We continued past the money-making-talk in about 15 minutes.  It was a great time of getting to know each other as we shared with each other about our countries before the students asked me if I was religious.  Can you say: “open door” (Colo 4:3).  We began to converse about Christianity and Islam.  All of the students were professing Islamists, but none actually practiced their faith on a regular basis.  The more we talked about the faith, the more the man at the next table wanted to hear what we were saying.  His desire finally got the best of him and he asked if he could join us and be a part of the conversation.  About 10 minutes later, the original six excused themselves to attend class, but “Randy” didn’t leave.  It was now a virtual 1 on 1 conversation (I did have a translator to help when needed).  “Randy” wanted to know more, though he told me point blank he was a Muslim and had no intentions of changing.  I shared from the Quran (Shurah 3:45-47), how even the Quran points people to Jesus as the perfect virgin born Son of God (Mohammad didn’t have such claims).  Our conversation continued for another 15-20 minutes. I gave him some “verses” to read from the Quran that point people to Jesus.  We exchanged email addresses and then went on our way.  It was an orchestrated God encounter.

Pray for “Randy,” the translator said we made good headway with him.  This was good after talking to many other students with cluttered minds…

1. Pray Jesus will show up in his life miraculously (vision, prayers, etc).
2. Pray that he will find fellow believers to journey with him in the faith.  There few in a country of .01% evangelical professing followers of Jesus.
3. Pray that we can continue a relationship via email
4. Pray that Randy will know Jesus as his savior.

As I finish this blog, I will be writing Randy to start our on line conversation.  Be praying!

You’ll have to ask the others about their conversations…especially Huff and Oliphants new dues:)

Started by driving everyone on today’s team to “ground-zero” so that they could go ahead and take in the shock factor.  Our first stop was at Mathew Shear’s house.  I have been mentioning Mathew and his family the past few days.  Their house is ok, we cleaned absolutely every bit of debris out of their yard, but as I mentioned previously, they’ve suffered the loss of very close friends.  For some reason I feel a connection to Matt.  I have been praying with him each day I’ve been there.  I have been offering anything and everything to help them in any way.  We always get the response, however, that they’re fine, but just struggling with the emotions of death of friends.  So we drove to Empire Street where Matt is located.  -Very close to St. Johns, but Matt’s house was somehow spared complete destruction.  When we arrived, Matt was in his car making a phone call.  I waved to him and waited until he was finished.  Once again, I shook his hand, asked how he was holding up, if he had everything they needed, etc.  Matt began to tell us a story and this is when I got fairly emotional myself…

Matt Shear and his wife have been fairly reluctant to accept handouts of basic necessities.  They’ve been turning down bottled water and food that many volunteers are glady handing out.  Matt said they just feel like they’re one of the lucky ones since their house is in tact and they don’t feel like they need free handouts.  He said that his neighbor gave them a reality check when they told him he better begin accepting help because help won’t be around like this in another month or two.  Matt said at one point yesterday evening he opened up his door and found that someone had left a box of sandwiches.  -This is normal right now as volunteers are stepping up to give anything and everything to the victims.  Matt took the sandwiches in and decided he’d try one.  After biting into the most basic ham and cheese sandwich with absolutely nothing else on it, he almost started laughing.  Matt said, “I can’t believe two pieces of white bread and a slice of ham and cheese can make me feel like this, and I feel like I can taste some sort of love or even Jesus”.  (These were his words!)  Matt said, “I started calling them Jesus sandwiches.  They were the most basic made sandwich you could imagine, but it was like I could tell they were Jesus sandwiches.  I told my wife, you’ve got to try one of these and so she did and she said the same thing.”  Matt was trying to express that there was nothing fancy to these things and he didn’t even want the handout, but after biting into the most basic, dry tasting sandwich, it was like it gave them an overwhelming feeling of hope, love, and encouragement, knowing these sandwiches were made by people who love Jesus and other people.  Matt and his wife are emotionally deeply wounded, but God is revealing himself to their family in more ways than I’ve ever seen, even through a dry ham and cheese sandwich made with love. I have Matt’s email, and he knows all of our contact info.

