Tag Archives: Missions

Touching North Korea

January 10, 2012 By in Missions Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I meant to do this post weeks ago. The holidays and a cruddy cold took care of that notion.

Still, anybody who reads a newspaper or watches the news knows that North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Il slipped into eternity in December. His son, Kim Jong-Un has succeeded him as the new ruler of one of the world’s remaining Communist countries and the most dangerous place on the planet to profess faith in Jesus Christ, according to Open Doors USA.

What can we do to touch this most closed-to-the-gospel nation on planet earth? We can pray. We can intercede with the confidence of Isaiah 64:4 that no one has a God like we do who acts for those who wait for Him.

Open Doors USA suggests that we pray the following:

  • The new leader, Kim Jong-Un, will have a heart of mercy and end the cycle of inhumane dictatorial rule.
  • Those in government who have been “secret Christians” will gain more power and influence.
  • Christians who have been imprisoned because of their faith will have opportunities to lead others in prayers. And while they pray the Holy Spirit will be revealed to those who don’t know Jesus.
  • There will be an increase in opportunities to share about Jesus without fear of retaliation.
  • The joy and hope of Jesus will be revealed to those who are sorrowful and feel uncertain of the future.
  • North Korean Christians will gain a new boldness and wisdom and will seize opportunities to tell others about the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth.
  • On Christmas day especially, the light of Christ will penetrate every home and heart in North Korea.
  • Refugees who have fled into China and become Christian will courageously return to North Korea and share the hope of Jesus to a hurting nation.
  • The horrendous situation with starvation will not escalate even further because of the government’s desire to demonstrate control.
  • The thousands of starving children who are homeless will find shelter, comfort and love in a home with a believer.

Operation World says this in its preface: Prayer is indeed potent . . . especially sustained intercession for the unreached peoples of this world who do not know Jesus – is action (p. xxiii).

May we be a people of action through prayerful touching of unreached places like North Korea.

Making Much of Missions at Advent

December 13, 2011 By in Missions Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I find myself often praying portions of Philippians 2:5-11 with folks during this Christmas season.

Where would we be if the Son of God had not counted equality with God a thing to be grasped and had abhorred the virgin’s womb? Lost – eternally, horribly, hellishly lost.

But the news is good! He humbled himself, took on the form of a bondservant, became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. None of which He could have accomplished if He hadn’t come. None of which He could have accomplished if the Father hadn’t sent Him.

No gospel-motivated missionary on the planet fails to get the significance of this. They have gone to the ends of the earth because the Father sent the Son to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). That means, for me and for my house, among other things, that we must remember missions and missionaries during the Advent season.

One way we have sought to do that practically, along with the partnership of our OGC growth group, is to collaborate together to send a Christmas care package to the Valiquette family serving in Salerno, Italy with the Acts 29 Network in church planting.

Last Tuesday evening our group gathered around a bunch of gifts we had purchased and wrote Christmas cards to Jutty, Abbey, and the children in an effort to remind them they have a sending church at home that loves them and supports them in their gospel endeavors.

Whether you do something on your own or in cooperation with a group, before the season completely escapes you, might you also take some initiative as a sender to bless a goer on some field, whether an OGC missionary or not?

If you choose to go the care package route, here is some helpful counsel I found online for your consideration:

Ask the missionary before sending your care package. This is important for a few different reasons.  First, there are some things for which the missionary may end up having to pay a duty or other tax.  Second, if the missionary is in a sensitive location, they may prefer certain things to be delivered to a different address (to be hand-carried in).  And finally, you may be sending the missionary something which they can already get in country.  We were once sent toothpaste and a large box of tissues – both of which are in abundance where we were.  Try to find out from the missionary what items they really can’t get where they are.  Trust me, most will not be shy about telling someone what they really want if they are asked!

One other thought. These days finances seem to constrain a great deal. You may not find yourself in a position to do anything that costs you money. But don’t let that rule you out in terms of making some gesture to encourage someone on the mission field. Send a note, write an email, but connect in some way.

Let them know you care about their/your cause and that this Christmas you praise God they have gone to where they have gone in the name of the Sent One who came for the lost.

Japan Disaster Relief Update

November 8, 2011 By in Missions, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Back on Good Friday of this year, in a joint communion service with our friends at Faith Baptist Church, we collected an offering for the relief work in Japan following the devastating tsunami that ravaged the northern part of that country in March.

We put in some significant due diligence to determine what agency or individual on the ground could ensure 100% of our gifts going toward relief and relief alone.

Through a previous member at OGC, God led us to Cal Cummings, a missionary with the OPC for many years working not far from the epicenter of the quake.

At our last leadership team meeting I shared a thank you letter from Cal’s home church in Philadelphia. Our elders exhorted me to publish its contents for our assembly’s encouragement, something I am only to happy to do in JapanReliefLetter070711.

Thanks be to God for the generosity of the people of both churches and the work of Cal and others in bringing the gospel to bear on the peoples of Japan!

Pray for the Digo

September 20, 2011 By in Missions, prayer Tags: , , Leave a comment

We are determined.

We will seek God for spiritual breakthroughs in our adopted people group, the Digo.

You may not be able to attend a prayer meeting, but you can pray on your own.

For help in knowing what and how to pray I give you this agenda from last night’s concert of prayer: Digo Prayer Meeting.

Would love to have you join us on October 17 for our next time of prayer. Watch the events calendar for location and time.

Beautiful Feet

August 17, 2011 By in Evangelism Tags: , , , 2 Comments

These don’t look so hot to me today.

But they dazzled with beauty on Friday, August 5, in the village of Mrima, Kenya. I mean with an Isaiah 52:7 kind of beauty.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

I got to do that with this man, among others.

Allow me to introduce you to Tandara, the village chief and local Muslim imam of Mrima. He hosted us for the dedication of the well OGC funded to have dug in this unreached community of Eastern Africa. You can see the well pump in the background. In this photo Tandara had just accepted a copy of the Digo New Testament.Pray he reads it!

During the dedication ceremony, with all the village surrounding us and Tandara seated at my feet of all things, I found my anxiety growing about the words I would say in preaching the gospel to this man and his people – people who likely had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ before. To say the least, this was not my normal Friday morning agenda!

The Lord was gracious to me as he brought to mind the promises of His word, especially the one above about lovely feet. I claimed that as I stood to preach the gospel from John 7:37-38 with as much boldness and courage as I could muster with the help of the Holy Spirit. Rarely have I felt such anointing from the Lord. I was so grateful for His help. I felt so privileged to accomplish such a mission.

Do you think of your feet as beautiful when it comes time to share the gospel with someone? You should. Last Sunday I put forth an appeal at the end of the service to look for opportunities to share with others and to let me know when the Lord opens the door.

God has been so gracious to me already this week. And it is only Wednesday! On Monday I met with a young man who is new to our church. He is on fire for evangelism and practically begged me for outlets to share his faith. I put him in touch with some folks in the area who go out on Friday nights and he was so grateful. On Tuesday I heard about another brother in our fell0wship who plays basketball in his neighborhood on a regular basis. He recently invited some of his unbelieving friends to church and they accepted his invitation. Another brother shared with me how he and his wife have been befriending neighbors who are Mormon. Recently he had a discussion with the husband about how the Old and New Testaments fit together in terms of the covenant faithfulness of God.

I felt like the Lord encouraged me to see that we have many beautiful feet in the congregation at OGC!

Do you see your feet in such a light? Are you praying for open doors for the gospel where you live, work, and play? When you feel the anxiety hit you in such situations, remember the promises of God, especially that your feet are most lovely when you proclaim the good news of the gospel.

The week is only half done. I would love to hear from anyone else in the body about your exquisitely beautiful, most lovely, gospel feet!

No Sermon Upload Today

August 14, 2011 By in Sunday Morning Tags: , 1 Comment

Due to security reasons attached to the sensitive nature of the material and locations presented by our guest speaker today, there will be no sermon upload for August 14, 2011.

Lord willing, we will post the next sermon in the series The Graces of Gospel-Shaped Community, as I resume the series next Sunday, August 21, 2011.

We appreciate your understanding for our need to be discreet in this regard.

The Eternal & Cosmic OGC

July 18, 2011 By in Body of Christ Tags: , , , 4 Comments

Following services yesterday we took a picture of a good many of the saints that comprise Orlando Grace Church. Our Digo survey team intends to take a framed print to Kenya as one of our gifts toward forging and strengthening ongoing connections to the church and people there. We want them to have some idea of the community of believers here in the US that maintain a gospel love for these half way around the world.

I long as a pastor that we as a people would believe just how significant a movement we embody as part of the church of Jesus Christ on planet earth. Nobody said in better than John Piper way back in 1981.

The church of Jesus Christ is the most important institution in the world. The assembly of the redeemed, the company of the saints, the children of God are more significant in world history than any other group, organization or nation. The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun. The drama of international relations compares to the mission of the church like a kindergarten riddle compares to Hamlet or King Lear. And all pomp of May Day in Red Square and the pageantry of New Year’s in Pasadena fade into a formless grey against the splendor of the bride of Christ. Take heed how you judge. Things are not what they seem. “All flesh is like grass. And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord (and all His family) abide forever” (1 Peter 1:24,25). The media and all the powers, and authorities and rulers and stars that they present are a mirage. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). The gates of hades, the powers of death, will prevail against every institution but one, the church.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God … because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19, 21).

