Dedicated Quichua people follow Ecuador missionaries to Asia

Sam and Chelsea Cordell (names changed) recently left 10 years of mission work with the Quichua in Ecuador to start churches among slum dwellers in a South Asian city of 14 million people. Before they left, 18 Quichua Christians committed to help the Cordells spread the gospel in their new location. "This is an exciting example of what we want to see more and more from the Americas," says Terry Lassiter, an IMB strategist for the American peoples. "The idea of minority indigenous peoples doing this shows us that the Great Commission task is for all peoples." "These are experienced and fruitful church planters," says another IMB missionary who will be supervising the Cordells in South Asia. "This has great potential for the gospel in South Asia," he adds. "We are standing on the threshold of a Great Commission breakthrough." >> Full story.

In The City

GOD USES SCREWED UP PEOPLE!

FOUND AT GARYLAMB.ORG

GOD USES SCREWED UP PEOPLE!

• May 29th, 2010
• Write comment

I get phone calls, emails and have conversations non-stop with people who are have messed up, screwed up and have fallen deep in sin. It breaks my heart as they share their stories because I’ve been there, done that, got the scars to prove it. I think the thing that stinks the worst when talking to these people is they have no one to blame but themselves. Over year ago, when I decided to have an affair with someone who wasn’t my wife, I have no one to blame but myself. It was my actions and every action has consequences. While it is true that we are blame for our screw ups, I hate seeing people have to go through the results of their screw ups.

I think the most disturbing thing to me when communicating with people who have messed up is the fact that they think they can no longer be used by God. Sadly, that is what they hear from those around them. As I was sitting here studying for my message that I’ll preach tomorrow at C3 Church, I just felt God wanting me to remind someone out there that God isn’t done with you.

Yes, you might have screwed up but God has great plans for your life. Yes, things might be dark now, but God has great plans for your life. Yes, you might not think you can make it another day, but God has great plans for your life. You might be overcome by guilt right now, but God has great plans for you life. Everyone around you might have given up on you but God has not.

Remember today that you are in great company. God has a history of using screwed up people to do great things! I came across a friend’s blog today and was reading some old entries and he had the following written and it just reminded me that God is not done with screwed up people.

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old to be used

Isaac was a daydreamer

Jacob was a liar

Leah was ugly

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem

Gideon was afraid

Samson had long hair and was a womanizer

Rahab was a prostitute

Jeremiah and Timothy were too young

David had an affair and was a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Isaiah preached naked

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

Peter denied Christ

The Disciples fell asleep while praying

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once

Zaccheus was too small

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer.

AND Lazarus was dead!

Don’t use your sin as a license but also don’t let your screw up keep you from doing what God has called you to do.

I’m not sure who this post was for today but I felt led to write it and want to remind you that I’m rooting for you.

• Blogging . C3 Church . General . Leadership

Making Disciples or Doing Church?

Making Disciples or Doing Church?

by Steve Murrell

My friend, Mike Cantrell, invited me to speak to his church and campus ministry staff about the simplicity of discipleship. (Mike and team are great leaders, and Bethel-Clarksville is a strong, growing, exciting church!)

After telling a few d’ship stories, here’s what I told them yesterday:

1. PRINCIPLES NOT MODELS
Don’t copy a model that seems to be working somewhere else. Discover principles and apply them in your own culture and in your own community. What works somewhere else probably will not work for you.

2. PROCESS NOT EVENTS
Build a process that systematically moves people toward spiritual maturity, not a bunch of random disconnected church activities like foundation class, membership class, discipleship class, Bible school, leadership class, men/women/youth departments… These only have value when they are integrated as part of a process. Stand alone events, ministries and meetings become distractions when they are not part of an intentional strategic discipleship process.

3. CULTURE NOT METHODS
Disciple-making churches are fueled by a discipleship culture, not by a magic method. When the culture is right, any method will work. When the culture is toxic, even the best method will fail. Here’s the problem: changing methods is quick and easy (some leaders change methods monthly), but changing culture is hard work and takes years. Do the hard work and build a discipleship culture; don’t just import a discipleship method.

