Expecting the Unexpected

Evangelism Week: Not what I was expecting.

You would think with all my life experience and what I have lived through that I would learn to expect the unexpected, well I guess I haven’t yet, because last week was completely not what I was expecting. But wow! You would think that someone couldn’t keep growing and learning and changing and be challenged so much in several weeks time, well you can! How blessed I am to be here in Paisley, Scotland! I wake up every morning and 9 times out of 10 I wake up thinking, “Lord, thank you for bringing me here! How blessed I am to get to learn and discover more of You and me and our relationship and getting to do it here in Paisley Scotland! And to be placed with such incredible women and men of God!” I truly am spoiled with the community here, we can be real with each other, push each other to do better, we pull the best out of one another, which is always a good thing! : )

The fun story about this week (not this last week, but the week before) was that they (DTS leadership) had such a problem with getting a lecturer for this week, they had one but then they cancelled…and the same thing happened three other times, until finally they got Ed Ravenhall, which was completely God. What a powerful and solid individual. His passion and his sensitivity were almost breathtaking that those two traits could meld so well! He got me thinking, between his stories of he and his wife’s adventures and missions experiences to his whole approach to evangelism and his honesty about his mistakes and success over the years was really refreshing.
There were several thoughts and challenges that I encountered from his teaching. One was how there is a lot of bad evangelism that has gone on and is going on and the effects of this are three things: 1). Superficial understanding, 2) Lack of “Lordship” 3). ‘Comfy Christians’. We are not giving people the whole message! There are two parts, The Cross Gospel and the Kingdom of God Gospel. (Cross Gospel: All have sinned and deserve punishment, Jesus died to take our punishment, Repent accept free gift salvation, and Jesus live in us and we live with Him forever. Which using this message is fine and must be told in order for people to understand their need of salvation, but not if you just leave it by itself. Because if you do just tell them without the second half, you just get people with limited understanding which lends itself to having a lack of relationship with their Savior and develops apathetic church goers. The Cross Gospel must be paired with the message that Jesus taught: Kingdom of God: where the rule and reign of God is paramount and it is within us and without(outside) us in society. The kingdom of God is a call to war not comfort! I could keep going on this one, but hopefully it has made you think just as it has done for me. I hope and pray that we can see a change in not only missions/evangelism work, but in just the Body of Christ: Church, globally. Perhaps this is not only something to pray for, but also to incorporate ourselves! Have you gotten too comfortable lately? As Ed put it, “Churches have gotten too comfortable and have made a peace treaty with the Devil that they can just sit and maintain their church and he can have the city. This is WRONG!” Hmmm…makes you think.

Another thought that was interesting: Your Maturity should always be greater than your Ministry. If they are ever even or your Ministry is greater than your Maturity then you are in trouble. Maturity meaning your relationship with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and your knowledge of the Word and general life experience and it is a process it is not something that with the snap of your fingers you can get. It is discipleship, which is greatly lacking in the Church and in schooling, we send men and women off to “do ministry” without them actually having the appropriate tools to “do it” with! “Character vs. Calling” as Ed put it, “What you are should be more important than what you do in life, especially when it comes to evangelism and ministry.” Without that Maturity you will find yourself way over your head and will find yourself on slippery ground, because you tend to rely on your “good ideas” instead of having that intimate relationship with God where His ideas become yours! This was such a good word of wisdom and insight, I just thought I’d share. We must also know the Word inside and out, otherwise we are a power tool without a battery charger or an extra battery.

And one more thought to leave you with, that hit hard for me. Where does your loyalty lie? What or Who has your first loyalty(ies)? Answer SHOULD be that your loyalty and identify is in Jesus Christ our Lord. However, is it?!?! I thought it was, but when I was asked this question the Holy Spirit convicted me. Especially, since my personality tends to see loyalty is an expression of love…love is loyalty…at least to me (This is from the Motivational Giftings book and lecture). So when I realized that my first loyalty was not in nor to God it was like a punch in the stomach. My loyalty was to my family, though this can be viewed as not a bad thing nor a big, however it is!! Because it should one, I did not trust God enough to give my family to Him to take care of them and two I spout off on how much I love God and trust Him with my life, but yet I was unwilling to trust Him with the very thing that is close and dear to my heart! If I’m going to live my life for Him, I must have this in balance. It MUST be God first, He must hold my first call to loyalty and everything else is a side thing. He is Lord, He is God, He is the Creator of Heaven and Earth, He is Savior, Friend and Lover. We/I must get my priorities in order. Perhaps this isn’t a big revelation for you or a new thought, but it certainly made me stop and reexamine my heart and mindset. What has first place in your heart or life, it can be anything from small to big, just realize when you figure what it is and if it isn’t God first you have to get down to business and let it go and reorient your perspective! It is hard, perhaps painful, I know it was for me and it will be a continuous life process for me, but it is pleasing to Him and that makes it worth it!

On the other elements of the week, we have a missions team from Georgia a team of 15, ages 15-18 year olds and their two 20something leaders. Here for a total of two and half weeks, so we have had a house with about 45 people in the house, so yes. (Showering is almost comical with only three for the girls and three for the guys, we’ve all just learned to shower at anytime of the day whenever they are free or when you have a free moment! Lol) But we have loved having them here! They have been a hoot and a great help and encouragement. They’ve helped with P.I.G, with Create, with a homeless ministry in Glasgow and done cleaning up of litter in Paisley, and prayer walking. It has been good! Other than that just our normal routine of lecture, creative worship, pottering time inside and then pottering time with our outside projects, Create, and iCreate, intercession for where we are going to go on outreach, film and theology nights, roommate adventures, one-on-one times, kitchen duty, laundry, “connect” time, morning office, and group prayer times, and random talking sprees! I am blessed!! : ) I wish you all could come and see the house and this incredible city and countryside landscape and meet all the wonderful people here and for them to meet you!!