Pioneering in a Day

It really is a privilege to work with so many people who are focused on starting new things!

My wife and I do a lot of ministering here in Idaho through the School Of Apostolic Pioneering. We bring together people who are looking to start a new works in the mission, bring together really cool people who have already pioneered new things to teach, and then pull it all together in a three-month school where everyone (students, staff, and speakers) can learn from each other.

Our next school will be this coming September, by the way.

Hopefully, by the end of three months, a team is ready to pioneer.

Though, that isn’t always the case.

The process that a person walks through in order to pioneer a new ministry is a long one. Most of it is wrapped up in preparing a person’s character. More time is spent on learning new skills that will be needed once the pioneering starts.

Once a person’s character and skills are in order you start to see healthy teams form around a vision of what God wants to do.

I am not sure how long that process is for most people, but I am certainly in the “character and skills” part of that process. It certainly isn’t a bad place to be, it is simply an honest one. This part of the process admits that I need more experience before I go further.

Gaining Experience

Once in a while gaining that experience is a lot of fun!

The other day was a good example of what I’m talking about.

It all started as I drove out early on October 31st, I was headed out to a spot in the mountains to sit down and wait for deer. It was the last day of deer hunting season and, since I was still going out, I still didn’t have a deer. It was dark and the sun hadn’t risen yet, though, as I looked out into the eastern sky I did see a very beautiful crescent moon. It was very bright and you could somehow see the rest of the moon too, though it was very faded.

For a moment time slowed and I could feel God’s stirring inside of me.

It is so difficult to describe God’s voice. Hundreds of emotions, thoughts, and memories were inside of me, though, God’s voice was much clearer than all of them, contrasting them all.

From childhood I was told October 31st was a bad day. It was Halloween, a devils holiday. It was a dark day. It was a day to have your own parties away from everything and everyone else.

That all said; I could feel that God wanted to do something on this day. It had plenty to do with prayer and it had to do with families.

More about what it would look like and the courage go through with it would only come later, but the seed had been planted. I could tell that there was something God wanted to do and He had already brought me into it. This isn’t to say that God forces people to do things, but rather that God knows where we are at, where He is taking us, and what we need to learn along the way.

God is very willing to bring us into the things that He knows we are ready for, though, the primary measure of that is our obedience. Will we do what He asks?

Today, that was a resounding (and sometimes wavering) yes.

As I drove back from a lot of thinking while I was in the mountains, without a deer, I might add, I heard a song on the radio that came at just the right time. “Fall, Goliath, Fall,” was the name of the song. If you enjoy the rock music that Christian bands sometimes make I recommend listening to it. If not, then just know that it spoke to my heart at the moment and I was encouraged.

Immediately after I got back into town I ran into another friend who was also out hunting that morning. He told me about a great spot he ran into for deer. I knew in my head that if I headed out to that same spot tonight I may get a chance to take a deer… and I knew in my heart that God had told me to do something very different with my evening.

No, I would not head out to hunt deer. I was going to be in town praying for families.

That is what obedience sounds like.

Rarely is obedience loud, showy, or troublesome, though, sometimes it may. Today it was a quiet resolution in my heart that there was something God had told me to do.

Previous Preparation

After that morning it was all a rush.

The morning’s vision had to be communicated, team members had to be given a purpose, emails sent, signs made, money spent, hot chocolate to be made and served, etc…

Step one was telling my wife about it; aside from sharing your plans, hopes, and dreams with your spouse (which is sort of in those vows and a foundation of marriage) it is very important to share your vision with others who can hold you accountable to it. I think that’s important with any idea, but even more so when you are dealing with something God gives you.

Give permission to others you trust to hold you accountable and move in the confidence that the vision is God’s and He will be faithful to see it through!

From that point on I noticed that a lot of what I was doing had been built up from previous tasks in the mission.

The basic goal was simple enough; pray for families at the parking lot of the local grocery store where everyone would be handing out candy for Halloween (which is called “trunk or treat” in Cascade). We could set up our own spot with hot chocolate and cookies, make a sign advertising free prayer, and after that see what would come of the evening.

In order for that to happen we had several things to get in order.

In, like, three hours.

The biggest need was people… given time was short I went for a walk and invited everyone I found. At the end of my walk there were two people who could help serve hot chocolate and pray. Not everyone I had expected to come was able to come. Yet, what was interesting was that, of the five people helping with the prayer stand I was the only American.

That was a benefit to us since it showed off our ministry’s diversity and made us a little more interesting.

The second biggest item on task was how to supply our stand with hot water.

Rather early on I scrapped the idea of serving fresh hot chocolate right out of our thermoses. We had enough space in those thermoses for a gallon of liquids. Serving straight hot chocolate would have been really cool, but way too time consuming. By only refilling hot water we were able to make each cup individually and only make the runs as long as it took to boil new water.

With two of us making chocolate it also gave us a happy medium of time in which we could build relationships and offer prayer.

The other bit of logistics was one of resources.

