see Two Thirds World churches get to the point where they are supporting THEIR OWN MISSION EFFORTS just like North American churches have done for centuries.  The Two Thirds World churches and leadership will continue to need monetary support, particularly those in truly depressed areas, but the goal should not be for the Two Thirds World churches to come back under support to the North American churches but to grow to the point where they can support their own missionaries.  There is nothing wrong with churches being aware of mission work and supporting that work, in fact mission support should be a part of every church budget, and particularly support for indigenous churches.  But from my experience there continues to be a sort of love/hate relationship coming from Two Thirds World churches.  They love the money, they hate ANY accountability.  It's time for the Two Thirds World churches, many of which have been nationalized for many decades, to stand on their own two feet and contribute instead of draining precious resources.  That being said, NO churches should be contributing to Third Wave churches or leaders no matter what kind of cultural bandwagon they ride in on.  Churches should be very wary of groups like the ones supported by John Dawson, George Otis, Jr., C. Peter Wagner and other leaders of the Third Wave.  Churches should check out every group that comes in wanting monies and partnerships to see if they are biblically sound.)

And then if there's not say "Well, how can we get involved?"  Now there's a web site, Wiconi.com, and if you go there there's a whole bunch of links to probably a dozen or more native ministries, some are denominational affiliated etc.  And some exciting news.  Mission America, which is the largest network of Christian Organizations in North America, every denomination's a part of it, Campus Crusade For Christ, and all the Bibles, their all a part of it.  Well, at the last meeting that at in St. Louis a decision was made that every November, for the Church from this day forward, would be a celebration of First Nation's history. So the first Sunday of every November will be called First Nations Sunday.

(SS:  Mission America at: http://www.missionamerica.org/ is the coalition what was formed by those "8,000 churches" and "nearly 1 million Lighthouses" (individuals?) who signed up to participate in the Lighthouse Church movement.  Lighthouse was yet another arm of the New Apostolic Reformation headed by Ed Silvoso and under the leadership of C. Peter Wagner and his "apostles".  So Mission America in no way represents the Church as a whole, but is rather and entry level organization under the ultimate leadership of the "new apostles" of the Third Wave.  Some churches and organizations who signed up for this program didn't realize they are being dragged under the coming authority of the "apostles" of the new Latter Rain movement and probably also don't know that C. Peter Wagner has been gathering information on EVERY church in the world using his large computer system in Colorado Springs via the Lighthouse web site.  This illustrates that Danny Lehmann and his guests are complicit with and, in fact, major promoters of a number of New Apostolic Reformation programs.  So now we begin to see a clear picture of the First Nations program.  It is not so much about First Nations but about the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation using them as a pawn to entice churches and individuals to join the ecumenical developing apostate world church, and all in the name of being culturally and politically correct.  Not "every denomination" is a part of Mission America so it is presumption for them to dictate what the "Church" at large is going to do.)

And churches across America, Canada as well I'm sure, will be invited or encouraged to invite a First Nation's speaker into their pulpit on Sunday morning.  And I'm guessing that there will be tens of thousands, maybe couple hundreds of thousands, who have never had a native speaker in their church, well they've African Americans or Asians or certain Anglo guys, so that's another way for people to practically connect. And then we have the Many Nations, One Voice celebrations that we mentioned and the first one is planned for this coming year, May 4-6 in Arcada, CA and then Oct. 8-10 in Portland, OR and then Nov. 6-8 in Dallas-Fort Worth, so those a places that people can come and MAKE those kinds of practical connections.

Leon Siu:  Uh, this is Leon.  I wanted to also mention that we do have the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous Peoples coming up in the year 2002 it will be in October, we don't have exact dates come down yet, but if you contact Wiconi.com that you can find out in the next few months.  I wanted to return to something about we had spoken earlier in the week about missions and using the giftings of natives to actually partner with the non-indigenous people to take the gospel out to other nations.  This is something we've found is that is very special … native peoples in other places, indigenous peoples, will respond to indigenous peoples from around from other places in the world.  There is some kind of this spiritual connection or understanding or a camaraderie that is there so actually indigenous peoples will be most successful in carrying the gospel to other indigenous peoples.  And I think the Lord set it up in that way just to get us to mix it up a little bit you know.

