Heart Soul and Might

Five years ago, I was lying on the observation table in my doctor’s office at 9:30pm having 9 stitches placed above my eye following a bad-hop line-drive at shortstop on the softball field. Earlier, when the ambulance was called to the field and I faced the possibility of having an unknown emergency room doctor stitch me up, I called my good friend and family doctor, Charles Marable. Though it was after 9pm, he told me he’d meet me at his office in 15 minutes. When he came to the office to sew me up, he brought with him his friend from college, Aniefiok Udo, a pastor in Nigeria. Aniefiok “assisted” as the good doctor put my eyebrow back together - and I listened to Aniefiok’s story of getting multiple degrees in the States with the intention of going back to his native Nigeria to “win Africa for Christ.” I knew this guy was different. He was on a mission. A mission I wanted to be a part of. We talked of someday partnering in ministry in some way.

Three years later, August 2004, Aniefiok was back for a visit with Charles and came with him to our ritual Monday morning Starbucks meeting with Maridus Kinder and Marty Schwieterman, two pastor cohorts at Fellowship. It was at this meeting that Aniefiok asked me when we were going to come to Nigeria. To make a long story short, we left Starbucks with a plan to take a team to Nigeria three months later in November. Soon after, five of us from Fellowship Nashville were on a plane to Nigeria - Jeff Runion, Bob Elrod, Richard Scott, Charles and myself. It was on this trip that God worked mightily, spoke clearly, and led Aniefiok to share his dream of starting a new church and pastor’s resource center along with a vocational training center. It was on this trip that Africa Outreach, Inc. became a reality. There was no money, no land, no leaders and no people. Only Aniefiok, his wife Judy and a young man named Tosin that Aniefiok had been mentoring. (Pictured at the right are myself and Aniefiok, Nigeria, 2004… it looks like we’re singing a duet.)

Today, there is a fully functioning Board of Directors here in the states, Africa Outreach, Inc. is recognized by the U.S. Gov’t as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Fellowship Bible Church-Nigeria has over 100 members, and the Pastor’s Resource Center (on 20 acres) which will double as a meeting place for the Church is scheduled to be completed by our planned October 29 visit to Nigeria. It is overwhelming to see how God has moved over these last two years as we (Fellowship) have partnered with Aniefiok to realize this ministry dream. God is at work, and He’s using this humble man of incredible character in a big way. (Pictured at the left is Tosin and Aniefiok on the Africa Outreach land before it was cleared, spring 2006.)

Today we met for our 2nd annual Board of Directors meeting. We listened to the report from a team that went to Nigeria in June from Watermark Community Church in Dallas. We heard from Aniefiok’s heart how God is doing many incredible things as Africa Outreach ministers to and serves the community of Ikot Ekpene in the Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. We talked over the plans beyond Phase 1 to Phase 2,3 and 4 - including how to get their financially. (Pictured at the right is the latest picture of the Resource Center - Phase 1 - which we hope will be finished in two months.)

There is a church where two years ago, there wasn’t. There is a resource center where two years ago, there wasn’t. In the coming years there will be a clinic, a church building and a vocational training center to create jobs and stimulate the economy. How exciting to be a part of what God is doing on the other side of the world. He certainly is a BIG God!

Pictured below is most of the Board that met today (along with the three guys from Watermark). This is a great group of people and I count it a real honor to serve on this board.

Pictured L to R:

TOP: Richard McCauley, Greg Mitchell (President), Steve Pulley, Bob Elrod, Charles Marable, Eleanor Sykes, Paul Daniels

BOTTOM: Bob Rudy, Lori Dryer, Aniefiok Udo, Jeff Runion, yours truly

There are some exciting new changes in ministry that the Lord has recently led me to pursue! A few months ago, one of our staff elders and good friend Maridus Kinder asked me if I’d consider taking the position of overseeing Fellowship’s Global Outreach ministry. We’ve partnered together extensively over the last few years in developing Worship Global, our Worship and Arts Ministry’s interaction with and influence to the world. Trips to Hungary (2002, 2003), Nigeria (2004) and Peru (2005) and our planned trip in October 2006 to Kenya and Nigeria have fueled the flame in my heart for global outreach. I have sensed my heart beating stronger and stronger with the Lord’s for reaching out beyond our borders to the world. So, I told the Elder Board that I’d pray about this potential during my sabbatical and come back with a decision one way or another.

