THE JOURNEY SO FAR

I’ve got admit, I’ve been struggling to balance all that I’m reading these days relating to the church. I’ve watched a lot of adjectives get attached to “Church” through the years. “Seeker”. “High Impact”. “Purpose-driven”. “Simple”. “Emerging”. I could do this for hours…

But the one that’s caught my attention lately is “missional”. I’m a missionary, for crying out loud. Of course I’d notice. But it’s taken me longer to catch the sense.

You see, in most of the what I’ve read and heard, people dive straight into discussing the mission of the church for today and what it ought to be doing. But I listened to a short interview with Craig Van Gelder from Luther Seminary that helped me understand how becoming a missional church begins with God’s mission, not the mission of the church.

The church is really about God’s mission, God’s purpose, God’s activity. It’s about understanding what God’s purposes are from the wisdom of Scripture and then understanding what God is doing and wants to do through discernment of the times by means his Spirit. Then you can brace yourself to dive into ministry, and probably in directions you may not have anticipated.

I confess. I’m an over 50 year-old male born and raised in North America. Cut me and I tend to bleed pragmatism. It would be easy for me to jump to the “action points” and “preferred outcomes”. I can live for months on the adrenaline of one decent “accomplishment.” But what we do as a church comes out of who we are as a church.

Grace defines who we are. Believers are both recipients and instruments of grace. Churches must reflect an utter sense of submission to God’s authority, dependence on God’s power, and commitment to God’s purposes and mission.

Christians are intended to engage the world for the spread of the Gospel and for good of the world, but by first consecrating themselves to God and what he in his grace is doing. He’s created the church as a community of those who know and wish to extend God’s offer of grace.

To whom much is given, much is required.

NDR

LINK TO THE INTERVIEW WITH DR. VAN GELDER

Labels: reflection

Lots of churches host a weekly morning for moms with preschool kids during the school year. But it’s tough to keep something together during the summer.

And now it’s the end of school. Moms are bracing for the invasion of time and space… their time and space. There’s got to be some kind of plan of counter-attack! And hopefully moms want to enjoy their kids during the summer; not just survive them.

One idea is to be proactive by offering a 4-week series of mornings called S.O.S. Moms (Surviving Our Summer!) Invite a balance of mothers from the community and a couple from your church. Small is good (like 5-6 moms.) Set it up with a couple of minders (babysitters) who can care for the children in the back garden with an hour of games followed by an hour of moms and kids together with some snacks.

During the four weeks, focus each time on a different subject. Week one could be “Summer Outings” where someone creative talks about dozens of things in the area you might never have thought of doing together with your children. Then encourage the attendees to make a date with at least one other mom in the room to do an activity together.

The second week, focus on “Summer Rainy Day activities” with a similar approach. The third week, focus on “books for kids” and plan a library outing or a book swap. The last week’s focus is on “really loving your children” where you can look at what the Bible says about the “tough love” of discipline or other biblical principles for helping raise children. Include your personal testimony of the difference knowing Christ has made in your being able to really love your children.

The goal of the activity is to get people acquainted around a common need and encourage friendships to develop between individuals during the week as the summer marches on.

MOPS or Mothers of Preschoolers is a great resource for mothers all year round. It’s a good way to get to know other women in the neighborhood.

NDR

Labels: ideas

Going on a trip with a group from your church this summer? Consider keeping a team blog, complete with photos. It’s a great way to get everyone behind you in prayer. You don’t even need a computer along with you. All you need is a free blog account and a cell phone that does email with a camera built in.

Almost all the free blog services (like Blogger and WordPress) offer you the option to upload text and photos through the email feature on your cellphone. That means you don’t even have to bring your computer to the beach (or the worksite.)

Make it a team effort. Have a team reporter to collect stories, a team photographer to snap the shots, and everyone contributing ideas. You can even start the blog during the prep stage to use as a prayer guide and support development tool if people need to raise funds for the project.

If you’ve promoted the blog you’ll have some devoted readers (and prayers) from your first posting. Who knows? You might even peak someone’s interest who’d never considered a ministry trip before who’ll sign up for the next one.

NDR

Labels: ideas

I've really enjoyed the last several years of keeping a blog (probably more than you've enjoyed me keeping one). It's been a good place to keep a record of what's going on in life and ministry. It's also motivated others to pray and get involved in ministry.

But I realized over the past couple of years that when working with one group in a specific area to help meet a ministry need creatively that others might have benefited from the process we took to find a solution.

And so I'm adding two new dimensions to the blog. One is a regular dose of ideas that could be of use to others in helping their church experience greater intimacy with God, community with believers and influence in the world around them.

And starting in the fall, I'll be adding a regular podcast (kind of an internet radio show for you newbies to this kind of stuff) where we'll be talking with other creative ministry folks looking for ways to help small churches with big ideas.

