It's your choice

December is the traditional month in Southern Baptist church life to collect the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions. Click here to see how the offering provides for Southern Baptist missionaries around the world.

"Every penny given to Lottie Moon is used to support Southern Baptist missionaries as they share the Gospel overseas. The offering represents 54 percent of the International Mission Board’s total income."

THE FACTS:

International Mission Board vital stats
• 5,618 missionaries (as of 4/20/09)
• 26,970 new churches*
• 565,967 baptisms*
• 562,091 new believers in discipleship*
*As reported in the 2008 Annual Statistical Report

Status of World Evangelization
• 11,599 people groups worldwide; 6.6 billion people
• 6,454 unreached* people groups; 3.8 billion people
• 5,850 Last Frontier** people groups; 1.6 billion people
*Less than 2 percent evangelical
**Less than 2 percent evangelical, no active church planting

Lottie Moon past and present
• 2009 goal: $175 million
• 2008 goal: $170 million
• 2008 receipts: $141.3 million

QUESTION:

With $180 to spend for Christmas, What can one buy for around $180?

• Apple iPod touch 8 GB (3rd Generation) $181.99
• Caterpillar Men's Black Airactive Chronograph Watch $184
• Helly Hansen Men's Velocity JPN Jacket $180.

All nice gifts. But consider how that same $180 might be invested in the Kingdom...

Last month $180 was used here in Guayaquil to train 15 church planters in CPM methodology. These 15 went out, and put into practice what they learned. One month later, 14 new outreach groups* have been started, and over 100 souls added to the Kingdom. Two of these "churches in formation" have already gone to 2nd generation church plants.

I am not asking you to do anything more than what we are also willing to do. This year our family is giving one Christmas gift apiece to one another. Our gift to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in 2009 is $600. We know where these monies go, and live amongst the people whose lives are transformed because someone gave so that they might hear. Over and over we see how small amounts of money given for Kingdom causes is multiplied way beyond the dollar amounts much like the "five loaves and two fish."

Nobody is telling anybody else what to do with their money, but honestly, I can't think of a better place to invest than in the Kingdom of God through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

It's your choice.


----------------
*we call them "outreach groups" until they baptize their first batch of believers. After that, we refer to them as churches.

What motivates team members?

As a Strategy Coordinator for the Guayas Mestizo people group, I have often benefited from the sound advise gleaned from Jay Lorenzen's OnMovements blog.

Teams that build movements was an especially helpful piece. In this post Jay quotes Bill Allison that team building "requires an understanding of what motivates the people on our teams."

In working with the twelve men and women that currently make up the Guayas Mestizo Team, the following tried and proven principles have paid off well in helping to motivate our team...

Spiritual Giftedness. Do your team members really understand their spiritual gifts? As a team leader, you need to help people understand and discover how God has wired them spiritually. Using your primary gifting to serve God is highly motivating.

Clarity. Do your team members know exactly what you want from them? Don’t make the assumption that staff and volunteers know what you want them to do. Spell it out clearly. Put it on paper. Review it once a year.

Tools and Training. Are your team members equipped with the tools and training to do their ministries well? Non-existent or ineffective tools and lack of training take the motivational wind out of the sails of your team members. Get the tools and materials they need into their hands. Build confidence through training.

The Big Picture. Do your team members understand the BIG PICTURE? Do they see the connection between what they are doing and the vision/ mission of your joint efforts together? The quickest way to destroy team motivation is to create a feeling of disconnection. No one wants to be a cog in a bureaucratic machine. No one wants to just fill a slot. Help your team members understand the vision and mission and where and how they fit.

Thankfulness. Are your staff and volunteers recognized, publicly appreciated, and championed for their work? There is a direct connection between appreciation and motivation. Most staff and volunteers don’t choose to serve so they can be loved, appreciated and thanked. Yet, notice how people tend to flock to teams where those things are practiced.

December 9, 1986

Twenty-three years ago today, December 9, 1986, my wife Linda and I were appointed as missionaries with the then Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. (Today known as International Mission Board, or IMB.)