One important factor in the decision was that I’ve been hands-on involved and/or leading worship and arts ministries at some level for 16 years at two churches, and have greatly enjoyed seeing much fruit come to bear. And not merely leading the ministry, but enjoying shepherding a body of believers toward a higher view of God’s greatness and glory, leading to a more passionate and dependent lifestyle of worship. And through much prayer, I know and am confident that no matter what ministry I’m most directly involved in, that will always remain my heart and posture toward God.

Over my sabbatical, the answer became very clear. God was giving me the “green light” to make a monumental ministry shift - saying goodbye to worship and arts ministry directly, and “hello” to Global Outreach! I will still continue to lead worship on occasion, but my primary focus will now be overseeing the relationship with our Ministry Partners all over the world.

This last year, our church sent out over 15 short-term teams to work with our Ministry Partners in Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria, Russia, Peru, Slovenia and other countries throughout the world. Our vision is to provide “Wind and Water” to these various global partners. Wind is resources, equipping, teaching, teaching materials, financial resources, etc. (ala providing wind in their sails). Water is providing assistance to meet basic needs - food, water, shelter, agricultural training… (ala providing a cool cup of water in the desert).

This is all very new and exciting to me and I look forward to direct ministry and partnership with the many talented and gifted servants we work with throughout the world. If my 5-6 mission trips over the last few years are any indication of the influence, impact, life change and fulfilling ministry that are ahead, I can’t wait!

In addition to overseeing Global Outreach and continuing to lead worship, I’ll also continue to provide leadership in the area of prayer at Fellowship and will be helping to lead and teach in our Equipping Center as part of the Equipping Ministries Team. There are a number of other areas of ministry I’ll be involved in as well, and I hope to expand on those in the days and weeks to come.

Thanks for walking this journey with me!

OK - this is not a new book, and it’s been on my “need to read sometime soon” list for years, but I’m finally getting to John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad!

For those of you looking for a correlation between worship and missions, look no further. The very first words of Piper’s book from page one and two of chapter one entitled: “The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Worship“:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Psalm 97:1). “Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Psalm 67:3-4)

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish… Missions begins and ends in worship.

If the pursuit of God’s glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man’s good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be well served and God will not be duly honored. I am not pleading for a diminishing of missions but for a magnifying of God. When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the most remote peoples on earth. And I long for that day to come!

Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. Churches that are not centered on the exaltation of the majesty and beauty of God will scarcely kindle a fervent desire to “declare His glory among the nations” (Psalm 96:3).

I passionately resonate with Piper’s heart for worship and missions in this book.
2006: Kenya and Nigeria
This fall, 11 of us are travelling to Nairobi, Kenya to partner with ALARM (African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries) to facilitate a Worship, Leadership and Marriage Conference with up to 200 pastors and leaders expected to attend. Following our work in Kenya, three of us are going on to Ikot Ekpene, Nigeria to celebrate the grand opening of Fellowship Bible Church-Nigeria! After our initial trip two years ago, this is certain to be an incredible celebration of God’s goodness and providence in blessing our partnership with visionary pastor and leader, Aniefiok Udo. What a privilege to be a part of what God is doing as God uses Aniefiok and the team he is assembling to build the church and pastor’s resource center to win Africa for Christ!

2007: Peru and beyond…

In March, 2007 we are planning to once again partner with Mario Perez and our sister church in Comas, Peru for a follow-up Worship and Arts Conference, building on what God started with our 2005 trip. One of the exciting aspects of this trip is the opportunity to lead worship for a gathering of 2,000 pastors from every corner of Peru as they attend a leadership conference in Lima.
The fuel of missions is worship - the rejoicing of all peoples in the greatness of the glory of the grace of God. And that is why the exalting of the greatness of God in His Son is of utmost importance. We must pursue the glory of God above all things - and this pursuit should fuel our passion for advancing the greatness of the glory of God to every tongue, tribe and nation. Piper says this at the end of chapter one:

God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tonge and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts, and join His global purpose.

