34-Hours from home to baggage claim?

photo by ~MVI~

Asia's Hope News Home Page

I just got off the phone with Joyce who is on her journey to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Joyce is another short-term missions partner going into the world to reach the world with the love of God. She is a fully devoted follower of Christ who has developed a passion to help children in Southeast Asia. Her husband, Dave, is the director of Asia's Hope.

Please pray for her and think of her as she starts a 22-hour flight time excursion from Ohio to Thailand. That's right, twenty-two hours flight time. She will log 34-hours from home to baggage claim. Yet she has a passion for helping out--she is yet another one of my heroes.

Finding out your purpose in life

My Year Listening to God: Finding your purpose in life.

Today I stood in 90 degree sunshine on triple-H afternoon, waiting for a church bus to leave our parking lot. Standing with students and parents to authorize the junior high missions team, I praised God for His wisdom as I prayed for them for the week in South Bend.

In another part of the church parking lot, the high school missions team left for Philadephia. Three 15-passenger vans paraded and honked as they past us, the team was waving, gesturing, and wishing us well.

On mission for God. That's what I love about Wooster Grace. God's heart is our heart. We value reaching out to people. Therefore we mobilize students and adults to go out into the world and to get some skills in learning how to help others. We encourage each participant to discover his or her purpose on these missions trips--we cultivate introspective searching, stretching projects and relationships, and inspiring insights into who God made you to be. Your purpose is to be on-mission for God.

Each destination is facilitating outreach in a place where a new church is emerging. Each student is on-mission for God. Each leader is on-mission for God. Both teams are on-mission for God.

by .milan

I am going to pray for them each day--today's prayer: "Lord, may each person seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness, and may all their everyday human concerns be met (Matthew 6:33)."

I also read from Abraham's life. He talked with God. His conversation with God was to ask for mercy. He cared about his family (Lot, his nephew). He dialogued with God, in fact, ABraham queried God throughout his prayer (Genesis 18:23-33). God spoke to Abraham. Abraham spoke with God. Prayer is a dialogue. Prayer is not a "gimme" session. Prayer is communion with God.

I fail in making prayer a communion with God. I focus so much on my petitions that I disregard my relationship with God. I need to cultivate that aspect of prayer--more of dialogue, which means asking, sharing, and quiet listening. May God help you hear His voice. I want to hear God speak. "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening (I Samuel 2:11)."

Thus, I choose to listen more to discover how to live on purpose for God. He will take care of my human concerns. I can trust Him. I can live a purposeful life with God's help.

Pray for my house to sell

A Hero in Prague

One of the things I enjoy about being a pastor is facilitating missions experiences for the people in our church. Linda is presently visiting the Swain's who serve God in Prague, Czech Republic. She even made time to connect with the Plaster's who serve in Paris.

Linda serves on our Global Task Force which helps facilitate everyone to be on mission for God in our church. I am so proud of her. She takes a trip to encourage our missionary partners. She is truly a fully devoted follower of Christ.

Her commitment to God extends deep into her life. She just finished the school year teaching Released Time Bible Classes in the public school system in Northwestern Wayne County. She is the main teacher for the North Central-Northwestern Religious Education Program. Now she prepares to teach a seminar on how to share your faith with those who seem antagonistic or feel strongly against your beliefs.

I'll include a couple of lines from her email to me:

I spent a couple hours with the Plasters (our missionaries in Paris) at the airport. That was good. I went with George and Cindy to English class and then Bible study. Once I had a walk back to metro and home I don't feel as tired. Hope I can sleep all night tonight. I'll close for now. Thanks for praying.

Linda is a great example of people striving to live for God as a fully devoted follower. I am challenged by her commitment and love for God's people who serve overseas and heart for helping to reach people wherever they she may go. Way to go, Linda.

Video Games - Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo Expands His Empire - NYTimes.com

Video Games - Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo Expands His Empire - NYTimes.com

This article by Seth Schiesel talks about the creative mind behind the Wii. My boys love their friend's Wii game system. Even my daugther has played the Wii Fit already.

I am intrigued by his games' popularity. According to Schiesel, Mr. Miyamoto designs his games with gameplay systems and mechanics always coming first. Game design precedes the characters. In fact, "That means a focus on the seemingly prosaic basic elements of game design: movement, setting, goals to accomplish and obstacles to overcome," says Miyamoto. He wants people to have fun with the games and to fall in love with the characters as they have fun.

In addition, I am curious about Miyamoto's comment that "consumers crave the ability to shape and become a part of their entertainment." He adds, "you’re becoming more a part of the entertainment experience.”

As I work in my church, I wonder how I can make missions (that's the area of ministry that I am in) more a part of a person's life experience. Now I am not talking about creating a game or a sim, but I am pondering how I can make real a missions experience where one's spirituality is enhanced and forwarded from personal shaping and individual participation and group collaboration.

Maybe I'm just out there. But I wonder how the typical consumer can engage my missions experience and make its outcomes become integrated into a person's lifestyle. I wonder if I can design missions that reflects gaming design.

Movement & Setting--you must leave your comfort zone to another place to serve others; Goals to accomplish--serve others out of love for humankind and out of love for God who loves all humankind; Obstacles to overcome--fear that you can't go outside your comfort zone, sadness that the life situation of others is worse than yours, anger that others don't see or feel like doing anything about it; happiness that you can truly be blessed as you seek to bless others with your time, resources, and physical presence.

I wonder what you think. I'd like to know.

