We have three events on the spring calendar already and spaces to fill.  

Wichita KS - March 9 - 11
Sioux Falls SD - April 26-28
Sioux Falls SD - May 31 - June 2

Investing even a little time in language learning before a short-term trip communicates humility, honors your host culture, and opens doors for meaningful connection beyond words.
By Aaron Myers

So you are going on a short term missions trip and you're beginning to ask the question, "Should I work at learning the language before I go?"

It is a question everyone seems to ask for which there is but one answer . . . .

YES! Yes you should!

• Will you be proficient enough to have meaningful conversations?  Probably not.
• Will you be fluent enough to share the gospel?  Not yet.
• Will anyone, anywhere mistake you for a native speaker?  Never!

But . . . 

• Will your efforts teach you humility?  Yes.
• Will your efforts honor your host culture? Absolutely.
• Will your efforts help you avoid embarrassing mishaps?  They sure might.
• Will your efforts demonstrate the love of Christ?  Yes they will. ​

Charles Kraft holds a high value on learning the local language.  Learning the local language is often seen as little more than a means to an end. The end for most followers of Jesus is the proclamation of the gospel.

And yes, this is essential!  This is why we go.

But it too often reduces to the local language to nothing more than a tool.  This is unfortunate because language is always so much more than just a tool.  Language is the carrier of culture and worldviews, of relationships, of love and joy and pain and fear and hope.  

When we reduce language to merely a tool, we often come to the conclusion that we need not bother learning any of that language when we travel as part of a short term mission trip.

This is unfortunate for a number of reasons.
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Practically speaking, language is important to survive.  At the very least we can all understand just how important it might be to be able to say, "Do you know where the bathroom is?"  Learning 10 - 20 survival phrases will go along way to saving you from the embarrassment of being lost or unable to find the nearest bathroom.

Relationally speaking, our efforts to posture ourselves as learners of the language and culture communicate fundamentally important respect and honor for the people to whom we have gone to serve.  Nothing says that you actually care about the person in front of you quite as powerfully as stepping into the humble place of a language learner.  In doing so, by taking on the role of the learner, of the one without the power,  you invite your host to in effect, take you by the hand lead you. 

This is an act of kindness.  This is laying down our rights. This is love.

I want to encourage you to take a few minutes to read a four page essay written by Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster.  They were at the forefront of helping generations of missionaries learn the languages of the people they were going to serve.  The Charles Kraft quote above comes from this powerful essay. 

You can read it here: Language Learning is Communication -- Is Ministry


Getting Started
So you have a trip on the horizon.   You are a few weeks away from departure or perhaps you have many months to prepare.  Regardless of how much time you have,  here are a few things you can do to begin learning the language.  These are the things I'm doing to learn French for an upcoming trip to West Africa.

Sign up for Duolingo: Ten minutes a day will give you a beginning in the language and get you started with a foundation of vocabulary and basic grammar structures.  You can find it on the app store for your smart phone or you can access it on your computer. (learn more here)

Begin Listening to Worship Music:  For the past month or so I've had a French worship mix from Hilllsong playing in the background while I work during the day.  In a way, what I am doing is training my ear to hear and distinguish sounds, intonation and rhythms of the French language.   You can find worship music by searching for it on Youtube.  For example, by searching on Youtube for "French Worship",  I found this mix of French worship songs. 

Listen to a Gospel:  Chose one of the gospels and begin listening to a chapter or two every day.  When you finish, start over from the beginning.  You'll be surprised how much you begin to understand.  You can find many languages available on the Youversion app or the Bible.is app.

Memorize Phrases:  Find and memorize 10 - 20 important phrases in the language.  Make sure that one of those phrases is, "Can you help me learn your language?"  

​Here are 25 phrases I'll be starting to learn in French.

Keep Learning:  While in the country take every opportunity to practice with your local hosts.  Keep learning. Ask questions.  Boldly step into the role of being the town clown!  Yes, people will be entertained by your language foibles, but it is worth it! 

A language mentor of mine used to say that "it takes a million mistakes to learn another language  ---  So get started!"

Don't Miss Out
Investing as much time and energy as you can in learning the language will do much to make your trip more meaningful and transformational.   We all have different capacities and time constraints but we can all do something.  It is what you'd want someone to do for you if they were coming to visit you.  Jesus tells us to "do to others as you'd have them do to you." 

Learning the language then is an act of obedience to Jesus. 
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Don't miss out.  

