Spend and Be Spent

Aug 2011 Molinos, Peru

2011-08-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Here is the video from Peru in Aug!

Thanks for praying!

Confessions of Spiritual Giants

2011-08-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

It's good to know sometimes that some things never change. And it's good to know sometimes that people you think of as spiritual giants have chinks in their armor just like I do. Not that any spiritual pressure is relieved when they fall, but that they wrote about the struggles they had, and it makes me feel like less of a worm to have those same struggles. I don't want you to read more into this than you should, so here is what I am referring to:

As some of you know, for my devotional time in the morning, I often read The Life and Diary of David Brainerd. Brainerd was a missionary to the American Indians who was immensely passionate about making much of Jesus, but died at 29 years old in the home of Jonathan Edwards of TB. If you aren't familiar with his story and passion, let me commend it to you. So this morning I read where he wrote on January 3, 1744

"...I find that I do not , and it seems that I cannot, lead a Christian life when I am abroad, and cannot spend much time in devotion, Christian conversation, and meditation as I should do. Those weeks that I am obliged now to be away from home, in order to learn the Indian tongue, are mostly spent in perplexity and barrenness, without much sweet relish of divine things; and I feel myself a stranger at the throne of grace, for want of more frequent and continued retirement. When I return home, and give myself to meditation, prayer, and fasting, a new scene opens to my mind, and my soul longs for mortification, self-denial, humility, and divorcement from all the things of the world..."

I have this same problem! And I always feel like such a failure, because I can't seem to do what I ought to outside of my routine. Vacations, conferences, mission trips, trips to see family, and the list could go on. Isn't my relationship with God more than a habit?! As Brainerd said on the day before this entry: "It is nothing but the power of God that keeps me from all manner of wickedness. I see I am nothing, and can do nothing without help from above. OH, FOR DIVINE GRACE!"

I am thankful (and you should be too) that our acceptance is not based upon our performance. And I still feel the obligation and the desire to continue fighting for the exercise of the disciplines and intimacy with God when I am out of my routine, but it comforts me some that the men of God of bygone generations whom I respect much, struggled like me...

"For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" -Romans 7:19, 24-25

Wed Night Update from Jauja

2011-08-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe another mission trip to Molinos and Julcan is over! Just seems like it goes by so fast. We had another good day today. Several people came to know Christ in the village, and at the movie night. God is adding to His church daily! And we are just overwhelmed by the divine appointments God had for us.

Tomorrow will be a long day, so remember us in prayer. We got Oscar some things that he needed for ministry today, but tomorrow we will have to say goodbye to him. I would say it will be harder on him than on us, but hard on all of us. Again we leave him with the work, to nuture it, and make disciples. We leave here about 7 in the morning to head back over the mountain. Then we will stop by the children's home in Cineguilla, the on to our hotel for the night. Planes leave at 10:30 on Friday morning. Due to separate ticket purchases, John will have to fly on different planes, but we are all heading statesside on Friday.

Three major requests for tonight: 1) we inherited an american archeology student named Anna, and she is going to ride back to Lima with us. don't know anything about her spiritual condition, but we will find out tomorrow. pray for good conversation, and her salvation. 2) as far as we know the van driver, Amelio, has not been saved, but tomorrow we will talk to him some more. 3) and I cannnot stress enough for you to pray for these new converts! Pray that God sustains their faith, and grows disciples from their professions. The next few weeks is crucial as Oscar follows up with them.

Can't say thank you enough for your prayer support. You have helped move the muscles of omnipotence. And I know that your faithfulness will be rewarded. Probably won't get another update until next week, but I will fill you in then.

Blessings,

Jason

Some Pics from This Week in Peru

2011-08-02T19:44:00.001-07:00

A womand in Pomocancha

The range of the Andes that is beyond us to the east

A little girl at the festival in Marco

Alpacas

The Ticlio Pass peak

Just thought I would share a few

Jason

Tuesday Night Update from Jauja, Peru

2011-08-02T19:33:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

We have had another great day in the Lord here in Peru. I had a rough night, and wasn't feeling the best through the morning. But I slowed down some, and am getting back to normal. And praise the Lord, no one else felt bad. This morning we were snubbed again by the mayor and city council in Julcan, but we took the opportunity to go through the town inviting people to the movie night. It was a good morning.

We got to have lunch with Pastor Moises, and spend some time with him. Then we all began strategizing about the work in Molinos and Julcan and the rest of the east side of the Mantaro River. Then John and I discussed our involvment in it. It was a very productive time, and will bring forth fruit. So we decided to find another way around to Masma and Julcan, and saw some more beautiful countryside. God displayed Himself so wonderfully in the making of the Yacus, Yanamarca, and Mantaro Valleys.

Tonight we did the movie night in Julcan. It wasn't as well attended as previous times there, but the response was better. Many came to know Christ, and stayed around to talk about that commitment.

Now we are back, although some have gone out to find dinner. We are looking forward to doing more work in Molinos tomorrow. We hope to minister in the area around Oscar's house. We also will meet with the former mayor of Molinos. Then a movie night in Molinos to close out our time in Jauja. Be in prayer for Amelio our driver, I think God is working on him.

May God's mercy be continued upon us,

Jason

Monday Night Update from Peru

2011-08-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

Had a good, but long day here. God's faithfulness was put on display again. It is so obvious that He is working and establishing His church in Molinos. This morning we went to Molinos, but the mayor never showed up (not unusual), so we are going to try again on Wed morning. We made some good contacts on the visits we made. Then we went and saw the trout farm in Molinos (everyone in town was telling us to go). It was a trout farm, with American Trout. We are going to go back and eat some trout on Wed.

After Molinos, we took the group to Acolla, Marco (saw another festival there, complete with mountains of beer, dancing people, and marching bands), Tunanmarca, and finally to Pomocancha. God was really speaking to the group about future ministry.

Then tonight we were at Olga's to meet with the church. We had about 11 kids and 17 adults! It was great! We sang together, heard the Word together, ate and fellowshipped together, and three people came to know Christ! So we had an awesome day!

Food is good, scenery is spectacular, everyone is well (very tired, but not sick), and looking forward to tomorrow (when it gets warm again, don't remember it being this chilly last time I was here in the summer). Tomorrow we go to Julcan to meet with the mayor and city council there. Then we will make some visits, maybe go to Masma, and do a movie night at the auditorium there. Pray for the believers in Julcan, they are very scattered, and need a fresh start, and pray that the events of tomorrow will aid in that.

We are so thankful for your support in prayer. It means a lot to us, and I know that God is and will answer the prayers of His children, as you intercede for us. Please don't grow weary, but persist in intercession for us! Pray for physical strength and rest, as well as advance of the gospel.

Trusting Him,

Jason

Sunday Night Update from Jauja, Peru

2011-07-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord for His infinite mercies,

It was a long couple of days for the team as we have finally arrived at our destination. We were late to our flight in ORL, then the Colombians weren't sure they were going to let us fly. Then when we got to Lima at 1 am, the airport transportation was a no-show. And the hotel also decided they couldn't accommodate us either. But God was on top of it all, and we got settled in about 3 am at another hotel.

Long drive over the mountain today. Beautiful scenery! It was the clearest it has ever been up there in several trips today. But the change in elevation along with the 7 hr drive about did us in. But we are all about to get some rest.

Driver is great, always so good to see Oscar again (he is so excited that we are here). Good to see David and Cameron and Pete, and Juan too! Oscar was excited about his new accordion, and we got to eat some tres leches tonight. Everyone seems to be physically well, keep that in prayer.

Tomorrow we are going to meet with the mayor and city council of Molinos in the morning, and also make a couple of home visits. Then we are taking the afternoon and going to some of the villages that have no churches other than Molinos and Julcan. Then tomorrow night we get to worship with the church at Olga's house. I am so pumped to worship alongside these new believers and see the fruit of our labor and prayer for the last three years.

So pray for favor in the eyes of the leadership of Molinos. We are going to share the gospel with the city council and mayor publicly tomorrow for the first time. Also pray for the individuals that we will minister to tomorrow. Pray for Bruno, our hostal owner, as he is lost and needs to know Christ, and our van driver too, Amelio. Pray for the leading of the Spirit of God as we see other towns that need Christ. Pray for Oscar that God would grant him a great vision of the future of these churches!

Thanks for your faithfulness!

Jason

Prayer for Peru Trip

2011-07-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I have been so slack on getting this post out for prayer for our upcoming trip to Peru. But regardless of my irresponsibility, we desperately need your prayer support.

Four of us (John Farrar, John Hughes, Ron Lawhon, and myself) will be leaving Sat morning to drive to Orlando to catch a plan to Lima. After our customary two days of travel to get to Jauja, we will preach on Sunday night, then spend three days working in Molinos and Julcan.

Our main emphasis will be to check on how our baby church plants are doing, how they are being cared for, and their future plans. We want to help Oscar determine how to move forward, and how to develop leaders. We are still in that phase of our work there where we are transitioning from evangelism and modeling to helping them make disciples and watching them work. We will be doing a community movie or two, and making some visits to homes, but our primary focus is to strengthen the church and Oscar.

So pray for:

Advancement of the gospel
Spiritual strength of our team
Movie nights and home visits
3 church plants - 2 in Molinos, 1 in Julcan
Oscar, and the other Peruvians that come to help us
Normal logistical concerns - travel, airplane times, baggage, etc.
Health for each of us, no sickness, no seizures. Two of us have never been to this area before
Our busy schedule, short trip, 7 days

Thanks for your prayers! We will keep you updated through this blog, Facebook, and email. If you are interested in getting email updates, you can send me your email address. Also, you can join the Facebook group "Praying for the Central Andes of Peru."

May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering,

Jason

Dealing with Disappointment

2011-07-20T03:59:00.000-07:00

I write this morning to do, as John Piper says, "preach to myself." And maybe it will help you too. These are just a few "off the cuff" thoughts that I wrote down one morning several weeks back, that I need reminding of regularly. If any of you see fit to remind me of these things in coming months, please do so, just in a soft, helpful way--sometimes being a Pharisee is a hard thing to swallow...

We all have times when we don't get what we want or need. Our expectations are high. We dream about, think about, pray about, work toward something, and then at the moment that it doesn't come to pass, our hearts are broken, and sometimes we react with anger against others, and sometimes against God. So, I tried to think of some biblical truths that would help me combat such feelings, so that my anger is quelled, and relationships are helped and not hurt by disappointment. Not a lot of deep thought here, just short, memorable, and I believe helpful truths that we can repeat to ourselves in our minds, so that we may make much of Jesus.

Receive all things with thankfulness - "...giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," -Eph 5:20
Understand disappointment as God's wisest plan for you at this time - "I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me." -Psa 119:75
Own some of the responsibility, refuse to point fingers, we usually bear some fault - "then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" -2 Sam 12:10, sometimes we "ask amiss."
Confess and forsake our sinful anger, most anger is due to self-centered desires not met - "But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice..." -Col 3:8
Remember God's promises, and His unfailing love -"And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." -Phil 4:19, "as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness..." -2 Pet 1:3
Bring yourself into submission - "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," -2 Cor 10:5, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things." -Phil 4:8, "for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content" -Phil 4:11

Maybe these will be helpful to you. Meditate through those you remember in your disappoint in circumstances and in others.

Blessings,

Reminder: The Faithfulness of God

2011-07-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

While studying for a message this week, found a great quote, good reminder; maybe it will help you,

Commenting on Hebrews 10:23, John Gill says,

"...he (God the Father) is a promising God, and is known to be so by his people; he is eminently and emphatically the Promiser; and all other promisers, and the promises made by them, signify little; but the promises of God are exceeding great and precious, very ancient, free, and unconditional, irrevocable and immutable, and are admirably suited to the cases of his people, and will be fulfilled everyone of them: they include in them things temporal, spiritual, and eternal; things temporal, as that his people shall not want, that their afflictions shall work for good, and that he will support them under all their troubles; things spiritual, as that he will be their God, which takes in his everlasting love to them, and his gracious presence with them, and his protection of them; and that all grace shall be wrought in them, and every blessing of grace bestowed on them: and things eternal; as everlasting glory and happiness; the promise of eternal life was in God's heart, made in the covenant, and put into Christ's hands before the world began, and is declared in the Gospel: now God is faithful to all his promises, nor can he fail, or deceive; he is all wise and foreknowing of everything that comes to pass; he never changes his mind, nor forgets his word; and he is able to perform, and is the God of truth, and cannot lie; nor has he ever failed in anyone of his promises, nor will he suffer his faithfulness to fail; and this is a strong argument to hold fast a profession of faith."

Blessings,

Just a Few Feet from Possible Death

2011-05-23T03:59:00.001-07:00

Had an experience this morning that made me think. I was walking to work this morning about 6:00, and it was still dark, but light was coming. Someone had left a little tiny kitten on my porch (that's another blog), and so after I turned on the water sprinkler on the garden, and headed for the office. Two of my cats (Cremesicle and Lola) began to follow me over there. When I looked up, and noticed a medium size animal on the other side of the church building under the streetlight.

I had seen a fox a week or so back, but couldn't really tell what this was in the dark from that distance, so I began my approach. Closer I got, I realized it was that fox (I guess it was the same one). And it was just aimlessly walking around under the light. Fascinated, I watched some, then began to creep up the edge of the building where he couldn't see me. And my cats faithfully, or blindly, followed me.

I got right up to the corner of the building (about 35 yards from the fox), and watched. Then my fearless (or stupid) cat, Cremesicle, finally saw the fox, and he thought he better go investigate. Now I am wondering if curiosity was going to kill the cat! But my curiosity got the better of me, because I wanted to see what would happen (I was going to rescue him if he needed it).

The fox didn't see the cat until Cremey was about half way between us. He looked a little puzzled, and Cremey got down ready for the pounce. By this time I was a little worried, so I drew my trusty 9mm, just in case. From 30 yards, that fox would have a sporting chance with only a three inch barrel on my Taurus 709, but he better watch out!

The fox came closer to the cat, and kinda circled him. I could take a few more steps that way toward the very edge of the building (the AC unit had been in front of me). So I am ready, Cremey is ready, and the fox is looking stumped. He is cautiously approaching the cat (there was about 10 feet between them). But then he caught a glimpse of me; probably my face in the glow of the light. Then you could tell he went from puzzled to alert.

Since I was busted, I figured it was time to put an end to the curiosity (from all parties). So I stood up, and began walking toward the fox. That was it, he was outta there! And I watched him run over into the adjoining field, looking back every now and then to see if I was still there. So maybe I will see him again. It was a really exhilarating experience.

But as I reflected on it all, this was my thought: he didn't know how close he might have been to getting shot and killed. And I wondered how many times God protected me, had mercy on me, rescued me from myself... How many times had death been so close, and I just did not realize it? How close was eternal punishment to me before grace intervened?

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses...for by grace you have been saved..." - Ephesians 2

Even today, with the sin in my life from last week, God's mercy has given me breath. Just thankful for His sovereignty and His loving-kindness (mercy)! Has he been merciful to you? Have you thanked Him for it today?

"Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever." Ps 136:1-26

March 2011 Peru Summary

2011-03-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have waited too long to write down the awesome things that God did while on our last mission trip to Peru. But hopefully, at least some of you have received updates through our peru@newriverbaptist.org prayer distribution list (in you want to be on that list just email me), or through the group on Facebook "Praying for the Central Andes of Peru." But if you didn't, I wanted to give you a brief summary.

We had a great trip! The providence of God in providing, saving, and meeting all the right people at the right time was spectacular! We saw a couple of dozen people come to Christ simply sharing the gospel "in the way." And several of them were men, heads of their households (another thing we have been praying for). A house was provided for Oscar at no charge, so we cleaned it up. Meeting places were secured the first day out, which is something that we have been trying to secure (unsuccessfully). Evidence was clear that these past two years of labor there was producing some lasting fruit.

We were very encouraged at the work that Oscar is doing, the relationships he is building, and the care and concern for the people that he is showing. Oscar has been our man on the ground there since December. He is working on our church plants there, and now has three church meetings on Sundays in Julcan and Molinos. We are so excited for him. His residence now is complete with a dirt floor in the bedroom, an outdoor kitchen, a squatty potty, and six beehives...but it's free.

We were able to get into the schools again to share the gospel with the kids. And this really paid off, as many of the kids brought their parents to the meeting. We had a great meeting with the city council, and the doors of ministry there are still open wide. Our travel and accommodations were virtually without incident. And only one of our group got really sick before we got home. And we had several days without rain in a rainy season that has been heavier than normal!

All in all, God was so faithful, we are so grateful for His work and your prayer, and we are already looking forward to going back again in the summer. If you are interested let me know!

Sabotaging the Generations 2

2011-03-09T04:56:00.000-08:00

So I never got around to writing this second piece the day after the first, but the loss of the next generation is a big concern of mine. If we continue down the path of decline of the Christian faith in the American evangelical church among our children and youth, Christianity will not have much of a future in the next 40 years! Just a small disclaimer: even in perfect parenting there is no guarantee of faith, children are responsible for their lives/eternities. However, we may also bear the guilt if we do not afford them with good spiritual guidance through consistent practice of the faith. Nor does marrying believers guarantee good parenting and commitment to pass on the faith. For hypocrisy is probably more deadly than express unbelief to our children.

The second way that we are seeing the next generations of Christians sabotaged is the intermarriage of faith and non-faith (or nominal faith). God warns of this in Deut 7:3-4 "Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly." And we see this played out all through the Old Testament, just like God said.

Yet we ignore this truth and the warning given in 1 Corinthians that tells us not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. We have all seen it: a young man "falls in love" (that's a whole separate blog) with a girl that is not following Christ (she maybe have a profession, but is not living it, or maybe she is lost altogether), and it may happen slowly (over years), or quickly (over months), but sooner or later it is easier not to fight the battle with her, and he stops following Christ.

Even if he persists in his walk with Christ, they get married, and the kids can tell that mom really doesn't think that it is important, and regardless of what they are told (for she may be outwardly compliant), they see the truth, and it sinks in. And when they are of age, well they choose their own way...

And the same is true for young women who marry unspiritual men. Now, who wants their kids to reject Christ and go to hell? Nobody! But by mingling faith/non-faith, we are sabotaging them. How do we avoid this? Teach this in our churches, enforce in in our homes. Teach them that if they don't date people with weak or no faith, they won't marry them, and their kids (our grandchildren) will not die lost. Make them see that eternity is in the balance!

And of course the ramifications are much larger than your kids/grandchildren. What about their grandchildren and their grandchildren? Once the baton of faith has been dropped, the lostness in the family will grow exponentially with each generation. And so your decision to marry a lost man/woman could (I say could because God can do anything), cost you hundreds of souls...

