 World Christians are (in Corrie Ten Boom’s phrase) “tramps for the Lord” who have left their hiding places to roam the Gap with the Savior. They are heaven’s expatriates, camping where the kingdom is best served. They are earth’s dispossessed, who’ve journeyed forth to give a dying world not only the Gospel but their own souls as well. They are members of God’s global dispersion down through history and out through the nations, reaching the unreached and blessing the families of earth. Do you want to be a "tramp for the Lord"? Do you want to roam the Gap with the savior? Do you want to journey fourth to give a dying world the good news of Jesus? Start by reading David Bryant's article, To Be A World Christian. Contact Us and we'll work to encourage and equip to you go into the harvest, locally, regionally and globally.
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 In the 18th chapter of the book of Luke, Jesus encounters the rich young ruler. If you’ve been a follower of Christ for long, it is probably a familiar story. If not, stop and read it here. A devout man approaches Jesus wondering what he must do to be saved. Jesus walks through the commandments - have you obeyed these? The man replies confidently that he has kept the commands all of his life. And then Jesus does a curious thing. He asks the man to do one more thing: sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. The story follows that, because the man was very wealthy he became very sad and presumably, walked away. Following Jesus is a tall order. My friend Justin uses this story in trainings to highlight the reality that Jesus isn’t looking for lukewarm Christians. This isn’t the only time that Jesus’ words and teaching drive away potential followers. There’s that crazy scene in John 6 where “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Jesus is looking for committed disciples. He will build his kingdom not with crowds but with dedicated disciples. While the world yearns for numbers, Jesus is looking for committed men and women. Justin lays out what this commitment might look like using the great commission. He draws out five commitments from the passage and they provide a helpful rubric through which I can reflect on my own heart. I think they will be helpful for you as well. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Five Commitments To Be A Disciple of Jesus
It starts with our willingness and commitment. If you are a leader, a good question to ask first is, "Am I willing?" but the next question has to be, "Are the people I am investing in willing?" Are they committed disciples or merely lukewarm attendees. You can fill the pews with the latter but Jesus wants to transform your community, your city, your state and nation - he will turn the world upside down with unschooled, ordinary men and women if they will commit themselves to living the surrendered life and being with Jesus. As we answer this question we can begin working toward the next question as well: Are they able?
It is no mistake that Jesus bookends his commission with authority and presence. I can do much in my own power but Jesus reminds me that unless I live the surrendered life which I can only do if I abide in Him and experience His presence, little of what I do will have any eternal impact.  Justin leads a great ministry called Primary. He would love to come alongside you and coach you and your fellowship into the committed life of disciple making. Contact Justin   One of the number one reasons former Muslims give for leaving Islam and coming to faith in Christ is that they met a true follower of Jesus. The challenge is that the vast majority of the 1.8 billion Muslims in our world today live in places where there are no followers of Jesus. In Turkey for example, a nation of over 80 million, fewer than 10,000 have left Islam to follow Christ and eighteen of the country’s 81 provinces have no known churches. Most Turks will not hear a clear presentation of the gospel this year - perhaps not in their lifetime. They won’t have a friend who is a follower of Jesus. It is much the same for Hindus, Buddhists and the followers of the world's many other religions who live in what missiologists call the 10/40 window. 95% of the world's unreached people groups live in the 10/40 window. Globalization is bringing the people of the world to countries where there are churches in every neighborhood and Christians all around them. Technology is opening up the world to communicate with one another in ways never before imagined. English is the new lingua franca and it is easier than ever to connect with a unreached peoples - and their families - and to be the first true follower of Jesus they have ever met. Covid-19 is a terrible disease that is bringing and will continue to bring great loss to our world. But it is also bringing opportunity. Children across the globe have been sent home from school. They are isolated and oftentimes alone and are spending their time online. Your children are home. Muslim children are home. Hindu children are home. Buddhist children are home. What would it take to help your child be the first real Christian one of these children has ever met? What would it look like if you could help your child build a friendship with a child their same age and gender from another