The Gospel in Action

On Monday, we went to a day center for people living on the street. After we met and spoke with some of the leadership, the center allowed us to help in the kitchen, in the garden, and with a game. We weren’t able to participate in the singing, as it was all in Romanian, but we rejoiced that Baron was able to share the gospel during a devotional time. Most people seized the time to nap, but at least one young guy paid close attention. Seeing this, I prayed for him during the message.

One surprising realization from our trip (my second time at this center) was that many of these young people were also there when Laurel and I visited in 2007. When talking with the staff about this, one responded, “Yes, it’s a little depressing.” It brings to mind the fact that only God can change hearts.

Please pray that God uses His truth at the center to do just that. Please pray for the ministry at Lugoj too. There aren’t many who live on the street in Lugoj, so we have no intention of starting a ministry like this. But we want to minister in ways that will keep people from getting to the point where they live on the street. Please pray that God shows us how to do that best.

Thank you for praying for the arrival of the Segers and the Frieses and for our team’s visit to the crisis pregnancy center in Timișoara. The travelers made it safely to their hotel, and God gave us a very informative meeting with the leaders of the crisis center.

Here are some of the daunting realities we learned:

• With a total population of about 22,000,000, Romania aborts about 1,000,000 children annually, making it the top provider of abortions in Europe (second in the world).
• Out of nearly 7,000 abortive-minded mothers counseled, the crisis center has been able to dissuade about 350 from going through with the abortion.
• Most officials prefer abortion in crisis pregnancies and are not excited about those who discourage it.

Please pray that God would give us wisdom to know if and how to proceed with a similar ministry in the future. Like many other problems in Romania, the abortion situation is overwhelming and desperately needs prayer. After I return from Romania, I will give a fuller description of what the center in Timișoara is doing and of what starting one of our own might involve.

Special note: I have now driven in Romania for the first time. Traveling in Romania is always an adventure, but this was an especially exciting experience. I hadn’t driven a stick since driving in Korea, and my refresher here in Romania entailed shuttling five children to and from VBS. The children continually urged me in Romanian to drive at unsafe velocities. I did not indulge them. The disappointed children didn’t bestow me with any awards, but at least they made it to their destination without incident.

This past week, Laurel and I enjoyed the privilege of attending Grace Church of Mentor’s National Church Planting Conference for the second time. As with last year’s conference God ministered to us through His word and through the testimonies of His powerful work in churches across America. Though we found many of the sessions to be valuable, the final session, preached by Pastor Phelps touched our hearts more than any other.

Here’s the outline I made of the sermon:

The Peril of Participation without Passion (Rev. 2:1-7)

1. What will remain if first love falters?
   Disciplined morality, doctrinal purity, discerning ministry, but just the motions
2. What is required for first love to be restored?
   Remember God’s blessings, repent of your coldness, return to your first love
3. What will be the result of the restoration of first love?
   Satisfaction in communion

In the final point of the message, Phelps said, “God does not want a relationship of performance but of love.” This really struck a chord with us. Busyness for the Lord is not the same as walking with Him. This truth is a daily reality for us. Even though we are constantly busy for the Lord, it is all to easy for one day’s activities to run into the next day’s work. And then almost without warning, first-love can become a distant memory. Please pray that our passion and love for God will be the only fuel for all of our busyness.

This morning as I was reading Acts 5 I was struck by how imperative it is for missionaries to care more about what God thinks than what people think. The chapter opens up with the story of Ananias and Saphira. The story is set in the context of the church’s birth (a macrocosmic beginning for what missionaries attempt to do in microcosmic form wherever the Lord puts them.) The church’s conception and then continuing life depends on the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit. Within this context enter in Ananias, Sapphira, and Satan (see verse 3). Ananias and then Saphira in turn lie to the church leaders about giving all of the proceeds from a property sale to the church, when in fact they only gave part. The act of keeping some of the proceeds wasn’t wrong. Lying about it was.

Ananias and Sapphira probably never considered that their little lie to make themselves look good to the church was the equivalent of lying to the Holy Spirit (interestingly, equated with God in this passage.) Or that their little lie was such a serious sin that God’s judgment would mean their death sentence. Satan, a liar from the beginning, used this couple to attempt to gain a stronghold in the infant church where the Holy Spirit was leading and displaying His power not just through miracles and conversions but also through an unusual and supernatural unity among believers. Satan’s foiled attempt to sow distrust and dishonesty showed that he was no match for the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ananias and Sapphira wanted to look good, selfless. and righteous to the church. So do missionaries. Our lively-hood and economic ability to minister depends on it. But what a lesson for us. I doubt many missionaries are tempted to blatantly lie on forms or in interviews, but even a slight twisting of the truth –an attempt to tell the church what we think they want to hear not actually what’s happening, now that’s a regular temptation. But a slight twisting here and a little tweaking there can be devastating to our ministries.  If our communication is not the absolute truth, then our character is not reflecting God’s character, and we’re giving Satan a backdoor to slip through into the works God is doing through us. How foolish to undermine the Holy Spirit’s working in this way. He won’t tolerate it. We must be truthful no matter what men may think.

Recently, I received an e-mail from a very dear high school friend.  In the letter she kindly, but pointedly articulated weaknesses that she sees in the deputation process as she has seen it through our lives over the last half of a year.  Of course the letter stung a bit, but a lot of her comments we’re right on. She pointed out some errors that Joshua and I must correct, but she also pointed out some weaknesses that neither Joshua nor I can correct. They’re inherent to the deputation tradition and would require cooperation on a national level to fix.

We know that these problems that seem simple to fix to her, an unsaved market-minded Japanese woman, really are a bit more complicated due to the politics of our movement and our independent polity tradition. And we know that many a missionary, lay Christian, and pastor has yearned to correct the system because of the obvious wasted resources of time and money.  But my friend’s critical letter caused me for the first time to think that while it is tragic to waste resources,  it is much more tragic that our failure to fix these problems results in a poor testimony to the unsaved world.

Every missionary has unsaved family or friends who follow his progress on the fund raising trail and what a tragedy that our methodology may hinder our effectiveness not only to get to the place God has called us to minister in a timely and cost effective way, but also may hinder our ability to share Christ with our unsaved family and friends in an unblemished way.

As Christians, 1 Corinthians 10:31 commands us that whatever we do, we should do all to the glory of God. And 2 Peter 1:5 tells us that we are to supplement our faith with excellence. Few, if any, would call the deputation tradition an excellent way to efficiently fuel the Great Commission.

So there’s an obvious problem out there and that begs the question how do we fix it? If you have any ideas on how to improve the deputation process, please pass them along to us. We’ve met many pastors who aren’t fond of the system and who want to change it, but so far we haven’t met anyone (including ourselves) who has suggestions on how to change it. But if anyone can come up with some ideas, it seems that there are good men out there ready to break with or at least to build on and adapt tradition into something a bit more efficient and effective, and we will willingly pass on your ideas to pastors that we meet.

I am so grateful for the gift of such a genuine friend who is willing to be “iron sharpening iron.” Even though she might not admit that God used her in such a way. He did. Now can we as a Christian family get busy sharpening this system, and let God use our efforts toward excellence to turn the deputation trail into something that will reveal His excellence and glory to both the saved and unsaved world?