Where is our Faith – Mexico April 2012

Hey Everyone, 

I hope and pray that you are all doing well and that you are using all that you are for the Glory of God.  Today we arrived in Parras de la Fuente at around 9AM this morning.   We left our house in Rose City yesterday evening at 9PM after our evening service at the church.  It seemed like a very quick trip down we had no issues, praise God!  We have been coming down here 3-5 times every year since 2008 when we actually lived down here for 2 years.  We have been blessed to never see anything that made us feel in danger.  

Lets say for instance, that sometime, we did see something that made us feel that we were in danger, would our responsibility to do what God has called us to do be any less?  Could we justifiably say, “well Lord it is just to dangerous in Mexico right now”.  I have been counseled several times in the last 3 years that we should not continue going to Mexico.   When I explain to them that we talk to our Mexican contacts before our trips to ask about the danger levels and that we never go without encouragement from our Mexican counterparts, they typically look at me like I am crazy.  

I am crazy to accept the real time word of a person who lives here more than the word of the mainstream media.  I am crazy to know that the needs here don’t go away because I feel unsafe.  I am the crazy one who has seen God’s protection for the last 4 years as we traveled all over Mexico, and not seen anything to frighten us.  Yes I am the crazy one to believe that God who has protected us these many trips can continue to do so.   

In working with Perspectives around Texas I get to regularly meet missions workers all around Texas.  Some of these are full time missionaries, some are Pastors, some are lay people that God has burdened for his world.  I have listened to story after story of teams to Mexico that were canceled because of lack of interest (mostly because people backed out because of the news reports).  I hear of ministries all along the US Mexico border that are failing and having to close their doors.  Many of them were formed to care for and host the hundreds of short-term teams that used to visit Mexico annually.  It is sad to me that the media focus on the danger in Mexico has had such an impact on US Christians that ministries are closing their doors.  Not because the people that we used to minister to are no longer in need, but because we are more afraid of the potential dangers, than we are of the mandate of the Gospel.  

Just in case you think that I am being foolish by saying this… you might take a look at Matt 10.  Jesus sent out his disciples and gave them a chapter of instructions about how to live, here is a quick highlight.  

Matt 10:28-31 “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both the soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your Father’s care.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

 Seems kinda harsh Jesus?  Yeah, but he didn’t stop there… look at verses 37-39

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

We can worry all that we want, but when we care more about our well being or the well being of our family than we do about God’s call on our life, then we are disowning the Gospel that we claim.  Maybe you think that I am going to far, once more look at Jesus words to his disciples in Matt 10:32-33

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”  

That verse should strike every believer to the core, and cause us to examine what is important in our lives.  It might also cause us to ask what things in our life are most important.  If after honest and careful examination you find that the Gospel of Jesus is not at the top of the list, you might consider the most common words of Jesus, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Just to provide a little balance for Jesus words, in case you think that you can put to much confidence in HIM.  Yes I also believe that God gives us wisdom and discernment.  I am just afraid that to often we use that as an excuse to not respond to the Spirit’s calling.  I do not see Paul fleeing Philippi before they are flogged, jailed, and escorted from town, and I sure did not see Jesus wisely avoiding Jerusalem before he was arrested, tortured, and crucified. 

The bottom line is that what ever it is that God has called you to; Do it fully!  For his Glory and for His name’s sake.  

Fear is not the motivator of a Christ Follower!

Go! And as you go, be Christ in all things!

3 Weeks In John’s Revelation

Just last night I finished preaching a 3 week series to the Lamar University Baptist Student Ministry, what started as a semi-experimental attempt at making sense of interpretive nightmare called the book of Revelation, ended as a wonderfully powerful experience.   I do not know about your experience, but in my life I have been a part of 2 major church studies focused on the book of Revelation.  In both of these studies, at two different churches with two different Pastors, were titled something like, “Unveiling the end times!”.

