What does World Team do?

As I think a lot of you know, Ryan and I were recently accepted to become church planters within the organization World Team. We are planning to go and work (as church planters) in France. An important questions to ask is... Who is World Team?

Well to sum it up, World Team is an international church planting organization. This is their mission statement: World Team exists to glorify God by working together to establish reproducing churches focusing on the unreached peoples of the world. One of the awesome things about them is that they are really excited about church planting from start to finish, and the primary objectives range drastically depending on where they go. These objectives can range from training people in sustainable business, doing evangelism and discipleship, translating bibles, meeting medical needs, etc.

This video shows some of the highlights of what God has done through World Team missionaries around the world in 2010:


If you want to learn more about World Team, check out their website here.

My time on the couch

I just finished my last counseling session. I didn’t actually lie down on a couch as the stereotype goes but rather sat in a semi-formal and cushioned armchair. I have been going to sessions for a couple months because I wanted to accept myself more and to believe more that I really am a daughter of the living God. I have always struggled with self-worth, and in the past it has hindered me from doing or trying things I know the Lord has wanted me to do. I want to be more obedient and able to serve selflessly at a moments notice, and I don’t want to worry so much what people think of me. This weakness and sin could very easily get in the way of ministry if I let it. Counseling was something I had considered for a while, but sort of thought it was just for crazy people. And maybe it is, and we are all just a little or maybe a lot crazy. Anyway, I was encouraged to think about seeing a counselor during the application process with World Team, and so I did… and God even provided a way to do it almost for free, which is amazing.

The main thing I took out of it wasn’t very magical as much as it was practical. The counselor really helped me to identify a lot of my sin and negative thought patterns and then to understand how I usually respond or cope with them. Then we took all the same sin and thought patterns and found passages in the Bible that laid out the more Godly and biblical way to cope and respond. As I compare life circumstances against scripture more and more, it becomes easier to live more biblically and to have more joy and trust in God. It is one of those answers that seems too simple to be true, but it works. It is all in God’s Word, you just have to know what’s in there and to believe that it’s true.

Here is a brief example. I learned that often when I am down or upset about something, I tend to isolate myself and stew about it. I want to shut out the rest of the world and be miserable. The scripture passage I found is 2 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” When I compared this to my method I was challenged to try something different, to not shut people and God out, but to turn to God first in prayer and bible study, and it has helped a lot.

Or this passage that helped me to re-think what it means to live in freedom and obedience at the same time. “Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son [or daughter] belongs to it forever. So if the Son [Jesus] sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

This will all continue to be a process, but as the children Sunday school song goes “Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me!”

Faith and the X-wing Fighter: Warning it gets a little geeky

I'm a nerd. I like Lord of the Rings, I’m way too excited about Harry Potter 7 part 2, and I sometimes make Star Wars analogies (this is one of those).

In The Empire Strikes Back—quite possibly the best movie of the series—Luke goes to Degoba to train as a Jedi with Yoda. When landing on the planet he crashes his X-wing Fighter into a small lake on the swampy planet. During one afternoon of training with Yoda the X-wing, which had been stuck partially submerged in the swamp, sinks completely. Luke had just been moving around rocks by using the Force, so Yoda encourages him to use the Force to raise the X-wing. Luke says, “Master, moving around rocks is one thing, but this is totally different.” Yoda quickly replies, “No. No different. The difference is in your mind.” Luke then makes an unsuccessful attempt to lift the ship by the Force, but gives up calling the task impossible. Yoda, however, immediately proceeds to lift the ship and bring it over to dry ground. After passing around the ship in astonishment Luke says with mixture of wonder and relief, “I don’t believe it.” To this Yoda immediately responds, “That is why you fail.”