Click here for Free Language Learning Resources From E2E

My Language Learning Story
In a past iteration of life, I was a language coach, helping everyday, ordinary people be more effective, more efficient and have more fun with the language learning journey.  I created a number of resources that I'd love to be able to pass on to you if you would find them helpful.  I have a number of ebooks as well as a series of videos.  You can watch the language learning tips videos HERE.  If you would like to have any of the ebooks,  leave a comment below.

Below is one of those language learning tip videos.  Enjoy!

Cross-cultural relationships in the church are often shaped by unseen power imbalances—but through humility, intentionality, and the example of Christ, those dynamics can be transformed into mutual, life-giving partnership.
By Aaron Myers

Power.

Power does funny things to relationships. It changes the dynamics of how relationships form and grow and become.  

When I met my first friend in kindergarten, we met and built our relationships on even ground. Neither of us could read or write, we both struggled with things like tying our shoes and sitting still in class, we both came from similar backgrounds and approached our lives which had similar challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, we both spoke English, the language of our neighborhood, region and country.

As I grew older I began to realize that forming relationships takes work.  It takes time and it often takes patience. Sometimes relationships come easily.  Other relationships takes more time and more energy, and sometimes I realized, our differences in life experiences create relational dynamics that make it more difficult to build authentic relationships.  This is often the case with cross-cultural relationships.

Cultural differences create relational challenges that are often difficult to overcome. There are many types of differences; some obvious, some less obvious, but these differences impact the relationships we form. While we can all work to overcome these differences, some create power dynamics which inhibit the normal formation of relationships.

Let me give you an example.

I was at a conference in a North American city. The conference was a gathering of African pastors and elders from around the upper Midwest. All of them had come to the U.S. as refugees following a season of intense persecution against their particular tribe in their home region. All of them were men of reputation in their communities back in Africa, and those reputations in many ways transferred with them to the U.S. They were leaders of men.

They had invited several American leaders from their denomination to teach at the conference. Though I wasn’t part of that denomination, I had been asked to lead a training on engaging and sharing the gospel with Muslims. Even though my session wasn’t until the afternoon, I chose to attend the full day of meetings.

The morning teaching went well until one of the African leaders voiced a concern.   

His question was, "How can we do more to serve the North American church?"

The American leaders assured them there was no need to feel like they needed to do anything. 

What was missed in the exchange was the underlying feeling of the African pastor that they were being seen merely as charity cases. The Anglo churches who were allowing them to use their buildings were doing so in good faith, believing they were serving their brothers and sisters in Christ. But a number of things were at play that prevented authentic relationships to develop between the African churches and their American host churches. These dynamics led to relational realities that left these African pastors feeling like they were not being understood or appreciated.  

First was a general assumption that the African churches were basically poor and needy. In that sense the African pastors were struggling with a sense that they were being viewed as charity cases. 

That was unfortunate. 

A Few Ideas

Here are a few ways you can disrupt this relational power dynamic.

1. Invest in learning their language. In doing so, you put yourself in the place of the learner. You, in essence, hand over some of the power by taking up the role of learner.
2. Invite an immigrant pastor to teach in your church. Provide translation from their language to English. 
3. Invite yourself over to your immigrant friend's house for a meal. Honor them by allowing them to serve you. Be uncomfortable wandering into their territory and wondering what the proper protocol is when being received as a guest: should you bring a gift; do you take your shoes off or leave them on; what do we do when we have something on our plate that we do not recognize? These are all challenges and points of discomfort that your immigrant friends face daily.  
4. Go with an immigrant pastor to minister in their home country. Go as a learner and support their work.
5. Listen to their story and hear their vision for what they see God doing in their church, in your city and to the ends of the earth.
6. Read a few helpful books and perhaps have your congregations read a few helpful books.
   1. ​Global Humility by Andy McCullough
   2. Foreign to Familiar by Sarah Lanier
   3. Western Christians in Global Mission by Paul Borthwick

The task before us is not an easy one. Building healthy relationships is difficult enough as it is.  Add in the imbalance of power that naturally occurs in cross cultural relationships and the task can seem insurmountable.

But it's not.  

With prayer, humility and a bit of hard work, we can find a better way. ​

Here are some of the articles, podcasts and videos we've been encourged and challenged by this last month.

Why Some See Movements and Others Don't by C. Anderson  - "People who want to see movements default to prayer as their most critical activity."

