For His Glory

Every now and then someone asks me what kinds of ministries we have in our church.  Usually they want to know about the reach of our on-site ministries, the relevance and activeness of our youth ministry, the strength of our children's and worship ministries and so on.

But I always like to remind people that while these ministries are top notch, they are just a part of the picture.  While it is true that many of the great ministries of our church are centered and driven from the church campus, the real truth is that  the most significant ministries that come out of CRBC are away from the church building on 30th and Council. 

The reason for this is that our church members are continually engaged in all kinds of ministry in the homes, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces all throughout our community.  We have church members who are engaged in Bible studies,  prison ministry, sports ministry, recovery ministry and home, school, and work place discipeship that are never seen by or reported to the church family.  

I was reminded again of this fact this week when I attended a breakfast that was put together by a couple of businessmen in our church for the purpose of raising funds for a new clinic at the orphanage in Motipur India our church is helping to build.  By the time the day was over these men had helped to raise over 70,000 dollars toward the 107,000 dollar project.

Because of their passion and hard work, thousands of people in this part of India will have access to medical care for the first time and the name of Christ will be glorified in one of the darkest corners of the planet.  So in these and countless other ways we don't even know about, the missional ministries of Council Road are advancing the Kingdom of God.

And it is all for His glory, not ours!

Live Sent

The missional church is a church that understands the Great Commission is not just for those who are called to cross-cultural ministry in a foreign country- but that every single one of us is a part of the cause- that we have all been "sent".   As Kyle Pewitt likes to say, "the missional church is one that lives sent". 

I have seen this mindset acted out in some awesome ways lately in our church family:

• Like the seven people who came to Christ last weekend because friends brought them to worship. 

• Like the host of  volunteers who help each week at the ROC clinic to care for the working poor in our community.

• Like the forty plus Middle Schoolers who spent their spring break caring for our homebound members.

• Like the testimony I heard a few weeks ago in Celebrate Recovery from a woman in our church who came to Christ in prison and told the group that when she walked down the dark cold corridor of concrete and steel afterward she felt more free than at any time in her life.  God is now using her to help set others free.

• Like the many children and pre-school workers who have stepped forward over the past few weeks to volunteer to help us during a transition in our Sunday morming minsitry and in our upcoming VBS. 

• Or like the terrific way God is using our teenagers.  Here is an email I got from one of our church members who was an organizer of the annual Memorial Marathan and wanted me to know how great our teenagers were at the event:

Thank you sooo much for all of your help with getting the teens out to the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon!  I know our Council Road kids are amazing, but it was still so much fun to watch them do their thing! They lined up along Classen, built human pyramids, cheered, hi-fived, and encouraged THOUSANDS of marathon runners yesterday.  They danced, they sang, they hopped a lot!!  They shivered, they jumped in and helped with different tasks in our area, they were a huge blessing!  I watched runners pull out their earbuds so they could hear our kids.  I even saw runners pull out their phones to take pictures of our group WHILE they were running the marathon.  Those teens were a huge inspiration!  We could physically see runners get their second wind as they came past us.  And the kids did all of this for a solid 4 hours!  Our teens are awesome!!!

One thing they did in particular at the end - there was an older, out of shape woman who was running all alone.   Everyone else had already run past.  She was very tired, but she was pushing through the pain just the same.  A large group of our kids ran down the road and joined her.  A huge smile came over her face when she saw the teens running to her.  They ran with her and encouraged her all the way to the checkpoint.  I was so proud to say that those were our Council Road Kids!!

Our area was a huge success because of each and every one of those kids that got involved.

Opportunity in Haiti

Over the past few weeks I've had several people ask me about opportunities to help in Haiti.   There is actually a short window of opportunity for anyone who wants to make the trip this summer.  Here are the details:

WHERE? HAITI

WHAT? Thousands of Haitians are homeless and displaced due to the earthquake. Refugee camps, tent cities and newly created villages are growing along the Haitian border with Dominican Republic as people flee chaotic and violent Port-au-Prince. Student teams will be involved in community development including developing 'Kid Zones" to bring a sense of normalcy to the lives of Haitian children in refugee camps, orphanages, children's homes, schools, and villages. Flexibility is a must. Ministry may include recreation, sports, music, English and math tutoring, art therapy, manual labor, and more. These activities will pave the way for missionaries to work in these villages and schools in the future.

WHO? Christian students are needed to do the work.  College students and young adults are encouraged to apply. Participants must have completed their junior year in high school in order to serve. We prefer students to come with teams (large or small) with an adult leader.

