Lessons from the flat world

A couple of weeks ago I ordered from audible.com the audio track of Thomas Friedman's book called The World Is Flat. I have loved listening to it and am learning a ton about our world, technology, leadership, and globalization. I wish I had the text to go back to and underline and quote things to share. My handwriting skills are so pathetic that it took me about a half an hour to write this following portion of Friedman's thoughts.

The following quote comes from a CEO of a European multi-national company. That morning I also read the vision and mission of Christ found in Luke 4:43. "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose."

"If I can buy five brilliant researchers in China and or India for the price of one in the U.S. or Europe, I will buy the five. And if in the long run that means my own society loses it's skills base, so be it. The only way to converge the interest of the two (the company and the country of origin) is to have a really smart population that can not only claim it's slice of the bigger global pie, but invent it's own new slices as well. We have grown addicted to our high salaries and now we are going to have to earn them."

In reading and hearing these two things juxtaposed next to each other I immediately thought of our ministries, churches and missions. I would rephrase how I feel about where I am and where we are at. "If can can develop and work with 5 brilliant missional Christ centered laborers in a trimmed down, non event driven, activity filled ministry/church for the price of one in our current traditional/attractional/programmatic filled churches, I will work with the 5 else where. And if in the long run that means my own current church or ministry loses it's care, nurturing, energy and time and people leave to go get fed somewhere else, then so be it. The only way to converge the interest of the two (the missional and the attractional church) is to have a really smart following that can not only claim it's slice of the bigger mission (kingdom work) but also invent new ways to be part of the mission of reaching the lost (kingdom work). We have grown addicted to our programmatic/feed me churches/ministries/services and now we are going to have to bring the Gospel to others as well."

I'm not sure if I seeing things clearly but I believe this is one of the core issues behind really seeing Christ's truth and grace go to all the world. There are tens, hundreds, thousands and millions of people that are waiting for a community of believers to bring the kingdom (good deeds and good news) to them. We are worrying too much about our programs, our care, our needs, our worship services and forgetting that we are to love God and our neighbor. We are to be the ambassadors of the Gospel. We are God's only plan to reach the world.

All in all, in the past 2 years I have come to grip as to where God is calling me in this kingdom work. I have a renewed sense of vision and mission. I want to spend my time working, training, developing those that have a deep sense of following Christ and in that a humility to say, "I will do what you want me to do, be and say, regardless if it is comfortable or meets all my needs." You don't have to have all the training in the world. You don't have to be perfect. You don't even have to know all there is to know about Christ. In my opinion it is about a brokenness before God and an openness to bless others. God touching our lives with the power of the Gospel to impact us deep to the core so that we are impacting others with this life transformed.

I'm sure there will be more.
Categories: Missions, Leadership, Coaching, Books, Church, Movements

Brad: "Do it again Lord."

Brad Fieldhouse of Kingdom Causes in Long Beach has been an encouragement to me as we pioneer this CCC summer mission project. His recent blog on seeing God move in Long Beach was inspiring and a desire of mine as well.

Do it again Lord.
Categories: LongBeach, Prayer

How people learn

I just read a snippet from Steve Addison's blog on how people learn. I needed to post it here b/c I'll forget these wise principles and I need to come back to them and think more about them.

• People learn best when they see someone effectively model the skill or character trait they wish to learn.
• People learn best when they gain hands-on experience through on-the-job training. Jesus' training model would accurately be summarized in the following order of words: Orient....Involve....Equip.
• People learn best in a mosaic pattern, not a linear pattern. In other words, they learn best when they sense a need, not when the subject just happens to come up next in the curriculum list.
• People learn best through 'just-in-time' training. When you are involved in ministry, and there you sense a need--that is when you need a resource, when you need the help, and when you are most teachable!
• People learn best when they have effective mentoring relationships.

Categories: leadership, Coaching

In and Out Baptism

Today Christine had to run out to spend some time with the other gals on the project and I had the kids for lunch. Oh a dad, kids and lunch time. What to do with the wide variety of cooking skills I possess? What better thing to do than run to In and Out Burgers 4 miles away. I had no fear that my empty stomach and the boys would enjoy a few double doubles and fries but Isa was the gamble. I wasn't sure if she was going to go for a cheeseburger. But as you can see it was total joy. Oh a girl after her father's heart.

