from December 2, 2012 prayer update

Christmas. As much as many people enjoy the decorations, the music, the food, the gift giving, the time off from work, and the time with extended family, that is not what Christmas is about.

Christmas is all about the INCARNATION. God becoming man. God took the initiative to make the eternal and transcendent Creator of the universe understandable to man. Starting as a helpless infant, born to an unmarried teenager, living in poverty in a remote corner of the Roman Empire. And living, not for 33 years, but from that point forward into eternity future, as the God-man.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14

So why all the attention devoted worldwide to this annual holiday? Because Jesus is the hinge point of all human history. Nothing has been the same since this baby grew up to be a man. He spoke as no man had spoken before. He lived a sinless life. He made the infinite God understandable for the first time. He died as a substitute in our place to satisfy the justice of a holy and offended God. And He rose from the dead, opening the way for rebel mankind to be reconciled with his Creator. He is the reason that missions to least reached peoples around the world exists today.

Below are the words from “One Solitary Life” by Dr. James Allan Francis. It describes far better than I am able the impact of the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ on human history.

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

from November 4, 2012 prayer update

I had the opportunity to teach Perspectives lesson 9 (“the task remaining”) three times in October. The mantra of this lesson is that God has not called His Church to simply “engage” in the Great Commission, He has called His Church to “complete” the Great Commission.

What does it mean to “complete” the Great Commission? I believe the answer is simple, but it is not easy. Biblically grounded and culturally relevant evangelism, disciple making, and church planting with every people group on the planet. We embrace too small a vision (a less than Biblical vision) for our church when our church’s vision is anything less than this.

In this lesson a major topic I discuss is “the 10 greatest challenges for this generation”. What remains for the Church of Jesus Christ to do to be able to say she has completed the Great Commission?

One of these 10 greatest challenges is the issue of language. It is estimated there are 6900 languages worldwide. Only 490 of these languages has a complete Bible. Another 1660 have a complete New Testament. Another 950 have Bible portions. And 1400 have translation projects underway. Sadly 2300 (1/3 of the world’s languages) have absolute nothing. How can Biblically grounded and culturally relevant evangelism, disciple making, and church planting happen without the Scriptures in the heart language of the people?

The good news is Wycliffe’s 2025 vision. Their vision is that by the year 2025 (13 years from now) a translation project will be started with every language. Wycliffe gets it. It is not enough to engage in the Great Commission. God has called His Church to complete the Great Commission. With amazing advances in technology and methodology developed by a Wycliffe sister organization (The Seed Company), Bible translation work can now be done in half the time it took a few years ago.

Unfortunately the task is more complex than this. What if a person or perhaps an entire people group can’t read? Then translating the Scriptures into their heart language is not a sufficient foundation upon which to launch the work of evangelism, disciple making, and church planting.

Did you know that only 37% of the world is literate? Another 35% is functionally illiterate (able to do very basic reading and writing, but not using it enough to be useful). 25% are completely illiterate. And another 3% are visually impaired. Missiologists have labeled this challenge the “orality” challenge. 70% of the world’s nearly 7000 unreached people groups are illiterate. They are part of the orality challenge.

Many of the leading missions sending organization are taking this orality challenge very seriously, including Pioneers. They are embracing technologies that allow people to hear the Scriptures in their heart language (after it has been translated) via inexpensive devices powered by solar energy with memory chips containing the Bible and other evangelism and discipling tools. They are also embracing Bible storying methodologies for evangelism, discipleship, and church planting that better tap into how people learn in oral cultures. Many are also embracing CPM (church planting movement) methodologies built around simple church and easily reproducible forms, which are very well suited for oral learners. Methodologies like “discovery Bible study”.

For the college educated in mega-churches in the Western world, much of this is far outside the realm of our personal experience. But it represents the reality of much of the task that remains. Please pray for the work of Pioneers and other excellent sending organizations that are taking seriously the task of “completing” the Great Commission.

from October 7, 2012 prayer update

One of the things I most enjoy about my work is the opportunity to connect face-to-face with church missions leaders from Pioneers partnering churches. Late in September I spent five days in Tulsa and NW Arkansas connecting with five of these churches. Churches like these five are absolutely core to Pioneers accomplishing its church planting mission among the world’s unreached peoples.

Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa is a church I have had a long-term consulting / coaching relationship with. Their recently formed executive missions team is seeking to bring focus to the missions efforts in their church of 1000. As part of this process they recently worked at clearly identifying the DNA of their church, so they can align their missions strategy well with it. They have made progress toward developing a purpose statement, a vision statement, and core values for missions. The next step for them will be to grapple with eight important strategy related factors. The answers they identify as they interact around each of these factors will enable them to develop a clear strategy and roadmap for their future missions efforts.

Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa is a missions minded mega-church. MaryAnn Smith, their missions director of 25 years, recently retired. The new missions director, Jim Davis, was hired in August. Jim is a 40 something, newly married, former civil engineer, and former lay missions leader from a large Presbyterian church in Tennessee. It was great to meet him and get acquainted.

Fellowship Bible Church in Springdale AR has a lay led missions leadership team. Their chair, Mike Gibbs, teaches business classes at area colleges. It was great to meet Mike for the first time. And to discover that as someone who is my age, he is still seriously considering the possibility of going to the field long-term.

Bella Vista Christian Church in Bella Vista AR is located in an historically affluent retirement community. In recent years there has been an influx of young families into the community, creating a growing multi-generational congregation. Missions is led by David Conrad, a single, energetic, 26 year old associate pastor. I had a great time meeting with he and the retirement aged lay missions leadership team chairman at BVCC. I also held an initial consultation with their missions leadership team discussing key concepts related to developing a missions strategy and congregational mobilization.

Fellowship Bible Church Northwest Arkansas is a missions focused mega-church and a key Pioneers partner church. They have workers with us in Indonesia, Mexico, Tibetan China, and Turkey, and are committed to seeing church planting movements among the people groups they engage. Missions pastor, Dick Nelson, is a long-time staff member at FBCnw, leading a team of missions staff and interns. This was my first opportunity to meet Dick. I look forward to getting much better acquainted.

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Below is a link to information about unengaged people groups around the world: www.joshuaproject.net/unengaged.php. With no access to the gospel, these are people groups where “there is no church planting methodology consistent with evangelical faith and practice underway”.

There are 1367 unengaged people groups worldwide. None of them are in the U.S. 848 (62% of the total) are from 10 countries (all in the 10-40 window): Chad, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Laos, Nepal, Nigeria, and Sudan. New missionary work among these people groups should be a very high priority among U.S. churches that are seeking to be missions-minded and strategic.

from September 2, 2012 prayer update

Below are some excerpts from Steve Smith’s article, “Getting Kingdom Right to Get Church Right”, in the July-August 2012 edition of Mission Frontiers magazine. If you don’t currently receive Mission Frontiers, it is an outstanding and free publication of USCWM (U.S. Center for World Missions), published six times annually. You can subscribe at www.missionfrontiers.org.

“What comes to your mind when you hear about a movement of God in which almost 200 churches were started within three years in a remote people group?

What comes to your mind when you hear about a movement of God in which 150,000 urban and rural churches were started in a ten year span?

Incredulity may be your first response, perhaps followed by suspicion or excitement. Yet Church-Planting Movements (CPMs) like these are spreading around the world in all types of cultures and religious worldviews. In these movements, successive generations of disciples and churches move consistently past the 4th generation in a short duration of time.

These movements sound foreign to many of us who have lived in more traditional churches where the kingdom has been established for centuries. But CPM-like movements are not simply a modern phenomenon. They have characterized the kingdom of God from Acts onward throughout church history.”

“As disciples throughout history have made it their priority to see the kingdom explode among lost populations, they have often seen churches multiply rapidly generation by generation through ordinary new believers. Unfortunately, as churches become established, a tendency emerges to consolidate efforts and focus more on the church development than on kingdom expansion.”

“Jesus’ entire ministry was focused on initiating the kingdom of God. He used the word ‘kingdom’ over 100 times, while He used the word ‘church’ only twice. … In Acts, the word ‘church’ is used twice as much as the word ‘kingdom’. The next progression in Jesus strategy was taking placing – planting multiplying church as agents of His kingdom coming on earth. … The word ‘church’ is used more in Romans to Revelation, almost three times as much as the word ‘kingdom’.”

“It is easy for churches to subtly shift their focus from the King and His kingdom, often becoming obsessed with themselves and their own successes, structures or traditions. … How easy it is for us to elevate the church along with our structures, programs, and traditions above the vision of knowing the King and establishing His kingdom. We easily lose sight of the end-vision. When we focus on church first, we get kingdom wrong.

Yet make no mistake: Church is at the heart of God’s kingdom plan! It is not either church or kingdom. It is both. When the church submits herself to the King and His kingdom ways, then the church emerges in all her intended glory!”

“The church was meant to be the agent of filling the whole earth with the glory of God -- His King-reign -- as the Body. The church was meant to be the eternal companion of the Son as the Bride.”

