The Journey Begins at Home

Today God granted me the opportunity to share with 2 Muslims and 1 former Buddhist.

First at our children’s school Thanksgiving program I was able to share with a friend’s Muslim co-teacher. She was delighted when I greeted to her in her language. Simple greetings open the door to wonderful conversations. I challenge you to learn the greetings of those from different cultures around you (Hola – Spanish; Namaste – traditional Indian; Asalaam Aleykum – universal Islamic greeting; Shalom – Jewish; Onyon Hasayo – Korean; Sawadee Kraap – Thai etc.). Anyway, after this woman responded with joy at my greeting, I challenged her to learn more about Jesus and promised that I’d send more information to her through our mutual friend (who happens to be a Christ-follower).

Second, a few weeks ago I went into a store with my wife. When there we met the store manager who we quickly learned is a Muslim from Asia. After talking with her and showing interest in her culture, she became more interested in us. We shared a brief testimony with her that we have been born again and are followers of Jesus. I asked her what she knew about Jesus and she said that she believed all roads lead to God – provided they are sincere. With that I told her that Jesus proclaimed himself to be the only road to God and asked if she’d ever read the Injil (New Testament). She told us that she hadn’t, but she’d like to. So we promised to bring her one as a gift when we returned to pick up my clothes. Today we walked into the store and when she saw us she smiled and asked, “Did you bring my gift????” We talked more with her and she she’s ready to read what Jesus said about himself . . . and share it with her whole family. Her dad just arrived from Iran today and she’s going to share the bible with him. I also gave her a tract and she said she’s so excited to learn more. Before we left we gave her Cat’s cell # and we agreed to talk regularly and that we’d have her over for dinner around Christmas. As we were walking out she said “You are so different from others I’ve met here. You actually care to know me and about my customs. You care enough to share with me about your beliefs as well. Please don’t forget about me.” Jesus told us that the fields are white unto harvest. But where are the laborers that will recognize it? Pray that WORD comes ALIVE in her heart!!!

Finally, we went to lunch with my mom at a little pizza joint that my mom met us at. Mom was telling us on the way in how the girl that works there always remembers her order and what great service she gives. We walked in and sure enough, the young lady that waited on us asked mom if she wants the “usual.” (Not sure if that says that the waitress is keen or if mom eats too much pizza???) Anyway, the young lady was obviously Asian so I asked where she’s from. “Cambodia.” I said, “I was there in 1998 training a group of churches. When did you move here?” She shared that she came here when she was 5 years old – Pol Pot’s regime was executing half the country’s population in the Killing Fields . . . including MANY of her family members. So I asked if she’s Buddhist (majority religion in Cambodia). She said, “I was when my family moved here when I was 5. We lived in Chamblee. But a church used to send groups into our neighborhood to do VBS and I learned about Jesus there. That’s where I became a Christian and I haven’t looked back.” That’s solid. Somebody recognized a Divine opportunity and seized it. Somebody took the time to show compassion to her and her family. Somebody took the time to share the Gospel and she was radically transformed. I could see it in her smile. I could hear it in her voice when she talked about the LORD.

And so that’s my prayer – for me and for you. That years down the road multitudes will look back and tell others the story of the time that you and I came into their neighborhood, or office, or school or village and brought the Good News. Maybe the children of a Muslim teacher or clothing store manager will one day be able to say, “Yea. My family used to be Muslim. But mom told me about a man that took time one day to . . . . Is that what you’re praying for? If not, look around you. The fields are WHITE! Will you be a laborer in them? Here, there and everywhere. All the time. The journey begins today, where you’re at. But it doesn’t stop there.

Please pray the following Scripture for our team as we head to India this week:
Colossians 4:2-6
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful & thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, . . . Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

Thoughts on Reading and Writing

By John Piper February 20, 2002

I've been thinking again about the importance of reading and writing. There are several reasons I write. One of the most personally compelling is that I read. I mean, my main spiritual sustenance comes by the Holy Spirit from reading. Therefore reading is more important to me than eating. If I went blind, I would pay to have someone read to me. I would try to learn Braille. I would buy "books on tape." I would rather go without food than go without books. Therefore, writing feels very lifegiving to me, since I get so much of my own life from reading.

Combine this with what Paul says in Ephesians 3:3-4, "By revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. And by referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ." The early church was established by apostolic writing as well as apostolic preaching. God chose to send his living Word into the world for 30 years, and his written Word into the world for 2000+ years. Think of the assumption behind this divine decision. People in each generation would be dependent on those who read. Some people, if not all, would have to learn to read—and read well, in order to be faithful to God.

