Laughing brings certain freedoms. Certain abilities become reality when we don’t take each other too seriously. There was joking; there was trick playing, but there was also a sense that it was a safe place to laugh at and with each other.
I hope our entire mission is a safe place – a place where we can enjoy time together, a place where we don’t have to be perfect, a place where we can laugh at our mistakes and enjoy the comical things that God brings our way.
It’s been a long time since I spent a week laughing as much as we did, enjoying each other’s company. It is my prayer that laughter will be contagious in our mission and contagious through our ministries as people see that we are people who love one another and enjoy being with each other.
]]>We had a great musician, Bill Born, but we did not have a speaker. We simply read sections of God’s Word, letting the Word of God “dwell richly among us.” And it did. I found that as we contemplated what God’s Word said, it was convicting at times and encouraging at times. Sometimes the only way we listen to God’s Word is to have someone interpret it for us, either through preaching or teaching. Interpretation is good, but sometimes God’s Word is powerful enough to let it speak for itself, and that’s what happened last week.
During our Service of Grace we learned about grace firsthand as we listened to the story of people who were hurt and heard what God did in their lives to help them through that hurt. It was pretty amazing and powerful. What amazes me is that when God’s Spirit moves in a place where there’s space and time, people just linger. They want to continue the work of the Spirit. They talk with each other, they pray with each other, and they learn from each other.
I know that many who did not go to the national staff meeting wonder what happened, and I can tell you that God met us there. And out of that meeting came unity and freedom of purpose because God brings people together.
]]>I love how that Psalm starts. It’s an invitation: “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.” I love that first word, “come.” It’s an invitation and a reminder that we have the ability to connect with our Maker, connect with our God and spend time with Him.
Then the Psalm goes on. Familiar verses are spoken, verses 6 and 7, “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.”
I was thinking about our mission and about the changes that are coming up next week, with the regional directors becoming field directors. I began to think about the changes we’ve made because of our financial situation. And then I began to rest in the fact that we are His people. We are in His pasture, and we are under His care.
I felt myself being overwhelmed with the notion that I am a child of God and that the Creator of the world somehow, some way invested His life in me. He believes in me, and he keeps me in His pasture. He has a fence around His people that keeps certain things out of our lives because of our choices to be obedient, and He also defines our lives by putting us in a pasture. His has a fence; He has boundaries. When we live in that pasture and rest in that pasture, we find great joy, and that’s why the psalm starts out, “Sing with joy to the Lord.”
We are under His care. He will take care of us, and He fed my soul this weekend. Sitting in our little apartment with a room full of paper spread all over, trying to get work done, trying to make it happen, the words of Psalm 95 leapt off the page. We are in His care, and He will take care of us. I hope that our mission – our missionaries, our board, and our staff – realizes how incredible it is that we will be taken care of by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
]]>Well, in less than a week, our national staff meeting takes place, and I have seen RobAnne working in her passion. She’s taking care of a lot of the behind-the-scenes things: the rooming list, the timing of flight arrivals, the transportation back and forth from the airport to the mountains, the decorations around the tables in our worship experiences. She loves that. She loves organizing things, and she loves working behind the scenes to make it happen.
She’s working within her giftedness – her organizational giftedness, and her understanding (from ten years of running women’s ministries at Forest Home) of what it means to run a conference. She’s smart in that way, and she has a passion for creating events where people can have an experience with God because the logistics are taken care of.
I hope that’s what we have in our mission: people who are working in their giftedness and their passions, people who are working in places that are a perfect match for who they are and because of that, God shines through them. It is my prayer that one of the things we do at the mission is to look first at people’s giftedness and passions and then find a place for them to minister. We don’t have spots for people to fill; we have people who, through their giftedness, will be perfect matches for open spots.
It’s marvelous when you’re “in the zone.” I love leadership; I love being a leader. It’s what I’ve done almost all of my life. I love when we have a plan, and the plan comes together and works because people are ministering and working and living within their giftedness and their passions that God has given each one of us individually. When we work that way, we become the real, alive, vibrant, functioning body of Christ.