I remember when I was a child and our church was studying the book of Revelation, so my Dad was reading books on the topic, then we would discuss some of the ideas he was wrestling through as he learned.  At the end of that study, the leadership of our church felt that they could no longer ascribe themselves to the pre-tribulation rapture.  At the time our church had a powerful AWANA program, but to have AWANA we had to sign a statement of affirmed faith and a part of that statement said that we believed in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.  With the church’s new stance we were unable to sign that document, and the AWANA organization would not make an exception, so we lost the program entirely.

My Dad’s personal stance ended up being what he called the “Pre-wrath rapture” stance.  This came from a book by Marv Rosenthal, a messianic Jew who studied Revelation.  Marv’s book, “The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” made a great deal of sense to me.  I can even now remember the giant poster that layed out the 7 year tribulation.  It detailed out the first 3 1/2 years and then proposed ideas with scriptural backing how the second 3 1/2 years would go. It all seemed very organized, and frightening to me a 12 or 13 year old kid at the time.

I remember seeing movies like, “Thief in the Night” that focused on the rapture and living faithfully in the face of persecution.  It could have been categorized as Christian Horror, because some of the scenes were literally scary.  It seems to me that the hype and excitement around the book of Revelation is what makes most people so interested and intimidated by interpretation.

What is amazing to me is that as I have studied over the last few months because my New Testament Narrative Theology Class, I discovered that Revelation is not supposed to be such a huge mystery.  The Apostle John wrote the book to a specific group of people with a specific purpose in mind.  While the last few generations of Christian Leaders has sought to unlock the key to unravelling this difficult book, we have largely missed the simple and obvious focus of the book.

In the two different studies that I have participated in, both put the majority of their focus and emphasis on the hermeneutical interpretations of the incredibly obscure passages in Revelation. They seek to understand the signs, the 7 year tribulation, the timing of the rapture, the person of the anti-christ, the order of events in sequence, but seem to miss entirely to intentions of the author.

Over the next few posts I want to unpack what I have been given that helped me to discover personally a book in the NT that I believe is imperitive for living a Faithful Christian life in today’s world.

They had everything in Common

Our Young Adults group has started going through Acts.  We are half dreaming that our group could eventually morph into a modern worship service through Central Baptist, or even a whole new church.  Who knows, but what I do know is that when you start studying how the church came together at the beginning of Acts, you see a whole lot more to their activities than meeting together twice a week.  Check this out from Acts 2:

⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.⁴³Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

What could this look like in our modern context?  Do you think that God wants us to sell our many possessions and give the money to those who are in need?  Do you think that he wants us to live in closer community?  Does he want us to meet together daily?  Does God think that we should be seeing miracles happen?

I think about these things and I wish I could see it first hand.  I wonder what it looked liked when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and I wonder what it looked like to see people drawn to God and each other in such a awe inspiring way.  Then I wonder if there are modern day examples of people living in community in such a way.

In our group discussion last night we talked a lot about how various groups of people share things differently.  It was mentioned that in our normal American culture lots of people give, but almost entirely out of their excess.  We give, but not in a manner where we might sell “all” our possessions.  We typically are not that giving.  One man that was at our group had lived on the streets in Houston for some time and he told us a story about the homeless community sharing pretty much everything with other homeless folks.  Another person brought up that in many countries the culture dictates that the community or family is more important than the individual so you can often see examples of individuals sacrificing on behalf of the whole community.

I find it difficult to find modern, American examples of this kind of living.  I heard a story once about a family living in the LA area.  The story called them successful with plenty of things including finances.  It was told that they sold their suburban home and moved into the inner-city into low-income apartments.  They gave away a most of their money to help start and establish ministries among their neighbors and ultimately changed their entire lifestyles to help others.  The story I was told said that these folks who made a lot of money limited their lifestyle so that they could live on less and gave everything else away.  I was told that they made over 1 million dollars a year and that they chose to live around $50,000 a year and give the rest away.

