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14 years ago
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Anticipating Our First '09 Cambodia Team Mtg
Eric, you're great with blogging :-) Keep it up!
April 19, Sunday, will be our first Cambodia team meeting. Although I am completely unprepared for our first meeting, I am definitely looking forward to building team unity and shaping the purpose of this year's trip together. It feels like every missions trip doesn't fail to present me with numerous challenges and confessions to make. I cry out "no more, no more," but God uses my brokenness to shape me. Now open up to God and your teammates, Em!
Please pray for team focus as we are all scattered around and have very busy schedules! Arkoon (thank you)!
Check back with us to see how we survived our first team meeting! :-P
April 19, Sunday, will be our first Cambodia team meeting. Although I am completely unprepared for our first meeting, I am definitely looking forward to building team unity and shaping the purpose of this year's trip together. It feels like every missions trip doesn't fail to present me with numerous challenges and confessions to make. I cry out "no more, no more," but God uses my brokenness to shape me. Now open up to God and your teammates, Em!
Please pray for team focus as we are all scattered around and have very busy schedules! Arkoon (thank you)!
Check back with us to see how we survived our first team meeting! :-P
Monday, April 13, 2009
IM Connect
From this month's Christian and Missionary Alliance IM (International Ministries) Connect, a newsletter sent to missionaries and missionary candidates:
I am encouraged by the humble servant's heart of the workers in the Cambodia field.
While traveling in Cambodia recently, Esther and I discovered the following covenant that the Cambodia C&MA missionary team made with one another. We liked it so much that we wanted, with their permission, to share it with you:
This covenant clarifies our mutual expectations of one another, making it possible to work together in a way that enables us to reach our full potential. This covenantal relationship will cultivate an atmosphere of freedom and trust in our team that will enable us to grow through change and conflict. This agreement binds us together and enables us to meet our team’s needs by meeting the needs of one another.Purpose and Principles
We want to love and honor God in all that we do. As an expression of this desire, we commit ourselves to place love and honor as the foundation of our life and ministry together. We will accomplish this purpose through the following principles.
Our first priority will be to continually grow in our relationship with God through obedience to His Word.
We will accept one another. We are committed to Biblical unity which requires setting aside our own desires for the benefit of others. We will believe the best in others, stand up for one another, and give each other the benefit of the doubt allowing “love to cover a multitude of sins.”
We will take care of one another. We will be sensitive to one another’s weaknesses and work hard to protect, build up, and complement each other’s vulnerable areas, especially when we disagree.
We will not give, repeat, or receive accusations, except when willing to help resolve the problem. We will resolve conflicts as quickly as possible and according to biblical principles.
We will treat each other with respect which includes appreciating the way each one contributes their gifts, skills, and ideas to the success of the whole team. We will listen well to one another’s opinions, honor one another’s differences, hold love supreme, and wholeheartedly support our collective decisions. This requires us to be teachable and welcome correction as an opportunity to grow and develop.Personal Commitment
It is my personal desire to love and honor God in all that I do. As an expression of this desire, I commit myself to place love and honor as the foundation of my life and ministry. I wholeheartedly enter into this covenant:
My first priority will be to grow in relationship with God through obedience to His Word.
I will accept each of my team mates, strive for biblical unity, and set aside my own desires for the benefit of others.
I will take care of my team mates by helping, protecting, and building them up.
I will resolve conflicts quickly and biblically.
I will treat each of my team mates with respect.
Each person on the field signed this covenant indicating their commitment to living it out. This has helped them become more healthy in working together!
I am encouraged by the humble servant's heart of the workers in the Cambodia field.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Social networking...
Social networking is terrific for the incredibly lazy. I've received several unexpected offers/expressions of interest to pray for Cambodia.
Someone i didn't expect at all wanted more details. Here's what i wrote back:
It's fairly miraculous that going across the globe gives opportunity to share what God has put on my heart here at home, too.
Someone i didn't expect at all wanted more details. Here's what i wrote back:
I'm not sure if you're being facetious/ironic in inquiring, but...
I'm spending three weeks in Cambodia this summer, serving God's people and non-believers in English training, social and agricultural development, and maybe some other things... with the intent and goal of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with them.
I've been challenged to have people praying for me, for our team, for ongoing work of evangelism in Cambodia, and for Cambodia as a country.
I know you're not evangelical in your worldview, but if you're willing to pray, i'd really enjoy sending you our (occasional) updates, and having something more interesting than <redacted> to chat about next time we talk.
Let me know if you're interested. I can send you a link to our support letter.
It's fairly miraculous that going across the globe gives opportunity to share what God has put on my heart here at home, too.
Monday, April 6, 2009
So I've been instructed by our team leaders to blog, so blog I will...