]]>It’s twenty-eight hours of pure driving time from southern California to Chicago. It took me just over two days to get there. I used the time to think about what was important, about what was happening in my life, and about the kinds of things that are important to the future of the mission. During those twenty-eight hours of think time, I came up with three things that are very important to the life of the mission.
First, American Missionary Fellowship has been a significant player in the development of Christ-followers in the United States over the past two hundred years. It is positioned to be an important part of a movement of God and to provide a spiritual backbone for our country as people come to know Christ as their Savior.
Second, grace is key to developing a community. The more I began to think about the one characteristic that God wants us to have, the one thing that Jesus demanded, I realized that it is that we love one another. In order to love one another, we need to have grace – grace that comes from the Holy Spirit, from God. It’s grace that allows people to make mistakes. It’s grace that allows people to have dreams that don’t fit into our box. It’s grace that allows us to honor people who have built not only our mission, but spiritual systems in our country. It’s grace to honor the past and grace to look to a changing future. It is my prayer that we at American Missionary Fellowship will put on the sweater of grace.
Third, a little trivial but still important – cell phones are a wonderful invention, especially when they’re hands-free. I was thinking if I had made this trek years ago, I would have been fiddling with my radio trying to get a station I like, but now I was in touch with people almost all the time. I was talking with people and was able to have dialogues because of this incredible invention.
It’s amazing how easy it is to put things in perspective when you’re stuck in a car for twenty-eight hours. I was struck again by the way life gets so busy and we get so frazzled with activity that we don’t draw back and count our blessings. We don’t think about the things God has given us that we really take for granted. I kind of was forced into reflecting on things by the long trip across the country, but being on the road reminded me again that all of us in our mission need to stop the busyness sometimes and concentrate on some of the things that God is and will be doing in our lives.
]]>Last weekend, we got to be with Barrett, our daughter, up at Westmont College. I’m amazed at how God is orchestrating great friends for her – people who love her, know her, and make her feel comfortable so she’s growing in her faith – and professors who invite her over to their homes and take special time just to be with her and shape her life. Little decisions like which college to go to become huge as they play out in life.
This past weekend, we got to meet our son R.W.’s girlfriend, Whitney. Whitney is a wonderful young woman who comes from a great home, and as I listen to her story, I’m again amazed at how little things in life that seem like minor decisions are life changing. She’s involved in art restoration. She got to go to Italy and study, and it’s amazing how God has orchestrated her life. I’m looking forward to watching her and R.W. as they build their relationship and see what God wants from them.
Then I think about RobAnne and how it is an absolute miracle that a boy from Michigan and a girl from Texas would get together in Santa Barbara, California. But God is in charge of our lives. He has a plan for our lives that is bigger than our little decisions, and yet He wants us to think prayerfully and skillfully about those little decisions because they will eventually lead to bigger and life-changing actions in our lives.
It is my prayer that our missionary family will take seriously the little things in life, the little decisions, as they seek the bigger picture of God’s will.
]]>I recognize that, even in bringing up this topic, it leaves people out. But this meeting was all we could afford, and I really believe that it is what God wants for our mission - to bring us together as a unit to seek Him for a week.
Missionary care is huge to us right now. We who work in Villanova are committed to doing everything we can with the resources God has given to us to provide the best possible missionary care. In fact, the national staff meeting is really about helping the Home Office understand what needs to be done on the field, not telling the field what needs to be done. Big ears are what we want to have in Villanova.
I have a great team working with me on the national staff meeting. We just got off a conference call. Do you know what amazes me? Everyone is doing a little bit - just a little part - to make this thing happen, and together we’re accomplishing a fairly large workload with minimum stress on each one.
It’s amazing to see what God will do if we allow other people to get the credit. Where we get in trouble is when we decide everything has to be approved or fit within a very tight structure.
I love what God is doing at AMF. We have some all-stars in our mission - people who really want to see God accomplish some new and different things in our mission and yet maintain a healthy and respectful relationship with the past. I love the future, and I love the past, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what God will do with a group of people who are committed to the very best ministry possible.
