brett’s morning blend (19dec12)

A few days ago I asked Baylor for a good morning hug.  She slowly backed away and responded, “But… you see… I’m really so pretty.  And pretty people don’t give hugs.  [Long pause.]  You know… I only give kisses to everybody.”

She then leaned in and gave me a kiss… without a hug.

Where does my daughter learn these things?!  Does Dora teach that the attractive among us don’t embrace?  “Yo soy hermosa. No hay un abrazo para ti, Boots!”

And since when is giving kisses to EVERYBODY an action that can be qualified with the word only?

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the key to evangelism: hospitality?

Steve Childers of Reformed Theological Seminary stated recently that the key to evangelism in the 21st century will be hospitality.

I can’t help but think one thing….

Hospitality has always has been the key to evangelism.  But not in the way one might assume.

While talk of hospitality in evangelism brings to mind Christians having non-Christians into our homes, inviting pagans to dinner is not exactly what I read in the New Testament.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not at all arguing against being kind to strangers.  Inviting the neighborhood over for a barbecue is a great way to build relationships.  So is hosting the little league end-of-the-year party.

But my understanding of hospitality’s primary role in evangelism is exactly the opposite.

a report on cpm training

Last week, I spent three nights and parts of four days in Mwakiwasha village, teaching a seminar on CPM.  [To read more on what I taught and the nature of that seminar, see cpm training: a turning point in my ministry.]  This is an initial report on how I believe that seminar went — both the good and the bad.

There were 15-20 people in attendance at each of the sessions, representing three churches.  The group was about half men and half women, with the Mwakiwasha church (the host church) represented far better than the others — as was expected.  We spent roughly 20 hours in class and also ate most of our meals together, sometimes discussing further what we’d studied that day.

cpm training: a turning point in my ministry

Tomorrow I’m going to Mwakiwasha village to teach the Discovery Bible Study process and Church Planting Movements.  I’m posting today, partly to (as per usual) let you guys know what we’re up to in Geita, but mostly to ask you to pray over the seminar.

[If you don't care to read about my plans for evangelism in the villages surrounding Geita, I understand -- this is a long post.  But please skip to the end and pray over the requests I've listed.  I very much would appreciate that.]

There will be representatives present from four or five churches in the area, totaling 12-20 people.  We will begin the seminar with worship on Sunday evening and then three days of classes, likely four classes per day with a time of worship each evening.

The first things I’ll teach (and briefly) are:

• Why group Bible study is important (vs. a lone teacher)
• Why obedience-based Bible study is important (vs. knowledge-based)
• How to do an oral inductive Bible study (a sort of 3-column Bible study)

The reason I’m wanting to teach the above subjects quickly is that once we’ve worked through the above material, the remainder of the seminar’s studies will be done in small groups using the inductive Bible study method.  I will very much limit my actual teaching beyond initially touching on these three subjects.

checking our religious traditions

Last week I enjoyed studying Matthew 15:1-9 with our interns.  The teachers of the law and Pharisees were upset about Jesus’ disciples failure to follow their traditions by not washing their hands before meals.  Jesus responded by pointing out that the religious leaders were placing their own traditions above God’s commands.

The Pharisees, instead of honoring their parents by helping them financially, claimed that those moneys had been given to God.  It seems to me they’d found a way to count twice the money they were placing in the collection tray.  The Pharisees’ tradition, then, was in direct conflict with God’s commands.  

Obviously, the story teaches us to check our traditions, that they not oppose God’s desires or force us to be disobedient to God.  Traditions which are in conflict with God’s commands are wrong.  

But even church traditions which do not directly oppose God’s rules can be dangerous.  Here are two other reasons to check our churches’ customs and rituals:

missions: two by two

I wrote a little the other day about short-term missions and mentioned I intended to write more on the subject soon.  I even made an outline.  But then that outline got really long, and I became overwhelmed.  So I’ve decided instead to do something even longer!  I’m going to use some space up on the blog writing about missions in general — and eventually I’ll get back to the specific topic of short-term missions (though I think each of these general missions posts will help to inform our study of short-term missions).  So here goes part one (or two?) of what will surely be a meandering study of missions (that really ought not be numbered).  Let’s look some at how Jesus sent (short-term) missionaries out.

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Jesus sent missionaries out two by two (Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1).  Why was that important?*

Jesus prays for disunity

Forgive my tone today.  I’ve been reading in preparation for Easter sermons, and I’m in a bit of a bad mood.  Just before being arrested and crucified, Jesus prays for all the future believers in the world, and much of his prayer is for unity.  But we’ve apparently opted to read his words in this way:

the first of all creation (and the answer isn’t light)

Riddle:  What was the first thing God created?

condemnation and forgiveness: the believers’ responsibility

image courtesy of Rembrandt

I have been overwhelmed lately by the power we, as Christians, hold.  That we can forgive at all is remarkable.  But truly astonishing is that we have been given the responsibility of distributing God’s forgiveness to the world.  One could argue that God, in some way or another, follows our lead when it comes to offering forgiveness to a broken world.

contextualization and paul in athens

Are we under-contextualizing the gospel?  Or are we over-contextualizing it?

The second half of Acts 17 is a beautiful picture of Paul presenting the good news in a meeting of the Areopagus in Athens.  It is contextualization at its best.  But what is contextualization, some might ask?