Let me relay three accounts to you of how real and how daily persecution is for some in this land steeped in biblical history.  I became aware of the issue of persecution the first day I was here.  My translator, a 26 year old newly wed man, lost three of his closest friends who were believers.  The were brutally tortured and killed for their faith.  If you can stomach it, you really ought to read the article.  They were simply reading the Bible with a “potential believer” who turned out to be an Islamic spy.  He shared as much as he could with me about his friends, but then would become silent, staring into space, still grieving their loss.   Later I was on a train with a young couple.  He had been an atheist, until he became a believer a few years ago.  Not long after he became a believer, he led his girlfriend to faith in Christ.  She was from a strict Islamic home.  I watched the two lovers embrace and say good-bye as he sent his  girlfriend back home to her parents for the holiday in Istanbul.  He told me her parents don’t know that she is a believer.  They are a fundamentalist family and if they knew their daughter was dating a Christ follower, and that she herself was a Christ follower, the worst could only be expected.  The young man had already been disowned by his mother and father when he became a believer. He didn’t want to loose the love of his life also.   The latest conversation I had with a persecuted believer that I will relate to you (there are others) happened last night.  We sat on the bay of the Aegean sea, sipping traditional chia.  A local pastor who has been interrogated, charged, beaten, and threatened since the 1980′s shared his story with us . He had more stories to tell than I can relate to you personally and even corporately. He at one point discovered a bomb outside their church.  All were kept safe and the police were able to deal with it.  For decades now, he, his wife, and children live under the watchful eye of various groups who consider him a person of “interest” as a pastor of a Protestant church, one of 15 Protestant churches in a city of 4 million people and 10,000 mosque.

Today, I am heading to a town where there are only four known believers in a town of 100,000 people.  The believers live in such fear of their surroundings and environment, they won’t even meet together.  They  fear exile, losing their jobs, or worse…  My fellow pilgrims, this stuff is real.  How should we respond?  This is the question I am asking myself.

1. Stop my complaining and whining when I don’t get my faith served to me hot and fresh the way I like it.  Start appreciating my freedoms and faith.  Take ownership of my own faith journey.  Pray hard, read more, seek God, give of myself more and stand firm.

2. Intercede for the persecuted church.  I am typing this blog from my bed in the hotel room and using the internet allowed in the  country.  Some of the main sights on the persecuted church that I wanted to give you links to, are blocked by this country’s internet. So, if you want to take this prayer challenge further, you will have to Google the “persecuted church” from a country that allows for freedom of information.  Then get on your knees, so our brothers and sisters in Christ don’t have to stand alone.

3. Cross the line… I have a new resolve, with grace and tact, to cross the line and share my faith more often.  This faith gig is more than a convenient fashionable sweater you put on to keep you warm.  It is hard and the armor is heavy and noisy for sure (Eph 6).   It may slow you down; however, you need it, if you plan to contend for your faith in the workplace, school house, and neighborhoods.  This world, starting where you are, needs you to put peace on and take the “Prince of Peace” to them.

4. Strangely enough, value your church.  I was able to see in the lives of many 1st generation believers, that to follow Christ meant being abandoned by your family and losing your inheritance.  For some it means even worse.   For many, all they had for community was their church.  Again, let’s not take the bride of Christ for granted.  Do a study on the “one anothers” at biblos.com and let’s be the body and members of it (Rom 12:5).

All team members met on a street called Empire Street.  We worked like mad cutting trees off of a house, cutting down trees that were nothing but bare trunks, and raked debris from the yards.  Half of the team members spent most the day on Empire street focusing on about 4 homes.  Kenny’s house was worked on a lot.  All the remaining siding was torn off his house and we had several guys go to Lowes to purchase plywood so we could board up windows that were broken.  Kenny has been getting cold at night since his house is somewhat exposed to the elements.  He should find out from FEMA, within a week, what type of financial aid they will be able to provide him.

