Discipleship

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Unexpected Encounters

March 5, 2010 in Day2Day, Prayer by Dave | 2 comments

Since we’ve been back from the field I would say that the #1 change for us has been the McDonald’s experience. Moving itself from a kid magnet restaurant barely tolerated by adults, McDonald’s has remade itself with drinkable coffee, a new menu, and a new look. Now, when the kids say, “Let’s go to McDonald’s,” more often than not we say, “OK!” More recently, my reduced ambivalence to this nearly ubiquitous eating establishment set up an opportunity to minister.

It all started when Brad Keller, a fellow minister, scoping out a spot to set up his Mac to catch some free wi-fi, greeted a twenty-something guy named Ricky. After exchanging some greetings and comments about the technology that we were pulling from our bags, Ricky asked us what it was that we did. It was as though he was asking us to tell him about Jesus.

I began by giving him my prayer card and explaining my mission of calling Mexicans into relationship with Jesus. He responded almost immediately with a smokescreen of excuses for not attending church. I sensed from this that Ricky was seeking, but he wanted someone to help him justify his practice of keeping the spiritual at arm’s length. I listened to what he had to say, but I gave him no justifications.

When he spoke of ministers that fail, I responded with statistics that I had heard only earlier that day that it takes some 300 A/G ministers in order to come up with only two moral failures. When he talked about judgmental churches, I encouraged him to talk to two separate ministers that lived in his area that I was sure would welcome him as he was and help him on his spiritual journey. When he brought up others’ experiences, I asked him to look to his own and to understand that he needed a personal relationship with the only on who could settle his questioning; he needed to encounter Jesus.

So I want to thank McDonald’s. Because of their change, they made possible my encounter with a searching heart. I’d also like to ask for prayer for Ricky and his friends. They have my card. They have names of pastors that they can talk to. Let’s pray that they’ll take the next step on their spiritual journey toward Christ.

Photo from LancerE’s flickr photostream

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New Life in Tekax

February 3, 2009 in Ministry by Dave | Comments closed

tekaxreportIt started with a blown radiator and a whole lot of improvising. It ended with dozens having committed their lives to the Lord. That, in a nutshell, was the result of our evangelistic campaign in Tekax, Yucatán.

On Friday January 23rd, I had the opportunity to take 17 students from Bethel Bible Institute to the town of Tekax, which lies some two hours away from our city of Mérida, to hold a two-day evangelistic campaign. The campaign was the culmination of a four week training that we had held for the members of “Templo Emanuel,” where Romeo Calvo is pastor. The goal was to start a small group in the neighborhood of San Juan de Dios at the site of what had once been a catholic chapel.

On the day of the event, we left just about a half hour late, which, here in the Yucatán, is no small feat. Little did we know, however, that the real delay waited only a few miles down the road. At mile 16, I noticed one of our students pulling to the side of the road. When we stopped, I asked what was the matter. Lifting the hood showed the obvious problem. The cap of the water tank had been left off, and all of the water had spilled out. The result was a severely over-heated engine, a big mechanic bill, and a delayed start to our campaign. After a bit of traffic direction around the stalled truck, and a two-hour wait for a replacement, we were back at it again, finally arriving at Tekax with enough time to scramble to put things in place

At the site, basically a street in the middle of a poor neighborhood, we busied ourselves grabbing electric from a nearby house for our lights and sound and starting as soon as we were able in order to keep the crowd that had already gathered. Fortunately, the quick thinking of students and the preparation of the host church paid off. Not only did the people stay, they responded! After the songs, the dramas, and the message was over, students dispersed through the crowd to pray. Several decisions were collected that night. I personally got a chance to pray with three people who had decided that night to follow Jesus. Still, that was only the beginning.

We arose the next day to a hearty breakfast, ready to serve the people’s needs. From 10 AM until 2 PM, we had a team helping with dental hygiene, another giving haircuts, a nurse giving health examinations, and a team fitting people for glasses. On top of that, the church had gathered clothing to give away. All the while we were serving, we were inviting the people to attend the closing service, and attend they did.