4. CONSISTENCY NOT CREATIVITY
Creativity is way overrated. I have found that if we just keep on doing the same thing long enough, it will eventually bear fruit. Most people quit or change too soon. Just when the ole “Good to Great flywheel” is about to start spinning, they dump it and get the latest idea-of-the-month. Consistency is always more powerful that the elusive “silver bullet.”

5. RELATIONSHIP NOT RELIGION
As my good friend, Joey Bonifacio, always says: “Discipleship is relationship” on three levels – relationship with Jesus, with unbelievers and with believers. If we keep the focus on relationships we will build a discipleship culture.

SUMMARY: Discipleship is so easy a fisherman can do it. But if we manufacture models, pack our calendars with disjointed events, import the latest methods, constantly change and act religious – then we will not make disciples.

What about you – are you making disciples or just doing church stuff?

La Carpio: A Paradigmatic Case Now Online

Visiting La Carpio, one of San José most conflictive neighbourhoods now is a close as mouse click and as secure as your computer's anti virus protection.



La Carpio En Línea (http://lacarpioenlinea.ucr.ac.cr/) is a project for outsiders to understand the lives of the people of the community known as La Carpio, located west of the Hospital México.

The website allows visitors to take a virtual tour of the area and listen to the stories and see pictures and dreams of those who live in the barrio.

The area is officially part of the district known as La Uruca, it covers and areas of 626.000 square metres, surrounded by the rivers Torres and Virilla and a landfill, with only one road in and out of the community.

The La Carpio was created out of the initiative of Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans squatting on the land between 1993 and 1994.

Many of the full name of the people telling the story are not told, including that of one of the founders of La Carpio, Doña Martha, as she is known in the history books, who says that it time for people to stop talking bad of the "cuidadela" she helped found.

The idea of the website is to offer outsiders a window into a community that is rife with crime, gangs, drugs and many good people as well who call La Carpio home.

La Carpio, home to some 40.000, half of whom are Nicaraguan immigrants, is described as a "marginalized" community where inequality, violence, discrimination, environmental injustice and insecurity are way of daily life. Many living in the area do not count with the basic necessities.

Although schools, health clinics, and a single paved road have been constructed in the community due to residents’ ongoing pressure on the government, this infrastructure remains inadequate. Over half of the crowded population lives below the poverty line (compared with 22% of the national population) and has no formal employment, and few residents have title to their land.

The media exacerbates the perceived and real conflict in La Carpio through sensationalist reporting which focuses disproportionately on violence committed by Nicaraguans, fueling the negative discourses surrounding immigration. A content review of the newspaper La Nación between 1999 and 2004 revealed that it carried an average of one negative news article about La Carpio every week, generally portraying Nicaraguans as the perpetrators of crime. The negative and unfair media attention perpetuates the stereotype of Nicaraguans as violent criminals, thereby legitimizing the root cause of the violence, which is structural.

A May, 2004, blockade that led to violence between police and protesters further exemplifies the relationship between structural violence, direct violence, and the media and society’s criminalization of La Carpio. In this instance, community members had blocked the road leading to the landfill in order to demand that the government and waste management company fulfill their promises to deposit a small sum of money per ton of garbage processed into a community fund and to grant titles for the land upon which people had built their homes.

Rather than allowing for dialogue between the community and the authorities, police escalated what had been a non-violent conflict by throwing teargas bombs into the crowd, which in turn led to violent retaliation by the protesters.

While the media framed Nicaraguans as the primary perpetrators of the violence in this incident, La Carpio residents claim that few Nicaraguans participated in the blockade and subsequent conflict with police because they feared being arrested and deported. By portraying La Carpio incorrectly as a community of Nicaraguans who are inherently violent, the media justifies the structural violence in which La Carpio residents are trapped and the direct violence that the police employ upon them.

The lack of educational opportunities for La Carpio residents presents yet another structural barrier. Environmental insecurity and injustice are common forms of structural violence in similarly disenfranchised communities throughout the world.

Economic opportunities for La Carpio residents are limited for a number of reasons related to the forms of structural violence. With little education and few opportunities for legal residents, much less illegal immigrants, to access state adult education and training programs or other social services, the majority of La Carpio residents work in the informal economy if at all.


