Gabe, Dawn, and Sailor

It has been wonderful having Gabe, Dawn, and Sailor here for the last few days.  Yesterday was Gabe and Dawn’s third wedding anniversary so we got to watch Sailor for the day.  She sure loves to eat!  We did manage to get her to say “please” to ask for something to eat.  It took a little bit of an effort on her part but she was excited about the results that when she says please she gets a cookie.  We have enjoyed taking her to the same park that we took Josh, Ben, and Chris when they were little boys more than 25 years ago.  She learned that the little monkeys don’t like to be petted. She also learned how to say, “No no monkey!”  She has decided that she does not like monkeys but she still loves puppies.

I have started a new blog series centering around making disciples that can serve God in the city or place where they live.  I was introduced to this concept while taking the seminary course Urban Ministry with Dr. Mark Hausfeld in Chicago.  I will be taking about 5 or 6 people from a church in Penang through a series of teaching and outreach activities that disciples them how to reach out to the city of Penang.  My purpose is to use this first group to create a model that can be contextualized  for the Asian  countries we are serving in.  The source is a  manual  called Urban Disciples: A Beginners Guide to Serving God in the City by Jenell Paris and Margot Eyring.  I am drawing from this book as a source but changing each lesson activity to suit the context of Penang.  I invite you to comment each week as we learn how make disciples that can reach the place where they live.

Urban Disciples: Reaching the Place We Live In Part 1: It all Begins in Prayer

When Jesus called those first disciples he asked them to follow him so that he could transform their lives into men and women who bore the mark of a person totally dedicated to Jesus’ purpose. Not only did he want them to have a purpose driven life but they were to have a person driven life. The major purpose of all discipleship is to make men and women into fishers of all people, no matter the tribe, nation or language barrier. For Jesus this process of transformation did not happen within the bubble of a classroom, but it took place within the context where those men and women did their living and dying. It was focused on the places where those people lived. One of the first and most important lessons of transformation happens when Jesus shares with them how he prayed, why he prayed, who he prayed for, and who he prayed to. Jesus wanted to make urban disciples who could reach cities they were praying for.

God’s first urban disciples sent out were the Jews of the Babylonian Diaspora. Listen to God’s advice in Jeremiah 29:4-7:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ^ “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ^Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. ^ Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

They were not just exiled to Babylon, they were sent as missionaries to that nation. They were told to bless the city and to seek its peace and prosperity. God wanted his people to be a witness to the Persian Empire. It was a calling and not a judgment. We are a pilgrim people who are to bring the evidence of God living within a community of believers and living through the community of believers. We are not to withdraw from the communities around us we are to engage them and become integrated within the community around us.

It is hard to make disciples focused on reaching their city, town or community where they live when they are not praying for the city, town, or community. Nehemiah gives us an example of a man who first made himself available to God in prayer, then made himself available to his city Jerusalem, and lastly made himself available to the men and women of Jerusalem.

Apathy and indifference, not hatred is the worst sin that we can commit towards one another. Nehemiah is confronted with information about his beloved home town of Jerusalem. The walls are in shambles and the people live in reproach. City walls provided protection of vital systems and defense against the hordes of nomadic tribes that attacked weaker tribes and plundered their people. The city wall gave a city of sense of strength and dignity to the people. The city gates were the places of commerce and law. When Nehemiah heard that those walls were in shambles and the gates burned with fire, he sat down and wept. He cared for those people and for that city. He cared about the traditions of the past and the needs of the present. He cared about the hopes for the future. He cared about his heritage, his ancestral city, and the glory of his God. Nehemiah cared enough to pray.

If we intend to make disciples who will reach the place where they live, we must train them to capture a heart of compassion for people and to pray for them. We must teach them that apathy and indifference have no place in our hearts.  Like Nehemiah who moved beyond information and came to the place of intercession, we must help our disciples to become true intercessors who are willing to carry the heart of God for the place where we live.

Marriage Encounter Success

July 25 – 27 was a tremendous time with pastoral couples, as we explained how to have a sound marital house. Our focus was on seven principles that cultivate a marriage that not only stays happy, but a marriage that can do what God has called that marriage to do and to become. We all need to be reminded that marriage is primarily designed to make us holy more than to make us happy. The marriages that we have had to counsel all have the same fundamental problem, they fail to take their character weaknesses to Christ in repentance and ask God to change them. Marriage is the best place where God can reveal the things in our life He wants to change and character that He needs to develop in our life. The real issue is that when the pressure of marriage reveals our secret sins, we must not blame our spouse, we must call it what it is and ask for God’s transformational power in our lives. As a follow up to the marriage encounter we will be leading a group of about 12 couples and teaching them to become marriage mentors for their church.

This Saturday I start discipling four men who have agreed to help me develop a discipleship track that helps believers become missional within their own city. This idea was born out of a class that I took in seminary with Dr. Mark Hausfeld. Dr. Hausfeld has a tremendous heart for the cities of the world and has ministered in several cities very successfully. Something was imparted in me as I sat under his mentoring and let him share with us the burden and call of God that he has in his heart for inner cities. I am excited about developing this kind of training because I know that it will change my heart and that it will be a thrilling because it will change us and we will see it develop into a training track that can be used throughout all of Southeast Asia. As the course develops I will blog about it and invite your input for each lesson and experience.

In two days our youngest son Gabriel and his wife Dawn and our precious little granddaughter Sailor will be with us. Of all of the things that we have had to leave behind in the USA, that we miss the most, it has been our family. We miss all of our sons and daughter-in-laws and those wonderful grandchildren. Having some of them here with us is very special.

Pray Without Ceasing

It has taken us a few days, but we are getting in the groove of living here in Penang. God has given us a great door of opportunity to partner with other churches in Penang and to become a resource of training for them. The Connection has officially been launched as of July 21^st. The Connection has been established here in Penang as a resource center for the Church in Penang to help them develop a heart and passion for mercy ministry and mission focused work. We are excited to be a part of this.

Colossians 1:3 says, “We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”

We are all in need of prayer.  We all need to be praying. Paul realized that prayer was one of the responsibilities that he had.  He firmly believed in the action of God through prayer and intercession.

“…praying always for you,” One of the most Christ-like things that we can do is praying for others.  Jesus prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail.  In John 17 we hear the prayer of Jesus for His disciples.  In Hebrews 7:25 Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us as the Great High Priest of God, the mediator between God and man.  It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to pray for we do not know how to pray as we should.  Prayer is a godly action, through which the divine moves and distributes His blessing and grace.

In Colossians Paul prayers for the following:

1. To be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

2. To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

3. To please Jesus in all respects.

4. To bear fruit in every good work.

5. To increase in the knowledge of God.

6. To be strengthen with all power according to His glorious might.

7. To attain to steadfastness and patience.

8. To be able to joyously give thanks to the Father who has qualified them to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Each of these eight items of prayer focus are areas of spiritual life that do not come to us by study and reflection.  They come to us through encounter with God.  Prayer is the vehicle that removes whatever needs to be removed in order for the encounter to take place.  I don’t understand all there is to understand about prayer, but I do understand that spiritual encounter comes not as a result of academic endeavor but through spiritual encounter.

Paul prays without ceasing.  This does not mean that he prayed 24/7. Prayer is more than a temporal event.  Prayer carries past the temporal and finds its strength in the eternal throne of God.  In essence Paul prays for us too.  His prayer reveals the heart of God for us.   In this prayer we can see how Paul’s heart and God’s heart are joined together.  This is what makes prayer powerful.   This is how our prayer becomes a powerful experience in Christ.  Paul knew God’s heart because Paul knew Christ.  If our prayers are going to accomplish much then we must know much about the heart of God.

Back In Penang

We have arrived safe and sound in Penang, Malaysia. We had a great two months in the States. It was great being with the family, sons and daughter-in-laws and loving on our wonderful grand children. We are now ready to put our hands to the plow. In addition to preaching engagements, at the end of July, Margaret and I will be conducting a weekend marriage seminar for church leaders here in Penang. We are also partnering with local Penang Christian friends, in launching a training center to help the Malaysian Christians reach out to neighboring countries of Southeast Asia.

In less than 23 days our youngest son Gabriel, his wife Dawn and their little 2 year old daughter Sailor will be joining us here in Malaysia. They will spend about 3 weeks here and then we will accompany them to Sriracha Thailand where they will be enrolling into Victory Bible College International for fall 2008. I will be involved with Victory Bible College this year, teaching some classes. We are excited!

The Finish Line

I don’t care about my own life. The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me—to tell people the Good News about God’s grace.

Acts 20:24 New Century Version

But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

Acts 20:24 New Living Translation

I was in a meeting listening to a man speaking about how God wants to speak to people today and in the message he made reference to Acts 20:24. My eyes were drawn to this verse. He continued his message but I could not help but think about what this verse meant to me. Paul said that his life was worth nothing if he did not finish the assignment that God has charged him with. There are a lot of things worth living for that are noble and good causes. Many people live trying to discover their purpose or are trying to find meaning and significance. Paul was facing arrest and certain persecution if he went to Jerusalem. Yet he knew that God wanted him there and that he had a mission to accomplish. He was willing to die if need be in order to accomplish that mission. Saving his life was not an option. Living to finish the task was.