In the final event, we had over 100 kids and several adults. The kids laughed, played, and sang with the students and church members while all stayed attentive for the dramas, and the closing remarks. One drama, the Auction, pulled no punches as it spoke of the life that many of the inhabitants of that neighborhood were living–a life full of alcohol, drugs, and despair. As the call was made, we found that we didn’t need to go out to them, they came to us! The children responded first and then the adults. Many came forward to repent of their past lives as whole families wept together. It was an amazing sight! As I greeted the pastor and gave him the 15 decision cards that I had received from other students, he pulled out a stack of his own, possibly up to 40 in all had made a commitment in the two-day event.

The wonderful news is that the event itself was just the beginning. There is now a small group meeting at the site of the campaign. Discipleship materials from John Hall, “Start-up Studies” in Spanish are being utilized to help these new believers experience the eternal life that they now possess, and church members are being utilized to help them along their journey. It is our prayer that not only those 40 will be affected, but that a whole neighborhood will be changed because of this intense effort.

The road is difficult though. Tekax, although ready to receive the truth, is ripe to be deceived by falsehood as well. Signs of false teachings were evident, and cults seem to be gaining ground among the spiritually hungry. Still, we are encouraged by this first step, and we are confident that the results will remain and grow.

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Freely You Have Received, Freely Give

June 29, 2008 in Ministry, Missions, Progress by Dave | Comments closed

As Jesus sent out the 12 in Matthew 10, He gave them the motive for their ministry in verse 8: “Freely you have received, freely give. Their mission of mercy–healing the sick, casting out demons, and even raising the dead is the logical response to the mercy that they had already received in the form of God drawing near. They had seen Him, touched Him, and from Him received divine power. In Matthew 10, they are sent out to tell others about Him.

What Jesus modeled is the end of any discipleship program. He made disciples who in turn made disciples, and, here in the Yucatán, we had the privilege of seeing this cycle come full circle. This past Saturday night, the ministers and members of the Assemblies of God of Yucatán met to commission and send out Norma Uitzil, a missionary, born here in Yucatán, who will be ministering among the “Untouchables” of Calcutta, India.

Yucatán has freely received. Silverio Blanco, the director of the Bible Institute, took time during the service to tell of the first evangelical missionaries who arrived in 1866 to preach in what was then the inhospitable conditions of this predominately Maya state. Since that small beginning, many have come, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Pentecostals among others. In what was once an area devoid of believers, now roughly 1 in 10 attends an evangelical congregation. Granted, there is plenty of work to be done, but the work here in the Yucatán has entered a different stage. It is time for this district to take its place in the evangelization of the world, and missionary Norma Uitzil is one of the first to respond to that call.

About a year and a half ago, I spoke of Jaime and Jaqueline Chacon, missionaries from Costa Rica that are now serving in the U.S. I echoed in that post the words of our regional director, Dick Nicholson, who said that missions is no longer the U.S. or the traditionally Christian Nations that are sending missionaries to the ends of the earth; missions has become a movement in which God is calling people from everywhere to go to everywhere. We believe more than ever in that idea. To that effect, we are currently heading up the missions program in the church that we attend, and we are committed to continually preach missions in the various congregations in which we are invited to speak.

Some might say that it is an impossibility to promote missions in an area where the minimum wage is $5 a day, but people like Norma are proving that we serve a God who makes the impossible possible. So, as we were called forward to pray for her, I asked as well that God would begin to call others to respond to His world-wide mandate, that others would hear His heartbeat for the nations and dare to believe that they can make a difference. After all, freely we all have received, its only natural that we all freely give.

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Putting Ourselves at a Disadvantage?

April 29, 2008 in Devotional, Ministry, Missions by Dave | 3 comments

I have the pleasure of reading some excellent blogs about missions and discipleship. Recently, I came across this excellent post from Guy Muse a Baptist missionary to Ecuador. He writes:

Everyday for the past two weeks and continuing for two weeks more, our team has been teaching groups of fifteen pastors who are coming to Guayaquil from all over the coastal region of Ecuador. They are being introduced to our COSECHA (Harvest) discipleship/church planting training materials that will be used to reach the goal of 1-million disciples in one year.

