This afternoon I had the privelege of eating one of the best burgers of my life. Adam and I were in Hollywood beach after a meeting ad got to feast on one of these 13 ounce burgers at Le Tub. It came with a view of this. It was one of those I’m not in Illinois anymore moments.
I don’t think I could have gone through a more abrupt climate change during my move to Fort Lauderdale. While packing my car, there was a fourth of an inch of ice on the roads. My mom called to tell me that there was a yard sale of about 30 cars in the ditch on I-74, all within a half mile of each other. To leave praying that I wouldn’t end up in a ditch, and to arrive at the Georgia / Florida boarder wishing that my air conditioning worked was quite a shock. I still can’t believe that it’s February 3rd and it’s 70 degrees outside.
Shortly after my arrival, the work began. Monday to Wednesday, we hosted an XEE launch at Coral Ridge. What a privilege it was to serve churches from Canada, Virginia, Minnesota, Florida and Washington D.C. Several of our launch participants were former missionaries, one couple to Canada and another just home from Chad. Their ease of understanding and their fresh insights of different people groups were refreshing and challenging.
The day after the launch, Adam and I started setting up my office. It was a great test of our teamwork as we had to move, and play hide and go seek with the 6, 400 pound filing cabinets that were in my office. We’ve been getting questions about where they’ve gone, or how one of them ‘magically’ appeared in the break room. We just shrug our shoulders and inform them “it was Brian’s idea.” Childish I know, but it seems to work.
One of the highlights of the week was visiting Rio Vista Community Church on Sunday. If you recall, Rio was the team we took to Kuala Lumpur / Singapore. On Sunday we unveiled the location of this summer’s trip. The first week of August we are going to Berlin, Germany. As of right now, there is now no formal way of training German churches on how to share the gospel. From what our contact in Germany has informed us, after the wall came down, it was a free for all with the gospel. As a result, Germans were turned off from “organized religion” and Christianity. Our goal over the next several months is to create a culturally relevant version of XEE specific to the Berlin culture.
Would you join me in praying as I’m still in the process of finding a permanent place to live, a church to call home and a new (to me) car. With each day, I’m getting more and more settled, but my guess is that until these big three are settled it won’t feel like home. Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement!
This photo might be the best representation of the average age of Fort Lauderdale.
It seems that the simplest of questions tend to be the hardest to answer. My roommate invited me to guest blog about what Christmas means to me, and over the last several weeks I’ve been stewing over how to respond. I’ve started answering this question 20 different ways in my head, but my answer always ends the same.
Initially, all my family traditions come to mind; decorating the family Christmas tree with homemade ornaments from years past, anxiously waiting at the top of the stairs for my brothers to wake up so I can fly down the stair steps to open my presents and my mother making eggs and blueberry muffins for breakfast. Then piling into the car and driving for three and one-half hours to spend the rest of the day with my extended family. However, these family traditions are not the reason I celebrate Christmas.
Although I’m not sure where this got lost on me, but this year I recently came to understand what the term advent means. Advent simply means “coming” or “arrival.” Much like my anxious anticipation of Christmas morning, advent is the season to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament serves as a series of unmistakable signposts pointing towards Christ’s arrival on earth. Abraham, the father of Israel, is promised that all nations on earth will be blessed through him. He was only able to see and welcome this promise from a distance, as he knew it wouldn’t come true in his lifetime (Hebrews 11:13).
Isaiah 53 foretells the life that Christ will live; painting a picture of the man we were all waiting for. Israel was a nation in waiting. Advent is a season of celebrating the thing we’ve most looked forward to…the coming of God in flesh (John 1:1) to redeem us from our slavery to sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to bless all nations through him.
Another great way to view this is as explained by a great friend of mine:
“The Old Testament is like a deep breath, slowly drawn in from Abraham through the Prophets, held for four hundred years of silence, and then bursting forth in angelic song (“We bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all the peoples!”) and a voice in the wilderness (“The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”). We celebrate because we waited once and God answered with his Son. Now we’re waiting for that Son again.”
So, people who lived a long time ago anxiously waited for this baby to arrive. What difference does that make to me? Galatians 4:4-5 explains that: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” God sent his one and only Son to live a perfect life, die on the cross to absolve us from our sins, and purchase a place for us in heaven. Christ died on the cross in order to bring us back into relationship with the God of the Bible. All we have to do is accept this gift by faith; trusting wholeheartedly in what Christ did on the cross, repenting (make a 180 degree turn) of our trespasses against him, and committing ourselves to following him.
If I were to summarize what Christmas means to me, it would be about the awaited arrival, and celebration of the Savior of the world. God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, reconciling us back into a right relationship with himself. It also now serves as a reminder that His children are also a nation in waiting.
Over the last several weeks I’ve been exploring the idea of what Christmas means to me. I’ve even written a guest blog for my roommate on this topic; soon enough I’ll post it on here as well. To whet your appetite, I’ll leave you with this great reminder from Charlie Brown Christmas.
Have you ever tried explaining what you do to somebody and it turns from what should be a one sentence descriptor to a briefing of your job description? Yesterday while on the phone with Adam, we finally figured out the best way to describe what XEE is and does. We actually stopped the conversation and had a mini-celebration as a result.
So without further ado: “XEE teaches Jesus followers how to tell the story of the gospel within the context of relationship.”