Pastor D

Advancing missions today and beyond

IG has challenged my thinking again as I consider my role as Cross-cultural Missions pastor. From their May 12 email newsletter, I need to discover how to depict missions in a way that will stir viewers' souls, captivate vast human audiences, and eventually gives missions the spotlight it deserves. IG featured three things that I could see emerge in my area of ministry as my storyline for the future: produce or access mission-themed documentaries for church-wide and FGBC release, a missions network about people where the drama of people on-mission draws others to stay for the foundational biblical principles for our strategic, epic trips, harness strategic trips to the fields where we partner with missionaries so that a growing audience of church attendees can satisfy their curiosity of those far-off places and with the weak economy we can't afford to acutally make the trip. I need to muse about this some more, "wallow" in these thoughts.

A new way to do missions?

I wonder what missions will look like down the road. I now know what it may look like from an interesting concept discovered by Intelligence Group. In their email update they describe TOMS Tours:

"After popularizing the cause-driven, buy-one-give-one consumer product model, TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie's latest endeavor may just do the same for branded volunteer vacations. What started off as an outreach program to help educate and activate consumers (wherein volunteers were invited to help distribute free shoes to children living in some of the world's poorest neighborhoods) has evolved into a full-fledged travel company called TOMS Tours. Due to instantaneous popularity of the "shoe drops", interested parties must fill out an online application to be considered for one of the 15 volunteer positions. Once selected, participants pay $1800 (plus international airfare) for an otherwise all-inclusive trip, to locations such as Argentina, that combines the village visits (where shoes are distributed) with regional group activities such as hiking, wine tasting, and sightseeing."

As I reflect on this newest trend of helping the poorest of the poor. I must analyze the combination of service, regional/cultural connection activities--hiking, food & beverage tasting, and sightseeing. I wonder how we could package ministry trips in the same manner; E.g. an exploratory trip would include regional experiences whereas a ministry trip would not include the activities component. I wonder how the funding would work. I see that people are going to be willing to pay for airfare plus fees for food etc. up to $1800 per person. The organization does not assist the participants for this exploratory trip. I wonder how that would look.

God is preparing a hut for you in heaven

Pastor Ivanildo shared his reflections as he returns from the Central African Republic regarding John 14:1-3. In the New American Standard Translation, verse two reads, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places..." He is right that as middle-class Americans we have projected our perception that every person wants a home of their own. Yet as I re-read the verses Jesus is telling His Disciples to not be troubled in your heart but believe in Jesus. In fact, Jesus says, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also (verse 3)." It's about relationship, NOT real estate. I praise God that I am learning more about God everyday. I look forward to being in heaven with Jesus, regardless of what dwelling place awaits me. It's about being there with Jesus, not staying in my own home, in my space.

Check out his comments and other tidbits for reflection by visiting the Wooster Grace CAR blog. There are great photos there.

Social Justice and its Implications

I came across a video regarding a student's journey to Darfur. I am uneducated in the depth of the injustice. I wonder how the student has harnessed his engagement with Sudan as a catalyst for making a greater difference in the world. Check out Nick's video on what he did last summer...in Darfur (please note that I do not condone or approve of everything on YouTube).

Nick went with OxFam America. Oxfam America "is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 120 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice."

What is our role in relieving poverty, hunger, and injustice? I believe we need to answer this question because our young people want direction on how to reconcile poverty's end, see hunger fed, and right all wrongs. I wonder how the Church can disciple believers to consider what to do or not do.

Everyone Needs to be Cross-cultural

In my short years of life I experience cross-cultural things all the time. I am a Navajo from the Navajo Nation so I am a minority in the United States. Yet as one fellow sojourner in ministry, Brad Griffin, the Assistant Director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry puts it, "cross-cultural is not an option any longer." In fact, Brad says

"In the past, cross-cultural communication was primarily relegated to the realm of interacting with people outside of your own country. But now, given an increasingly multicultural United States and the globalization of nearly every technology, industry and service—not to mention ministry—our ability to bridge language and other divides has become critically important. So important, in fact, that some argue that youth workers must develop new skills for encountering the multicultural realities of ministry today."

Brad summarizes Cultural Intelligence in a terse manner citing David Livermore and his passion for teaching the emerging generation about leading in a multi-cultural world in a contextual and relevant way. The concepts intrigued me so I checked out the intersectcommunity. I saw that the next cohort/gathering is for the New England region so I will need to wait for a closer venue. But I am interested in finding out more.

Short Term Missions Trip Redefined

I subscribe to an email newsletter, TrendCentral. In the October 3, 2007 issue I came across an emerging trend called vagabonding. TrendCentral is created by the The Intelligence Group which is a trend-forecasting and marketing consultancy focused on Gen X, Gen Y and Tweens (people ages 14-34).

VAGABONDING: This growing trend in travel is changing the way people think about using their vacation days. The concept suggests that long-term travel is more meaningful and memorable than the 1-2 week vacation that’s standard in Western culture. Through taking extended (and often times independent) vacations in out of the way locales, vagabonders can recharge by discovering and experiencing the world on their own time. Apparently it’s not as difficult as it sounds to take a couple months off from one’s normal life. There are books, guides and online communities that offer tips on everything from how to manage travel funds to how to find a safe subletter to help with the rent.

TrendCentral describes a growing trend among these young people about travel which I think may be applied to missions. I could see this becoming another way for short-term teams 2-4 people travel around ministering to our missionaries or even starting new works wherever the Holy Spirit causes them to land. It is a risky option but one to possibly consider after much prayer and input from God's people.

I could see these "teams" going for a summer. They would be teams selected by the participants, not gathered by the mission organization. I could see them vagabonding for Christ starting churches. I wonder what this would look like. I need more time to think and to dream.