The other half of our team, including myself, went to the opposite end of town to work with a man named Chuck.  Chuck is the father of Collette, a friend of Jessica’s at GPC.  Chuck was in great spirits, and was happy to share his tornado survival experience with us, and soon got very emotional.  He allowed me to pray over him and we briefly talked about the fact that his closet being literally the ONLY thing left on his structure wasn’t luck or chance.  Chuck said that he and his wife don’t pray, but his wife began praying when they heard the sound of a freight train coming at their house.  I can honestly say I feel like God has clearly revealed his power and himself to Chuck, and Chuck is searching and thinking through some things.  But there is a lot more to it.  Chuck said he’s moving to Bentonville and because of God’s protection and our willingness to come help him, he may even come to our church.  We spent at least 4 hours salvaging their things.  Digging through piles upon piles of just chaos to find tools, pictures, etc.  We also spent a long time burning all their paperwork and documents since Chuck has been fearfully guarding his house with worries of looting and people stealing important documents and such…which sadly has been happening.

We walked throughout the remains of a huge neighborhood and met a husband and wife, Mike and Joan.  We spent a lot of time salvaging their things and praying with them.  They are extremely emotional and greatly acknowledge God as the only reason they’re alive.  Mike shared their experience and it brought me to tears.  They thought the tornado was over, but the reality is that they were in the eye of the tornado and Joan began to get out of the tub when Mike grabbed her and jerked her back down as he held on to her with every bit of strength he had while the rear of the tornado finished the destruction that the front of the tornado had already started.  Their bathtub they were in, was all that remained of the home.

We all finished the day clearing trees off of a mans house.  His name was Jim Glass, he was 82.  When I walked up to find someone home, he was on the porch around back.  I introduced myself, as well as Stephen and he asked us to pull up a chair.  Jim desperately wanted to just talk and honestly I could hear him tell stories all day long.  He’s a really really neat man.  We will follow up with him tomorrow as well.  Turns out he personally knew my great uncle from Sarcoxie, MO who was a congressman.  We talked a lot, and he was so grateful that we came from Bentonville to help him.

I can’t begin to explain how happy these people are that we are there.  But these days of work look different than one might expect.  Its very emotional rummaging through absolute piles of crap in front of the person those piles of crap belong to while we look for memorable pictures and anything of value.  Its a very sensitive job and process that requires a person that is willing to LISTEN to stories and emotions.  God is working up there, and he’s doing it through people who are relational more than the folks who are jumping from one tree trimming job to the next.  The value of spending time with these people is very much appreciated, and I believe more so than the physical part.

We are praying over people with their permission, we are offering ourselves and our resources, and we are showing the Love of God.

It is clear that the work each team is doing is more than manual labor, it is also heart labor.  Stephen F, worship pastor from our Rogers campus spent most of the day praying and counseling with grieving and hurting families.

Please consider…GOING, GIVING and PRAYING.  Recovery and Compassion trips are leaving daily at 6:30 from GPC.  Please sign up in advance so we can have the necessary supplies.  To GO, GIVE and PRAY, visit our site by clicking here

Click here to view the embedded video.

My friends arranged for me to meet Lizi over dinner so she could have a safe place to tell me her story.  It was more than the unappetizing fish that caused me to eat very little last night. It was the reality of the conversation that was taking place over the fish skeletons that caused me to lose my appetite.  The persecuted church isn’t a relevant conversation for me most days; however, it was yesterday.  What 26-year-old Lizi began to recount with emotion, was her story.  It was of near biblical proportion when it comes to persecution. It was her personal story of religious persecution that I had to swallow hard with every bite.

Lizi grew up in a poor Islamic home in a suburb of a large South East Asian city.  She had devout Islamic parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles.  She was following down the same path with the family tradition until age 17 when she began to have dreams.  Vivid dreams. Dreams of Jesus calling her, dreams of her family converting to Christianity from Islam, dramatic dreams of angels and demons.  She began looking for help and consulting with some NGO workers that had moved into the country.  She had already struck a relationship with the foreigners through ESL (English as a Second Language).  The “worker so happened” to be follower of Christ.  One of the trusted workers told her the dream was the Lord’s calling her to Himself.  She fought it for a while, but eventually she received Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior.  The new relationship changed her life.  She felt whole, complete for the first time.  She was baptized publically.  With such a bold commitment and profession, it was only a short time before her mother found out.  And when she did, everything changed!

