My Grandma Louise's Birthday

Today is my Grandma Louise's birthday. She went home to be with the Lord in April of 2003. I have some pics of her that I should scan and upload but I don't have a scanner and I am not in the office today.

My Grandmother was a sweet lady. She probablly eptimizes to me more than anyone what it means to be a servant. Well apart from Christ.

I had the opportunity of speaking at her funeral. I remember the night before at the funeral home someone came up to me and said "Your grandmother was a good grandmother." I nodded my head but inside I wanted to say she was way more than that. So it inspired me to really speak on her greatness.

I chose Phil 2:1-11 as my text of how my grandmother was a someone who considered others more important than herself; looked out for the interest of others and lived a life like Christ as a humble servant. Jesus said the greatest among you is one who serves and that was my Grandmother. So to me she was more than just a good grandmother - she was the greatest among us and we didn't recoginize it.

I miss my Grandmother. I wish had more time with her. I wish my sons would have known her. Luke was 1 when she passed into glory. I wished I was more like her. I wished I cared less about myself and more about others around me. I wished my first thought was 'how can I serve'. I wished I recognized greatness not based on what the world (or the church for that matter) acknowledges.

I had an option of choosing several gifts for being on staff with Campus Crusade for 20 years. (Yes, I am that old.) I choose this one. It reminds me if Jesus as my Lord and Teacher washed feet then I am to go and do likewise and that blessing comes from doing it. It reminds me that Jesus came to serve. It reminds me of my Grandmother would easily fall to her knees and 'wash someone else's feet'. It makes me ask, "would I?".

A Difference a Year Makes

This morning was a great scene at our household. I sitting in a chair holding Jack while giving him a bottle. On the sofa Drew was drinking his bottle and Luke was being nice to him. "Hi Drew" he said several times in a sweet voice and was touching his cold feet remarking how cold he was.

A Year ago Luke would not acknowledge Drew. He would tell strangers (and he doesn't talk to strangers and hardly to people he knows) that he had one brother. He wasn't always mean to Drew but he never was nice or kind to him.

Not he is kind to both his brothers. Later he was showing them some moths that were caught behind the glass in the fireplace. He talks gently and kindly to them. It's an amazing transformation.

Passion and Focus - Clint and Maggie

This month we travel south. No, that's not the Texas state flag Maggie and Clint Coyan are in front of! We are going much further south highlighting a pair of leaders in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Coyans are leading a team in Santiago, Chile. There are 50+ universities in Santiago and their team is targeting a cluster of private universities near the plaza. Because the English-level for students at these schools is low, they spent the first month in a crash-course language school and have recently just begun diving into movement launching.

When we put the words passion, focus and Clint together, the first thing that may come to mind is the St. Louis Cardinals. After visiting their blog (a new link on the right), I might say for Maggie Jo that it would be puppies. But for both their real passion and focus is Christ.

This is actually one of the main characteristics of WSN: Christ is our passion and focus. You may have heard Keith Bubalo preach on the Isaiah 40:9. (If you haven't I am sure you read the 'Welcome Letter' in the 1st Year Playbook.) Keith writes, "As God's children, we are to put ourselves in a position ('get up on a high mountain' ) to declare the gospel with great strength and boldness ('lift up your voice with strength... do not fear'). We are to point others to the glory and grandeur of God. ('Behold your God!')."

Our tendency might be to dichotomize the 4 L's. But shouldn't it be our passion for Him (LOVE THE LORD) that drives us to a focus on leading our teams to proclaim Him (LAUNCHING MOVEMENTS)? It is this passion that would cause Clint and Maggie to lead their team up on a high Andes peak and declare God to the city of Santiago below -figuratively of course, because they would not be visible through all the smog.

I like the exilic passages in Isaiah. The world in which we live is similar to that in which Isaiah writes. The passages before and after verse 9 give insight into what drives this passionate focus. The proclamation to these exiled, captive people is that their hard service is over, their sin has been paid for and God is giving them mercy and grace way beyond what they have experienced. It is that tender message that drives us to the activity of clearing the path for God's glory to appear.

The passages afterwards point out what type of God what are declaring to behold. He is a powerful ruler but also a gentle shepherd. "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." (Is 40:11)

This is our God that we tell the world to behold: Jesus our King and Good Shepherd! This is the God that we should be passionately experiencing and wanting for our teams and for students in Santiago and everywhere to have an opportunity to know.