One thing I've been exploring is which form the blog should take. I've been on Blogger for over 3 years now. (http://journey-so-far.blogspot.com) I've also used iWeb which is great for good looking sites, but kind of clunky on the blog side of things. That's what I've done our current CreativeWorks website with. (http://www.gemcreativeworks.org)

I've explored just becoming handier with Dreamweaver, but I don't think I'll live that long. And I've also got a WordPress version in beta form (http://www.gemcreativeworks.org/wordpress) which is not quite as pretty or flexible, but way easier to post with. Best of all it's opensource. That means I can help churches set up a pretty powerful web presence for free regardless of whether or not they've been blessed to own a Mac.

If you're into this kind of stuff, I'd like to hear about what your thoughts on blog hosting are, especially as it might relate to having volunteers be responsible in a church for keeping up web content, calendars, posting sermons, etc.

Many of you know we're in Germany, but we're working toward moving back to Ireland. The big obstacle at this point is the sale of our home here in Germany.

It doesn't keep us from working. We've got plenty of projects going that we can do from either place, but we'd love to get the move behind us. And we'd like to start digging into relationships there in Ireland.

One of the main things slowing down the sale is that there are houses for sale in the next village over (Kandern). Usually there aren't places available there, but this summer there happen to be several houses for sale. And because people like to walk to do their shopping, our village (a little over 2000 yards away) becomes less desirable. Doesn't seem far to us, but then again, we're Americans.

So we wait.

We know God will see it sold when it's time. In Belgium, no one was looking at our place in a dead market, but at the right time He sent one person to look at the house. It only takes one.

Pray with us, will you? Thanks.

Durand

(Here's Matthias with a new Polish friend. The photo has nothing to do with the story, but it's one of my favorites of the tour.)
Tour journal, part 6.
As we prepared for our last concert Monday morning, I told Chris I felt somehow that this one was the main reason we came to Poland. In a high security prison, we were given the chance to play and share the gospel with over one hundred inmates.

I explained that a lot of people realize that God exists, but they just don't like him. Thinking about God as the big judge in the sky reminds them of their guilt and moral failure. But perhaps the most liberating thing they could ever learn is that God is both just and loving.

I told them a story about judge that was required to take a case involving one of his dearest personal friends. I asked the inmates whether they thought the judge would be a just judge or be a loving friend. I heard prisoners discussing among themselves what they thought would happen.

When they learned that the judge had declared his friend guilty, they thought the story was over. But I continued, explaining that the judge had personally paid the friend's debt at great personal cost before declaring his verdict, thus providing his friend with the chance to go free. And then I asked again if the judge had been just or loving. He'd done both and done them fully.

We finished the concert, one of the inmates asked the warden if he could ask the band a question. At first we thought through broken translation that he'd asked how long we'd been forgiven. We told him how long we'd been believers. He tried again, and this time the translation came through something like "how often do you ask for forgiveness" and we told them we asked daily. Finally, he got the real meaning of his question through. "How long does it take to be forgiven?"

I almost lost it right there. With joy we explained that when God sees that with a sincere heart we repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness, it happens immediately. He smiled, in English said thank you and sat down. The director got up and thanked us for singing music that talked about the things that were on our hearts, because these are also the kinds of things the prisoners think about. Then all the prisoners were escorted to their cells. Pastor Chris told me that local pastors would be coming to the prison to follow up.

Tour journal, part 5.
Back in Warsaw The pastor wanted us to be part of a turning point weekend in the life of their church. An all day "new members" seminar was being offered for people to be challenged about becoming active members of the church. The church has had many visitors since moving into a permanent facility at a local trade school last October. A luncheon was offered to be followed by a 6 hour seminar on what it means to be part of the church from the Bible.

The pastor had hoped that as many as 100 people would come. But earlier in the week they'd counted over 150, and by Saturday, 250 people came. Evangelism, discipleship, baptism, accountability were just some of the things discussed from the Scriptures. The climax of the day was a period of reflection as people considered signing a pledge to identify with this church in active membership. Chris has asked us to sing several songs during this time of commitment. What a privilege.

The following morning I was asked to sing during communion at the worship service before we hopped in the car and headed south for a Sunday evening concert about 3 hours away. We sang for a Methodist church planning to do distribution of wheelchairs in the area beginning Monday.

Here is the "Wheels" team fitting a new chair for a young Polish girl.
Tour journal, part 4. Friday was a huge day. We had an almost 4 hour drive over some pretty dangerous stretches of worn-out, narrow, two-lane highway to a town in the north of Poland. There Joni and Friends had been distributing wheelchairs for two days, the biggest in the history of their Polish ministry. Unfortunately the church had little experience in doing public outreach and did little to publicize the concert that followed the distribution.

About half the crowd came from a center for disabled young adults and youth who'd received wheelchairs the day before. The center had never heard of the church but found out about the wheelchair distribution.