She now faced, what continues to this day, persecution from within the family and without.  For the last 9 years she has faced beatings from her mother, bother, and uncles.  So many she can’t remember.  I asked her twice how many times she had been beaten to make sure she understood.  She couldn’t count.  She said the worse time was when they took a metal pipe to her body again and again.  They also took her, and the foreign aid workers, before the Islamic court at the university.  Uncles, brothers, and her sister (who was the one that betrayed her trust and told the family of Lizi’s new faith) testified against her.  Lizi and the aid worker were thrown in jail for their faith.  Her family created rumors that Lizi was in intimate relationships with some of the aid workers.  The neighbors were informed of her infidelity to Islam and were told to have nothing to do with her once she was released.  This was Lizi welcome to the Christian faith.

Once released from jail they shaved her head in humiliation and beat her a number of times more.  They then sat her down, the whole family (close and extended), and told her she would have to recant of her faith.  She would not be able to return to the walls of a church.  And if she did not recant, she would be killed and the church building burned!  This was a heavy load for a 17-18 year old girl, with a 7th grade education, to bear alone in a male dominated world, rejected by family and neighbors, humiliated, and scared for her life.  It would have been much easier for her to recant.

She was recounting the story and time line of events when at the restaurant last night a neighbor walked in and “chose” to sat at the table immediately next to ours.  We quickly changed the subject to a safe topic to give an appearance of normalcy.  We quietly left the restaurant. We all piled into a car slipped away to a back street so she could finish her story. I had to ask her after such trama where she was with her faith.  She gave me her answer from one of the latest conversations she has had with her mother. Her mother has threatened to tie her up next to a tree and bring her a Muslim man to marry her.  In this culture, forced marriages are possible.  She told her mother she would fight and scream all the way…but “Jesus was her life and she can’t turn back.”

She hasn’t wavered.  She hasn’t faltered.  The persecution hasn’t stopped.  Since the early days of her persecution began, she hasn’t gone to church but one time.  This is not in denial of her faith but in fear of her friends she fellowships with.  She doesn’t want them to suffer as she has.  She is relegated to a digital Bible on her phone locked down under password.  She also receives text messages that come in from friends to encourage her.  These are her only sources of exhortation.  She is limited to her home on Sunday’s or they watch her with great scrutiny if she goes anywhere.

After we prayed with Lizi, she got out of the car to go back to her Islamic world I told her that she was my new hero and her faith dwarfs mine.  She smiled with tears in her eyes.  Space is too limited to tell you of how God has continued to manifest Himself to her life with “signs and wonders” and how she has begun to lead her work place associates to faith in Christ.  Pray for her continued strength.  Pray for her a Christian companion (before her mother follows through with her threats).  Socially being an outcast has made her very lonely. Pray for her family.  She lies in bed every night begging God to save her family despite the torture she has endured.  She is a model of unconditional love, perseverance, grace and mercy.  Lizi is my new hero.



I arrived on the island of Java in the Asian sea yesterday. Indonesia is an island nation made of 6,000 inhabited islands. “Indonesia” itself means “Tanah Air Kita” – Our Land and Water.  I have been here less than 24 hours, of which most of my time here I have slept.  I arrived yesterday afternoon, met fellow colleagues from the States and international personnel for dinner and then went to bed.