I was just looking at the appointment certificate signed by R. Keith Parks and recalling much of the drama that accompanied our appointment. Actually the "drama" was spread out over nearly ten years...

As a college student at the University of North Texas I struggled with God's call upon my life during much of the 70's. I was pretty open to doing whatever God wanted with me, but always shut the door on foreign missions.

Strangely enough, this was due to my great admiration for missionaries. Growing up as an MK on the mission field (here in Ecuador) my heroes had always been missionaries. I truly admired them and considered my own missionary parents some of the finest people I have ever known. I knew in my heart I was not that caliber of person! The idea of ME being a missionary was beyond my comprehension. I couldn't preach, teach, sing, counsel, administrate, evangelize, or do ANYTHING as well as my missionary aunts and uncles. I didn't even necesarrily LIKE doing many of those things anyway. I was more into the music scene and interested in the communication arts.

The years went by in college with me praying continuosly that God would "reveal His will for my life."

As a college student I was active in the University of North Texas BSU program. I was involved in many mission endeavours during my college years from 1974-1979. One of the frustrations I experienced was how few of my fellow BSUers or home church members seemed interested or responsive towards global missions. We would go to missions emphasis meetings geared for college students and hear wonderful speakers and great music. During the invitation I would "peek" and see only a small handful of people responding to God's call. It didn't matter that my own heart was bursting on the inside. All I could see and understand was that all the OTHERS were NOT responding. What was wrong with THEM? Didn't THEY know there was this huge world out there and all they seemed interested in was their own little world?

Slowly it began to dawn on me that maybe, just maybe, God could use me in some small way. As a music major, I could play the guitar and piano, and could manage to sing in tune. Through my minor, Mass Communications, I knew a bit about radio, TV, film, drama, etc.

Christmas of 1977 I went home to Quito, Ecuador to spend the semester break with my missionary parents. While there I decided I would try and get a reaction out of them by announcing that I thought maybe God was calling me into foreign missions. I intended it to be just an opening to discuss with them and hear their thoughts about what they sensed God's will might be for me, especially since my graduation was less than a year away.

Much to my astonishment and surprise they made the comment, "well, son, it's about time you finally figured out that God has been calling you all these years...we've known this for a long time now...we're so happy for you..." I was totally floored! We did talk about the matter during those days and I sensed God speaking to my heart through the words of my parents as they related all the "signs" God had worked in my life over the years. Only a fool like me wouldn't have seen the Hand of God at work in my life!

When I got back to Denton, where Linda and I were members of Grace Temple Baptist Church, I went forward on a cold winter's Sunday night during the general invitation and told the pastor, Bro. Robert Richardson, that I felt God was calling me into missions. There were no fireworks or lightening flashes. I don't even recall anyone coming forward after the service to shake my hand. But the deed was done in Heaven.

Not too long afterwards, on April 11, 1978, there was an appointment service at the Tarrant County Convention Center in Ft. Worth, Texas with the full board in session (William L. Self, presiding.) Dr. Baker James Cauthen was then President of the Foreign Mission Board. That man could preach a missions sermon like no other living person of his day. The hymn of invitation was "Take My Life, and Let It Be." By that time there was absolutely NO DOUBT in my heart that God was calling me to serve him overseas. I was one of the first to make it down to the front!

That night three couples were appointed to Ecuador. Little did we know that years later we too would end up in back in Ecuador and actually serve alongside two of these couples, Jim & Dawn Packwood, and Jack & Karen Ables!

Well, thanks for reading my story. There is more to tell, in fact--a lot more, including my wife's call into missions and how that got us together, but I'll stop here for now.

If you think there is even the remotest chance that God might be leading you to serve Him overseas, my prayer for you is that you would consider Dr. Cauthen's paraphrased words as I recall them, "unless God has specifically told you to stay put, He has called you to go." International Missions is a big step of faith, but in our 23 years so far, I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

Questions worth pondering

We met Mike and Leslie at the Antioch Gathering and were instantly drawn to their sweet spirits and loving disposition we felt when around them.