(SS: There is certainly a common ground betweeng native peoples with brown skin. But when we are Christians we should be more concerned with the unity we have in the Holy Spirit, not some kind of special "spiritual connection" that only indigenous people have to the exclusion of everyone else.  There is, after all, a pervasive spirit of this world at work already, the spirit of antichrist, that is working to bring people together in a new Babel set up against the knowledge of the truh God of the Bible. Also, up to this point most of the mission work in spreading the gospel has been a cooperative effort and is being carried on primarily by Western missions in partnership with local nationalized churches.  To state that the gospel will be more successfully preached worldwide by indigenous peoples is yet to be a proven fact.  But if the "gospel in the stars" of Daniel Kikawa and Leon Siu and prayers to the bird god Io, as well as worship of the Great Spirit as the Holy Spirit are the type of gospel they will be preaching to the nations, then please don't bother!)

Danny Lehmann:  Well, you pushed my button there, uh, Leon.  We'll be back again tomorrow …

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 549
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehmann: Good to have you with us again today on our broadcast.  We've been talking for the last several days with three leaders from the indigenous people's movements around the world, especially North America and Hawaii and just yesterday we had Leon Siu talking to us about the connection between idigenous peoples in one nation.  Samoans, for instance, can go out of Samoa and end up in India.  Samoan and Fijian tribal groups who have Christian guys who have gone to North American and worked among some of the First Nations people up there.  There are Brazilian missionaries now going to North Africa and being successful working among the Muslims.  Why don't you tell us a little bit more about this connection and why you folks think its effective.

Leon Siu:  Well it's a very exciting thing.  Way back 150 years ago when the gospel was first came to Hawaii and there was this tremendous outpouring of response to the gospel by Hawaiians, immediately Hawaiians set forth to become missionaries to others places.  They wanted to carry this good news to other places.  So they actually Hawaiians were ones that evangelized Micronesia within a few years like four or five years after conversion, these guys were out on the mission field and they were taking the gospel, they were taking risks, they left their families and they went out there into the mission field.

(SS: The mission information given by Leon Siu is not factual.  (1) The gospel came to Hawaii with the Congregationalists through their American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1820.  That is 182 years ago, as of 2002. (2) The first outreach to Micronesia and the island of Kosrae was in 1852, a full 32 years later.  It was an outreach of the ABCFM on the ship Easter May by ABCFM missionaries the Gulicks, Sturges' and Snows along with the Hawaiians Opuniu and wife Doreka and Kaaikaula and wife Kekela.  They brought with them a letter from King Kamahameha that introduced the missionaries to the king of Kosrae. One Hawaiian family and one ABCFM mission family were given land on Kosrae and stayed there, namely the Snows and the Opunuis.  This was a joint venture all along using ABCFM funding.  This fact was never mentioned.  Curious, since Siu and Lehmann are looking now to "partner" with North Americans again.  (3) Hawaiians did not evangelize all of Micronesia, they just went on the first journey.  After Kosrae, Pohnpei and the Marshalls converts from Chuuk went with Western missionaries to Palau and Palauans, in turn, went to Yap with Liebenzell Mission missionaries in Western Micronesia.  (4) It is true that ALL the missionaries took risks, but why are the North American and German missionaries totally left out of this account?  At least give cridit where credit is due.  The Hawaiian people would still be living in darkness worshipping demonic gods if it were not for the ABCFM missionaries and their love and dedication to Jesus Christ.  How could they hear without a preacher preaching the gospel message?  How could any of us be saved without that?  We owe a debt of gratitude to early missionary "apostles" that we can never fully pay.)

This happened with the Koren people in Burma also.  As the revival hit there they went immediately to their neighboring tribes to tell them the good news.  I think God has set this up in this way just specifically so that we can, as native peoples, really bring our gifts and our Aloha to share God's Aloha.

Terry LeBlanc: I've just come back from Alteroa from New Zealand where I've strong relationships with the Maori over there for the last number of years, and then we continue to see where coming as a native North American or as a First Nations person in North America to their communities I received the feeling that some of their own people don't receive because there's a cultural link but there's also the distancing that often mission needs or seems to thrive on the cross-cultural nature of mission in order for a people to respond.  They in turn have come to our communities and we've had Moari former Maori gang members comet o our communities in North America with the gospel to gang member of our urban core and be responded to where our own people couldn't speak.  And so that cross-cultural mission fertilization process has been powerful.  But even beyond that, Danny, we have been seeing First Nations indigenous mission groups going to other cultures of the world that are not specifically indigenous cultures and receive a tremendous hearing.  Richard says, and says very well, that of all the peoples of the world indigenous peoples are uniquely positioned in this day for world evangelization because our cultures are known and yet unknown, are held in high esteem and yet not well known, so there's that unique tension between known and unknown and the interest and the curiosity about it as we come as a people of God out of our indigenous context opens the doors in amazing ways.