“This is why we focus unquestionably on Church-Planting Movements, not simple people movements. We don’t start churches because this is the most pragmatic way to reach people. We start churches because this is God’s plan in His eternal kingdom."

What a privilege to be part of an organization whose mission statement reads: “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.” Pioneers has 2450 workers on 229 teams among 146 UPG (unreached people groups) in 95 countries.

from August 5, 2012 prayer update

CIT (center for intercultural training) is located in rural North Carolina, about 60 miles west of Charlotte, not far from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had the opportunity to spend last week there receiving some helpful continuing education training. Felt like I had found my way back to Mayberry RFD.

SYIS (sharpening your interpersonal skills) is a five day seminar that many missions sending agencies require of their new missionary appointees. Its aim is expressed in its title. We focused on highly practical relational skills and issues like: building community, building trust, conflict management, confronting / being confronted, drawing people out, encouragement, grief, helping others solve problems, listening, margin, moral purity, relationship killers, and stress management.

16 participants joined with 3 facilitators in a five day journey together. We made it through a 160 page workbook in 18 90 minute sessions. We shared life together during this training. Some instruction, but mostly some well done facilitation. Highly interactive. Creative. Some role playing. Some personal reflection.

For me, not a lot of new content. But some excellent reminders. Reminders that I needed. And I have little doubt will need again. It would have been nice to spread this training out over a longer period of time. It was pretty intense and hard to attempt to take it all in. Like trying to drink out of a fire hose.

I appreciated the fact that we had a “snapshots” page at the back of our workbook where we each faithfully recorded 1-3 high level takeaways at the end of each session. I wouldn’t have remembered much of what we covered without that helpful tool. Our final session together attempted to pull everything together and helped us focus on identifying a few high level takeaways from the week together. Lots of relevant applications, but the three I focused on were:
1) The relationship is almost always more important than the issue.
2) Some practical steps to take to become a better listener.
3) Some practical steps to take in managing conflict well.
For me the two contexts that would most benefit from forward progress with these issues are my family and my team with Pioneers.

I would welcome your prayers that I do a great job of reviewing and seeking to integrate into my life what the Holy Spirit laid on my heart through this continuing education experience.

from July 1, 2012 prayer update

This past month I read Betty Skinner’s biography of Dawson Trotman, Daws. Trotman was the founder of The Navigators. An organization that had a profound impact on my life as a young believer.

After coming to Christ through a campus area church during the first month of my freshman year in college at The University of Texas, I connected with The Navigators in the spring of my freshman year. I am extremely grateful that God brought this wonderful organization into my life. A fellow student, Chris, invested intensely in my life for the next three years and helped me grow in the basics of my spiritual life and personal ministry. I end up investing seven years of my life in the Nav work at UT as an undergraduate and graduate student in the 1970s.

I had the opportunity to partially return the favor by serving as the interim campus director for the Navs at UT during the 1997-98 school year (during a time when the work probably would have died had someone not stepped into that role) and for several years in the 1990s as an associate staff member with The Navigators’ Church Discipleship Ministries in Texas and Oklahoma.

Enough autobiography, now back to Trotman’s story. Born in 1906, Trotman came to Christ at the age of 20 and took off like a rocket in his spiritual life and ministry. His early ministry was to boys and young men in local church Bible clubs in southern California. From the get go his calling cards were: depth in the Word, a near obsession with Scripture memory, a remarkable commitment to strategic intercessory prayer, and a strong engagement in personal evangelism. Soon the door opened for him to extend his ministry into other cities in California and then into work with young men in the Navy. He started the Navigators in 1933. World War 2 provided many new opportunities for expansion into other military branches and into a national ministry scope. Post-WW2 opened the door for an expansion to the nations, brining an international ministry scope.

Today The Navigators have 4600 international staff serving in 103 countries. Their motto is “to know Christ and to make Him known”. A motto that I have prominently displayed on my desk. Along with The Navigator wheel hanging on my office wall (as a regular reminder to keep the basics basic).

Trotman, as portrayed in the biography, was clearly a man with feet of clay. Driven. Focused. Setting high standards for himself and for those around him. Having an amazing capacity and personal discipline. Always pressing relentlessly toward the next goal. Obsessive compulsive. Controlling. Very direct. Winsome, yet relationally abrasive. I found myself identifying with many of the things I saw in this man, empathizing with his weaknesses.

Trotman had a profound impact on many of the evangelical leaders of his era, including a young Bill Bright and a young Billy Graham. The Navigators provided the new convert follow-up for the early Graham crusades that laid the foundation for the lasting kingdom impact of these crusades.