I have often believed that the Great Commission can become the Great Completion. I believe that one day it will happen. But what I must focus on is the Great Completion of the task that God sets before me and use my life to finish the work that he has assigned me to do. This means that I have to stay in fellowship with the Holy Spirit to do that. I cannot be weak in prayer and weak in the Word of God. I must know His voice and trust His promise in order to bring the message that he has revealed to me to those he is sending me to. My purpose is nothing more than his task. His task is what my life needs to be about. This is my life verse.

Fathers

I hope you fathers had a wonderful day celebrating with your family. I was listening to Sean Hannity on the radio when I heard the news about Tim Russert’s sudden and tragic death. It was only then that I discovered that he had written a book called “Big Russ and Me” about life’s lesson that he had learned from his father Big Russ. Besides being a top news journalist, Russert was a son who had a tremendous relationship with his father and a father who had a tremendous relationship with his son. I really never watched “Meet the Press” which Russert hosted. But I was so moved by the quotes from his book which Sean Hannity read over the air as he paid tribute to a fellow colleague and friend. I went to the book store and purchased the sequel to his first book called “Wisdom of Our Fathers”. In there I read a quote from General Mac Arthur. “By profession I am a soldier and take pride in the fact. But I am prouder – infinitely prouder – to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build, the father only builds, never destroys. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battlefield but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who art in Heaven.”

When I think of my own father who passed away in 1989, I can remember the wisdom that I learned from him. The wisdom of having a strong work ethic and being committed to the family is the virtue that my Dad passed on to me. My dad knew how to work. My dad kept things in order around the house. Often he gave me jobs to do that I had no idea how to do. He expected me to learn my way through them. He taught me that it is wisdom to take care of things and not let them get run down. No matter where we lived, dad kept things in order. That order has helped me time and again to navigate through difficult and confusing times.

The movie Secondhand Lions is about the uncles every boy should have, and the summer every boy should spend. The story is a sort of mythological fiction, but it takes the viewer on the nephew’s journey to live with Uncle Garth and Uncle Hub on the Texas ranch.

Uncle Hub gives his what-every-boy-needs-to-know-to-become-a-man” speech to his nephew. Uncle Hub inspires that young man, whose father is MIA and whose mother lies to him and keeps dating loosers. These men were fathers to this young man and helped him to know what it means to be a man.

There is a something that only fathers can do, they build into the lives of their sons and rejoice to see them become fathers. Paul had a spiritual son named Timothy that he wrote two incredible letters to. The last letter that Paul writes before he is executed by Nero is 2 Timothy. Paul does not write to the church at large, or to his co-workers, he writes to his son.

Paul’s,“what-every-young-minister-needs-to-know-to-glorify-God” speech is given to Timothy. All of us need fathers who model a life that is pleasing to God and true to the Word of God. I thank God for my natural father and spiritual father.

Hearts for Chicago

A few weeks ago I was in Chicago for a class to experience firsthand what the ministry potential is in an urban context.

Each place that we visited was a rich insight into the heart of Chicago’s ethnic diversity and the heart of the men and women who minister to these people groups.

In each and every church or ministry we visited there were three things that really stood out to me. First these ministries were all lead by men with a “Word-of-the-Lord” vision and a commitment to stay where God had placed them. The level of obedience is in direct proportion to the level of success. We cannot dabble around with obedience. That is not faith. Faith is doing what God called you to do whether or not you see immediate results.

The second thing was prayer. We cannot be leaders who make decision based solely on research and consensus. We need to be men and women of prayer who have discerned the voice of the Holy Spirit and can communicate that direction to those who are following us. With this prayer life, the ability to stay the course comes to us. All of these men have stayed the course with what God has called them to do. They are neither wavering nor changing focus with every new trend or model. They just do what God has called them to do. Their prayer life has also brought them to the place where the compassion of Christ for the place and the people rules their heart. These men and women really love Chicago and the people of Chicago.

The third characteristic was a team concept. None of these leaders could do what they are called to do if they did not have a committed support team with them. The combined efforts of the team working together, resulted in a greater work than any one person can do, no matter how gifted or talented the individual leader may be.

These three components allowed these churches to penetrate the different ethnic groups and bring life back to the diverse communities in the wonderful city of Chicago. It stirred my heart to see the potential for revitalizing a community through biblical principals being carried out by faithful men and women.

Chicago

I am currently in Chicago studying urban ministry. We have been visiting different works around the city and as  soon as I get around a consistent  internet connection  I will write more.  Meanwhile I  am excited to see how the body of Christ  is  working together  in this city to reach out to the different cultural groups around them.   Talk to you later.

Congratulations Tony!

Margaret here announcing the graduation of my dear husband on Saturday May 3, 2008. Tony, my dearest I am so proud of you! These 2 years have flown by, and I know that all of the knowledge you have obtained will only sharpen the gifts and skills that reside inside of you as you follow our Lord and Savior. What are those orange flames in the background?