I was reading Luke chapter 15 this morning and it really hammered home in a fresh way how God' heart is for the lost. Jesus tells us two parables in this chapter that ought to speak volumes about the mission we need to be on.
First, the parable of the lost sheep. We talk about this one a lot. However a new verse jumped out at me this time. Verse 7 says "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who j repents than over ninety-nine k righteous persons who need no repentance." . For those of you who are believers, does this at all humble you? It sure did me! God cares more for the 1 than the 99. It takes one lost soul coming to faith in our midst to equal the joy in God's heart that 99 worshiping believers bring Him.
Next we get the parable of the lost coin - same sentiment.
Lastly we get the Prodigal Son. I know, you've heard it so many times before. Read it again. Imagine the person you long to see called a child of God is the person coming home to be a slave. Now picture God, if you can, running towards this person, eager to have them join His family. Can you seriously imagine this without engaging your emotions? Would it not feel like the most amazing thing that's ever happened in your life? Would you not forget, if even for a moment, about all of the other people you care about? I think you might. We are fortunate that God's capacity for love and attention is far greater than ours so he never forgets us. However, we also should be reminded that while God's eye never leaves us his gaze is fixed forward. His heart is longing to see people brought into a loving relationship with Him. We ought to be aware that we are the ones called to shine the light into this world and to bring joy to God's heart as we share the gospel and see souls saved. It's God heart and it's the mission Jesus gave us.
During my reading today I came to the book of Nehemiah. One of the sections that really stood out to me was when Nehemiah and his crew were rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem and they came under attack. They ended up rebuilding the wall with one hand hold a weapon and one hand doing the labour. Can you picture that? Hunched over placing stones into a wall with one hand and then one hand stretched out ready to defend. I think we need to be more like our in lives, especially in prayer. We need to be doing the work that God has for us and always ready to do battle in prayer. As we follow God, Satan will attack and tell you what you are doing is insignificant or not worthy and we need to be ready to recognize those lies and have our weapon ready. Go to God in prayer, continue to build the wall and walk forward in all that God has for you.
Social networking might very well change the church. My recent experience is telling me it could at least. There are a lot of ways in which social netowrking can be abused and cause your life to become worse but there is at least one way by which it can be an amazing tool in helping you to live out the gospel.
It can UNIFY
I've been introduced to several key networks in the past few months. The first was ELI. Essentially this is what ELI is...an agency that unifys and equips people for the sake of the kingdom. I'm so thrilled to be working in this network. This past weekend I was introduced to gentlemen from Vision360. Their focus and mission is similar and yet unique to ELI. I feel relationship with both would be advantageous. Then, through Nick and Mike at V360 I found out about the M Network. This network was founded by Alex McManus and focuses on mentoring. Alex is also spearheading a great initiative called VOXTROPOLIS.
I was struck how willingly and selflessly these men handed out names and contacts to see the church strengthened.
In the past there has been much made of how denomonations have actually fragmented and competed within the church. Although I feel this is often an unfair assessment there have certainly been times and examples in which the church has seemed to be more broken than unified. I am encouraged that through the boom in social networking people are increasingly willing to say by word AND deed that it's not about us, it's about the kingdom. I see people giving away resources, sharing generously and acting like the early church.
If we can help facilitate and leverage relationships within the body of Christ then I believe we stand a greater chance of fulfilling Christ's mandate for His church.
Let's continually be praying "Father, make us ONE". John 17:20-24
Melissa, Layla and I are in Detroit right now. Currently we're relaxing. It's been a busy day and we've got one more meeting tonight over supper.
Last night we got to meet the core team from Paradox. This was the first time we got to meet the majority of these people. It was a GREAT time. We had supper and mingled with them, got a chance to know them a bit and shared our vision for the city of Toronto. I felt it was well received. I felt like this was a great group - passionate followers of Jesus and full committed to their church.
This morning we got to meet with two men who work with another church planting organization called Vision360 It was a great conversation and we'll be developing a friendship with them in the coming days.
We're meeting with someone tonight who might be a big help in the long run. If you read this now pray for us :)
I am amazed as I read this history of the Hebrew people how time it records "And the people of Israel did was evil in the sight of the Lord". It makes me wonder if someone was to write a history of my life how many times would it say that? I mean in light of serving a perfect and holy God I am pretty stinking sinful and everyday I do things and don't do things that are evil in the sight of Lord. This brings me back to the Cross. I am so thankful for the grace that I receive from what Christ did on the Cross for me. I am thankful that God now calls me forgiven and continues to work in life to help get rid of the sin that so easily entangles me.
ProdigalJohn helps us know the people needed to help start a church
April 24, 2009
This is great. The Swiss Army Knife Volunteer. Any one else at WLA immediately think of Mark Lambley? Gotta love people with a servants heart! Check out the post over at Stuff Christians Like
I was reading from 1 Thessalonians today. Chapter 4, starting at verse 9 says: "9Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12so that you may walk properly beforeoutsiders and be dependent on no one."
This instruction rings true with Jesus' own words that "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for oneanother."
Last night in small group one of our friends mentioned how if you're really in love with someone everyone will know. You can see it in them. They'll tell you about the person they love without being invited. Sometimes they even try to slip it into conversations at awkward times.
So the question on my mind is, if we're supposed to love one another and by extension show our love for God in this, why aren't we talking about and showing love to our brothers and sisters more? I can certainly use a kick in the pants when it comes to this. Too often I engage in unhelpful converstation about the people I do church with. I focus on their weaknesses and don't show much love. Often I think no one outside the church will notice... they will. They'll overhear. Christ won't be made known by my love because it's not there.
I'm not suggesting we fake it and make everyone out to be perfect or neglect sinful patterns that need addressing... I am suggesting that I should be more careful about what I choose to talk about and that I ought to choose to love before I choose anything else.
In our recent Newsletter we mentioned that the stirring in our souls to be people increasingly characterized by a love for those far from Christ moved us to serve the poor in ministries here in London. For me (Tim) my favorite response has been my work with YFC and their Streetlight ministry. I got involved with Streetlight because my good friend Gil Clelland is the director. At first I signed up to help Gil walk around downtown London on Thursday afternoons and invite his "street friends" to the bus ministry that night. After several months of this I was wanting the chance to get deeper into these people's lives. The walking and inviting was great and yet more often than not we only got to talk to people in passing and Gil did far more talking than I did. This was natural because he had the relationships.
For the past number of months I've been spending as many Tuesday nights as possible on the bus. I thought far enough in advance tonight to bring my camera and so shot a pic of the bus and I took a quick video to give an impression of just how full the bus is most of the time. YFC is doing a great ministry here in London!
I know I said this in my blog the other day, but I am so thankful for God's faithfulness. I'm not even sure what else I should write tonight. Maybe just a take a few minutes and just think about the faithfulness of God in your own life. Really do it, think about it - God is so faithful.
To be honest I'm just a bit behind of where I want to be, but only by about 10 pages or so. I'm hoping to be caught up in the next couple of days before we have a busy weekend down in Detroit.
Today I am struck by how faithful God is. I'm reading in Joshua. God is clearing out the land to make way for the Israelites. I need to remember that nothing is impossible for God. God again and again made away for the Israelites to step into His promise. He gave them a new nation. I need to ask for BIG things - for the right reasons, to see God glorified. I need to step forward and take that step of faith and ask. Ask for God to change the neighbourhood we live in, the city we work in and the country we vote in. GOD is that big! HE can do that. My prayer is that God would increase my faith and your faith to ask for the BIG things.
So I'm sitting here with my family doing my best to have a restful day. Whilst hanging out we're watching sessions from the Exponential Conference live from Orlando, Florida. It's great because we really wanted to attend the conference but couldn't. If you're interested in hearing sessions on church planting check out the web site where the broadcasts are streaming.
So I missed yesterday's post. BUT I had a really good reason. My very sweet husband arranged a date night
As I've been reading through the law and I am becoming more and more thankful for the cross. It's is hard for me to imagine having to offer a bull or goat for my sin, and then bring that animal to the temple and laying my hand on it while Pastor Mike sacrifices it - can you imagine. Oh think of the freedom we have in Christ. Think of the grace given. Be thankful for the Cross for so many reasons.
