Who's helping who?

What an unbelievable week it was in Barranquilla, Colombia. This was the smallest campaign I've been on, in terms of the number of people involved. There were 23 of us from 3 different churches. About a third of those were from my home church, Firewheel Church. The other two thirds were comprised of friends from Waterbrook Church here in Wylie, and Jacksonville Chapel in New Jersey.

The daily schedule of these trips looks like this......

7am..... Breakfast/Worship and Devotional

8:30ish.... Load up with your team into a van and head out to your assigned barrio

9:30-10.... hit the streets in the barrio

Noon.... lunch (provided by the church with which you are working)

2:00..... hit the streets in the barrio

4:00-4:30.... snack and preparation for service

4:30/4:45.... neighborhood celebration service

5:15/5:30.... head back to the hotel

6:00/6:30....dinner with your team/free time till bed

Obviously, the majority of your time is spent in the barrios with the people living there, and the church that has been planted there. Our purpose?...... to evangelize and disciple the people of the assigned barrio, and to train the members and pastors of the neighborhood churches on how to reach their community.

It can be easy to start with an attitude of ... "we're here to help," as if we have this down. But how is it that we think we can help them with something we don't even do a good job of here at our own church.

Seriously....when is the last time we spoke to someone in our own neighborhood about Jesus? And by neighborhood.... include your office, school, family, etc... We talk about "helping" these churches with their evangelism and discipleship, when the truth is....I wonder how many of our church members and staff would show up if we had a day where someone was going to walk with us through our "neighborhood" and show us how to evangelize/disciple our community. My guess is not many. Because we're the trainers, not the trainees....we've got this down.

We have cool buildings, convenient service times, A/C, coffee bars, and plenty of programs for us to come to at various times of the week. So many actually, that we can choose what is most convenient for us. We've made it incredibly easy to substitute inviting someone to church for real, doing life together evangelism and discipleship.

The people of the communities that we work with in Barranquilla come to church to celebrate the one true God and His son Jesus. They come because he deserves to be praised. There is nothing there to draw them in..... half of them bring their own chairs to the worship service. No screens, little to no sound system, no A/C..... nothing but unashamed, passionate worship in all that is done.

I am not saying that we should be ashamed of our resources. I am saying that, at times, we should be ashamed at the way we use our resources. We have so much that we've been given to reach people for Christ. Our homes, cars, jobs, educucation, communication

devices, health...the list goes on without even mentioning our church buildings. Because of the nature of our daily lives we have the opportunity to reach countless people through our actions and words every day of the week.

John 13:35..."By this they will know you are my disciples, if you love one another." The love of Christ is to be modeled daily in all that we do, not just talked about. To equip and empower people for daily evangelism is where genuine, community changing, life transforming spiritual growth of individuals and churches occurs.

I have to ask myself...what am I doing so that others will know I am His disciple? How does God's love for me show through in the way I treat others? How do I encourage and help the people I work with to be the best they can be? Am I being a good steward of the gifts that I've been given? As a pastor... do I think too much about one area of influence, or how my one area can influence other areas? And do I equip and empower the people around me to use their gifts to reach others? So many questions...

I am so thankful for my time and my friends in Barranquilla. They are such an inspiration to me. They are an encouragement in ministry and in the way I live life daily. I am humbled by the way they worship in all that they do. They remind me that the church is a body not a building. And they model for me what it looks like to "love one another."

So thank you to all of those that I had the opportunity to minister with in Barranquilla last week. I don't know if anything I did in my week there could come close to the way you loved and

discipled me. I am humbled and incredibly grateful for my time with all of you.

I'm out.....

Day 5: Barranquilla

Today was our last day in the field and it went great! The rain held off for us and we were able to work in the barrio that we were originally supposed to be in all day yesterday. The people in this barrio are great!!

There were so many kids in this barrio. They were everywhere!! While most of the kids were in school from noon-6pm, the parents were at home during the day. We saw a ton of kids this morning and then spent time with a lot of parents this afternoon. This was another barrio that was crime ridden and over run with gangs and drug dealers. But God protected us and led us to the people He wanted us to talk to which included some of these people.

The service this afternoon was packed with young and old. A church that normally has around 10 people and room for maybe 20 had about 50 at their service. We saw 41 people give their life to Christ in a day and a half. We had the opportunity to go back and visit many of the people we spoke to yesterday and do some discipleship with them. The cool thing... we would be there visiting and they would bring other people into the house and we were sharing and teaching them to share.

I played soccer with a bunch of little kids and their older brothers. The older kids were pretty hard core and into some things that definitely were not good for them. A couple of card tricks and self-humiliating attempts at playing soccer, and I had them listening to me. So cool!

I had some interesting conversation with my friend Aurora the last couple of days. It's amazing how wrong we get it sometimes in the american church today. We've placed our stock in so much stuff (media, buildings, programs, etc..) that we've created an attitude of "what are you gonna do to impress me" in the people that come through our doors. While these things are not bad at all... we must do them with excellence, we must use them to glorify God, and we must use them to encourage and point people into ministry.

God is speaking to me and stirring my heart about some things. I'm trying to work these things out in my head so I can write them out and move on them. It is just such an encouragement to watch these people worship and be a part of these services. It reminds me of what gifts God has given me and speaks to why I need to be a better steward of those gifts. To watch people with so little give so much is completely humbling.

I'm out....

Barranquilla....Day 4

Proverbs 19:21.."Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

We got to our barrio this morning and got off to a great start. This was an extremely poor barrio. But... as is the norm...these were some of the most welcoming, loving people we've met. They had nothing, but offered everything they had to make us comfortable...unbelievably humbling. The message of Jesus resonates with them, and offers them hope and peace that they long for in their lives. But it isn't that what we all long for?