The remainder of the day was spent across town clearing a massive oak tree off of a home and salvaging pictures for Trish and Stan.  Trish is the daughter of Jim Glass, the 82 yr old man we met yesterday.  By the end of our day we were left with a 12 foot long oak tree trunk that was probably over 150 yrs old.  This thing was massive.  I had begun to cut it up, and completely ruined another chain as I happened to find steel that was embedded deeply into the tree.  At this point, our saws were useless and we had no way to move this trunk to allow their car to be backed out.  As our hopes of providing transportation back to this family began to fade, a man from Carthage drove up pulling a tractor and asked if we could use some help.  Needless to say, God provided our needs to meet others’ needs throughout the day.  We did some extremely difficult physical work, but we were able to clear a path for their car and a motorcycle to make it out of their garage.  -That is a huge accomplishment as they were able to gain access to transportation, which most people are without.

GPC leaves again Saturday morning at 6:00am.  We encourage you to consider joining a team.  Tomorrow we are going up with Metro Church.  A local church plant in NWA.  I love it when the Kingdom of God and His churches work together.

Learn how you can Pray, Give and Go… Here

6. Learn a foreign language.  I don’t have this mastered.  In fact, I am not close to considering myself bilingual; however, there is tremendous value in working on learning another language.  The reason is worldviews are manifested in languages.  As I learn multiple languages, I am gaining an understanding of the diversity of worldviews.  If it does nothing but help me see that my way of thinking isn’t the only way to think and see the world, it will accomplish much.  For example, when I learned the Bambara word for bike, I learned it actually translates “iron horse.”

7. Find a local community care outreach and serve your community. Just like learning a language gives you different perspectives on life, so does serving in a different socioeconomic environment give you a greater perspective on people.  Sit in their home (if they even have a home), eat a meal in their context.  We had some college students that traveled the States on a month long journey; stopping, staying,a and eating in soup kitchens. Obviously, this wasn’t a typical college vacation to Cancun.

8. Host an exchange student. I have seen families open their homes to high school students from Turkey, Germany, China, and others.  Amazing cultural exchanges take place that will broaden your global understanding, enlarge your heart for the nation of your student at lea, connect you with people around the world, and the list goes on.   In two of the three scenario’s the students went back to their home country followers of JC.

9. Adopt an international student into your home and family life. I love seeing what God has done in a family in our church that has taken on connecting and periodically hosting about 10-15 college African college students from the UofA.  They love on them, serve them, share life together over the holiday’s and throughout the year.  One of the Nigerian students is working on his PhD and has the vision to go back to Nigeria and become the President.  Can you imagine if his vision becomes true. To  think that along this young man’s spiritual pilgrimage he points back to his faith growing through this family and his time spent in their lives.

10. Walk through a different neighborhood or apartment complex. Whether the neighborhood is socio-economically different than your “normal” or it’s an area a different ethnic group tends to congregate and live, walk through those sidewalks or streets.  Relocate your exercise routine there.  Drive through there.  But, on your journey, open your eyes.  Instead of seeing them or “not” seeing them at all, ask God to open your heart to see them how He sees them.  Pray as you walk, run, drive, and GO!

1. Set a Spiritual goal (you new I would go here:)).

How is your time in God’s Word, the Bible?  Set a goal of reading a chapter a day.  Maybe go for reading the entire Bible through in  a year.  How is your prayer life?  Write out 5-6 simple sentences, yet specific issue you want or need God to show up in.  Date them and pray for them daily. Wait and watch God work. Lead someone to faith in Christ.  Ask God to people in your life this year who are far from God and pray that He will use you to bring them close to him.

