Missions Journey

The above diagram comes from a highly respected man with 30 years of missions/ministry experience. When asked in our Missions Training class, what he feels the most important thing to tell us as we prepare for the field, he gave us this.

Why is it that we so often seek to find the specific country God wants us to go to first? Have we gotten into the habit of doing things a little backward? Here, he says that the vision is the first priority, the vehicle the next, and then the venue can be addressed. As you make these choices in your journey towards the mission field, the question of where is actually narrowed by the answers of the first two. If you know why you are going (vision) and you know how you are going (vehicle), where you will go simply takes care of itself.

This has been my experience: Vision (discipleship and evangelism); Vehicle (Denton Bible, MTI, and Serve); Venue: Kenya. Why Kenya? It just got narrowed down and I feel that Kenya is the place and the team that God wants me to join above all the others that DBC has on the field. God's will became much more obvious as I narrowed down the choices.

Something to think about if you are currently on this journey.

Life Updates Pt. 1 & 2

If you are on my update email list, you've already received these.

11/12/07
Life Update (pt. 1 of 2)

This is my first update in a long while, but I will begin sending these out more frequently. I just want everyone to know of all the big changes that have been occurring in my life recently.
This last semester has been a big transition for me. I quit my full time job as an Assistant Hall Director at Kerr Hall, moved out of the dorms at UNT and into a lower-income neighborhood consisting of a lot of apartments and very little grass (thus dubbed “Cement City”). I began my first semester of the Missionary Training Institute (MTI) at Denton Bible Church (DBC), and made my decision of where I will serve after the training is over: Mombasa, Kenya. This first part of the “Life Update” will consist of the missions side of things, while part 2, coming soon, will be on the ministry side of things.
The training I have received at MTI has been phenomenal. It was a difficult transition at first, but God has given me grace in learning new ways to manage my time and devote myself to my studies. The missions staff of DBC are incredibly gifted and educated men with great devotion to Jesus Christ and His church. I have learned so much about the life of Christ, details of Christian Doctrine, and the intricacies of how to deliver a sermon effectively. I have also been meeting with Dennis Omondi, the field director of Serve Kenya every Tuesday morning to talk about life and ministry in Mombasa, Kenya. When I started meeting with Dennis I was fairly certain I wanted to serve in Kenya, not so much because I feel a specific calling to Kenya or even East Africa, but simply because I feel like I have a place there. I fit in with the team and the ministry work of pastor training, college ministry, leadership development, and possibilities for Muslim evangelism. I can see no better place for me to build a foundation of mission work for my life. After a few weeks of meeting with Dennis, I saw we had very similar hearts, visions, and ministry desires. We are both fairly convinced that Kenya is the place that God would have me commit to for at least one term (four years). This summer I plan on spending two months in Kenya along with my friend Josh Smith; during those two months we will be able to work under Dennis and experience life, ministry, and culture in Kenya in a deeper way as well as lead/host the College Life summer mission team coming to Kenya in July. I will be meeting with this team as their leader starting in February or March.
I thank you for all your prayers, encouragement, guidance, advice, love, support, and friendships. I am very blessed by the Lord to be surrounded by such great groups of people so devoted to God and His purposes. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you.

Life Update: Ministry (pt. 2 of 2) – 11/26/07

We are not very balanced people; we like to see-saw between extremes rather than stand in the middle, balanced & steady. I have found it difficult to balance ministry with my studies. I could easily spend all my time just working (20 hrs a week for UNT Housing), but I know that God desires faithfulness in ministry during my time of training. This semester, most of my ministry has taken place in the context of my neighborhood, “Cement City”, a mostly Hispanic, lower income neighborhood right next to the UNT campus. I joined a group of friends from College Life who intentionally moved into a lower-income neighborhood in order to build relationships, meet physical needs, and meet spiritual needs by sharing the gospel and serving the community. It has been slow and at times frustrating, but there are moments where I am affirmed why God has raised up this team of people to pray and serve this community. Just this month, Carlos, one of the kids across the street accepted Christ as his Savior and his siblings, Roberto & Stephanie, are being prepared day by day for the same! We’ve also been able to incorporate a system of telling stories of Jesus’ life every time our neighborhood kids ask to borrow our bike pump! Most of our time is invested in the kids and we pray that our love for the kids will earn respect and an ear open to the gospel from both the kids and their parents. We need lots of prayer because we are constantly evaluating what should be changed about our focus and our actions in this community.