WHEN? 2 week assignments -- Saturday to Saturday, beginning May 15, 2010  Teams of 25 (maximum) will be deployed each week (beginning May 15)

May 15 -- May 29
May 22 - Jun 5
May 29 - Jun 12
Jun 5 - Jun 19
Jun 12 - Jun 26
Jun 19 - Jul 3
Jun 26 - Jul 10
Jul 3 - Jul 17
Jul 17 -- Jul 31

HOW MUCH? $975 plus airfare (approx $400-700) and insurance ($28)
Field cost includes food, housing, local transportation and border crossing costs.

A $100 deposit per person is required in order to hold spaces.

Your spot is not confirmed without payment. Deposits are Non-Refundable and Non-Transferable. For May/June weeks the balance of $875 is due May 1st.  For project in July/August a partial payment of $475 is due May 1st and the remaining balance of $400 is due June 1st.  Any balance that is not paid by 15 days following the due date will be canceled and will forfeit your deposit. Travel from Santo Domingo to base camp provided and included in cost.

HOW MANY? Maximum of 25 students/adult leaders per week. A team from a college, church or BCM could be 5 students, or 12, or 15, or you could fill the entire 25.

HOW LONG? 2 week assignment. Saturday arrival, Saturday departure. (local travel challenges make it impossible to grant exceptions)

TRAVEL? Valid passport required. Must be valid for 6+ months beyond the date you return from Haiti For coordination of team arrivals and departures, all students and teams will use designated travel agent. Airfare (approx $400-$700) and insurance ($28) are not included in $975 cost.
Travel to daily ministry site in Haiti provided and included in cost. 

HOUSING? Students will be housed in a secure, fenced compound in the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti. Girls will stay in the house (electricity, running water). Guys will be housed in large tents on the grounds surrounding the house.

FOOD? Three meals a day will be provided for all participants.

HEALTH? No inoculations are required for entry into DR or Haiti but CDC recommends several. See the CDC website for travel health and immunization information.

SCHEDULE? Arrive in Santo Domingo, DR on Saturday - travel 3-4 hours to compound on Haiti border

Sunday - orientation, training and preparation
Monday-Friday -- spend each day working in Haiti (teams of 8-10)
Return to DR each night for sharing, worship, prayer, study, preparation
Saturday - Sunday -- refresh, relax, restore, refuel, retool...
Monday - Friday -- spend each day working in Haiti (teams of 8-10)
Return to DR each night for sharing, worship, prayer, study, preparation
Saturday - travel back to Santo Domingo. Leave for home.

TO REGISTER AND FOR MORE INFO VISIT gohaiti.org or Call (888) 421-4408
Please note: Register early for a guaranteed spot!

Two Very Big Reasons Easter is Important

This coming Sunday is the one of the most siginicant days of the year for every Christian for a couple of really good reasons.

1.  The most obvious reason of course is that Easter Sunday is that day on the Christian calendar that we all celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.  The fact that billions of Christians around the world will be celebrating the occasion all at the same time I see as a powerful demonstration of the global dimensions of our faith.  Since the beginnings of the Christian church in the first century the resurrection event has been celebrated this time of year as the central most important fact of human history.  In fact in the early church tradition Easter Sunday was often the day that large numbers of converts were baptized and became a part of the church.

After the resurrection of Christ, the church began the tradition of meeting on the first day of the week instead of the seventh (sabbath) day as a way of celebrating His resurrection (Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2)  So it is perhaps the most important date on the Christian calendar for all those reasons- because of the global nature of the celebration, the incredible history of Easter and because His death and resurrection are of ultimate importance to us.

2.  A second less obvious reason it is so important is that it is a great opportunity for witness.  People who don't otherwise have an interest in Christianity will have an interest this weekend just because of the holiday.   I hope you are inviting everyone you meet to come to church this Sunday.   One of the most natural and powerful ways for us to share our faith is to simply invite people to come to church.  To love people to Christ is to open up your life and welcome others into your community.  Most people come to Christ because they have been welcomed in by the infectious love of Christ experienced within biblical community.  As Charles Spurgeon once said "Most people come to Christ not because of a push, but because of a pull." 

A couple of weeks ago I read the incredible story of Mosab Hassan Yousef in the book "Son of Hamas".    Mosab is the son of the spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hamas in the West Bank of Israel in Palestine.  The story is how this radical Muslim converted to Christianity after meeting a group of Christians in Jerusalem.   This community of believers opened up the scriptures to him, befriended him and prayed for him, answered his questions and literally loved him to Christ over the course of several years. 

It was another reminder to me that the Christian church has always grown in this way.  People are not argued into Christianity.  They are not bullied into Christianity.  People are loved into Christianity by the incredible grace of God through His gospel.   It is life on life- one person sharing his or her life with another and bringing people to the best news they could ever hear- that the God of the universe has given His life as a ransom for sin.

The gospel spreads as we love people to Christ.  A great picture of  Christian witness is one blind beggar showing another blind beggar where to find the bread.