Lift up your eyes, O Christians! You belong to a society that will never cease, to the apple of God’s eye, to the eternal and cosmic church of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

To read the rest of his message click here.

Oh for lifted up eyes to see and red hot hearts to believe all that God has for us and means for us to do in Christ Jesus among the Digo and beyond!

Target Tandara

May 25, 2011 By in Missions Tags: , , 4 Comments

As I shared on Sunday, the Lord is on the move in Digoland. In case you missed it, the recap goes like this:

We have funded the digging of a well in Mrima, Kenya, as part of our ongoing outreach to the Digo people. The well is a God thing. It hit water at minimal depth bringing forth 750 liters a day, even during the dry season. Not just water, but clear water, clean enough to drink and bathe in. No other well in the region matches it. It’s the talk of the village. See some of the folks pictured above.

Esther (dressed in white and read, front and center), one of only two believers in the village (until lately!), for whom we named the well, recently witnessed to her nephew in the hospital. He had a vision after that and professed Christ. Since then all ten siblings have come to the Lord and even the Dad. That’s almost unheard of in Digoland (99% Muslim)!

In spite of persecution, these dear ones have stopped tithing to the local mosque and have started a house church in their home! We are working through them to sponsor a well dedication this August when four of us from OGC, Lord willing, will travel to Kenya for this and other survey purposes related to our love for the work of the gospel among these people.

Interesting note. The chief of the village, who happens to be the local imam, lives right across the street from the well we had dug. His name is Tandara and he will likely attend the dedication this summer. He is a modern day Saul of Tarsus (see Acts 9) for whom we must pray!

So the purpose of this blog post is to put us all at OGC on notice to pray to the Father that He will work in this man’s heart and bring Him to Christ. It is hard to imagine the ripple effects in Mrima and beyond if Tandara were to profess faith in Christ and be baptized.

Will you join me in asking for the wind of the Spirit to blow strong in this man’s heart and life?

Bin Laden's Death in a Different Light

May 2, 2011 By in Cultural Issues, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

As one might expect, the blogosphere is alive and well about someone who isn’t. I refer, of course, to the death of Osama bin Laden.

The flurry of activity on this score, some of it excellent (see Justin Taylor for example), gave me pause about piling on to the discussion.

Obviously, I gave in. Blame it in part on yesterday’s message in John 12:34-36, The Parting Plea of the Public Christ.

Two billion inhabitants of the planet earth have never heard the blessed gospel of the glorious God, the good news of Jesus Christ, the light of the world, come to live a perfect life and die a substitutionary death on behalf of undeserving sinners, so that they might know forgiveness, have credited to their spiritual account the 100% righteousness of Christ, and receive the gift of eternal life.

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Osama bin Laden was one of them. More than likely he never even had a chance to walk in the light that the darkness might not overtake him, as it most surely did given the acts of evil he perpetrated.

Oh how grateful I am, who except for the grace of God may well have gone the way of bin Laden, for the mercies of God which opened my eyes to my rebellious heart, and brought me out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14). If He hadn’t shown me such mercy, how easily the same darkness, to one degree or another, could have overtaken me.

Can we see this poor, evil, got-what-we-all-deserve man in this light? Have we in the west, with so much greater access to the gospel of Jesus, heard His plea to walk in the light while we have the light? Spurgeon warned:

I put before you this serious consideration, that you are at present favored with the Light of God, but you are only favored with it for a certain term. Do not reckon upon always having it, for the Light may be removed from you. My dear Hearer, the day may come when you will have to go away from this country and be found far off in the bush of Australia, or the backwoods of America. Or you may even, in this country, be located where you will not be able to hear the Gospel, for what you will hear will not be the Gospel, and you will be obliged to confess that it is not! Therefore, while you have the Light of God, remember that it is a favorable season for your decision for Christ. The day may come, as I said before, when the voice that has thrilled you, again and again, and that wakes the echoes of your soul’s most secret chambers, shall be silent in death. The time may come when, although your minister and you, yourself, are still left in the same place, yet, so far as you are concerned, the Holy Spirit will be gone, and so the Light will have departed from you. Take heed, I beseech you, lest it really be so, and use the Light while you have it.

Can we who by virtue of our union with Christ gained the privileged and responsible identity of sons of light see this man’s death in yet another light? Does it not call us to double and triple our efforts to shine like stars (Philippians 2:14-16) in bringing the good news to those near and far with gospel works and words?

Lord, shine your light in our hearts regarding this state of affairs and more that we might look beyond the obvious, the superficial, the carnal, the political, that we might see with the spiritually discerning eyes of the gospel.