We checked our own finances to see if we could personally cover the costs of the prayer stand supplies and we could. We were also able to supply the table that we served everything on and our Jeep to get everything to the parking lot.

After all the work… ministry!

So right!

Believe it or not in the middle of a good heart to do ministry you will often get swamped by all of the extra stuff around it. The extra stuff isn’t bad, of course; it is simply there and needs to be addressed at the appropriate time and way.

Eventually all of us were over at the grocery store parking lot with all of the stuff we needed (with a couple extra runs for spoons and sign making materials). The first several kids showed up. They wanted something warm since they were waiting there before everyone got there. One of boys said that we could pray for his grades in school.

After that several other families came and took hot chocolate. Some of them said we could pray for them and others chose not to be prayed for. Most of the families wanted prayer for their families; sometimes through God’s protection or God’s provision.

One of the older men said that he would like prayer for his sanity, as he laughed. He said that he was taking care of his three grandsons on his own. We prayed for him right there while we gave them all hot chocolate and cookies. We thanked God for giving his grandsons someone to look up to and prayed that he would have both the sanity and strength to bring them up well.

It was a great night of ministry!

In Conclusion

In the SOAP these are some of the questions that we try to encourage when students are working through their pioneering projects.

-What is the vision that God has given you?

-How will you communicate the vision to other interested and available people?

-What needs to be done logistically for the vision to be accomplished?

-What will the results be when the ministry is finished?

At times we have people and teams who are very ready to start pioneering, sometimes we have people who have some ways to go before they get to start pioneering (like me). In any case we hope that we can bring our students closer to completing the goal that God has given them.

For the last several years I have been on the learning end of many experiences like these. As I’ve walked through them God has continually brought me closer to seeing the vision that He’s put on my heart become a reality.

Though, this is what it could look like in a day.

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: April, 23rd, 2013

Weekly Update: Tuesday, 04/23/13

Hello all!

Few! The weeks have been flying by!

We are more than half way through the school now and the visions of our students are getting bigger and bigger! This week our YWAM base founder is back to talk about what really gets things done when our visions get bigger than what we can do by ourselves.

Four things shared yesterday were the principles of having a biblical foundation (are we walking in the promises and paths of scripture), relying on our intimate relationships with Jesus to keep us going through difficult times, continually hearing God’s voice, and visioning with God (seeing what is not yet present). Here’s a quick question, has anyone reading this found any of these principles especially important? Leave a reply in the box below if so!

Another exciting development of our school is that our excellent cook was able to take a couple of weeks off and head down to Bethel in Redding, CA, today. I will be filling in until she gets back and am really looking forward to the opportunity, though, she will be a hard person to fill in for!

Our family has also been able to become more involved with the community here in Cascade too. My wife is going to a “mom and tots” get together, a local Bible study for women, and serving with the emergency pregnancy care center that is just starting up as well. I’m still finding my place among the other people in Cascade, but I’m hoping to make a big impact too.

We pray that this finds you all well and that God blesses you very much!

Thanks for keeping up with us!

Other Updates:

– We’ve had several people visit the Cascade/McCall are recently and they are saying that the place feels different. I’m not sure what this means yet, but we have been praying for the people in the valley and that the place would be a place where God is welcome. The visitors are all bringing good reports.

– One of the local youth is interested in the Bible study idea! I’ll be meeting with him today to talk more about the possibilities of having a Bible study night at our house.

Scripture:

Just this last Sunday, the Pastor at the church we attend gave the announcement that the next series of sermons will be on the book of Ephesians. Upon hearing this I glanced through the book and came upon chapter 4.

In this chapter Paul is bringing together a strong argument that, as followers of Jesus, who were saved by God through His love for us, we should love each other. A character of this love is our unity. It was God who brought us together and in His love he equips us and changes us into new people. As a new people this needs to be our own model as well.

How can we love others in such a way that builds them up and unifies them?

Leave your response in the box below!

Praise & Prayer Report

– Praise God for His provision!

– Praise God for our wonderful friends!

– Please pray for our finances as a family!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: March 14th, 2013

Weekly Update: Thursday, 03/14/13

Hello from America again!

It’s been a couple weeks since our last update and also the first week of the School Of Apostolic Pioneering in Cascade, Idaho. We’ve just finished the first couple days of orientation and have started working with our first SOAP speaker.

This morning’s lesson has been about what the SOAP project looks like and what are the details that go into it. For an exercise, we read through the first and second chapters of Nehemiah and tried to find information that would be relevant in  SOAP project. We asked questions like, what was Nehemiah’s ministry? Is there any background information included? What are the basic operations that will need to happen in order for the wall to be built?

On the whiteboard in front of me are a lot of answers; Nehemiah’s “ministry” was to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, his friends had told him the “background information” in the very beginning of the chapters, he would have to see that many “basic operations” would be carried out, such as, who  would be in charge of the building supplies?

These are all things that go into a SOAP project, as well as others.