Starting at the turn of the year, I plan on working for Lifeline Bible Fellowship, a church plant of DBC focused on reaching out to the urban & hip/hop cultures. In this, I hope to learn some areas of church ministry and administration that will help me as I prepare for the mission field; I also have a great respect for this church, their vision, and their strong emphasis upon discipleship. After 3 ½ years, I will be quitting my job with the Department of Housing. This semester I have only worked enough to pay my bills and plan on raising monthly support in order to meet those needs since Lifeline is a volunteer position. I am looking for monthly commitments from people who are interested in partnering with me both now as I prepare and train for the mission field and in the future work God is calling me towards in Kenya. If you are interested in setting up a meeting in regards to this, please send me an email so I can share more with you about the ministry. Otherwise, I will begin by contacting certain people that have already expressed interest in my support raising endeavors.

I thank you all for the joy of being partners in the work of Christ and for your support and prayers while God continues to take me on this journey towards Kenya.

Your fellow servant in the Lord,
Ben

The Tangibility of God

This blog entry by my friend Mackenzie sent me into an whirlwind of a huge idea. By the way, it seems as if the most impactful ideas and times of understanding of God, humans, myself, the world always begin within some context of community and fellowship. Just hanging out with people, fellowshipping, talking about life and then BAM I realize how important and overarching the idea is that we are talking about and it stays with me for at least a week. These are probably moments when the Holy Spirit really wants to teach me something, but I find it interesting that it comes out in this context of other people – this supports my point exactly.
Read this paragraph from Mackenzie talking about words, God, and tangible feelings:

this all got me to thinking of how words from tangible people impact me deeply and immediately. written. spoken. unspoken. if coming from a tangible person, i am impacted. but from our invisible god? its much more difficult for me to trust the depth of those words. for them to impact me in the same way. i am, and have been, wrestling with wanting to be touched and changed by them much more deeply than by tangible mouths. its not that i don’t believe what he says. it just takes much more of an effort for them to sink in than do those coming from tangible bodies. will it always take this effort? i’m not sure. but today, i was also struck by how the lord uses tangible people to speak to us. to encourage. rebuke. wrap in love. even, and especially, on funky stationery or in a steamy bosnian bakery.

The words of God takes more effort to sink in than those coming from tangible bodies with tangible mouths. The effort for the word of God to sink in to our hearts into tangible feelings is the effort of faith, but God also uses these tangible mouths and words to reveal Himself

God is invisible, yet still tangible. Just because I don’t touch Him directly doesn’t mean that He is not clear or definite in that since of tangibility. Tangibility can mean the ability to touch something or the ability to discern something as clear or definite. Moses saw the back of God’s glory and came down from the mountain with his face radiating from that glory of God (Ex. 34). We cannot touch Him, yet He touches us. We cannot see Him, yet He sees us. We can talk to Him, yet He talks to us. Ben, are you saying God speaks words to you? Yes I am. Is it audible? No. Is it tangible? Yes. The communication of God to us is not the way in which we communicate to each other, but that has no effect on its tangibility or clarity.

God is invisible yet reveals Himself through tangible means. A good question to start off with is, “What do you know of God that has not been expressed, revealed, or communicated within tangible or natural means?” I cannot think of a single thing. Creation is an act of God’s words and hands in revealing who He is by the complexity of life around you every day (Rom. 1). Every time you see birds, crunching nut hats, or a soft breeze hits you, isn’t God speaking to you, “I love you.” When you see a smile on a child’s face or their energy build up into a visible and bodily earthquake, isn’t God saying, “I love you?”

God also has revealed a major part of Himself within Scripture. When you read the words of God which came to you by natural means of God inspiring men to write His words, you learn of His wisdom, character, fervent and longsuffering love for us, He is saying to you daily, “I love you.”

We can reflect upon Jesus Christ, the ultimate manifestation and revelation of God to men and He bids us to come to Him, touch the wounds of His side and hands and ask us, “Do you love me?” God Himself came to us and ate with us, laughed with us, mourned with us, taught us, disciplined us, rebuked us, worshiped and prayed to the Father with us, and died for us to bring us to the Father. “Do you love me?” Jesus Christ is the most tangible form of God this world has ever known and all of these tangible revelations give us a peace and assurance of God telling us, “I love you.”

