Around this time of year, I usually like to reflect on the previous 12 months and look ahead to the next 12. I usually take note of major themes, areas of growth, things I wish I could do better. This year, with limited time, and a lot of transition going on in life, with baby and a new job ( something I may explain more later) my thoughts have been limited. They have mostly been directed toward who I want to be in the year 2012. I started to have some thoughts about what I hope become the defining characteristics of me as a person. As I have listened for the Holy Spirit to speak to me, I seem to have come up with a few core understandings that I hope will become somewhat of a metric for me to continually measure my growth.

I know, I know, this sounds bad already. You think I am just making a list so that I can check it off and say I’m a good person. And actually, in past years, that’s probably the only thing that this would turn out to be. But once I unveil my thoughts, you’ll see it’s not that bad. Here’s what I’m thinking:

In the year 2012, and every one after that, I want to be defined by these 5 things:

I want to be a listener – to the Holy Spirit that is. I want to see to it that most days I find myself breaking away to specifically listen to the Holy Spirit. I also want to do this throughout my day, practicing His presence in the midst of everything going on.

I want to be humble – and that humility will be manifested by prayer and the acknowledgment of God’s control in all circumstances. It is the opposite of me trying to be in control of everything that happens.

I want to be intentional – using my time to love, serve, and pour myself into others – not simply shallow, go-through-the-motions kinds of activities.

I want to be a tree – rooted in God’s courts, drinking the living water, and bearing fruit in its season. This flows out of the core understanding that everything I do, I do with God. It’s also about spending intentional time with Jesus.

I want to remain in love with my first love. There is no other motivation. It’s not about being proud of who I am or accomplishing the plans I set out to do. It’s not the work or the mission that we fall in love with, it is always Jesus. That is the only thing that can keep this set of characteristics from becoming about me.

I hope to make this a sort of guideline for consistently checking my growth. I know this may sound idealistic or rigid.  But I think I’ve learned enough about myself to know that I need some structure, some rhythms and habits to use to direct me in my relationship with Jesus. I also think that Jesus has taught me those things that hold me back, that consistently come between me and him or between me and His kingdom work. I hoping this will guide me in this coming year.

Well it’s about time to feed this baby. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or whatever, feel free to add some comments. Happy New Year!

This article articulates why so many youth have been and are leaving the church. Very good word.

I have been wanting to read a book about the Holy Spirit and gifts but haven’t gotten my hands on one yet. So this morning I decided to turn to the most authoritative source on the matter, the words of God. I probably should have turned here a few weeks ago when the thought first struck me. Better late than never right? Well I read 1 Cor. 12-14. And needless to say, there is a lot of study and unpacking that could be done there, that might be coming in the next few weeks, but here is what I know.

First, God forms us in community and gives us complementary gifts to do His work with believers and unbelievers.  It doesn’t make sense to try to go about the Christian life alone. That’s just not how God made it. He made us to be a family, to work together. Some people may seem more gifted at ministry, but there are things they aren’t good at, that other people have to fill in for them. And there are some who seem like they couldn’t do anything right in ministry, but there is something that God has for them to contribute. It’s hard because, in America at least, we look at “super-Christians” and say how we wish we could do ministry like them. And what we do is shirk our responsibility and leave it all to the superstars. Well, let me tell you, in God’s Kingdom there are no superstars. Granted, there are some who are on the frontlines, who get more recognition. But in God’s Kingdom, the least will be the greatest. Remember what Jesus said about John the Baptist. He said that there wasn’t a man born of a woman who was greater than he, BUT that the least in the Kingdom will be greater than him. If we didn’t need such immediate gratification, we would be content to play our part, even if it is a lesser one, and realize that our reward is coming in another world. God has made us to live and work and do ministry together. He has made us that way, because everyone has gifts that need to be used and we have to figure out how to work together and use those gifts for the good of His body.

Second, and probably most importantly, the gifts are to be grounded in love. Can I just say, this is a problem for me. When I start thinking about gifts, I start wanting to be used. It all sounds so good in my head, “Lord, give me your gifts that I can do the work of bringing your Kingdom to this earth.” But when I pray that way, it becomes so easy to concentrate on me. I become most important. Other people become the means for me to use my gifts, to fix people. Man, how messed up is that. Love is the motivator. The love that Christ first showed us, compels us to action. Or it should anyway. We don’t seek the gift, so that we can feel that we measure up in ministry or feel good about who we are. We seek the gift so that the body can be edified and the gospel can be proclaimed and lived out in the world. Oh God, that we would love people enough to seek you and your gifts.