2. Set a Physical goal

Get moving. Wait, I didn’t say go get a gym membership to sooth your conscious or buy a couple thousand dollars worth of home gym equipment that will set idle and gather dust.  Identify a sport and activity that you like or moderately like to do and start doing it.  Daily!  Spend no less than 30 minutes doing it.   Push yourself.  If you are not breathing so hard you can’t talk and your body feels like it is going to die, you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough (how is that for a little coaching).  Dr. Vonda Wright MD, assistant professor of Orthopedic surgery at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine said: “the problems typically attritbuted to aging have less to do with actual aging than with the sedentary way more than 70% of people in this country choose to spend their lives.”²  If you want to know what I am doing personally, talk to me one on one. I would be glad to tell you what I’ve done.  I feel the best I’ve felt physically in 15-20 years.

3. Set a mental goal

Start reading.  Grow your brain.  Learn to think beyond you own limits.  “Leaders are incurable learners,” Bill Hybels once told me.  I have 9 books lined up on my book shelf right now within arms reach of where I sit that I am going to be plowing through over the next 3-4 months.  I can’t wait.  I am like a kid with a new set a of Lego’s for Christmas, fighting for the time to get my hands on them and start building my life up.  Make your list.  Set a goal of one reading one valuable book a month.

4. Set a noble goal

I have found in my life that I get more out of life the more I pour into life.  I so enjoy giving financially, giving my time, seeing a life move forward instead of backward.  I like it when the light comes on in some eyes, but I love it when the light comes on in someone’s soul and spirit. Invest into a place and people that is under resourced and unreached. Grace Point is sending out 12 team to do Global Development work.  Find a place to invest and be enriched as you enrich others.

1. http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/465-americans-resolutions-for-2011
2. Your Best Body At 40+, Jeff Csatari, pg 5

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 are in the process of launching  another GPC worship gathering in mid-town/lake area of Rogers.  We will share the one name, leadership, budget, vision and message as a unified body bringing our hearts together with those of Bentonville and Rogers.  I started with a list of reasons for a multi-site launch last week; but had too many reasons and needed to break it into two entries.

10 reasons why we are launching a missional 2nd GPC site (continued)
6. Multi-stie churches remove the limits of a 4-walled-church to see the church as community. The church’s walls aren’t limited to one building or address.  The church is a community, so the church should be a part of the community and not be defined by what goes on within 4 walls.  For the first five years of GPC existence, we were a portable church.  Many of our children knew the church was the community of people and not the building.  This is a more biblical idea of a church.  We are going back as we move forward.
7. Multi-site churches are  catalyst for 3-self church planting, not a hindrance.  One of my biggest push backs to multi-site was how I thought it would hinder 3 -self church planting.  Studies have confirmed that the multi site churches are more likely to plant churches than single campus churches.  84% of churches with multiple campuses have also planted  churches; only 74% of single campus churches have helped to sponsor another church plant (Viral Church, Stetzer).
8. Multi-site churches take a jack hammer to a mega church. Multi-site churches function as a smaller community so they can be nimble and be responsive to culture and people around them rather than be a huge massive institution that can’t adjust to change.  However, with the close affiliation between campuses it keeps the breadth of resources, talents, and depth of a larger church accessible to both.  In my doctoral research, I did a case study of Mosaic and their 9 campuses in the Los Angeles region.  Their pastor, Erwin McManus, said to me: “Mega churches don’t require empowering lay people.  They require a system that standardizes so that fewer people have to do everything in the decision-making process.” Multi-site churches, however, help the whole body of Christ to function and exercise their gifts.
9. Multi-sites enable people to go and plant churches while staying connected to the church they love. This will afford more members who feel a call to go and help plant a church to take a baby step, by leaving GPC Bentonville and going to GPC Rogers; yet, never having to leave their GPC family.  It is an in-between step to starting 3-self churches.  We need 15-20 families with a church planter’s heart that are ready to go and serve and worship on Saturday nights and labor to start a new campus with GPC’s heart and soul.
10. Mult-site churches enable different groups of worshipers in multiple communities to network and experience fellowship together. It is sad to say, but many times there is a disconnect between churches. Multi-site churches build a system of unity and working together, serving together as we serve one another, and serve our Lord.  It expands God’s community under one common heart and voice of the people, even if they are separated by miles.