country? There are dozens of online communities working to connect children with other children and adults with other adults through the age old practice of pen pals. Some help you connect through traditional mail. Many more are helping make connections through email. I want to invite you to consider praying as a family about becoming pen pals with new friends in the Muslim world. Imagine if each member of your family were connecting with people in a Muslim majority country. Imagine how much you would learn about the world. Imagine the encouragement you could bring to an individual who is also living through this current world crisis. Imagine the conversations about Jesus that just may happen as you hear the story of your new friend’s life and they hear yours. Getting Started I want to first and foremost, encourage you to do this as a family. Your kids are going to make easy connections as they share about what they do for fun but depending on their age, they’ll probably need some coaching. And you, mom and dad, are going to need your kids to keep you accountable to continue to reach out and connect through email or regular letters with new friends. Be a family on mission together! When I first helped my son with pen pals in Turkey and Indonesia he was twelve. We went onto the website Pen Pal World together and I helped him set up his profile. We prayed about what countries to look into and then searched together for boys age 12 that he could connect with. He reached out to two and they both responded. Soon they were exchanging emails. They were super simple. At one point the thread of emails was over 70 replies between the two of them. One would ask a single question - “Who’s your favorite soccer team? - and the other would respond “Real Madrid,” and then send off a single question of their own, “What’s your favorite movie?” It felt a little ridiculous but they were two twelve year old boys getting to know one another. This boy happened to live in Indonesia. I monitored and checked in with my son regularly, encouraging him and helping him know how to proceed. Below are three sites through which you can find pen pals in the Muslim world. All three have their users create profiles which include the user’s gender, age and country. Be sure and help your children find friends who are the same age and gender - and that goes for you too! And then pray about what countries in which you would like to make connections. It’s a great reason to explore and learn about countries within the 10/40 window. A great resource to tune up your heart for these nations is Prayercast where you can learn about every country in the world. https://www.prayercast.com/ And a great resource to help you and your family learn more about Islam and how to share the love of Jesus with Muslims is the Bridges study. https://www.crescentproject.org/bridges Interpals Interpals started in 1998 and has been helping people make new friends across the globe ever since! You can sign up for free. You’ll need to create a profile and then you can search the profiles of others to find someone to write to. You can start by messaging on the Interpals website. This will all happen on their on-site inbox, which means you won’t need to give out personal information at first. Take some time to get to know the person you are connecting with. You will want to switch over to email though so that your conversations can happen more naturally. https://www.interpals.net/ PenPal World Like Interpals, PenPal World has also been active since 1998. Like Interpals, you will sign up, build a profile and search the profiles of others, then communicate within a PenPal World inbox. They also have some helpful safety features. They manually verify every single profile photo, and they enable minors to block all adults. http://www.penpalworld.com/ Global Penfriends Global Penfriends was established in 1995, and is a safe platform that runs in a very similar way to Interpals and PenPal World. It is completely free, and you set up a profile, search for others, and have a secure inbox. Unique to Global Penfriends is their My Post service, which enables members to send snail mail to each other via the internet! You can use this service to send any written correspondence: letters, postcards, birthday cards, invitations, etc. https://www.globalpenfriends.com/ Parents, you will want to look at each and see which suits your needs best. Please remember that these sites are secular sites open to anyone with an email address. They are for profit and so it is in their very best interest to make the sites as safe as possible. That said, it is up to you to stay safe and remain vigilant. You and your children have an opportunity to build real friendships and to be Christ’s ambassadors in a lost and broken world. And you can do it together! Learn more about unreached people groups and the 10/40 window in the short video below.  Sahara Challenge is an important training opportunity for anyone wanting to go deeper in their understanding of how to better minister to Muslims. It is Crescent Project's top tier training event and because of Covid-19 will this year be offered online for the first time ever, making it more accessible than ever before.
Included in the Online Event:
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.
