Teaching the Bible is Missions

Missionaries come and go, but the Bible will be with the church forever (or else it is not a church). So [the native people] had better know how to study the Bible.  Hence, teaching bible study methods is missions and everything else supports that goal.

- Excerpt from a blog on DesiringGod by a missionary doctor in the Middle East

I’m Leaving on a Jetplane

I’ll be on my way to Denver at 5 am tomorrow.  Thursday morning, I’ll be on a 7:30 am flight to New York, followed by a 5 pm flight from New York to Johannesburg, South Africa.  I should be in Pretoria by 7 pm local tim on Friday, July 4.  Being in a foreign country on our nation’s holidy will be interesting.  It’ll be nice to miss the fireworks and drinking, though.

I will have scarce access to internet (as far as I know), while in Pretoria, so that’ll make blogging difficult.  I hope to post updates once a week.  Thank you to all who read and stop by the site.  I’m humbled that God would use this to be a resource of truth, grace, and encouragement to people all over the world.  Thank you for allowing me to be a blessing and know that I’m blessed by all of you!

When I started this post (just a few seconds ago), I wanted to include some last-minute thoughts.  However, I’m drawing blanks and can only just praise God for what he has done and is doing in my life.  The Lord is incredible, indescribable, and inexhaustible.  I’m amazed just to know him!  So, instead of my own thoughts, here are some verses that my heart has been clinging to in the past few months as this trip has been approaching

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment…The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
- Revelation 21:5-6; 22:17

The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
- Psalm 12:6

How can a young man keep his way pure?  By guarding according to your word.  With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments.  I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
- Psalm 119:9-11

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.
- Luke 18:29-30

For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever.  Amen.
- Romans 11:36

And to that I sing, “Amen.”

Do You Believe in Djinn?

Here’s a post from earlier today on Desiring God from a missionary doctor working with Muslims.

The other day, I stopped by the house of one of my Muslim friends. He informed me that his 19-year-old nephew was in the hospital and he asked me to come and look him over.

No problem. I’m a Physician. I get this a lot.

The nephew had gotten pretty banged up when he fell from a three-story building, hitting a few things on the way down. Most of the injuries were not alarming and already taken care of—scrapes, cuts, bruises. He had also broken his heel, which will probably take a couple of months in a cast to heal up.

But the main thing was a broken jawbone. The x-ray was impressive, with several breaks. The answer seemed obvious to me: he needed an operation to get his jaw wired shut.

Enter the negotiations. 

Read the whole thing »

Experiencing Other People’s Pain as Opposed to Feeling it

There’s a differencing between saying “I feel your pain” and “I’m experiencing your pain with you.”  I leave for South Africa in three weeks for a 28 day missions project with Campus Crusade.  I’ll be going back there for a year in January as a full-time, short term missionary.  I only have one goal for our trip this July.

I want to be able to cry for people, with people. 

I can say that I have definitely felt other people’s pain, brokenness, and loss.  But I don’t experience it like a Christian is commanded to.  Paul says, “Weep with those who weep” (Rom. 9:15).  He writes, “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor. 12:26).  It’s a hard thing for me to confess, but I beg the Lord to help me cry with people.  I don’t experience their pain.  Here’s an analogy: Think of a person who is born with the physical defect of not having an arm.  They feel that it’s not there.  They can’t pick up anything.  They reach over to touch it with their other hand and nothing is there.  They genuinely feel its absence.  Now think of another person who was born with a good arm but lost it in a violent accident.  They not only felt the pain of losing it, they experienced losing it.  They experienced the horror and hardship that went with it.  It’s not that the first person’s feelings aren’t genuine; it’s just that the second person can confidently look at someone else who has lost an arm and say, “I’ve been there.  I’ve experienced what you’re going through.”

When I go to South Africa and sit with orphans who don’t have shoes or enough food and they are joyful just because we are playing with them, I want to weep for them.  I want to weep for their salvation.  I want to weep for their lack of essential felt needs.  There’s a line in one of my favorite songs called “Oh My God” by Jars of Clay.  It goes, “If the world was how it should be maybe I could get some sleep.”  I definitely feel that in my heart, but I don’t experience it.  I don’t live in that world.  I live in the Disneyland of America and that kind of brokenness that Africa experiences is foreign to me.

Perhaps this is why I have prayed to suffer while I’m Africa next year.  I’m not praying to be a martyr — I don’t think Christians should pray that — but I pray that I would experience the hardships of the Christian life that Scripture talks about so often.  I don’t know what it will look like to experience pain with other people.  I don’t know what it will look like to weep with them.  I only pray that God is gracious and merciful to show me his beauty and that he will transform me from one degree of glory to another. 

Trust God, Not Yourself, to Reveal His Truth to Others

[Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

- Matthew 16:15-17

When we tell people about the great news of the gospel, we can’t convince them through clever arguments, reasoned debate, or wise words.  Though we are to provide a defense for our hope (1 Pt. 3:15), at the end of the day, we have to trust that God’s Spirit, not our evangelistic strategies, causes a person to confess Christ as the Son of the living God.