As I sat down with the young people after the concert I began talking to one of the assistants accompanying the group. I thanked him for his service acknowledging the labor of love he we was giving for this special group of people. I began to discuss with him about God's love and about what he'd heard during the concert. At one point I told him I'd pray for him and he asked me to pray for those he cared for as well. There was a great connection through the use of my translator with him. I believe God will draw him back to this group. He was impressed by their service, their friendliness and about their faith.

We ended our time by grabbing a quick sandwich with the pastor and the translators before making another 4 hour drive back to Warsaw. We hit the pillow around midnight tired but glad for the day.

Ruth and our translator Agnes (right) with some of the girls
Tour journal, part 3. Thursday we were back in Warsaw. God has placed a few believers in strategic places in the prison system around Poland and Pastor Chris has kept the church involved in serving and sharing with those in prison. We gave an afternoon concert to a juvenile correctional center for girls (15-18 and a few older). Our translator was a young woman 22 years old who's been visiting the girls there over the past couple of years. We were allowed to share hope in life with Christ to them freely.

As I sang "Only Plea", they read the words in Polish some began to cry. The words of the first chorus were too familiar.

"I'm guilty, guilty as I can be. I struggle and fight, but evil's got a hold on me. Like an outlaw I run from the things that I've done, longing to be free. But guilty is my only plea."

As he saw the girls moved, even Pastor Chris started to cry. I'm so thankful they could hear the second chorus of hope for those who hear God's call on their life.

"Forgiven, I hear you callin' out to me. Death I deserve, mercy is all I see. When you died in my place you removed every trace of the guilt that would not let me be. When guilty was my only plea."

The assistant director of the center thanked us publicly saying they'd needed this kind of afternoon for a long time. After the concert, one crowd of girls surrounded Marj, while a second crowd surrounded Ruth giving opportunities to love them and share individually about hope in Christ with them. I felt for them. These girls are separated from their moms and were hungry for love and attention. About an hour and a half after the concert, we finally packed up and left for home, but our translator stayed to have supper with the girls and continue conversations.

Tour journal, part 2. This afternoon we headed for Wiszkow. We arrived at a cinema that evidently only plays films on the weekends. The hall was actually quite nice with seating for about 150. As we were setting up the pastor explained that two years ago there had been a different director over all the theaters in town who was very sympathetic to the church and put in extra publicity with announcements in the media.

This time there was none. Only a few posters around town. Obviously we were headed for a small crowd. In the end there were only about 20 people. Added to that there were significant thunder storms beginning about an hour before the concert that knocked out power a couple of times, including right after our first song. (At least it wasn't during the song.)

We struggled to keep our concentration as difficulties with monitors meant that two of us played the entire concert playing dependent on the little bit of sound we could hear from what came back to the stage from the back of the hall. To be honest it was one of the most difficult and disappointing performances I've been a part of.

Russ and Marj sharing with people after the concert.
But amazingly, the audience was so appreciative they asked for an encore. I told them they may not have been the biggest group I'd ever played for, but they were certainly one of the kindest. After we finished most of the group stayed to talk. Some were young men who'd known someone from the church and decided to come. The conversations lasted for at least half an hour.

The pastor, over supper expressed his gratitude for the wonderful encouragement the evening had been. Two years ago after the Verna Law concert the church had experienced some growth, but the acceptance of Poland to the European Union meant the loss of some of these members who opted to move to other European countries for better jobs. The church is back to the 15 or so members in a big town of about 40,000 people.

He thanked us for our tenacity to share the Gospel and for the encouragement we were to do the same.

Tour journal, part 1
(Phonetically that's how you say "hello" in Polish.) That's because we arrived last night in Poland with Carton Jaune after two days of travel. Krzysztov (call him Chris) and Mariola Zareba are our hosts for the next week. "Chris" is the pastor of a growing church in Warsaw, and his wife Mariola is the director for the "Wheels to the World" program for Poland.

This morning (yes, you read "morning") Chris had arranged our our first concert. His church here in Warsaw uses an auditorium 7 days a week that's on a technical college campus. Today we had the chance to play to the entire student body (about 200 18-20 year old guys working toward their certification in to be auto and truck mechanics.) The translator said they were unusually attentive and enjoyed the program. For us it was a chance to honor the Lord and advance the relationship this church has with the school.

Elsewhere in the building wheel chair distribution had already begun as families came to receive their chair, have a doctor determine the best adjustment, and have a wheel chair mechanic do the fitting. The final step in receiving the chair was a chance to sit down with a counselor and be given prayer, a Bible and an opportunity to hear the Gospel.

Tomorrow, both the wheelchair and the music teams head north to the city where I brought the Verna Law Band two years ago. The work continues with a small church plant. We'll be in a new venue, but as I met with the pastor today, the same enthusiasm as last time was already evident.

We've been going non-stop since last Wednesday between rehearsals and travel. Today we actually had the afternoon to rest and won't leave until noon tomorrow. Pray for God to work.