After a few years Trotman’s focus on evangelism shifted to a focus on discipleship. He saw lots of conversions, but far too little lasting fruit from his aggressive involvement in evangelism in his early years. This new focus on initial follow-up of new believers, in-depth discipleship, and spiritual reproduction became the distinctive mark of The Navigators, and their greatest contribution to the evangelical community. Going deep in the lives of a few, with high accountability, rather than a superficial focus on the masses. Recognizing that in the long haul an in-depth investment with a few who would reproduce would bear far more fruit than the alternative embraced by most others. It became the calling card of The Navigator work.

A compelling quote from Trotman is “Never do anything that someone else can or will do, when there is so much to be done that others cannot or will not do.” That statement shaped how Trotman and The Navigator ministry functioned in its early years.

Trotman died in 1956, at the age of 50, in a boating accident, saving the life of a young girl that couldn’t swim. He left behind a remarkable legacy that is still going strong more than 50 years later.

The Navigators organization has more profoundly influenced who I am today and how I function as a kingdom servant than any other single influence in the 40 years I have been following Christ. The book provides an excellent look into the life of the organization’s founder. And it served as a great reminder of some basic principles that it is easy to drift from over time (especially in environments not built around these principles).

from June 3, 2012 prayer update

I have been reading and learning about the missional church for several years now – Barna, Cole, Frost, Hirsch, Roxburgh, Stetzer, among others. I also attended two Verge conferences, which targeted missional community leaders, exposing them to the stories and thinking of many of the national and international missional church leaders. After much reflection and prayer, I finally decided it was time to take the plunge. A few months ago I became part of a missional community.

A missional community is a small, closely knit community of believers. Outreach to a well defined audience where the gospel is clearly demonstrated and proclaimed is the glue uniting the community together. Our focus is local Saudi Arabian students learning English for nine months through TIEP (Texas Intensive English Program) in central Austin.

Saudi Arabia is one of the least reached countries on the planet, 92.4% Muslim. 27 million lost souls, without access to the gospel. It is an Islamic state, where the cost of conversion to Christianity is your life. It is the birthplace of Islam. It’s holiest city, Mecca, is the direction of prayer for Muslims world-wide five times daily, and it is a once in a lifetime pilgrimage destination (Hajj) for Muslims.

Our missional community is composed of five couples, one single, and me. We are a multi-generational community with folks in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. It includes a missionary couple with Pioneers (they are taking Christ to unreached Muslims in NW China). They were sent to the field from an Austin area church 10 years ago and are furloughing in Austin for a couple of years. It also includes two couples preparing to move and take Christ to Muslims living in the Maldives (off the coast of India). And the team is led by my dear friends, Richard and Sharon Hampton.

God has brought the Hamptons and I together in a variety of contexts over the years. Initially serving together as undergraduates through The Navigator ministry on the UT campus in the 1970s. We served together in a central Austin church plant more than 20 years ago. We often compared notes when we each served as lay missions leadership team chairmen in different churches in the city. We served together on the board of Mission Possible (a local inner city ministry). We have both been actively involved with the “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” class, where Richard currently serves as the Austin coordinator. And now, once again we are serving together through this missional community. Relationships don’t go any deeper than this, forged in many years of kingdom service together.

Richard and Sharon are empty nesters with four children and a growing clan of grandchildren. Richard is a small business owner, intentionally using his business as a vehicle for creatively bringing Christ to hundreds of low income housing residents around the state that live in units he manages for others. Sharon is among the best children’s missions educators I have ever met.

TIEP has not yet paired me with a student. That may not happen until the fall (although the program does operate year round). Pray that God would superintend this pairing with a young man who God has been preparing for the gospel, and one who will become a choice kingdom servant following his conversion. I am praying John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.”

Until then, I join with the rest of our team in regular intercession. Prayer that is tearing down the spiritual strongholds that must first be overcome with those trapped in Islam. And we engage in frequent social events around meals with the students we serve (and their friends and family members). These events help introduce our community to the Saudi community living temporary in Austin, building relational bridges that open doors for meaningful conversation.

We meet individually with the student we are paired with each week on their turf or in a neutral location to provide a friendly environment where they can practice English with us. And every Friday morning our missional community meets for several hours in the home of one of members. In our missional community gatherings, we alternate weeks between learning more about ministry to Muslims / sharing stories and intercession for the students we are involved with. What an encouragement and privilege to be part of such a like-minded and like-hearted group of believers.