There will likely be many saturdays where I don't blog. However, on certain Saturdays I'm going to give a small but potentially mighty post. I think I'll use these to reccommend books that have really influenced me on this journey towards living missionally.
The first is by Dan Kimball . Dan is the pastor of Vintage Faith church in Santa Cruz, CA. The book I'm referring to is "They Like Jesus but not the Church" it's real stories from real people, not just data and numbers. Check it out!
Today I am reading through last few chapters in Leviticus and some of Numbers. To be honest these aren't the most exciting books but there are some valuable lessons in them and I'm plowing my way through them.
The story of the people rebelling in Numbers once they hear that the land that God wants to give them is filled with a mighty people really stood out to me. God tells Moses that He is going to disown these people and make a great nation out of Moses. Moses then intercedes for the people and God changes his mind and pardons the people.
A couple of things stand out to me in this. Moses’, pretty humble guy. The Israelites grumble and complain and generally make Moses’ life difficult. I wonder if I was in the same place if I would jump and intercede for these people. The other thing that stood out to me is God had a purpose for the Israelites and if they refused to go and be the people that God was calling them to be God was going to find/create other people to fulfill those purposes. I don't want to be like the Israelites. I want to jump in on what God's purposes are in this world and I want to play whatever part God has for me. I don't want to harden my heart or choose my own desires and then God choosing someone else.
“… baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”.
Here we consider the last part of the Co-mission Jesus gave to us before leaving earth. To me this part of the charge deals with preaching the entirety of the gospel. Jesus invokes the Trinitarian nature of God in this last part of the Co-mission I think to make it quite clear as to EXACTLY who we were being called to baptize people for.
One question that gets asked often of ministries and ministers who want to focus on outreach is whether or not that means we are going to “water down” the gospel for the sake of reaching more people faster. To my mind the answer has to be no, we won’t, we can’t water down the gospel. God’s truth, in fact God himself, never changes. However, the methodology or getting the word out into the world is ALWAYS changing. It always has been changing. The apostle Paul tweaked his delivery for the Athenians when he referenced their unknown God as a way to preach Christ. Pastor Mike believes the word “immediately” shows up so often in the book of Mark because that book’s delivery was tweaked with the Greeks in mind. From the very beginning we’ve been tweaking the delivery (in fact in the bible, it’s GOD who tweaked the delivery) to make the never-changing truth more readily digested by certain groups of people.
This is part of what is motivating us to do church a bit differently. We believe culture has changed enough in recent years that we need to once again tweak our methods for the sake of the advancement of the whole gospel. I wonder how many of you are feeling this is true or how many of you get uneasy about tweaking the delivery. If you’re uneasy about it I’d invite you into a dialogue – I am certain there are things I can learn from you that will make my efforts to tell God’s story better. Comment away!
Today I'll have 2 posts since I missed yesterday. Yesterday one of the sections that really stood out to me was in Exodus 36 and the construction of the Tabernacle. These are verse 2 to 7
2And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. 3And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing himfreewill offerings every morning, 4so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, 5and said to Moses, "The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do." 6So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, "Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing, 7for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.
I think the church at large can really learn something from the Israelites. They were willing to give of their time, their skill and there finances to see the work of God completed. They gave too much - they had more then enough to complete the Tabernacle. Think of force the church in could have in the world if we gave too much. What would happen to poverty? What happen to selfishness and greed? If everyone served and gave the same way that you did what would the church look like?
"Go therefore andmake disciples ofall nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 teaching them to observe all thatI have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The purpose for our sent-outness is to make disciples. The focus of your going then will be largely dependent on how you define the word disciple, right? Another way to ask this question would be to say "what does a mature follower of Jesus look like"? This is another aspect of the Great Commission that I'm trying to figure out. I'm wondering, what do you think of when you think of the word disciple? I have a mental image of what most people consider a good disciple to be and am bothered by that image. I think it may be incomplete. I know I'm incomplete.
I'm wondering...if you took a stab at listing the characteristics of a real disciple what would they be?