So it has been for thousands of years. Generation after generation has read the insights of its writers. This is why fresh statements of old truth are always needed. Without them people will read error. Daniel Webster once said,

If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will.1

Millions of people are going to read. If they don't read contemporary Christian books, they are going to read contemporary secular books. They will read. It is amazing to watch people in the airports. At any given moment there must be hundreds of thousands of people reading just in airports. One of the things we Christians need to be committed to, besides reading, is giving away solid books to those who might read them, but would never buy them.

The ripple effect is incalculable. Consider this illustration:

A book by Richard Sibbes, one of the choicest of the Puritan writers, was read by Richard Baxter, who was greatly blessed by it. Baxter then wrote his Call to the Unconverted which deeply influenced Philip Doddridge, who in turn wrote The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. This brought the young William Wilberforce, subsequent English statesman and foe of slavery, to serious thoughts of eternity. Wilberforce wrote his Practical Book of Christianity which fired the soul of Leigh Richmond. Richmond, in turn, wrote The Dairyman's Daughter, a book that brought thousands to the Lord, helping Thomas Chalmers the great preacher, among others.2

It seems to me that in a literate culture like ours, where most of us know how to read and where books are available, the Biblical mandate is: keep on reading what will open the Holy Scriptures to you more and more. And keep praying for Bible-saturated writers. There are many great old books to read. But each new generation needs its own writers to make the message fresh. Read and pray. And then obey.

Pastor John

Notes

[1] Ernest Reisinger, "Every Christian a Publisher," Free Grace Broadcaster, Issue 51, Winter, 1995, p. 17.
[2] "Every Christian a Publisher," p. 18.
This reading is found in A Godward Life, Book One (Multnomah, 1997), pp. 58-59.


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© Desiring God

I Saw What I Saw by Sara Groves

A Song for All Parents

A World-Class Discipler, An Islamic Scholar and a Rabbi

I recently realized that I forgot to post this info from earlier in the summer when I traveled to Budapest as a part of the Strategy Working Group of the 2010 Lausanne Conference.

Thanks for your prayers when I was at Lausanne back in June. I continue to be amazed at the connections that I have been able to make at this historic meeting.


One day I was blessed to spend time with Robert
Coleman, author of one of my "top 5 most influential
books" list. He wrote "Master Plan of Evangelism" which
gave me a heart for making disciples at home and abroad.
Those of you whom I have invested in . . . it was largely due to
the influence of Dr. Coleman's book. The book looks at the model of Jesus and how his plan for evangelizing the world was primarily to make reproducing disciples. If you've never read it, drop what you're reading now and take a day to take this in.


One evening I had dinner with an amazing brother from North Africa who has a ministry reaching out to Muslim scholars. He himself is a Muslim background follower of Jesus and has
won many converts to Christ. Now he has trained a small army of men to engage Muslim scholars with the gospel so that their influence can be used to spread a movement quickly. He has seen 54 Islamic scholars come to faith in Jesus this year alone! We shared stories and encouraged and prayed together. I was able to share with him some of the simple equipping resources that I have produced and he is excited about implementing them on his return home. I learned much from him on how to be more effective in engaging Muslims, but he was very encouraging with regards to what I've already been doing.

Then on the way home I had the privilege of meeting the Mitch Glaser, the founder and head of Chosen PeopleMinistries. He is a Messianic Jew and is an amazing man. We started talking about the book of John and how Jesus engaged Jews at the heart level. At the end of the night
he prayed for me a beautiful prayer and agreed to be a "rabbi" (teacher) to me in the days ahead. I look forward to future conversations getting his amazing insight into
the Scriptures.

I am blessed and humbled to have been a part of this time. My life has been enriched by the network that I've met. Thanks to each of you for praying for me this week.

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The Camel, Everest & Budapest

What does a camel, Mount Everest and Budapest have to do with one another? Not much unless you live a crazy life like mine. Here's how the three intersected on my journey.

Several weeks ago I was contacted by Dr. Gerald Harris of the Christian Index regarding my thoughts on church planting movements (CPM). Dr. Harris was wrote an article for the GA Baptist newspaper on that subject (see below - Friday, May 25, 2007), but the topic of one particular CPM among Asian Muslims came up and the somewhat controversial approach to enter into evangelistic conversations that is being used there. As you might imagine, sharing with Muslims is an intimidating task. One author named Kevin Greeson has worked with Muslims for years and several years ago wrote a book called "The Camel Training Manual" which trains people to enter into evangelistic conversations with Muslims by using a "bridge" composed of a few verses from the Qur'an, the Islamic religious text. Because of my experience in sharing the Gospel with Muslims over the last 8 years, Dr. Harris decided to quote me again in the current issue featuring the way that I use an adaptation of the Camel Method as a pre-evangelistic bridge that then allows me to go on and explain the Gospel using the only authoritative Scriptures - the Bible. You can read that article by clicking here:
Is Camel Method leading thirsty world to oasis of truth?