A fact that is especially true this weekend.  

Return to Delhi and Thoughts on Auroville by Kathleen

Yes, I know, we haven't been blogging. For those of you who were pinned to your seats, my apologies for the wait. I would say there was nothing to blog about but that would be wrong. Perhaps there was too much to blog about. There was also really poor internet connections in Auroville and it was generally really hot wherever a computer was which left me disinclined to stay in place and type.

But really, mostly the reason we have been so silent is we were immersing ourselves in the experience of Auroville. Blogging or staying connected to the outside world was taking us out of our experience and for that reason we shied from it.

There is so much to say about Auroville that I cannot possibly cover it all here. I don't even know if I can graze the surface. It was a very powerful experience for both the good and the bad. We went to Auroville searching for answers. Its a badly kept secret that we fancy starting our own eco-spiritual community at home and it was for the reason of research into what worked and what didn't that Auroville first caught my attention.

There are many examples of intentional communities, Western Mass. is full of them. The world abounds with them, even if you didn't think so. But Auroville is by far the largest in terms of their physical land size, population size and the scope of their vision. This size factor we found was more often a curse than a blessing and their vision was sometimes too grandiose, however, you had to be impressed that they were trying against the odds to pull this vision into reality.

That they were really struggling to anchor it down was often apparent, but that they were anchoring it down, with all its faults was amazingly powerful. A week into our time there we got up at 5 in the morning to celebrate Auroville's 40th anniversary. Simply put Auroville endures and prospers and is growing. Whatever you may say against it, and there is a lot to say, you cannot argue with the physical evidence of their continued existence which is in itself noteworthy.

Auroville strives to be a universal city, a place where men and women from every nation, race, creed and background can live together in peace. Auroville strives for human unity. The one main thing you need to be an Aurovillian is a willingness to serve the Divine Consciousness. I think that the core of the vision is more than admirable I think it is also my vision. To see humanity rise above its present issues and become whole. World Peace is never a trivial thing.

Because perhaps of our aligned visions I found that the spiritual side of Auroville was very open very welcoming and very, very powerful. This is all culminated for me in the experience of the Matrimandir. The soul of Auroville.

A giant golden, golf ball like, structure that looks like it just came off the set of a space age movie. At first you think the Matrimandir is strange but its beauty radiates from within and it grows on you. By the time we left I was in love with it. Inside is a big, silent, white "concentration" chamber which houses, as its focus the world largest crystal ball. Into the crystal is beamed a ray of direct sunlight. It’s pretty fucking cool.

Surrounding the Main structure are twelve "petals" which are in fact separate meditation chambers each devoted to a different quality needed on the spiritual quest. It starts with Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude and works its way through Perseverance and Generosity, Courage and others finally ending with Peace. Each room is a different color and has a yantra on its wall. It’s like meditating in the future, accept the future is now. Quite simply the Matrimandir is mind blowing.

The Matrimandir is where the love affair starts but it was also where it ended for me. While the Spiritual heart of Auroville was very easy to access and admire the same cannot be said for almost any other element of the city.

There were very obvious infrastructure problems. Namely the roads, which were all red dirt and dusty as hell and dangerous. It is a right of passage to crash your motor bike at least once( which we did) and its common to see visitors limping around with bandages. So getting around is not so easy and mobility is central to community. Transport is especially essential when your city is spread over 25km.

Disappointingly Auroville is misnamed as an eco-village. While some communities certainly strive to be eco friendly, namely the organic farms. Others, like our guesthouse were undoing the good as fast as it could be done. For example, Water, fresh water is a big problem. Auroville is by the sea and as its aquifer gets lower they run the risk of the salt water rising and flooding in. This will be a VERY serious problem. It could be the end of the community, once salt water gets into an aquifer you can’t really get it out.

So, while some places are taking messages to reduce usage and restore the water table. Others leave giant hoses running, wash their sidewalks and generally seem unconcerned. While Auroville can't account for waste on the part of local villages they certainly can within themselves, or so you would think.

There in the last sentence lies the two biggest problem of Auroville. The first is that while they may be working collectively towards human unity, they are not a unified collective. Each community has its own focus and aims, and (worse) its own interpretation of the vision.

You see, Auroville is the brain child of a woman known as "the Mother" ( ignore the creepiness for a moment) she was the spiritual counterpart( lover?) of Sri Aurobindo and both were pretty important in India in their day. (The Mother happens to be French btw). Now the Mother is no more and while she was really big on the no religion, find your own way, as most spiritual people are her words and teaching fell on deaf ears, as most spiritual teachings do. Now there is a quite well developed cult about her.

Everywhere in Auroville there are pictures of her, every time somebody wants to justify anything they quote her. Devotion to the Mother is the religion of Auroville, but don't you dare think that too loud.