However, going to bed last night and waking at 4:00 this morning had two things in common; both were accompanied by the Muslim call to prayer.  Daily prayers (5 times a day to be exact) Muslims must pray.  It is one of their five pillars of Islam.  If prayers or salat are missed, they must be made up.  I woke up at 4:00 (thinking it was 5:00.  I failed to move my clock back an hour from Singapore time:) ready to start my day with a  good run.  I set out on the narrow winding street in front of the guest house where we are staying.  The paved road resembles a little more than a back ally in the US.  Little shops, internet café, tire shops, restaurants, stacked side by side lined the streets from one to the next (no easements, ingress/regress or green space in their “zoning” laws).  Some had little more than a corrugated metal tin roof to cover them.  Some have black plastic bizqeen covering the windows.  The path was dark and I hadn’t scoped out my route so I thought it best to keep it simple in this unplanned neighborhood.  I stepped outside the gates of the compound.  looked right then left down the streets. I decided I would run toward the left.  There seemed to be a brighter street light that way.  The sparsely sprinkled street lights, about 250 yards a part, barely lit the path I ran.  The goal was always to make it to the next light.  As long as I counted the lights, I knew how many lights I needed to run back past to get “home.”  (FYI: I ran 5 lights 2 times in case you were wondering:)).  That was the extent of my comfort zone so I just ran laps within that space.

One factor that contributed to the limits of my comfort zone was the fact that in that short distance I ran past or near 5 mosque calling its devotees to prayer.  There is just something eerie about being the only white American on the streets while (it’s our new reality as Americans post-9/11).  I never felt threatened,  It is just real, present, and spiritual reality that is upon our day.   These men and women are awakened 365 times a year to the duty of prayer.  Women stay at home, but men are encouraged to go and pray at the mosque.  A prayer given at a mosque is worth 25 times more than a prayer offered in the market.  Since a Muslim must earn his way into paradise, and the 2nd pillar of the Islamic faith is to pray 5 times a day, it’s best to pray -whether you want to or not.

Safe now back in the compound, I am disturbed by my own lack of dutiful prayer for the loving, living God that I know personally and intimately.  A God who wants to be with me and says that “if I ask anything in his name” He hears my prayer and respond accordingly.  Prayer shouldn’t be my duty…it should be my delight.  “The faithful and fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much” (James 5:16).  Let us pray…

In the past 20 hours (I arrived at 1:30AM and I am writing at 9:15 PM), I have tried to immerse myself in Singapore.  I am writing this blog in a Singapore cultural landmark, a coffee house.  This ain’t your average Starbucks coffee house either.  Its more a like a patio on a busy corner with cheap hard plastic furniture serving up roasted duck.  Somehow, if I owned this uncomfortable furniture and I was back in the US with sticky humidity like here, I would be complaining and running for the A/C.  However, I love being IN Singapore.  The Singapore people are very kind and gracious.   Though English is leagafranka, some call it “spinglish,” Chinese mandarin comes ringing through.  The heart language for 77% of the residence of this tiny peninsula nation is a Chinese dialect.

I have eaten at a couple of “hawkers” markets.  One meal was the Singapore dish, chicken in rice, soup and tea (S$ 3.50).  The hawkers market is the Singapore fast food equivalent.  I must confess, I did find a Marble Slab Creamery afterward and had a milkshake for dessert that cost me S$ 7.50 (dessert was double the cost of my lunch!).

I walked through their markets in Bugis. It was like an upscale African market with little, individually owned kiosk.  I pillaged through the stuff in order to find that unique gift for my kids, you know something that says more than: “My Dad went to Singapore and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” kind of gift. I had my smell enriched by the burning incense while walking through  “Little India.” I walked and talked with people in the Arab market always within sight of the largest mosque in Singapore.

It’s been a great 20 hours, but now I must stop and pray before moving on to the largest Islamic nation in the world tomorrow.  The following prayer concerns are sweeping and not true of all Singapore but again my over all observations.