Lord, today, renew our passion for You. It is about You and not us. May You be the center of our focus as we lead our teams to launch movements for your glory!

Dependence in the Silence

Francine has a great blog devo post called Dependence in the Silence.

Here's an excerpt...

"Before I left for Italy I prayed that God would bring me to a whole new level of dependence on Him. I prayed that I would be stripped of everything that I’ve previously boasted of except for Christ.

"I think this is God’s crazy way of making me utterly dependent on Him. He is stripping me of a huge form of escape. I have no choice but to talk to Him. He has left me with no medium and no person. I’m surrounded by people who could help, who could make me feel better, who could swim me to shore - but I can’t open my mouth and make noise to issue the cry for help.

"So I sit here, silenced like Zechariah. I can’t do anything but cry out in my heart, 'Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever' (Psalm 73:25-26)."

Good stuff!

Ways to Waste your Time not Planting Movements

I ran accross this tongue-in-cheek list on Leadership Network's blog: Fallow Fields: 20 ways to waste your time not planting churches. It is by Steve Addison, the Director of Church Resource Ministries Australia. Since I am in a ministry whose viz is to 'see movements everywhere so everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus', I just changed it to planting movements.

Here are some of my favs...
1. Call yourself an apostle. Have some business cards printed. Hand them around.

3. Throw money at “experimental missional initiatives” and never evaluate their effectiveness.

6. Appoint a committee to undertake a study and write a report. Wait three years then do it again.

9. When you see a healthy 'movement' plant say, “Yes it’s growing but it’s not really a (choose one) Reformed/Baptist/Assemblies of God/Presbyterian/Methodist/New Vine/etc. church.”

10. Require pioneering leaders to be theologically trained before they can plant a 'movement'.

11. Throw your best leaders at your biggest problems, not at your greatest opportunities.

12. Watch pioneering leaders exit your 'ministry' and then comment on their lack of commitment.

15. Agree to plant new 'movements' when: (a) You’re large enough (b) You’re healthy enough (c) You have the leaders to give away (d) You have the money to spare (e) God has clearly shown you it’s time (f) When the cow jumps over the moon.

18. Set ridiculous but catchy sounding goals like “500 in 5 years,” or “2,000 by 2,000.” Three years after the target date expires set new goals. Don’t forget to change the dates!

20. Lastly, set up a blog on 'movement' planting. Link to other bloggers on 'movement' planting. Be sure they link to you. Add smoke and mirrors.

Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan began yesterday (September 24th) and goes through October 23 2006. 30-Days International produces the well-known "30-Days of Prayer for the Muslim World" prayer guide coinciding with Ramadan each year. You can get it in other langugaes like Chinese, Russian and Spanish too.

This might be a good thing to join especially for our co-horts serving in the Muslim world.

Transitioning to the Gospel using Different Topics

Nova in Bosnia shared with me in an email something I'd like to pass on. (By the way I had misspelled her last name previously.)

She said that at the briefing last year there was a seminar in the EE AOA time on "Transitioning to the Gospel using Different Topics". Nova said it was extremely helpful, but noticed that we didn't do it this year. She said they use it all the time in Sarajevo. So I asked her to summarize it for us.

So here goes... At the '05 briefing, for this seminar, they sat by teams at tables. Each team/table was given a slip of paper that had one word or phrase on it. The topics were: relationships (guy/girl), friendships, family, values (love, trust), traditions, holidays, art & literature, future/success, worldview, health, and sports. Each table discussed for 10-15 minutes different ways to transition to the Gospel from their topics. Then, they came together as a large group and each table shared their word or phrase and how they would transition to the Gospel.

In Sarajevo, they have a weekly evangelistic meeting. Some of the things they do are: Story of the Soul (on the STINT CD), showing a movie with small group discussions that leads to the gospel, a series on a topic where the content builds from week to week, etc. So, sometimes the Gospel is shared from the front with the group as a whole. Other times they are in small groups, and they have someone from their team in each group to lead and guide the conversation.

Nova says they are constantly transitioning to the Gospel in their individual appointments too. If they are not already having a Gospel conversation, they make sure to steer the conversation there. Sometimes students in Sarajevo like to change the topic to talk about the war, so when that happens, they use it as a bridge to the Gospel. So they used the lessons learned in that seminar pretty much in their evangelism all the time.