The last point for this post is that we need the Holy Spirit. We need to learn to listen to Him and discern what He is saying to us. When you get into it, there are so many issues and problems that we can help out with, but we really need to know how He is leading us to get involved. We need to learn how God has made us to be used and how in each situation He wants us to contribute. Sensitivity to the Spirit. Look at the life of Jesus, the life of Paul. There was a leading that is undeniable. It was not simply going about and doing what they wanted to do everyday. It was listening and following. Simple but complex. Open our ears Lord that we can discern and follow.

Sorry for the lag between posts. Hopefully, we can send out an Aliquippa update soon.

But as of late, our weekends have been full of stuff. It’s always good stuff, but it’s been overflowing with activity. We have to recover the Sabbath rhythm in our life, otherwise, we will be working simply in our power and not the Spirit’s. It’s only by abiding in Christ that we will bear any fruit. We’ve come to a point in our lives where we realize that ministry is not simply about staying busy and being active. Rather, it’s about listening to Jesus and doing the things that He asks us to do. That is where we will see true effectiveness in ministry.

Today is finally a restful Saturday. And as I read from the Bible this morning, God gave me a picture of a tree. First in Psalm 92, there’s a tree planted in the house of the Lord. This tree is green and fresh, and it produces fruit even into it old age. Next, in Psalm 1, there’s a tree planted by streams of water that produces much fruit. Lastly, the Lord turned my thoughts to roots that go down deep into the soil of God’s love and find nourishment in Him. (Ephesians 3:17-18 and Colossians 2:7).

That’s where I want to be. I want to be a tree, abiding in Christ being with nourished by the Holy Spirit and by the Word, and bearing much fruit in ministry. I thought I was taking a break from the series, but it kinda sounds like Intimacy and Action. It must be a common theme in Scripture or something.

That’s all I want to leave you with. Now I’m gonna get back to resting. Have a good Sabbath, whether it comes on Saturday, Sunday or whatever day you like.

First, our action here in Aliquippa has led us into a deeper and more meaningful experience in prayer. From the beginning of our time here, we have understood prayer as our primary work in the mission of God. One thing I appreciate about the Christian and Missionary Alliance church that we are apart of, is its foundational emphasis on prayer. We are very engaged in active service in the Kingdom, but at the same time, we have understood that none of our work will amount to anything if the Lord is not present in it. For that purpose, we began most of our work and ministry here by praying together on a weekly and oftentimes a daily basis. We began the work with prayer, and the presence of God in prayer is what has sustained us and the ministry. Prayer has become more than just checking off a list of requests. Too often, I am afraid that prayer meetings become times for Christians to share all kinds of news about people and then prayer through the list and call it a night. We have viewed our prayer times very differently than that. Primarily, they are times for us to meet with God, for God to speak to us, and for us to grow in the gifts that God has given us. Prayer has become a deep experience for us, and we have learned different expressions of prayer. One thing that I had never really experienced was the different kinds of praying that there are. We have ventured out into things like listening prayer, centering prayer, contemplative prayer, prophetic prayer, prayer for deliverance, spiritual warfare praying, intercession (sometimes the only type that people know), and prayer that ushers the Kingdom into our city.  It has been a great experience, knowing that prayer is much deeper than praying for everyone’s uncle’s knee surgery (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it isn’t all there is).

Next, that has led us into a desperation for the Lord’s power. When we started coming across things that we couldn’t solve on our own, our only place to turn was the Lord. This became a deep reliance on Him for His intervention in the lives of people and situations that we couldn’t handle. In my earlier years, I felt like whatever I couldn’t understand or explain in the Bible, I left out and didn’t really incorporate into my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe that Jesus could heal or deliver people from oppression, or that spiritual warfare was a real thing, it was just that in my comfortable existence, I didn’t need that stuff. It wasn’t until we engaged in a place where Satan had an obvious stronghold, that I began to re-read the life of Jesus and His supernatural authority with new eyes. It is now hard to ignore the power in Jesus’ ministry to heal folks, to drive out demons, and to basically overcome the powers and principalities of this world. You would have to throw out much of the gospels if you didn’t believe in these sorts of things. It’s strange to me now, how I didn’t see all of this before. But I think that many people live in that state, not really experiencing the power of Jesus because it’s not necessary in the normal American life. The supernatural authority of Jesus has no place in the American dream. If Jesus weren’t powerful to save – spiritually, physically, emotionally – then we would have no hope in Aliquippa. But we do have hope, because Jesus is.