If that wasn’t enough, and it usually isn’t for untrusting people such as ourselves, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us when He left to comfort, guide, and impart the wisdom of God to us. Through the Spirit we can reflect Christ to others as a tangible influence of God in others’ lives. We become a part of the tangibility of God. We touch others; we love others; we comfort others; we bear hug others and write letters to others to show the grace and love of Jesus Christ, the grace and love of God intangible in tangible ways. We the church, the bride of Jesus Christ show the light of God to those who cannot see nor feel because of lack of knowledge or lack of faith.

God is invisible yet reveals Himself in visible ways. God is intangible yet reveals Himself in tangible ways.

When you desire to see, hear, and know God in a tangible way, know He is intangible, but has revealed Himself in creation, the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the church…us. Know that through these means He touches us and speaks to us 10,000 times a day, “I love you.” The question is, will you listen? Will I listen?

Pray.

(feel free to email or comment on anything you agreed or disagreed with)

What is a Missionary?

I’ll post a little about the Missions Training Institute I just began after a while, but first I want to tell you all about the situation I am in right now and how unique and rewarding it has been to be a part of it.

The Oasis Apartments:
Zach, Doug, and their guests Dustin, Cody, and Josh Ward are all staying in a first floor apartment. Dana and Ale are living above them on the 2nd floor.

Woodvine II Apartments:
Myself, Steven, Justin, and our guest Paul our staying in #9 on the first floor. Directly above us is Lauren and Kana.

We are a team of missionaries. Students, Workers, “in transition”. These are the titles that could be applied to us, but we are all missionaries. Let’s talk about this word missionary for a little bit. Missio is a Latin word that means ‘sending’ or ‘to send’. A Mission is defined as “an important assignment carried out for political, religious, or commercial purposes, typically involving travel.” Missionary is the “person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country.”

We all lived in houses and apartments spread out through the city of Denton and all collectively decided to move into this poorer neighborhood with the intention of seeking God’s leading in how we might be integrated into the community, meet their needs, shine the light of Christ through our actions, and by divine appointment share the message of Jesus Christ to those we encounter. Now it is not a foreign country, but it is a lot closer to a foreign country than where we were to begin with. Everything else applies though for us to be missionaries. We live, we work, we continue our lives as usual except with the goal and intention of perhaps making a difference in the lives of the people we meet in this particular community, our home.

Our actions:
Sometimes we can be very open and bold in meeting people or setting up times to hang out with others, and other times it simply takes stepping out of our shell, resisting the urge to look through the blinds and peepholes, and walk outside to see what kind of interactions might take place with our neighbors. But every time requires us to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and to not resist the ideas that God gives us that works so steadily against our comforts or preferences.

Sometimes we feel like we aren’t doing anything at all, and other times God orchestrates so many ‘chance’ encounters and ‘random’ interactions that we cannot help but fall on our faces in worship and rejoicing in the privilege of being used by God in the subtlest of ways.

I write this to tell you what is happening in my life, but I pray I do not write this out of a desire to boast. If I boast, I boast in the joy of serving Christ and not in my own works. But most of all I write this out of a belief that the most radical movement and revival of the American church can and will occur if only everyone sitting in the seats of churches every Sunday would begin shaping an identity for themselves as ministers and missionaries. No, they do not need to leave their homes or jobs or quit doing the things that they feel God has gifted them so abundantly to do. Our group has only switched homes but maintained everything else in our lives. What you must do is simply consider yourself as a missionary right where you are, as one called by God and sent to your workplace and neighborhood in order to carry out the most important assignment and orders of our Lord Jesus Christ to, “make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things,” Jesus has commanded you to observe. If only we all could take this vision as our own and shape our identity as missionaries.

Would you please pray for us, for yourselves, and for the American church to act out the love of God and calling of Jesus Christ in whatever ways the Holy Spirit might lead us all to do?

Confirmation of "Spiritual Learnings" by A. W. Tozer

From A. W. Tozer - "The Knowledge of the Holy"
Confirmation from A.W. Tozer:
“To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circumstances that work for our present good and our everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction. Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way. This is a tragic waste of truth and never gives rest to the heart.
There is a better way. It is to repudiate our own wisdom and take instead the infinite wisdom of God. Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress. God has charged Himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness and stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to Him. Here is His promise: ‘And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.’
Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards,
Love needs not to know;
Children whom the Father leadeth
Ask not where they go.
Though the path be all unknown,
Over moors and mountains lone.
~Gerhard Tersteegen
God constantly encourages us to trust Him in the dark. ‘I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.’”