Teens Today are Dying to Find Hope by Angie  Glasser

Where's the Time Going? by Chuck Wood (thoughts on discipleship)

Bullseye Discipleship - Time by Chuck Wood (more thoughts on discipleship

Fewer Foreign Students Coming to US for Second Year in a Row: Survey

Lifestyle Evangelism with Dr. Jerry Root by Crescent Project Radio (part 1;  part 2)

And below we have a great talk by Steve Smith author of Spirit walk and co-author of T4T: Discipleship Re-Revolution.

The second video is a song by Jess Ray that gets to the tendency we have to box God in and require Him to be smaller than He is to fit into our carefully planned lives.  It's been challenging me all week.

Here in South Dakota it's harvest season . . . it’s still harvest season.  

It's been a difficult harvest for the farmers. There has been too much rain leading to too much mud. There's been early snow.  There's been record breaking cold weather. And all of that has lead to a harvest that is still out in the fields. When they should just be wrapping up, there is still a long way to go.

The harvest is plentiful.  It's abundant - not record breaking by any means - but there are good yields coming in on the corn and soybeans.

The harvest is plentiful but this year the harvesting is also really difficult.

It's downright hard and probably frustrating and I'm quite certain many a local farmer has been at it until three and four in the morning more nights than they'd care to remember.

But do you know what no farmer ever said?

It's too hard, let's just forget about the harvest.
It's too late. Let's just go in and go to bed.
It's too frustrating.  Let's just give up.

You'll never hear those words from a farmer because their job - their calling - is to bring in the harvest.

Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.  Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

I've been convicted of my own sense of laziness and softness as I've watched - and helped a little - as my family works to bring in the harvest.  They carry with them a stubborn perseverance, a tenacity and focus that I would do well to learn from.

As I pray for 2,000 Muslims to have an opportunity to hear the gospel here in our region and as I work to do my part to see the 3 billion who have never heard the gospel have a chance to hear it, will I grab hold of the vision and stick with it with everything I've got until it becomes a reality or until I die?

Jesus makes two statements in this verse:

1. The harvest is plentiful and
2. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

 

• He in no way promises that the harvest will be an easy harvest.
• He in no way promises that the harvest will be a safe harvest.
• He in no way promises that the harvest will be a comfortable harvest.

He tells us to open our eyes and look to the fields.  They are ripe for harvest! (John 4:35)

The work of salvation is the exclusive work of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus tells his disciples in John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day," and later in John 12:32 says, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”  

And so while the work is God's to do, he invites us into that  work as He sends us into the world as his witnesses and ambassadors (John 17:18; Acts 1:8; 2 Corinthians 5:20).

The question is, will I pour my life into bringing in the harvest?

Will I dedicate my time and shun distraction and learn what I need to learn and rest when I need to rest and pray like everything depends on it because there is an abundant harvest in the field and the Father wants me to be about the work of bringing it in.

It's my prayer that I will continue to grow in my dedication to the harvest.  

It's the Father's heart!

What about You?

Will you pray that your hearts would be shaped more and more like the Father's heart? 
 
Will you pray that your hearts would be broken more and more for lostness?

And will you pray that we all begin to live with the same kind of urgency and focus and stubborn perseverance for the lost locally, nationally and globally that our local farmers have for the harvest sitting out in the field.

Action Steps
Here are a few things you can do to begin to grow your heart for the harvest.

Pray Luke 10:2 - Set an alarm on your watch or phone that goes off every day at 10:02 and commit to obeying Jesus and praying for the harvest.

Pray for your network - On a note card write down the names of everyone you know who is far from God and commit to praying for them every day.

Discover - Read and Meditate on the following passages in scripture:  Luke 15; John 17; Matthew 28:16-20; Genesis 12:1-4)

Discover - Read the book of Acts once a week for the next four weeks (4 chapters a day).

​

Zume is a small group training module focused on helping small bands of Jesus followers learn how to obey the great commission and to multiply.

And in that, it is not your average small group study.

Zume is an online training that has ten lessons of roughly two hours each.  

Over the last decade I've been regularly learning about discipleship and particularly, the principles of discipleship that lead to multiplication and the rapid expansion of the kingdom of God.  One of the sources of that continued learning which has perhaps had more influence than any other is the Movements Podcast by Steve Addison.  

Steve regularly interviews practitioners from across the world who are applying these principles and seeing movements emerge.  I'd encoueage you to skip over to Steve's website right now and find out how you can subscribe to the podcast.