Most US Christians do not give the 10% tithe standard, what if we lived in a way that we could give 60, 70, or 80% of our fund and live on the little.   I do not know if the story above is exactly accurate, I told as I remember hearing it.  I sure hope that there are folks like that.  People willing to see God provide and then give away the many blessings that he has given us.

When we go back to Acts 2.   The one thing that is clear is that redeeming lost humanity was the main goal of every one of the disciples.  They were wholly focused on preaching, discipling, and baptizing.  It was more important than having nice things, building nice building, driving nice… chariots…  They believed that their mission was the top priority.

I believe that God is going to raise a new generation of Christian young men and women who will not be seduced by the world as so many of my generation has already.  This new group will understand that God has blessed our country tremendously and that He expects us to disperse that blessing to the nations.  With the current state of world need the Church has to begin to once again mobilize powerful, humble Christians who will be willing to go anywhere and face anything for the sake of God’s Kingdom.   In Acts 1 Jesus commissions his disciples saying, “you will be my witnesses in Jersalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

It is going to take a movement among Christians to put God’s Kingdom first and our desires and comfortability last.  I want to challenge you today.  If you are honest with yourself and had to grade yourself on a 1-10 scale.  1 being you and your families comfort is the most important thing to you; and 10 being a total committed, selfless disciple of Christ.  Where are you?

I put myself at around a 5, because we do make sacrifices, but we are also very comfortable in our life.

I hope and pray that this encourages and blesses you.  God Bless!

A new title Pastor/Missionary

You might not understand this, but this is something that I have been thinking about a ton.  What is the difference between a “Pastor” and a “Missionary”.  You talk to some people and they will tell you that there is no difference.  You talk to others and they can list out all kinds of differences.  Let me take a moment to list out a few commonly held differences between Pastors and Missionaries.

Pastors are called to this community.  They are focused on caring for the group people in their particular church.  They obviously promote church growth, but do so by either finding opportunities to meet families outside the community and encourage their attendance, or the Pastor encourages the congregation of a church to invite their friends.  Of course most churches do some sort of outreach events, normally around Easter, Christmas, and Halloween (I mean Harvest).  The heart of a Pastor is focused on the flock that God has given them.  Some people would add many items to the list…evangelism, counseling, weddings, funerals… but I believe that those things fall under the things I listed below.   The Pastor’s main concern is encouraging, discipling, building, and training the believers in/under the Pastor’s care.

So now lets look at what Missionaries are.  First is that they have a heart for the world, they think globally, or internationally in some way.  (by the way I am classifying missionaries as those who are foreign because local church planting missionaries are pastors, just pastoring new congregations).  A missionary’s  heart is bend on taking the gospel to places where it has never been.  A missionary has a special call to live with less for the sake of the gospel.  But Missionaries seek to gain new converts, build new congregations, and advance the Kingdom of God.

Now lets see a Pastor’s calling is incredibly similar to the calling of a Missionary.  Do you see the similaritys?   The primary difference is in the location.  Missionaries are called to farthest parts of the earth… Pastors are called to minister here.  Right?

Lets examine a few scriptures starting with the Great Commission that Jesus gave to the Disciples, by the way important to see that it was all of his disciples, not just a small part.

In Matt 28:16-20

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Wait Jesus came to all of them, look at 16 and notice that all 11 were there (not 12 because Judas treachery and subsequent suicide).  Jesus told them all that with his authority, Go and make disciples of all nations.  Now how did it come about that this mandate became a calling for missionaries, and not a calling to every single person who calls themselves a follower of Christ?

Since you are very familiar with that verse and maybe have never felt that Jesus commanded you (if you consider yourself a Christian) to Go to the nations.  Lets look at another scripture in Acts 1:7-8

⁷He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Wow, Jesus again commands his disciples to take his message to everyone!   Once again we should notice that he was not just talking to a few.  He was talking to them all.  These were the last words of Christ uttered here on Earth.  Seems like they must be pretty important.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of verses throughout scripture that demonstrate God’s heart for the nations… for the whole earth.  So finally I get to my point.  If all Christians are called to the world, all Christians are to have a heart for the Nations, all Christians commanded to Go, then what separates the call of a Pastor and the call of a Missionary?

