Godgrown

Updates from January, 2006 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Mark 9:11 am on January 25, 2006 Permalink | Reply
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  Death is a partner to Life 

  
  Last night both the current MRNA (Missionary Residency of North America of which I am blessed to be a part of,) and the previous year’s students got together for dinner and a time of prayer. It was great to just hear what is going on in the lives and hearts of other MRNA students like Miller Talbot and Steve Holt who are interested and practicing organic church planting here in Abilene. I respect both of these men a great deal and last night was a confirmation of that respect.

  Towards the end of the evening, Steve told us that after a year and a half, their house church was at its end. You could hear that this was difficult for him to say, and all of us were hushed into silence as he told us about how painful it was for him to come to the end of his time in Abilene and not see a thriving faith community. It was while Steve was still speaking that Miller interrupted: “Why are you apologizing? You have nothing to be sorry for!”

  Kent added, “Tell us some of the stories of the people who at one time were a part of your simple church.” Steve went into a long list of names, all of which had been touched by the gospel, and shortly after all had moved away. I watched as Steve’s eyes got wider, telling us how three individuals from his small group had moved to other cities, and had in their own way started a new community of faith, or a prayer group, or a small house church. One dies, three are born!

  I think about cells. Their lifecycle is to grow to maturity, then multiply and die. I’ve been told that every seven months, we are completely new people biologically, because every day billions of cells are reproducing, and dying. Death is a part of life – they are not opposites, they are partners. Death is just a stage everything must go through, including churches. It is the fate of many large churches to continue to eek out an existence well after the life that was present at their birth has left them.

  I hope to see a lot of churches die in my lifetime. That may seem strange, but it is actually a byproduct of my real desire – that the Holy Spirit would sustain a congregation, and nothing else; not programs or “ministries” or structures that suck the life from the people. If the Holy Spirit is not what is holding up a faith community, then I’ll pray that they dis ban and look for life elsewhere. Now how’s that for church growth???

  Thank you Miller and Steve and Kent and others who were such a blessing to my wife and I last night. May God continue to bring us the life we so desperately are searching for.

  
   

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  Mark 8:22 am on January 23, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Called Out 

  Just got back from the Pre-MAC (Preliminary Missionary assessment Center), where a group of about 12 graduate students who are preparing for life in missions gathered with about 12 graduate missions professors to discuss life on the field.

  I spent most of my time there this weekend really reflecting on what it means to be “called” by God into mission. I wanted to know, “How is one called by God?” and when we are called, how can we be sure it is of God, and not ourselves? I asked myself, “Do I feel called to be God’s child?” I have experienced the joy of God’s salvation, I have participated in receiving God’s Holy Spirit – yes, I feel as if God has called me to be his child.

  If so, then I am sent; called out into a community with every child of God (the word for “church” in Greek means “the called-out ones”). Just as Jesus was sent by God, so I am sent by him, (John 17:18). It is not possible to be a part of God’s called-out church and not be called. God is a missionary God who sends, and everyone blessed to be his child is then called to go and bless others – sent on a mission from God.

  It was Ananias, a human, who first revealed God’s great plans for the apostle Paul. It wasn’t on the dramatic scene on the road to Damascus that he was given his call to ministry – that was simply where Jesus claimed Paul as his own, and gave him the next steps to meet Ananias in nearby Damascus to learn more and be baptized. Seventeen years after this, he went back to the city where he felt most comfortable – the place where he was sure his old Jewish friends would be ready to receive the Gospel. But things didn’t work out! Paul receives a vision from Jesus that he is not to stay in Jerusalem, (they weren’t going to receive his message anyway,) but that he was to be sent on a mission to preach to the nations of the world! It took seventeen years from the time Paul was called-out as God’s child before he was called to mission as a missionary to the peoples of the earth!

  I’ve only been a Christian for 11 years; I’m content to live in the tension, waiting on the Lord to call me out to a specific place and people group. After a weekend of purposely looking at mission strategies and taking personality tests, I feel more comfortable than ever sitting back and listening for God to take action. I will follow wherever he leads me. The specifics I trust will be revealed to me when the time comes; when I take the first steps in faith.

  
   
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  Mark 9:19 am on January 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

  A monopoly of education 

  There is no more denying it. The new school semester has started.

  Katrina and I were watching 20/20 last Friday as they did a segment called “Stupid in America”. What an interesting title, don’t you think? The entire hour was dedicated to how students in the United States are not even close to measuring up to students of other countries. They focused on one child who was in the 7th grade at his local public high school, just getting by with passing grades…and didn’t even have a first grade reading level! That’s preposterous! Not necessarily for the child himself, but mainly that our school system is so laissez faire in demanding excellence from its students!

  I’ve always known there were teacher’s unions; they always seemed pretty neutral to me – making sure teachers got paid enough (they don’t). However, this program was pushing for the unions to be abolished, calling them “monopolies in our children’s education”. Most kids are not legally able to choose where they go to school. They must be “zoned” to go where they live closest, keeping the poor kids in poor neighborhood schools, with older textbooks, older equipment…a second-hand education all around. When a monopoly is in force, everyone looses. Those within the monopoly feel no pressure to improve, since they already own the entire populous, and those outside the monopoly structure can’t choose any other options, inviting competition. Isn’t this what America was founded on? Isn’t it my right to choose what hamburger joint I pay for my dinner at? Isn’t it my right to choose what cell phone to buy? Just think of how competition has bettered the car industry! We’d still be driving Model-T’s if Henry Ford owned the market.

  Anyone with all the cards in their hand won’t be internally motivated to improve their cards – and they’ll win the hand every time! Why not give kids the choice of where to go to school? That’s what happens in college, and look at how universities are fighting each other for your attendance: study abroad programs, cutting-edge technology, best professors in the world… Why not give kids a school voucher, allowing them to attend the school of their choice? What sorts of amazing “products of education” might they become?