So STOP IT! Put away the foreign boyfriends/girlfriends among you that cause you to worship foreign gods, and forsake the One True God! Do it for your children, grandchildren, and their grandchildren.

Thanks for reading,

Peru Prayer Sheet

2011-03-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, we leave for Peru this week, so here's how you can pray!

Prayer Guide for Peru Team March 2011

Team: Pastor Jason Jones, Pastor Mike Gibbs, Geoff Clement, Ed Farrar, John Farrar, Bethany Gibbs, Jessica Spicer, Margaret Treadway

Thursday, March 10
Praise Him for all who work together to make this trip possible. Pray for stilled hearts for the team and for their families as the team members pack and prepare to leave, and that we will be faithful to remember them each day. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusts in Thee.” Isaiah 26:3

Friday, March 11
The team travels from Tifton to Orlando in the New River Church van. Praise God for the willingness and obedience of these nine to make the journey. Pray for their eyes to be open to opportunities along the way. Psalm 67:13, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You!”

Saturday, March 12
The team flies from Orlando to Lima. Praise God for how He has gifted His church body for ministry. Pray that we will “put on the full armor of God” according to Eph 6:10, 19; the battle is the Lord’s, and so is the victory! Pray that we will submit to God’s agenda for each day — that we will “practice His presence” and “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Sunday, March 13
The team travels from Lima to Jauja. Praise God for Pastor Moises, Miguel, Oscar, Gabriel, Sergio, Preyer, Anyeshla, Alia, Nehemias, . . . and others involved in God’s good work in this land. Pray for physical grace for the team as they go from sea level, over a tall mountain range, and then settling at 10‐11,000 feet for the week. Pray that God will bless our interactions with His church in Jauja, out of which God is raising up church planters for Acolla, Julcan and Molinos. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

Monday, March 14
This is our first big ministry day in Julcan and Molinos. Praise God for His Holy Word and the privilege of sharing His truth with others. Pray that the team will find favor is the eyes of local leaders. Pray that we will “let the word of Christ dwell in (us) richly” (Colossians 3:16). “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” Romans 10:15b

Tuesday, March 15
This is our second big ministry day in Julcan and Molinos. Praise God for open doors in these towns, for good relationships with the mayors and school administrators. Pray for physical and spiritual safety. Pray for wisdom as we “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) in the plazas and in the countryside. “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” Acts 4:31

Wednesday, March 16
This is our third big ministry day in Julcan and Molinos. Praise God for His grace and mercy in our lives. Pray for a daily awareness of God’s enabling presence: Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:9-11

Thursday, March 17
This is our fourth big ministry day in Julcan and Molinos. Praise God for the many ways we in His church encourage one another. Pray for God to “direct their path”. Pray that we will see every encounter as God’s divine appointment. Pray that God will gather His people in a church meeting in both Julcan and Molinos today. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24-25

Friday, March 18
The team travels from Julcan to the children’s home and on to Lima. Praise God that “He who lives to be my King once died to be my Savior”! Pray for lasting effects among all who have been touched by the efforts of this team. Remind us, Father, of Your passion for the nations; may it be our passion as well! Pray for our brief time with Mike Kennedy and his staff at the children’s home, that we will be an encouragement to them and to the orphans they are caring for. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7:9

Saturday, March 19
The team flies from Lima to Panama and to Orlando, then drives home to Tifton. Praise God for His watch care and daily provisions. Pray for traveling mercies for this very long day of travel. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2

Sunday, March 20
Continue sharing with our church homes and family and friends “what great things God has done” in and through us! Praise God for home and family. Pray for God to continue to gather His people for weekly meetings, that He will raise up 10 men in each town (Julcan and Molinos) to lead in these churches, and that these churches will grow and foster the vision to plant more churches in the Yacus and Yanamarca valleys for His glory! “I will praise You forever for what You have done; in Your name I will hope, for Your name is good. I will praise You in the presence of Your saints.” Psalm 52:9

Thanks for praying!

You can also join the group on Facebook to get regular updates while we are gone, http://www.facebook.com/Myportionforever#!/group.php?gid=53329206451

Sabotaging the Generations 1

2011-02-21T04:25:00.000-08:00

Didn't realize it had been so long since I blogged last. But I doubt you suffered any loss not hearing from me. Anyway...

Recently several times Erika and I have seen situations in lives that we fear are sabotaging the next generation of believers in "good" Christian's lives. Don't hear me saying that there is no hope for those who are reared in these situations, I am committed to the absolute sovereignty of God (including election), but God gives ample instruction and normal means of the preparation of hearts and awakening of spiritual desires. So I guess I share these two situations because of my burden for Christ's flock and their offspring and the Kingdom. Hear them, and share them in the form of a warning.

1) Inconsistent gathering. I know, I know, harping on being with the church again. What can I say, it's the preacher's job. But really, children (or grandchildren) of professing Christians easily interpret the message that gathering with God's people is of minimal importance and done only when convenient if there is no consistency in Dad/Mom's or grandparent's lives. They realize that the church is not that important, thus Christ is not important, therefore a waste of time. They see very little impact upon their family's lives from Christ, and will eventually abandon the faith. Even if they don't abandon the faith officially, they abandon it in their hearts, and express a greater hypocrisy than the preceding generation.

Certainly consistent church gathering will not ensure future faith of our children, and there are many other ways that consistent church gatherers can destroy infant faith, but it seems a simple obedience to follow (Heb 10:25) to aid our children's picture of real faith. Once the chain of faith is broken, think of how many children and grandchildren of otherwise well meaning Christians will end up among the goats that were appointed to eternal fire. Time and space would not permit me to elaborate on the other benefits of regular participation with the Body of Christ, but isn't the eternity of our children and the generations to follow worth our determined commitment?

"Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments" -Deut 7:9

Never got to number two, guess I will do that one tomorrow...

Thanks for reading!

Labels

2011-01-04T04:58:00.000-08:00

I remember mornings where four pastors used to eat breakfast at 6 am every Saturday at the Two Trails Diner in Standish, Maine. We were diverse: one an older, bi-vocational pastor of an American Baptist Church, one and older, bi-vocational pastor of a reformed church, one a younger, bi-vocational pastor of an independent baptist church, and me, a young, full-time, new-kid-on-the-block, Southern Baptist church planter. And we made up all the evangelical churches in town, save one. And all together our congregations would have totaled about 250 in a town of 10K. Some of us had kids, some grandkids. Jim's wife died during that time, I had two children. Some of us where very conservative, some were borderline moderate/liberal. Some were denominational, some not. Some pastoring a long time, some where pretty green. Some were strongly calvinistic, some arminian, and some of us were in between.

There, used as many labels as I could.

Each week we would do what evangelical Christians do best--meet and eat. We would read a book together and discuss it. We would hold each other accountable in our ministries and families. Friendships were forged, hurts were shared, prayers were prayed, and lots of pancakes and eggs were consumed. Differences in opinions came up, and were discussed, but we realized we were on the same team. And as few of us as there were there, we didn't need to shoot each other. In fact, we had a lot of special services together, and were edified.

Seems as though now, here in the Bible Belt, we draw lots of lines. We condemn a lot of enemies in house. Denominational lines and politics shatter a lot of good fellowship. Now don't get me wrong, I do not advocate ecumenism. And I have a lot of doctrinal convictions that do divide. But sometimes I think back on the beautiful comradery of four servants engaged in a battle together for the advancement of the church and the souls of men.

Interestingly enough, that carried over into the churches. And their fellowship was similarly attractive.

"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." -Jesus

I miss that often.

Yearly Jones Family Update 2010

2010-12-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

Every year we get these wonderful letters from people that we love that live far away that keep us up to date even though we are so far away, and don’t get to see them much. And every year we say that we should do that for those people too. So for the first time, here goes:

Erika and I were thinking just the other day, it seems like only last week we were moving in Rankin Court at Southeastern with Ross and Jill beginning life anew. And this year we celebrated 10 years together. In that time we have had two cross country moves, and added three kids, three cats, two dogs, and a fish to our little family. We wonder what we did with all our time before all these! And we still think about our NC and ME friends often, pray for them, and miss them tremendously.

2010 has been a great year for our growing family. In January God made a liar out of me when it snowed in south Georgia for the first time in about 15 years, after telling Mackenzie that it will never snow here in Georgia. I went back to Peru for the fourth time this year in March to minister the gospel in the Andes Mountains. Later in the spring my grandmother, Nana, went home to be with Jesus at 87 years old. She had a marvelous testimony, and I had the privilege, at her request, of preaching her funeral. One of our cats, Callie, had kittens this year about six weeks before Erika had Knox. This was a great experience for the girls, and of course we ended up keeping one, Cremecicle. He is a huge, long-haired, orange tom cat. We love him.

Of course all this time Erika is growing and growing as she (and the rest of us too) prepared for Knox’s arrival. This was a worrisome time for Erika and I as we felt the fear of the past two pregnancies that ended in miscarriage. But God was so faithful, and even after another battle with HELP syndrome/preeclampsia, and another emergency c-section, Knox came into this world in early July. Since his arrival, life is different around here, but more wonderful that we can imagine, even with not having a baby in the house in four years. He is another easy baby, and even with his severe acid reflux, he is growing, laughing and smiling often. And now at 5 months, he is up to 20 lbs. Both the girls are extremely helpful (most of the time) with Knox, and spoil him rotten, not letting him ever cry, and treating him like a little superstar!

Kaitlann, now almost 5 years old is our little cook. If Erika is doing just about anything in the kitchen, Kait is on the counter mixing and fixing with her. Kait is still skinny as a rail, and full of life. She is Daddy’s fearless roller coaster partner, and is finally tall enough to ride some good ones with me. She started homeschool this year, and is doing great with the curriculum, but still working on those ABC’s.

Mackenzie stands around and worries about Kait when we are up on a roller coaster, lol. She is growing too, up to about 70 lbs at almost 7 years old. She is doing great in school, reading well, doing math at a second grade level. She played soccer this year for the first time. This was our first experience with a team sport, and she had a ball! She was already calculating when the spring season would start once this one was over. She did really good after she worked through some timidity. She can hit a bulls eye at 100 yds with her new .243, but is a little shy of it because of the recoil.

Both the girls are growing in their knowledge of Christ, and our prayer is daily that they make a personal decision for Christ. Mackenzie seems close, but we are trying to be careful not to put pressure on her, and allow the Spirit to work. Our constant prayer is that not only that God saves them, but that He calls them into ministry and sends them to the ends of the earth. (At least that’s my prayer. That is the only way I can become an international missionary, because Erika will have to go with them if they go! Lol!) Both of the girls still love to put on their princess dresses and parade around. Both of them love to climb the pear trees in the back yard, ride their bikes on the dirt road, and go hunting with Daddy. They are both still doing gymnastics, although we are not sure how much longer we will continue to do that. They both love trips to see Nana/Papa in Millwood, and Grandmamma/Pop in TN; although they don’t like the car ride—“how much longer till we get there” 10K times. They are great friends!

Erika is 29 and holding. I guess that is the last birthday I will mention for her on one of these letters. She really has her hands full with three kids, homeschool, and all the other things around the house that she does that hold our world together. We would all be nuts without her. She maintains the family blog at http://growingupwithmackandkait.blogspot.com. She also continues to teach her Sunday School class at church. And through it all, she still looks like a supermodel!

I started trying to play the guitar a little this year. I can do a few songs now, and I play for the girls at night sometimes during our devotions before bed, but I am not really that good. I am still the chaplain at the Sheriff’s Office, still coaching baseball, no longer the moderator of our association, serving on the board at the pregnancy care center, blogging a little at http://readytospendandbespent.blogspot.com, and am working on being a church planting coach with the GBC.

We have navigated some difficult waters this year at New River. We have had budget cuts and lots of deaths in the church family. But again, God has been so faithful, and we know that in His sovereign goodness, He has greater plans through the difficulties. But all the while, we are seeing husbands and wives baptized together, churches planted in Peru and in Tifton (our plant that we worked with here in Tifton is hovering about 350 with some 60 professions of faith and 40 baptisms. God is truly at work here. We hope that 2011 holds great things for New River Baptist Church.

Our parents are still doing well. Erika’s folks moved back to Millwood, and began work on their new house there. Kimmy (Erika’s sister) and Brett have had Colt for more than a year now, and he is growing. Edward (Jason’s brother) and Martha and their three kids are stationed in Yuma, AZ, but will be moving this summer. Jennifer (Jason’s sister) is still working in CA at Death Valley National Park, but her and her husband’s, Andrew, heart is in Alaska, where they spent the summer and bought property for a future move. Jason’s cousin Burt has been in Afghanistan since Oct, please continue to pray for him and his family.

Christ is still the center of our family, and we will continue to pursue Him as our greatest, most satisfying Treasure in 2011. We trust that He has blessed you as much as He has us. Our cup truly overflows with His mercy toward us. Our prayer is that you too will know Him, love Him, worship Him, and pursue Him together with us; and that He would bless and keep you, and cause His face to shine upon you, and give you peace! May all that you do bring honor and glory to the One to whom it is all due!

May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering in 2011,

Jason, Erika, Mackenzie, Kaitlann, and Knox

Have you been given much?

2010-12-01T02:29:00.000-08:00

Jesus said,

"Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. But if that servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

Have you been given much? Are you being faithful to carry out the Master's will, or casually thinking that He will not come soon?

"I believe in God..."

2010-11-30T04:08:00.000-08:00

Common occurrence among those who share their faith (once the conversation rolls around to God, church, etc.):

Believer: "Which church to you attend (group of believers that they gather with)?

Friend: relates a bad experience with some "church" or "church member," then goes on to explain that they "believe in God," and how they don't gather or need to gather with a local church (implicitly or explicitly to go to heaven).

Is this theologically true? Yes, one does not have to gather with the church to go to heaven or be right with God (ex. thief on the cross). So those are the two options: gather with a local church or be nailed to the cross until you are dead, and go to heaven directly (do not pass GO, do not collect $200, or attend church).

Just kidding, but really the scripture says,

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death" -1 John 3:14

I know, I know, you could love other believers without attending a church gathering. But like a pastor said this weekend, "you can give without loving, but you can't love without giving." And it seems like to me that if one was submitted to the Lordship of Christ in his life, and really loved the brethren, shouldn't they want to be gathering with a group of believers? If Christ thought the church was important enough to lay His life down for her, couldn't we lay down some time and people investment for her? If you love her/them, shouldn't you want to be around them, encouraging them, giving your life away to them, and laying down your life for them? You wouldn't love your family, country, or even chocolate like that. So would it be a stretch to say that you really don't love the brethren if you are not gathering regularly?

Now, don't hear me say something that I am not saying: I am not saying that everyone who is not gathering with the church is not a Christian. I really am simply saying that I worry about those kinds of people. People who claim to believe in Christ, yet casually blow off gathering with His bride (and many other explicit commands). I worry that they are not worried. I worry that their children will not follow a Christ whose value doesn't compel their parents to gather with the bride. I worry that they lull themselves into false security because our culture thinks its OK not to gather with the church. Some need to mend their walk with the Lord, and find a fellowship. Some need to examine whether or not they have passed from death to life at all...

Imprecation

2010-11-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

Working on a sermon on Psalm 28. And in verses 3-5 David prays that he not be carried down in the judgment that will be experienced by the wicked men among Israel. Then he prays that God would judge these workers of iniquity for their evil works and complete disregard of the glory of God.

Enter NT...

So my question is this, in light of the NT, should we, as followers of Christ, pray imprecatory (asking God to judge evildoers) prayers?

Give me your thoughts...

Biblical Observations

2010-11-03T04:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I was reading in Luke 4. And I noted twice in that chapter, Luke points out that Jesus is filled by/under the control of the Holy Spirit, vv. 1 & 14. Then Jesus notes it about Himself as he reads from Isaiah in the synagogue, v. 18.

Just a couple of thoughts with that in mind. Jesus did a lot of preaching under the power of the Spirit (in fact, he said that he was sent to do the work of preaching). When He preached He proclaimed the "good news" of His coming (freedom to the captives, sight to the blind, healing to the broken, gospel to the poor, justice for the oppressed), He wasn't afraid to give hope with grand statements about the power of God in their lives. And at the same time, He made people angry as he said hard things; so much so that they wanted to kill Him. People were repeatedly astonished at His teaching and the authority by which He taught. Under the power of the Spirit He also slapped the demons around and healed the sick. Again, astonishing people with the power of God through the Spirit. All of this in Luke 4.

So I was just reminded of the necessity of the Spirit's ministry in our lives. I wonder sometimes if we really desire and plead for the filling of the Spirit. Do you dwell in the presence, filling, and power of the Holy Spirit of God?

Personal and Parenting

2010-11-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

God has been dealing with me about parenting lately. I have been feeling like I am not doing enough to lead my family to Christ for a long time, but only moderately convicted about it. Last week I felt like it was worse, and began to ask seriously introspective questions. Do my kids think that I think Christ is the awesomist (I realize this is not a word, just using the language that I would use to explain the concept to my kids) thing in the world? Do Erika and I communicate to them that the reason that we do most of what we do is because we love Christ? Is this really the case? Do I do what I do because I think Christ is the awesomist!

Then our Sunday School teacher was teaching this week on our union with Christ and how that crosses into many sphere's of our lives. And he was asking if we as parents are leading our kids to have a personal walk with Christ, and not only a corporate walk, and a family walk with Him? Wow! God just really convicted me that because I have really good, easy going, relatively obedient, and well-behaved children, that I am lax on my intentional efforts to ensure that my kids know Christ as the most worthy and valuable being in the universe, and long to be with Him, serve Him, and lay down their lives for Him.

And I know that if I fail at this (I realize theologically that my children's eternity does not rest entirely on me, but that I have enormous responsibilities to be faithful and diligent in this area, and God will use that in conversion), I will let down generations of my offspring and thousands more souls that they will affect, should the Lord tarry. I do not want to look back at my life in fifty years thinking that I had a great ministry, even raised great kids, but that their faith was not a sold-out, world-altering, sin-killing, generation-crossing passion for Jesus.

So I desire your prayers as I try to put the emphasis on the most important things...

Ministry Spotlight

2010-11-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Brian Stewart began Simple Message Ministries in 2007 after 13 years in law enforcement when God radically changed the direction of his life. You can read his story on their website, so I won't go over it all here.

Brian was at our church on Wed night filling us in on what God has been doing through their ministry to law enforcement officers. I was reminded again what a unique and much needed ministry that he carries out, and wanted to share it with you, so that maybe you would want to take part in this work.