Mike and Leslie openly share their journey of transitioning out of "church-as-we-know-it" and into "church-as-God-wants-it" in a recent fascinating blog post entitled I kissed traditional pastoral ministry good-bye: an explanation of why I am leaving pastoral ministry for the sake of mission in the future.

I sense from past comments and private emails there are a few of you reading that are also going through the same journey Mike and Leslie have gone through.

I am reprinting the questions that led them to this decision. PLEASE click the link above to read in their own words the ANSWERS discovered to these questions that led them to make these huge life changes.

1.) What IS “church” anyhow?

2.) If Jesus were in bodily form now in the Bay Area, where would he be? To whom would He minister? And how would he spend his time? And shouldn’t ALL CHURCHES take note of this? What would it look like to take Luke 15’s Lost Parables seriously? Would Jesus really leave the 99 for the one lost sheep, or was he just being hyperbolic? Did he really come to “seek and save the lost”?

3.) Shouldn’t my primary role be not so much teaching, preaching, and TELLING people how they should live but, instead, living out, modeling and SHOWING people the way of Jesus? Incarnating the very thing I’m asking them to do and being a forerunner or a “first fruit” of the transformation God is wanting to do among us?

4.) As much as people in my church appreciated me and believed that I should be paid for what I did, should I be? And does the Scripture teach that I should be paid as a norm or more an exception?

5.) If Ephesians 4:11-12 is to be taken seriously, then what would it look like to have ALL FIVE gifts operational in the church: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist. Pastor, and Teacher? And can we push past our knee-jerk reactions to what an Apostle or Prophet may be that are simply based on ignorance or fear? In particular, Leslie and I have spent the last three years asking what apostolic and prophetic leadership in the body of Christ is and does.

6.) Is CHURCH even the primary lens we should be using to filter in all Christian and ministry reality? Shouldn’t it, instead, be Kingdom? And what happens when one makes this shift? So what would it look like then if every believer lived for the Kingdom (or as Matthew 6:33 said, “sought first the Kingdom”? What would it look like then if every spiritual community lived under the rules/government of the Kingdom and cared more for the King/Kingdom than for church as they know it?

7.) This difference in approach gets at the final question we wrestled with: is the difference between secular and sacred as big as we really have come to believe?

8.) SINCE it is no longer about CHURCH as we know it, what would it look like if the boundary markers of “church” were not the four walls of the church building or small group hosting house’s four walls? What would it look like if the boundary markers for who we are to make disciples of and spent most of our time with moved beyond the Christians we would normally meet in “church” as we used to know it. What if, instead, “CHURCH” included all the local people of the city and beyond? What if the CITY or REGION itself was the “church” or “parish” to which all Christ-following members were to “minister”? What if the whole world was the “parish”? And what if we could create multiple sanctified-secular expressions that brought the Kingdom to everywhere and everything we did?

Care to share your own understandings of any of the above questions? Which of the above caused you to most ponder?

What are the alternatives?

Ernest Goodman, blogger at Missions Misunderstood asks What are the alternatives?

[Those involved] in the system, especially those who are invested in it, tend to stick with it because they don’t see any alternatives. The current, broken system is better than nothing, right?

• Why do so many churches treat missions as just another program of the church?
• Why do we pile kids into a church van, drive to an Indian Reservation to do Backyard Bible Clubs and call it “missions?”
• Why are so few churches actively and directly engaged in planting the gospel among people who don’t know and believe it?
• Why do missionaries treat partner churches like volunteer labor or children to be babysat?
• Why do some only consider ministry among “unreached” people groups to me missions?
  

What are the alternatives? In each of these cases, churches and individuals act according to what they’ve been taught. They do what others are doing, they do what they think they can. They go where they think finances, prudence, and church leadership will allow. They spend what they think they can afford. They act when they think it will help them. They don’t always even know why they do what they do (and don’t do what they don’t do.)