A friend had this quote posted on his facebook page this morning. Very thought provoking. Enjoy!
from JD Greear’s blog today:
“I can’t help but feel that lurking beneath the surface in much of the current disillusionment with the church is a dis-ease with the traditional message of salvation. People are passionate about the poor, the environment, and third-world debt. But they seem embarrassed by a violent, bloody atonement for sin, let alone any mention of the afterlife that hangs in the balance.
My observation is that as people grow tired of hearing about the atonement, salvation, the cross, and the afterlife, they grow tired of church. Because the more that sin and redemption and heaven and hell recede into the background, the more the church becomes just one among several options for making a difference in the world.
So as much as the church has been nothing but a holy huddle at times and as much as I admire zeal for good works, there is a danger in much of the missional literature that the gospel of God’s grace toward sinners gets swallowed up in urgent calls for world redemption and cultural transformation. There is a danger of centering our churches on adopting schools and offering parenting classes instead of being centered on the message of a heavenly Father who adopts unworthy children of wrath through the work of His Son on the cross. There is a danger that we find our unity in doing good missional deeds for our community and not in the good news of the gospel. There’s a danger our Christianity becomes all imperative and no indicative, all about what we need to do with God and little about what God’s done for us. There’s a danger that when people get disinterested in the gospel, they get disinterested in the church. And once they leave the church, they’ve left the only institution whose mission aims for eternity and whose gospel is truly good news.”
- Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, Why We Love the Church, pp. 50-51
Today I write from the nations capitol of Washington D.C. George Roller, a co-laborer in Christ and good friend is the Executive Director of the Center For Christian Statesmanship. For two years we’ve talked about putting a trip together and having me come out. What a treat it’s been to experience Capitol Hill with him!
So far, I’ve walked through the Senate buildings helping deliver flyers to all 100 US Senators for our Politics and Principles luncheon tomorrow, joined in and met Senate Chaplain Black during his Friday Bible study (only in America can the gospel be preached from inside the Senate Building, conquered old Rag Mountain in Virginia, visited Great Falls (saw some incredible kayakers surfing the rapids…check out the video,) and today wandered the hallowed halls of Capital Building, Supreme Court and Library of Congress.
It may sound like a lot of fun, and don’t be misled…it is, we are using this time to plan our Mission To Congress this coming summer. I’ve been blown away to think that so much of the world has been influenced from this one location. To walk where histories heroes such as Lincoln, Adams, Washington and Jefferson walked and set direction for a united nation. It’s been exciting to see and experience. I’ll write more when I’m not exhausted and can share about our Politics and Principles luncheon.
While presenting XEE at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, Chuck Swindoll shared 10 ministry lessons from his 50 years of experience. He opened with this unshakable quote: “when God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible person and crushes him.” Even as I write this, I’m not sure what to think. If this quote is right, coupled with his 10 lessons from ministry, then these serve as finger posts along the journey pointing us in the right direction. (check out the link on scottcarson.org to see all 10 lessons)
Looking back, I’d say the crushing started immediately and occurred often. When we first embarked on this adventure together, I thought that in six months I’d have all the support secured and shortly after be working out of the office in sunny Fort Lauderdale, FL. Like lesson 9 states: “God’s way is better than my way. God is going to have His way.”
Moving home after college was a humbling experience. To me, moving home after college meant failure. To add to that, I had no real desire to ever step foot back into the high school I graduated from. Needless to say, the two years I spent substitute teaching at that exact high school only added to the feelings of failure and brokenness. All part of Swindoll’s sixth lesson he shared with us.
After two years and what looked like more at home, I was invited to move up to the Chicago-land area to be discipled by Darrell Farney. The learning curve did not get any less steep, as I lived and worked out of a basement that was graciously loaned to me. It’s been an unregrettable season of learning from a man who’s devoted his life to pursuing God’s call.
My season in the Chicago-land area is coming to a close as I prepare to move to Fort Lauderdale, FL shortly after Christmas. In the midst of still living here, the truth of Acts 17:24-28 continues to ring true. Just in getting involved with The Edge (youth group) we’ve seen four students come to Christ, one of which I’m discipling as he pursues missions.
Disillusionment, frustration, patience, perseverance, crushing, submission and joy all accurately describe my experience with my job so far. As hard as the time at home was personally, God gave me a gift in disguise. I had an extra two years to spend with family and close friends before we all dispersed.
When you boil it down, each day we take part in seeing lives transformed and it’s worth it. God has allowed us to walk people over the threshold of faith and meet some of the most incredible people in the world, you! Some days it’s tempting to believe that we haven’t made any progress over the last 4 years. Then I catch glimpses of how God has been transforming lives through our ministry and sit in awe of what God is allowing us to be a part of. Simply looking at our Fiji internship, there are three people overseas sharing the gospel as a result. One is working with Youth With a Mission and reaching Muslims, another is in Fiji training youth to share the gospel, and the third is an advanced placement art teacher in the Middle East.
Please continue to join me in praying for wisdom as we start a new season in our ministry in Fort Lauderdale, and pray that our ministry would continue to bear fruit that remains.
Grateful for your prayers, encouragement and support
Last week I had the privilege of participating in the Catalyst 09 conference. Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Louie Giglio and worship leader Steve Fee were in demand as they headlined the conference. However those weren’t the expected highlights for me.
I would have never guessed that Chuck Swindoll would be my highlight. I was pleasantly surprised. After receiving the lifetime achievement award for 50 plus faithful years of ministry, he continued to share with us 10 ministry lessons gleaned from his experience. There is no need to type them out here as you can click this link and be redirected to a summary of his talk. Maybe it’s where I’m at in life, but I can see this sermon being one I return to time and time again for it’s ageless wisdom.