Living in Cascade has been really good for our family. Since we’ve been gone we have friends who have moved into the apartments next to us and below us. It gives us a lot of opportunities to work together, play board games together, and eat dinners or lunches together. We also have high-speed internet at our apartment now, so keeping in contact with our families has become really easy through Skype.

During the last two weeks we’ve worked with our downstairs neighbors to prepare for the SOAP. That means putting in food orders, organizing the welcome dinner, figuring out when people will arrive, reorganizing the furniture at the Depot (our really cool training facility), and writing out ten weeks worth of school assignments. It’s really cool to see all of it come together this week.

Looking forward toward the next three months our days will be pretty ordered around the school schedule. Our son is already fine with taking his afternoon nap here!

We’re looking forward to keeping you all updated!

Thanks for keeping up with us!

Other Updates:

– In the next few weeks several friends and I will be hiking through some of the mountains nearby Cascade. Our goal is to spend the night praying for Cascade, the people living here in the valley, and our ministries that reach out to the people around us. Please be praying for us as we pray about how to do this and get a plan together!

– Another ministry opportunity we are hoping to open up is a Bible study night for young people at our apartment. We are still praying about how to do this, but we are trusting God for the people who will be a part of the Bible study.

Scripture:

Early last week I was praying about what part of the Bible to read and it felt like God asked me to read about Philip, mentioned in the book of Acts. You can read about him in Acts 6:1-7, Acts 8:5-40, and Acts 21:7-14.

He is a character in Acts who was chosen for leadership in a position of service, was willing to be known for Jesus during persecution, was obedient to God’s voice, and was later noted to be a father of several well respected daughters. He isn’t extraordinary, save for God being extraordinary in his life, though, the book of Acts is filled with stories of God being extraordinary in the lives of many ordinary followers of Jesus.

You should read through Philip’s story too!

Perhaps God will do amazing things through your own life as well?

Praise & Prayer Report

– Praise God for our son’s easy transition into the flow of life in Cascade!
– Praise God for our wonderful friends who are on the SOAP team with us! We are really looking forward to working with them over the next several months!
– Please pray for our finances as a family!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: Living

TAK Article: Living

It is good to be back in the Netherlands again!

There have been many good things that have happened to us in the last two months, though, I promise I will not share all about them right now. Today, on Valentine’s day, my wife and I are celebrating our three-year relationship anniversary! As of today my wife and I will have been in a relationship for three years!

While the last two months may be quite outstanding with things to share the last three years have been even greater!

During these three years we’ve been able to learn how to live out our lives together in a way that brings glory to God and shares His love with those around us. After all, that is what we do.

Love God and Love Others

What do the greatest commands of the law mean to you?

When a man asked Jesus what was the greatest command was in the entire law (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy of the Bible) He replied that it was to love God through everything that we aspire to do, everything that we think about, everything that we are, and everything that we actually do – as well as showing love to our neighbors as we would wish to be loved.

What do these commands mean to you? Are they on your mind? Do you think about them before you act?

As followers of Jesus Christ we are all called to expand His kingdom. There are no safe zones in our hearts where we may hide from God or off-limit places in the world where His kingdom and His law (the greatest commandments of the law) will not go.

How do we wish to do that? Where do we want to go?

It is far too easy for us to become entangled in cares of this life that do not matter; also, if they are cares that do matter, we spend too much time worrying about them. Everything that we need we can trust God to give us.

I want to see this happen through discipleship.

Over the next while my wife and I will be settling down in Cascade, Idaho. We finally have our visa, which God has made possible in perfect timing, and we can now move back into our apartment. That said, I’m no longer only looking forward to a place to settle down anymore. I don’t care for it and I pray that my heart would not grow overly fond of any comfortable apartment. My heart is fond of Jesus Christ and I wish to turn as many hearts to Him as possible!

Cascade is a good place to do this, I know the language of everybody there for a change and I have a place to live where I can invite people over for dinner with my family. Yes, that may not seem like much, but I am a follower Jesus Christ – He will provide me with anything else I need.

I want to talk with people, I want to encourage friends, I want to meet in groups, I want to discuss the Bible and Jesus’ life, I want to gather around food, etc…

Throughout our history these are the things that God has used to change people from who they were to who God desires them to be – to sum it up, this is living out discipleship with Jesus and others.

We need to realize that the greatest medium of God’s grace is our lives.

Every aspect of our lives is another way in which God can reach somebody who does not know Him yet! Further than that, every aspect of our lives is another way we can encourage each other to love God even more!

Valentine’s Day

Today, many people are celebrating the emotion or feeling of love – I admit that I know very little about this specific holiday, but for my wife and I it reminds us of the day that we began our relationship. It was a very special day for us.

We committed ourselves to love each other and seek out marriage together.

Three years later we are married and have a beautiful little son that is walking around and threatening to tear apart the entire house!

That process has taken a lot of God’s grace and committed love from both of us as well. It is the same way when we consider our relationship with God – He will give us the grace that we need to become the son or daughter that He desires us to be and we need to commit ourselves to loving Him. We do this with our entire lives.