Singapore is sexually confused…

I had no idea what legalizing prostitution could do to a country.  There isn’t really a safe area from “opportunities” for engagement.  On high-end Orchard Road where Louis Vuitton, Prada, and many other stores are nestled, there is a  mall full of “opportunities for any man (or woman).” The invitations are proudly heralded to people passing by.  Another example of their sexual confusion is taking place a few feet away from me.  Even as I write this blog, sitting four tables away from me, is a transvestite being served by a waiter who is one too.  However, the evidence that speaks the loudest to this sexual confusion was what I encountered late Tuesday afternoon.  After running a couple of miles today, I was drenched with sweat and in the process of doing my cool down walk when a nice man out watering his yard spoke in broken English to me and invited me in for a cool down (hospitable people remember).  I thought it was pretty cool, until I walk up to the threshold of his front door and recognized his house was a brothel as he extended an “opportunity invite” to me.  He said I could come in and shower with anybody.  That was a cool down invite I didn’t need.  Needless to say, I didn’t go in and cool down.  I asked the man where those girls came from as I walked back to his front gate and he said Thailand.  When I pressed him on more questions about how long have they been here, what are they doing here (like that wasn’t already obvious), he refused to talk anymore to me and started talking to another passer by.

I have felt sick inside of me the rest of the day thinking that I may have just witnessed the 21^st century form of slavery.  The thing is, I don’t have a clue what to do about it.  Those girls in that house were someone’s daughter.  Were they there by force? I don’t know.  How old where they (I didn’t stick around long enough to find out, but I would say they were made to look older than they were) At this point, I assumed the worst.

Singapore is materialistically charged…

The prosperity of Singapore is very impressive (literally as I wrote this sentence Aston Martin passed in front of me).  When driving down Orchard Road, it reminded me of 5^th Ave in NYC.  To say that all Singapore is wealthy is about as accurate as saying that all American’s are wealthy…it is based on your perspective.  A leading Singapore paper this morning confirmed this observation when it said: “Singaporeans [have a] relentless pursuit of five C’s – condominiums, cars, club membership, and credit cards” (The Straits Times 10/13/10).  It is clear that though there are very few natural resources produced within the country, Singapore is to East Asia what Switzerland has been to Western Europe and Wall-Street is to the US.  It is an economic giant.

Singapore needs Jesus Christ.

I have seen mosque everywhere, Hindu shrines nearly at every business, and large Buddha’s in the center of the market.  But, NO Jesus anywhere!  One 6 foot statue of Buddha was located in the center of Bugis market.  People passing buy would stop and rub Buddha’s belly and then rub themselves as if they were transferring the blessings.  Whoever crafted this statute conveniently carved a slat in his belly so the worshipers could place an offering into his stomach, as if it would fall mysteriously into his bowels.  Parents raised the children up to Buddha and told them to kiss the image so Buddha’s blessings might come onto the child.

I met the most devout Muslim I have ever met today. He has made three pilgrimages to Mecca, which is huge and uncommon for a Muslim to go three times to Mecca.  All Muslim’s are encouraged to go once, but three times?  More could be said but I am out of time and space.

The spiritual lostness was even clear with Jessica, Singaporean 26 year old waitress who pulled up a chair and spoke with me as a confused person in need of direction.  She doesn’t know if she believes in Jesus anymore, though she grew up Catholic.  I asked her what I could pray with her about at the end of a 30 minute conversation: she said “strength and wisdom.”

Whether you are a confused catholic, a family rubbing their child up against Buddha, or a Muslim who continues to go to Mecca even though his faith cannot ever give him security in eternity (Mohammed himself stated he didn’t know his eternal destiny), this great nation and people need to know Jesus.  Would you pray with me?

(To see images, go to my Facebook page.  I am unable to upload to my blog at this time)

GPC is in the midst of a series of messages called Radical.  We bought a copy of David’s book Radical for all our members and are using it as curriculum for our small groups.  Take the next 35 minutes and spend it in front of your monitor with David’s message, drop to your knees and surrender to God’s mission, then get up and go for it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallup recently released a study on personal savings accounts in Africa.  The study showed that only a handful of people have personal bank account.  When you live from hand-to-mouth, it’s hard to think of saving for “rainy day.”  Only 2% of Malians have a personal bank account.  Sixty-six percent said they didn’t have one because they didn’t have enough money.