We only visited a few houses before lunch, but spent quality time with each family and was able to really solidify their decision to follow Christ. They took us to their "mother church" for lunch since there was more space, it was cooler, etc...While there, the rains came! This would have been no big deal (we went out in the rain yesterday), except the gangs in the neighborhood choose to fight when it rains. The pastor recommended that we not go back to the barrio we were in that morning because of the gang issue. Well.... God had that all orchestrated.

We went out into the neighborhood of the "mother church" and quickly figured out that was exactly where God wanted us to be. My group went to one house after the rains stopped. When I told the mom of the house that we were not even supposed to be there, but the rain kept us from being where we were originally planning to be. She said to me....."you're here because me and my family need to hear what you have to say." And she was exactly right. She told us about her kids... all 5 of them. Her three girls, and her homosexual son were there. Her other son was not there. We spent almost an hour with her, praying for her family, and leading her to faith in Christ. One of the nationals, a young man, struck up a conversation with the homosexual son. He found out that the kid had been raped at age 7 (he's 20 now). That experience caused him to think that he was gay, so he just "became" homosexual. The national told me this as were were leaving the house, walking down the street.

We stopped, I sent our two girls with the other group and he and I , and Beaux headed back. We found Jorge in his room and begin talking with him. He told us that he did not like who he was; did not believe it was who God intended him to be; and wanted to change. He is a noted drug dealer (he was selling his last two bags of marijuana when we found him), gang banger, and homosexual/transvestite. As we talked to him of God's love for him, he began to weep. As we spoke to him, several other kids showed up to listen in to what was going on. After 30-40 minutes of talking with Jorge, he gave his life to Christ with his mom standing there with us praying with him.

God wanted us there today.... no doubt. I've got some other things that God is revealing to me on this trip. I'll share those at another time... maybe tomorrow. For now....

I'm out.

Barranquilla: Day 3

Second day in the field......Incredible!

For those of you that may not know how this works..... we spend Monday in Tuesday in one barrio and then we switch to another barrios for Wednesday and Thursday.

The barrio we were in yesterday and today is a pretty rough place. Drug use, alcoholism, teenage pregnancies, etc... are rampant in this area. The pastor who we worked with at this place is a survivor of this neighborhood. A one time heroin user/gang member... he is one of the most passionate people I have ever met when it comes to reaching his community for Christ.

The first street we went down this morning was a re-visit of a street we were on yesterday. I had the opportunity to get to know a few of the rougher individuals on that street and saw several give their lives to Christ. Today... our pastor received a warning that there was a plan to rob us when we came back down that street. Some of the young men whom we had gotten to know yesterday put a stop to that for us. We were allowed to venture into parts of that barrio that not even cops would go into because they were in danger. It was awesome!! We prayed with these people, talked with them, and shared the gospel with them and were witness to many strongholds broken in that barrio.

Everyone on the trip has their own individual stories and I wish I had space to tell all of them. As has been the case with every trip. There is so much for us to learn from the people here. When they come to worship there is nothing to draw them to the church like we are accustom to back home. No media, screens, bands, buildings, etc.....just the desire to worship the God who has given them life and hope. It is unbridaled, unashamed worship. I wish I could bottle it up, put it in my bag and bring it home.

Tomorrow's barrio is supposedly one of the rougher ones around here. Should make for an interesting day. I'm excited to see what God has in store for us there tomorrow and Thursday. Keep praying for the team and for the areas that each group is in the next two days.

I'm out....

Colombia '10: Day 1

Today was the first day in the field. We spent it with a small church in a pretty poor barrio. Pastor Javier is doing incredible ministry in this area, and God has given him great vision for his community. There are a ton of kids in this barrio. Pastor Javier and the people of his congregation said there is a huge marijuana and alcohol problem with the young people there... along with many gang issues.

We spent the day talking with a lot of the kids he was talking about. It was one of those days where every time we presented the gospel there were 10-20 people gathered around. I had the opportunity to share with about 25 kids at one time. They were all playing some pretty serious poker games with quite a bit of money on the table. I did a few card tricks on them and they went nuts. They listened as I talked to them about Jesus and more than half of them accepted Christ, including the ring leader Martin. It was pretty incredible.

We went into one house and there was a man there who had been sharing the gospel with this family for sometime. He is an evangelists and was so excited that there were other Christians in his barrio sharing Jesus. The whole family accepted Christ.

Our team had the opportunity to share the gospel 35 times today.... we saw 76 people make commitments to Christ. Pastor Javier is so excited to have so many people to disciple and minister to on a daily basis. We had church this afternoon at his church building, and like all of the other times I've been here..... I wish I could bottle up what I see in these worship times and bring it home for everyone to experience. Incredible!

Well...that's the update today. Up early tomorrow for breakfast and back in the field for day 2. Pray for us that we will continue to have opportunities to share. God is at work here and we are pumped for the chance to be His mouthpiece.

I"m out

Colombia '10

Well.... after a long two days in the Dallas and Miami airports, we're here in Barranquilla!

This is such a great city! God has been speaking to me a lot the last couple of days. As we were waiting I was reminded, as I often am, of God's orchestrative powers.

Proverbs 19:21..."Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

There are times when we just can't figure it out..... but then again....we don't have to always have it figured out. God's not ringin' His hands and wondering what's goin' on, or how this is going to work out, or what's coming next.

We don't have to ask God to show up for anything. He's here......we have to show up. We have to seek Him.

I'm excited to see what He has planned here in Barranquilla this week. I'll be posting updates daily while we're here, so check in. Time to go to be right now though...

I'm out.