Blood:Water Mission

Here’s a 4-minute video of the guys from Jars of Clay talking about their ministry Blood:Water Mission.  This is a ministry that I’m passionate about and God blessed me at my first Jars of Clay concert to discover what this ministry is about.  I’m so thankful to be a prayer and giving partner with them.  Enjoy the video and I pray that you’ll consider joining Blood:Water in their endeavor to reach a broken continent with clean water for their bodies and living water for their souls. 

GenY Missionary: Share the Gospel Without Even Leaving Your Computer!

I just did a Google search of “gospel” and I saw, on the right sidebar, the “sponsored links” section.  The second link down said, “Spread the Gospel,” with the subheading, “Without leaving your computer sponsor a witness for Him now.”

It’s bad enough that we have teenagers who sit in the living room full of friends and text-message the ones in the kitchen.  It’s bad enough that blogs have become a pseudo-community for Christians who no longer “need” to go to a Bible study or seek face-to-face fellowship (not all of you, only some).  But, now, we are teaching people that it’s okay to not get up off your butt and spread the gospel with your mouth!  You can be a missionary — from the seat of your pants on the computer! 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m all about giving money and supporting missionaries.  I am a missionary and have financial partners.  However, people who support me are also called to be a witness themselves.  What does the ad on Google communicate though?  To me, it communicates that you can sit at your computer, punch a credit card number in for a missionary you have never met and call it “missions” and “evangelizing.”

I’m sorry, but it is neither of those.  You know what it is?  It’s getting out of doing the dirty work.  It’s getting out of being in the mess of people’s lives and sharing and being the gospel with them.  It’s getting out of being the hands and feet of Christ to the impoverished and uneducated in third world countries and giving them a living hope for this life and the next one.  And honestly, that’s a tragedy. 

 

Please Don’t Send Me to Africa!

I actually used to pray that when I was a teenager.  I didn’t want to go into ministry for the very reason of going to Africa.  Well, if you’ve read anything here lately, you know I’ll be there twice in the next seven months and I’ll be living there for a year in ‘09.  Here’s a hilarious song by Scott Wesley Brown that probably communicates a lot of what middle-class Christian Americans feel in their hearts and pray with their mouths.  May we all be challenged to fulfill the Great Commission in our generation. 

Help Disaster Victims in China and Myanmar

If you’d like to make a donation to help the victims in China or Myanmar, I’m sure you are aware of what you can do, but if not here are some links you can visit:

World Vision
Food for the Hungry
Campus Crusade - China only
Chinese Students at the University of Nebraska - Facebook Group

Three Reasons I’m a Campus Crusade Staff Member

Here’s the last post in the “Three Reasons I’m…” series.  This one, of course, is not a spiritual conviction or tradition.  It is though, an important part of my life.  As I decided to move into ministry after graduating college, I had to make a decision about what would be the best first step.  Though I had parts of me that wanted to go into the pastorate, I knew I wasn’t ready for seminary.  I was passionate about reaching college students, because that is what I had been doing in Nebraska for the previous two years.  This is not a long-term gig, but I have enjoyed and will enjoy the next year as I’ll be serving with Crusade in South Africa in 2009, before moving on to seminary in Summer ‘10.  I really love my job.  Here’s three reasons why.

• God used many men in Campus Crusade to help me grow spiritually with Christ and I am forever indebted to them for their investment in my life.  If it were not for a handful of key men in my life as a sophomore and junior, my life most certainly would have been in shambles.  God used these men to challenge me, listen to my problems, keep me accountable, and draw me closer to himself.  The main reason I wanted to become a staff intern at UNL is that I wanted to be that for other young men.  Truly, the 2 Timothy 2:2 principle has come to fruition in my life: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
• Campus Crusade is a missions organization that is devoted to winning people to Christ, discipling them, and then sending them to the mission field.  So many Christian groups (most often those on campuses) can tend to be a huge clique of Christians in a spiritual bubble.  Groups like these can tend to develop super-Christians without an outreach focus.  The goal of Campus Crusade is to share the gospel first and foremost — not only with students, but those all over the world (Crusade is the largest Evangelical organization in the world with over 29,000 staff members in 191 countries).  Not only does Crusade spread the fame of Christ, but they are dedicated to raising people up to be mature believers with the hope of those people going to where God has called them, be it the marketplace or the mission field.  I’m passionate about developing Christians from spiritual birth to the end of their life and that is what Campus Crusade is all about. 
• Campus Crusade does not just shove the gospel down people’s throats and run; they are thoroughly committed to reaching the whole person, serving their spirit, mind, and body.  Many churches or organizations (more liberal Christian denominations) tend more toward a “social gospel” mission, meaning that their missions’ focus is building houses, providing food and clothes, and providing job-skill training.  That is important.  But salvation doesn’t come through being provided for physically.  “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).  The most important need people have is to know the Savior and treasure him, but a “hit-and-run” evangelism technique is not helpful.  Campus Crusade is dedicated to getting into the mess of people’s lives and engaging with them so that they might come to a deep understanding of who Jesus is.  At the same time, we do not neglect the fact that people need physical healing and restoration as well.  You cannot have a full gospel without the free offer of Christ’s atoning work as well as the “social gospel” of providing for people’s necessities.  Campus Crusade, at this point in time more than ever, is focusing on reaching the world’s need for Jesus and their need to have basic physical needs. 

Read the other posts in this series:

Three Reasons I’m a Christian
Three Reasons I’m a Calvinist
Three Reasons I’m a Christian Hedonist