Archive December 2009
K_rd Update
Today we had a very solid meeting of the Be_edini K_rd Alliance, a group of local churches in the United States and Latin America dedicated to being God-sent friends of this group of people who have been objects of tough times and horrible persecution. Our little group is less than a year old, but we have already seen some very encouraging developments.
Here are a few of the blessings of the past few months:
- Three each of us from KCBT and Grace Church in OP have been able to be on the ground this year in northern Ir@q and see a bit of what is happening with our own eyes.
- A little team of several church planters continue to mature and bear fruit in their individual outreaches.
- A few months ago in an Armenian village in northern Ir@q, a number of Armenians who have grown up speaking Be_edini as their mother tongue have come to faith. They are growing as disciples of Jesus and gaining a burden to share their faith with their neighbors.
- A small group of “secret” believers have been discovered in a village among a sub group of Be_edini speakers in another village.
- At least one of the Bible studies begun by the church planters over the past couple of years has recently shown signs of developing into a church in the not too distant future.
- A young lady from Grace in OP is studying in the university in Ir@q, making friendships and having great opportunities to model the life of a Christ follower.
- For three men who await sentencing having been captured carrying Bibles into a neighboring country.
What is our objective? To see a church planting movement among the Be_edini speaking K_rds. There have been 43 known church planting movements in history and 19 of them have been carefully documented. In each case those who have been part of such a movement credit prayer as a major factor. Extraordinary prayer is the first of six commonalities of church planting movements.
With that said, here are some very important prayer requests that come to my mind for our BKA:
- That a church planting movement would take place in northern Ir@q.
- That God would continue to connect us with the K_rdish community in our own city, many of whom speak Be_edini, and that we would show ourselves to be their friends.
- That the Lord Jesus Christ would reveal himself in his supernatural power to those in northern Ir@q.
- For the wife of church planter who has been a solid, faithful woman for many years and is now in the grip of a horrible depression/oppression.
- For financial resources for these church planters, some of whom are transitioning into vocational employment even as they continue their ministries.
- For financial resources for our alliance of churches and for Epic International, the facilitating agency with whom we partner. Staff have taken massive pay cuts in light of the current economic climate, including Randy, our field coordinator who is invaluable to this work.
- For our dear friend Roscoe, founder of Epic, that God would completely heal him of cancer.
One Who Came Back
On a cold Monday, December morning the phone rang in my assistant’s office. The year was 1984 and I was still trying to adjust to the Midwestern winter cold after having recently moved back to the United States.
As happens in about 99.9% of the cases, my assistant explained that I was currently occupied but that if the caller would leave leave a number and explain what the call was in regard to, she would see if I could call back.
The voice on the other end of the phone was a high-powered salesman in a city about an hour and a half away, a man who had not wanted to acknowledge his drinking problem but had heard me on television the day before. He had been walking by the television set and for whatever reason he paused to hear what I was saying. He wife came back a few minutes later and he was sitting on the arm of the sofa still listening. When she returned later he had settled into the chair, still fixed on every word.
“Aw, he’s just like all those TV preachers,” he told his wife as he hung up from talking with my assistant. “You just wait and see. I’ll give him until 10:ooam to call me back.”
At 9:50am, by the grace of God, I returned his call. I told him I had just had a cancellation for a time that Wednesday and invited him to come. He did.
Within a relatively short period of time, this man had put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this particular case, his desire for alcohol evaporated like a drop of water on a hot stove. From my office he made a beeline to a nursing facility to share what had happened with his elderly mother who had faithfully prayed for him for decades. Thirteen days later she passed away with a great peace in her heart. My new friend went on to succeed in business and life in general.
Fast forward to 2009. My phone rang again, and my current assistant answered with the same familiar script. The voice on the other end was the same. This time his request was that he and his wife take Cheryl and me out to lunch following this past Sunday’s service. And that they did – 25 years to the day after he had come to faith. This was not the first time I had seen him since that initial meeting 25 years earlier, but it was a very special time for all of us. They even presented us with a very generous donation for the church.
I reminded him of the story of Jesus having healed the ten lepers, but only one returned to give glory to God and thanks to Jesus.
Yesterday I told my friend, “You are that one leper in ten!”
I don’t know about you, but I find that it’s easy for me to be thankful for something someone has done, yet forget to express my thanks to them personally, specifically and intentionally. Events like this one yesterday remind me of my own need to be a thankful person.
Is there someone in your life to whom a sincere appreciation of thanks would be in order? Why not be that one individual in ten!
Are You Demanding Enough of Yourself?
We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter is one who makes no demands on himself.
Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher and essayist (1883-1955)
What a thought-provoking quote! I discovered it on my friend Tina’s blog. You may have seen her mentioned here from time to time, and some of you have checked out her own very fine blog. If not, you can do so here. There is enough good stuff here to keep you occupied for quite some time.
Here is what Tina had to say:
Most of us want to be thought of as excellent–in our work, in our example, in our efforts and ethics, in our health and appearance and in our outlook on life. We want to be excellent parents, excellent friends, excellent employees, supervisors, managers or leaders. We don’t want to be common in the sense it was used in this thought, as unexceptional, mediocre and unimpressive. (The examples we see of that condition are enough to motivate us!)