Tonight I led a “Film and Theology” discussion on the film Hotel Rwanda as part of our Equipping Center at Fellowship. I was asked a couple months ago if I’d like to take one of these evenings (Monday nights in June), and I was able to choose whatever film about which I wanted to have a theological discussion. I considered a number of films, but because Africa got my heart a couple years ago on my trip to Nigeria, this was a pretty easy decision. I’m leading a team to Kenya and Nigeria in October, partnering with Celestin Musekura and ALARM - African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries - to facilitate a worship conference in Nairobi. Celestin is an amazing man who was born and raised in Rwanda, and had many family and friends killed during this genocide in 1994 when over a million people were killed in a 3 month period.

I met Celestin about five years ago and it was during that first meeting that we began talking about ways to partner together in ministry - in one of the nine African nations where ALARM works. After leading teams to Nigeria in 2004 (different African ministry) and Peru in 2005, Celestin and I finally put a plan together for this upcoming trip, and my desire to discuss Hotel Rwanda stems from this partnership. God has a heart for Africa, and my desire is for more people to be aware of what is a reality in Africa even now. I studied on a number of theological concepts that can be drawn from this film, but ultimately, my prayer and goal was to let this film evoke an emotional response from those who watch it and get people fired up for God’s work in Africa.

If you haven’t watched this film, I would encourage you to do so. It is not for the faint of heart as it depicts a civil war that saw humanitarian atrocities the likes of which we will never see in America. But it is not a gratuitous film. It does a very good job of appropriately depicting grotesque killings without being grotesque. More is implied than shown, but the heart-wrenching emotions of families being torn apart is certainly felt. The hope comes from one man, Paul Rusesabagina, and his heroic efforts as the manager of a four-star hotel in saving over 1,200 people’s lives.

The primary theological concept to be taken from this film is the problem of evil. The question might be asked: How could a good God allow this kind of evil tragedy to happen? So, I did some study and research to be as prepared as possible for this as well as a number of other theological issues in this film.

What I didn’t realize during my preparation, was what God was up to and what HIS goal for the evening was.

As I pulled up to “The Barn” this evening, Bible, papers and DVD in hand… I was met by William Mwizerwa whom I’d met a couple years ago when we had the “Lost Boys of Sudan” sing at Fellowship. William had seen on our website that we were showing and discussing Hotel Rwanda this evening, and he showed up at church at the appointed time. I think he was surprised that I remembered his name as we met, but I was even more surprised at his answer to my question: “Do you have a connection with this film in any way?”

His answer: “Yes. I was in Rwanda during the genocide. I survived.”

I knew at that moment that God had His own plan for our discussion tonight and that we might not go down the theological paths for which I’d prepared. I was right.

Following this gut-wrenching and emotionally provacative film (understatement), I asked people how they were feeling. I knew that starting with a theological question was the wrong move. I was right.

People shared: Sick… Shame…Hard to swallow…Remorse…

And then William spoke. I had a wireless mic handy for just this moment and invited him to come to the front to share with everyone some of his story. He sat on a stool next to me and except for the occasional clarifying question, I just listened. He told about how he survived the killing sprees because his Hutu neighbors took he and his Tutsi family in and sheltered them. He told about how his wife’s entire family was killed. He told about the need for the Gospel of Love to be spread throughout Rwanda and all of Africa so something like this never happens again. He told of the one thing that he held onto for hope during this tragedy: his assurance that no matter what he lost in this life, he has an eternal life to come with Jesus. And though he had become a successful businessman, he left Rwanda with just a shirt, one pair of pants and a pair of shoes… and yet, clung to his faith that assured him this world is not his home and Rwanda was just a stop on his way to heaven.

I never did bring up the problem of evil. I guess I need to blog about it so I can at least use my research for something… But God intended for us to hear from a hero tonight, and we needed to hear his message. And we are accountable for what we saw in this film… And we all need to do something about it.

ALARM is doing something about it, and we can help by giving to their work. Here is Celestin’s description of the work they are doing to help Rwanda:

“There is hope in Rwanda and ALARM has been part of creating this hope through training new pastors to take over those who were massacred, through our reconciliation ministries that is bringing Hutus and Tutsis together through the biblical message of forgiveness and reconciliation. We are also bringing hope through our Women Economic Empowerment Program. Through our micro-finance and small business programs, we are helping widows to start their own small business.