]]>We were invited back this year to participate in the parents’ panel, where we would answer questions from parents whose students were participating in this competition. It was amazing how different it felt this year. Last year, we really believed that we needed this scholarship, that God somehow was going to make it all happen so that Barrett could go to Westmont, and that getting the scholarship would be the perfect way for Him to affirm that this was where Barrett should go to school.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get the scholarship, but we took a risk and stepped out on faith, and Barrett began her course of study at Westmont. All I can tell you a year later is that we look back and see how God has miraculously supplied for us. He has provided the perfect roommates and suitemates for Barrett. He has given her professors who love and challenger her, and He has placed her in an environment where she can grow, where she can feel affirmed and yet challenged academically and spiritually.
I was sitting in front of those parents, looking at all their anxiety and all their pressure, and was able to express that their kids are in God’s hands. God takes care of us and will work things out in His time. Sometimes our ways are definitely not His ways.
]]>I was at Camp Galilee for a few days last week, dreaming about what God might do with this facility. It was so much fun to be with people who can think out of the box, who can think differently and see dreams and get excited about what God might do.
Then I had lunch on Monday with Jeff Mould and Byron Low. They’re the people who are helping to shape the national staff meeting taking place next month in California. These guys are dreamers! They want to see God work in new and different ways, and they have a healthy and strong respect for the way God has worked at AMF.
I hope we never quit dreaming. I hope we never stop looking for new ways and different ways to present the Gospel in our country.
It was fun to be with two different groups of people from different sides of the country and from different age groups, but the one thing they share in common is they believe God has given them a dream, and they are going to pursue it. I hope that is the way we operate in our mission – that God would give us dreams and we would do everything we can, by His Spirit, to accomplish them.
]]>There was nothing fancy. The story was told with flannelgraph. There were no guitars and no special music. It was just Brenda up front singing and leading Bible club, as many of our missionaries do.
The students were from relatively poor homes. My mind goes to a particular young girl who had a terrible overbite. I think she was small for her age, and she obviously had some challenges, but I watched how the Bible club equalized everyone. Whether they were first graders or sixth graders, they all sat and listened to the story. They all sang the songs.
What amazed me about this morning was how simple it was. Sometimes we get too complex. Sometimes we get too hung up on all the stuff we need for ministry. But Bill and Brenda Bennett – like many of our missionaries – just quietly go about doing their job. I’m so proud of what God is doing and continues to do through people like Bill and Brenda.
]]>Earl told the story calmly, but there were several other interviews I watched on the same incident, of people who were very peripherally involved but seemed to have more knowledge than Earl and the rest of us who were actually part of the incident. One girl told reporters how proud she was of her boyfriend because he sat on the man, but that never happened. There was another interview of a guy who had not gotten involved at all but seemed to have intimate knowledge of how the pilots (who, by the way, never came out of the cockpit) responded to the situation.
It just reminded me that each of us has two choices when we see something happen – either tell the truth as accurately as possible, or sensationalize it and try to make yourself look good. I watched Earl respond well on the plane and in interviews, and then I watched other people jockey for publicity and attempt to make themselves look like heroes. And then I heard those same people wondering out loud what United would do to reward them for this heroic action.
You know what? Those of us in AMF are to be more like Earl than the publicity hounds. We are to do what is right. We must do it accurately, do it quietly, and do it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t look for glory, and we don’t look for people to pat us on the back. Our reward is with our Father in heaven.
]]>Our plane was diverted to Denver. The FBI came on the plane, and it made several news reports. What was amazing to me was how everyone disregarded the danger. We all just jumped up. The man had two bags and a fanny pack, and after we rethought the moment, we realized we had no idea what was in those bags. The community of good Samaritans who gathered around to keep the plane safe was untrained. None of us had ever had this happen before. But we all acted rightly. It didn’t matter what color we were, what age we were, what kind of shape we were in – everyone in the first-class cabin worked together to bring the situation under control.
