I’m at CIU in South Carolina again. This time I’m taking a class called “Major Issues in 21st Century Missions.” It is a class that revolves around the Lausanne conference in Capetown, South Africa.
The pre-course reading for this class was the best I have ever had to do. It was tough (900 pages), but the issues and conversations that result from reading the various papers that speak to different issues have helped me think through some things in missiology.
We have been watching videos of the conference in South Africa and have had the chance to speak with some of the representatives from CIU who are attending the conference.
Here are the links to some of the videos we watched today:
Lausanne is probably the largest gathering of Christian evangelical leaders in the history of the world, bringing together 4,000 leaders from more than 200 countries to confront the critical issues of our time as they relate to the future of the Church and world evangelization. It’s fun to be a part of it.
Furlough, or “home assignment” is a time for a missionary family to get to do some things that they don’t necessarily get to do while on the mission field. Yesterday was one of those days.
We’ve been Tampa Bay Rays fans since they came into the Major Leagues, and this year, they are playing really well. So I decided to take Nathan to his first baseball game yesterday. We got some cheap tickets on StubHub and took off for the day.
Our tickets were 2 rows behind the wall in left-center field, and every Sunday at Tropicana Field, they have Family Fun Days, with all sorts of fun things for families with kids to do. They also happened to be giving out Super Hero Capes (which is why Nathan wanted to go, I think).
So, we ate peanuts, got a foot long hot dog, ate some Carvel ice cream, and watched baseball. It was fun to hang out with my big guy all day.
Check out all of our pictures on Flickr.
One of the major milestones for our family this year is Nathan going off to Kindergarten. When we first started thinking about coming to the United States for Home Assignment, we thought it would be great for him to be able to go to Kindergarten in Florida.
We were blessed by Grace Christian School to be given a full scholarship for Nathan to attend there this year. Grace Bible Church means a lot to us. It is where we got married. It is where I (Dennis) attended school from 2nd-12th grade. We have lots of friends there and many great memories.
So today we took Nathan to his first day of Kindergarten at Grace. I pray that he will have fond memories of this school, too, and it will be a place where he can come to learn many great things. One of the things I am most thankful for about having a Christian School education is knowing many things about the Bible that I wouldn’t have known without attending Grace.
One of my life goals is to disciple my kids. If you read the Bible, you’ll understand that it is the responsibility of the parents to share God’s message with their children.
Since Nathan is going to a Christian school for Kindergarten, we bought him a new Bible for class. Today I found him reading it in the chair where I read mine. One of my greatest desires is that he will get into a habit of reading his Bible and know the Author of the book in a personal way.
(Here’s the picture on flickr)
From July 23 to 31, Dennis will be traveling to the Youth Ministry International Summit in France. The YMI Summit takes place every other year in a different region of the world where YMI has a ministry. Our entire worldwide team meets to report on what God is doing in each region as well as talk about strategy for effective ministry.
We’d like to ask you to pray specifically for this trip. Pray that all of us involved with Youth Ministry International’s work of training youth workers across the world will be encouraged, and that we will have a good planning and strategizing time while together. Pray that the ministry will be more fruitful in the future because we have come together as a team to pray and share with each other.
(Image by: Ainet on flickr)
Here’s a little parable we looked at in class last week. I really liked it. So, what do you make of it? How does it speak to you and your situation?
“Parable of the Fishless Fishermen”
There was a group called The Fisherman’s Fellowship. They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, the abundance of fish, and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing!
Someone suggested that they needed a philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they realized that they had been going at it backwards. They had approached fishing from the point of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat, and when? These are all good things to know. So they began research studies, and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled to far away places to study different kinds of fish, with different habits. Some got PhD’s in fishology. But no one had yet gone fishing.
So a committee was formed to send out fisherman. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fisherman, the committee needed to determine priorities. A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was fishing. Asurvey was launched, to find out why. Most did not answer the survey, but from those that did, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few, to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around encouraging the fishermen. What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, they just simply didn’t have time to fish.
Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman’s Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, he went fishing and caught a large fish. At the next meeting, he told his story, and he was honored for his catch. He was told that he had a special “gift of fishing.” He was then scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it.
With all the speaking invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman’s Fellowship, Jake no longer has time to go fishing. But soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.” They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish. The members of the Fisherman’s Fellowship were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few!
(Photo by: Lucas Jans on flickr)
