My Princess Turns 1 year!!

Wow, has it been a year? December 28, 2004 my life was rocked by a little girl, Isabela. I was nervous, scared and intimidated by this little woman. But in a year I have been totally whipped by her smile, laugh, sweet spirit and beauty. Today Benjamin, my 5 year old, comes in asking what we should get Isa. He mentioned she needs a wallet to save her money. Other options were a cell phone or a toy. Maybe a girl Bionicle (he's not sure they exist but that would be cool.)

Categories: Photos, Family

Ephesus Church Planting Movement

Recently Jay Lorenzen posted an excellent article on What does it take to Start a Movement? J. Allen Thompson looks at Ephesus. This is a must read and great insights on reaching cities, regions, countries. Hmm. Thoughts on Mexico City.
Categories: Movements, MexicoCity

Praying the 10:2b prayer

About two months ago John White, Dawn Ministries of Denver, shared a visionary daily prayer he prays. Luke 10:2b; "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." I took the challenge inconsistently but took the challenge anyway. Daily at 10:02am my alarm goes off to remind me to pray for laborers. Below Jaeson Ma shares a bit of the 10:2b history:

USA: the Luke 10:2b virus breaks outSomething very special happened when house church coach John White and Kenny Moore, Southern Baptist Director of Church Planting for the State of Colorado, had breakfast together on October 2, 2002. Both have a passion to see Colorado covered with living expressions of the Body of Christ. While lingering over the last cup of coffee for the morning, their thoughts were turned to the ninth and tenth chapters of Luke. They observed that this waswhere the Lord was really shifting gears, where the foundation was laid for all that would follow till the end of the age. Up to this point, the Lord was doing the ministry. Now he was sending out the 12 (Luke 9:1-6) and then the 72 others (Luke 10:1).

"Now there were 42 two-man teams to establish the presence of Christ 'to plant churches' everywhere," writes Jim Montgomery, a respected missionary and publisher of The Great Commission Update. "I would have been ecstatic," says John White, "if I had 42 church-planting teams for the state of Colorado. But what Jesus was saying really astounded us. 'The fields are ripe but these 42 teams are so few.'" The harvest is not the problem. Thecritical missing component is an adequate number of harvest workers. How do we get enough apostolic church planters? Luke 10:2b says to do one thing:ask the Lord of the harvest for them. John and Kenny covenanted with each other to pray this "10:2b" prayer together every day possible from that moment on. So every day either John would call Kenny or Kenny would call John to pray. If they didn't connect, they would leave their prayer on voice mail.

800 days later
In the following 30 months, they have followed through on this pledge about 700 or 800 times, saying "God, here we are again, John and Kenny, pleading for more harvest workers for Colorado, just like every day." "Regular prayer, like the poor widow in Luke 18," says White, "can and should become a healthy, regular and hence relentless intercession." Kenny and John started inviting others to do the same, regularly praying the 10:2b prayer in teams. There are now between 200 and 300 people praying 10:2b with a partner virtually every day. The 10:2b virus is spreading!

Amazing results
"And the results have been amazing," says White. "We're to the point where we get a phone call or e-mail almost every day from someone saying something like this: 'It?s in my heart to plant a (house or simple) church. How do I do that? Can you help me?'" Kenny Moore used to get six or eight people over the course of six months who would indicate a desire to start a new church. He now has a steady stream of inquiries, and there have been around 100 Southern Baptist Churches established in Colorado alone from the time he and White began praying 10:2b together.

Tim Pynes had been on the staff of a large, post-modern church in Denver. With so many programs in this mega-facility, Pynes found he had merely turned into a project manager. "This is not what I signed up for," he told White. "I want to invest in the lives of people." He left the megachurch and started meeting White. He now has a growing network of 8 house churches in Denver. Guy Muse, a Southern Baptist missionary in Ecuador, has been encouraging all of his house church people to pray the10:2b prayer on a daily basis since May of 2004. "In that month of May alone, 30 newcongregations were established," he reports.

"Cast out", not "send forth"
The Greek word for "send forth" in Luke 10:2b, ekballein, was a very forceful, almost violent, term. It is the word used when casting out a demon, for example. White and Moore realised that they should not pray for potential labourers who may be interested, but for highly-motivated people who God had taken and, as only he can, placed with gentle force in the harvest. It seems to work
...Source: Jim Montgomery and John White, DenverWH@aol.com --- Jaeson Ma's Blog
Categories: God, Movements, SimpleChurch

This is going to be real good!