You can see more pictures of the family at Van Diest Photos

Categories: family, photos

I want to be a missionary.

Oh, wait. I am a missionary. But this summary from Marc VanderWoude's blog on Nuno Barreto's insights on missionaries coming to Portugal is insightful and challenging to me as we move to Mexico in August.

1. Skip Bible school; instead learn how to plant churches in real-life.
2. Engage with the culture, but dare to be authentically foreign; don't imitate the locals.
3. Count the cost and learn the language.
4. Get a job that helps you meet lots of people, and join a club.
5. Forget about targets and 5-year plans; get a (family) life.
6. Resist the temptation of forming a holy bubble with other missionaries.
7. Beware of support with strings attached; stay financially free to be able to move with God.
8. When you plant a church, don't stay on as a pastor; your best gift to the church is to move on.

Be praying for us as we get ready to move there and call Mexico City our home for 3 years. We are planning on making a trip, no kids, from July 8-14 to buy a car, find a house and prepare for our family to arrive on Aug 1st.

Categories: Leadership, Missions, MexicoCity

Update on Long Beach Developments

Today marks about 2 1/2 weeks our students have been in Long Beach, CA. From the beginning our desire was to communicate this is a different mission project than maybe they expected. Then we rolled out the schedule of events, or the lack there of. We started the summer with some key vision, mission, values and tactics and then trained them in the how's to plant spiritual movements. Our desire is that students will learn to grow faith where life happens. Not grow ministry where life happens or grow a Christian club where life happens but grow faith, trust and a belief in God where our lives happen. We intentionally stripped away from the project many of the good and beneficial Christian events that attempt to help develop this. We don't have a men's or women's time. We don't have a weekly teaching, worship and fellowship time. We don't have weekly socials. We don't even have a time set aside for prayer or special outreach. That alone freaked out some students as we all have become accustomed to the filling of our weeks with Christian events to help us grow and reach out to others.

Our biggest desire was to go after the heart change and tension to trust God moment by moment as we live, work, play and attempt to plant spiritual movements all over Long Beach. For some this was a freeing word and they immediately jumped into the city and made friends and connections. They are learning to live with the tension and ambiguity of what is ministry and what is personal time. We desire that they would see every moment as a moment where God is moving and could use them. We can't plan and categorize our days for ministry, growth and personal time and really live by faith. We want students to feel the struggle deep in their hearts that it is hard to walk moment by moment by faith in God. It could be as simple as saying all day long, "God what do you have for me at this time?" Yesterday I asked our students what have been some barriers to living this way and not just wanting to fill their days with Christian activities. One guy answered and said it was hard and that his heart was just plain hard and he didn't really love those around him. This is exactly what we want our students to surface. You can't learn that in a book, classroom or a retreat. You can only learn that when you strip away all that you're used to or comfortable with and are left with living by faith in God to grow you, speak to you, move around you and use you. At this point God then lights a fire in your life and begins to speak to you and move like never before. That is when spiritual movements are planted.

Today I was reading from the House Church Blog and I noticed this comparison. The following list is exactly what we desire to be going on in our students.

• FROM CONSUMER/SPECTATOR TO PLAYER/PARTICIPANT
• FROM INVOLVEMENT IN WEEKLY OR BI-WEEKLY SACRED EVENTS TO LIVING A SACRED LIFESTYLE (HIS PRESENCE EVERYWHERE I GO)
• FROM DRINKING MILK PREPARED BY OTHERS TO LEARNING TO FEED FROM HIS WORD FOR OUR SELF
• FROM RELIGIOUS ROUTINES TO SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE
• FROM RELIANCE ON EXTERNAL PROGRAMS FOR OUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH TO DEVELOPING AN INNER DISCIPLINE
• FROM CONFORMITY TO OTHERS TO DISCOVERING A NEW CREATIVITY BASED ON OUR OWN UNIQUE CALLING, PASSION, AND GIFTS
• FROM "MY CHURCH" TO "WE THE CHURCH"
• FROM HANGING OUT IN THE CHRISTIAN GHETTO TO SHARING HIS LIFE OUT IN THE WORLD
• FROM MISSIONAL PROJECTS TO MISSIONAL LIVING
• FROM PROJECT PLANNING TO PRAYER MOVEMENTS
• FROM FINDING MY IDENTITY IN "MY" CHURCH, "MY" MINISTRY, OR "MY" MOVEMENT TO FINDING MY FULL IDENTITY IN SIMPLY BEING HIS--HIS CHILD--HIS BELOVED

