Posts tagged as:

missions

Compassion

by Jessica on September 13, 2010

There was so much goodness coming out of Guatemala this last week…it was crazy! God is definitely moving in big ways through the ministry Compassion does.

Just in case you don’t know,

Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.

Founded by the Rev. Everett Swanson in 1952, Compassion began providing Korean War orphans with food, shelter, education and health care, as well as Christian training.

Today, Compassion helps more than 1 million children in 26 countries. (from their About page)

Compassion took a group of bloggers to Guatemala to “experience the ministry of Compassion International among the poor of Guatemala” and brought us along for the ride through the posts, tweets, and pictures. It was humbling and amazing.

Let me back up a second…the main way Compassion’s ministry works is through pairing up sponsors (like me or these bloggers and many more) with children who live in desperate poverty in 26 different countries. A sponsor pledges $38 a month, which

connects your child with a loving, church-based child sponsorship program that provides:

Food and clean water

Medical care

Educational opportunities

Important life-skills training

Most important of all, your sponsored child will hear about Jesus Christ and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God. (Read more)

But the great part is that you don’t only get to support a child with your money, but with your time, energy, and love through letters. And as I learned this week…a sponsors letters to a child mean more than we can ever know.

I wanted to share with you some of the posts from the Guatemala Compassion bloggers that moved, inspired, and set a fire under me. Honestly, they’re all worth checking out.

Lame Sponsors of the World Unite! (by Lisa-Jo of The Gypsy Mama) If you’ve been a sponsor for any length of time or struggle with connecting to your child through letter writing, then this post is for you! Definitely take the time to read why these letters mean so much!

The One Question You’ve Got to Look in the Mirror & Really Ask (by Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience) Ann is one of those writers that reaches in and pulls your insides out in the gentlest of ways. Read it. Weep. Go do something.

“How does my faith in a land of iphones and ipods and ipads respond to a whole city of people in ramshackled tin and relentless rain washing them away?

Because whether consciously or not, intentionally or not — faith is always responding. Either with indifference or with intercession, either with apathy or aid.

Faith cannot have a non-response.”

Pastor Manuel’s 3 Point Sermon to American Pastors (by Shaun Groves) It’s simple…really simple. But do we do it?

If You Like Your Dreams & Miracles Explained (another by the lovely Ann) This is really why being an active and involved sponsor is so important. {my eyes are being opened}

Joy (by Amanda of Baby Bangs) This one had me crying and hoping for a day I can meet Pamela. Just look at the beauty and hope in these faces.

Would you consider sponsoring a child? Being a part of their dream? Helping to give them a hope, a future, and a picture of a very real and redeeming God?

Help a Child

Tagged as: children, Compassion, missions, Purposeful Living

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The Motivation for Evangelism

by Jessica on August 24, 2010

in Living Intentionally

“A student asked Pastor Adrian Rogers for advice on how to lead a church in evangelism. Rogers said,

Your zeal is never any greater than your conviction. You can cheer others with your enthusiasm or their loyalty to the church or put them on a guilt trip for a while, but the only thing that will have a lasting effect is their love in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not even a love for souls that sends people out; it’s the love of Jesus that sends people out.

The highest level of motivation for sharing our faith is love.

We need not be “guilted” into sharing our faith. We need not be tricked or forced into telling others of Christ. We need a heart transplant. We need to develop a deeper love for God first and then choose to love people, even the unlovely, because Christ first loved us.”

- William McRaney Jr., The Art of Personal Evangelism (200-201)

Evangelism is something I struggle with. It’s not my strong point and usually my attempts leave me feeling like an evangelistic failure.

The other week I was remembering a missions trip I took to Ethiopia in 2007. It was the last day in our first village, a huge crowd gathered as we were beginning to leave. It came to the point that some of our translators and disciplermakers were beginning to fear for our safety urging us to quickly load in the vans and leave.

As we got in the vans were surrounded by people and, to be honest, I was nervous as our drivers were making their way through the crowd to the little dirt road. These weren’t the most sturdy vehicles and people weren’t exactly clearly the way.

Thankfully, we made it out safely.

As we made our way down the dusty road in the middle of a desert in Oromia people began running alongside of the van begging to be let in. Why? They wanted to hear about Jesus. It was almost comical in a way…one would jump in, profess faith, be prayed for then jump out and as they jumped out {of a moving vehicle} another would jump in. We started calling it drive-by salvation. It happened three times that day.

These people were chasing after a moving vehicle and jumping inside. We had a story to tell…one of hope and they were desperate to hear it.

People are dying all over the world and yet we wait–I wait–to tell them, to bring them hope. We craft sermons and programs and prepare our testimony and wait…and they’re just desperate for a little hope, a little light.

I wonder what is it that keeps us waiting? The perfect circumstances? A mission trip? When we know all the right answers? When we *finally* have our act together?

Or is it that our love for God is smaller than we’d like to admit? Are we motivated more by guilt and obligation than love?

Have I ever been so desperate for the Living Hope that is Jesus that I’d run alongside a moving car until they let me in? I don’t know. I think more often than naught my faith is comfortable and complacent. What about you?

What motivates you to share the Gospel?

Tagged as: evangelism, gospel, Living Intentionally, missions

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“Even to the ends of the earth”

by Jessica on February 11, 2010

in Be an ambassador

Last night there was a mini debate in our community group on whether or not the great commission was for everyone (and by everyone I mean all believers). Here’s what Jesus said,

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

So…is it for everyone? My short answer: yes.

Just for clarity’s sake there was some confusion between the debating parties. The difference of terms and phrases coupled with meaning can add a bit of fire to any discussion. But there was one who said the great commission isn’t for everyone and the other said it is. Just to be clear I agree with the latter.

There were two arguments against the great commission being for all believers:

The commission was only given to the disciples.
Not everyone is called to go out to the nations.

To the first argument:

If the great commission was only given to the eleven disciples, what would happen after they died? If no one continued to carry the message of the Gospel then we wouldn’t be here now. To say that this command was only for the eleven there is a bit ridiculous and I doubt that’s what the person truly meant.

If you look at the great commission after Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” he finishes with “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” Didn’t Jesus just command them to go and make disciples of all nations? So one of the things the disciples would have taught their disciples would be to go and make disciples of all nations.

To the second argument:

Everyone is called to go out to the nations. End of story. However, what that looks like will be different for everyone. I think one of the issues in the debate was the definition of nations. The party against* the great commission for all, it seemed, defined nations as countries other than your own. The other party defined nations as all nations, including the one you occupy.

The one against argued that not everyone can literally go depending on age, season of life (ie, mother with young children). True.

But everyone is called to spread the gospel wherever God has them. At home, in prayer, giving to send others out, local ministry. If we’re moms with young children then they are our primary mission field. If we’re a wife to an unbelieving husband, then he is our “nation.” If we have unbelieving friends, family, neighbors, co-workers then they’re our “ends of the earth.” When we see the hopeless, helpless, needy they are our nation.

If you’re a disciple of Jesus, then you’re commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Don’t wait. Everyone has a nation.