I just want to put out-front that I struggle tremendously with the resources and energy that go into short-term missions. For the amount of money and effort and prayer that goes into putting someone into the field for 3 weeks, I feel like the Western church could be mobilizing someone for 2 months of a 4-year term. (Not that I'm 100% down on the Western church. I think, by and large, it does more things right than it does wrong. I realize this makes me a classist, imperialist modernist, and I'm insufficiently down with the emergent global church. Tough cookies-- get your own blog entry.) It seems really wasteful to do short-term trips, particularly for someone like me, who doesn't even generate joy from travel, meeting new people, or having exotic experiences. All I get out of short-term missions is the sinking, desperate realization that God's world is incredibly vast, and I am incomprehensibly selfish and short-sighted.
I just want to send and enable people to do this work...!
But the most important take-home lesson from previous overseas trips is that we don't generate long-term missionaries without a bridge... particularly in the North American church, which is so very distant from the clash of cultures happening at the margins of the churched and unchurched world. And short-term missions is one of the most ideal bridges in the era of Internet, global English, and jet airplanes. It equips and inspires future missionaries, encourages current missionaries, and keeps churches and missionaries connected with one another.
It was about 2 hours into the flight for my first missions trip that I decided I wasn't going overseas long-term. Or maybe it was an hour into my first training session. In either case, after 3 trips in 4 summers, I was ready to take some serious time away from the missions field and focus on building a missional heart on the homefront. Time to let others go.
So why go now?
Well, in part, my role has changed at church and in ministry. I have a bit more general responsibility, a bit less Sunday School teaching, and a lot more segmentation in fellowships. I'm helping out in an expanded capacity at Bible Study Fellowship, which I could not recommend highly enough. I'm not as myopic as I was last time. We need advocacy and urgency at every level-- from what I teach junior high monkeys to the passion and priority we put on supporting the Great Commission Fund as the church board level. Do we paint a unified picture of cross-cultural missions? Is it secret, gnostic information-- an insider's club of "those who have gone" vs. "those who have not"? Or are we, as a church, literally ALL going on missions by being part of what missions is doing?
Jesus has not called me into a compartmentalized life characterized by 401k freak-outs on Friday afternoon, and pious promises to pray on Sundays. He has called me to a holistic pursuit of holiness, compassion, and life-giving, eternal water. I struggle to keep it from being any other way.
So much to say! I will have to save some for next time.
I am thrilled by the ongoing relationship my church has with the Cambodian mission field. I am overjoyed that I am accompanying seasoned short-termers with a deep heart for the Khmer people. I am humbled by the commitment and attitudes of the long-termers already in the field. I am, as yet, undaunted by the challenges.
I just want to put out-front that I struggle tremendously with the resources and energy that go into short-term missions. For the amount of money and effort and prayer that goes into putting someone into the field for 3 weeks, I feel like the Western church could be mobilizing someone for 2 months of a 4-year term. (Not that I'm 100% down on the Western church. I think, by and large, it does more things right than it does wrong. I realize this makes me a classist, imperialist modernist, and I'm insufficiently down with the emergent global church. Tough cookies-- get your own blog entry.) It seems really wasteful to do short-term trips, particularly for someone like me, who doesn't even generate joy from travel, meeting new people, or having exotic experiences. All I get out of short-term missions is the sinking, desperate realization that God's world is incredibly vast, and I am incomprehensibly selfish and short-sighted.
I just want to send and enable people to do this work...!
But the most important take-home lesson from previous overseas trips is that we don't generate long-term missionaries without a bridge... particularly in the North American church, which is so very distant from the clash of cultures happening at the margins of the churched and unchurched world. And short-term missions is one of the most ideal bridges in the era of Internet, global English, and jet airplanes. It equips and inspires future missionaries, encourages current missionaries, and keeps churches and missionaries connected with one another.
It was about 2 hours into the flight for my first missions trip that I decided I wasn't going overseas long-term. Or maybe it was an hour into my first training session. In either case, after 3 trips in 4 summers, I was ready to take some serious time away from the missions field and focus on building a missional heart on the homefront. Time to let others go.
So why go now?
Well, in part, my role has changed at church and in ministry. I have a bit more general responsibility, a bit less Sunday School teaching, and a lot more segmentation in fellowships. I'm helping out in an expanded capacity at Bible Study Fellowship, which I could not recommend highly enough. I'm not as myopic as I was last time. We need advocacy and urgency at every level-- from what I teach junior high monkeys to the passion and priority we put on supporting the Great Commission Fund as the church board level. Do we paint a unified picture of cross-cultural missions? Is it secret, gnostic information-- an insider's club of "those who have gone" vs. "those who have not"? Or are we, as a church, literally ALL going on missions by being part of what missions is doing?
Jesus has not called me into a compartmentalized life characterized by 401k freak-outs on Friday afternoon, and pious promises to pray on Sundays. He has called me to a holistic pursuit of holiness, compassion, and life-giving, eternal water. I struggle to keep it from being any other way.
So much to say! I will have to save some for next time.
I am thrilled by the ongoing relationship my church has with the Cambodian mission field. I am overjoyed that I am accompanying seasoned short-termers with a deep heart for the Khmer people. I am humbled by the commitment and attitudes of the long-termers already in the field. I am, as yet, undaunted by the challenges.
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