Visit  Movements.net  Now

One of those practitioners who has been frequent guest and who is one of the leaders of the No Place Left movement across the world is Jeff Sundell.  It is not without reason that Jeff,  who hales from Bugger Hollow North Carolina and who spent much of his life making disciples in Asia, has been perhaps the most frequent guest on the Movements Podcast.

And so when the most recent episode of the podcast featured a report from Jeff and his wife Angie's summer in Athens, I queued it up on my phone to listen to right away.  I was not disappointed and there were so many nuggets of insight in their reporting that I went back and listened again, taking notes of the things that seemed extra important.

And so with this post I'd like to share those insights and encourage you to find some time in the next week to listen to the interview for yourself (or you can watch now below).
​

Here are a five of the nuggets that I gleaned from their conversation.  If there are any "nuggets" that you hear that I didn't mention, feel free to share them in the comments below.
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1.  The Gospel is worth it.

Angie started the inteview talking about the many times they heard heartbreaking stories from refugees who had lost everything.  People whose homes were destroyed, who had lost jobs, who had lost everything and over and over again they would say, "It was worth it!  It was worth it because when I came here I got to hear about Jesus."  The Gospel is worth it!

2.  Train everyone to be a disciple maker.

One of the adjustments that the disciple makers had to make as they worked with refugee populations had to do with the transient nature of the people.   A new believer from a Muslim background might be in Athens for a year or they might just be there for a month or even days.  The workers on the ground began to cast vision early and often for the great commission and to train everyone to identify lostness, to share their faith and to make disciples.  Everyone they worked with was seen as a potential missionary carrying the gospel to the next location whether that was further into Europe or back to their own country.  Train everyone!

3. Little happens if disciples of Jesus are not broken for lostness.

Again and again, they saw that the hearts of those who had found faith in Christ and who were sharing that faith boldly, were broken for the lost.  Their families didn't know Jesus. Their people didn't know Jesus.  That was a heavy burden on their hearts which compelled them to go and to pray and to share.  All the methods and tools in the world will do little good if the people of God are not broken by the lostness around them.

4. Focus on the grandchildren.

This was one of the most interesting and powerful lessons from the interview.  As the summer progressed, one of the changes they made in coaching and relating to the leaders in Athens, was to stop asking about how they were doing at sharing the gospel, discipling new believers and leading new churches and to begin talking with them only about how their grandchildren were doing at those things.  In other words, they began consistently asking about their disciples' disciples.  This shift lead to more concientious focus on training disciples to train disciples and resulted in better discipleship.

5.  A Hub stategy allows for local, national and global mission to exist.

I had first heard the idea of a hub strategy from Steve Smith in a 2016 article in Mission Frontiers Magazine.  That article caught my attention and over the last few years I have continued to think about what home hubs would actually look like.  It was Troy Cooper's Great Commission Pipeline video about a hub strategy which was published in April of 2018 that really fleshed out the idea for me though.  Jeff and Angie got to see the fruit of that kind of strategy in Athens and it is exciting to see it develop and grow.

​Those are five things that I gleaned from the interview.

What about you?  
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I have heard the sentiment from a number of different people over the last few years - usually from moms.

Aren't there any missions experiences or training events that we can do as a family?

Too often, in order to get trained or to go out on a mission trip, we have to find someone to watch the kids and yet we want desperately to model for our kids what it means to live on mission. 

Not easy to do when we are forced to leave the kids at home.

Everywhere to Everywhere has always been an event that is open to families coming and we've worked to create an experiential weekend of learning and training that older kids can enter into along with mom and dad.  
 
Our regular E2E training weekends are good for high schoolers and mature junior high students who come with a parent.  The learning is often discovery based and interactive and much of the weekend is experienced outside of the training room at the local mosque, ethnic restaurants and in neighborhoods.  

But it still hasn't been conducive to a family with elementary aged children.  And so in May we will have our very first E2E Family Weekend. 

The idea is to create a weekend of learning and ministry that the whole family can come to together.  It will be for school aged kids and above.  We still aren't ready for babies and toddlers but are working to create a great weekend that the whole family can enter into together.

We will continue to working on the details and adjustments that need to be made and even today I came across another challenge that we need to consider: early bedtimes!

Our family is working together to create a weekend that your family can enter into together.  But we'd love your  feedback as well.  Stop by and read through the program description page and then share your ideas in the comments for adaptations and adjustments that would help create a family friendly E2E weekend.  

The dates for the first E2E Family will be May 31 - June 2 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.