With reports from the University for Peace (www.upeace.org).

Being a Church That Plants Churches

• Jeff Vanderstelt
• Jun 10, 2009
• Series: 2009 London Boot Camp
• Categories: Ministry, Church Planting

Jeff Vanderstelt | Co-Vice President of Acts 29 | Lead Pastor of Soma Communities | Tacoma, WA

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Church Planting in Mexico

The following is a letter that Wayne DeYoung sent me in regards to me asking hi about house church.

(We) Would love to talk with you about house church or organic church if you get the chance some time. I am not an expert by any means. I have read many of the books and have gone to many house church conferences, but the only and main focus is not so much using a strategy but in doing it. It is really the only way to learn what works for you in your context. It is simply using your gifts in a way to develop churches that can multiply.

It is not a controled environment like a church building which is built to house your program. But the intimacy and people involved from day one are keys to growing new believers who multiply themselves in others. We do most of the "church" stuff but food is always one media to bring people together. The people catch on to that quickly. We have tried doing classes and seminars to teach the principles but they are too far removed from the reality I think. So just starting with 2 or 3 is the key. More keep coming if you have a few people willing to reach out who have a people gift.

We really do love each other. We don't do church, we are church. Leadership comes from the gifts that come with the people.

Some of the unique things that we are doing which developed from our context are:

1. For prayer we often just go around the circle and say, "I want to thank the Lord for..... These people come from a culture of not knowing how to pray. That is often the start.

2. We read through the New Testament, one chapter each week.

3. Each person that wants to and can, reads two verses. This familiarizes the people with the word.

4. Afterwards, anyone can comment or ask questions about the passage, I often lead out with a key question about the text.

5. We sing and then do something else and then sing again, break things up.

6. No preaching is done from a pulpit, ususally it is done sitting down if there are enough chairs.

7. We meet in very small rooms and cram 15-20 people in.

8. We usually do something with the kids like a story particularly for them.

9. We don't use books usually or bible study materials or hymnals. The exception is we often start out the groups using the Bible League Bible Study books to give people the basics in salvation.

10. Everyone participates in some way in every meeting and often with testimonies or prayer concerns which have brought them to the group that week. Testimonies are about what God did in your life this week, not the full history type.

11. Short and sweet is what we train people in, so no one dominates the discussion. We shut them down if they do it often. It harms the atmosphere.

12. We move toward as time goes on, pop corn style prayer rather than praying around the circle so people can if they want to and short! But they can come in a number of times. We try to quiet the people who want to pray outloud while others are offering a prayer, because people can't often hear what is being said.

13. We usually only take offerings for local things or people in need.

14. We often do baptisms in a cow tank in the front yard or patio for the neighbors to see.

15. Preaching is short but to the point and focused on needs at the group.

16. Kids go out to play if they get bored after the singing or they stay in the group to learn. We tried taking them out to a back room but it was divisive and hard to organize.

17. We love to have joint parties between the network of groups. We do that a few times a year.

18. Pastor leaders and others circulate between the different groups which meet any day of the week on a once the week schedule. There is overlapping everywhere especially as a new group gets started.

19. The leaders don't always show up. The house hosts have to sink or swim with their group sometime.

20. The groups are encouraged to start a daughter group and most do in short order of about 6 months.

21. We don't worry about numbers, we do worry about depth of growth by those coming. Do they really want to serve Christ and be his disciple. We stress discipleship related to Christ and his pastoring the group.

22. We are not really denominational and rarely mention what affiliation people have. Christians come from many persuations and accept eachother, but the leaders will draw the people toward their version of Christianity in most cases, but we don't push our individuality as Christians. In many cases we are the only Church in town or in the infonavit which has 1000 homes. They all know we are Christians. And we don't put up signs.

23. We use tons of tracts to hand out to our contacts during the week to leave something of the gospel in their hands, usually Chick Tracts.

24. Most of the attendees are seekers, brand new believers, or young Christians. The old believers are constantly trying to make the church group in their image and usually don't last. And we usually have at least one non-believer at every house group. It is a DNA issue (see Greenhouse).