Since it was not at this year's briefing, she and Graham lead their team through this training this year. If you have more questions you can email Nova. There is also an article on page 97 in the 1st Year Playbook on 'Questions to Transition to the Gospel' . That might be helpful in kick-starting some ways to helping train your team to naturally transition to the gospel, no matter what the topic of discussion is.

Feel free to do like Nova did and pass on any ideas you have on ministry or leading your team. 

Devo on STINT Leaders Blog

I just posted a new devotion on the STINT Leader's blog. I have been trying to post one a week highlighting one pair of leaders. You are welcome to sneak over there on Wednesdays (Usual day I post them) to read the latest.

This week's is on Desperate Dependence. Past weeks have been Bringing Jesus into the Chaos (which was really written by someone else), Storm without Warning, Double Shot and Not by Sword .

Desperate Dependence: Matt and Victoria

This summer when we had an optional 'Desperate Prayer' time, one of guys who came was Matt Rieger. (I purposefully didn't make a big deal about it and I know the location and time was not conducive for the women to join in.) Matt is leading the team to Uppsala, Sweden with Tori Vance who attended XTrack this summer.

I will not soon forget crying out for an hour and half in the basement on the Chi O house with crazy Matt, Dusty, Tom Cruise.. er Rob, Lucas and I am pretty sure Zach. (If I missed someone or Zach really wasn't there I apologize.) We took part of the time to cry out for each other. I remember us all desperately calling out to God to miraculously move in Sweden.

These past few weeks I have been reminded of dependence as I have hoped to see my twins, Jack and Drew, learn to walk. (A shameless dad plug.) Robin and I want them to walk to free us up from having to hold their hands constantly. That little booger Drew was awake at like 3 am this morning and as I tried to quiet him he was grabbing my finger to walk him. They are not content unless we are walking with them holding one of their hands.

As I parent I know independence and self-sufficiency comes with maturity. (As I write that I am not so sure I want them to let go of my hand.) But there is a reverse phenomena with spiritual maturity. The more we grow the more we should realize we desperately need him. While I am trying to coax my sons to let go of my hand, God promises to hold our hand.

"For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." - Isaiah 41:13

"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness." - Isaiah 42:6-7

"Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand." - Psalm 73:23

Leading can be a lonely venture. We need the assurance that He is there. We need to know He is holding our hand and not letting go. Sometimes we need to do like Drew and reach out for our Father's hand in the middle of the night. How can we be shaken or afraid if He has taken hold of our hand?

I like that all three of these verses above use 'hold'. It's not some loose grip but a firm grasp. I like too that in the Is. 42 passage, we learn that He not only keeps us but as the 'spiritual Israel' the promise to us is to be a light to the Gentiles and to help free the captives in Uppsala, Sweden and all the other locations you lead your teams this year.

Drew Walks

I got home Friday night. I was curious to see where Jack and Drew were in 'learning to walk'. Jack is still at the same place - you have to get him going and let go of his hand but if he realizes what you are up to he just sits and laughs.

Saturday morning, Robin and Luke took Grammy (Robin's mom) to the busstop to get a bus back to the airport. (She stayed with Robin and the boys while I was in Mexico.) While they were gone little Drew walked from the hall closet to the kitchen catching his balance along the way. Then he walked from kitchen to the living room again catching his balance but each time I caught him before he fell. He even started on his own. I'd say it was a good 12 feet each way.

Then he took off for the kitchen table with me behind him. Unfortunately, he fell forward before I could catch him and he bumped his head on a leg of a chair earning a bruise on his forehead. Daddy (that would be me) just said, "that's it son, I got you if you fall".

I think because I failed him he is put 'walking without help' on hold.

WSN Verticals in Mexico City (pics from Craig)

Layo Leiva - Director of Affairs for CMC (Central America, Mexico and Caribbean). Layo is sharing with us how even though the number of evangelicals has rose in his country of El Salvador, the morality has declined. This is true all over his Area of Affiars (and the US too).

Layo's passion is to see transformation on the university campuses in order to see transformation in these nations.





Me with Benjamin VanDiest. The middle child of Steve and Christine who give leadership to Enfoque Mexico.











Enjoying Tacos at the VanDiest's home.

















Three of my good friends: Craig Johring, who leads Enfoque Mexico with the VanDiests, Steve Morgan, one of the Mexico National Directors for Campus Crusade for Christ, and Steve VanDiest.

More STINT Leaders' Blogs

I am sure you can look to the right but I wanted to highlight a few more blogs of leaders...

Ann Hrivnak in London.

Nova Ashley Lavigne in Bosnia.

Josh and Jill Felix in New Zealand.

Kyle and Jennifer Frazier in Argentina.

Peter and Jennifer Hibbs in Lithuania.

And there's Stephanie Gillette in Liverpool. But doesn't look like she has updated it in a while. I got it from a Miami University blog which don't ask me how I found that.

Bringing Jesus into the Chaos: Jason and Lis

You might be wondering who Jason and Lis are. While Jason and Lis do have the spiritual gift of obscurity, the reason you may not recognize them is that they were not at the STINT Leader's training this summer. Jason and Lis attended the 2005 STINT Leader's Training and I guess they didn't know what Sam, Lucas, Emily M., Alexis, John R., Francine, and Drew all know, that the coming back for a 2nd year is worth it. :)
I am actually here in Mexico with Jason and Lis as I blog. They are giving leadership to the STINT team under the umbrella of CityFocus (Enfoque Mexico. See also the website in Spanish) to launch movements on the over 300 campuses in Mexico City. The CityFocus vision is that in three years there will be movements on every university, among every faculty (department) and for every student in this city of 26 million. The WSN Leadership is down here this week for our national meetings. We spent yesterday (Tuesday) joining the STINTers and staff here dividing up and going to over 20 campuses to look for student leaders to help launch movements on each campus. It was the offical launch of Enfoque Mexico.

Jason lead a devo early this morning to those of us here with WSN. Instead of hearing from me again, I thought you might to hear from one of your own. Here is the gist of what he said...

"During our commissioning at our STINT Briefing a few weeks ago God broke my heart more for the Mexican people. There has been a lot of chaos and mayhem down here because of the recent presidential elections, which were very close in votes. The loser has been rallying people to protest and different parts of the city have shut down. So I was starting to worry about all the chaos we were going to be walking into: would the girls be safe, is it wise for us to be there, and other concerns. I was worried about walking into the chaos of it all and I heard Jesus say to me, 'I want you to bring Me into that chaos.' "

"God was showing me this was a great opportunity for His glory to shine in the midst of great chaos. This is an opportunity to bring hope and light, love and forgiveness to people who so desperately need it. I sensed God inviting me to trust him with my life & team, and walk into a dark situation, bringing them the light and hope found only in Jesus Christ! I shared this with the team and Skye told me that Jesus had shared the exact thing with her on the metro. She was thinking about the chaos of things and heard God say to her. 'Invite me into this chaos.' I told her it's so neat how God is speaking similar things to his people. She stopped me and said, 'The exact same things.' She was right. Our God Almighty, is speaking the exact same things into his people and is inviting us to trust him and believe him for a spiritual revival among the people of Mexico. "

Leading a STINT team - whether in a city of 26 million trying to launch 300 movements or something maybe a tab bit smaller - is chaotic. Life whether overseas or in US causes a lot of internal chaos as well. I think what the Lord told Jason and his teammate Skye is true for all of us. He wants us to bring Him into the chaos. May we all invite Him and believe that he will meet us in the chaos.

"Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." - Matthew 11:28-30

Enfoque Mexico

Our ministry here in Mexico City is called Enfoque (Focus) Mexico. The vision is to launch movements for every univeristy, every faculty (department) and every student. We know of 302 univeristies. There are probablly more.

We really have some sharp leadership here. Steve and Christine VanDiest and Craig Johring are giving leadership to this three-year effort. I have been impressed time and time again by their faith, vision and plan.

It is overwhelming to think that we can do this. We can't. We are believing God to do miraculous things and see partnerships with churches and other mission agencies. Enfoque Mexico is not a Crusade thing. We truly want to partner with the body of Christ to see spiritual movements everywhere that bring about transformation for this city, this nation and the world.

Security

WSN Mtgs in Mexico

I am here in Mexico City for some WSN mtgs. Today we went w/the stint team to launch movements on campuses in the city. I went to two campuses and had some divine appointments.

