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.

Availability. 

It’s not often mentioned in the list of important qualities of disciples of Jesus but in our strung out western world, it may well be the most important gift followers of Jesus have to offer a broken and hurting world.

Availability. 

It is what Moses had when God called him to lead the people of Israel out of captivity.  He was not a gifted speaker.  He made bad decisions.  He wasn’t very brave.  But he was available and in his going back to Egypt he allowed God to work through him to rescue slaves unto freedom and to move God’s redemptive story forward.

Availability is what Gideon had when God called him to lead an army.  Granted, Gideon was hiding in a winepress when God found him, and he wasn’t exactly excited to jump on God’s bandwagon.  Once Gideon’s fleece was wet however, he obeyed even as God reduced his regiment to a hilariously small number that gave all the glory to God in victory.

And Rahab was available too. 

​She was a woman of ill repute, a foreigner and a prostitute who at the time we can assume knew very little of the God of the Israelites except what she has overheard; that He had been victorious in recent skirmishes and miraculously parted the Red Sea.  She steps into God’s redemptive story when two of Israel’s spies step into her room and she risks her life to hide them.

If we survey the prominent characters of the Biblical narrative, few are chosen because they are highly qualified leaders.  A few were of course – King Saul, Judas, Saul of Tarsus, but most of these didn’t work out so well.  It seems the highly qualified often lean a little too deeply into self reliance and self reliance usually leads to trusting in man rather than trusting in God.

Relying on his own gifts and abilities and education, Saul of Tarsus was hunting down followers of Jesus to have them arrested and thrown in prison.  It was only when he left his highly qualified self behind that Saul became available to become Paul and the man whom God could use to build his church.

When we look through the hall of fame that is Hebrews eleven, the number one thing each of the faithful had to give to God was themselves.

They said yes.  They were available.

And while Jesus is highly qualified in every way, he models the radical availability that allowed him to say, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

And that is why Jesus’ ministry looks so vastly different than the successful ministries of today.  His is the ministry of availability, of responding to the interruptions of the masses, of walking miles out of his way to heal a leader’s son, of inviting the little children to come to him.

​Jesus’ model is not that of the best leadership style but of availability.​

Jesus' avalibility in ministry begins as He models an availability to abide.   Despite an incredibly full ministry, Jesus routinely makes time to be with the Father.  He is part of the triune forever relationship of God and Son and Holy Spirit and this carries on into His thirty three years on earth.

He is a master of scripture, a mastery that most certainly came from years of immersion in those same scriptures.  He is a master as well of prayer, of interceding on behalf of the sick and the demon possessed and the lost.  There is authority in his prayers.  And Jesus is the master at communing with God, of walking in a living relationship with the Father. 

He is the master of abiding and he invites us first and foremost to do the same.  And so while the immediate needs of the masses continually pressed in around him during his ministry on earth, we see the clear model that, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
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When Peter and John were before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4, the characteristic recorded for all posterity is not that of highly qualified leadership skills or a refined speaking ability.  It was that they had been with Jesus.  The Sanhedrin note that while they were “ordinary unschooled men”, they had been with Jesus.  Peter and John had become masters of abiding with God because it is the model that Jesus gave them.

And so at the forefront of the discipleship journey, we as followers of Jesus must learn to be available to abide with him.  Despite the chaos of our frenzied western existence, we must learn to set aside time to be with Jesus.   

Abiding is to be our first act of availability.

It was from this lifestyle of abiding availability that Jesus’ ministry flowed.  And in his three years of ministry as recorded in the gospels, He models again and again the servant heart that makes him available to engage hurting, lost people – even when they interrupt him.

It seems an almost regular occurrence that Jesus responds to a pleading father, a frightened and sick woman or a shouting blind man.  He is regularly going one way and then – in response to a need – heads another way.  It seems at times haphazard and yet it’s not. 

His ministry is focused.

He went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.  There was purpose in his journeys.  He trained up twelve men who would go on to launch His movement.  He gave his followers what they needed – himself – to spread the good news of His kingdom.

Like Jesus we must live strategic lives of engagement with a clear goal in mind.  But the way to do that – as modeled by Jesus – is first and foremost to be with God.  To make knowing God our first priority. 

• We must set aside regular time to go away and sit at the feet of the Father. 
• We must practice listening prayer.
• Immersion in the scriptures must be a central part of our daily routines.
• We must step fully into abiding in Christ.

And when we do.  When we learn to discern the voice of God.  When we begin to do only what the Father is doing.  

Then we will be working in the ministry of availability.

 The round up will be a semi regular feature of the E2E blog.  With it we hope to share some of the articles, podcasts and videos that have inspired us or that we've learned from in the past weeks and months.  We'll simply post the title of the article, podcast or video with the link embedded. We hope it will be helpful and that you will grow in your heart for the nations and your understanding of how you can be part of reaching the nations because of this feature. 

Social Media On The Mission Field - Tweaks and Tips (article)

Looking  Beneath the Surface (article)

A Priest and a Rabbi Walk Into a Bar (article)

​Not Immediatly Finding a Man of Peace? (article)

Apartment Evangelism is Moving the Gospel (article)

How Local Missions Impacts Global Missions (article and video)

Abiding in Christ (Video teaching series)

God, Give us Austin, Texas or we die! (Podcast)

As we head out into diverse neighborhoods in our city, we often run into new Americans, people who've just recently come to North America and who have yet to master the English language.  Like first generation immigrants from years past, they'll probably never master English, working rather to earn a living and give their children a chance at a better life than they had.  

As someone interested in sharing the good news of Jesus with these new neighbors, this poses an interesting challenge. 
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• How do we communicate? 
• How do we build relationship? 
• How do we tell the story of Jesus?

Technology offers a way around this challenge.  There are some amazing apps that you can use to help  share the good news of Jesus with the nations among us.  These can be found by searching for the apps below on either your iPhone or Android phone.  

Here are seven smart phone apps for reaching the nations among us that we have found helpful.  As always, if you know of others, please share them in the comments below.

[READ ALL OF THE 7 SERIES BLOG POSTS]
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