Choosing the right campus pastor to serve in this strategic position is paramount to the over all success of the campus.  Pete Finfrock is an amazing young man who we have been “grooming” for this position. He is graduate of Ecclesia Bible College and he and his wife Emily live in Rogers.  Emily is a teacher. They have been a part of GPC since our years in Bentonville High School.  They share a common vision for the city of Rogers and know they will lead and care for the people well.  Hear Pete preach Sunday May 16th at GPC, as we move forward as a church to be on mission in Rogers.

GPC has recognized some of the hunger issues of the world.   Our people have given generously and are intending to help fight against the global hunger needs.  We are particularly focusing our attention on the severe malnutrition in Mali, West Africa.  We are in partnership with SILAH-Mali (NGO humanitarian organization in Mali) and MANA a manufacture of “Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods” (RUTF) to help alleviate the growing malnutrition needs of a nation where 38% of Malian children are chronically malnourished.  One of our SILAH Mali reps who sees the malnutrition daily, wrote me an email detailing an account of increased malnutrition and it’s affects that are comparable to the holocaust  and the hunger suffering that was endured during World War II.

Read the account below and visualize the tragedy of the holocaust and the modern day tragedy of hunger today.

Here is an article that is worth reading if you are a Beyond Borders thinker like myself.  Eric Swanson, of Leadership Network (and outstanding para-church thinking, equipping and catalyst organization) had this article in their recent Network Advance. It is a great help for seeing the mission effects of when churches become missional.  When churches go on mission with God, the way we look at the world, the mission of God, and our mission in life is effected.  Read and be blessed.

1) Mutuality- The future of missions will be shaped by mutuality between East and West, North and South, sending and receiving nations. Because there are now vibrant believers and thriving churches in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eurasia, and even the Middle East, we in the West shouldn’t think of ourselves as the saving force in world missions. Churches worldwide are learning to come together.

3) Investing in leaders -Leadership is everything. Wherever good things are happening, a capable and passionate man or woman will be leading the way. Churches that are effective overseas have learned to leverage the passion of local leaders. How do you recognize good leaders who will make great partners? The most obvious sign is they are already engaged in effective ministry without any outside help.

says that even in the toughest of countries they don’t leave Jesus at the immigration booth. Jonathan told me, “When we are asked if we intend to proselytize people through our service we tell them, ‘We’re here to make Jesus known and Jesus gets known through his followers doing good’–as opposed to, ‘We are not here to get followers of Jesus.’ So far, that has worked for us.”

5) Greater financial accountability-Churches that effectively engage in global ministry are thinking differently about who, what and how they support missional engagement. The days of cutting a check and hoping for the best are rapidly disappearing. With all the needs and opportunities in the world, global missions leaders of the future are working to maximize every dollar expended on global outreach. Effective missional churches of the future support mission-critical projects that their global partners deem important. This type of giving can only come from a trusted relationship. Churches are learning never to start initiatives that will require western dollars to continue.

6) Business as mission-An emerging funding model ties business and mission together. This is more than missionaries posing as businesspeople but rather missional entrepreneurs who are starting businesses and creating jobs in the countries in which they serve.

7) Focus-There is a power in focus. On the flipside, the most frustrated pastors I interviewed were those whose churches supported scores of scattered legacy missionaries who were serving all over the map. Much of the time, these missionaries were not home-grown but rather nephews of former staff, or friends of friends, or a missionary tied to a designated gift. The often unstated missions goal was to place representatives from the church on every continent of the globe. Churches today are learning to do better by focusing on fewer places of engagement.

Technology -With every breakthrough in communication technology, there have been innovators who have exploited that technology to advance the gospel. The printing press, radio, TV, and the Internet have allowed the church to increasingly enter a world without boundaries. All around us are glimpses of churches that are discovering the power of today’s newest technology–to impact a country without ever physically visiting that country. Tech-savvy mission leaders are shrinking the world with technology.

i. William Gibson, quoted in The Economist, December 4, 2003 Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson. Accessed June 20, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

Playing For Change: Song Around the World “Stand By Me” from Playing For Change on Vimeo.

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