Mom’s have a huge influence. A great mom, like mine, send their kids out like an arrow from the bow of a mighty man. So, happy birthday to the best mom I could imagine!

Many people think they’d like to go to a Muslim, communist, or Buddhist country and plant a house church. “Many?” You may ask doubtfully. Well, there are an estimated 10,000 in the 10/40 window working at that task currently. Less than 1 in 70 of them will succeed at actually planting a church according to study of 500 of them in 2005. So yes, many.

Here are a few things to think about before you commit:
1. Do you have a living communion and conversation with God that goes beyond 15 minutes per day? Have you ever fasted for three days or more just because you had a deep desire to get closer to God? Ministering is tough. Ministering in a non-Christian culture is tougher. If you don’t walk with God you’ll quit.
2. Do you like people? Do you like lots of people? If you’re a one-on-one type you may want to reconsider.
3. Do you plan on staying longer than a term or two? Adoniram Judson wrote back to his sending agency: “Please don’t send us any more of those short-term wonders who come out here for seven years and then return only to live off their experiences.” Wow.

These all convict me. I need to work on them all with urgency.

I’ll put up another three tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Tent Making

It is estimated conservatively that there are 10,000 Tent Makers in the world. No, not people actually building tents with poles and canvas but Christians whose primary purpose in a foreign culture where they live and serve is the Kingdom of God but whose public face is something else whether it be business, student, or NGO. This is all according to “Tent Making” by Patrick Lai, a Frontiers Tent Maker for 20 years. 

These Tent Makers, as myself, are usually serving in this capacity because they are in Creative Access Nations. I have been shocked but some of Patricks findings as he studied 450 of these 10,000 estimated workers in the world. It was interesting to be reminded that Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and Samuel Zwimmer were all Tent Makers. 

The most shocking thing about these Tent Makers, that I now find myself part of, is that they have planted 157 church in the past 10 years. Not the 450 he studied but all 10,000+. (As of 2005, date of publication). That is an average of one church per 70 Tent Making missionaries!

Lai reports that 80% of these Tent Makers are supported at least 50% by churches and individuals. Now, I am not wanting to judge these courageous servants of Jesus as I am sure many of them are. But we do need to take an honest look at what WE (I can say that now that I am a Tent Maker though never planned to be) are actually accomplishing. Does it really take an average of 70 missionaries (56 of which are support by churches to minister) to plant one church?! 

Now, I understand the supportive role of many Tent Makers and I am for it. There is definitely a need for Tent Makers who support others but only as long as those they are supporting are planting churches. I believe it take 56 church supported missionaries to plant one church because that is not the primary purpose of the Tent Makers. Maybe that is too obvious to even need to be stated. 

If the church of Jesus Christ is what he loved and died for, and it’s the only thing that will last once we retire or get kicked out of our respective countries, shouldn’t we be making actually plans for church planting and then sticking our necks out to make it happen? Shouldn’t we leave for the field saying, “Church plant or bust!”? 

More to come from “Tent Making”.

Ramadan Mubarak

Yesterday was the start of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month for the Muslim people across the world. They will fast during the day from food, water, physical pleasure, and cigarettes then pig out at sundown. My wife and I actually saw a fitness club here advertising: “Loose the kilo’s of Ramadan”. So people actually put on weight during their month long fast. Hmmm. Interesting.

Everyone’s spiritual antennas are more alert during this month. If someone is found eating on the street he could be taken to jail or beaten on the spot. Fortunately as a foreigner I have a free pass to eat anytime with no small amount of awkwardness.

You can do two things during this month until Sept 21 or so:
-Pray for the people of North Africa and all of the Muslim world during this time. When God’s people pray, God sends laborers. Use these following useful link as prayer guides:
www.30daysprayer.com

-If you know a Muslim tell them “Ramadam Mubarak” when you see them. That mean, “Happy Ramadan”. It’s not sacrilegious, just polite and a confirmation that you are aware of their culture. I promise it will bring a smile and probably even an invitation to “Ftur” (the evening breaking of the fast at sundown). If they invite you, go. Their food is not sacrificed to idols.

Why Ramadan?
Muslims believe their is special forgiveness in the fasting for the month of Ramadan. Muslims who get drunk, fornicate, steal, never pray, and a host of other sins will fast during Ramadan if they believe in God at all. Probably 99% of Muslims in our country fast during Ramadan. That is their final hope that God will forgive their many sins.