25. We emphasize reading the bible. This is the foundation of our faith.

26. We have fun! People like coming.

27. There is no strict order of service. If someone walks in, in the middle of the meeting, the meeting almost always comes to a stop for greetings and often the meeting almost starts over if it is a large group even if we are near the end of everything. We minister to the new people who have come. We love for people to come and feel welcomed.

28. Most things just happen naturally, you don't have to teach or orchestrate much unless the people are used to a format in a church somewhere that they left. Those people have a hard time changing to natural and usually don't stick. They usually want to take over and direct things too. We don't encourage them to stay with us. They have a home and should go back, they probably had a problem there and take it with them.

29. We are about reaching the lost not about saving the found to our "new way of church".

Hopefully this may stimulate some discussion. Would like to hear about your experiences too and what works for you. Also about your experience or interest in the house church principles.

We have been missionaries for about 30 years in many contexts and countries. This is our first almost pure use of organic house type churches. I love it because it fits me and because it works to bring in unbelievers and disciple them. But I like all types of churches. My wife and I both come from large congregations of the Dutch heritage. But we have worked in missions since we were youth. I learned a ton from Roger Greenway way back in 1968 in Mexico City and after that as my professor in seminary courses for a ThM. He will stand out as my number 1 mentor in life. But we are very different in our abilities and focus. I just try to be me.

God bless you and yours.

Wayne and Sandy DeYoung

On Transforming Culture-Turning Evangelicals Back to Grace: An Interview with Mark Galli

JUSTIN TAYLOR|10:13 AM CT

On Transforming Culture

In this interview by Trevin Wax, CT managing editor Mark Galli talks about James Davison Hunter’s new book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World and the complexity of “transforming culture”:

[Hunter] analyzes the work of everyone from Chuck Colson to James Dobson to Jim Wallis to Andy Crouch, arguing that evangelical views on transforming culture have been naive. Whether you agree with him or not, the book will change the conversation in our movement. An interview with him will appear in the May issue of CT. (So just a heads up to your readers about that.)

My personal view is that it is not our job to transform our culture, let alone the world. Our job is to do the specific thing God has called us to do, whether that is evangelizing the neighborhood, working against the sexual slave trade, relieving world hunger, or whatever. Our job is to do that faithfully and well–and to let God take care of transforming the culture.

Transforming culture is an incredibly complex thing that no person or group can possibly grasp. It’s something that happens, but it happens over centuries. The process is so slow that it is indiscernible to us except in hindsight. I think talk about transforming the world usually fills us with dreams and visions of our own power, when really our vision should be on the people we’re are seeking to love in Christ’s name.

Read the whole thing HERE. I find Galli’s writing and perspective consistently helpful and refreshing.

Four Components of a Worldview

JUSTIN TAYLOR|11:59 AM CT

I found this to be helpful, from Doug Wilson:

A worldview is not just thoughts in your head, even if they are orthodox thoughts. A worldview consists of four major components—catechesis, narrative, symbols, and lifestyle.

Catechesis concerns how you answer the questions. Christian, what do you believe?

Narrative raises and answers the question, “Who are your people, and how did you get here?”

Symbols are the unspoken ways that we communicate who we are, and what our allegiances—baptism, cross necklaces, liturgies in worship, and so on.

Lifestyle has to do with the day-to-day stuff—eating habits, clothing, sexual mores, etc.

The first two elements of a worldview are propositional, and the last two are not.

Keller: Generous Justice

From JUSTIN TAYLOR|8:59 AM CT

Keller: Generous Justice

Tim Keller is always worth reading—even if you don’t agree with every jot or tittle. His next book, Generous Justice, comes out in October 2010, and it will look at the biblical concept of “justice.”

Here is the publisher’s description:

It is commonly thought in our secular culture that the Bible is one of the great hindrances to doing justice. In Generous Justice, Timothy Keller illuminates a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace: a generous, gracious justice.

Generous Justice is a book for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide, as well as for those who suspect that Christianity is a regressive influence in the world.