The answer is nothing!  Both are called to Go, both are called to convert, disciple, baptize, build, encourage, and advance the Kingdom of God.  Both are called to Go to all nations, both are called to be witnesses of Christ in Jerusalem, Judea & Samria, the ends of the earth.

I cannot tell you how many Pastors have said to me that they never really felt a call to missions.  Some have gone so far as saying, that they did not really have a heart for missions.  I wanted to ask if they ever read Jesus command to go?  How can you be leading others, while you have not fostered a heart for the world?

Over the last 6 months, I have been looking for church work.  I have extensive experience in Youth Ministry and Missions.  I have had two interviews both of which ended with the Pastor’s telling me that they did not think I would be the best youth pastor for their students because I was “more” called to missions.  I wanted to scream!

Let me let you in on a secret, (I mean I guess it is a secret) a youth pastor with a heart for the world equals a youth group with a heart for the world.  Oh I guess that is not what we are after today.  We want a youth group who has a heart for only Jesus.  I tell you what you will have… a group of young people who are passionate about christian concerts, great worship, cool speakers, and a minor thought towards the hopeless, lost, and hurting of our world today.  They will by definition be lukewarm Christians.

More Christians must be taught the ramifications of the Great Commission.  Young people must be discipled keeping the heart of God for the world always in view.  Pastors and every church leader should foster a heart for the world.  This is what motivated God to send Jesus here, and motivated Him to live, and die, and break the chains of sin and death.  In his eyes are the dying, lost, and hurting in this world.  We must understand our task, we build, encourage, disciple, baptize, and spend ourselves so that… by all means some might be reached.

Check out these other verses to see God’s heart for the hopeless, lost, hurting and nations…

Matt 25 – sheep and goats parable; Gen 12 – Calling of Abraham;  Is 58:1-10 true fasting (especially vs 10).  There are hundreds of these type of verses defining Gods heart.

I love great books

I have just started to read again “The Book that Transforms Nations” by Loren Cunningham.  It is just fantastic.  If you call yourself a Christian and wonder about the shape that the US is in, why we are losing our heritage, and if there is any hope to change our current direction… then you should read this book.  In Cunningham pulls a great deal of research from various authors and his vast international experience to contrast the Christian worldview that he grew up with against todays overwhelming secular humanism.

He sites authors such as Vishal Mangalwadi, who if you have never heard of him.  You will and you should. Vishal is an East Indian Christian Theologian and Philosopher.  He is being compared and rightly so to C.S. Lewis.  He has written several books, but the most recent and the most poignant is “Truth and Transformation”.   It is a must read as well.

Anyway back to Cunningham’s book.  Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book is the quick life stories of amazing historical figures.  He demonstrates God’s desire to transform the whole of human existence by showing how Missionaries such as William Carey, Charles Wesley, and several others realized that bringing a spiritual harvest was not enough.  Peoples lives are greatly impacted when they find Jesus as their Savior, but Christ lived, died, and was raised to bring hope to lives here.  ”thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”  Christian leaders are supposed to be concerned for the wellbeing of the communities of people that they serve.  It is not only to bring spiritual comfort, but to develop jobs, fight injustice, encourage education, stand up for those with out a voice.  We Christians have focused for too long on our feel good, work out your issues Christianity, and forgotten that if there there are not works along with our faith… our faith is dead.

Works do not save you, they define you.  You wonder where your heart is?  Look where you spend your money, and where you spend your time?  For most of us Americans our heart is in our pleasure, amusement, and enjoyment.  If you really want to be specific… where you do you spend your extra money.  You know the part that is left over after your bills are paid, groceries bought, and pressing needs met?  That is where your heart is. How many of us are giving our “extra” away to causes that can save lives, or build others lives?

If you get a chance pick up “The Book that Transforms Nations.” by Loren Cunningham it will change the way that you see the world and your role in it.