Last night and this morning I've been reading through Exodus and I am continually amazing at how much the Hebrew people complained and did not trust God. God has rescued His chosen people out of Egypt and then leads them by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night. Wow I would love that. To know exactly where God wants me to go. Imagine waking up in the morning and all you have to do is put your feet on the floor and follow the cloud. Yet they see the Egyptians chasing them and fear and they question. God being God and able to do anything parts the Red Sea for them. Then just 3 days after they the walk on dry land through the Red Sea they question and grumble against Moses and against God because they can not find water.
I guess looking back it's pretty easy to see the lack of faith the Israelites had. However when I step back and look at my life I can see the same pattern. God does something amazing, He provides, He speaks, He guides and I am full of faith! Then the next issue, hardship, problem comes along and so often my faith shakes. I complain about going through the hardship or question God's timing. I need to go back and look and remember all the times and ways that God is continually making Himself known in my life. I need to remember and hold fast to His promises.
By Melissa - Reading through the Bible in 40 days.
So I'm about 36 hours into this and I really do realize that this won't be easy but I do think it is do-able. But it's only do-able by God's grace. I really want to start each day by praying that God will give me the desire and the passion to read and glean from His word.
Think about those last two words - His Word - GOD's Word - Isn't that an amazing thing to think about. Dwell on that just for a moment. You everyday can have the privilege to open up read words inspired by the Creator of the Universe - the Saviour of the world. That is pretty amazing. How often do I not take that opportunity to read what God has to say to us? How often do I wonder what God wants for my life or what His will is and I don't open up the Bible. His word is living and active and yet some days I just let it sit by my bed and let it collect dust. I need to start with the Word of God.
GO - To move away from a place; depart: To pursue a certain course: To pass from one person to another: To carry out an action to a certain point or extent: To be a contributing factor: To be used up or finished: To be valid, acceptable, or adequate.
Have you given a lot of thought to how powerful and meaningful the word GO really is? It's so tiny that one could literally skip over it without much thought when reading and yet we'd be foolish to because so much is contained in those two little letters.
Here we have the very first word in the great Co-mission (as in, our mission along with God). We are told to move from our current place, pursue a worth course, pass on the truth, carry out the mission of, contribute to the cause of, be used up pursuing, and be found acceptable by God. I'm almost haunted by this word right now. I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't GO.
More so than that I'm inspired by what might happen if WE do GO. Think about it. What if we all got up, got out, and got going for the cause of Jesus? How much better could the world be if everyone who claimed to be followers of Jesus accepted the invitation to GO wholeheartedly?
This is what is driving me towards church planting. I wonder what it would be like for a group of people to GO into Toronto - what would happen to the neighborhood we descended upon? And then what might happen to the city as we see neighborhoods changed by Jesus' followers? And if Toronto changed wouldn't the rest of the country be impacted as well? Could a postmodern country who largely rejects absolute truth come to be a country who's major theme is that Jesus is truth? I need to believe that is possible. I need others to believe it's possible too.
For me the most compelling part of the Easter story is what happens when it's over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in ANY WAY trying to demean the work of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection. These events give meaning and substance to our whole faith and without them the stuff that comes after would be meaningless, right? Even then the part that comes last is the most exciting part for me. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark Jesus ends his time on earth with what we've called the Great Commission. For me, these few verses never cease to fire me up. In essence, Jesus is entrusting the future success of his work to US!!?? He got the ball rolling and now he says to US "run with it!". Can you fathom that? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God's own Son, came to earth and began a movement that is supposed to change the world and then he then willingly, knowing perfectly well that we were less than perfect, handed the reigns of this movement over to a bunch of young men who knew NOTHING about leading ANYTHING! And they gave it to us!! I mean jeez, the disciples had just come out from under the rocks they had dove under when Jesus died and now with all the "power and authority given" to Jesus he basically hands the job off to these guys? TO US??
This is the nature of God's plan though, isn't it? To give us a chance. To allow us in on His glorious work. Isn't it just amazing?
This week I want to spend some time talking about how I see these verses. What do some of the phrases mean to me and how do they motivate me towards church planting. Tomorrow we'll start at the beginning...with the word go - the essence of what it means to be a missionary for Christ. Something, I believe, we are all called to do.
For the past 40 days I observed for the first time the season Lent. It was an amazing time for me personally to grow in my relationship with Christ and with family and friends as I fasted from television. (If you want you can read more about this here) Last night we were heading home from our Easter celebrations with our dear friends, I was driving while Layla and Tim snoozed. At one point I turned off the ipod and just drove in silence. I started to pray and think about what this season of Lent has meant to me. As I was praying I felt God asking me to start another season of 40 days. During these next 40 days - this feels huge to me - I feel like God is asking me to read through the Bible, the whole Bible. Told you it was huge - so what does this mean for me - It means getting up earlier or perhaps staying up a bit later. It'll mean laying down some of the other reading that I am doing in order to pick the word of God. I'm not sure what the best way is to do all of this so I simply took my 1042 page ESV Bible and divided it into 40 days. Everyday I'll need to read 26 pages to keep on track.
Here is an invitation to join me in this! Maybe God is asking you too to take these next 40 days and read through Genesis to Revelations. Or maybe He is asking you to just read the New Testament or to do an in depth study of just one of the books. But you are invited to join me in this conversation. I'll be trying to blog once a day about it and I would love your comments about what God is teaching you as well.
A blogactical is a period of time during which a blog author takes time off, obviously similar to a sabbatical. During Lent popular blogger and social networking butterfly Anne Jackson of www.flowerdust.net fame took time off from all of her online networking. Today marks her return (and with a Tweeting vengeance I might add...wow!) to the world of social networking with a new site design and a focus on her upcoming trip to Calcutta with Compassion International. I've got huge respect for Anne as she is using all her social intelligence to get people mobilized to tackle issues of social injustice. Why not stop by and check out the new site and while you're there, subscribe to her RSS feed?
Mel and I got the chance to sneak into Downtown Toronto today and shoot some video footage. Hopefully we'll have something show for it next week. For now I'll just say that simply being in the city and walking it's streets gave us a real sense of destiny and excitement. Can't wait to see what God has in store for us there!
So its Good Friday. I imagine many of you are like my family - off to hang out with some family members, eat more food than is generally recommended and of a variety that on non holidays are generally avoided, and generally enjoy a stat. holiday. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this plan and actually I'd encourage you to spend some time with family and friends this weekend I'm wondering what your plans are for getting at the real point of Good Friday.
I think we give a lot of attention to the real meaning of Christmas but perhaps miss the same thing when it comes to Easter. Especially Good Friday. I think we've all been set up for a loss because we call it "Good Friday". I wonder who came up with that? Although I understand it's a good thing in the long run, why couldn't we have called it "Mournful Friday" or "Remember Jesus was brutally beaten, bruise, skewered and generally demeaned for YOU Friday". That seems better - but long. The acronym doesn't help either - "RJWBBBSAGDFYF" doesn't have the same ring as "God Friday" does it?
The point is I'd encourage you to find a way to be appropriately mournful and mindful of Jesus' suffering today. Let me know how you're going to do that. I'd love to hear about it! Perhaps we can be helpful to one another. In case you're curious, Melissa, Layla and I spent some time this morning praying as a family paying specific attention to Christ's suffering and our gratitude for it.
Check out how smart my girl is. Just messing with our video camera this morning and look what pops out. The cool thing was I tried to get her to do this on camera yesterday but she wouldn't....
This makes my stomach get all knotted. I can't imagine losing my daughter. Please pray that this girl would be found and that God would work in this situation to bring people to himself and to show His love through His people
Hey Everyone! I'm really glad if you've found your way over to this new space on the web. Melissa and I are really excited you've decided to come and check us out! Over the coming months and years, we hope to use this site to inform, inspire and encourage you with our story of following Jesus into a new ministry. Perhaps our online transparency will help you to wrestle through your own places in life. Perhaps our failures will become your successes and our successes, by the grace of God, will become your inspiration. We invite you to bookmark the page, put this blog into your RSS feed and check back OFTEN! Mel and I are internet fiends (right now we are sitting side by side, both on laptops, both using some kind of social networking software) so I'm betting this page will get absolutely abused in the coming days!
Please feel free to leave comments and engage in conversation not just with us but with others who you meet through the site. We'd love to dialogue with you and learn from you as time moves on.