I don't know of another ministry just like his. He simply travels around with his wife and four children (under 5 yrs old) in tow, to many states here in the southeast. He goes to different law enforcement agencies unannounced, and gains permission to speak to the officers/deputies at shift change (6 AM). With his background as a deputy and a Georgia State Trooper, he gets in places with ease, sharing war stories and identifying with these officers having been there, done that. Most of these places he gets into, we can never get into ourselves. As the chaplain to our Tift County Sheriff's Office, it has taken me several years to become trusted and accepted, because I am not one of them; and it takes him about 10 minutes.

In addition to sharing the gospel with them, he leaves them free law enforcement New Testaments to put in the squad room and give out to other officers and personnel. And he puts out a daily email devotion tailored to law enforcement, and currently has over 700 officers in several states, and three countries receiving and replying to. He also speaks at Law Enforcement Appreciation banquets (which he has done for me) and services for churches and other organizations.

He comes from an independent Baptist background, but he ministers to all. He focuses on the main thing--the gospel, and does that well. His greatest desire is that the law enforcement community is reached with the gospel, and so he quit everything and began to do that.

The law enforcement community has high rates of divorce, alcoholism, stress, and suicide; and 21 years lower life expectancy that the general population. They are a young, relatively unchurched, and needy segment of our society. They put their lives on the line for us, and we should do everything we can to let them know about the One who gave His life for them!

So I commend him to your service. Pray for this ministry, that the seeds of the gospel will bring forth a harvest in due season. Pray that God continues to provide for their family. And if you have a need for this ministry, please don't hesitate to contact him. You can find him on Facebook here.

Miracles to Test Them

2010-10-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

I am still reading in Exodus some in my devotional time and I saw where God tested the people.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not." Ex 16:4

The people were tested by hardship and impossible situations regularly, and they failed regularly, and they complained regularly against Moses, Aaron, but ultimately against God. But in this passage, Moses told them that God heard their complaints and would provide.

Here God tells Moses He would rain down bread from heaven to test the people to see if they were really walking with Me and obeying Me. He was going to test them with blessings and provision rather than hardship! He wanted to see if they really trusted Him, really believed He was for their good and able to provide, really would give Him the glory, and really would do as He instructed (which was to only gather enough for the day), when things were grand. Again, many of them failed, and gave Him no glory. This pattern of faithlessness eventually cost them 40 years in the wilderness and hundreds of thousands of lives.

Wonder if God has/is testing many of us with blessing to see if we really trust God? What if we have a financial windfall, and if we really trust Him, we might give it away rather than store it up? The manna rotted if they stored it up. What if God is testing the American church, being the richest church in the world, to see if they really will "go unto all nations and make disciples?"

Wonder if we pass or fail? Do we give Him real glory for our blessing or lip service? Do we obey His word in good seasons, or only in bad ones? Do we forget Him if we think that we don't need Him? What will it cost us?

Be a good steward of your blessings and miracles!

Mell Baptist Assn Ann Mtg sermon audio

2010-10-19T10:55:00.001-07:00

Mell Association Annual Meeting Message

2010-10-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

I recently had the opportunity to preach at our Mell Baptist Association Annual Meeting. And I shared my heart and my fears for traditional Southern Baptists/Southern Baptist culture and life. Many have asked that I post it online, and it's too large for Facebook, I think; and our online sermon archive is free, so I don't have video uploading which is a premium service; so it has to go here. The video quality is not to good because I had to compress it so much to get it on here. But if you turn it up enough, the audio is fine, and you can see me in a blur...

$10,000

2010-10-14T01:39:00.000-07:00

Our video camera probably doesn't work too well in the dark, but if it did, I would have won $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos. OK, so the baby wakes up about 4:15 am, and Erika passes him to me while she gets up to go fix a bottle. He starts crying, and wakes Mackenzie up. So she comes in, and I explain that mom is getting him a bottle, he is fine. So she decides that while she is up, she is going to use the restroom before going back to bed. Then she steps into our bathroom in our room, and about that time Erika comes back with the bottle. She says, "here, I gotta go really bad." And I couldn't resist. Her eyes were shot because she had just come from the light in the kitchen, so she was totally blind. Mackenzie had stood up to pull her pants up, and Erika brushed her face when she was turning around. A giant gasp, and a huge shriek went out, and then she came flying out of the bathroom trying to breathe. Mackenzie was laughing, I could barely sit up and feed the baby I was laughing so hard. Probably a good thing that Erika didn't knock Mackenzie out! Of course then she knew that I knew, so then I was in trouble. But it was so worth it! So we all laughed an went back to bed...

I hope that you can picture it in your mind, it was too funny! Too bad we didn't have it on video...

The Greatest Baptist Deception

2010-10-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

I preached a message this week on the greatest baptist deception. It was really just a catchy title that dealt with Paul's exhortation to the Corinthians in 6:9-11 to "not be deceived." So I posted the title on Facebook as an invitation for people in Tifton to come to gather with us at New River and hear the message. And I got some interesting perspectives about what the greatest deception might be.

The opinions posted are not necessarily those held by the author of this blog, but I want to share them with you; many were thoughtful, some were funny. One said premillenial dispensationalism, one paid pastors and staff, one denominationalism, one bibliolatry, one said deacon lead churches, and one said the toleration of arminians and "devil-worshiping Freemasons."

So I will pose the question to my blog readers: what would you say is the greatest deception or heresy that Baptists are tripped up in (or any evangelicals for that matter)?

You can listen to my message or get the notes here, but I will try to fill you in on it after everyone gets a chance to read it. And I am going to consider the question some over the next few weeks and give more of answer to what I really think is the greatest baptist deception...

They Shall Know that I am the LORD

2010-10-04T04:02:00.000-07:00

I was reading this morning in Exodus and I was reminded of a recurring theme that I encountered in Ezekiel over and over:

Then I will harden Pharaoh's heart, so that he will pursue them; and I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD." -Exodus 14:4

That phrase, or variations of it occurred 60 times in Ezekiel referring to Israel and many other nations. It was pounded into my brain as I read Ezekiel some time back. This morning I realized that God was concerned, not only about Israel knowing that He was the One True God, but also the Egyptians who He was in the process of humbling and destroying. A couple of thoughts occurred to me:

We are constantly in need of reminding that God is really God, the sovereign Lord over all the earth, all circumstances, all situations, all people, all things at all times
God will go to great lengths, even the deaths of hundreds or thousands, to ensure that His Name is made great in the sight of many. And this is for the good of the many.
God has a great concern for your/my enemies and their eternal destiny, thus so should we. And therefore, we must remember how we handle opposition is extremely important.
I think it is valid to evaluate each situation in our lives with the question: how is God using this to make me (and others) know that He is the Lord?

Open our eyes to Your greatness, and make us realize Your sufficiency and centrality, as You work all things after the counsel of Your will!

After 3 Wives, What's One More...

2010-10-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

Just a thought that I had: if you got three wives (and twelve kids) in one family and one house, and that is working for you, why would you mess it up by trying to add another one?

Erika and I have been fascinated (not as though we think this is a good idea) and dumbfounded as we have watched this new reality show called Sister Wives on TLC. I guess mostly out of curiosity we tuned in the first week, and this watched it again last night. It has led to some interesting discussions!

Questions...lots of questions. We have been trying to understand how this could work. Knowing that reality shows are not usually reality, also been wondering what it is really like. Also been identifying with them on some level as one who holds beliefs that society at large disagrees with. Also wondering why you would want to put your family through that kind of exposure. Also, we are amazed that very little "religion" is mentioned. One wife even commented that if her children wanted "no religion at all" that was fine with her! I know that the Mormon church wouldn't be down with that. Also wondering how they are not arrested. Also wondering "what is this guy thinking?" I mean there seems to be no way possible to juggle all these wives and children and job and find time to keep them all happy, and court a new wife all at the same time! Just seems like a lot of undue strain and pain on wives that you love (is that possible?) and their children.

I know a lot of "normal" has to do with how you were raised, but my brain is still crazified (like that word?) from the shock of it all...

Perspectives?

2010-09-20T05:12:00.001-07:00

His ways are not always our ways

2010-09-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

My hope and intention was to go back to Peru this fall and spend some face time with my disciplers there. I wanted to encourage them, disciple them, train them, and strategize with them, and felt (and still feel) like this is a necessary and helpful thing.

But all the pastors and others that said they were going have all with one accord began to make excuse. I had one that told me he would go, but not to make plans just for him. Really bummed.

And somewhat confused. Doesn't God want me to continue carry the gospel to the ends of the earth? Didn't our team decide that we need to make about 3-4 trips a year there in order to equip the saints there and evangelize the area? So why prevent me from going on a trip that I had plans to go on?

Pro 16:9 A man's heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps. As with many other occasions in my life where things don't go as I planned, I can add this to the list. With the baby here now, and knowing my need to stay here and help Erika and minister to the family, I can see some of the reasons God might direct my path not to go. And maybe I need to be reminded that I/we are not necessary for God to work in this areas, or maybe the Peruvians need to be reminded that God is enough, or maybe harm would come to us, or maybe financially it is not the best decision now. I don't know, but I trust Him, maybe that is all He wants: to teach me afresh to trust in Him. Knowing myself all too well, I am always in need of that reminder.

May the Lord build His church in Julcan and Molinos in the Yacus Valley of Central Peru!

Relationship To Win

2010-09-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Recently we had a really cool example of God rescuing a church member from the brink of (or at least the potential danger of) spiritual disaster in the wake of some devastating circumstances in their life. And I wanted to share it with you.

We have been doing triads in our church for several years now. And that has produced some wonderful relationships, and some disciples for Christ, and catapulted others into spiritual growth. And I am convinced that this is what rescued this person spiritually.

The three of them were meeting regularly when a huge bump in life's road made it difficult for this person to gather with the church. But their triad kept meeting. For weeks the triad was the only thing that was consistent spiritually. And now after many weeks, still going in the triad, he has been restored unto the weekly gathering of the church. It seems like such a hard thing to do to get people back that struggle like this, but God used the triad to do it.

Do you know what the main component was that so powerfully worked in this situation? Good, theologically solid material? Nope. Weekly structure and prayer? Nope. RELATIONSHIPS. The relationships within the triad were the saving grace that drew back the wanderer.

As a shepherd, I am just glad to feel like a situation like this turned out well! So, whether it is a triad ministry or not, build deep relationships with those that you gather with. This is not just a good idea, but what sharing life together as the body of Christ is all about!

10th Anniversary Video

2010-08-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday's Sermon: Foolish Message, Fools Called, Fools Sent

2010-07-29T11:25:00.001-07:00

Peru November

2010-07-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that our trip to Peru in November is fast approaching. So far I have commitments from a few individuals and pastors to go with us. But I have heard from some of you that you are considering going with us. Please call, email, comment, facebook, send a pigeon, or the snail mail, but I need to know. I will begin looking for tickets and making all the IMB preparation within the next couple of weeks.

I will leave you with a quote from Matt Papa's new album: "Go, go, He's called us to go, and take His love to the world! He wants them to know, to know, that He is the truth, so as the Father sent Him, so He sends you...are you content just working your nine to five, while the souls of men and children die..."

Come and go with us, until they have all heard the good news of Christ,

Unto me a son is given

2010-07-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Erika gave birth to our son, Knox on Friday July 9th. He will be two weeks old tomorrow. I don't have lots of the good pictures here on my office computer, so I am going to direct you to Erika's family blog, where you can see lots of pics!

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; -Psalm 127:3-5

Thank you to all who prayed for us!
Jason

Choosing Nobodies

2010-07-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

This is just a recent sermon that I preached. Just trying out some new functions on my sermon website. Enjoy!

Life Changing Books

2010-06-21T04:18:00.000-07:00

I love those men of God who spend a lot of time reading, and their lives are transformed by the things they read. I wish I were a man that did both of those things, but I seem to struggle finding time (making time) to read. And then when I do, the books that I read are great, but I am like the man who looks at his reflection in a mirror, then walks away and forgets what he just saw! Or I have the "youth camp" experience, and am changed for a while, then it fades... O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death! So, my prayer is that God would burn the truths in these last three books that I have read in my mind, heart, and soul, and that my life would be transformed!

A couple of things make a good book for me. It is full of scripture. It is full of accounts of saints (past and present) who lived radically for Christ. It kicks my spiritual tail all around the room. It reminds of me of truths I forget. And it teaches me new truths, new perspectives, and challenges my preconceived notions and beliefs. These three books do that. And they have a common message: the gospel is worth any sacrifice, therefore let us go outside the camp and bear His reproach suffering for/with Him in radical obedience to His commands.

The first book I finished The Heavenly Man, is the account of Brother Yun, and the suffering and persecution that he suffered in China at the hands of the communist government in the '80's and '90's. Yes, that is the 1980's and '90s. Miracles abound, torture abounds, and through all of this, he is faithful to share Christ, love his torturers, and be obedient to the leading of the Spirit. This book was incredibly inspiring! Thanks to Mike Gibbs for the recommendation.

The next book was Francis Chan's book Crazy Love. The premise of the book is that most of us live lukewarm Christian lives that do not demonstrate to the world the power of the gospel or the beauty of Christ. You gotta get through the first couple of chapters before the book really gets challenging, but it is worth it. Talks about our responsibility to love those who hurt us, and do other unnatural things that Christ told us. Thanks to Don Pirkle for the recommendation.

Finally, David Platt (my favorite young pastor/preachers) has written his first of hopefully many God-ordained, Spirit-wrought books--Radical. I am not done reading it yet, but the first few chapters are great! He challenges the American church to not pursue the American dream of comfort, security, self-sufficency, and self-perpetuation. He says that we must really believe what Jesus said, and do it, not just adapt it to our American situation. It is replete with accounts from his overseas work among the underground churches of Asia, and the passion the have for the Word, and the spread of the gospel. He really challenges us to think about where we are as a body, and where we are as individuals, noting that the gosple demands our all; and that genuine believers pursue that. Awesome!!!! May God continue to use this book in my life and in yours!

Hope these are helpful to you!

Coach stuck in the locker room

2010-06-10T05:56:00.000-07:00

"I am the leader of this group...did anyone see which way the team went?" Scary portrait of leadership (picture, left), huh? Point man...team leader...the one in charge...organizer...chief in charge...and the one who forgot his passport! These are the hats that I have worn on our last four trips to Peru. This time I still have the "coach" hat on, but I will be stuck in the locker room!

Did this in Maine once, organized a 22 person team to Mississippi, but since my second daughter Kaitlann was gonna be born while they were gone, I had to stay behind. Hate it. My heart went with that team then, and it will go with this team now. It's my Christ they are proclaiming, and it's my flock that is going, and I would love to be there with them.

This time it is my son, Knox, who is holding up Dad from my third priority in life-God's fame among the nations (following my passion for Christ, and my love and service to my family). And it is my joy to stay with them for this awesome event in my family's life.

But enough about me, wanted to ask you to pray for our team. They leave a week from Saturday (6/19) to do a medical mission trip to our area in Peru. And we need your prayers!

The team needs your prayer because 1) I am not going. It is not because I am all that necessary (God doesn't need me). But it is more because this is the first trip that I have not been on. And the leadership of our team is not looking forward to doing it all on their own. They will do fine. I have the utmost confidence in them! Pray that their confidence in Christ will be bolstered as well as their confidence in their own abilities. Do pray for the logistical part of the trip, travel and medicine, as there are always loose ends to tie up even before they start. Especially pray for all the medicines to clear customs without incident.

Pray diligently because 2) these trips into the darkness always invite spiritual warfare and attack. Pray for these seven team members (Don, Les, Margaret, Charlotte, Lynne, Doug, and Pam) that God will strengthen them and defend them. Pray that their eyes will be fixed upon Christ. They are from Maine and Georgia, and do not know each other at all, so pray for the team development and cohesiveness.

Pray for 3) the advance of the kingdom and the church in Julcan and Molinos! Pray for the two small groups of believers in these villages. Pray for our work among them. Pray for our Peruvian partners and their labor and preparation for our visit. Pray for ten men to be saved, baptized publicly, and lead their families to Christ. Pray for all the other Peruvians (drivers, merchants, children, etc.) that our team will encounter there, that God will provide an opportunity to share the gospel.

Thank you for your unceasing labor of love in prayer for us and the gospel!

Recent blog posts

2010-05-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of recent blog posts that have blessed me:

Alan Knox wrote a post that explains how two very different believers got along great in a time of discipleship, and states, "that's not what discipleship, love, and unity is about." I wish our churches would grasp this...

Kevin Colon wrote a challenge to husbands here called "I suck as a husband." Sorry if the language offends...

Michael Stovall posted the "Tithe Rap Video" from FBC Woodstock

Thought you might enjoy those...

Medical Supplies Needed

2010-05-24T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
As many of you know, we are heavily involved in planting churches in the Andes Mtns of Peru in the towns of Julcan and Molinos. And in June we are sending a team to do some medical work in our villages in order to strengthen the churches there. If you or your church would like to help us out with stockpiling medicines for this trip, that would be great. Here is the list of things that we will need. Thanks for your commitment to the nations!

Pain meds/fever reducers (Tylenol, ibuprofen, Aleve, children’s and adults)
Antihistamines/allergy meds (Benadryl, etc.)
Any anti-biotics (Amox, Cipro, Bactrim
Anti-inflammatory meds
Anti-fungal creams
Neosporin
Hydrocortisone
Antacids
Vitamins
Band-aids, gauze, Ace bandages
Lotions and chapstick
Ziploc bags, sandwich size and little tiny ones

***Of course, there is always a need for money. It could be for the people going, or it could be for medicines to take with them into the villages.***

Good Question

2010-05-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Someone asked today on Facebook from a blog:

What would your church do if they all showed up on Sunday morning and no leaders were there. No preacher, no teachers, no worship leader/team, no musicians or sound/tech guys, "the show" had been canceled, and no fill-ins were lined up?

What would happen at your church?

Another One Bites the Dust

2010-05-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to be making light of a very serious situation, in fact, it's a very heartbreaking scenario that I have witnessed way too often. And to be honest, I just don't know how to think about it.

We have all known of believers in that gather with our churches that have much potential for use in the kingdom of God. And things seemed to be going along just great, and then a little slip happens. Or they let their guard down a little too long. Or they meet friends that lead them to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. Or they are lured away by worldly philosophies or sexual lusts. Or they go through an extremely difficult trial, and they turn away from the faith. And it rips your heart out! I found out about another this week, confirming what I already suspected--they are walking away from Christ.

The Apostle dealt with it repeatedly like in 2 Timothy 4:10 where he said Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica

Teachers, leaders, pastors, missionaries one day, then after a long, gradual slide...apostasy. And as someone who has poured into their lives, led them, prayed with them and for them, and hoped for so much through them, you ask yourself "why?" Were there things that I could have done? Did I not make a disciple? What truths did they not grasp? And you weep and pray that they would return to Him.