We need alternatives. We need to know about churches the orient their entire existence around the mission. About the value of humanitarian trips to our obedience as believers. That the Great Commission is the church’s responsibility. How churches can do so much more than paint houses and prayerwalk. That the people groups of the world are not static, and that obedience is the best strategy. If we don’t know, it’s unlikely that we’ll do anything different.

What do you think? I agree with Ernest, if people don't know, it's unlikely anything different will be done than the way things are currently being done. So what should we do to begin helping others to see alternatives?

Interview with Tony and Felicity Dale

Good radio interview with Tony and Felicity Dale, including a report of the recent India Summit held in New Delhi. Very exciting!

Isn't it time we gave the church back to Jesus?

A few years ago I was invited by one of our Baptist churches in Ecuador to preach their Sunday evening message. Even though I came prepared to preach, as I sat waiting my turn, I sensed from the Lord to use the allotted "message time" to lead the church in a 1 Corinthians 14:26 gathering. When given the pulpit, I briefly shared two brief passages about what we should be seeking when the Body of Christ assembles:

Hebrews 10:24-25 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

1 Corinthians 14:26 What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

I asked the congregation to rearrange the plastic chairs into a circle. Then with a few words of encouragement to literally "stimulate one another to love and good deeds" and "each one has..." for the edification of the saints, we began...

At first there was little understanding of what was expected, and the "how to" do what the Scriptures exhort us in these two passages. With a little prompting and some awkward silences, people slowly began to open up. We sang several songs of their choice, a couple of testimonies were shared of how God had been working in their lives. A sister shared a passage of Scripture that had spoken to her during the week. Someone asked for prayer. We gathered around that person laying hands on them and prayed. One brother confessed he had long harbored in his spirit something against another brother who was present. The two asked forgiveness of each other, hugged, cried, and prayed for one another.

By then we had gone well over the "30 minutes" allotted sermon time, but nobody was eager to break up and go home. After TWO HOURS of open sharing and Spirit-led interaction, I turned the "service" back over to the pastor of the church. He stood, thanked me (didn't he mean the Holy Spirit?) for leading them in a most "interesting" evening. Everyone was then asked to rearrange the chairs back into rows. The offering was collected, and the pastor announced that next week they would resume their regular message series. What we had just experienced was simply an interesting Sunday night special program, but was clearly not the norm for the church to continue to meet in this fashion.

Why are we so programmed oriented when we gather as the church? There is so much that the Head of the Church, Jesus, wants to do in our midst: heal, encourage, build up, teach, yet to risk any embarrassing or awkward moments that might take place in such a Spirit-controlled environment, we end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. Obviously we are much safer controlling all that is said and done by carefully planning of what takes place when we gather, and WHO gets to be the ones to speak/share/lead.

Why are we afraid to gather today in what is clearly a much more Biblical way, than what takes place in most churches with a controlled program format? Isn't it time we gave the church back to Jesus?

Strong medicine from Victor and Bindu Choudhrie

One of the honors we had last month at the Antioch Gathering was meeting in person some of God's chosen servants from around the world. One of the most delightful was Bindu Choudhrie, wife of Victor Choudhrie of India.

In one of the sharing times, Bindu reported that in May of this year, they witnessed the baptizing of 300,000 new disciples. In passing, she mentioned this was "considerably more" than the previous 120,000 they baptized in March, and 100,000 in January of this year. It is mind boggling that they are aiming for 1-million baptisms this year!

One day as we were chatting, Bindu asked if we might be interested in her husband's book, "The Apostolic Gardens"? The book is their attempt to "help position the ekklesia to finish the unfinished task of discipling all nations in our generation." Anyone who has been used by the Lord to see 500,000 baptisms in a six-month period, is someone who has my attention. Of course I was interested in getting my hands on a copy!

There are 131 pages, and just as many subject headings. In a sense, the book is a church planting manual coming from an apostolic point of view rather than a pastor-teacher perspective. The apostolic knowingly and unapologetically thrust the sheep out amongst the wolves. The pastoral, by nature, do their best to nurture, teach, and protect the sheep.

In the chapter, "Are You A Failed Pastor?" Choudhrie questions the seriousness of anyone calling themselves a pastor and not starting "houses of peace."

"It is not necessary to go to church to connect with Yahweh, especially when your city is going to Hell...We must pray to Yahweh to take to heaven all the Reverends who compel us to come to church instead of letting us go fishing." (pg.118)

What makes the book fascinating is that it is written more from an Eastern mindset, rather than a polished logical Western argument. It is very direct "straight talk" to men and women who are not sitting in church pews, but out in the harvest fields making disciples. There is no beating around the bush. For example, Victor writes on page 7, "Most of the 40,000 denominations are suffering from senility and out of date. Tens of thousands of their retail outlets (churches) have succeeded in keeping two billion Christians of the world unengaged and condemned to sit in the pews as cash cows until they are ready to shift six feet underground in the church cemetery." OUCH!

"The ekklesia exists, not to protect man's traditions which are costly perversions, but to fulfill Yahweh's plan." He goes on to state, "Traditions are like the Indian curry with hot spices. They add nothing to the nutritional value but leave your palate on fire at dinner and lost of sound and fury at the other end in the morning." (Pg.6)

Choudhrie makes statements that would get most of us fired, "Churching the unchurched is the bane of Christianity. Yeshua taught us to allow the yeast to leaven the whole community. We need millions of Crypto Christians who stay below the radar and quietly catalyze their communities. Churching them leaves the rest of the community not only unleavened but hostile."

"Yeshua never said, 'Go to church.' He said, 'Go and tell others what great things Yahweh has done for you.'" (Mark 5:18-20)

"Revival is not for churching the unchurched and increasing membership and money, but for unchurching the churched and sending them out to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." (pg.82)

"Churches that cater only to Christians need an urgent audit. The ekklesia exists to finish the task of discipling all nations."

"How can justice roll like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream unless Christians take their butts off the pews to go and deliver people from darkness and translate them into the kingdom of His dear Son?" Good point, if you ask me!

Still not offended? This next one actually comes with a warning from Choudhrie, "CAUTION: All drugs have a limited shelf life. Similarly, a generic Christian has a limited pew-life after which, like the out-of-date drug, he must be buried six feet underground." (pg.78)

"We are training the wrong people, with the wrong motives, in the wrong place, by the wrong teachers in the wrong traditions." He goes on to explain, "Thousands of unemployed youngsters, driven by economics, are being trained in Bible schools to be cultural misfits...Millions are being spent to train and support them, but despite triumphalistic reports, the return on investment is just peanuts...They know the scriptures but not the mechanics of discipling or ekklesia planting. Entry points, bridges from other religions, spiritual warfare, mentoring multi-generational disciples and other relevant topics, which are powerful predictors of CPM, are not taught."

"Tithing is a Stronghold: The purpose of all our wealth is to fulfill the Great Commission. Hence, all money and gifts must be expended for apostolic purposes. (Acts 4:25, 27; 5:2) Money must follow the apostles and not the other way around."

"The NT model of clergy-free, building-free and sermon-free churches will free up billions of dollars, empower millions for the priesthood...and make world evangelism a practical reality." (pg.80)

I could go on quoting page after page of similar statements. I can pretty much guarantee no major Christian publisher will be picking up "The Apostolic Gardens" any time soon! Quite frankly, though, Victor says a lot of the things I would like to say, but cannot due to my not living some of these personally. I wish the book were made more widely available. It is the kind of strong exhortation that a passive Western church needs to hear. You may not agree with everything Victor writes, but I am quite sure those coming into the Kingdom by the thousands through the ministry will be most thankful come Judgment Day for their being more concerned about bringing in the harvest, and less what others might think of them.

---------
Dr. Victor Choudhrie studied medicine at Christian Medical College in Vellore. He married Bindu Sukhnandan and went to England for higher studies in surgery. He returned to serve in a tribal village in central India. Later he served as Director (CEO) of the prestigious Christian Medical College in Punjab. In 1993, he and Bindu, committed themselves to Saturation Church Planting Movement. Since then God has blessed this ministry and thousands of house churches have been planted in India and in many other countries.