ALARM is also distributing pigs and goats to Christian widows and orphans who are farmers who cannot do business. These are providing source of income and hope. We have two vocational training programs for Youth. Through our Youth Advocacy Program, we are educating youth on HIV/AIDS while training them in life skills such as carpentry, welding for boys, and tailoring for girls. Those who graduate after nine months we buy they tools and basic equipment to start their own business.
There are other Christian organizations and agencies that are helping to bring hope to Rwanda. The government of Rwanda has been working hard to restore peace and security in the country and our President is doing a tremendous work. However, much is still needed and I would challenge your discussion group to consider what they can do now.”

For more information on African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries, Inc., go to www.alarm-inc.org or call 972-671-8522. Donations can be sent to ALARM, Inc. P.O. Box 710397, Dallas, TX, 75371.

There is much to do and many opportunities to give. At the very least, please join me in prayer for Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and the entire continent of Africa.

I am EXTREMELY passionate about world missions and am busy putting together the details for my fifth missions trip, October 19-November 2 to Kenya and Nigeria… We have a stellar team of 11 people going from Fellowship to facilitate a Worship Leadership and Marriage Conference, partnering with Celestin Musekura and ALARM (African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries).

So, I was interested to read Mark Driscoll’s post on “A Pastor’s role in world missions” on his Resurgence blog. I resonated with every word… And then… found out it was a message by John Piper from 1984! No wonder I was compelled by the message. I listen to Piper’s podcast on my iPod every morning when I run. Here is an excerpt:

The way a pastor sees his role in relation to world missions will depend on his vision of God and his view of man. And these in turn depend primarily upon his grasp of Scripture and secondarily upon his awareness of our contemporary global situation.

So what I would like to try to do this morning is present the vision of God and the view of man that the Scriptures have thrust upon me, and then spell out some of the implications for world missions and the pastor’s role in it.

Read the whole post here. It’s not just for pastors. And…It is VERY good.

I just spent the last night and into the afternoon on a short planning and vision-casting retreat with some key church leaders, meeting with Mario Perez and his wife Rosa from Comas, Peru. Mario is the senior pastor at Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera de Comas, Peru - a district of Peru’s capital city Lima. I had the privilege of leading a team of 16 to Comas in October, 2005 as we facilitated a Worship and Arts Conference at Mario’s church which drew leaders from many area churches. Over 300 people attended the conference as we taught various seminars and workshops equipping people in the areas of instrumental music, voice, drama, theology, leadership, etc. We also performed a number of concerts that week, the highlight being a Friday night concert on a festival stage in the heart of the “discotech district” with between 3,000-4,000 in estimated attendance. Over 900 people raised their hands to receive more information about a relationship with Christ that night. We will never know the fruit God will bear through what we experienced that week. It was a life-changing trip for everyone who went. We were all blown away by the Peruvians’ hospitality and graciousness as our hosts, and their vision for what could happen on that trip.

Today, we spent a number of hours listening to Mario’s heart as he cast the vision that the Lord has given him for the church in Comas planting 20 churches by the year 2020 as well building schools and sending missionaries all over the world. This is a very poor district of Lima in a third-world country, and they have already sent out missionaries to both remote areas in Peru as well as India. Over the next two years, they are preparing one of their current pastors, Edgar, to do mission work in Spain, and another, Ronald, who has a passion for ministering to Muslims. This is a church that is multiplying ministry!

Mario and I talked about a follow-up trip to continue building momentum in the areas of Worship and the Arts and are planning a trip in mid-March, 2007 to coincide with a national conference of church leaders in Lima, where they are expecting between 2,000-3,000 pastors and leaders from all over Peru. We will plan our conference week in Comas to conclude in Lima with a Worship Concert with these leaders. One of the most exciting things about this vision is that it is sure to open up ministry opportunities beyond Comas and Lima into the rest of the country!

Mario Perez is a man of prayer, a man of faith, a man of vision. He is also a very humble man. He was brought to this CMA church in Comas in 2002 to help rebuild the foundation after a major crisis involving the church’s previous leadership. He has patiently waited on the Lord,relationally and pastorally builing into leaders during this time and has seen attendance skyrocket to the point that, though they recently went from 3 services to 4 on a Sunday morning (I preached the Sunday they went to 4 services in November!), they now need to add an additional 5th service. Skyrocketing church attendance isn’t the focus, of course, but every person represents a changed life in a very needy, desperate and poverty-stricken part of the world. I am honored and humbled to be able to lock arms in ministry with a man like Mario. He has vision coming out of every pore of his being. Reminds me of the apostle Paul.