I pray that each of us would reach out to others with our entire lives as well!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: November 21st, 2012

Weekly Update: Wednesday 10/21/2012

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We pray that God will bless all of you and show you all the things that He has done for you this year!

Our time in the Netherlands is going well.

We have an understanding of how the next couple months will look for us and God is providing for all of our needs to accomplish them. Within the next months we are hoping to see the Enschede Prayer Team continue, we are having a missions fair at our home church here in Enschede, and I will be off to Asia from December to February.

We are looking forward to a very busy and exciting time!

Though, I don’t want to miss what has been happening in the last month since I last updated our weekly update… I see the irony.

My wife is the one heading up the missions fair for our church’s  missionary members, which means she is very busy emailing, writing, and visiting people. She is also sorting things out for the immigrations sale that we will have at the same time.

While my wife works at this, our son likes getting into bookshelves and plants, and cabinets that he shouldn’t – of which there are plenty of each.

I’m reading through my fourth book dealing with early church history and trying to understand the implications it has on us today. It is really important for me to keep learning and sharing what I learn with others. Writing things down here on the blog is one way, talking about them with my father-in-law over coffee several times a day is another that I particularly enjoy.

So, with that, my mind is often caught up in several different places at the same time. What happened at this time, who said what when, Jay Edward trying to pull down a great big potted plant  or playing with his grandpa’s books now, etc.

In all this I am preparing to travel to Asia; I have the opportunity to teach at a discipleship training school, help a couple of outreach teams, and learning/showing how to make water filters out of clay pots, sand, gravel, and water.

Out of those three, doing the research and showing people how to filter water will have the most impact on my time there.

It is a project that comes out of our prayers for Asia.

During my first trip to Asia we learned how terrible the water there can be. As we prayed about what to do we felt that God wanted us to bring water filters, but we never found a way how. Since then, our outreach have been focused on helping people learn about basic hygiene and preventable sicknesses.

Yet, we’ve still had the problem that most people do not have access to clean water.

Earlier  this year I learned of a water filter that may fit our unique demands. On this trip I’ll research them more, see if I get sick when I drink the water, and do my best to share them with my other friends who will be able to share the water filters with even more people.

Be praying for my time away from family, success in the water filter project, and safe travels!

Thanks for partnering with our family!

 

Other Updates:

– We had an update this past week that the National Visa Center, in the US, has all of our documents again. Please pray that the process will go smoothly from here!

– In order to use my time well in the Netherlands, I’ve begun pioneering a prayer team for the various ministries in Enschede. This project is going well and I’ve sent invitations to other ministries to see if more will join the prayer team.

 

Scripture:

The last time I wrote here I had just finished Isaiah and was in Jeremiah, now I’m finished with Jeremiah and am in Ezekiel.

The two books are very similar; it seems that Ezekiel is written even more like a journal than Jeremiah. Ezekiel writes about the amazing visions and experiences he has with God and the strange and very persistent ways that God has him speak to the people who have been taken captive by the Babylonians. They speak at the same time, to the same group of people, about most of the same things, but in completely different places.

Jeremiah speaks from Jerusalem and later from Egypt, Ezekiel speaks from Babylon after being taken there as a captive himself.

You need a really good imagination to see the things that Ezekiel writes about. He writes about God’s throne sitting on towering angels, being spiritually taken to Jerusalem and digging through walls, and hearing God tell him to do dig a hole through his own house’s wall and act like he’s going into exile – just so people will ask and give God an opportunity to speak to them!

It’s an interesting and challenging read!

 

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God for our time in the Netherlands!

– Please continue praying for my wife’s visa application!

– Please pray for our family’s finances and continued support!

– Please pray that our family would receive everything God has for us during these months together in the Netherlands and after we are apart!

 

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: God is a good communicator!

TAK Article: God is a good communicator!

A couple of days ago I was up late at night and I just couldn’t fall asleep. My mind was wandering all over the place.

Well, as it wandered around I found myself thinking about church and then how important it is for us to hear God’s voice – both privately and together with others. I realize that hearing God’s voice may sound odd at first, as it was for me, but it has become the most important practice in my life for  completely following Jesus.

I hope that this article will help you do that too!

Hearing God’s Voice in Nature

It is incredible to realize what God has done in order to speak with us. That’s the heart of what I say when I talk about God speaking to us through nature.

Rod Wilson, a teacher for my Discipleship Training School, quoted this to us during his week on God’s character and spiritual warfare (the verse is from Mathew 6:28-29).

‘ “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil or spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” The Greek word to “consider” means to diligently study – Jesus commands His disciples to study nature!’

Rod continued to teach us a lot about hearing God’s voice and other challenging topics for which I am much indebted to him for.

One of the stories he used to describe this was from when his family was serving in New Zealand.