There is a movie coming out soon called End of Spear. It is the story of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, who were killed by the Auca Indians about 50 years ago. You should read more or watch a trailer from Andy McCullough's blog End of Spear.
Categories: Missions

New Photo Log

Just wanted to point you to a sidebar link I just created for all our family photos. Check out VanDiestPhotos.
Categories: Photos

ABC comfirms why we do what we do

Recently ABC did a great report on Faith on Campus. It just reminded me how much we need to reach out to the thousands of college students looking for answers, acceptance and new values for life. Check out Faith on Campus. You can also read more at Are Students Losing their Religion on Campus?
Categories: God

Thoughts of why God is calling us to Mexico City

There are many things that God has aligned to bring us to Mexico City this coming fall. The great size of the city, the Spirit moving in our hearts, the potential of one of the largest cities in the world seeing supernatural growth and expansion of the Gospel and also the vision of where we are going and the discontent of what we have done, as expressed by the National Campus Director of Mexico, Steve Morgan.

Steve says it well in Can we be content with incremental growth?

Categories: MexicoCity, Movements

Photos from November

Categories: photos

Yeah, It really worked

Some of you may have been wondering about that stupid free ipod link to the right. Well to let you all in on a secret. Two days ago I received my free black 30G video ipod. Oops I lied, it cost me $1. I too was an unbeliever before, now I have been converted to believing there are cool things in life for virtually free.

Great words from John White - House Church Coach

About two months ago I bumped into John White, Dawn Ministries Denver, and I began getting some of his coaching emails about house church. I had to cut and paste the most recent one as it just provides simple yet compelling thoughts on church.

Dear Church,
The concept of "prevenience" was at the foundation of Jesus' ministry. ("Prevenience": referring to that which goes before or precedes)

He said, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." (Jn. 5:19)

"... I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me." (Jn. 8:28)
"For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it." (Jn. 12:49)

Jesus, the very Son of God, did nothing (zero/nada) on his own initiative. He spoke nothing on His own initiative. The Father initiated, Jesus responded. Jesus believed that His Father was prevenient. Every healing, every miracle, every teaching was initiated by the Father and carried out by Jesus.

His entire plan consisted of this:

1. See what the Father is doing and do that.
2. Hear what the Father is saying and say that.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

The "program model" assumes that the Prevenient Creator (who never made two snow flakes alike) will always follow the same format when His children come together. This model requires that we do the planning. We develop the agenda. Then, we ask God to bless it. This model results in church that is usually orderly (by our definition) but also often sterile.

The "prevenience model" assumes only that the Prevenient Creator is already at work before His children gather for church. This model requires that we see/hear what the Father is doing/saying and then ask Him how we are to respond. We surrender our agenda and look for His. This model results in church that is sometimes messy (by our definition) but also often exhilaratingly alive and fruitful.

Returning to the New Testament model of church does not just mean "doing church" in a house. It also means returning to the reality of Jesus being both present and prevenient.

He is no longer the passive "honored guest" for whom we perform.
He is "the Master of ceremonies".

He runs the show. He sets the agenda.
And, that changes everything.
John

John WhiteHouse Church CoachDenver, CO.Website: http://www.dawnministries.org/globalministries/north%20america.htm Blog: http://housechurchchronicles.com

Praying Luke 10:2b

Every believer a church planter.

Every home a church.

Every church building a training center.

I survived - I'm not dying

This past Sunday Jonathan walked into my bedroom, looked at me and proclaimed, "Mom, dad is dying!" I was deathly ill. I think for the first time I experienced the horrible thing called strep throat. Saturday morning after arriving back from a wonderful week with family and friends in So.Cal. I woke up with pain in my neck, throat and head. I survived being out of bed until about 10am and then laid and writhed in pain in bed until about 5pm. What a day; a day planned for hanging up Christmas lights and decoration but ended up in bed.

Sunday morning Christine told me I must see a Dr. if it was the same. Well it was worse. I thought I was going to die, so maybe Jonathan was right. Finally after our wonderful family Dr. responded on call from Church and called in my meds and sent me to the lab (yes I had strep) I was beginning to be healed. That day I made it out of bed around 4pm. The saddest part of Sunday was it was Benjamin's 5th birthday. He was extremely gracious and we're having another party on Saturday. I finally made it back to work on Tues, battling lingering affects of a damaged throat. What a journey.

In all of it Christine was the wonderful, gracious, serving wife. Wow, she made the house run, took care of a 230 lb. whining husband. And at this point the Lord spared the rest of the family from the pain.

Monday afternoon after no longer being contagious I played with Isa. She makes my world turn upside down. I was playing ball with her on the hardwood floors (I'm still learning how to play with a girl) and then started reading a book while laying on my stomach. She would crawl over my arms and then sit right in front of my head and lean back and look at me with a smile. I'm toast. She has got me all wrapped up. I never never knew how much a little girl would change my world.

So, I'm not dying. Good news for me and hopefully a handful of others. I'm loving this week, ministry, staff, students, and about to get home and pull out the Christmas stuff and enjoy the family.