Señor Ortega y Gasset was correct: Achieving excellence (or even improving substantially) requires making demands on ourselves–perhaps asking of ourselves actions that are difficult or uncomfortable mentally or physically, or that require time and effort. It’s rarely easy. Most of us have to say, ”I want this from you, Mind, Body and Spirit. I know you can give it to me and I won’t settle for less, so do it!”
What do you want to demand of yourself today, this week or in the coming year? It doesn’t have to be a dramatic accomplishment to be worthy of demanding more. Maybe just a new or renewed good habit, stopping one thing and starting something else, being your best self even when you are tempted to be otherwise. It’s all worth the effort, and all of it will give you a wonderful sense of achievement.
Remember, you can’t hint or hope, even to yourself, and expect to achieve. You will have to command, insist and refuse to accept anything less than what you want. That is the ultimate self-discipline that leads to excellence. Be demanding!
I fear that some people use their “spirituality” as an excuse not to place any demands on themselves. It’s easy to sit still and say that you are waiting on the Lord, trusting in his grace alone, or any other popular expression that is often heard in church world. Clearly there are times to be quiet, wait, pray and rest. Those common phrases we so glibly toss around can also be a good excuse for laziness. There is no conflict between a Spirit-filled life of prayer and good, old-fashioned hard work.
Reflecting on Tina’s remarks, I thought of some of the Apostle Paul’s words. He was certainly a Spirit-filled man of prayer and faith, yet he was also a man who placed the highest demands on himself. Consider the following samples and you be the judge.
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
(1 Corinthians 9:27)
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
(1 Corinthians 15:10)
Blackbob Christmas
Blackbob Elementary School is where Cheryl and I exercised our grand-parental responsibilities this evening. Kiersten, one of our grandchildren, was performing in her 5th grade choir.
Check out the redhead in the center!
Listening to the kids tonight, I thought about how fortunate they were to have a fairly sophisticated musical education at such an early age. Music was such an important part of my education and I cherish every memory. These kids had a teacher for band, a teacher for stringed instruments and still another choral teacher. I can’t remember that level of learning available in the fifth grade, but I sure was appreciative of whatever we had.
Tonight I was reminded how grateful we should be for dedicated teachers. The three teachers I observed displayed a love for both music and children. What draws them is certainly not the quality of music produced by fifth graders, but the opportunity to inject into the lives of children an appreciation for music that can be a positive influence for the rest of their lives. Sadly, in times of economic challenge, it is often the arts budget that gets cut.
Have you ever noticed the emphasis in the Bible that is given to the arts? The greatest artist of all is God himself. He has filled creation with beauty! Among the first vocations mentioned in Genesis are musicians and artists. Artists contributed to the magnificence of the Temple and David ordered musicians to fill the future Temple with praise. David was a musician, composer and poet himself. These examples are just for starts.
Here’s a salute to all of you wonderful teachers, no matter what subject you teach. Please know that there are many of us who are extremely thankful for what you do!
Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me. Mark 9:37
God Bless Us, Every One!
Those of us who live in Kansas City have had the opportunity to see the wonderful productions of A Christmas Carol that have been offered at the Kansas City Repertory Theater for the past 29 years. Some have made this play an annual tradition until director Eric Rosen decided to roll the dice this year with a world premier based on the cult classic movie A Christmas Story. I think the idea might be to alternate with Dickens A Christmas Carol, but the new production has been wildly successful and appears Broadway-bound.
Most of us have seen several versions of A Christmas Carol—either at the Rep, in other productions or made-for-TV movies. There is also the Disney version, the Muppet version and a Mr. Magoo version. Dickens would probably think those were true horror stories! You really owe it to yourself and your family to get a copy of the original novella or print it from the Internet, to see the brilliance of Dickens’s writing and “hear” the lines, as though for the first time, in his exact words.
As we near Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I want to remind you of the scene in which the famous Christmas phrase was first used:
After the table has been cleared, following a meager but joyful and loving Christmas dinner, Bob Cratchit and his wife gather their six children around them in front of the fireplace. (One of them is Tim–Tiny Tim–who is frail, crippled and ill with a disease that we discover in the story will take his life in a year or two if things don’t change.) Everyone has punch, some in chipped and mismatched cups, and Mrs. Cratchit asks Bob to make a toast to “sweeten the punch.” He looks around and says,
“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God Bless us!” Which all the family re-echoed.
“God Bless us, every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
You’ll notice Tiny Tim didn’t decide to say “God Bless us every one!” on his own. He said it because his father said it, and his mother and five bothers and sisters said it. They set the example for him to follow and make even better. It was a family thing.
God Bless Us, Every One
As I think about my KCBT family, the family of believers we have around the world, I say, “A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!” I now invite you to echo back. In this day of fearful, politically-correct speech, when we are meekly greeted on the street and in the stores with “Happy Holidays,” I challenge you to boldly proclaim “Merry Christmas! God bless us!” I hope you will have a chance this Christmas to pause with your family to say, “God bless us, every one.”
To those of you in Kansas City, I look to see you tomorrow at 4:30 for our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.