(SS:  Cultural displays are fine and attract crowds anywhere, but is the true gospel being presented or is the C. Peter Wagner brand of "world evangelization" being promoted?  There is a lot of talk about sharing and unity and fertilization, but what about Jesus Christ's death on the cross, what about sin, what about repentance?)

Danny Lehmann: I'd like to comment on that and what I hear you saying and we've been talking for the last few days, it's not just a brown skin to brown skin thing, it's something that God has put within indigenous peoples to be able to identify with indigenous peoples of other cultures, is that right?

(SS: Sounds like a great idea, but is there Scriptural support for the idea that "God has put within indigenous peoples" the ability "to identify with indigenous peoples of other cultures"?  Or is this identification something of the flesh and soul and not really the spirit?  The unity we have in the Spirit is a spiritual thing.  It transcends all cultures and ethnicity.  What Danny is talking about is a soulical unity born of skin color, similar cultural and religious practices of the past, the common bond of knowing other First Nations people, and the fascination with other cultures in music, art, and traditions.  This has nothing to do with the unity of the Spirit.  It has everything to do with worldly unity.  Is this what we as Christians should be spending our time promoting, or should we be concentrating on the unity we already have in the Spirit and serving Jesus Christ by preaching the gospel and discipling all nations, teaching them to love one another as God the Father loved us?)

Richard Tiwss: As Terry was just in New Zealand and he was Africa last year and tell us how you went with the Massi people.

Terry LeBlanc:  Yeh, among the Massi of Africa just actually almost two years ago now we found the darkested skinned among us was perceived as Mazumbu - white in comparison to their people and they said after several days of questioning why we were there they said "Oh, now we see.  We understand.  But you see you need to appreciate you're the first white skinned people we have ever seen who had culture."  (Another obvious edit)  Because of our drumming and our regalia and so on our culture connected with theirs in ways that white culture had never done before.

Danny Lehmann:  In much the same that Paul the Apostle talked about the unknown god altar and also quoted Greek poets and so forth to be able to reach out to the Athenians in Acts chapter 17.  God bless
you ...

(SS:  So Paul's use of the analogy of the unknown God and quoting Greek poets is now being compared to beating on drums, dancing around, chanting and other cultural and pagan religious activities?  I'd say this is about as much "apples and oranges" as you can get.  Paul used the analogies from their culture to tell them about a very real person who died and rose from the dead, namely Jesus Christ.  What kind of analogy can African people draw from cultural displays?  Notice that the cross-cultural "ministry" was based on "drumming" and "regalia".  Were the drums used as an analogy?  Were the regalia used as an illustrationy?  No, they were simply used as a way to unity not based on the Spirit, but based on culture which is neither Godly nor redeemed.)

WORD TO THE WORLD
PROGRAM 550
(Danny Lehmann has since taken down the audio files for this program which were here:
http://www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm You can varify it is there if, by chance, it goes offline :) by going to this link: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:SQOKVAc-C1IJ:www3.calvarychapel.com/honolulu/Chapel/Missions/lehmann/wtw.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
No matter.  We have the full audio from the radio broadcast and this transcript is an accurate word for word transcript of those KLHT broadcasts.  We are prohibited from posting the audio files in their entirety because they are copyrighted, but we quote from them for the purposes of proving what they are teaching is unbiblical.)

Danny Lehamnn: Good to have you with us again today on our broadcast on Word to the World.  We are gonna have to wrap up an exciting series of interviews we've had for the last couple of weeks with leaders from various indigenous peoples, the Hwaaiians and different native American tribes in North America.  And a little bit about something that you might be able to say to us as a First Nations leader to those of us that might be able to connect with some of our original roots.

Richard Twiss: One of the things that we have discovered around the world is that there's an incredible love, fascination and respect for the cultures, the people of North America. And so we've taken teams in the last couple, now we've taken cultural evangelism teams so we get men and women who excel in their traditional native dancing and drumming with beautiful regalia and eagle feather outfit and all that so we've been to China, we've been to Switzerland, to Israel, to Mongolia, to Australia, to New Zealand, many parts of New Zealand, and to France.  Everywhere we went peolle came up by the hundreds because they wanted to see the red Indians.  And I pastor with a man a man from .. (tape dropout) ... all of these boys, and they all wanted to be the Indians, they all didn't want to be the cowboys. So God is prepared that the peoples of the world to receive native people from North America.  So when we go we're not going as entertainers, we're going as ambassadors of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

(SS: I know they are saying they are not going as "entertainers" and are there as "ambassadors of the gospel" but the only stories we get are those about kids playing cowboys and Indians.  Where is the gospel in all this?)