While we lived in Zambia (9% of Zambian have a personal bank account), the Barclay’s bank branch manager ran off with a lot of money he stole from the bank, left his family, and died of AIDS before they could catch up with him.  Just as we Americans have a hard time trusting banks these days, Africans have a hard time trusting what little they have to a bank front loaded with fees and service charges, only to have it stole.

See below the full article from Gallup…

Africa and Savings accounts

CHRISTIE STORM ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Areport urging Southern Baptists to re-energize efforts to spread the Gospel and plant churches will top the agenda at the denomination’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., next month.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report not only presses for a revival of evangelism in the face of declining baptisms but also outlines new responsibilities for the denomination’s missions organizations — the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. It also calls for increased giving by all Southern Baptists.

Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale and The Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, is the task force chairman.

He said he believes the recommendations, crafted after a year of discussion across the country, reflect the wishes of Southern Baptists.

“We believe we have our finger on the pulse of the vast majority of leaders and people in the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said. “But June will tell.”

With 16.1 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But membership has dropped in recent years. The number of Baptisms climbed slightly from 2008 to 2009, but have dropped sharply in recent decades.

Bloggers and commentators have dissected the report and many have voiced opposition to the changes online and in Baptist publications across the country. Even leaders within the denomination, including Morris Chapman, president of the powerful executive committee, have expressed concern with portions of the report.

Others, however, support the recommendations and think the changes will streamline the denomination’s efforts to reach the world for Christ.

“I think the report is crucial and essential to the future of our denomination, because the structure our convention is operating under is a model that is antiquated,” said Jeff Crawford, pastor of Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith. “This report refocuses who we are and what the No. 1 focus of the church needs to be and that’s the Great Commission, taking the Gospel around the entire world.”

Crawford, 40, will attend his first convention annual meeting this year. In the past he hasn’t felt compelled to make the journey. This year is different.

“I find the Great Commission relevant,” he said. “I can get excited about the Great Commission and I think it will strike a chord with many other pastors as well.

“I think there’s a general consensus that we need to do something different. People can get nervous about what that means but I think everybody realizes we can do better and we need to do better.”

Crawford’s hope is that the report will unite convention members under one common goal — sharing the Gospel. He said the very relevance of the denomination is at stake.

“We can’t afford to be irrelevant,” he said. “We need to send a message that the denomination can be relevant and the right way is to make sure we are centered on the Great Commission.”

Thousands of delegates, called messengers, will gather June 15-16 in Orlando to consider numerous resolutions, elect a president and other officers and hear from the task force.

Floyd said as the 23 task force members met with Southern Baptists during the past year they found most are concerned about how the denomination of autonomous churches can pull together to reach the world for Christ.

“This is a very complex ministry that has to work really hard at cooperating with one another,” Floyd said. “This is about how we can do it better.”

In all, seven recommendations will be presented by the task force, including one to phase out the so-called cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board and state conventions in seven years and establish a new strategy for partnership. That would mean state Baptist conventions will no longer receive funds for in-state missionaries and church planting efforts from the national mission organization. In Arkansas, that amounts to a loss of about $500,000, according to Arkansas Baptist News.

The Missouri Baptist Convention stands to lose even more — almost $2 million — and the executive board has expressed concern about several other aspects of the report. The group’s executive director, David Tolliver, will attempt to make a motion at the annual meeting to delay action on the report to give the entities involved time to study the impact of the proposed changes.

FINANCIALLY SPLIT

While Southern Baptists are generally united in wanting higher membership and more baptisms, they’re divided over how to split the money.

“We need to take some time to study the ramifications of their recommendations. I may be for every one of them once I fully understand what it will mean to Southern Baptists,” Tolliver said.

Tolliver will be one of many messengers attempting motions on various topics. He said there’s no guarantee he’ll even be acknowledged, but he’ll make the attempt.

Tolliver said he’s concerned about several components in the report, including a section proposing a new category of designated giving — Great Commission giving — which he believes will hurt the denomination’s Cooperative Program. Since 1925, the Cooperative Program has helped unite Southern Baptists in a spirit of cooperation. Local churches contribute to the Cooperative Program and state conventions fund their ministries with a percentage of the money and forward the rest to the executive committee to be disbursed among the various denomination entities.