And maybe they will. That's my hope, that all these will be like the prodigal and come home having spent their portion in an empty world, broken and humbled, willing to labor as a servant in the Father's house; then receive mercy's robe and a ring of grace from a welcoming Father! My prayer is that they not persist in their rebellion like the apostates of Jude, and that the damage they do to themselves, those around them, and to the Kingdom will be restrained.

Let us be cautious to judge, but quick to brokenheartedly agonize in prayer on their behalf.

A Great Spring in the Woods

2010-05-03T04:21:00.001-07:00

I put these up here for the benefit of those of you who have not caught up with the rest of the world and joined Facebook. And for those of you who really don't care, sorry. God has been very gracious to me this spring, as He has granted me favor in bringing a few parts of creation under my dominion. Thank you, Lord. And thanks to the landowners for their generosity! And to my new hunting buddy, Charlie.

This is the first turkey I killed this year, 3 yr old bird, 10" beard, 1.25" spurs, about 20 lbs. Awesome hunt after he gave me the slip the previous morning. Hadn't killed a bird in a couple of years, but this one went really smooth!

The next time we went out, no turkeys, but Charlie finished off this 200 lbs hog after I made it mad with some OOO Buck, great shot Charlie! I missed another one that morning too with my pistol...

This is the second turkey I killed a couple of weeks later. Never killed 2 birds in season, usually stop with one, and got skunked last year for the first time in a lot of years. 2 yr old bird, 7" beard, 1" spurs, maybe 17 lbs. You can see the tail feathers are a little messed up, long morning--picture perfect, Outdoor Channel stuff until I pulled the trigger, but I will spare you the details. It sure is a story to pass along someday...

Then later that week, Charlie and I went out again, and waited on a gobbler that gobbled for an hour, then went the other way--that's turkey hunting. But then we stumbled upon this little piggy. And after a couple of 12 ga slugs, and .40 cal pistol rounds, I killed my first ever wild hog!

Rattlesnakes are fairly common here in South Georgia. In our area, though, we most have Eastern Diamondbacks. But as I drove home, I saw this beautiful Timber rattler, (some of you may call it a Canebrake) in the road dead. I knew that my girls would love to see it, so I brought it home. It had 10 rattles and the button, was about 4 feet long, and had fangs that were almost a full inch. And my oldest was telling her Nana what she had been doing that day, and she included "playing with the rattlesnake" in her list...too funny.

Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the fangs, they were really cool...

November Mission Trip to Peru

2010-04-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Just got done ordering plane tickets for our Peru mission team that is going down there in June--what a hassle! I think this is the first time that I have ordered tickets any later that about months out. MISTAKE. Cost us some time and some money. Actually, we are stewards of both, on loan to us from God, for use in His kingdom.

Therefore, I am determined not to make that mistake again. So I am doing a couple of things in order that I might order tickets much earlier.

So let me tell you about our next mission trip. This November we are going on a trip that has two objectives: 1) check on our churches, 2) take pastors and other staff along and introduce them to Peru. It is obvious why we are going down to check on our churches, but why take pastors? Well, one of our overall objectives in addition to planting churches, is getting others to help us in the work there. We envision a revival of church planting in these areas with no churches. We would love to see our whole region of Junin covered up with church plants. But we know we can't do it all.

All of you are welcome to go with us (pastors or not), but this is a good trip for pastors because we are not doing any big projects. They are the big project, and I plan on spending lots of time with them. And there are village after village after village, thousands of people perishing without Christ in the Central Andes of Peru. We are all called to engage the world so that every tribe and tongue and people and nation will be there in glory with us.

The dates are Nov 6-13, 2010. I have a couple of pastors who are thinking about going, and several of my church members too. If you are thinking about it, pray hard. I really want to have firm commitments by Aug 1st, so I can get the good ticket prices and flight times. Or if you have a pastor that needs or wants to get started in an international work, our contacts with the IMB and locally in Jauja will make it easy for you if God is leading you there.

Come with us, bring your pastor, or just pay his way to go. Please feel free to contact me with questions that you may have. Hope to see you in Peru this fall!

Suffering Silently

2010-04-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

I just want to take a few minutes to address what I think has become a problem in our lives as believers, and maybe even a curse--the curse of silence.

One of the reasons that God placed us in a body of believers here on earth is because the body needs the ears, hands, and feet to carry out its task. The other reason along this line is that we need the body. The body is to be the safe place that we may encourage and be encouraged; strengthen and be strengthened; help and be helped; love and be loved no matter what. We are told to take refuge in the Lord, and the church is His body--a refuge for us. Ideally in the church freedom should exist to open up our lives to our brethren sharing our deepest fears, hurts, and needs. And the body to still embrace and care for us, and love us through difficult seasons. The hands of Christ will minister to us in times of need. And some churches are refuges...

But many churches are not. Some have an atmosphere that creates just the opposite; a place to hide your true thoughts and feelings, and a place to be very cautious about sharing life. Many feel that their pain will be the talk of the church or town in an unhelpful way. Many feel like they don't need the body's help. Many are afraid of what those in the body will think about them or their situation. They expect harsh judgmentalism, envy, disagreement, unloving rebuke, etc. Thus we have the curse of silent suffering.

We go through our problems alone when God has provide for us a support system; not so that we could make "unspoken requests," but so we can share our heartache with others. The body cannot help if it doesn't know...

That having been said, a couple of qualifications (you have to add qualifications to anything you say, so that as many people don't get angry) and warnings. QUALIFICATIONS: I realize that there are certain issues that would be better handled in private (but this doesn't mean alone). And I also realize that God wants us to come to Him first, and that sometimes we come in quiet, peaceful submission and patience alone. And I am aware that there are people that are so shy in their personality that this is incredibly difficult. But in general we don't share when we should.

WARNINGS: 1) forced intimacy is not helpful. Let's say in your small group or Sunday School class, you decide to begin by going around the room and asking people to share their deepest hurts...not helpful. If someone shares voluntarily, that's different. 2) If you are one who is overly judgmental, gossipy, self-focused, too busy, or uncaring about others, please spend some time with Jesus in the gospels and note how He ministered opposite to all these things to very difficult people. Ask God to hear your sincere prayer of repentance and change your heart. 3) If you are one of those that is overly sensitive, fearful, self-sufficient, or just simply unwilling, please know that the peace, comfort, and encouragement is far worth the risk. At least find one or two fellow believers in the church that you can truly trust to give you good counsel and an encouraging verse from the Word. And as we all do this, others in the same situations will benefit.

Thanks for reading...

Peru March 2010 Bloopers

2010-03-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

Peru Pics from Recent Trip

2010-03-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

Peru Review

2010-03-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, we had a great trip to Peru this past week, and I wanted to update you on a couple of the highlights

Other than me forgetting my passport on the day that we left, and writing "Go Vols" on the back of one of the missionaries' truck who is a rabid Ole Miss fan, most of the highlights that I share are more serious. I will include a couple of video posts later when I get them done.

It was really great to begin to see some of the people of the village on multiple trips now. And the amazing part is that they have begun to recognize us. The mayors and the school principals are really beginning to trust us, and continue to open the doors wide for our ministry there. One of the schools actually challenged us to a game of baseball when we come back in the summer! They had a big send off for our team before we left.

We also ran into a regional government official that saw one of our evangelistic movies, and wanted to know if they could have a copy to show all over the region to encourage family values! They also wanted to know if we could go and show it in other villages in our area that they are working with. So we are praying for other churches and pastors to adopt these other areas, and the government will invite and promote our agenda in those towns. What an opportunity for the gospel!

It was so good to see "the church" there in Julcan and Molinos. They were all excited about possibly beginning to gather on a regular basis. We did have a difficult time getting them all to come to the discipleship meetings, but some did come. We did not get to baptize any this week, but we will in God's time. And it was good to see some of them "walking in the truth."

We had great time (and were very grateful to Tim for) training our local pastors/helpers there. Miguel, Preyer, Sergio, and Gabriel met with Tim each day for a couple of hours learning about the role and calling of the shepherd of this group of believers. And it seems that Gabriel will be taking the lead role in Julcan and Molinos.

The movies in both villages went well too. We had hundreds that heard the gospel for the first time this week. May the Lord bring forth fruit in their lives! We had over 20 that requested more follow up about having a relationship with Christ!

Baseball camps went great too! We had these Peruvians playing baseball after four days of instruction. The children loved it, and it really gave us an opportunity to build relationships and share the gospel.

Lots of laughs, relationships formed, and spiritual growth took place among our team. And this had to be one of the best, most talented, hardest-working (I about killed them), and gracious teams that I have ever been with.

More to come, but begin to pray afresh for the follow up from our Peruvians; for Gabriel in particular; for the team and the trip that will take place in June; for pastors to go with us in November and gain a heart for the area; and for baptisms to eventually take place!

Thanks for your faithfulness!

Daily Prayer Guide for March Peru Trip

2010-03-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

Prayer Guide for Peru Team (March 2010)

Pastor Jason Jones, Pastor Mike Gibbs, Geoff Clement, Jason Doggett, John Farrar, Aaron Gibbs, Brittany Gibbs, Tim Harris, Liz Hughes, Chuck Pickens, Robby & Griffin Rowe, Jessica Spicer, Margaret Treadway, Rebekah West, Kayla Stone

Thursday, March 11
Praise God for the willingness and obedience of these servants to make the journey.
Pray for stilled hearts for the team and their families as they pack and prepare to leave, and that
they will be faithful to remember them each day.
“...for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with
groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26

Friday, March 12
Praise Him for all who work together to make the trip possible.
Pray that their eyes will be open to opportunities along the way. This is travel day from Tifton to Orlando.
“Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in Thee.”
Isaiah 26:3

Saturday, March 13
Praise God for opportunities to be a witness and encouragement to the van drivers and translators.
Pray for safety and for good health and physical stamina for the long travel day by plane from Orlando through Panama City to Lima, and if the luggage keeps up with them, as they travel by van from Lima to Jauja. Pray that they will adjust well to the changes in altitude.
“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” Romans 10:15b

Sunday, March 14
Praise God for interpreters and for those who hear His word preached. Pray for Pastor Jason and for Pastor Mike as they preach at Jauja (Baptist church where Pastor Moises serves) and for open hearts and minds to receive God’s message. Also pray for afternoon visits to Julcan and Molinos.
“How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10:14-15a

Monday, March 15
Praise God for open doors as they interact with the children during the baseball camps, that they will minister God’s love and truth to the children as they teach them the game.
Pray that the team will find favor in the eyes of local leaders.
“And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:17

Tuesday, March 16
Praise God for His Holy Word and the privilege of passing out Bibles and tracts that tell of Him. Also pray that God gives “ears to hear” His word through the DVDs they will show at night.
“So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:11-12

Wednesday, March 17
Praise God for our church planters/disciplers — Pastor Moises, Miguel, Sergio, Preyer, Anyeshla, Alia, Gabriel, Nehemas, and others. Pray for God to raise up churches for His glory in each of the 3 district capitals of the Yacus Valley (Julcan, Masma, and Molinos).
“And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” Matthew 9:36-38

Thursday, March 18
Praise God for guiding their steps each day. Pray for the team as they prayerwalk the villages.
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord and He delights in his way. When he falls, he shall not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24

Friday, March 19
Praise Him for the beauty of a life turned over to Him.
Pray for lasting effects among all who have been touched by the efforts of this team. Remind them, Father, of Your passion for the nations; may it be our passion as well.
“For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth’”. Acts 13:47

Saturday, March 20
Praise God for physical and spiritual safety.
Pray again for eyes to be open to opportunities on the return trip. Leave Lima. Arrive in Orlando, and then home to our families.
“I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.” Psalm 52:9

Their Personal Requests For Daily Focused Prayers:
1. Open the eyes of their hearts that they may see, every day, God sovereignly at work so that they may
join Him in His glorious plan for the nations.

2. That they may find hungry hearts seeking the Savior.

3. That the Gospel of peace will lead them to people of peace.

4. A daily awareness of God with them.

5. God’s anointing of the evangelistic tract “God’s Bridge to Eternal Life” and the “Hope” video

6. Pray that they will “put on the full armor of God” according to Eph 6:10‐19; the battle is the Lord’s, and so is the victory and all the glory!

Preaching To Myself

2010-03-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just got to preach to yourself, and say, "self, here's the way it really is!" I say that sometimes from the pulpit, and I really believe it, and I really practice it. But this morning in my triad meeting, we discussed the pruning process of the Lord in our lives; and I was reminded afresh at the awesomeness and absolute sufficiency and refuge and joy that Jesus is in our lives! Let me share, and preach to myself some more; maybe it will help you too!

God uses lots of things to prune us: friends, family, books, sermons, the Word, teaching, etc., but most of all He uses pain, suffering, loss, and deprivation to break us from things that we don't need and things that hinder the fruit that endures and the joy of Christ! And so with that pain in mind, I kinda began to share some life lessons that Christ has worked through the three most painful times in my life. And I got so excited about how God used the Word and His sufficiency not only to get my through, but to grow me and change me and bring glory to Himself. And I got to preaching a little bit...

And these are just a few places that we are reminded of God's power and sufficiency, but they are tied to the painful times of my life, but biblically speaking:

David experienced and extolled the sufficiency of God in the wilderness, a dry and thirsty land, on the run, persecuted, downcast, deprived, betrayed, hunted, and sought after when He said in Psalm 63:1-7, when He saw the power and glory of God "...Your love is better than life...thus I will praise you and lift up hands in your Name...my soul is satisfied...in the shadow of your wings I will rejoice..." GOD IS SUFFICIENT!

Job, after immense, unspeakable tragedy and loss, said, "though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," knowing that God alone is enough! Then after 35 chapters of God's silence, some unhelpful friends, and Job's whining (not patience), God speaks. He says to "gird up your loins like a man," I've got something to say. And for four chapters He demands answers from Job about who created the seas and their boundries, and where was Job during all that; and on and on for four chapters. And at the end, God having given no reason for Job's suffering and His allowance of it, Job says that he has spoken of things that he does not understand, and he repents for doubting God. And the message of the book is that God alone is enough. GOD IS SUFFICIENT!

Habakkuk was floored by the news that God was sending the wicked Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and take them captive into a far away land. He can't fathom why or how God would do this to His children! He finally, after much reflection, at the end of the book says that when he heard the news, his body quivered, bones shook and ached with pain and shock, BUT if the worst case scenario happens "though the fig tree has no blooms, the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flock is cut off from the fold, their are no herds in the stalls; Yet, I will rejoice in in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my salvation! He is my strength..." GOD IS SUFFICIENT!

Paul said that the pain of the "thorn in the flesh" was unbearable, and that he had asked God to remove it, and God had refused. God said, "...my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness." So Paul concluded, "Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." How could he rejoice, take pleasure in pain????? Because He knew that Christ was a greater joy than all the pain in the world! GOD IS SUFFICIENT!

And much more could be said, but I will leave you with that. It is just so good to be reminded of His sufficiency and power; and that He is our Rock and worthy of our trust! May God's strength be manifested and put on display in a world by the suffering of believers who attest to the Refuge of our soul, and take pleasure in trials because He is our treasure!

Preach this message to yourself: GOD IS ALL-SUFFICIENT, SATISFYING LORD OF GLORY!

Pray for the People of the Yacus Valley

2010-03-09T04:29:00.001-08:00

Wow, thoughts about this week overwhelm my tiny little brain. My desperation for His hand and His presence upon us is intense. I will try to do a couple of posts this week for you to be able to pray according to knowledge. I will publish a daily prayer guide for you right before we go.

But for a couple of days, please spend some time meditating and interceding for the people of Jauja, Julcan, and Molinos.

1) Pray for our Peruvian church planters. These young men and ladies are sacrificing their time to help us plant churches in these areas. We will be doing some pastoral training for them preparing them to shoulder the leadership role with these new churches. Pray for their understanding and passion. Pray for Tim who will be doing most of this training.

2) Pray for the believers that are already there now. These are new believers and this week we will be teaching them about baptism and gathering as the church. Pray that many will be ready to receive baptism on Thurs. Pray for homes to open up for meeting places. Pray for their understanding of "the church" to be biblical and different from the Catholic culture. Pray for their growth and commitment. Pray for Me and Aaron as we disciple them.

3) Pray for the hundreds of non-believers that will see and hear the gospel this week. Pray that God will open many hearts and they will repent, take up their cross, sell out for the treasure, and pursue Him fervently. Pray for the gospel to be clearly and powerfully presented. Pray for the children in the camps that they would believe on Him as well. Pray for our camp workers and for Mike and Robbie as they present the gospel each night.

May we be used to storm the strongholds of hell, and may the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!

Strive to Do the Word

2010-03-09T04:16:00.000-08:00

We had another great service on Sunday! It is so good to see the church rise up and worship together. We broke 100 for the first time in a couple of months. God was truly glorified and made much of. Spirits were uplifted, hearts encouraged, and the testimonies of individuals demonstrate that God spoke and moved among us. Thank you to all of you who engaged in this combining of hearts, minds, and voices.

Again, the notes from the sermon yesterday are attached, if you want to open them. Let me know if I need to send them in a different format, if you can’t open them. And to give you some insight to my madness in my notes: 1. explains what the verse(s) mean, 2. gives cross references, 3. are illustrations, some written out, and some abbreviated, and sometimes longer ones are at the bottom of the page, 4. is the applications of the truth taught. Sorry if they are not much help to you. The audio is available on our website and the Sermon Central website.

From Sunday morning’s message: 1) remember that love is not easily angered; ask the Lord to love people through you today through the restraining of anger and frustrations. Remember, you can control how you express your emotions through the power of the Spirit. It will be a great testimony to those around you to suffer without anger, especially to those of you with short tempers. 2) Love does not keep score; we must forgive those who wrong us by the power of the Spirit. Preach to yourself, memorize some verses on forgiveness. And focus on acting forgiving, not bringing up past hurts, praying for the other party, not thinking evil of them. Remember this does not mean it’s “OK,” condoning their actions, must forget, nor that you are going to “feel” forgiving. 3) Love rejoices in truth. Expose sin in a proper fashion, and when it’s repented of, forgive and move on. Find a truth in the Word today and rejoice over it. Find someone around you and encourage them by complimenting on the fact that they are obeying the Word, rather than just knowing it.

From Sunday night’s message: 1) The focus of your worship (personal, family, and corporate) is Jesus Christ! Strive to make Him central each day in your thoughts. Dwell upon His faithfulness, provision, love, mercy, and truth. 2) Worship is not about form, but content. Evaluate and attempt to separate personal preferences from unchanging truths and methods to carry out those truths. Try a new form of worship in your personal time this week. Prepare to adjust your thoughts this week as we sing songs that you don’t prefer, or as you endure a temperature or time frame that you would do differently. 3) Worship is participatory. Encourage those around you sing, sing, sing (it is also the daily mark of the Spirit-filled Christian). Train your mind and heart to truly engage Him, focus on Him, and worship Him. Look for ways to help facilitate a great worship experience for those around you, especially those that are new with us, and visitors. Take the initiative, do what you feel led by the Spirit to do.