When the young man was subdued in seat 2B (I was in 1A), we began to talk to him to find out what his issues were. He was very, very scattered and almost incoherent. I got down on my knee in front of the man and helped him calm down, asking him his name, talking to him, finding out a little about his life. He would be perfectly normal and then kind of flip out for a while.
It was an experience I will never forget. The plane landed and the FBI came on to take the man off the airplane. We were all screened and had to go to a different airplane. About five hours later, we were back on the airplane. The eight of us who were in first class were in our usual seats on a similar airplane, but something had happened to us. We had had an experience that brought us together, a community of crisis that was amazing. We began to share our lives together during the new flight. Even the flight attendants sat down and were more interested in who we were because of our shared experience.
I’m not trying to draw too much out of this experience, but it did cross my mind that one of the things that brings our mission together is our common focus on sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. Those kinds of common work moments focus us in on what we are attempting to do. Our clear focus – our clearly articulated, laser-pointed focus – brings unity. It’s when we take our eyes off our focus and turn from Christ, Whom we serve, that we get disunity.
May we keep our focus and be a community of believers acting rightly for the glory of God.
]]>My understanding is that it takes about forty-five minutes for United Airlines to make that transition. That time includes unloading and loading the baggage, fueling, draining the airplane’s lavatories, the pilots’ post- and pre-flight checks, the flight attendants’ preparations, the security checks, the safety checks – a good number of people work on those details in order to turn around the plane as quickly as possible. In fact, they turn it around faster than the plane gets up in the air. Their efficiency determines how profitable the airline is.
That’s one reason Southwest Airlines is so profitable. Their time to turn around an airplane is only twenty-two minutes. My understanding is that Southwest Airlines looked at how many people it takes to turn around an airplane and are doing it with 25% fewer people, not because those people weren’t important, but because they realized they could be more efficient. They took those jobs and turned them into customer service positions so that the customers – the end users – would feel more comfortable with the airlines, and Southwest Airlines is enormously profitable.
Southwest Airlines is also profitable because it doesn’t have hubs. If I fly United from the West Coast to the East Coast, I normally have to stop in Chicago or Denver and change planes. You don’t do that with Southwest; you fly point to point – no hubs. It allows for more efficient use of the airplane and the personnel.
As you read this post, you may be thinking it is a lot of business babble, but I think there is a lesson for us to learn – that sometimes old patterns get in the way of new ideas. Someone thought differently about travel. Someone thought differently about a plane being prepared for a new fight. As we adjust to our changing culture and our changing economic situation, we have to think in new and different patterns to accomplish the same thing. With United and Southwest, it’s getting planes in the air and moving people from one city to another. With us, it’s advancing the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in new, relevant, and powerful ways while continuing to do what we’ve always done – reaching out to those who desperately need to know our Savior.
]]>My mom and dad were married for seventy-two years. They died last year, just thirty days apart. When I think about my childhood home, I think about one that was full of love, security, and purpose. Sunday night, we ate dinner with RobAnne’s family. As we were talking, I was thinking what a gift we have of RobAnne’s parents, who take time to listen to us. They love to be with us. They like to talk to us, and it’s a great legacy that we can pass on.
When I think about our kids, I want to be more intentional about what I am leaving them and what I will do that they will never forget. It’s not all about what I say; it’s not even about what I believe. It’s about who I am. I look forward to the day when our kids will be able to have a positive and dynamic legacy that RobAnne and I will leave them.
It’s my prayer that our missionaries and our staff will value the legacy that they will leave their children because of who they are and what they believe. I hope it’s a legacy of faith, hope, peace, and security.
]]>Because He is my Shepherd, the second phrase seems to fit: “I shall not want.” Shepherds take care of their sheep. They don’t abandon them, they don’t let them starve, and they don’t let them be hurt.
We don’t want if God truly is our Shepherd. We don’t desire to have more and more things, and we rest with confidence that God will take care of us if we can honestly and authentically say, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
In this economy, in this time when we are stretched and are having to make some changes, we as a mission – we as a nation, as a nation of Christ-followers – need to say, “The Lord is my Shepherd, and therefore I will rest in Him. I will not want.”
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