Yesterday, it was Easter. On my way to worship I saw a man digging cans out of the ditches.
Maybe, very possibly, more than the thousands of well designed services held yesterday, this gentleman, in his simple work, exemplified the missional life.
     It seems very likely that the analogy of searching life’s ditches for hidden value is the model of missions most needed. The Lord told of a man found in a ditch. He was hurting and in need. An honorable man found him and aided his recovery. That, I propose, is the model for us.
     Go looking in the ditches of life for the people who hurt. And where are these ditches? They’re on your way. Not in India, or Africa, or even the inner city, but on your way to the lunch table, on your way to work, or on your way to….church. Notice hurting people. Stop. Help them. It will change the world. It is where we start missions. It is the purpose of the resurrection.

Tags: Easter, hurting, Missional Living, missions
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Missional living is not age sensitive. It is a way of thinking and believing. At GoodSoil Ministries’ Missions Camps even teens are given the insights and tools needed to be missional people.
If you, or a teen you know, is interested in becoming missionally equipped this summer, get more information at www.goodsoilministries.org.
Or email us at goodsoilmin@gmail.com

Practical Missions Training for Mature Teens

Tags: missional living; teens; missions; mission camp; africa; media
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A Series in Reality Missions: TJ the Public School Employee.

(We wrote a few weeks ago about T.J. the Public School employee who decided to do more than learn about missions. She took it to work with her by asking a few co-workers to join her 1 morning a week for prayer for their school. This is the most recent update.)

God is good!  I asked a couple of women that  I work with if I could pray with them for the school we work in.  And God is using that time.  The second week that we met to pray, God used a verse from James to call me to confess to the women I was praying with.  And I am so thankful to have a community of trust at my workplace where I can confess and my sisters in Christ can pray for me.  The whole process was such an experience of God’s love for me. He loves me enough to show me the weight of my sin, to remind me to confess at the best time, to give me a new family who loves me (whether I’m “good’ or messed up).  The rest of that day, all I could do was thank God and tell people about the reason I had in my life to give him praise.

And speaking of messing up, last week I forgot to come into work early to pray with them.  I overslept and missed it.  But I’m glad that those times of prayer are about God, not about me.  Those 5 women met together anyway and prayed.  And I’m glad it’s about God, because He’ll do more through that time than anything I could do.

And it’s even having an effect in my home.  I’m living with my parents, who are members of the church and believe that Jesus is God’s son.  But they aren’t living 100% for God.  They don’t have missional mindsets.  But my mom knows that I’ve been coming in early to pray with some of my coworkers.  And she’s going to come in early with me tomorrow for breakfast with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club.  I’m excited for both of us to meet some of the students here who claim Jesus.  I hope that as we take time in the morning to remember Jesus’ birth, we can all be more encouraging to each other.  And I hope that my mom can step into a missional lifestyle and be defined as a Christian at work, not just on Sundays.

Note: God doesn’t use perfect people, but willing ones…which should encourage us all. –Keep it up T.J.!   –Stephen

Tags: Christianity, Missional Living, missions, School, women, work place
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by Nancy Robb

 There are hundreds of single women who love God more than their own life, believe in Jesus Christ as the only salvation for humanity and believe they are called to clarify this God and Savior to cultures other than their own. The single female missionary. It sounds simple, but there seem to be so many obstacles.

 

Often, financial obstacles seem insurmountable. Can a single woman really be worth the expenditure? Self-doubt can erode the certainty of the call. Can I do what needs to be done alone? Hidden desires can gnaw at the heart. Can I ever find a lifetime mate so far from home? This single woman who longs to serve as a missionary must look beyond the obstacles and remember what really matters.

 

What all of us, single female or not, must remember is that God is sovereign. God is faithful. God is missional. The sovereign, faithful, missional God. Look at what that has to do with the single female with a heart like God’s.

 

Sovereign. God’s sovereignty may be more easily seen in the Old Testament, although it obviously was a big deal to Jesus. How do you anchor your life on this? Do word studies in different versions of the Bible. Listen to people’s stories of what happened when they recognized God’s sovereignty and when they didn’t. Do character studies of biblical characters. Constantly seeking God will lead to an increasing understanding of what it means for God to be God and you to belong to him.

 

Faithful. The Bible is better than the best romance novel. The woman lonely and in need; the hero who finds and fights for her and who ultimately gives her more than she ever dreamed possible; the happy-ever-after culmination. What book of the Bible doesn’t in some way speak of this? What character doesn’t demonstrate it? But how to trust in his unfailing faithfulness? Reading the Word with an open heart, journaling the outcomes of your own journeys into trusting him, living in gratitude, practicing letting go…all these things will wear away any barrier to total trust in him.

 

Missional. God longs for an intimate relationship with the humans he created. That is The Point from Genesis through Revelation. God created us. He loves us. He continually seeks to restore us to full relationship with himself. Perhaps the root of the longing to help people see that the God of all creation longs for a relationship with them is the fact that we “participate in the very nature of God”. Is there anything more amazing? Your longing to be a missionary comes because you are like God.

 

So what conclusions can a single female who wants to be a missionary come to?

·        You have to do what you have to do.

·        You have to do with what you have.

·        You have to be at peace with why you are doing it.

 

Be submissive to God’s sovereignty, trust in God’s faithfulness, recognize who you really are and eventually you will see your next step.

 

———–NOTE———-

Nancy has done us a favor here by giving us wise counsel while avoiding both pithy answers or mere personal suggestion. If you want to more from Nancy on this subject, voice your thoughts in the ‘comments’ below. We’ll have her address it for you.   –Stephen

Tags: missional life, Missional Living, missionary, missions, women
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Eaves dropping on my daughter and a friend, I noticed they used the word “like” a minimum of three times in EVERY sentence. I explained to the girls that to my generation their language seemed a sign of unintelligence —like  a “duh.”  We decided there are 3 reasons  teens like to use “like”:

1.        It is comfortable language. It is just the way teens (and many in their 20s) talk, and they sometimes don’t know how to communicate without it.                                                   

2.      They don’t want to offend someone else. “I mean, like, someone else may not agree, like with what you think, and being, like so strong on something might, like, you know, be like offensive…or something.” They said. “ Exactly,” I thought.

3.       They lack certainty on many life subjects.

The culture hound in me saw to the root almost instantly. My generation made straightforward statements, because my generation lived in a world of science and facts. Our language reflected our convictions, because we had solid evidence behind us. Today’s language is tenuous, because the current worldview believes life is in flux–it holds no absolutes.

Unfortunately, this has significance. It means this generation is not likely to remain comfortable when life becomes unlikable. It means life will offended them with its realities of disease, failure, loss, death, and the like. And like it or not, they will eventually despair without absolutes. 

Let us be there to illustrate to them these absolutes and what living them out might look….like.

Tags: Absolutes, Christianity, language, missions, Worldview
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