As for the cooperative agreements, Tolliver said the report leaves the future of funding unclear.

“But if Southern Baptists decide to dissolve those agreements, I, frankly, will do that and we’ll begin to adjust,” Tolliver said. “We’ll live with whatever Southern Baptists want us to do.”

Floyd said the recommendations concerning cooperative agreements are an attempt to utilize the North American Mission Board more effectively. The proposal calls for “refocusing” the board by making church planting in North America the top priority. He said that requires moving funds.

“We need to move as much money as we can out of the South and into areas where Christianity isn’t known,” Floyd said.

Mike McDaniel, pastor of Grace Point Church in Bentonville, hasn’t attended an annual meeting in several years but is making the trek to Orlando this year. His congregation is similar to many others — it affiliates with the Southern Baptist Convention but also with other entities, including the Willow Creek Association, and supports them financially. The majority of the congregation’s contributions go to the convention. McDaniel calls these congregations neo-Baptists, those who no longer place the same value on aligning themselves with a denomination.

“Denominations are shrinking,” he said. “They are relics of modernism and we are in a postmodern culture … where we are anti-institutional.”

McDaniel sees the restructuring of the convention as an attempt to stabilize the denomination but he’s not sure the changes will foster a sense of cooperation, especially with the dissolution of the cooperative agreements.

“My conclusion is that it will create a competitive spirit,” he said. “It’s a fight for a bigger piece of a shrinking pie.”

WORLDWIDE REACH

McDaniel said changes to the Cooperative Program are needed because the current system is not efficient if the goal is to reach the world with the Gospel. Most state conventions keep more than 60 percent of their cooperative giving funds in state. He thinks the majority of funds should leave Arkansas.

“There needs to be prioritization on evangelizing the unreached peoples of the world,” McDaniel said. “If 60 cents of every dollar never left the state, did we really believe in global missions or did we believe in Arkansas missions?”

Ultimately, McDaniel said the denomination’s pace of change could be too slow for many churches.

“I’m afraid the more progressive churches loyal to good, sound Baptist doctrine aren’t waiting around for the slow giant to wake up and change,” he said. “They are moving on.

“People in our church aren’t waiting for the IMB and other SBC organizations to change and catch up with the times. They are getting seminary degrees … going on missions with pioneers. They are ready to go and they are not going to wait around five more years or so until the denomination can finally get going in the right direction.”

As for Floyd, he encourages Southern Baptists to read the report. It’s online at pray4gcr.com.

“Southern Baptists are very concerned about the future but the problem is they are not sure how to get there,” he said. “We need to build a compelling vision that rallies them to a better future. … We need to create a climate where change is acceptable.”

We do a lot together: raise 3 awesome children, start churches, travel on mission to 20+ countries together, but I am so proud of her that she is a confident and capable leader, communicator and missiologist.

Lori may have left me but in 4 hours and 23 minutes (not that I am counting), I am picking her up from the airport and bringing her home.  She is returning from K-village where she traveled with the 7 other women.  They were armed with only their backpacks, and a translator or two, to live in a mud hut (AKA: the Grace Point Hilton), draw water from a well, and teach villagers about Jesus.  But to top it off she sprained her ankle while in the capital city and went to the bush on crutches…wait the story doesn’t end there.  K-village church (GPC first church plant) and GPC have been working together to see a 2nd generation church born in N-village some 2 hours walk away.  Despite the crutches and 100+ degree temps she and a couple of other ladies from the team and some leaders from K-village church traveled with her to N-village and shared more stories of Jesus.  Thirteen ladies became Christ followers in N-village.  There are now 19 Christ followers in a very remote village with a population of 600.  This is an amazing harvest in a predominate Muslim and animistic setting.

My wife left me…but she can leave anytime if this is the kind of work she is goin be about.

PS: she also proofs my blogs, but since she left me I might need your help with my grammar or spelling, send any needed correction to mike@gracepointchurch.net