So what's the deal with Mt. Everest? Yes I am the "South Asia Strategy Coordinator" for e3 Partners Ministries. And yes, Mt. Everest is in Nepal, which is a part of South Asia. And yes, I have been to Nepal. In fact, last week my family and I traveled all the way to Everest on an expedition and got stranded about half way up. It was quite scary being up there so high not knowing how we'd get down. Now I know you're thinking that I must be crazy taking my kids up on Everest, but I actually learned that families ascend the mountain every single day . . . in Orlando, FL at Disney's Animal Kingdom! After waiting over an hour in the sweltering heat at the base of "Everest", Cat and I started the ascent with our three kids in tow only to get stranded on the highest part of the roller coaster. Caleb was quite disappointed as we sat there waiting to be rescued. Overall, however we had a blast spending a week at the beach and a few days at Disney. It was a much-needed vacation where I unplugged and unwound so that I could truly enjoy the wonderful family that God has blessed me with.

So what about Budapest? Well, that's where I'm headed this Sunday for a week to participate in the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization planning meetings. Lausanne is the world's largest inter-denominational gathering of missionaries and Christian leaders meeting to coordinate efforts that focus on the completion of the Great Commission. I have been honored with the privilege of serving on the "Young Leaders" planning team (though I appreciate the designation, at 38 years old I wonder when I'll ever have to drop the qualification 'Young'???). Please pray for me on this journey that I would be able to focus, learn, and contribute and that the outcome would be Christ-exalting.

So that's how camels, Everest and Budapest converge through Robinson family adventures. So I'll close for now with a great family photo from our vacation. Thanks for blessing us with your prayers and friendship. (click to enlarge)

Quoted in Article on Church Planting Movements

I was recently contacted by the Editor of the Georgia Baptist newspaper, the Christian Index, regarding my views on what has recently come to be known as "church planting movements." The term CPM was made popular in missions circles by author and IMB missionary David Garrison in his book by the same name. I have had the privilege to work in a couple of these movements by training pastors and lay leaders. You can check out the article in full at http://www.christianindex.org/3270.article
My comments are under the section on "Quantity versus Quality." Hope you enjoy!

The Beginning of a Movement?

The following is the story of how a "house church" that I worked with in South Asia came to be and where it's possibly headed in the future:

Several years ago a young man born into a Muslim family came to faith in Christ through a series of life-changing encounters. As a child he was admired by all in his village because of his kindness. One day he was playing ball with other kids and the ball was hit into a cemetery. None of the other kids would venture into that scary place to get the ball, but this young man did. While there a strange man came up to him and put his hand on his shoulder and said, “One day you will be a great man of God.” The confused young man left with more questions than answers. Several years later he had moved into the city and was excelling at his studies. While at the university he got involved with a radical fundamentalist Islamic group and quickly rose to the top as a student leader. After studying the Qur’an in depth, he again felt like there were more questions than answers. One night he took a walk to think through all of this. As he crossed a bridge in the city a strange man approached him and put his hand on his shoulder and said to him, “Soon you will be a great man of God.” It was the same man that had approached him in the cemetery! It was not long after that encounter that the young man came to faith in Jesus Christ. As you can imagine, his classmates and the fundamentalist group did not respond positively to this change. He was beaten severely and spent 10 days in a hospital. This might discourage some, but this young man became more convinced that he was now finding the answers that he’d always been searching for. Over the last few years he has worked with several missionaries to help them learn the local language and even got involved in distributing Bibles through the project that many of you have been praying for and giving sacrificially toward.

The young man is now doing his medical internship and is living at a hostel where he met other fairly new believers and started to gather them together in his room forming a house church. This is the group that I and another team mate got to invest in for the entire week training them in church multiplication using our First Steps curriculum and discipleship using the 7 Basic Commands of Jesus. The amazing thing about this embryonic group is that there are 3 Muslim background believers and 4 Hindu background believers among them and they are winning more from both faiths regularly. In fact, on the first day of the training we met in this young man’s small hostel room and sat on the floor studying the Scripture. During a break a new man came into the room. We learned that this man had received a Bible during a distribution recently and had been meeting with several members of the house church to learn more about Jesus. In the middle of our training, one of the young men started sharing with the visitor again and before we knew it he was rejecting Islam and praying to receive Christ!