* Information taken from the Crescent Project website.  Laylat al-Qadr - the night of power - is the night during the month of Ramada that Muslims celebrate the receiving of the first of the Quranic revelations by Mohamed. For Muslims it is a sacred night, perhaps the most sacred night in the Islamic calendar and is a night spent on tasks such as prayer, reciting the Quran and spending as much time as possible at their local mosque. It is believed that worship and prayer on this night is more valuable than one thousand other nights of worship and prayer. It is a night when the hearts and minds of Muslims all across the world are focused on one thing: trying to please God. And it is a night that we as followers of Christ can gather around our Lord's throne of grace, asking God to make Jesus known to Muslims all across the world. This year, Laylat al-Qadr falls on Tuesday, May 19th. Will you set aside time this year to take action? Will you do one thing to join God in His global purpose to see Muslims worshiping Him? WILL YOU LEARN MORE? Stop by the Prayercast page, watch the prayercast video and read more about the Night of Power. WILL YOU PRAY? Will you set aside time on Tuesday, May 19th to pray for your Muslim friends and Muslims in general. Pray that on this night:
WILL YOU FAST? Consider fasting on Tuesday May 19th as you pray. Skip meals from sun up until sun down. Fast for 24 hours or more. Maybe fast from media or your smartphone. Give something up as a way to focus your prayers during this day. Will you do something this year to join God as he calls Muslims to himself?  For most of my life I’ve wanted to improve my prayer life. Having read the biographies of many great men and women of God and observing the Biblical examples from Jesus to Moses to the apostles, I’ve always known that prayer was an important part of the life of the disciple of Jesus. And for most of my life, I’ve not lived up to my own desires to pray more. The reality is that my knowledge of the importance of prayer has not yet led to a default toward prayer. But I want it to. Curtis Sergeant introduced me to a helpful tool to improve my prayer life, helping me to pray for one hour at a time. I don’t use it often enough but because it is a helpful tool, I’ll be adding it to the Everywhere to Everywhere resource page. The resource is called The Prayer Wheel and it is a part of the Zume Free Online Training. The prayer wheel allows you to pray in five minute increments for one hour. You will need some sort of timing device (Zume Timer) that you can set to let you know when five minutes is up so you can move on to the next section for prayer. THE BASIC PRAYER WHEEL OUTLINE
I have created a simple bookmark so that you can carry the prayer wheel with you where ever you go. Set aside an hour and spend it in prayer with the Prayer Wheel as your guide. Download the Prayer Wheel Bookmark I hope that you will find the prayer wheel a helpful tool for increasing your prayer life and your ability to hear from the Holy Spirit. It has been in many ways a helpful training tool for me but it will only help you if you try it out and apply it. Learn more about the Prayer Wheel from others:  Did Jesus give the Apostle Paul a strategy for reaching the nations? Yes, he did and it is a strategy for our day as well. Steve Addison often quips that we need to stop asking 'What would Jesus do?' and start asking another question: What did Jesus do? Luke 10:1-23 offers us a window into one of the things Jesus did and it is a window into both his methods of discipling his followers as well as a strategy he uses to reach into new areas with the gospel. It is a strategy that the Apostle Paul employs throughout his ministry and is especially visible on his second missionary journey as recorded in Acts chapters 16 - 18. This is of course not the only strategy that Jesus gives his followers nor is it the only strategy for reaching into new harvest fields that the Apostle Paul uses, but within Luke 10 are a number of examples and principles that we, like Paul, would do well to pay attention to and at the very least, try out. They are not the way we in the west usually go about things but they are the way that Jesus taught his first followers to take the gospel into new regions. Let's look at a few of the examples and principles from Luke 10. Pray for Harvesters In Luke 10:2 Jesus tells the 72 to pray for more workers. This is interesting because as sent ones, they are the workers. The implication seems to be that there are workers in the harvest! As Paul worked through Macedonia and Greece, the leaders of all of the churches that emerge in Acts 16 - 18 are new believers who came out of the harvest. Paul did not lead these churches. There is no mention of him even planting churches. Paul made disciples (Matthew 28:18-20) and churches emerged as new disciples were raised up and began to share the gospel and make disciples. Find the Person of Peace Jesus instructs the 72 to find a peaceful person, someone who welcomes them into their home. He gives them further instruction that, if a peaceful person cannot be found, they should brush the dust off of their feet and move on. It seems that there will be a God prepared person who welcomes them, or their won't be. The presence of that person or lack their of is out of their hands. It is a work of the Father who draws people to Jesus. Paul trusts Jesus' strategy. For Paul it looks like this: Enter a new town or context. Find the place where people gather - usually a synagogue. Preach the Gospel. Get kicked out. Discover that there are a handful of people who want to follow Jesus. When Paul proclaims the gospel there are always three responses as clearly articulated in Athens in Acts 17:32-33. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Paul knew that there would be three response:
Stay with the Person of Peace As part of Jesus' instructions, he also tells the 72 to not move around from house to house but rather to stay with the person of peace. Jesus does not tell us why we should stay, but in the example of Paul we see the fruit of staying in place. Paul is not the local who will establish the movement in each town. The local person - the cultural insider - will be the one to stay. Lydia, the Philippian Jailer, Jason in Thessalonica, the elders in Berea, Dionysius and Damaris in Athens, Aquilla and Priscilla in Corinth as well as Crispus the synagogue ruler and his entire household! These are the people who become the leaders of the gospel movements in each of their respective regions. Paul has stayed with them, he's shared meals with them and invested in raising them up to be disciples of Jesus! This is perhaps most clearly seen in Thessolonica where Paul spent just three Sabbaths [learn more]. Everywhere Paul goes he finds a person of peace, a God prepared person whom God is going to use to establish the local expression of faith. Paul has no plan to leave a “church planter” behind to lead the new church for a time. It seems that from the very beginning the plan is to have a new believer lead the church. These are just three of the principles from Luke 10 that Paul applies as he works to obey Jesus and make disciples. A deeper study of the sending out of the 12 in Luke 9, Matthew 10 and Mark 6 would be be helpful to further compare how Paul took the example of Jesus and applied it to his efforts to take the gospel to the very ends of the earth. If Jesus' example and the principles of Luke 10 were good enough for Paul, it seems we ought to at least look at these passages and explore what applying them to our current context might look like.  I remember growing up, my grandmother would tell stories of the waning days of the Great Depression and the first years of World War II. I was captivated by the way she and the whole country seemed to respond to the crisis of war and depression. She told stories not only of the young men who willingly signed up to defend freedom but also of the ways those who stayed behind stepped up to serve, sacrificially rationing and growing gardens and doing anything they could to support the war effort. Those stories left a longing in me to live a purposeful life of sacrifice and meaning. The Covid-19 pandemic is our crisis. For many of us, we are looking for purposeful ways to respond. Somehow, “stay at home and watch Netflix” just doesn’t seem all that meaningful, even though we know it is the best thing to do (at least the stay at home part). As followers of Christ then, what are the ways we can respond that are meaningful and in partnership with the mission of God. Nearly six billion people in our world do not yet call themselves Christians and over two billion don’t even have access to an opportunity to hear the gospel. Here are five different ways you can be a part of God’s global mission, even as you stay at home. LEARN As the global pause button continues to be depressed, take the extra time you have to learn more about God’s mission and how you can be a part of it. Here are several ideas:
ENCOURAGE Isolation and loneliness are real issues in a time of pandemic. I trust you are already doing your part to discover creative ways to encourage those in your neighborhood, your church family and your immediate family. But missionaries and our global brothers and sisters in Christ are also isolated in times like these. Here are a few ideas for encouraging them.
PRAY Too often, followers of Jesus underestimate the power of prayer. It seems that in the pandemic and the forced slowing of life, prayer would be the greatest response would could give to the Lord. Here are a number of resources to help you pray more.
GO Mission trips have been canceled, missionaries have had to return from the field and stay at home orders abound across the globe and yet the opportunity to go into the Muslim world has never been greater. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, more people on every continent are home bound than ever in world history. They are isolated, alone, and wondering what tomorrow will hold. Hundreds of thousands of young Muslim men and women who speak English are also sheltering in their homes, smartphone in hand, surfing the Internet in search of answers, hope and friendship. What if they met you? Volunteer with Embassy and they will teach you how to connect online with Muslims in difficult to access nations. You will almost certainly be the first follower of Jesus they have ever met. Sign up for a free one hour introductory training or stop by the Embassy website to learn more. FILTER We live in a media saturated world. Messages come fast and furious from every device we own and many are wondering if we can trust any of the news we hear. How do we filter through all the nose? The reality is that we are all being discipled - being formed - by the messages that dominate our days. Because of this it is imperative that we shut off the noise and immerse ourselves in the word of God. As we do this, the word of God will increasingly become the filter through which all other messages have to pass. If the dominant source of messages in our day is our favorite right leaning or left leaning news outlet, it will become the filter, even filtering the way we read the Bible. Nobody is making you listen to the news or keep scrolling through your Facebook feed. Nobody is forcing you to not read your Bible. It’s a choice we all have to make. We have an opportunity to filter what we read, hear and see. As we do that and as we prayerfully seek God’s direction each day we will find the things we can do in this season of global pandemic and God will use us in his global purposes.  "What can I do?" It's a question that Jesus' disciples all across the world are wrestling with during these unprecedented times. Covid-19 has locked us indoors and it seems the best way to love others is to stay away from them. These are indeed strange days. For many, you've spent the last years investing in the lives of friends who do not yet follow Jesus. You love them dearly. You've served them tirelessly and now, you can't see them. And so we ask, "Lord, what can I do?" For many the last years have been spent doing things for God. We serve the church. We help with programs. We feed the poor. We go to this event and that activity. We lead Bible study. We do, do, do. And so when the world comes to a halt, we ask, "Lord, what can I do?" For myself, this has been a journey into a lesson the Holy Spirit has been trying to teach me for the last few years. I'm a slow learner! I am by nature, a doer. Perhaps we all are. But in this moment, when "doing" has been in many ways stripped away, I've found myself wandering, wondering, worrying. Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things? And who am I? The first week in particular was tough. I'd wander in and out of a sort of discombobulated haze, not knowing up from down, not knowing what I'd do with myself once I finished the next email I was writing or the call I was on. My "doer" was being battered and I didn't know what to . . . well, do. In it all I could hear the whisper of God in the distance, an inviting calm that, as the days wore on and my chaos subsided, I began to listen to and to recognize. Be my child. Be my friend. Be a member of my church. Be a citizen of heaven. Be my workmanship. Be my new creation. Be justified and righteous. Be secure in my hand. Be free from condemnation. Be with Me. Be with Me. Be with Me. How are you finding ways to simply be with Jesus this week?  The book of Exodus begins with unimaginable hardship. Pharaoh, fearing the growing number of Hebrews in his kingdom, orders the execution of every newborn Hebrew boy. Babies are torn from their mother's arms and tossed murderously into the Nile River. And then Moses is born. Like many others, his mother hides him away for as long as she can, hushing his cries, hoping beyond hope for a way through this holocaust of the newborns. The Bible doesn't say why she does it, but his mother builds a little basket, coats it with tar and then sends her daughter off to the river with baby Moses in his tiny ark. I can imagine the scene. The sister comes to a bank along the river where the reeds have grown thick. She steps into the water, feet sinking in mud and begins pushing her way through the razor sharp stems. She fights to keep her balance as the stench of the river mud floats up around her. Finally she comes to a place where the reeds thin out. They've been cleared away so that the pharaoh's daughter can come down and bath. The sister sets the basket gently in the water where it floats, still hemmed in by the reeds but clearly visible to anyone who might come down to the water. She backs away, far enough not to be noticed yet still able to keep an eye on her brother. Exodus 2:4 says, "His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him." There she stands in the muck and mud, scratched by reeds, swatting flies and mosquitoes. She waits and she watches, hoping to see in the water the ripples of redemption. Exodus 2:4 is filled with expectation. Surely something will happen. Surely God will act. And God does act. He saves Moses and sets the stage for the freeing of the Hebrew slaves. Many of us find ourselves in the muck and mud of our present moment. We're battered and bruised by the Covid-19 pandemic. We look around and it seems the bad news grows daily. Some of us have experienced the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a dream. Everyone it seems will experience some sort of loss. While we need to mourn with those who mourn in this season, as followers of Christ we can also look expectantly for the ripples of redemption. Our God is a redeemer God. The next few months may not be easy. They may be the hardest times we have ever lived through, but if we look to the scriptures we see a pattern: God uses hard times to set the stage for unimaginable good. Joseph is thrown into a pit, sold into slavery and tossed in a dungeon. All before God rescues him and uses him to save the whole world from famine. Stephen is brutally murdered, stoned in the public square. And yet the very next moment, as his friends mourn his loss, he is with the risen Christ in heaven. As persecution breaks out, the good news of Jesus, the gospel, begins to spread all across the Roman world as fleeing Christians share about Jesus everywhere they go. God is a redeemer. Whether our current calamities are caused by God's discipline, Satan's attack or are merely the by products of a broken world, God can and will redeem it for our good and for His glory. And so as we look to him, as we hope in Him, as we trust in Him, we will see the ripples of redemption. |
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