As any Aurovillian will tell you there are not religions in Auroville. The Matrimandir means in Sanskrit " Temple of the Mother" but they will tell you it is no such thing " this is not a temple". In order to make sure that no religion has precedence over another they have banned all outward display of religion. No prayer beads, no bowing NO INCENSE! Ironically all their stipulations against ritual end up making.... ritual. It’s pretty funny, accept that the Aurovillians don't seem to realize what has happened.

That was a long tangent to say, as in all religions not everyone agrees on what the prophet said and this naturally divides the whole and makes progress difficult. The Mother, in her wisdom, saw this and I think this is why she had the whole " no religion ban". In short I felt that Auroville was not a living city, in the sense that it wanted to be, there were no visible leaders and it seemed mired in its own directionless-ness.

Worth The Trip

Today it rained all day in Matamores so our team made the best of it and did what they could in the two neighborhoods targeted for canvasing and backyard Bible Clubs.   All is not lost, however, because yesterday was a virtually perfect day- cool and breezy with clouds mercifully hiding the hot sun so that the swarms of children that live in these neighborhoods happily participated in all the activities.

The 40+ teenagers who have come on this mission trip poured out of our church buses and like an army of pied pipers drew the kids out of their pastel colored homes.  The children here enthusiastically participated in the crafts, the games, the skits but mostly the boys here like to play soccer.  One gets the feeling that if you only have four cones for goals and a soccer ball you could entertain them for hours.  Many of our kids are seasoned soccer players so their skill with the ball quickly broke down the cultural and language barrier.

There is no question that our presence here is having an impact on these neighborhoods around the church plants.  The benefit of this kind of trip is that the local pastors here are able to create excitement about the new churches that are emerging.  It gives them an opportunity to reach out to the community and establish relationships that are cultivated long after we leave.

But the benefit goes both ways.   It is on trips like this that our teenagers get a taste of missions and cross-cultural ministry.  It is fun to watch and to be a part of it.  A few of our Hispanic church members are with us and we are enjoying working together in this setting.  We are learning together the value of giving to others and the joy of sharing the gospel in a place where the evangelical church is growing, yet still very small compared to the total population.   

I am so proud of our group.  While many of their friends have chosen to go to the beaches or the slopes to enjoy their break from school, they have chosen to travel these 17 hours in an uncomfortable bus so that they can help proclaim the gospel  and make new friends in some of the poorer sections of this border city.

This kind of giving and serving has created a kind of joy here that is contagious.   A joy not dampened by a long bus ride to get here, long stops at the border crossing each day, or even a few hours of rain. 

Not Why but How?

One of the questions I get asked a lot goes something like this:

"Why did God have to pay such a high price for my sin?  I know I am sinful, but does it really require that Jesus die on a cross to forgive?  Why couldn't God just say 'I forgive you' and that be the end of it?" 

It really is a perplexing question if we don't think through our understanding of the nature of God.  We all have a tendency to place human-like qualities onto God to help us embrace our understanding of Him.  But this is not possible when trying to understand a Holy eternal creator God.  God is so much greater than us, so much "other than we are" that to try to describe His qualities is a little like an ant at a picnic trying to ascertain human philosophy.

In our world people forgive all the time.  If someone offends me and comes to me and says "I'm sorry, will you forgive me?"  It is very easy for me to say "Of course- you are forgiven!"

But I am not God.

To just "let sin go" would make Him less than a Holy and Just God. And if we really thought about it and admitted to it, we would all have to say that none of us wants any less than a purely Holy and Righteous God who is not like us.

Last week I reread the book "Why I am Christian" by John R.W. Stott and found this great passage that explains this truth much better than I could:

The cross of Christ is the only basis on which God can forgive sins.  By why, an impatient critic will immediately object, should our forgiveness depend on Christ's death?  Why does God not simply forgive us, without the necessity of the cross?  "God will pardon me" Heinrich Heine protested, "that is His metier (specialty).   After all, the objecter might continue, if we sin against each other, we are required to forgive one another.  So why should God not practice what He preaches?  Why should He not be as generous as He expects us to be?  (The answer) was given by Anselm, the arch bishop of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh century.   He wrote in his magnificent book, Why God Became Man,  "You have not yet considered the majesty of God".  To draw an analogy of our forgiveness of each other and God's forgiveness of us is very superficial.  We are not God but private individuals, while He is the maker of the heavens and the earth, creator of the very laws we break.  Our sins are not merely personal injuries but a willful rebellion against Him.  It is when we begin to see the gravity of sin and the majesty of God that our questions change.  No longer do we ask why God finds it difficult to forgive sins but how He finds it possible.  As one writer has put it, "forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems."