Thoughts on Missions
Posted on Sunday, July 12, 2009 by Dwayne
I had a great talk with one of my dear friends the other day and it got me to thinking. It got me to thinking that maybe many of us have a false idea of what missionaries are and what they do. I think most of us would say that missionaries are people who go to other places and share the gospel evangelically. This is all well and good but I would say that maybe we have missed the picture.
We are not here just to share the gospel evangelically. Why should we pick fruit and just leave it to rot? We do not want these people to rely on us for the word of God. No, they are smart and when they become Christians they too are called as we are. It is our desire to see these people come to know Christ in a real way, but also to be able to lead and disciple other Peruvians. We are not here to just teach, but also to encourage. We want these people to be able to teach themselves. Just as Americans taught us, Peruvians can teach Peruvians. This is vastly important so that we void creating dependencies. The people here don’t have, and they must learn how to share and teach the word without having. There are no projectors and few hymnals but they can still praise and teach. I don’t know if this makes all that much sense, but i hope to write more elaborately on this in the future. What is important is that you know that there is more to missions than the evangelist. Without discipleship and encouragement these people will just dwindle and be choked out, as the seed that the sower sowed among the thorns. Because here it is the thorns, just as it is in the states.
We had talked about all this with the REAP south team at our training during the first part of the summer. But I hadn’t really thought too much about it until now. And I hope that it will serve as encouragement to you, because we are all called. And though we are not all called to be evangelists, there is so much more to missions than that. We all have our part that we can play.
No Comments »
It’s Easy to be a Christian When You Win!
Posted on Monday, July 6, 2009 by Dwayne
Lesson Learned! How easy it is to be a Christian when you win! How easy it is to be a Christian when people think well of you! It’s those times when things don’t go quick like you planned, that are disastrous. Though I don’t know that I would say today was disastrous.
So far we have been on a loosing streak. This is fairly frustrating. What’s is even more frustrating is how you loose. When you loose obviously b/c of the playing surface it’s pretty bad. When you loose b/c the ref will not call anything for you it’s worse. But when you loose b/c you get angry due to a rule that is made up during the game it is the worst. Today we lost b/c they got in our heads. We were beating them so bad and it was fun. But then they called a goal for themselves by changing a rules it was not.
You know how you make a decision in you mind to show someone who is boss and then your decision ends up being a moment of humbling. That was today. I think it’s safe to say that, it was today for all of us boys. Today we were clearly better, but today we were clearly humbled. We lost because there first goal got in our head, and our focused changed. It went from being just for fun, to I really want to win. I won’t go into much detail, but it’s safe to say we lost.
It was a lesson learned. We defiantly have to remember to remind ourselves before we play of why we play. And we defiantly have to make a predetermined decision of how we will react. If we have our heart set on humbling the proud before we play, we will surely try. We have to be determined to take each circumstance as a grain of salt.
Just so you know the ending was good. We didn’t get so mad it destroyed our fellowship when the opposing team. But I would say that it was more upsetting then it needed to be. The best thing is, God is bigger than all of us and he has chosen to use us despite our failures!
No Comments »
Missions and Worship
Posted on Saturday, May 2, 2009 by Dwayne
I posted this on the our home page, but I wanted to post it in News for anyone who might be following.
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.” ~ John Piper “Let the Nations be Glad”
Someone suggested this book to me, and the very first paragraph changed my perspective. Why do we want to go? …because worship is missing. And it is missing every where.