The Ethereal Library

Matt on the 'Burning Hearts Revolution' posts a link for a library of Christian classics.

I put this link on on the right too.

Labor Day

Labor Day before Jack walked in the afternoon, I had breakfast in the morning with some men in a bible study from my church. Our leader Paul has cancer and is going through a second round of Chemo right now.

Afterwards, Robin and the boys met with me and we joined some friends for a parade and time in the park. Our friend April French, who just got back from Russia, posted some pics on her blog.

Jack's first Steps

On Monday afternoon Jack took his first steps. Robin was resting so I had all three boys on our porch. I was walking Jack holding his left hand while he held a rock in his right. I thought, he is so close to walking and I leave for a week in Mexico on Saturday that I sure hope he doesn't learn to walk while I am away.

So I let go of his hand and he took four steps on his own. I caught him as he began to fall and ran he upstairs where he did the same so Robin could see.

Yesterday, he knew what we were up to so every time Robin or I let go of his hand, he squatted down laughing.

Storm without Warning: Cat and Jordan

Most of you know the story of Cat and Jordan's team. Cat was asked to lead the team like a day before the STINT Leaders training. About the same time she also found out she was not heading to a certain 'stan' country she thought she was going to. Because their visas were denied they were going to be rerouted to Lebanon. Then like the next day a little thing called a war breaks out. Of course, Jordan was chill because he wanted to go to this 'Y' country anyway. Now they are headed to another 'stan' nation that borders the original one. I imagine that you like me have been impressed with the faith that they have demonstrated with 'this storm that has came without warning.' Look at them! They are so cool.

There is an account in Matthew 8 that talks about a storm that came without warning. You know the story. Jesus got in a boat and the disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake. The waves swept over the boat. But, (a huge, huge but) Jesus was racking on a cushion. The storm came without warning. That's significant. Think of the comparison and contrast of storms that come with a warning and those that come without warning. (I am sure you can come up with more.)

A Storm with Warning
We anticipate the worst.
We have time to prepare.
We batten down the hatches.
To many of us, it's just part of the adventure.
We buy extra food, water and fuel. (In Greensboro, NC where Cat is from I bet the grocery is empty of milk and bread the moment snow is in the forecast.)
We preserve things that we value.
We analyze the situation and use some leadership skills of decision-making.
We have a degree of control and ability to manage our emotions and the damage.

A Storm without Warning
We experience the worst.
There's no time to prepare.
We look for escape and rescue becomes our only hope.
It's not an adventure - its survival.
We react to circumstances.
Saving our own lives is only focus.
Life is out of control and elements manage us.
Emotions often overtake us.

These seasoned fishermen went and woke Jesus. I am sure it was a desperate prayer prayed aloud and most likely all at once... "Lord, save us! We are going to drown!" Their emotions turned to dire, desperate, survival instincts.

Jesus rebukes them because their faith was small and their fear was great. It can't be because they cried in desperation because the desperate widow in Luke 18 is hailed as an example of faith. Maybe the rebuke is because their fear was so great and that that thought they were going to die. In Mark's account they ask if Jesus cared. They didn't have faith in the words He had said. Jesus gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake not orders to get into a boat and drown.

Unexpected storms in life bring to surface our limited views of the Savior. But I have a hard time really pointing fingers on these fishermen. I have not faced such unexpected storms at least not of this sort. On Monday, I had breakfast with a friend who is facing terminal cancer - now that's a tsunami and it came without warning. The littleness of my faith is exposed by storms that are more like log rides at Six Flags.

You will face some storms as you lead this year. Hopefully nothing as overwhelming as my friend Paul. And maybe you won't have to flee your country but you will face some storms. Some are expected. They are even charted out on the cultural cycle. Some will come without warning. Some you will see 'the red sky in morning' and take warning but they will be a lot bigger than you anticipated. Which will be bigger - your faith or your fear?

When the storms come: remember Jesus is in the boat with you. He has promised to take us to the other side. Cry out to Him if to you it looks like He is asleep. But know that He does care and will not let you drown. Let your faith in Him and who He is override your fear of the storm.

Ian's CD release party

Ian Beert (who as you know was our worship leader this summer and his band led worship at the commissioning night with XTrack) has his CD release party tonight at Fox theatre in Boulder.

We should pray for him. He goes on at 9 pm MST.