I was thinking about this in connection to faith, particularly having faith in God to raise all of our financial support for France, and I think there are a lot of similarities. I look at the external difficulty of the task and decide whether or not I think it can be done—raising a few hundred dollars, no problem…raising thousands, um… But that’s because in reality I’m really trusting in myself. If God didn’t come through for raising a few hundred dollars, I could probably pick up the slack. But there is no way I in my own power have the ability to raise thousands of dollars a month in financial support. It can’t be done. But if I was really trusting in God in both instances, then size has nothing to do with it. God spoke the universe into existence, and it all belongs to Him. So, whether it is two dollars or two hundred thousand, the amount doesn’t really matter, because God is capable of it all. It isn’t a question of ‘can He’ but ‘will He’. My job is to trust that He will, knowing that He is fully capable and believing that He will make it happen. Jesus said if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains. My mind tells me its too big, but scripture says, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

A day with the Lord

Ryan and I have begun this season of preparation for ministry in France and already we have had many moments of feeling burnt out and fatigued. There is this strange phenomenon that occurs all too often (I hear especially in full-time ministry) in that sometimes we forget to practice what we preach. Our hearts' desire is to see and help people to know and follow Jesus more and more, but often in all the busyness of life and preparing for this task we forget to slow down and spend time with the Lord ourselves. And the less time spent in God’s presence, the more crazy and out of control life becomes… because He is our sustainer and our strength. As much as oxygen and water is, literally the absence of the Lord brings darkness and eventually, death.

So we decided this past Saturday to take a break, to slow down, and most importantly… to spend the day with the Lord. It was awesome. We woke up and did our daily devotions, we had a slow-paced peaceful breakfast, we went to our favorite coffee shop (Jaho) and read and reflected on what God is doing and speaking into our lives, and then we took a long walk and de-briefed together. At the end of the day and even now (almost a week later) I feel more at peace than I have in a couple months. Life makes more sense and the big picture has come back into focus.

Praise God for this wonderful day and the many more to come!

Praise God for little encouragements

We picked up our second financial supporter this week!

We still have a long way to go, but it’s a start. It’s exciting and humbling at the same time to have people commit to give to our ministry, because it is 100% outside of our control. So, it is a real tangible expression of God’s love and goodness through another person. God works through people, people like you and people like me, how amazing and how humbling.

Praise God!

Religion By the Numbers

Statistics can’t show everything, but they can help present a picture of religious life in France, especially when compared to America.

A couple things to note:

• France has a greater percentage of self-professed Atheists than America has of Evangelical Christians.
• Conversely, America has proportionally more Atheists than France has Evangelical Christians.
• France’s Muslim population is proportionally twice as large as all other religions in America combined.
• A generous estimate for all practicing Christians in France is around 8% while in America over 78% claim to be Christians.

We could scrutinize the numbers and question what counts as practicing, but the reality is the percentage of Christians in America is immensely greater than in France. America certainly needs more sold out followers of Jesus, but doesn’t that mean that the French need is that much greater? It isn’t so much about trying to raise the French numbers as it is about looking at the pool of available Christian workers for each country. Americans have large numbers to pull from, the French don’t. Jesus said that the harvest was plentiful, but the workers are few. It is workers that are needed. The French need workers, because their harvest is plentiful but their workers are few.

What is Discipleship?

Before Ryan and I go to France there are a handful of things we want and need to accomplish first including (but not limited to); developing partners, paying off debt, learning how to rightly handle the Bible, finding mentors, and in turn discipling others. I keep lingering on this idea of discipleship. It is kind of a buzz word in the church today, partly because it means so much and partly because most people don't really know what it means. We know according to scripture that our main call as believers is to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18–20). But what is a disciple really and what does it mean to disciple someone?

Wikipedia says a disciple is "a learner." In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. They wanted to be as much like Jesus as they could be. Discipleshiptools.org says: A Disciple is one who grows in Christ and in so doing models and teaches Christians the precepts of the Bible, prayer, doctrine, relationship, Christian living, service, and worship.

So if I am understanding this right it seems that the first command should also fulfill the second. As I strive to become more like Christ, I will model what it means "to be like Christ" to others, and intentionally with some (whom I disciple) as I attempt to help them become more like Christ too.

Hmm... I actually feel better about discipling someone now (that sounds rather self-serving doesn't it). I struggle sometimes because I want a detailed step by step guide of exactly what to do, but God and the Bible are better than that (I think I will read a book about Discipleship though, just in case). I will trust too that God will even use my rough spots to show what not to do, and I'm sure I will learn even more than those I disciple sometimes.

So here it goes... let the experiment begin!