The differences are simple. We mostly want students to live a life that is about living by faith in God. You can continue to pray that our students will stay in the growing process. My fear is that they are just resorting to what is comfortable; socials, hanging out in Christian packs and ministry events and miss the great joy of hearing from God and responding. My fear as a leader is that I will resort to controlling them and not leading them to this point. I don't want to get to a point where I fill their days with ministry so they are doing something. Pray that I am comfortable with the success of this project is that students are struggling with the deeper heart issues of following Christ.

Categories: LongBeach, Leadership, Coaching, SimpleChurch

Prayer - Seeing God's Heart

When it comes to the topic of prayer in my personal life and ministry I would call myself a legendary intercessor. The truth is I struggle and try to understand the importance of talking with God, listening to Him and aligning my heart to what He has for me. Not only is my understanding limited, so is my practice of prayer.

I still remember the first time I hear John Piper speak on prayer, "Prayer, The Work of Missions" and it rocked my understanding and importance of prayer. "We must talk first about war. Because life is war. And it is utterly impossible for people to know what prayer really is until they know that they are in a war, and until they know that the stakes of that war are infinitely higher than the stakes in the Persian Gulf or in the Reagan-Gorbachev consultations." He spoke with passion and with an urgency that lifted my desire to treat prayer like a war time tool.

As God has been working my heart and mind over these past few years in regards to my relationship with God, my leadership of ministry and my personal ministry with my family, friends and acquaintances I have been convicted of my lack of prayer understanding and practice. As I read, study, and observe the hand of God moving throughout history and right now all across the world it seems to me that the common thread of fruitfulness is prayer. So as a pragmatist and one who desires God's fruit in what I do I am again thrust to my knees to pray.

This past week we had 32 students arrive in Long Beach as part of our Campus Crusade Summer project. Our desires is to grow faith where life happens and to teach our students on how to plant church/spiritual movements all over Long Beach. One of the greatest encouragements in this challenge is that it isn't just a Campus Crusade thing. We, as a project, walked into a work of God much bigger than our own events, training and mission. About a year ago I was reconnected with Brad Fieldhouse of Kingdom Causes. Brad and I went to high school together. Brad is a gifted leader and wonderful networker. He is giving leadership to a house church network for the Reformed Church of American in Long Beach and leading Kingdom Causes. A ministry to help network, connect and lift up the church in Long Beach to bless the city.

A couple of months ago Brad asked our project if we wanted to take part of a 10-1-90 prayer movement. From what I know it started in Africa about 5 years ago. It is 10 days of prayer leading up to One Day of Pentecost (this year June 4- yesterday) gathering. Then it is followed 90 days of service and kingdom work in the city. Last night our students joined the Long Beach and Bellflower Pentecost prayer time. It was inspiring, encouraging and eye opening. It challenged me to trust God, pray more fervently and to believe. About an hour into the gathering a local pastor of 23 years in Long Beach confirmed why God led us to Long Beach. He thanked our group for coming to plant church/movements in Long Beach and that we are an answer to his and hundreds of others' prayers. He opened up the city to us and asked us to follow God and be a testimony. It brought tears to my eyes and broke my heart. I am so thankful for what God is doing through prayer and how that is helping us see His heart for the cities of the world and mostly for the people He loves.

Join with us in praying for Long Beach, praying for our leadership, praying that God will have all of us and that God will move supernaturally in and around our lives. Be praying for our transition to Mexico City in less than 2 months. Wow. We need prayer.

Categories: God, Prayer, LongBeach