The Boat

A couple days ago we had a holiday so I thought I’d do some snorkling around a ship wreck I had noticed off the coast last week. The old fishing boat was challenging me to conquer it. Once I got out in the water and did some circles around the shipwreck I was felling pretty good. There was a shallow rocky bottom that gave me considerable comfort in the open ocean. So I thought I’d take the long way back to the beach. That way didn’t have shallow rocks like my approach path did. After about 20 minutes in the water my mind started to play games with me. I started to worry about my strength, the waves that seemed to be fighting me, my half a lung, and even sharks with no rocks to stand upon! Before I knew it my body responded to what my mind feared.

I am not an experienced snorkeler by any means so I wasn’t prepared to get “scared”. The waves seemed like they were pushing me out further into the sea. I started to hyperventilate which is not a good habit while swimming. I started to breath in water

Read the rest of this entry »

Pastor Gardner’s blog had this quote on it today:
“God plants His saints in the most useless places.
We say – God intends me to be here because I am so useful.
Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use.
God puts His saints where they will glorify Him,
and we are no judges at all of where that is.”

Oswald Chambers

What an encouragement that is to me in this place! I often feel useless and/or in a useless place. This quote came the day after reading this quote by Samuel Zwimmer, missionary to the Arabian Peninsula in the late 1800’s while on deputation referring to his supporters:

“One marvels at their faith in continuall sowing on such desert soil when all evidence of a visible harvest was absent.”

When I first arrived in North Africa full of hope, faith, and dreams I was talking to a friend who told me, “I couldn’t work in place like that. Call me carnal but I like preaching here to my hundreds each weekend.”

Now all these quotes hit a common nerve from a few different angles. I have often tried to figure out through my human reasoning, creative thinking, entrepreneurial planning, and staring at maps for hours exactly where I could be most “useful”.

What if every man did that? We’d all go to the same place! But God in his sovereignty knows where he wants me and he moves me there as I submit to His will! What does he get out of it? Usefulness. But he doesn’t judge usefulness like I do. While I am thinking of numbers impacted as judged by my limited capacities to observe, He judges by the depth, hight, and breadth of the glory he reserved judged by his unlimited (by time or space) ability to observe.

Brainard never saw how much glory God could receive from his relatively unproductive work…but God did.
Jim Eliot never saw any fruit from his labor…but God has seen immeasurable fruit.
Phillip never saw the potential in one black man in a desert…but God’s global eye did.
Zwimmer’s whole ministry during his life yielded less than a handful of believers … but his writings has stirred a generation of unprecedented missionaries to the Muslim world.

Can you think of anyone else serving in a useless place (humanly speaking) who were VERY useful to God?

A professionally done video by Arab Christians highlighting the life of Paul the Apostle recently aired in President Bashar’s personal cinema. Over 1,000 religious and political leaders attended. Very interesting to see what God can use in the Arab world. Who can judge what the Holy Spirit could do in the hearts of these men to bring them to repentance and faith?

If this doesn’t sting then you’re not pointing it at the right person:

“Most of us use “I’m waiting for God to reveal His calling on my life” as a means of avoiding action. Did you hear God calling you to sit in front of the television yesterday? Or to go on your last vacation? Or exercise this morning? probably not, but you still did it. The point isn’t that vacations or exercise are wrong, but that we are quick to rationalize our entertainment and priorities yet are slow to commit to serving God.” -Francis Chan, Crazy Love

I recently talked to my friend Roger from Jacksonville, FL on the phone who just returned from a trip to North Africa where we spent about five days together. He told me that shortly after his arrival to the States he was doing a job at a fellow believer’s house and had told this man about his recent trip to the land of the Moslems. According to him, his friend shuddered at the thought. An exact quote is, “Every time I talk to one of them Arabs it makes my skin crawl.”

Of course Roger faithfully reprimanded this man’s admittedly godless attitude toward the lost. Something Roger told the man was, “You know, not all Muslims or Arabs are terrorists. Most of them are just really nice people.”

Roger spoke from experience and was right. But what if they all were terrorists? Should that lessen our love for them?

The Bible tells us that while we were enemies of God that he died for us. That means that Jesus knowingly came to, lived among, and died for his mortal enemies. He loved us while we were unlovely. He taught us in turn that real virtue is not found in loving those who love you but in loving those who hate you. Can we really be Christians without being like Christ. This man that Roger spoke to shows no sign of having a life transformed by Christ. He is, in fact, just like the Moslems himself: religious… loving those who love him…having no real concept of God’s love.

So Roger has motivated me to help you all get to know Muslims better. My wife and I talked about it today and have decided to start work on a book that will give you the life stories from beginning to present of 4 or 5 new believers from North Africa that we know intimately. We love them because we know them. I have a feeling you may not know how to love them because you have no idea of what their lives have been like, what their hopes and dreams are, and a plethora of other things that make us who we are.

if you think you’d like to read this story, drop me a line (leave a comment) and let me know it. It would be an encouragement to us as we start this monumental project.