Posts tagged: missions

What Does It Mean To Be Called?

September 22, 2009, by 3 comments

picture-4One of the things that Stephanie and I love about our new church home is the intense emphasis on national and international missions.

The Summit Church has a vision to plant 1,000 churches in the next 40 years — most of them in un-reached countries around the world.

That’s right: one thousand churches

One vehicle for this effort is called SendRDU, which exists to help equip and connect people and families who are interested in investing their lives for the sake of the Gospel.

Last week, there was a SendRDU gathering where pastor JD attacked a great question: “What Does It Mean To Be Called?”

This is a rich question that I think all of us struggle with in different ways and at different seasons.

I think pastor J.D. did a fantastic job handling the question. Stephanie and I couldn’t make it to the event (no babysitter), but we downloaded the message and listened to it together this weekend. It was awesome to dream together and remember what God created us for.

I’m so excited to see what God is doing!

You can read his blog post on the topic here, and listen to the teaching here.

I’m curious: what does it mean, in your opinion, to be “called”?

Ever heard of the Tatars?

August 11, 2009, by 1 comment

screenshot_temp1You may have never noticed it before, but on the right sidebar of this blog, there’s an “Un-reached People Group Of The Day” banner…

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More news from Uzbekistan

March 18, 2009, by No comments yet

Need something to focus your prayer life?

Here’s one: Seven Christians detained based on suspicion of being Christian…

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Child Labor In Uzbekistan

November 13, 2008, by 1 comment

I just came across yet another article about child labor in Uzbekistan*.

Here’s how it starts:

Despite signing two international treaties and adopting domestic legislation prohibiting the use of child labor, Uzbekistan continued to rely on a “state-orchestrated mass mobilization of children to bring in the 2008 cotton harvest,” a new report has found.

By the end of September, with the pace of cotton collection lagging way behind harvest projections, officials in some areas ordered students as young as first graders into the fields…

I witnessed this first-hand a couple of years ago. The human rights situation in Uzbekistan is terrible.

Please take time to pray for the country. Pray for their wicked president. Pray against all the corruption. Pray for God to remove the strongholds that make that place so terrible for the nationals. Pray for the missionaries there. Pray for the believers there. Pray for God’s kingdom to come…

*I’ve written about this issue before here, here, and here.

Perspective from a friend

September 17, 2008, by 1 comment

My good friend Tricia and her husband just moved to Thailand with hopes of seeing children come to know Christ.

It’s especially interesting for me to read about their adventures because a couple of years ago I was with Tricia in Central Asia for a year and we learned a lot from each other as we adapted to life in a new culture.

If you haven’t made it over there yet, you should visit their blog and tell them you’re praying!

A few days ago, she had an especially thoughtful post.

Here’s a excerpt:

I also find myself a little bit resentful that I can just go down the street to the ‘mall’ to go to Starbucks or McDonalds, KFC or Burger King. Then, I find myself pretty thankful for the convenience of being able to buy the same toiletries and groceries here, more or less. One of the reasons that I wanted to come here was to live life more ‘simply’. I found myself so much closer to the Lord in Uzbekistan, when I wasn’t surrounded by all the ‘stuff’ that America has to offer. I really hope to find that here, even though it is not as simplistic here as Uz. Probably, this is more of a heart issue than anything else anyway.

We also went to a church here last night, and I found myself very critical of how they did things in a ‘third-culture’ environment. I kept thinking, “This is not how we did things in Crusade… Is this really being sensitive to the Thai culture?… This seems like an American church transplanted to Bangkok…” Whoa, Tricia… “Judge not, lest you be judged.”