Lastly, we have grown in an understanding and openness toward the Holy Spirit and His gifts. In my estimation, it is the experience of many that the Holy Spirit is the ignored person of the Trinity. I think the most common reason for this, has been people’s abuses of the Holy Spirit for their own fame or power. Those who have witnessed these abuses have just flipped the switch in the other direction, completely turning the place of the Holy Spirit to the “off” position. So for many people, they have never been taught or led into an understanding and experience of the legitimate ministry of the Holy Spirit. I mean, for goodness sake, Jesus said that the disciples would be better off once He left the earth, so that they could have the Holy Spirit. And while our whole being is supposed to be His temple, we have packed and cluttered His house with all sorts of other things – material possessions, money, other relationships, good works, and religion – and leaving Him no room to operate. In the Quip, we have relied on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Many times, we have no recourse but to listen to what He wants us to do. [An important side note that we will get to later is that this experience with the Holy Spirit happens best in a community of folks who can listen together and check each other] We have also grown in our understanding and practice of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives. There’s a lot we could say about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and not enough space to say it. There’s much about Him that I don’t know. But this I do know: God’s plan was for His people to be equipped with the resources needed to usher in the Kingdom of God in their place in the world, and that the many of the resources come by way of the Holy Spirit and His filling our lives. What could we do without Him?Nothing. “I am the vine, you are the branches…” We have to abide in Him, and we do that through the Holy Spirit and His presence in our lives.

This is a music project that I am currently working on. My hopes are to get some friends together and record an album. The main purpose being to put some form to stuff that I have been working on for some years now, and to give it to anyone who might be interested. So here is one of the songs, a roughly recorded version of it.

Check out the music page. I will be uploading some of the songs from this project there. I have two done so far. Enjoy

Action leads us to a real encounter with Jesus. When we get out of our churches and our homes to minister to people, especially broken people, we are going to experience Jesus. Remember His words: “When you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me.” There are many places where we can encounter Jesus: our personal prayer closets, our Sunday morning church services, the great outdoors, and the list goes on. But let me tell you, I am certain that when we engage broken and hurting people, God is not far off. I have never felt the heart and compassion of God more strongly than when I have been in those types of ministry situations. When you are with a grandmother who is struggling to raise her third generation of kids, you sense God’s nearness to her in her plight. When you are with a kid whose life has been plagued by discouragement and broken expectations, you know God is reaching out to them as a father.  And when you see the Father heart of God, full of compassion and grace, you can’t help but be attracted to Him. To see God’s heart for people is to fall more intimately in love with Him. It draws us into Him and His presence.

Along with this real, authentic encounter with Jesus, we are led into a desperation for Him. When you find yourself in a situation that money, programs, and advice won’t fix, your only option – which should always be our first option – is to fall on the Lord. Action in the mission of God, brings us to the end of our self-reliance and into a deep dependence on God for His power and authority.

One of the first lessons for me in Aliquippa was one of inadequacy. I learned quickly that me and my skills were inadequate to overcome any of the things that I saw going on around me. If anything positive was going to happen, if God’s Kingdom was going to come,  it would be God’s doing, not mine. Tell me that doesn’t draw you a little closer to Jesus. I have said before that for many people, being a Christian has become synonymous with being nice. Nice people don’t need a Savior, desperate people do. When you get into a place where all the best advice can no longer save you, you are forced to draw near to Jesus. It was not until that point, that I began to understand what it meant to be intimate with Jesus

In next few posts, I will share about what this deeper intimacy with Jesus means for us and how it looks in our lives.

I believe there are many young adults in my generation who have become very critical and cynical of the church. As I’ve previously stated, they have become this way because they have seen a disconnect between what they read in the Bible and what they see in the American church. Now, they may be right in pointing out the discrepancies between the two, but it is how they go about it that is important. Let me tell you about the negative way that is plays itself out. I went to a Bible college for my post-secondary education. It is sad to say, but I believe Bible colleges to be the easiest places to find cynical, critical Christians. But I can’t simply point the finger, because you could have certainly found me in some of those circles during my time there. You have kids getting their heads filled with knowledge by these experienced professors, and the kids start to think they know it all. They think that in four years of school, they have everything all figured out. I think my generation in particular is guilty of this. The problem is that the students are learning this inside the bubble of a Bible college, and they haven’t been involved at length with any sort of ministry (action). They think they have all of the problems of Christianity solved, yet they haven’t actually done anything about it, aside from the occasional required ministry hours spent as a youth group volunteer.

Let me tell you the cure for this: action. When these students get involved in real, ongoing ministry after their graduation, they realize how little they know. They realize things are complex, and that their little theories don’t always play out as neatly as they did in their journals. I can speak from personal experience that getting involved in Aliquippa blew any cynical or critical nature right out of me. I had more respect for people who might have been having a rough go at it but at least were trying to follow Jesus in mission. Show me someone who is hyper-critical of other ministries, and I will show you someone who isn’t really involved in any ministry of their own.

The last point I want to make is that our generation is looking for substance and not showiness. For a while the church’s answer to trying to reach my generation has been to have a better show. They have churches that look like movie theatres, bands that sound just like the radio, and preachers with trendy shoes (preferably Steve Madden’s). Most people refer to this as the seeker-friendly church. Well, my generation sees through all that. For the most part, my generation is fed up with showiness, and we want substance. We want to see some muscle put behind the words of Jesus. My generation is attracted to social justice and ministry to the poor. Now these things might be just as trendy as the seeker-friendly service is, but at least it’s a trend built on the teachings of Jesus. I think churches will begin to reach fewer and fewer people by simply upgrading their worship experience without addressing the substance of their faith. I think my generation is better at asking the “why” question – why do we do what we do – instead of just going with whatever is popular. I believe the churches that will grow in the coming years are the ones who are doing something about their faith, who believe in a God who is sending us out into the world just as He sent His Son Jesus into the world. I also believe that the churches who invest in the Sunday service will slowly start to wither away. That’s my hope anyway, because a real world needs a real Jesus.

In the next segment of the series, I will address how all this action leads us into an intimacy with Jesus that only experience by sharing in His mission.

Missional Communities (MC’s) – These are the 2 groups that we started last November, that I described as little churches within our larger church body. One meets in my house, the other in Joel’s. I say that they are little churches because they are designed to cover the elements of the New Testament church – loving God, loving our fellow believers, loving our community, and being trained for ministry. We are still very much a part of our larger church and its various functions, but we started MC’s so that the church would merge into our daily lives at a street level, so to speak. We aspire to share life with the members of our MC, to disciple one another (especially new believers in our city), and to be on tangible mission in our city together.

As we started the groups, we had 5 new believers in Aliquippa who became a part one of the MC’s. For that group, we are praying for unity – because these guys come from all different places in life, for God to really show up among them to fill them with his Spirit, and for these guys to have opportunities for ministry so that they grow in their new faith. God has already shown up among them as they have gathered and we are expectant of what He is going to continue to do with these new Jesus followers.

The other MC is prayerfully considering, along with other people in our church body, a home improvement/trade development ministry in Aliquippa. The group watched a CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) training on empowerment. They were led to ask and pray how they could empower the people of their city. Their focus turned to home restoration and the opportunity to teach trades to men in the community. Now, no one in the group is a skilled laborer, but God seems to be bringing all kinds of people together in this goal, and it will be exciting to watch how it progresses from here.

Aliquippa Impact – Cohorts – Some cool things have also been happening with the non-profit that we work and volunteer for, Aliquippa Impact. God has provided some clear vision to the leadership as to the specific type of ministry that they have been being molded for. Based on past experiences and opportunities, Aliquippa Impact is growing up into an organization that works towards gang prevention and intervention. You can read about the whole thing here: http://www.aliquippaimpact.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=200 . If you don’t feel like reading it all, I will say that Aliquippa Impact will be building cohorts – small groups – of students that will come together in a sort of positive gang, to combat the pull toward the negative gangs in our community that lead many students down the wrong path. It is exciting to a part of, because it is based on something that we have been doing for the last 2 1/2 years. You may have heard me refer to the brotherhood before, a group of guys that we have worked with since they were in 5th grade. Our work with these guys has played a role in the new direction of the non-profit. We will start one of these group next month, merging our existing brother into the structure of the new cohorts, and will have more by the end of the year. It is exciting to be a part of, because this has helped to define much of what we are meant to do here.

Personally, we are looking forward to warmer weather, which brings a more vibrant life to our community and allows us to be in contact with more people. My new job (September) is going well, leaving me stress-free to return to ministry in Aliquippa after 3:30. Gao Foua is enjoying her part-time work with Aliquippa Impact as the mentoring coordinator. She is always working on finding us new mentors for the waiting list of kids that we have. We do have some sad news and a prayer request when it comes to mentoring. My mentee of 3 years is packing up and heading to Detroit tomorrow. We are very sad to see him go, but we have given it much prayer and are confident that the Lord is working in all of this. We know that his arm is not too short to save. We are trusting that He knows best, and that whatever happens in this situation is going to happen according to His will. Nevertheless, pray for my mentee, we’ll call him Prince, and that He will truly be a child of the King wherever he ends up.

Thanks for your prayers and support. The only way things change here in Aliquippa is by the movement of the Lord, and we believe that prayer moves the heart of God. So thanks, and may God bless you as you seek to bless those around you.

A lot of folks in America have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world when it comes to the church and its growth, but let me just say that God is moving in amazing ways in much of Asia, Africa, and South America. There are church planting movements taking places in Asia that are unlike anything we have experienced in the US in our lifetimes. I could go on and on about these movements, but it’s interesting to see that in these movements, people are not just recipients of the gospel, they are sold-out participants and co-laborers with Christ in His work. Many of these churches are being planted by kids that are 15 or 16 years old. Don’t believe me, check it out: http://www.glocal.net/blog/comments/faces-of-indian-church-planters/  Can you imagine the youth pastor at your church sending out the youth to go plant churches? Talk about having to depend on God.

I say this to point out that people need to be challenged to take on ministry, and ministry that may be very uncomfortable to them. Because many times, it’s when we step out into something that we have no earthly idea what to do, that God supernaturally empowers us to do His work. That’s what it comes down to. People need to be pushed to do risky things, that if God doesn’t intervene then they will fail. This is how we learn to trust God. If we remain in a comfortable place, doing what we know we can do, we simply won’t experience all that God has planned for us. The verse doesn’t say that His strength will be made perfect in our strength. It says that it’s our weakness that God inhabits with His power and might.

Now part of this is creating a space where people are allowed to take risks and failure isn’t a bad thing. Oftentimes, we shy away from opportunities to minister because we are scared of messing things up. Many times, we feel God tugging at us to get involved in some way, but we find a rational way out because we haven’t done anything like it before and are afraid of failure. But we have to be ok with stepping out and screwing up a little. Look, the disciples were far from perfect. You have Peter at one moment saying some of the greatest words about Jesus and then the next minute, Jesus is calling Him the devil. Yet with all their imperfections, Jesus sends them out to proclaim the gospel and cast out demons almost immediately after he named them as His apostles. Wild.

We have to become comfortable with taking risks. And for that to happen, we have to be in an environment that makes it ok to try new things and to fail at them. If we wait until we are sure that something will work, we will be waiting for a long time. Now, we don’t just throw people to the fire without any help or preparation. Sure there is preparation, and most times we will find ourselves accompanying people into the battle. But we have to challenge people to get involved and to be stretched. And certainly, we have to challenge ourselves too. I found in my life that it is a constant struggle between getting comfortable and stepping out in ministry. For me, I have to be constantly evaluating whether or not I am truly following Jesus. Maybe it’s time for a little self-evaluation, if so, here are some helpful questions:

Are we truly following Jesus and what he wants us to be doing with our time, our talent, and our treasure?

Have I asked God lately what He wants me to be involved in?

Do I know the needs of the people around me, and am I doing anything about it?

Am I involved in anything that is uncomfortable for me, that is making me depend on God for things I am not used to?