So there's a global opportunity for the First Nations people but we want to do it in PARTNERSHIP so we want the church to see this is a remarkable opportunity for world mission for the churches, not just for native people as if to say we're apart from we're gonna do our own thing, but how can the church partner with native people to take advantage of this global opportunity for world mission.

(SS: This would be a good opportunity for churches to support this effort if it were not tied to the Third Wave and if the gospel was truly being presented instead of a "cultural evangelism".)

And Dr. Billy Graham said "It may be that native Americans will be the ones who will help winiAmerica for Christ." And he said "Remember these forgotten people."  And we absolutely believe thatr beause we're seeing it happen before our very eyes.

(SS: This is a wonderful idea, but we are NOT seeing America being won for Christ. Instead we are seeing America slipping further into paganism, the New Age and other religions such as Islam.  I have no doubt that native Americans could be a help in the furtherance of the gospel, just as the Hawaiians were in the furtherance of the gospel in Micronesia, but it must be the actual preaching of the gospel and dsicipleship that is the goal, not the redeeming of cultures.)

Terry LeBlanc:  Regardless of where we go in the world, the fascination that Richard talks about is evident.  Their asking, you know, "What do you believe?"  And out of the cultural, the visible cultural they move quickly to "What do you believe?" and it opens and incredible door of opportunity for the proclamation of the gospel.  When we were in Israel just a year and a half ago we had orthodox Jewish people coming up and asking us why we were Christian, at the Wailing Wall, in the Kanesset and other places in Israel.  Now I suspect they wouldn't ask you, Danny, about that.  But because we went in our native cultural presentation, who we are as native people they asked us what we believe. And we're about to talk about what we believe.  So as Richard is saying, going into the world all of the world that fascination with who we are culturally opens incredible doors of opportunity for the presentation of the gospel and the response has been phenominal.

(SS: This would be great if the gospel were really presented in truth.  But if Richard is telling people he worships the Great Spirit and that he is Jehovah, if Leon Siu is telling people he prays to Io or Pele as YHWH, then this is clearly not the type of evangelism we need.  If they are promoting the Third Wave heretical doctrines, then this is not what we need. In fact it is really anti-evangelism.  What we do need are people from all the cultures using biblical methods to reach people with the gospel.)

Danny Lehmann: Fantastic.

Leon Siu: And as Hawaiians of course we experienced the same thing.  When we, of course, Hawaii has really a special place in the hearts of just about everybody in the world.  Every couple of years theres an international survey that's held where, if you could go on a vactaion, where in the world would you most like to go.  And it's something like 80% of the people around the world say Hawaii.  Now how they've heard about Hawaii we don't know, but there's just somehting special about Hawaii.  So when I travel and I say I'm from Hawaii, I a Hawaiian, there all of a sudden the countenance of the people changes and God has given Hawaiians favor in the eyes of other people.  We believe we're the ultimate missionaries and God has given us such favor that we go almost anyplace in the world and be received and be, as Terry said, be asked "Why are you Christians?" or "What do you believe?".  "Who are you?"  And then we can relate and we can share who we are and we can tell them about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that Jesus came to save us.

Danny Lehamnn: We've been having a great interview the last couple of weeks, if you want more information on the World Christian Gathering of Indigenous Peoples or if you want any information in general on reaching indigenous peoples and what God's doing around the world, get ahold of Wiconi.com.  God bless you ..


Conclusion:  I advise all indigenous peoples to avoid association with these C. Peter Wagner affilitated organizations involved in the New Apostolic Reformation, and to find other ways to reach out to the world with the gospel message.  Some of these ideas are good ones, but when you couple them with some of the heretical doctrines and disingenuosness of this movement, you have to reject it as unbilical.  I continue to promote and help indigenous peoles to reach out to their "Jerusalem" first, then to continue beyond their borders to impact the world with the gospel message.  But I can't get behind organizations that are simply attempting to Christianize culture because they are setting people up for global unity and the coming apostate world church.