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  • Mark 1:35 pm on June 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Ensenada, Mexico 

    Just returned from my impromptu mission trip to Mexico.

    I KNOW!  I was as surprised as you are.  A friend of mine from a church in the Western Suburbs called me and asked if I was free and would be interested in an all-expense paid mission trip to Ensenada, Mexico to work with orphans and the poorest of the poor for a week.

    How could I refuse??

    God pulled some amazing strings to get us there – and I’m so thankful for the gentleman who raised the funds so I could go (he was planning on going himself, but at the last minute got a new job!  Win/win in my opinion.

    Ensenada is my first “developing world” mission trip.  Previously, I have done work in Argentina, Japan, and Australia.  All places that are in desperate need of Jesus Christ, and yet the Baja Pennisula where I spent only 6 days broke my heart in ways the previous places never did.

    As I sat in rooms with mud floors on the precipice of a mountainside just waiting for a downpour to wash away their lives…looking at babies with life-threatening diseases, at elderly with treatable wounds with no medical care, and at a literal city of children with parents who had long since abandoned them…I began hearing God’s cries for the poor to be liberated.

    Simultaneously, I am reading Exodus – where God uses Moses to liberate an oppressed people and call them out as his own.  I don’t claim to be an expert on Liberation Theology, but I know to my core that God’s pursuit is for the forgotten, the abused, the ragamuffins.  God craves the reconciliation of all creation, but I believe it will be accomplished through those who can’t afford the coffee I’m drinking right now, and can’t imagine doing mission work half a world away.  They are the down-and-outs, and that’s exactly what God became in Jesus to find them.

    “I came for the sick, not the healthy…”

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  • Mark 9:28 am on May 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: future perfect, John White, Kent Smith,   

    The 9:11 Question 

    “Since we have invested in you spiritually, isn’t it right for you to invest in us financially?”

    So many churches invest in things other than apostolic church planters – some even working off unfathomable debts for things like parking lots and new foyers.  One church in a major U.S. city purchased a parking lot for 80 million dollars!?!!?  Sounds like a scene out of an Austin Powers movie!  These are not inherently bad things – they are just not given much precedent in the earliest Church.

    Many missionaries are left barely holding their bills together, while others enjoy lavish upgrades to this or that wing of their giant building.

    But what would it take to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close reach of every person…geographically and culturally… on the planet…and in our context in Chicago?

    What if this ACTUALLY happened?  This is our “future perfect” – our miracle we’re waiting for and working toward.

    It would truly take a new mindset toward budgeting.  It would take a re-orientation toward how a church invests their money.  It would take asking the “9:11 Question.”  (1 Cor 9:11)  “Since we have invested in you spiritually, isn’t it right for you to invest in us financially?” It would take a spirit of generosity toward those who truly were called to do mission work, coaching, and church planting.  It would take putting the interest of others over my own interests.

    I think it is happening.  I see green-shoots of hope appearing across the landscape.  Churches willing to put aside their traditional budget-line items and think again about what is most important for the sake of the Kingdom.

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  • Mark 9:30 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Sterile 

    Sometimes its easy to see the tree and lose sight of the forest.  “Without oxen a stable stays clean,” the proverb begins.  Just think of the owner of the stable – if he’s lazy, he might find himself relieved to see that his daily work of cleaning up after the ox is no longer necessary.  If he’s short-sighted, maybe he’s more interested in a clean barn than in a harvest.

    “But a strong ox is needed for a large harvest.”  (Proverbs 14:4)

    How many cars are washed and detailed but never driven?  How many homes are spotless but everyone living there is miserable?  How many McMansions with pools and “entertainment rooms” have gates surrounding them to keep their guests out?

    Now, how many small huts are filled with hospitable hearts that give everything they have to the stranger that needs a place to stay?  How many clunker cars are what get a day laborer to his job each morning to help him feed his family?

    The word “sterile” comes to mind when I read this proverb.  The double meaning of sterile is at once “free of dirt and germs” and “fruitless.”  What is the purpose of YOU?  What stables in your life are empty and clean, yet sterile and fruitless?  What would it feel like to get those areas dirty for the sake of truly fulfilling their purpose?

    This is a great time of year to re-examine your life’s purpose – and to get focused once again on the harvest.  Don’t lose sight of the purpose of the things you have.  Don’t lose sight of your own purpose.  Make sure there are no “sterile stables” in your life.  Yes, try to keep your stables clean, but do it so your ox is happy, and so your harvest is that much greater.  This makes your life messy – you’ll say things like, “my life was so much simpler without the headache of working in this field.”  But when the harvest comes, you’ll be glad you got a little dirty.

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    • millertalbot 9:16 am on January 6, 2010 Permalink

      great reminder brother. i love the imagery! some of us need a little more bull crap in our lives… and i like the double entendre in the word “sterile”, i think both meanings apply. in fact, in this instance it would be difficult to apply one without the other.

    • Mark 11:41 am on January 6, 2010 Permalink

      miller – thanks for the comment! i tried to find a photo of “bubble boy” from Seinfeld (remember that episode?! PRICELESS). But I realized that they never showed him – only his tubular arm as he choked George in fury. Haha.

      He was both meanings of “sterile” too. He might have stayed clean all his life, but its hard to imagine bubble boy “bearing fruit” or multiplying…in fact I’d rather try my best NOT to imagine such a thing… :)

      Bring on the bull crap!

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