Keller calls upon life-long Christians to deepen their faith by understanding that justice for the poor and marginalized is central to the Scripture’s message and challenges skeptics to recognize that the Bible is actually the basis for the modern understanding of justice.

HT: Tullian

If you want to hear Keller lecture on biblical justice, check out the audio from Resurgence below:

Keller uses the book of Proverbs to answer four questions:

1. What is justice according to the Bible?
2. What is doing justice according to the Bible?
3. Who should be doing justice?
4. How can you be one of the people that does justice?

Here’s the video:

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21 Questions I’ve Been Asking (Myself) Lately

by Timmy Brister

Several of you will find these questions familiar, but their familiarity does not minimize the piercing factor for this pastor. I wanted to put them out there in case others might find them helpful.

1. If our church would cease to exist in our city, would it be noticed and missed?

2. If all the pastors were tragically killed in a car accident, would the church’s ministry cease or fall apart?

3. If the only possible means of connecting with unbelievers were through the missionary living of our church members, how much would we grow? (I ask this because the early church did not have signs, websites, ads, marketing, etc.)

4. What are the subcultures within the church? Do they attract or detract from the centrality of the gospel and mission of the church?

5. Is our church known more for what we are not/against than what we are/for?

6. What are we allowing to be our measuring stick of church health? (attendance vs. discipleship; seating capacity vs. sending capacity; gospel growth, training on mission, etc.)

7. Are the priorities of our church in line with the priorities of Christ’s kingdom?

8. If our members had 60 seconds to explain to an unbeliever what our church is like, what would you want them to say? How many do you think are saying that?

9. If the invisible kingdom of God became visible in our city, what would that look like?

10. In what ways have we acted or planned in unbelief instead of faith?

11. As a pastor, is my time spent more in fixing people’s problems or helping people progress in faith through training/equipping them for ministry?

12. Are the people we are reaching more religious or pagan?

13. What can we learn about our evangelism practices by the kind of people are being reached with the gospel?

14. What will it take to reach those in our city who are far from God and have no access to the gospel?

15. What percentage of our growth is conversion growth (vs. transfer growth)?

16. How many people know and are discharging their spiritual gifts in active service and building up of the body of Christ?

17. How many people do I know (and more importantly know me) on a first name basis in my community and city who do not attend our church?

18. Am I using people to get ministry done, or am I using ministry to get people “done”?

19. Is the vision we are casting forth honoring both God’s heart for the lost (builder) and God’s passion for a pure church (perfecter)?

20. If money and space were not an issue, what is one thing we ought to dream for God to do in our midst where it is impossible for anyone to get the credit except for the omnipotent hand of God?

21. If being a church planting church is comprised of disciple-making disciples, then how are we doing?

Got any other questions that you could add? Please pass them along!

Explore posts in the same categories: Community, Evangelism, I Love the Local Church

This entry was posted on February 17, 2010 at 1:28 am and is filed under Community,Evangelism, I Love the Local Church. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: local church, Ministry, Pastoral Questions

TO CHANGE THE WORLD

HERE

Vancouver B.C.

WHAT IS A ROPE HOLDER?

William Carey, the father of the modern mission movement, was visiting with Andrew Fuller in regards to being a missionary to India. Fuller said in reference to the lost souls in need of hearing the Gospel, “There is a gold mine in India; but it seems as deep as the centre of the earth; who will venture to explore it?”

“I will GO down” responded Carey.

He then state “but remember that you must hold the rope”, meaning that he needed support if he were to go.

ROPE HOLDERS are the ones who SEND out and support missionaries. ROPE HOLDERS are essential to the missionary task. They are just as key to the task of making His Name known as the ones who are GOing because the ones who GO are not as easily enabled to do so without the necessary sacrificial giving of the His saints and most importantly, without the integral adoration, pleas and thanksgivings offered up to The Redeemer.

John Piper once said in one of his sermons that there are three types of Christian; those who GO, those who SEND and those who are DISOBEDIENT. If the first two types of Christians do not describe you, then you need to start praying about where you are to GO or start praying about HOW you are to HOLD THE ROPES.