Another young member of the church was studying English Literature at his university and got a scholarship to Cambridge for a semester. During his time there, the Muslim met a Christian who gave him a pocket Gideon’s Bible. During testimony time of our training he pulled that NT out and shared how just 3 months earlier he returned to the country and heard a radio broadcast that we helped to start. Then he was hanging out with friends at another university one day and my missionary friend gave him a NT that was in his language and English. Through that encounter he started meeting with the leader of the small church and 2 months ago he rejected Islam, received Christ and was soon after baptized. In keeping with our training philosophy, we went out to apply what we’d studied together in the morning. Amazingly, this 2 month old believer suggested we go to his campus to evangelize! So we loaded up and went. What a blessing to see him rush onto the campus and begin to gather a group together telling them that his friends were there to “explain the light of Jesus” that had changed his life. On the first day there we shared with a few small groups of students and started handing out NTs to an enthusiastic throng of young Muslims and Hindus. The following day we returned there again and the new believer had arranged for us to speak in the lecture hall to a group of about 50-60 inquiring students. So the missionary, the house church leader, and I shared with them for about an hour fully proclaiming the Gospel, and answering their questions regarding it. In particular I shared with the group my testimony of coming to faith as a university student and how Christ had since changed my life. I really connected with them by telling them that God created them with their ethnicity, but their ancestors had chosen their religion. So I beckoned them not to confuse the two. I shared with them how each man and woman must one day stand before a Holy God and no amount of religious devotion would achieve the merit necessary to escape judgment. So I asked them to consider Christ, who alone lived a perfect life and died as a sacrifice of atonement for their sins. Many followed us out of the auditorium asking questions and before we knew it we were distributing Bibles to virtually the whole campus. My teammate was a bit intimidated when a police officer cleared the crowd around him and then boldly said, “I am a police officer. I need two please!” People are hungering the world over for the TRUTH! Jesus Christ is the TRUTH. And that is the message we proclaimed. The rest of the week we continued the training and as the island team came back to the city, they took over the mass distribution of Bibles.

The highlight of the week for me was when teaching the 7 Basic Commands of Jesus in the small storage room (the hostel banned our meeting after the 2^nd day out of fear that Muslims living nearby would destroy their facility since these young men were hitting the streets and sharing the Gospel everyday after our time together!) where the missionary keeps the cases of Bibles for distributions. After one session we shared Communion together – the first time for several of the new believers. Then after teaching a session on what it means to love God and love one another, I washed the leader’s feet and then the whole group started to follow suit until everyone had both washed and been washed.

On Friday our whole team had the joy of worshiping with the “house” church in their normal location – under a grove of trees just outside the city. We sat in the shade and took part in one of the most amazingly simple times of worship that we all were forced to think how near this must’ve been to what the 1^st Century believers experienced. All the while a group of cattle herders had gathered with their herds. We gave them a solar powered audio NT and they sat and listened in amazement to the whole book of Luke. The primitive and the modern collided under that grove of trees and the Presence of the eternal One was with us. So as I sit here in my office today gathering these thoughts I am grateful that not only were we able to distribute over 16,000 copies of God’s Word, but we were able to invest in a group of relatively new believers and train them with a vision and means for making disciples and multiplying what they now have. The results are in God’s Sovereign hands, but as we left my brothers in Christ there had already begun to put into practice what I was blessed to teach them from God’s Word. Please pray for the men of Isahee Tablique Baptist Church (translated “The Followers of Jesus Apostolic Missionary Baptist Church”) as they follow up on all the leads from those who received Bibles through our massive distribution efforts.

Call in the Reinforcements

I'm headed for South Asia today with a team of 5 other men to do frontline evangelism in an area filled with Muslims. Please pray that the LORD would be glorified in our obedience to go and that He would accomplish His purposes both in us and through us. Take this call to prayer seriously . . .

"Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief . . . (But) we tried to rig it up as an intercom in our houses and cabins and boats and cars - not to call in fire power for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den"
- John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad.

We are calling in the reinforcements with coordinates on where the Enemy has been holding people captive. Pray that the LORD would move in a mighty way and that Christ the King would be exalted in that dark land as the Enemy is pushed back. The Spirit of the Sovreign LORD is upon me because He has annointed me to preach good news to the poor . . . to proclaim freedom for the captives!

And remember . . .

"The Enemy will do anything to divorce prayer and proclamation—to stop the evangelist from praying and the intercessor from evangelizing. Why? Because the two combined are explosive!”
- From Red Moon Rising by Peter Grieg and Dave Roberts, a book about a youth 24-7 prayer
movement that now spans the globe.

While you're praying for us, make sure you're evangelizing those around you. And while we're out there evangelizing, we'll be sure to pray that the LORD is moving in your midst as well. What a glorious plan.