They were in a tough financial spot and were trusting God for provision. After praying as a family he walked outside and saw a seagull fly overhead with a piece of bread in his mouth. Right then, Rod went back into the house and shared what God had told him when he saw the seagull. God had told Rod that He was their provider just like the seagull’s.

And then, in a short time, God came through just like He said He would!

Likewise, there was a time when my friends and I were camping in the White Cloud mountains of Idaho. It was just a few hours before we would leave and I really wanted to take some pictures of the rock pika that lived nearby our camp.

As I watched them scurry over and under the rocks I noticed that they always had one or two pika standing guard. They would also whistle to each other to communicate danger, when one would stop standing guard, or just to let everyone else know that it was safe. It was interesting to me for some odd reason, though, I quickly realized why.

I had been trying to understand how it is that God can find pleasure in what we do. Not just the “holy” things, but in everyday things and the things that really get us excited.

That’s when it started to make sense!

God has given each of us a unique identity and He enjoys seeing us walk out that very identity! The rock pika that I watched were doing just that – being rock pika!

By living out the identity that God has given us we are worshiping God!

About half a year later, I was able to share that same principle with a youth group that was serving the Nez Perce community in Lapwai, Idaho. Nobody else could have done the things that God had given them to do there because God had created them for this time and this purpose.

He has given the same honor of a uniquely created identity to each of us too!

The Psalms of the bible have a lot more to say about hearing God’s voice through nature as well. King David describes in Psalm 19 that “the heavens declare the glory of God” and in Psalm 97 that “the heavens declare His righteousness.”

Psalm 104 is another excellent example of nature reflecting to us the greatness of who God is. Have you, like King David, ever looked at creation and been amazed at the one who created it all?

God’s Voice is Effective

The very first time I came across the idea of hearing God’s voice was at a winter retreat with my youth group at church. A lot of my friends were there, especially, one friend that came back from a DTS who would teach about this very topic.

It sounded a little odd at first, but I figured that I should at least listen to her and try.

I don’t remember whether it worked right then or not, but it certainly did later that night. As I would be reading through my Bible I would run into a question and then, quite innocently, ask God a yes or no question about it. He actually answered! I didn’t hear it with my ears, so to say, but I could feel it inside of me. I remember later holding out my hands and asking God to press down the “yes hand” or the “no hand” – it still works, but I have learned since then that God can communicate in even better ways than that!

At the end of the week we had an altar call of sorts; our Youth Pastor laid down a small wooden cross on the floor and gave us some nails. He told us to nail down our commitment to Jesus. And asked us, is our faith only tacked in, nailed half way, or driven in all the way?

I really wanted to nail down my faith all the way! However, I thought in that moment, “Maybe I should try to ask God first?”

Firmly in my heart I felt God say one word – “paintball.”

My heart sank!

No, what? How could God mention that? There’s nothing wrong with paintball! I thought that my commitment to God was sure, completely given to God, but with one word God pointed out something in my heart that I was not willing to give to Him.

I had given paintball a place in my heart (or rather the pride it created in me) and placed it above God’s place in my heart.

That day, I thought that I had placed God above paintball in my heart, but that wasn’t the case. I only did so long enough to nail my nail into the cross. I was too prideful to admit where my heart was at in that moment because I wanted to show myself very committed to God in front of my friends.

For the next several months my life was very empty because I felt too ashamed to ask God for forgiveness and was too afraid of what others would think of me if I gave up paintball claiming God told me to.

Fast forwarding to my DTS, which was later that year, on the first evening of lectures, we were doing an exercise on hearing God’s voice and, again, I was going along with it because I didn’t want to look like an unspiritual person. My motivations were out of fear  for my own pride, not out of love for Jesus.

We were supposed to draw whatever picture came to our mind.

The first thing I saw was a merry-go-round, ‘What is this? God wants me to draw a merry-go-round?’ It didn’t seem very spiritual to me, but I did it.

Next, God gave me a picture of a slide. ‘A slide? What does a slide have to do with anything?’ I tried to go ahead and draw a slide.

Lastly, God gave me a picture of the last 4-H fair I had been a part of. ‘What? Why would God want me to draw this!’ I dropped, maybe more of threw,  the pencil onto the table.

At that moment God gave me two Bible verses, fast, completely clear, I could see them written in red in my mind. One, I believe, was Psalm 41:9, the other one I am not sure about, but it’s message was the same. Our teacher had already said that if we get a Bible verse we should read it, so I did. Psalm 41:9 says this:

“Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread,

hath lifted up his heel against me.”

God came and told me explicitly, in a way that I could not deny that it was Him, that I had been the one betraying him this entire time. Nothing had ever hit me so hard before; I placed my Bible back on the table and sat silently until class was over.

That night God showed me how to repent of betraying Him and my relationship with Him started to heal from that point on. It was hard, but I am very thankful that God spoke to me the way that He did about my pride.

My heart is much more alive having listened to Him!

God’s Voice Will Break the Rules

Even as I have been taking the time to write this article and reflect on God’s relationship with me I can see that this is true – God is willing to break all kinds of “holy”, “spiritual”, and “religious” rules so that He may have intimacy with us.