The heart of the training is making disciples. The only way to win/disciple a million in a year is to begin making disciples that make disciples. Nothing new. But are we doing it? Am I doing it?

If we are out there everyday exhorting everyone about the priority of making disciples, who am I discipling? My biggest fear everyday in the trainings is that someone will bluntly ask me who I am discipling!

These strong soul-searching words hit home. We solicit funds saying that we are going to reach the lost, and yet, as we look at our schedules, our calendars are full of spiritual retreats and Bible conferences. Our to-do lists include research for Bible school classes and fund raising for church projects, but discipleship, defined as reaching and training followers of Christ, seems surprisingly absent. If we were to truly provide evidence of meeting our goals of reaching the lost based on our professional activities, it is highly possible that we’d come up short.

But why? God forbid that we would have intentionally mislead churches into thinking that we were doing something that we are not. I think that we hit the ground intending to see lost people saved and an impact made in the community where we live. So what keeps us from being able to see the results that we so desire?

One reason I believe that this happens is because of our dependence on the local church as we get our “feet on the ground” in ministry. As we arrive in the community where we minister, we look for people to help us establish our lives in the foreign context. We need everything from furniture to handymen to help us to get started and build a secure environment for our families and a base from which we can work. Being representatives of a religious organization, more often than not we find that help coming from Christians.

This in itself is not a bad thing of course. There are few things more assuring to a man or woman who is dealing with his or her second complete move in a year to two separate and absolutely foreign environments than to be able to delegate important tasks to another believer who will treat him or her honestly and amicably as the missionary stumbles through cultural adaptation and adjustment. However, the downside to all of this is that we begin our experience in that new culture by building a cloistered environment for ourselves that keeps us from relating with neighbors who do not have a relationship with Christ and may be seeking the message that we came to share.

Further complicating the matter is the fact that these Christians generally introduce us to other Christians who then invite us to address any number of groups and participate in any number of events generally frequented by other Christians. Before we know it, we are deeply entrenched in a Christian culture and, although busy, have severely hindered ourselves from having a real first-hand impact on the predominantly non-Christian world that we live in.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that those of us who serve a predominantly Christian audience, doing leadership training and pastoral conferences, do a great deal of good. Nevertheless, there is a question that haunts me: Does my professional schedule exempt me from fulfilling the Great Commission?

Another often repeated concept is that most of what is learned, that is what is transferred and actually applied to a person’s life comes through the teacher’s ability to model what he or she is communicating. In other words, that which is learned is more often caught than taught. This serves as well to make the reality all the more convincing, we as missionaries can’t just train disciplers we have to be disciplers ourselves.

But how? How can we who have been caught up in the busyness of the ministry refocus our lives in order to prioritize discipleship ministry? I have a few ideas:

  1. Don’t stop preaching discipleship. Our continued involvement and reflection on the theme will continue to motivate us to “practice what we preach.” It will also enable us to explain our inability to fulfill expectations that others may try to place upon us that do not enable disciple-making ministry to take place
  2. Expand our circle of influence intentionally to include non-Christians. This requires an honest look at our lives in order intentionally create relationships with those who do not know Christ. Are we truly like our Master who was known as a friend of sinners?
  3. Look for opportunities everywhere. Discipleship opportunities can take place over a play-date with the kids or a late night greeting across the street. But we need to look out for them, recognize them for what they are, and utilize them to bring seekers closer to a relationship with their God.
  4. Be in constant prayer. When I prepare for a meeting or a teaching, I can control the elements. I pick the theme, the illustrations, and the length of time that I am going to speak. As a discipler, I don’t have these luxuries. I have to rely on the Holy Spirit for direction and clear insight into the matter at hand. Hearing his voice is only enabled as I practice acknowledging his presence in every moment.

These things are coming to pass in our lives as we have evaluated our ministry and daily life here in Mérida. I’m happy to report that we can count many non-Christians now as our friends. Pray for us as we engage ourselves in their their lives and adjust our schedules to keep discipleship a true focus of our ministry.

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