Next week, we will have Phillip Edge, the IMB missionary from Russia preaching for us. You may remember him from several weeks back on Mission night. I know that he will hear from the Lord, and bring it to you. Sunday night, Benji Rowland from Journey church will be here to give us an update on Journey and bring the preached word to us. You don’t want to miss this Sunday!

Then the week after that, we will be meditating on 1 Cor 13:7 in the AM service, and 1 Chronicles 12:32 in the PM service regarding “Living Apostolically” another character of Missional churches. Read and Study ahead for getting the most out of this time of reflection and declaration of God’s Word. Also remember that we are doing the Crown Financial Study on Wednesday nights about biblical truths on good stewardship and financial management. All are invited. Statistically those who take the course and apply the principles eliminate several thousand dollars of debt, and save several thousand dollars that they would not have done otherwise over the next few years following the study.

Prayer: remember that this week we will leave for Peru on Friday afternoon. Huge week for the Kingdom in Peru! Please be diligent in prayer. I will try to keep you updated as to specific needs. Also remember Glen Greene (Martine’s brother) who came through a serious surgery yesterday putting a stint in an aneurysm. Remember Evelyn Sumler who is in the ICU at Tift Regional. Susan Mauldin’s daughter in law as she will have surgery next Tues. Carolyn as she is recovering at home (thanks to all of you who are visiting, calling, and preparing meals for her). And those who are struggling right now financially, vocationally, relationally, physically, and spiritually; there are many in our congregation. Pray for names specifically from the directory. And for visitors too.

Thanking God for and praying for you

Church Thoughts from Sunday

2010-03-01T08:46:00.000-08:00

I am gonna start trying to encourage us to practice “applied Christianity” by emailing you on the first of the week, reminding you of a couple of major thoughts/applications from the sermons/teachings/discussions from the Sunday before. I am also going to try to give a preview of the next week’s. And I am going to try to put them up on the blog too, to maybe minister to readers there. I will include a link each week to the blog, but here it is, and you can subscribe as well.

I thought that we had a great day yesterday. We had a number of visitors yesterday, some local, some from away. But we also had several visiting families that were not there too. Remember them in prayer, call, email, visit, etc. I thought the worship went really well yesterday, despite the missing worship team members and change in venue in the evening service.

Had several people say that they really benefit from the PowerPoint slides for the sermons, so will probably start that back. The other thing that I will do for those of you who can’t write fast as I talk, is attach the sermon notes on this email. If you can’t open the attachment, you can go here, and get the notes and audio as well. But I thought that it might be helpful for those that really want to zone in on the sermon rather than the wall.

From the morning message: 1) remember that love is not proud, so work on thinking of others more, yourself less today; 2) love is not rude (so along with me) work on guarding what you say and how you say it, restrain your tongues and put forth your best manners today toward coworkers and family; 3) love is not selfish, so work on denying self and trying to figure out ways to lay down your agenda’s for others today.

From the night message: 1) let me encourage you to do the word that you know, 2) I know that you can work on the spiritual disciplines of bible intake and prayer. Grab verse for the day, and begin committing it to memory, write it down on a post it note. Can’t think of a verse, try Deut 10:12-13 (mine for the week), or Prov 18:7 (a personal one for me, as I strive to kill sin in my own heart). 3) teachers and ministry leaders, continue to reflect on ways that you can encourage your class toward obedience—reviewing, accountability, training.

Thank you for your flexibility with the service arrangements on Sunday nights (and Wednesdays). There are still a few bugs to work out, and we are on top of it, but feel free to make suggestions as we attempt to worship with our hands raised and live within our means as a church.

Thank you for providing a loving fellowship and support for my growing family to thrive in. Let me also encourage you to share your stories of faith and answered prayer and miracles in your lives with my children. I was reminded this weekend that we must pass on the faith as a community to our children. I am glad to be a part of New River Baptist Church!

Pursuing Christ,

Jason

Maybe we should...

2010-02-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I was preaching on being real (you can get the message here), in a series from the book Shaped By God's Heart about missional church commonalities and characteristics, and I made a statement that wasn't in my notes (that happens quite often) that shocked some people (that happens often too). I was thinking out loud about ways that we can encourage our people/church to prioritize avenues to form relationships with unbelievers. (Understand that I believe that we should prioritize relationships within the body as well, but the context of my comments was related to the fact that the world needs to see our faith as real, life-changing, vibrant, and daily, and they can't do that without knowing us.) And so I asked the people to help think of some ways that we do encourage authenticity in relationships with non-believers, and other ways that we could encourage this, thus prioritizing relationships and avenues of relationships with them.

And that's when I said it..."maybe we could cancel Sunday night services, and encourage our people to be 'with' non-believers at this time intentionally." And of course, the idea is not to dedicate more time to a one-night a week program, but to engender a lifestyle that loves non-believers enough to build relationships with them and take down barriers for them and be able to share a gospel witness...all the time.

Just the thought of canceling something that we have done for years is enough to cause most baptists to have a mild heart attack and reach for the nitro-glycerin tablets (although there were some in our group last night that were all in favor). And some would defensively argue that we should never reduce commitment to "church" things, and thus bathe themselves in self-righteousness.

But this morning as I got the CD from the message last night in order to upload it to our website, I also got the headcount for the worship services (done so we can put that in the bulletin each week, another long-standing tradition). We had a record-breaking crowd last night...28 people! Many people that will argue that we maintain certain church "services" or "ministries" are the same folks that don't participate in them, funny, huh? And most of these people are definitely not eating with sinners in their free time like Jesus did?

So maybe we should cancel some services or ministries that inhibit our people from truly reaching out by consuming much time, and that cause our people to over-compartmentalize their faith/practice of that faith. And invest that time teaching our people how, where, and who to minister to with this new found freedom. The pastor of the church plant that we are helping plant in Tifton wrote a blog post about this yesterday after their worship service; it's a great read.

I know, it's a little crazy, but we should be ever-striving to be more kingdom-minded, even if it means, departing from tightly-held traditions.

What do you think?

Prayer for our March Peru Trip 2

2010-02-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

One of our leaders for this trip, Geoff Clement, put together this prayer guide for all those that would partner with us to pray for us and our trip. He is also putting together a daily prayer guide for the trip as well. Might post that one too! Thanks for reading, and many thanks for praying for us!

Pray especially for:

• Peru in general: almost 2 million of the 30 million people of Peru have no adequate access to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ — Plead earnestly for the people of Peru!

• The 3 mayors and other leaders, for God’s continued favor

• Our church planters: Pastor Moises, Miguel, Sergio, Preyer, Anyeshla, Alia, Gabriel, Nehemas, . . .

• 10 godly men in each town (Julcan, Masma, and Molinos) as the foundation for faithful churches

• God’s Spirit’s work to raise up disciples of Jesus Christ throughout the Yacus and Yanamarca Valleys

• Pastor Jason Jones, Pastor Mike Gibbs, Geoff Clement, Jason Doggett, John Farrar, Aaron Gibbs, Brittany Gibbs, Tim Harris, Liz Hughes, Chuck Pickens, Robby & Griffin Rowe, Jessica Spicer, Margaret Treadway, Rebekah West

Pray for unity (15 missionaries from 6 churches), humility, servanthood, and teamwork.
Pray for logistical transportation needs, especially for two very long stretches of travel to and from Jauja and as we travel from Jauja to the pueblos.
Pray for good health, especially as we adjust to the high elevation.
Pray that we will lean heavily on God for rest, daily bread, and refreshment.
Pray that we will let God’s Word “dwell in us richly”.
Pray that we will “pray without ceasing” and be sensitive to His Spirit.
Pray for wisdom as we “speak the truth in love” in the plazas and in the countryside.
Pray that we will interact well with the children as we teach baseball skills, using sports as a platform for ministry.
Pray for God to open hearts to His glorious gospel, that people would understand that salvation is all of God — by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for God’s glory alone!
Pray that we will submit to God’s agenda for each day — that we will “abide in Him” moment by moment and see every encounter as God’s divine appointment.
Pray that we will learn as much Spanish as we can.
Pray that financial support will come in for each team member ($1,200 per person) — We trust God to provide for us through His people!
Pray that we will “put on the full armor of God” according to Eph 6:10-19; the battle is the Lord’s, and so is the victory!

Prayer for our March Peru Trip I

2010-02-01T07:06:00.000-08:00

Psalm 67:1-3 “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You!”

Sorry, it has been so long since I have written a blog post. I have had several ideas of what to write about, but most of them seem to be unhelpful to the body of Christ, and would probably get me in a lot of trouble. And besides, I read a lot of blogs, and many that have lots of text but not lots of important or helpful info. In fact, if a blog is consistently fluff, I usually delete the feed...I digress.

As I was thinking about our March Peru trip the other morning my mind was racing about all the things that we are going to be doing in a week's time there, and I was feeling a little overwhelmed. And you may feel overwhelmed at all the prayer needs that I am about to give you. In fact, as I think about it, I may break this blog up in two parts.

I'll just put the prayer needs that came to my mind the other morning, if I can remember them. Then in a couple of days, I will post Geoff's compilation of prayer needs. But know this: I AM DESPERATE FOR THE HAND OF GOD TO BE UPON US, AND I FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THIS TRIP. AND WE MUST HAVE SOME PRAYER WARRIORS INTERCEDING FOR US!

This is a huge trip regarding the planting of the church there in Julcan and Molinos-two villages that have no existing churches. There will be a lot of evangelizing going on in these two villages with those whose hearts have been prepped on our last two trips. Secondly there will be a lot of discipleship with those believers that are be beginning of our core group there. Hopefully we will baptize these individuals who are ready to fully follow Christ before we leave (this is a huge step for them, because it symbolizes the official break between them and the Catholic Church). And thirdly, we will be training our two young pastors there, as they prepare to take the weekly reigns of these two churches. Neither of these young men have any "pastoral" experience, but have been involved in ministry in their home church in Jauja. This will be a big jump for them, but they have been making trips out to our villages regularly discipling the believers there.
In addition to this great task, we will also be doing a baseball camp for the children in these two villages in the mornings as a way of helping them. And we have never done a baseball camp before. We might be teaching some English classes for those that would like to learn. And with all this, it is going to be a very busy week. And we will need much stamina to weather a week like this at the altitude. And it seems like we always go a little two hard the first couple of days.
Logistically, this trip is going to be very difficult to say the least for a couple of reasons. First, this is the largest team (16) that we have ever taken by ourselves to Peru. We will be renting three mini-vans for travel and trying to keep up with all of them as we ascend the Andes (15,000 ft up over 8 hrs). And we will also have three van drivers, two translators, and a missionary with us. And secondly, we (I) have scheduled us a really difficult day of travel on Friday and Saturday. We are leaving Tifton on Friday night, driving to Orlando, and staying in a hotel near the airport. Our plane leaves at 6 am (so at the airport at 4 am), then we switch planes in Panama City, Panama (never been to Panama before), pray that our baggage makes the connection, and arrive in Lima at about 1:30 pm. Then we are gonna pick up our vans, translators, etc. and begin an 8 hour trek over to Jauja. So if we leave Lima by 3 pm, at best we arrive in Jauja at 11 pm. So we will be going hard from 3:30 am till about midnight. Then I have to get up and preach on Sunday morning. This might appear foolish to some (and maybe it is), but it is a risk that is necessary to take for this short time and the ministry that we must accomplish there. As some of you know, I have a seizure disorder (just another Satanic distraction) that can be triggered by lack of sleep and/or stress. So I need you to really pray for deliverance for me on the first to days. Our return travel is difficult, but not that difficult. So pray for me as I lead, administrate, and preach the gospel, but pray for my health to stand firm, as it is hard on team to have a leader down.

I am so grateful that many of you have supported our work there in the past few years, but this trip may be the most needful of prayer. Please recruit an army of prayer warriors and saints to intercede for us. Please don't allow this request to sit on a table or be forgotten as so many are.

Somebody please make sure and tell Bob and Pat English and Fred and Harriet Osgood! Thanks

Thanks for your faithfulness, may the Lord bless you accordingly!

Thoughts on Santa

2009-12-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

It is truly heartwarming to know that millions of people around the world believe in Santa. Sure, most are under four feet tall, but still it’s amazing that so many believe in the big guy in the red suit. Consider the following:

Around the globe, today, live approximately two billion children (persons under 18). Santa doesn’t visit all of them, of course. Subtracting the number of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children reduces Santa’s Christmas Eve workload to 15 percent of the total, or 378 million children (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, and presuming that there is at least one good child in each home, Santa must visit about 108 million homes.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. That means that at each household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, and get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh, and get on to the next house. For the purposes of our calculations, we will assume that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false). We’re talking about a trip of 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. To cover that ground in 31 hours, Santa’s sleigh moves at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. By comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh must carry over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. In air, even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with a mere eight or nine of them—Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

Six hundred thousand tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance—this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g’s. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Adults have no problem believing in Santa. By comparison, the story of the little baby in the manger is relatively easy to believe. The life of Jesus Christ is a fact, recorded not only by biblical writers but by secular historians as well. Some historians declare that there is more evidence for the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ than there is evidence that Julius Caesar ever lived at all. Even in the face of the written testimony of eyewitnesses, many people refuse to believe in Jesus. They consider him nothing more than a myth. But for those willing to believe with childlike faith, Jesus promises an inheritance of the kingdom of God (Mark 10:14). SOURCE: Edited from Still More Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks by Wayne Rice. Contributed by Jeff Strite, Church of Christ at Logansport, IN

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering

2009-12-07T05:26:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again...yes, Christmas, but more eternally important for the nations, it's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering time! Why is that so important you may ask? I will tell you

There are over 16,000 people groups in the world today (ethno-linguistic groups of people). Over 6000 of them are considered unreached, meaning that there is no indigenous believing group of Christians that can evangelize their area without outside help, less than 2% Christian. That comes to about 2 billion people who do not have good access to the gospel. And many of those people groups are unengaged, meaning that they have no evangelical missionaries among them. Only 3 % of the world's missionary force of about 100,000 is among the unreached. Watch this, then again.

And as Southern Baptist our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (LMCO) supports the largest missionary force in the world, because this offering goes strictly to missionary salary and outreach costs. And for the first time in decades our International Mission Board (IMB) has had to cut missionary appointments because of shortfalls in funds. We have more missionaries to go than funds to send them. And millions perish daily without access to the gospel. And so we have an opportunity to sacrifice and invest in eternity rather than stuff.

And it blesses me when my congregation comes to me and says it would be nice if we could give to the LMCO all year. Because they feel the burden to give, but they also feel the pinch of our current economic crisis. Well, you can! In fact, anyone reading this blog can at anytime. And I am encouraging you for the sake of the nations to do so. It breaks my heart to hear grumbling about the increasing of our church goal from $10K to $12K, especially when it should be $15K. I want you to hear it from the missionaries mouth's as well as from a couple of pastors.

Dear Praying friends and family, This year seems to have just flown by so quickly….well, at least the last six months! Thanksgiving has come and gone and now everyone is preparing for Christmas! David and I had several days of feasting and fellowship leading up to Thanksgiving Day with missionaries in Zambia. We traveled back to our home in Malawi on Thanksgiving Day. Looking over this past year, we have so many things of which we are thankful to have been a part of. Let me name a few:

-Trip to Turkey to discuss work among our “cousins”. (Feb)

-Completion of two more 4040’s (First term missionary on field orientation program) without major incident! (April-May and Oct.-Nov.)

-Two separate but wonderful AMTM’s (mission meeting) with our missionaries in the Zambezi Cluster (March and July)

-Prayer retreats with our missionaries in the Zambezi Cluster- Focus on Fervent and Persistent prayer

-A wonderful vacation/trip to Namibia… got to see and experience a whole new part of Africa for the first time!

-Much needed and successful disc replacement surgery for David

-An unexpected medical trip to the USA for Janet which also provided the opportunity to visit some with our kids and David’s parents!

-Personal home visits with some of our missionaries in the Zambezi Cluster

-Love and support/affirmation from so many of our friends and family

-Sense of being settled in our home in Malawi.

I am thankful that we who are God’s children are greatly loved and that our Father wants us to bring not only our praises but also our petitions before him. So, I would like to share a few things for you to please pray with us about in the days to come.

-IMB Connecting has drastically cut back on work budgets for the coming year; medical and retirement benefits for your missionaries are being cut; cost of living; number of personnel being appointed career and Journeymen allotted and the list can go on. We know that our Father is greater than IMB and is able to provide abundantly for all of our needs. He knows the needs of the Zambezi Cluster even more than we, so is able to provide. Please pray for Missionaries to be able to live and work in this mindset and not become disillusioned with the changes that are taking within our organization.

-We pray that you, our supporters would continue to pray for all of us and the work that we are involved in. We also pray that you continue to give as you have so generously done in the past to the Lottie Moon Christmas offerings and also for that which is given to the cooperative program to support your missionaries on the field and their ministries. We have been told that last year the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal fell short by a huge amount this year which also has contributed to the financial squeeze. Please pray about what you are willing to give towards the support of your missionaries. In the past, your missionaries here in the Zambezi Cluster (and most other clusters) have given thousands of dollars to the Lottie Moon Christmas offerings. We see this as a privilege to partner with our brothers and sisters in the USA who are doing the same thing!

We ask that you try to help in several ways:

1) Encourage your church to increase its monthly giving to the Cooperative Program. (The IMB receives a portion of its income from the Cooperative Program.)

2) Encourage your church to do something unheard of – double your goal for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering from last year! You might be amazed how much people will give when they know how great the need is.

3) Do all you can to inform your church members of this great need. As the time for Jesus’ return draws closer and closer, do we want to be the team that has dropped the ball! We have a God given goal! But we must each do our part to help reach that goal!

4) Give more than you have ever given before to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Even if it is only $7 more! Make your gift to Jesus the largest gift you give this year!

-David and I have had to cut our personal budget to over 50% in order to keep our missionaries from having to dig into their own work budgets. Please pray for us as we need to know how to best use the allotted funds that we still do have to visit those individuals who need it the most.

-Nathaniel will be graduating this December from Liberty University with a degree in Aeronautical Science with an emphasis on Missions. (He will walk in May, 2010). Please pray that he find a job. We are very proud of him and just ask that you continue to pray for him as he starts this new chapter in his life.

-Anna has made some great friends and continues to work towards her degree in Athletic Training. Please pray for Anna as she moves into an apartment this month and continues her studies at Liberty University. Please pray for both Nathaniel and Anna as they will be spending Christmas break in Lynchburg, VA away from immediate family- their first Christmas alone! (it may be harder for mom and dad than for them!)

May you all have a blessed Christmas season and continue to be a beacon of light where ever you are! We love you and so appreciate your prayers and support to our family for so many years!

With Love, Janet

Pray as you think about what you are to give, and lead the way to give sacrificially, so that the nations that have never heard can hear, and so that we can send the missionaries that we have waiting to go! "Go, send, or disobey! For this is not an invitation to an easy life." Take up your cross and follow Jesus! At least pray that New River reaches its goal of $12K, then makes it to $15K for the glory of Christ!

Mission Accomplished! Part 2

2009-12-07T04:03:00.000-08:00

One of the other things that we felt like we accomplished while in Peru in November was that we distributed a lot of copies of the bible. We had given out lots of New Testaments while we were there in August. And while following up with many of these who received bibles in August, Miguel found that they couldn't do all their bible study because they didn't have the Old Testament. So we decided that we should fix that. So here are several shots of people receiving these blue Spanish bibles that we gave out in Nov. You can not go wrong distributing the Word of God, for it never comes back void, but always accomplishes what it is sent to do. One of these shots is with the mayor of Julcan, and we believe that God is truly working in his life, and are praying that he comes to Christ, and makes a bold step of a public profession soon.

Just by the way, I put all our pictures (well, the best of them) to a song, and put them in a video, and put it up on YouTube. You can see that here.

Another goal that was reached while there was that we spent some time training our Peruvian church planting team with a methodology for truly making disciples. We sat down in the town square for an hour or two working with them about how to begin discipleship triads, just like we are doing at New River BC, A Place Called Hope, & Fair Haven PBC. (If you are curious about what we are talking about, check out my blogs on Greg Ogden's Discipleship Essentials, and how well it is going at our churches here, here, here, and especially here) We are hoping that among the leadership, and among the congregations once they actually get started, disciples will be intentionally made.

While we were there, we made some great friendships with our Peruvian workers, and got to meet and spend a lot of time with several great IMB personnel who are very instrumental in our work there in the Central Andes. These are just some of the side benefits of being on mission with God to reach unreached people.

So, we already mentioned going back in March and probably late June. Several of you have inquired about going with us--and you are welcome to come; in fact we need your help. Here is what you need to know about arrangements for our next two trips. For the March trip our dates will be 13-20, 2010 and the cost will be between $1300-$1500, depending on the plane ticket costs. We need people who know baseball to come in March to help us put on a camp during the day. We need people who can teach English while we are there (as training for our Peruvians and a mode of outreach.) We also need those of you who can help us teach and baptize while we are there, for our prayer is that we begin the church in March. And we also need those of you who can help us do all these things! We don't need your money in until we leave in March, but we need to know by about Christmas if you are going for sure, so we can order tickets.
If you have any questions, feel free to email or call me, and I will do my best to answer them. If you need further info just call. We haven't had anyone have any trouble raising the funds to go. Where God guides, He provides! If you need to gain direction about going, just look here, and you will know that there are thousands of Peruvians in the Yacus and Yanamarca Valleys that are in need of a gospel witness and a self-sustaining, self-replicating church. And you could be one of those who bring it there.

Also doing a medical mission (maybe) in late June, prepare for that if that is where your gifts or your heart lie. Thanks for reading, keep praying for us and for the Yacus Valley!

Logos Bible Giveaway

2009-12-01T04:03:00.001-08:00

Logos Bible Software is giving away a bunch of really nice bibles this month. You can get all the details here. Check it out an enter to win!

Mission Accomplished! Part 1

2009-11-30T11:40:00.001-08:00

We had a really great trip to Jauja, Peru this time. God truly showed Himself mighty on our behalf! And we felt like we accomplished much of what we intended to do. I know, it's been a little while since I've written, so what was that?

First, I think we paved the way for Craig to lead a trip down there by himself in the future. That was high on the list. We also were able to get many things in order for a couple of return trips in 2010 from New River. We talked with the mayors of Julcan and Molinos specifically about our plans to return in March and do a baseball camp, and return also in July (maybe) and do a medical trip. Both towns are prepared to rearrange the school calender to allow the kids to participate with us on our trips there. We also got several other ideas that might be helpful for future trips, like English camps.

It was also very encouraging to talk with several individuals whom I believe have become believers after our trip there in August. Many were really excited about the possibility of beginning a church there, and committed to help us. This is Leslie (to the left), very much transformed from August, and poised to help with the church in Julcan. We also met several people who were not yet born-again believers, but that were very interested in what was going on with us, and wanted to be involved.

We also got to spend a lot of time with Miguel, Sergio, Preyer, Alia, and Anyeshla, and Nehemias, which is our church planting team in Jauja. We did some training, but much vision casting about where all this is heading. And they seem to be very much committed to the advance of the gospel in the Yacus Valley. We are awaiting the first reports of follow up since our trip there a couple of weeks ago.

We really put a lot of emphasis on our March trip and the work that we will do there in addition to the baseball camp. We will be trying to teach some English classes, especially to those that we are working with in Jauja. I will also be teaching each night in March, with an emphasis on the birth of the church there. My hope is to baptize Peruvians in March in Julcan, and maybe in Molinos! Please pray to that end!

More to come, part 2 tomorrow...

Leaving for Peru on Sat

2009-11-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

In just a couple more days I head out for Peru again. As I explained in a previous post, we are even more committed now than ever to planting churches in the Yacus Valley, and are going to be going back there more regularly. I am taking our Associational Missionary, Craig Nalls, with me on this trip, hopefully in preparation for future trips. And several of you pastors who read this blog, should prepare to go with us in March or July of 2010.

But I want to fill you in on my agenda while I am there next week so that you can pray.

As I alluded to, one of my goals on the next several trips is to train others who may take trips down to Peru. So I want to carve out a place for Peru in Craig's heart. That will be my goal for all of you leaders who go with me over the next few trips.
The first of my main two goals for going back so soon is to check on our prospects. Miguel has been meeting with a group in Julcan and a group in Molinos. I need to discern whether or not these are true believers, or just seekers. We need to get the church meeting together regularly. I am going to spend some time with them strengthening them in the faith, and casting the vision for a church in Julcan, and Molinos, and Masma, that will help foster the church planting movement that we want to see there.
Secondly, I want to spend a lot of time with Miguel and Sergio, our disciple-makers. I want to inflame their passion for Christ and the advancement of His Kingdom there. I want to cast the vision of their crucial role in the planting of churches, and the reaching of the Yacus and Yanamarca Valleys. I want to train them in disciple-making, and leadership development, and church planting strategy; as well as the reality of what constitutes a church, and what it looks like there.
Also, I want to meet with the mayors of the towns and work with them about our upcoming trips in March and July. I want to try to discern the needs that we can meet, and figure out all the logistics for coming there again. We want to maintain a good relationship with them.
Finally, we are going to get to meet our partner pastor Scott Dollar of A Place Called Hope Church in Lethbridge, Alberta, CAN. He is going to be there this week as well. I have only met him on the phone and through email and Facebook. And although the parameters of our partnership have changed somewhat in the last year or so, together we are still committed to ensuring that churches get planted in the Yacus and Yanamarca Valleys, because our home base while in country is the same town of Jauja. He will be working mostly in Acolla and the area to the north of Jauja, and we will be laboring in Julcan and the area east of Jauja. But we will be helping each other where we can while in country on future mission trips.

So pray:

for the hand of God upon us and our work, we are desperate for Him
for our eyes to be open, and hearts to be sensitive to what God is doing there
for His church to be already there, or first established
for us to stand firm in His strength against the attacks of the enemy
for safe travel and good health, we leave Sat 14th, return on Fri 20th
for our families at home
for favor in the eyes of the mayors
for success in vision-casting and training, and God to fire up our disciplers
for growth in Christ for our groups of believers
for proper planning for the future
for lost to be reached for Christ
and most importantly for God to be glorified in all things

Thanks for your faithfulness to read and pray! Through your help in the trenches of prayer, the muscles of omnipotence will move, and Christ will establish His church as an outpost in the vast darkness that blinds so many in the Peruvian Andes!

"There's A Man With a Machete in Our Church!"

2009-10-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I just figured I would share the most memorable night of our Fall Challenge Week (revival). People usually remember revivals because people come to know Christ; or marriages get saved; or passion is rekindled in their spirits; or God moves in a spectacular way. But we will remember this one for a totally different reason.

FCW goes from Thurs night to Sun morning. Thurs night was fairly normal revival, good attendance, good worship, good movement of God upon His people, and a great start to our week. But then on Friday about halfway through the speaker's message, a man somehow ended up in our building. He was really drunk, and he had one of those strap-on deer-hunting flashlights on his forehead. AND he was carrying a big machete!

For a few minutes he walked up and down the back hallway screaming and beating on the doors with his machete. One of the doors that he knocked on was the door to the nursery, where the women and children were, and they opened the door to see this guy with his machete looking back at them. Needless to say, they were terrified! Slamming the door they began to text message several people out in the church for help.

Well, it was church, and so everyone's phone was off or on silent. So they were trapped. Not good, with a possible deranged killer loose inside the building. Eventually this guy found his way into the back door to the choir loft behind the pulpit, and he stumbled right in to the worship service with his light and machete, about 10 feet from the pulpit. Needless to say, this was unnerving to lots of people. And Erika was elbowing me and punching me, telling me to "do something!"

The light on his forehead distracted most people from the large machete, and so most of them didn't see it. So nobody was panicking yet (except Erika and the ladies in the nursery). After I decided that this wasn't a skit to go along with the message, I found the biggest guy in the church, and told him to come with me. (I needed someone to tackle him that was bigger than me)

We went to the hallway, and told the man to come to us out of the sanctuary. He wouldn't! And he wouldn't give us the machete. So, I did what any brave pastor would do--I told my big deacon to watch him real close, told the other deacon to go check on his wife, and I went to get my gun from the truck and call the cops (not necessarily in that order).

By the time the deputies got there (less than four minutes, but seemed like forever, kudos to all my boys and the TCSO), the man had changed his mind, given us the machete, come out of the choir loft, and said he needed to find a restroom. And right before they arrived, one of our men in the church, who happened to be a neighbor to this guy, came back to fill us in (where were you the last ten minutes!!!!).

He said that this guy was like the town drunk, lots of substance abuse issues, and probably just needed a ride home. And so we said, you go and see. And so he went into the restroom, and talked a bit, deputies arrived, and we got that guy a ride home. Not in handcuffs, much to dismay of my nursery workers, but out of our church all the same. What a night! And I stepped into the sanctuary just in time to pray the closing prayer as if nothing happened, like anyone believed that!

It makes me smile now (because I don't believe that this man's intention was to hurt or scare anyone), but then it was really scary. None of us wanted to be on the news the next day. In our day, you just don't know. Don't think many people remember much of the sermon. But we did learn how ill-prepared we were for just such an event. And there are many changes to come about how we handle things like this, and much preparation is in order. We are also very grateful to God for His mercy upon us. For even though this guy was very drunk, and very confused, this could have gone really bad. We are encouraged that Satan us using strategies like this to distract us, and trust that something big in the Kingdom is on the way.

Please pray for us as we continue to deal with the after effects of an event like this. Pray that we forgive, fix our eyes upon Christ, refuse to live in fear, and prepare in wisdom for future events. Hopefully we never have to deal with such an event, but in my short pastoral ministry, this has now happened twice in six years.

Help us, Lord, to live and handle situations like this in a way pleasing unto You!

Christians and Halloween II

2009-10-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

All I know is that this is definitely an issue where all the answers are not clear, and also that many parents think about. And that Lew and Matt need to get together and study Rom 14 together ;) . If I had know that this blog post was going to generate so many comments, I would have waited to respond to my parents until now, because the discussion has been interesting and helpful for the most part. I am simply going to post my response to this young couple. Some of you may think I am too harsh, and some will think I am too lax, but this is just where I come down. And I don't think to be a "good Christian" that you necessarily have to agree with me. Ultimately his is a matter of liberty that should be approached with thoughtfulness, biblical honesty, care for other brethren, and not flaunted or
legalized. I hope that it is helpful at some level.

Thanks for your email. That is a tough question. Let me say up front that the bible doesn’t speak specifically about Halloween. And that I don’t think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer, because of no explicit biblical prescription. And I do think that well-intentioned bible believing Christians can disagree on this, and will come down on both sides of the issue. I don’t think it is a hill to die on. That having been said, I do think that there on principles in the bible that can be helpful. And you will find lots of material on both sides on the internet, some good and some bad.

But I will tell you both what I think, and what Erika and I do. But the bottom line will be that you and Jason will have to talk it out and figure out the path that God would have you and your family on.

If it were solely up to me, I don’t think I would encourage my kids to participate. Obviously there are some dark overtones with a celebration of the undead. And the whole observance verges on occult practice and is devoid of anything godly. But much of the same can be said about Easter and Christmas. Do the research on those and you will find mostly pagan roots, and things unhelpful to biblical teaching. But we don’t completely jettison those holidays. And I don’t think that Satan is out more on that night than others, or anything weird like that. Some Christians go way overboard in my opinion.

Erika and I have mixed feelings about it all. We were both raised trick or treating, and it didn’t seem to do much damage. And I guess I don’t have the backbone, and Erika doesn’t have the heart to refuse to let them go out and get candy. So we participate, I guess. But like Christmas and Easter, we just emphasize the right things, and don’t make a big deal about it. We don’t encourage them to dress up in scary stuff. We don’t decorate the house or the yard with ghosts and black cats. We carve pumpkins, but we put crosses in them instead of faces. And in general we don’t make a big deal of it all. We let the kids dress up as princesses or musketeers, or pumpkins or whatever. At Christmas we don’t mention Santa much, but obviously it’s everywhere, and if the kids ask, we tell them the truth, but we make the focus of Christmas Jesus, and the same with the Easter bunny. But we don’t go overboard on getting them to disbelieve in Santa either. And we get them gifts for Christmas morning. And sometimes they ask, and we don’t lie, but don’t make a big deal of the non-Christian parts. It’s all in how you approach it.

If you all decided that your conviction was to keep your kids from Halloween, I think that would be fine. However, don’t harp on others who don’t feel that way. But if you feel the liberty to participate at some level, I definitely think that there are lines to be drawn and limits to set. I am not sure that this is an issue to fight over, but I do believe it is an issue to be thought through from a Christian standpoint. I may blog about it and see what kind of response I get.

I hope this helps, sorry I couldn’t give you more clear guidance. But I believe it is an area where we can rely on the Spirit, and do what we feel is best.

Blessings,

And just by the way, Lew wrote a very humorous blog post on Halloween that you will get a kick out of. You can read it here.

Thanks for reading...

Christians and Halloween I

2009-10-13T04:46:00.000-07:00

As a pastor, it brings me great joy to know that people the church I serve are striving to know and live truth. And as one of their spiritual advisers, I get to help them make decisions about life and family and the faith (a responsibility that I do not take lightly, and am constantly amazed at how people listen to what I say).

So I get an email from a young family with small children this week that asks me what I think about Halloween; and should believers participate, if so, how much? This is a family that has been recently converted, baptized, and are now asking questions about their family life and their new faith. They have been doing some research on the internet, and realize that the opinions on this matter vary greatly.

But before I post my reply with my thoughts and convictions, I thought I would just give all of you a chance to chime in on the question. That's what blogging is about, right? The quicker, freer exchange of ideas? So, what do you think? Should Christians be involved in Halloween?

Link Between Obedience and Feelings

2009-09-23T03:22:00.000-07:00

Deuteronomy 28:28 says, "The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart."

I was reading this verse this morning in my devotional time. By the way, just want to praise the Lord for how good He has been to me in my devotional time in the mornings lately. The context of the verse is the covenant faithfulness of God to the His people. And the promise of blessings that will flow from obedience to the covenant in every aspect of life, as well as the promise of curses that will follow those who choose to ignore or forsake God's commandments and covenant. Remember that these promises are made to His people, not the the world at large. And I noticed a link that was interesting to me.

God says that if they are disobedience, covenant breakers, adulterous in their heart toward Him, this is one of the curses they will experience. God says first in this list that He will cause them to be insane. This puts a new perspective on mental illness (this is not to say that all mental illness is caused by disobedience, just that it is a possibility). And this is so scary, because barring the intervention of God again on behalf of this person, they may never have the mental capacity (not to mention spiritual capacity) to repent and be obedient again. Verse 45 says "Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you." Makes you want to warn those that slip down this road to diligent to obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments (v. 1), so that they might retain their sanity.

God also says that if they don't follow Him in obedience, He will cause them to be blind. This was a word that is used to indicate spiritual or religious blindness. So not only will they struggle with their own natural bent toward sin, but God will cause them to be blinder (how do you like that word). Again this is a scary judgment. And also a reminder of how much the restraining hand of God actually prevents us from sinning daily, rather than our own diligence or determination. "O to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be/Let that grace now like a fetter by my wandering heart to Thee." We can claim no credit in our fight to see the glory of Christ, although we are responsible to seek. And also a reminder of how God is determinative in whether or not we see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Finally, God says that if they don't walk with Him in covenant keeping obedience and love, He will cause them to be confused in their heart. This was the part that was so interesting to me. Here is another link between feelings and obedience. Basically God says that if you are disobedient, you will feel confused in your heart. Your feelings will be messed up due to your lack of obedience and covenant faithfulness. Take a relationship for example: if a spouse is disobedient to keep their covenant to love, cherish, care for, etc. the other until death do they part, is it any wonder that they spend much of the reconciliation period confused about what they want or about how they feel? This is why we must not totally rely on our feelings, but trust God to tell us what to do, and do it whether we feel like it or not. We do this not only to be right with God, but to feel right toward other things in life. Again another scary promise, and reminder of God's sovereignty even over our feelings. O God, grant us right feelings toward You, and toward others, and toward things! One of my constant prayers is that God will change my heart, and give me proper desires for Him.

And this verse is only one of 53 in the chapter that deal with the curses that will follow disobedience and breach of covenant with God. And yes, we are under the new covenant, but a covenant it still is. So let this be a reminder to us to not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them. (v. 14) Ultimately disobedience, as this verse reminds us, is idolatry, 1 Sam 15:23 says, "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD..." O, Lord, rip the idols from our hearts that cause us to stray from You! And help us to walk in obedience that we may experience the fullness of the blessings of Your covenant, and avoid the outpouring of Your chastisement!

Thank You, Lord, for the richness of Your word, and the depth and breadth of your covenant! Thank You for your mercy, grace, and faithfulness to me and to Your bride!

Law Enforcement Appreciation Banquet

2009-09-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend our church reached out to the law enforcement community in Tift County. We wanted to let them know that we really appreciate the sacrifices that they make on a daily basis. As a chaplain, I have a small window into the things that they put up with on a regular basis from the public, the stress that wears on their families and other relationships, the long swing shift hours, the image impressed upon them by us, the potential life and death situations they face, and all of this with a very meager wage.

So we invited a former deputy, former state trooper, who now operates a ministry to law enforcement officers to come and share with them over dinner provided by our church, complete with homemade desserts.

Brian Stewart of Simple Message Ministries did a wonderful job connecting with the officers and sharing the gospel. He also brought Law Enforcement New Testaments to give out to all the officers. Our ladies (and men) did an excellent job cooking, organizing, and serving. And the whole night was great.

We invited four agencies and their families to come: the Georgia State Patrol, the Tift County Sheriff's Office, the Tifton Police Department, and the ABAC Police Department. I think that we had about 100-120 people come. We were hoping for a few more, but we know that God truly ministered to those who came.

Please pray for our Law Enforcement family here in Tift Co. They are a very honorable group of men and women who serve incessantly. Pray for their families who deal with a lot because of their service. The divorce rate nears 80% in LEO (Law Enforcement Officers), life expectancy is reduced by 21 years compared to the general population, and suicide and alcohol abuse is much greater than the general population. Also, pray for Brian Stewart and his unique ministry to LEOs. This is his full-time endeavor, along with his wife and three children. I fully endorse his ministry if you are ever doing events like these. And finally, pray for my ministry as a chaplain, and that of our church. Pray that much fruit will come with time as we gain trust and opportunity to ministry.

And to all of you who helped make this happen, THANKS! May your reward be showered upon you! You did a great job!

Sharing Life IV

2009-09-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

I asked permission to post the contents of an email that one of my triad members sent me. He agreed, and thus this maybe the best testimony to their effectiveness; at least to God's work in our lives...

"You know when I started out, we agreed to do this just to get the "Preacher" off our backs and on to someone else. We figured we could get the hour down to about 30 minutes a meeting. Do our time and get it over with. BOY was I wrong. One hour is not really enough. I did not know I had such a desire and such hunger for Gods word until now. My whole life has changed. I only wish I would have had someone to direct me to a Triad the day after I got saved. Instead I starting my walk in Christ alone. I struggled for a long time because I did not understand a lot or how to get started. Because you didn't give up and talked me into doing the Triad, I have so much to be thankful for. Because of the Triad I no longer look at my pastor and my friend in the same manner. I look at them as close friends in Christ. Someone who will be there if I ever need to be picked up. Someone I have have a lot of confidence and trust in. True brothers in Christ. I have learned and grown so much in my relationship. My wife will tell you I am not a reader, but this is one book I can not put down. I am in it almost every day. I'm even excited about starting it over from the front with a new group just to get to go back through the book again. I feel like you can ask the hidden questions that you hide in the back of your mind and together figure out the answer without being embarrassed or looked at funny because you didn't already know the answer. It may be different with the others, but I have been truly blessed. Finally, you come away feeling like, now you are being equipped to make disciples as God has called us to do. Proverbs 27:17 ...... Iron sharpens Iron, and one man sharpens another."

God has truly blessed us!

Thanks for reading!

Sharing Life III

2009-09-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

In our time together we quickly discovered two things. First, an hour wasn't enough time. And that what we were doing was well worth it. We saw that the triad atmosphere is different than a small group study, Sunday School, and definitely preaching. We noticed how open we became with each other over the first six weeks or so. We noticed how we all looked forward to the time together. And often if one had to miss, the other two met, even though they didn't do the material for the week.

We would suggest that you commit at least an hour and a half. Trust me, you will want to. On the other hand, you don't have to finish each lesson in the allotted time. Both groups regularly took two weeks to do a lesson because the discussion was so good. We all got to ask all the questions that we wanted to ask, and wrestle with them together. Remember, not content based, but relationship based. There are 25 lessons in the manual, and 52 weeks in a year, you got time.

One criticism that we had was that the first page in each lesson was not very helpful. We ended up skipping it in both groups most of the time. It did give the scripture memory and study passage for the week, but that was about the extent of its usefulness.

Three things that we would add. We would add a component of daily intercession on behalf of your other triad members. This is something that we found ourselves doing anyway often, but we felt like it would be good to be more intentional about it. Secondly we would add a fellowship component outside of the weekly meeting. It would be neat for families to get involved in the deepening rerelationships that are forming. It would also give us a chance to model biblical fellowship to others. Thirdly, we would do a couple of lessons on very practical issues. The study is very general in some aspects. And for men's triads, I would add lessons on being a good husband, sexual purity, and family worship. These are just some of the areas that could have been dealt with more thoroughly if the study was gender or age specific. But again, the study is broad enough where you can work all these things in when you want to.

I am firmly convinced that if we truly want to make disciples in our churches, that we must do some things different. And one thing that we must do is get back to one on one/two discipling over the long term, pouring our lives into one another. Without the use of this tool, I forsee more great difficulty and failure in our goal to make disciples (not that this tool guarantees success, just that it is necessary). For in the end our first two triads I am fully anticipating the results that we are now standing firmer in Christ and closer to our brethren, as well and poised and inspired to continue the process of making more disciples, and advancing the kingdom!

Sharing Life II

2009-09-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I discussed how we started to discipleship triads, and how great they went. So let me fill in some of the gaps on how's and why's.

I ordered some of the Discipleship Essentials manuals and asked two men to meet with me once a week for about an hour for a year. The commitment to the time is the hardest part. But this study is really not content-based. It is more about relationships and sharing life than about learning lots of verses of biblical truths. Although that having been said, the study part of it is not shallow, in fact is very deep, and deals with difficult truths (theodicy, sovereignty of God in salvation and suffering, etc.), quotes Piper, Packer, Stott, and others. But again, the main point of the study is to develop lives together.

So Monday morning at 5:45 AM three of us began our walk together with Christ and Greg Ogden in September of last year. We shared some of life each week, prayed for each other, and studied the Word together. And this group became the group of people that I would share anything with, and I mean anything. We all began to grow in closeness with each other and with Jesus.

It was going so good that I started a second triad with two other men. I will not do two groups at a time again simply because of time, but it went great too! The first two men were biblically-knowledgeable, and discipled. The second triad was made up of men whom the church had seen come to Christ, baptized, and then expected to grow upon their own. No one had ever discipled these men intentionally. And I figured that this would really be the test of Ogden's methodology. So we began meeting at 6 AM on Wednesdays. And their testimony was weekly, "this is the best thing that New River has ever done" to promote spiritual maturity and growth.

They began to grow in leaps and bounds. And it is not that these men were worldly or anything, but they just began to press on toward maturity. And their families and friends noticed their passion for Christ and the relationships in our group. And our relationship has surpassed that of a pastor or a hunting buddy to that of a friend, deep and true.

And this is one of the reasons that I say that this is what God has been using in my life. I have been grown, challenged, held accountable, and been encouraged through these two triads. I thank God for His grace to me in this fashion, and for these men.

And now, as our first triad is over, these men are finding two other men a piece, and beginning their own triads; forming deeper relationships over truth with other men; discipling others in the way that Paul and Jesus did. In fact, even in the second triad, these men are beginning to think about who they want to take on in their next triad. And we have some ladies in our church that have seen how the men have responded, read Ogden's book, and are contemplating beginning triads of their own. Hopefully this will help transform our church over several years, and fill it full of genuine disciples for Christ.

In the next post, I try to outline some of the helpful hints and suggestions that our groups have come up with, in case you are interested in doing triads.

Honor Your Leaders

2009-09-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

At a recent Youth lock-in, my wonderful youth leadership, Kayla, decided to teach our youth a lesson about how to demonstrate love to their pastor at about midnight...they really love me. I will have to put up some other pics when I get back home in the daylight.

But Jesus said, do unto others as they have done unto you (OK, I changed it a little to suit my purposes), but it's funny. And so I couldn't help but notice the leftover pack of sticky notes that the youth dropped under my truck. And so with a couple (or three) rolls of toilet paper, I enjoyed paybacks!

I also heard that their little rampage affected some other church members from New River. So send me pics please!

Sharing Life I

2009-09-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

One of the things that has impacted my walk with Christ in the past year is sharing life together with two other men in a discipleship triad. And I have constantly referred to it on Facebook, in sermons, and in conversations with other believers and pastors, and one of them suggested that I blog about it and share what God is doing. Probably have to break it up into a couple of posts, so as not to be too lengthy. So here goes...

I have forgotten who turned my attention to the manual Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden. Or maybe I was perusing the latest advertisement magazine from Christian Book Distributors. But I have been for a long time reading about (and experiencing in churches) lots of discipleship programs, classes, studies, etc, and little results. Leonard Ravenhill thought that the 50's were a time of shallow faith, but certainly we have surpassed his era. And our commission is to make disciples. So in searching for a fresh way to make disciples, I came across this book. It was obviously a manual, and I wanted to read the method to the madness, so I ordered his other book, Transforming Discipleship.

This book detailed his journey as a pastor of education at several churches to find something that helps truly accomplish the task of making disciples. He told of the myriad of programs, and detailed the church's failure as a whole to produce mature believers, sound in their theology and serious in their biblical worldview. I was hooked! So he went on to describe his discovery, or rediscovery, of the method of disciple-making used by Jesus and Paul--one believer pouring out his life into other believers one at a time over a long period (not just six weeks), and covering the breadth of theology AND practical life issues, and providing depth of life relationally, accountability, encouragement, and challenge. It sounded too good to be true (not that it would be easy or quick), but it just made sense. So, I figured that I would try it and see. So, I started two groups; one last September, and one in January. The summary statement is that they are awesome! I am thrilled with the work that God is doing in all of our lives.

I will try to explain the how's and why's of their success, and how we went about doing this in the next post. But I know that I speak for the other men when I say that we are convinced of the power of the triad, and are going to continue using it to make disciples. You can find more info at Greg Ogden's website, and you can find his books at CBD and Amazon.com.

Peru Trip Aug 2009 VI

2009-08-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

So where do we go from here...that is a really great question!

Surely the beauty of Peru beckons us to return, but the spiritual need coupled with a command from our Lord and Master to go is far more compelling. Our goal is to plant a church in Julcan that will then in turn be able to plant churches in Molinos and Masma. We want to reach the whole Yacus Valley with the gospel. So how do we do it?

We realized two things while on this trip related to our future and strategy in Peru. 1) we are going to have to make more than one trip per year. The work will not gain momentum with us only being their one time a year. So, we are praying, and ask for your help praying, on when we should return. Maybe November with our partner pastor Scott, and maybe in the spring during spring break. And definitely next summer. Pray for a clear leading for us. Obviously many issues arise with the possibility of taking more trips.

2) Secondly we learned that planting churches in Peru long distance cannot be accomplished through more trips. Huh? We need to get there more, but that in and of itself will not get the job done. We must have a discipler. We must have someone who is willing to make regular trips there and make disciples in our new church plant. Or we need someone from the states who is willing to go there and stay for months as a volunteer to make disciples in between trips. So our goal while we are there is evangelism, but also leadership training. We must train this discipler how to make disciples and organize them into the church.

So that brings me to a huge thank you, and another plea for help. We are so grateful for many of you who gave to make it possible for us to go. God used you in a mighty way, and I know that you will receive many rewards when those people who heard the gospel meet you in heaven. But we still need your help. We need an army of prayer warriors to pray for clarity, provision, and direction for us, and a mighty move of God in Julcan. Of course, you can always give too, we have set up a Peru Savings Acct for money to go in all year. But we desperately need prayer!

Here are the main things that we want you to pray:

God to build His church, and not we ourselves
God to provide a discipler, there is a man there, but we are not sure he's the one
10 men to be saved in Julcan, including the mayor, vice-mayor, and the local priest
Us to have wisdom and understanding of God's will for us in Julcan
A baptistery to be built at the creek in Julcan (don't ask, just pray)
Finances to come in or be allocated to make extra trips
Laborers in the harvest, short-term and long-term, especially some college students to go there and live for a few months as volunteers, and other churches to partner with us
Endurance in the work, this will not happen overnight

Peruvians in Julcan, Masma, and Molinos are dying everyday without Christ, and we have the responsibility to take Him there. He is at work there, let us labor there with Him.

Thanks for all your support. May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!

Great Video You Must See

2009-08-19T05:01:00.001-07:00

You must watch this video about the need of missionaries, the harvest yet to be reaped. This is why we are committed to international church planting in Peru and elsewhere!

May God call out laborers to send into the harvest!

Thanks for reading!

Peru Trip Aug 2009 V

2009-08-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

One of the first things that we saw when we got to the Yanamarca Valley was a festival day on Sunday afternoon in Marco. There was a mountain of beer purchased by the municipality for the town celebration. And people were literally falling down drunk. They were excited to see Americans, and wanted lots of pictures with Kayla (we were going to start charging for them). But our hearts were broken at their need, and slavery to alcohol. And so we became even more determined to bring the gospel to them in a lasting way.

Even though God led us to different villages, the image stuck in our minds, for it is a very similar situation in many of the villages. And so when we were given opportunity to share Christ in Julcan, Molinos, and Masma, we were really excited. For as far as we know, there may only be three or four born-again believers in any of these villages. So the deception is big, and the fields were white. And God so showed up on our behalf there.

We did a lot of witnessing in the town plazas with the evangicube. A couple of our team actually learned their presentation in Spanish. And everyone loved the pictoral presentation of the gospel on the cube. People would well up with tears when you shared with them the freedom and joy found in Christ. But many knew the implications of believing the evangelical gospel, and have been warned by the Catholic church to steer clear. And so we had few professions of faith. But our goal was not to count heads or raised hands, but to clearly give the gospel and its demands upon the lives of all those that would follow our Savior.

During the evenings we did a values talk for these three villages that ended with the story of Nicodemus and the value of being religious vs. having a genuinely transforming relationship with Christ. A couple of our men played the parts of Nicodemus and Jesus as I narrated the story.

Then we would give out a snack and show the movie La Esperanza. This video is the Spanish version of the Hope film. We were turned on to this by a missionary from Asia who spoke at our church recently. The people were enthralled by the story of the bible in modern media. And they would stand for the entire 80 min presentation, linig up at the doors to see! It was truly amazing!

We then shared the gospel again, thanked them for letting us come, gave out school supplies, new testaments, and stuffed bears. This was a little crazy because of the crowds, but we survived. We put out sign up sheets if people wanted further information about Jesus and following Him.

In Masma, we had about 120 people come to our presentation. In Molinos we had about 100. And in Julcan, a village of about 700-800 people, we had over 200 come! The gospel definitely advanced in the Yacus Valley of Peru that week. We are looking forward to the fruit that will come forth from these endeavors.

Here is a picture right before we showed the movie in Julcan on Thurs night. You can't really see the people lined up out the door, but they are there.

More to come...

Peru Trip Aug 2009 IV

2009-08-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

When you assault the kingdom of darkness, you should expect the rage of the prince of darkness...

We were working in an area virtually uninhabited by the authentic gospel. No serious evangelical church or work is going on currently in the towns of Masma, Molinos, and Julcan. And they are under the power of the evil one, and he wasn't happy about our assault. This picture is of Geoff, John, and Ander, a man who chased us down to ask us about "our gospel" wanting to know how he could pursue Christ and be born again.

At first we didn't even really notice the severity of the attacks against us. We had a member of our team get sick the week before we left, and he was prohibited from going. Then we had another member of our team's mother get put in the hospital with a potentially serious illness. And he being the only person responsible had to stay behind. Then our flight was delayed 2 hours, and we almost missed our connection, but it was delayed too. And then it was no surprise when our baggage did not arrive in Lima with us. All of these things were assumed to be rather routine...

Then on Monday then attacks became much more violent. First, Geoff's stomach had not really been right since we came, but it wasn't getting fixed--one kinda down. Then Margaret, who was a trooper last year, really began having difficulty with a knee that was going out--two kinda down. Then Kayla, who was the life of our team (pictured above with Don), and also an asthmatic, began to have serious difficulty breathing. This landed us in a Peruvian hospital, not once but twice. The second of which we were really worried that she was having heart issues as well. Then back home, Erika was called back from the Dr. to inform her that the ectopic pregnancy that we thought was resolved was not. And she was in the hospital, then home sick from the effects of methatrexate. Her mother came to take care of her, then she began having chest pains, and they took her to hospital. She came home a couple days ago with a stint, after having bypass surgery six weeks ago!

Like the fog that covered the tops of the Andes, we had days where we could not see His face. And with the Apostle, we were troubled but not crushed, frustrated but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. But we were trusting in an all-wise, all-good, and sovereign God, whose grace was sufficient, and whose gospel was worth this momentary, light affliction, and whose faithfulness was new every morning! We heard from God who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and He gave us Isa 26:20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the indignation is past. 21 For behold, the LORD comes out of His place...

And so we hid in Him, and Margaret made it through, Geoff made it through, neither Don nor I got sick, and we didn't have to send Kayla to lower altitude before our scheduled departure. And most importantly hundreds of people in spiritually dark towns hear the life-giving gospel! God was so sufficient for us during these times! And we are continuing to trust that God will use our suffering and efforts to transform hearts in Peru.

More to come...

Peru Trip Aug 2009 III

2009-08-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

Here is the best of our pics in a video...

Peru Trip Aug 2009 II

2009-08-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post these two videos. One is of the drunken revelry at the festival in Marco sponsored by the the town in conjunction with the catholic church there. There were many people just falling down drunk (literally), and it goes on for days. It generally leads to sexual and physical abuse and broken families. It really broke the hearts of our people

The second video is of these three boys that we paid to sing a love song in Spanish to Kayla (one of our team). The song was something about blue eyes and beauty. It was really funny. What a trip! By the way, if you want to hear the testimonies of all five of us who went, we shared with the church on Sunday night, and the audio is here.

Peru Trip Aug 2009 I

2009-08-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

Before I could start this post, I had to sit down and think about what to say when, because the trip was awesome! And there is no way that I could put it all down in one post, especially with the pictures. I will try to do one entire post with just lots of pictures so that you can experience the beauty of Peru (although I know that the pictures will not do it justice.)

The trip began in a very strange and confusing way. We had two of our team members drop out at the last minute (one for illness, and one for family). Little did we know that this was only the first manifestation of the spiritual attacks that we would endure on this trip (more to come later). But on our first night in Jauja, we met with Pastor Moises and Miguel (two local leaders in the regional capital, the nearest city to our valleys). And we found out two things: 1) schools were on an extra week of vacation because of swine flu (and our trip was geared toward speaking in several schools and giving out school supplies), 2) that there were at least three other mission groups (including our partner church from Canada) working in Acolla. This just messed up most of our plans! But good thing that we are not working off of our plans, but His! And the fields were definitely white unto harvest!

We also had a conversation with John Wilson (the IMB Journeyman near our area) that really changed our thoughts about our ministry strategy there.

So we asked Pastor Moises where He felt like there were other areas in our area that needed work. And since we already felt like we needed to visit the other district capitals in our valley, that is what we decided to do. So on Sunday afternoon we began our trek to Tunanmarca, Yanamarca, and Pomacancha. AND GOD WAS SILENT. That was a scary time. The scenery was beautiful, and the people were wonderful, but God didn't speak. And we were determined to work where God was working and leading, and not just where we thought it good to work.

Then came Monday. Our deliverance was coming. We went to the towns of Molinos, Julcan, and Masma. This was the area that Pastor Moises had suggested slightly to the east of Jauja with no evangelical churches. We missed the first mayor, but when we got to Julcan, the doors opened wide, and God spoke. God is working there in the mayor's heart. He had been reading the bible for two years wanting to understand it (kinda reminds you of the Ethiopian Enuch, huh?). We asked if we could come to the town and show a gospel movie for everyone. He welcomed us, and told us that he would personally send letters to all the other mayors in his district inviting them and their towns! Then he asked if we could do something for the children! And we told him that we came prepared with a values talk and schools supplies. He was thrilled, and called in the vice mayor to plan the whole thing. John said that he had never seen a mayor do that. And to top it all off, Don found a Peruvian dime (that means God spoke to Don, he was our prayer walker), and Geoff, Kayla, and Margaret had great experiences witnessing in the plaza.

To make a long story shorter, we were able to schedule values talks along with the Hope film showing in all three towns. And all three mayors came (fill you in on the details in a later post).

In my devotion time the night before, I read Joshua 6:1-2, where God told Joshua, after observing the tightness of Jericho, "See, I have given you the city..." And we felt like, even though God had remained silent on Sunday afternoon, there was something that we were not seeing, and would see in the morning. And it certainly came to pass. We feel like God is leading us to work at planting a church in Julcan first. And so, our thoughts and prayers are directed that way as we consider where we go from here.

More to come...

Only Two More Days

2009-07-28T13:09:00.001-07:00

Excitement is building now as we are only a couple of days away from our mission trip to the Yanamarca Valley (Just by the way, I found an interesting history of Jauja and the Yanamarca Valley online here). Many of the logistical arrangements are being finalized, money has come in, surprise blessings have been uncovered, and our minds are constantly thinking about those in Peru. We also got a great report from our partner church in Canada that was really encouraging. They had a very productive trip last week; read about it here.

We really need prayer. We feel like God is working, and that He has heard our prayers for the last couple of years to move upon this valley of unreached peoples. We need you to pray that doors will be open for the gospel, and that we will find those persons of peace, especially in the three district capitals that no one has been to with the gospel. Pray that schools would be open to us, and that the gospel would clearly go forth. Pray that we would have wisdom as to how to minister in these towns and villages, especially during the evenings. Pray that our efforts would result in churches being born from the disciples that are made. Pray that we are willing and flexible with everything, and most importantly; that God will be glorified!

If you haven't seen the other two prayer posts for Peru, make sure you look over them below (here and here), and lift us up. We really need several of you to commit to praying for us each day that we are there. I know it sounds crazy, but you might even fast (that means go without food, it borders on blasphemy for baptists) for the nations and peoples in the Yanamarca. And remember our families too, as they are home awaiting our return.

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
-Hebrews 13:20-21

Praying for our Peru Trip 2

2009-07-22T02:57:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, we are scheduled to leave on Friday, July 31st. But our partner church in Canada has their pastor in Peru right now. They had good travel, and are meeting with lots of people, strategizing about the work in the Yanamarca Valley. Lift him up. And as promised here is another prayer guide that was put together by some of the wives of our team:

Prayer Guide for Peru Team
Geoff Clement; Leslie Gilbert; Jason Jones; Margaret Phelps; (Chuck) Pickens; Don Pirkle; Kayla Stone

Thursday, July 30
Praise God for the willingness and obedience of these seven to make the journey.
Pray for stilled hearts for the team and their families as they pack and prepare to leave, and that
we will be faithful to remember them each day.
“...for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with
groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26

Friday, July 31
Praise Him for all who work together to make the trip possible.
Pray that their eyes will be open to opportunities along the way and specifically for Les as he shares his musical skills during the week. Leave Atlanta 2:10 p.m; Arrive Lima 9:55.
“Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in Thee.”
Isaiah 26:3

Saturday, August 1
Praise God for opportunities to be a witness to the van drivers.
Pray for safety as they travel to the Yanamarca Valley; for good health and physical stamina for
Margaret.
“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” Romans 10:15b

Sunday, August 2
Praise God for interpreters and for those who hear His word preached.
Pray for Pastor Jason as he preaches at Jauja and for open hearts and minds to receive God’s message.
“How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10:14-15a

Monday, August 3
Praise God for open doors in schools as Geoff teaches hygiene and values training, passes out pencils, and shares God’s love with the children.
Pray that the team will find favor in the eyes of local leaders.
“And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:17

Tuesday, August 4
Praise God for His Holy Word and the privilege of passing out Bibles and tracts that tell of Him.
Pray for Kayla as she and others give out Bibles and tracts to seekers of truth.
“So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:11-12
Wednesday, August 5
Praise God for Chuck as he interacts with people who are open to God’s direction in their lives.
Pray that God will lead them to a potential pastor/planter/leader in each of the five district capitals of the Yanamarca Valley.
“And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” Matthew 9:36-38

Thursday, August 6
Praise God for guiding their steps each day.
Pray for Don as he prayerwalks the villages.
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord and He delights in his way. When he falls, he shall not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24

Friday, August 7
Praise Him for the beauty of a life turned over to Him.
Pray for lasting effects among all who have been touched by the efforts of this team. Remind us, Father, of Your passion for the nations; may it be our passion as well.
“For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth’”. Acts 13:47

Saturday, August 8
Praise God for physical and spiritual safety.
Pray again for eyes to be open to opportunities on the return trip. Leave Lima 7:05 a.m.
Arrive Atlanta 8:59 p.m.
“I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.” Psalm 52:9

Their Personal Requests For Daily Focused Prayers :
1. Open the eyes of our hearts that we may see, every day, God at work so that we may join Him.
2. That we may find hungry hearts seeking the Savior.
3. That the Gospel of Peace will lead us to People of Peace.
4. A daily awareness of God with us.
5. God’s anointing of the evangelistic tract “God’s Bridge to Eternal Life” in English and Spanish.

Thanks for your faithful intercession!

Praying for our Peru Trip 1

2009-07-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

One of our leaders on our Peru mission team has compiled a prayer guide for those of you who would like to pray for us. And some ladies in our church are working on a more complete one too. So this will be the first of two (or three) posts with thoughts about how to intercede for us as we go minister in the Yanamarca Valley of Peru. His note is below:

Family and friends,

Our Peru trip is just a week away. One of our trip leaders has put together a prayer guide that may give you a little more fuel for prayer.

Peru has 28 million people, and the highland Quechua people groups comprise around 14 million people. The Yanamarca Valley has 25-30 villages and towns. The larger towns are Acolla, Marco, Janjaillo, Pomacancho, and Tunanmarca.

Pray for Pastor Jason Jones, Les Gilbert, Don Pirkle, Chuck Pickens, Margaret Phelps, Kayla Stone, and Geoff Clement by name.

Pray: More for success than for safety
More for eager hearts than an easy journey
More for brokenness than for blessings

For truth seekers and for truth bearers
For another "woman at the well", for another "Ethiopian eunuch", etc.
For persons of peace in every city, town and village we enter

Pray that each of our team members will:
Submit to God's agenda each day
See every encounter as God's divine appointment

Pray constantly from departure to return, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:17 ("pray without ceasing")

Remember that the spiritual battle is the Lord's, and put on the full armor of God, according to Ephesians 6:10-19

Plead earnestly for the people of Peru!

Let me know if you are interested in committing to prayer, especially through the July 31-August 8 travel dates, and as we prepare.

And thanks so much for all your support, words of encouragement and prayers!

Love in Christ,

My Heart Strangely Warmed

2009-07-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Many of you remember our situation a few months ago with our surprise ectopic pregnancy. If not, you can read about it here. And after than experience, Erika and I decided that we would have another baby. We had been kinda talking about it some anyway, and it seemed like a good time for it. And many of you shared our joy with us as we filled everyone in on the child that the Lord blessed us with, due in this spring.

Well today our hearts were broken again by the confirmation by the doctors of a miscarriage. Our hopes were so high, and they now seemed to be taken away. But we know that our lives, and children's lives (born and unborn) are in the hands of an All-Wise, All-Loving Master. And we seek refuge now in Him. For His Name is a strong and mighty tower, and His mercies are new every morning. He is our joy and sufficiency, and our portion forever. But of course, our pain is deep.

But as I reflect on it all, one blessing (well, actually several) stands out. We probably jumped the gun a little bit, making it public that we were pregnant. But we don't keep secrets well, and when you tell your 5-year old, everyone is going to know soon enough, so we didn't wait. And of course, it seems like that doubles the pain. BUT, that is the strange thing. Now, we don't have to hide our pain. It is so easy to try to hide what is going on inside for a myriad of reasons from the people whom God has given us to lean upon--His bride, the church. And because so many of you knew of our joy, and now our pain, the outpouring of support has been tremendous! We have been so blessed with so many friends, that even though we don't see much, still care very deeply for us. And it seems to have made the pain more bearable, and the burden lighter.

So I thank God for all of you who have called, emailed, texted, and facebooked (is that a word?) and voiced your concern for us. I doubly thank those of you who have taken the time to go to the throne of grace on our behalf, for we are in much debt to you. With the Apostle I hope that by grace we will be able to rejoice in our sufferings so that when we are weak, He is displayed as strong. For His grace is sufficient for us. And you have been used as a means to get us through. I am sure there will be more sad days ahead for us, but pray that God will gain glory as we endure them as good soldiers and witnesses of Christ. May God be honored by our lives through this situation. Thanks again, you labor for the Lord is not in vain!

Values in Peru

2009-07-09T07:27:00.001-07:00

As many of you know, a team from New River, including myself, is heading back to Peru in about three weeks (July 31st). If you haven't seen the previous videos you can view them here. God is gloriously providing the necessary resources for us to go and minister in the Yanamarca Valley, and hopefully begin the foundations of new church plants there.

Originally this trip was supposed to contain a medical component, and we were going to set up a small clinic, minister, and share the gospel. But God has seen fit to prevent our medical staff from going (going to do the medical mission trip next year), and we are rethinking what we are going to do this year. One of the things that we are planning to do is to get into the schools in the valley, and do "Values" talks. The schools are very open to this sort of thing, and it allows us to present the gospel. So we will talk about personal hygiene, education, and the gospel. But so far have have not been able to find any churches that have done this kind of ministry in South America, even though I know that they exist.

So that is where you come in! If you are aware of churches or ministries that have done these "Values" talks before, we would like to talk with them about it, get outlines, etc. We are even open to suggestions from you at this point. We are really just feeling our way as we go, looking for ways to share the gospel with people who have never heard.

Definitely continue to pray that God will 1) open doors there for us. 2) Provide financially for the people that are going. 3) Work out all the logistical stuff for us to go. 4) Help us find persons of peace. 5) Provide for sustainability of the work there. 6) And most of all, that God would be glorified in us, and call out His children from darkness into His marvelous light! Also, please pray for Scott Dollar (the pastor in Canada, you can read his latest posts at his blog, the most recent of which is about our ministry in Peru) as he makes another trip there next week!

My Father's Day Present

2009-06-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Erika and the girls had this video done for me for Father's Day. What a great wife I have! Grab a tissue...

Kinda Like Shootin' Fish in a Barrel

2009-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

Only in South Georgia, do you have catfish roping at VBS! Never seen it before, but it was a hit. Check out these pics!

Advance09 Conference

2009-06-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

This week is really crazy! Last week we were in TN to visit family, then we went to the Advance09 Conference in Durham, NC. VBS started the day after we returned, and I am trying to get ahead for a Georgia Baptist Convention RA Camp that I have to preach at next week in Warner Robbins. All that to say that I was planning on putting off this blog until next week...but

It was so good that I couldn't (not the blog, but the conference). It was a great conference, but unlike other conferences, where I usually go to hear one or two speakers, and endure the rest, all the speakers here were great. And usually I hear from God through the one or two that I go to hear, but this time God spoke through the conference as a whole. The speakers were all reading from the same piece of music. And their song was that as a church we must refocus our hearts on Christ!

The audio is up, and it free. You can download all the messages here or here. I really want to encourage you to get them and be encouraged and challenged. If you only have time to listen to one or two, here are my recommendations: 1) you must listen to Mark Driscoll's message on Idolatry, it is devastating. 2) listen to J. D. Greear's message on religion, I think the title is about revitalization, but it is really not about that. I must admit that I haven't listened to Akin's message or Piper's second message. I have downloaded them, but not listened yet. We had to leave the conference early to get home.

Subsequently, we also got to have dinner with our pastor friends (Barry and Missy and Scott and Kim) from Maine while we were there. Our fellowship was sweet, and it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. And it is good to hear how God is continuing to move in Maine.

As I work on this week's message for New River, I cannot help but reflect on our week at the conference. I am preaching through our vision statement for our church these next few weeks, and God is so good to provide a revival of sorts for my own heart through this conference, as I prepare to preach. May God send the winds of revival as we hoist the sails at New River!

Church Membership for Children

2009-05-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I have some strong opinions/convictions on church membership, responsibility, covenants, and accountability in the local church. I believe them to be biblically based, but I know that some of you may disagree. But humor me for a minute and give me your feedback as if you agreed with me.

Recently, I have had a family that wants to unite with our church in membership. They have taken the membership class, and are ready to join with us. The question that we have is about their 7-year old. He has made a profession of faith and been baptized. These parents are godly people who have been very diligent to instruct their child about the realities of salvation, church membership, Christ and the gospel, and they have seen evidence of genuine saving faith since his conversion. They want him to understand the seriousness and responsibility of church membership in the covenant community before he becomes "officially" a member of a local church.

So we are set to have a little meeting (His father, him, and I) this week. None of us really believe that he is going to be able to fully comprehend the accountability and responsibility that comes with covenanting yourself together with other believers, but he may surprise us. He did not sit through the membership class (which is required for membership, along with a signed covenant for the church). It is a little much for a 7-year old. But obviously, if he is truly saved, he is a member of the universal church, should his lack of full understanding prevent him from being a member with a local covenanted people?

And that is where I would like your input. I am sure that many of you have dealt with similar situations. And maybe your churches have ways of dealing with situations like this. As it stands our church does not. One of many things that needs to be revisited and updated within our church constitution (a discussion for another day). So I am curious for your thoughts and experiences and biblical convictions that may help us see this more clearly and handle it in a way that upholds the seriousness of membership, pleases Christ, and encourages young faith, and a family that truly sees their son as a brother in Christ as well as a biological family member.

Thanks for your help!

What would you say if you were dying next month?

2009-05-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing testimony of a wife and mother of two who has terminal cancer. We should be thankful that we serve a God who is sufficient for all these things. Thank God as well for sufferers that suffer well, and champion the magnificence and sufficiency of our Christ! It is a long testimony, but well worth the time. Pray for Rachel Barkley, her husband, and two children as they trust in a sovereign God through this situation--that Christ be glorified in human frailty and transformed lives of believers.

Technology and Mutual Encouragment

2009-05-05T04:46:00.000-07:00

Technology has added plenty of pitfalls for believers to fall into over the last few years. And the ills associated with some of these are far beyond the scope of this post. But I do believe that certain forms of technology and communication have also become venues of encouragement that were not previously available. And this is not to say that these forms of communication are perfect, nor should they supplant person to person relationships in the body of Christ, but simply that they are helpful.

Blogs, social-networking sites, computer bible research programs, and free mp3 sermon downloads, just to name a few, have become a regular part of ministry in our day. And one of the great aspects to this is the regular mutual encouragement that they provide. I don't think a day goes by in which I am not lifted up or refocused or challenged because of a Facebook status or blog post. It is a good reminder that there is a community of believers out there who know Christ and know me, and we are all on this journey together. It's like the church at large. These are powerful influential tools. Not only are we pushed to think through issues, but we are given another view into the lives of other believers. And many of these believers are people that we could not normally have contact with because of distance alone. And many of these encouraging tidbits are not done by the "professional" ministers. And thus these venues provide all believers the opportunity to minister to the body, and be ministered to by the body. And to this we are called.

"...till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ...may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ...from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." -Eph 4:13, 15, 16

So, I guess I want to say thank you to all the believers who set aside time to minister to the body on a blog or some other techno-ministry. Thank you to all of you who share your life and what God is doing in it on Facebook or Twitter. Keep doing what you are doing. It is a huge ministry to my life! And to those of you who are not on Facebook, or who don't read blogs, please consider this an invitation for the sake of the body. Or maybe those who don't view it as a ministry, it is. You could really add to the edification of the body of Christ in this fashion. As believers we must keep using all available means to bring Him glory.

Snake-Handling

2009-04-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

Mark 16:17-18a And these signs will follow those who believe:...they will take up serpents....

I guess I am an authentic believer by Jesus' definition! Or just a little bit crazy. I turned around while I was in the garden today and found this beauty--an Oak Snake.

Jesus never said that they had to be poisonous; nor did He say that they wouldn't bite (although this one didn't even try), or that you wouldn't die...just that real hard-core believers would handle snakes!

I took it in the house to show the girls (who were in the bath tub) and they got to pet it, and then I released it in between the mailbox and the garden. Maybe I'll catch it again someday. This one was very docile. It made my day. Simple things amuse simple minds...

Churches Come Together

2009-04-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

Psa 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!

Tonight our church, New River Baptist Church, and Fair Haven Primitive Baptist Church (my friend Matt Strevel's church) came together in a unique service. We spent Sunday night together watching and listening to Josh McDowell (via DVD) exhort us to speak truth through relationships and evidence. The content or occasion wasn't really that important, just the unity (in two different denominations). And I don't mean to get all ecumenical and sing cum-by-ya on you, but it was really great! Our two congregations blended, interacted over the word, laughed together, then fellowshipped afterward for over two hours. There was a deeper unity felt tonight because of our common Savior, common goal (glorifying Christ through the spread of the gospel), and our common hindrances and failures in the task set before us. My prayer is that the sweetness of the fellowship remains for future joint ventures, and that the fruit of repentance will bring forth disciples in our congregations from the truth that we heard preached tonight. Truth through relationships, I think that's what he preached about...