There is a story in the book of Acts that talks about this.

In chapter 19 we read about a controversy among the followers of Jesus.

Both Peter and Paul had been telling about how God wanted to be known by all people and was making Himself known among all people. However, there were others in the church that couldn’t accept this because the people who were choosing to follow Jesus were not choosing to follow the Jewish law as well.

At this point in the book of Acts there has been many examples of God acting this way. The primary argument of the others had been that these people were breaking the rules of God’s religion.

Then, after everything had been heard, James quotes this from the prophet Amos.

“After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.” – Acts 15: 16-18

What is King David’s fallen tent?

Well, in the story of King David, told in parts through 1st & 2nd Samuel and 1st Kings, there is a time when the ark of the covenant is lost in battle. This was a great big box covered in gold that contained the ten commandments and several other sacred things. It represented God’s presence to the children of Israel and God did express Himself from the ark. There were also a lot of rules that God had given the children of Israel concerning this ark. If these rules were broken terrible things could happen to the people breaking the rules.

However, this seemed to apply to some people and not others – and there is a strong connection among the people who broke these rules and lived.

Later during King David’s reign, we find him receiving the ark back from his enemies (they really did not want it anymore) and taking the ark back to Jerusalem. He does not follow the rules and take the ark back to the place it is supposed to go. As the ark travels David is also sacrificing cows to God every short while, another thing that only special people were allowed to do. And finally, at the end, he places the ark in a tent where it is accessible to almost anybody, sits there around it by himself, and has a group of people singing to God in front of it as often as possible— all of which are terribly against God’s rules for the ark of the covenant!

And do you know how terrible God’s punishment was?

Well, not very terrible at all; in fact, God calls King David a man after His own heart!

King David cared less about the rules concerning the ark than he did about being close to God. This is the heart attitude that God enjoys! When we do not want to be too close to God we end up with religious rules that hold us away from God!

This was the same way that Jesus acted too – He was holy, God’s presence on earth, and was very much known for hanging out with unholy people.

Jesus called many of these people to become His disciples. As these people were given the Holy Spirit, like Peter and Paul, they went out and spent their time with even more unholy people. Many of these people chose to believe what they were saying and saw the proof in their lives and chose to follow Jesus as they were. And so on and so forth…

In the end, God’s voice will be heard by everyone in the whole world!

His voice will not be heard by only special people, in special places, at special times, but God has chosen to speak in ways that allow everyone hear Him! He wants to have an intimacy with everyone!

How should we hear God’s Voice?

My wife and I were visiting a house church once and the evening’s question for the group was this, “How do you hear God’s voice?”

There wear a lot of good listeners there! Some people heard His voice the most when they were reading the Bible, others while listening to music, others while sitting at the beach or hiking through the forest.

We shouldn’t trick ourselves into thinking that God only speaks in one way, or that the way we’ve always heard God speak is the only way that everyone else should hear God speak.

God is very creative; I’ve mostly included stories from my life, so these are probably tilted towards my ways and ideas of hearing God’s voice. However, I think that there may be some common threads that you will find to be true in your life as well.

The greatest of these, I believe, will be your desire to hear God’s voice and putting in the effort and time to hear His voice. God is speaking to you and He will speak to you, but are willing to listen? Are you willing to put down the things that He says to put down? Are you willing to go through the pain of hearing His voice?

My testimony is a good example of the pain that may occur when you start hearing God’s voice, it is called conviction and it is a good pain! If you feel God’s conviction, take my advice! Repent of it, turn away from whatever God tells you to, run to Him! He is far better than anything of any worth in this world or any to come! In Him is good, true, and perfect love!

I can almost promise that if you start hearing God’s voice that this will happen. It is worth it, though, because intimacy with Him is worth everything.

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: Servant Leadership

TAK Article: Servant Leadership

Over the past year God has been teaching me a lot about being a servant. He has been doing this through the books I read, the relationships I am committed to, and especially when I take the time to listen and hear His voice.

Perhaps I can pass something of that along!

Servant Leadership

The first time I heard of “servant leadership” was at a team training week preparing our team of young people to lead youth groups on missions trips over the course of the summer. We were mostly familiar with each other and our two-weeks of training were broken up with teachings in the morning, workshops where we created a program for the Summer in the afternoon, followed by times to hang out and have fun in the evenings. That morning our base leader came to teach us about values, servant leadership, and conflict resolution.

He opened up his Bible and told us to turn to John 13: 3-10.

‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.’ – NIV

My take away from that morning was that if I wanted to lead people then I would need to serve them too. However, it took me several more years (plus my future wife and our son) to learn the greater part of what Jesus was talking about.

Servant Leadership in Practice

What I missed that summer morning was the very nature of leadership that God desires for us. Mark 9:35 says this, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

At that point in time, and for several years after that, I operated out of the idea that those who were the leaders had the authority to tell others what to do. As a follower, it was my job to do exactly what my leader told me to do and I wasn’t responsible for anything more than that.

