He schooled himself to change””a long, slow transformation. Once, leading a [Youth for Christ] YFC camp in a remote Sri Lankan village, he decided that years of study had finally made him ready to lead music in the Sinhala language. Afterwards, he stumbled into an informal gathering of young YFC volunteers. As he entered, he overheard them laughing at his Sinhala singing and mimicking him.
He lived simply. YFC salaries were based on family size and experience, not on position. Fernando made no more than others, and he made sure his home and lifestyle were in no way intimidating to the most simple village people who might visit.
Not only did he change, his teaching changed. Considering the prevailing liberalism, he began to teach about the supremacy of Christ, a difficult and controversial message in a country where most religions are pluralistic. He was convinced that without belief in hell and the unique power of Jesus to save, Christians lost the urgency of witness. “I still preach about [those topics] in the West,” he says, although the rise of Pentecostalism means that they are no longer pressing issues for the Asian church.
Read it all (emphasis mine).
Humbling.
I had the joy and privilege of hearing Ajith Fernando teach at the 2010 Lausanne conference in Capetown, South Africa.
I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend one short booklet he wrote, part of a series of booklets published by the Lausanne movement:
An Authentic Servant: The mark of a spiritual leader
And a longer book on similar themes of suffering and ministry: A call to joy and pain