This was the point of view that I took when I listened to people talk about leadership, read stories from the Bible about leadership, and did my best to practice leadership. In many ways, this was my paradigm – the way I filtered the world around me. I could recite a lot of stories from the Bible where God and others leaders used this model, but even  when that was not the case I would have still perceived it to be true because this was the paradigm that I understood leadership from.

During my time in the Netherlands, in the spring of 2012, I started reading You see bones, I see an army, by Floyd McClung.

In that book Floyd McClung talked about leadership in a way that I had never heard before, nor would I have understood prior. It was this, to serve is to lead. Leadership does not come through training, degrees, titles, positions or power over others – it comes by being a servant to the people around you and building influence through that.

He used the same verses of the Bible that I had always read and heard, but now they made a lot more sense!

Shortly thereafter, as I remember it, I spent some time asking God about this. Is this why Jesus has influence in the world today? Is this what His kingdom is built upon?

In my heart I felt a resounding yes, the only reason that Jesus, God with us, has influence in the lives of people today is because He came to us as a servant. He didn’t use His position in heaven to force things to happen in the earth, but He gave Himself to us – He served us.

Applying Servant Leadership

Just recently I also read The Servant, by James C. Hunter.

I found that this book brought a lot of the challenges of servant leadership together and then practically worked them out.

The book follows the story of an educated businessman and several others as they learn about what it means to be a leader. In the beginning of the book almost everyone thinks that it is their job is to serve the people above them and control the people below them, but then as the book progresses they find that their ultimate goal is to serve the people that they are leading.

I highly recommend the book to anybody!

One of the principles shared in this book was that in order to lead people you needed to choose to love them through meeting their needs – not to feel warmly about them, but to actually act in their best interest. The book goes on to say that character traits we find most valuable in a leader are what you would call this sort of action oriented love.

The attributes listed were taken from 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7.

‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’ – NIV

As stated in the book, love is: patient, kind, humble, respectful, selfless, forgiving, honest, and committed. This sort of love requires action!

Committing to Lead as a Servant

As a I write this my wife and are still in our first year and a half of marriage, we already have an eight-month old son, and we haven’t had a really solid place to live during any of that time. God has been unbelievably faithful during this time, but this has also been the time when He’s chosen to hammer out my commitment to lead like Him the most.

Towards my wife… I’ve always known that the Bible says to love her and even to lead her (which could seem like a rather intimidating task in itself), but it didn’t make sense before God really started revealing this idea of being a servant. Yes, I should love her like Christ loves the church and control her too? No, that’s not the message, God calls me to love her and lead her – to serve her, to make it possible for her to become even more of the woman God created her to become! Now, that’s something that I can be excited about!

Towards my son… well, in the months right after he was born it was really difficult to serve him with all my heart. A lot of the time my actions were driven by guilt or fear of becoming a bad father to him. Instead of this, God’s call for me is to serve my son – to build a strong relationship with him so that he may know what it is like to have a strong relationship with our Father too!

Towards others… as I am learning it, the most effective way for us to show God’s love to other people is to love them through our actions. Is that really leadership? Yes, it is leadership – if people do not see God’s love for them through you they will not follow you to Jesus.

That, as the realization of it hits my heart, is the greatest challenge of leading as a servant! Are we willing to serve others just like Jesus has served us?

The Challenge of Servant Leadership

Jesus shared a lot of stories about being a servant to those around us. He certainly went to the point of death for us and even further!

That is the last point that I will share – it is not spoken by Jesus when He was walking the earth, but after He rose from the dead and took His seat next to His Father. This is what others came to understand and applied to their lives. Perhaps you would consider it in your life too?

Philippians 2: 1-11.

‘Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ – NKJV

May Christ be with you!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: July 16th, 2012

Weekly Update: Friday, 7/16/12

Hello everyone,

I pray that this message finds you well!

Our family is adjusting to life on the Worcester base pretty well! My wife does most of the taking care of Jay Edward, though, today is my morning to take care of him.

Earlier this morning the entire base had an hour and a half of worship to start off the week. It was a very good time! When I arrived all the chairs were stacked up and there was a really big open area for everyone to meet up in. The first song was sung in Swahili and everyone was challenged to use the space to dance!

I will say, I usually don’t do that sort of thing… but I have been thinking that it would happen… and so I danced with everyone too.

It was a lot of fun and God spoke to everyone in a really powerful way!

For me, it was a chance to worship and pray in a way that I have never had the courage to do. During the time God gave me a lot of pictures about what our future may look like and continued to encourage me to pursue the future He has for us. It is really encouraging to take a new step toward God and receive such a powerful response!

Thanks for partnering with us!

Other Updates:

– The SOAP School here in Worcester, South Africa, has a couple new students! We just accepted a couple late comers last night after we prayed over their applications. That brings our total up to eighteen students! The nations represented through the students in this school are South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Angola, Brazil, and the U.S.

– Last week we had our base leader from Idaho speak on “Faith & Pioneering”. He challenged all the students to pray about and imagine the dreams that God has put on their hearts.

– Quote of the Week: “The big vision that God has for us is mixed up in the circumstances He has brought us through and the passions that He has placed inside us.”

Scripture:

The psalm I read this morning was Psalm 96.

God used the psalm to remind me of who He is and what He is doing in the world. I realize this even more as I try to write about it!

In this psalm God is calling us to worship Him and remember what He has brought us through. Each day God saves us and holds us up. He doesn’t want to stop there, though, God wants every person from nation on earth to experience His love.

“Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.”
– NIV

It is safe to say that there are places on the earth where God is opposed from reaching this goal. It is also safe to say that in each of our hearts we oppose God from reaching this goal too, both in the nations and in our own hearts. The more we give our hearts to Him the more we will see this goal accomplished.

This psalm calls us worship God, declare who He is to every person of every nation! Let’s do this together with God!

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God for our wonderful students!

– Pray that God would help our students imagine the vision that God has given them and develop it to give Him glory, honor, and praise!

– Pray that God would reveal Himself to the people that we meet in the communities around the Worcester YWAM base on our outreach days!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Seeking Asylum

Hello from the Netherlands,

Last Wednesday, the 9^th of November, my wife and I took a bike ride. This isn’t an uncommon thing to do in the Netherlands, but for me this was my longest ride yet. We traveled 22 Kilometers, just over 13 miles, to visit the city of Schalkhaar, near Deventer. We had heard of an asylum seeking center there and we wanted to see what it was like. Perhaps, even to see what ministry opportunities could come of the place.

It started out quite cold for both of us, but my wife gladly took my coat (and took back her mittens) as she was still cold and I was already sweating. There seem to be very nice routs that you can take all through the Netherlands that are intended just for bikes and each that I have seen are very beautiful. We passed through several of these areas, one of them being a walking park right through a wood. Wherever we went we had a nicely paved road ahead of us. There were a couple of times that we weren’t quite sure about which way to go or where we were at, but in the end we made it to the asylum seeking center.

The Netherlands has a lot of people who come here to seek out refuge; many of these people flee from their own governments (as political refugees), wars that threaten their homes, and from economic disaster (such as famines). I do not know of the equivalent in the US. I have met refugees from Myanmar, Bhutan, Iraq, and Eritrea, but all of them were accepted as refugees. As I listen to people and the news stations in the Netherlands the people here seem to be in stuck in between of making it to safety and being allowed to stay as a refugee. 

As we rode up to the complex we saw that the whole place was surrounded by fences, topped with barbed wire. At the front there was a large metal gate. Just beyond this was a parking place before an unfriendly looking reception area. It looked like a loosely guarded prison, but more to keep people out than in. As we rode in we noticed a sign that said the gates remained closed after 9pm.

We continued to the reception, but we were a little lost for what to do. In short, we were not allowed to enter. Menke has been inside other centers before, but always with somebody else more official.

So, with that, we remained in the center’s parking lot and took a break before riding back home. We took some of the drink we brought with us, and ate a good portion of our lunch; bread with young cheese for Menke, bread with peanut butter and chocolate sprinkles for me. As we ate many people came in and out of the gates. Most of the people looked like that had come from Africa, others were of lighter skin, though, and we only learned later that they may have come from somewhere near Russia. Each person who saw us smiled and greeted us with a, ‘Hello’; they seemed more friendly than most other people who have seen us idly eating our bread in the Netherlands.

Afterwards we prayed; it was nothing earth shattering, but it gave us hope for the place and some tasks to do.

For one, God reminded us that after seeing this place it would be easier for us to pray for it. We had known of the place for some time, but now that we had gone there we would be able to remember the people who we saw and pray for them.

Secondly, we could tell others what we had seen. Though we couldn’t go into the center lots of people came out. Some of those people came out laughing, walking with their kids, talking to their friends, speaking different languages, etc; they were normal people living there lives as normally as they could. Even though it seems that we cannot go inside to share the gospel and minister to people we can be outside to meet them. Then, if we can meet people, we can share the love of Christ with them.

So, I think that is what we will tell people when we talk about the asylum seeking centers here in the Netherlands. That the people there are beautiful and we can help them to hear the gospel while they are here; furthermore, we can show them the love of Christ when we meet them outside of their walls.

We were a bit sad that we couldn’t do more ourselves, nor do we see an opportunity to do more hands on work in Schalkhaar, but we will be praying for God to rise up others to this need. I think that God has many good things in store for the people staying there at the asylum seeking center.

And so, having our day concluded, we cycled back home. The ride went much faster than the first time, but we also stopped along the way for a bite to eat. I had Naan and my wife had tomato soup, it was very well-flavored with Rosemary.

Oh yeah, my wife is also 32 weeks pregnant; not a bad ride for her at all!

May this find you well!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom