Above Pic: Afework with our new brother in Christ!

This morning awoke to some more good ole’ Ethiopian scrambled eggs and macchiato’s. I have gotten into an eating pattern here at the little restaraunt in the little hotel we are in. Eggs in the morning and spaghetti with meat sauce at night. When you are in a thirld world country and you find something that works and you don’t explore. Ok so today was off the charts amazing….

We went to one of 23 house churches that Afework( pastor and Innovative Contact) has planted. Did I mention it is in a strong muslim community. Afework told me that the church leaders had told them about a particular man that was at church this morning. He was a muslim and leader in the community. He told the community that he had a dream a few months ago that white men would come and tell him more about the God. You see last summer an Innovative team gave this village something called a “proclaimer” it is a little self powered radio that plays the gospel in the Amehaurek language. Most of the people here are uneducated and cannot read so this ministry started making these for different people groups. They gave one to Innovative for Ethiopia and the team brought it last summer. Somehow it ended up in this muslim man’s house and he has had it since last July, listening to it daily he said.

Today he was at church because he heard that the “white man” was coming. He told Afework that he thought this may be fullfillment of the dream he had. So today I preached on Romans 5:8 and being reconciled to God through Jesus. They had to translate it into 2 different dialects. So my 10 minute sermon became 30 minutes. After I was done preaching Afework gave an invitation, this man along with some others came and gave thier lives to Jesus. They just did not come forward and fill out a card though…they got on thier face in the dirt floor and cried out to God. It was amazing!!! Bush (www.stevenbush.org)  has pics of the whole deal. The cool thing is that this man is a repsected leader/elder in the community and will likely be able to lead many others to Jesus.

To learn more about the proclaimer visit: www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/proclaimer

Innovative would like to purchase more proclaimers for different people groups we do ministry for includinf Ethiopians who need to hear the gospel. If you would like to donate to Innovative for more proclaimers to be purchased in peoples native toungue go to www.imoi.org and click on the donate button and include the word “proclaimer” in the memo. A proclaimer with the New Testament is $100 and one with the entire bible is $159. These are tools that Innovative could put in the hands of house church pastors in the “10/40″ window that will assist them as they advance the movement of Jesus in un-reached regions.

We are here in Sheshememe and at this point I am very grateful for my fast internet back home. It seems like writing a few e-mails and ablog becomes an all day task. I remember though when this was at one time considered fast.

We awoke this morning to eat some scrambled eggs and drink Ethiopian Macchiatos. Starbucks would never survive over here because thier 20 cent coffee kicks major tail. Today we are heading to visit some house churches that we will work with in future IMO (www.imoi.org) trips to Ethiopia. My good Freind Bush is with us taking pics that we will be using for future promo. He is capturing some amazing stuff including what you see above you. We are in a land of poverty, disease, and brokeness…yet in the midst of all of this brokeness there is beauty as you can see. We have the same brokeness in America i believe. We just do a good job of covering it up with all of our stuff…I am grateful that God gave us a long drive through the counrty side of Ethiopia so that we could see his beauty and hope in the middle of brokeness, that is typically where you see it most!

For more amazing pics check out Bush’s blog:

www.Stevenbush.org

More to come….

Traveled from Addis to Sheshememe today in a 1980 4-runner. It was a long 7 hour trip due to the roads. We are here now and I believe I like the village more than the city. Tomorrow and wednesday we will visit a prominent house church here and I will be preaching/teaching there some.

 We spent yesterday with Afework who is our contact here and an amazing man of God. He has helped plant may churches in Ethiopia. I must go for now but hopefully more to come!

So it is Saturday and I have been traveling now for almost 2 days straight. We started at Bush Intercontinental on Friday at about 8:30 am it is now 7pm in Tel Aviv, Israel and I am sitting here in the airport on about hour 4 of a 9 hour layover. We were going to go into the city but it was to expensive to rent a car for just 6 hours. We will be back in Tel Aviv on the last leg of our vision trip so we decided to just hang at the airport and check our e-mails and blogs.

I am so blown away by the ability to skip across the globe in a matter of 24 hours. I know we all know we can do this but everytime I take a trip like this I believe that possibly now more than ever followers of the way have a responsibility to go across the ocean to touch the lives of others in desperate need of physical and spiritual healing. So far in the past two days I have been from Houston to Boston to Madrid to Tel Aviv. At midnight tonight (America time) we will land in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

On the plane I had the awesome opportunity to talk with Elana. She is a Jewish girl from New York that was going to Tel Aviv to visit her brother who now lives there. She asked me what I was doing and my response was “we are doing humanitarian work in Ethiopia”. She asked why and I told her because Jesus told us to. Of course then we got into a great conversation about the differences of Judaism and Christianity. I am so glad that 6 years ago I took a class on Judaism in college so I was able to speak on the topic and not be ignorant. She was a self-admitted wishy washy Jew, meaning she was only devout when she felt like it. She admitted that she had no clue why she kept all the rules she did, or attempted to eat kosher. It was intersting to me just how bound up in legalism she was and how hard it was for her to embrace the grace of Jesus. It was like Paul said, it seemed to be more of a stubling block than anything. We had a great conversation I listened as she shared, and she listened as I shared.

One thing that struck me was that many southern baptists I meet are just as legalistic as this girl. They would never admit it, but although we say salvation is by grace many have not really embraced that beyond simply giving it some sunday morning lip service. Many of us in the church are practicing legalists…

After my conversation with this nice girl I am so grateful for GRACE!

To Ethiopia and beyond!!!Innovative Mission OpportunitiesJanuary 11^th-24th 

Tomorrow morning I will be flying out with two others to go on a two week vision trip for Innovative Mission Opportunities. We will be visiting Ethiopia for about a week and then wrapping up our trip by going to Israel to investigate some possible ministry opportunities. 

In Ethiopia we will be looking into a school that Innovative is going to help begin that will provide an education with a biblical worldview to many. The prayer is that in the coming years this would shape a generation and influence Ethiopia with the Gospel. We will also spend some time encouraging some of the local house church pastors and exploring how future teams can be of most benefit to them. This year Innovative will be sending 5 short-term teams into different regions of Ethiopia. This will be one of the areas in the “10/40” window that I will be focused on mobilizing students to in the coming years! 

In Israel we will be looking into the opportunities that may be available to mobilize some college students to go and study abroad at Hebrew University. We will also have the opportunity to visit with some who are working in a Sudanese refugee camp. Steven Bush is the photographer that will be joining us in Ethiopia. He is an amazing photographer and friend.  We are praying that he will be able to capture the story of people living in so much need. They say a pic is worth a 1,000 words, so we hope to have a novel through Steven’s lens that will motivate others to go! 

Please pray for our small team: Matt Setliffe,Jerry Squyres,Steven Bush. Pray also for the following:       Safe Travel and Health,        Opportunities to share the story of Jesus with many who have not heard- ,       Vision in both Ethiopia and Israel for how we can meet needs through future teams.  Thanks for your prayers and support! I will try and update you if possible while on the trip! 

So today is Thanksgiving! A great day by my estimations, because our whole contry stops for a day and does nothing but eat, sit on the couch, watch football, eat some more, watch more football, sleep, wake up and then eat some more!!! Which this routine is not out of the norm for some in our country (Houston, my city, is the fattest city in America). I have today been trying to consciously think of things I am thankful for. As Americans we are really good at being ungrateful towards one another and God. Just because we do not have the latest gadget or car we think our lives are horrible. So here are a few things I am thankful for today….

1) My amazing and supportive wife

2) My beautiful and silly little girl, Ava

3) My digestive system that will soon be workin on some turkey (what I have left of it, some of you will get that and chuckle)

4) Jesus Christ and his sacrificial and intentional death on a cross on my behalf

5) Realizing more than ever this year that life is found when you give up everything

6) That I was able to go to China and see the church flourishing in the midst of persecution (and without a slick marketing plan)

7) My parents
My brother, he may be may favorite person to simply hang out with because there is no pretense with him

9) Desert, Sam and River. My Nieces and nephews, they are the best!

10) Chuys, nuff said!

11) my cat oliver…yes you made the list even though you totaly tick me off sometimes.

12) Good books

13) Good coffee

14) the resurrection of Christ that makes real life possible

15) the students at sagemont church

16) dreams and visions of great things to come

17) Jehova Rapha - A God who heals

Thats all for now….Happy Thanksgiving!

Disclaimer: Before reading this blog please realize I am a nice guy that rarely gets mad about anything. Some things bother me a little, like starbucks and gas companies raising there prices. Soon a cup of coffee and gallon of gas will be the same and I will have to decide….just kidding. Seriously though the following story really happened. If I seem to get more agitated as you read it is because it really did make me mad…so happy reading!

So the other day after church my wife and I needed food. We needed it quick and cheap, so we went to Taco Bell. This was one of those cool pizza hut/taco bell combos. So I got pizza and Rach and Ava had some tacos. We were the only ones in there at the time and as usual Ava was garnering alot of attention from the people working there. Then a lady walked in and ordered some food. The woman behind the register who had been playin’ with Ava took her order. This particular worker had two piercings. She had one in her nose and the other in her lip. She also had two visible tattoos, one on her arm and the other on the back of her neck. The woman ordering had obviously just come from church by the way she was dressed. She leaned over the counter and said something about Jesus to the girl working there. This caught my attention so I decided to drop some eaves. The conversation went like this:

Pharisee-lady: Are you a Christian

Taco bell lady: I think I go to church when I don’t have to work

Pharisee-lady: Then you need to take those piercings out and be sure not to get anymore tattoos

Taco bell lady: huh???

Pharisee-lady: Yeah, the Bible says in Leviticus that no one should mark or pierce thier body. You may even want to think about getting them removed if you are a christian

Matt in the corner: Fuming with anger

Taco bell lady: Well I got these done along time ago…

Pharisee-lady: interrrupts…you should come to our church! We go to __________church…it is great. You could come and meet other christians and read the Bible.

Taco bell lady: I like the church I go to…thanks though. (rolling eyes)

Pharisee-lady: exits taco bell thinking she has witnessed to someone

Taco bell lady says to everyone else: Did you hear that lady….I will never go to her stupid church.

So there are a few things that do make me very angry and one of them is when we misrepresent what the gospel is. When people turn a beautiful gospel of grace into a cheap and sick gospel of works. Yes, it also makes me angry when we turn it into an american dream gospel. You know the one where Jesus wants you to have everything and if you don’t you just have to claim your blessin’, thanks for that one Joel!

This poor lady at Taco Bell was so nice. I don’t know if she was a Christian, but if I was going to share with her at all about the love of Jesus pharisee lady blew it for me. Why did she not ask her about her family, her needs, if there was anything she needed prayer for. The gospel this lady presented was the same thing the pharisees were doing in the book of Acts that Paul confronted them over. See the Jews were saying that since the gospel went to them first and then to the gentiles, that any gentile coming into the faith must accept Christ and be circumcised. Paul was outraged by this in the book of Acts and made this declaration,

” Now then, why do we try to test God by putting on the necks of the diciples a yoke that niether we nor our fathers have been able to bear? NO! We believe it is through the GRACE of our Lord Jesus that we are saved. Just as they are.”

When we add anything to the gospel like…come to Jesus AND remove your piercings and tattoos, we cheapen the gospel. Not only do we do that but we place a yoke on peoples necks that we ourselves were not able to bear. The yoke is a yoke of legalistic perfection. The yoke says loving Jesus means looking a certain way and fitting into a nice little church mold.

Now I am not saying we should not stand for holiness in the church. God calls his bride to be Holy as he is Holy. So where the Bible is clear we must not waiver…in the same token we cannot expect people who do not know Christ to act like Christians. We need to stop cursing the darkness for being dark, and begin asking why the light is so dim.

The sad part in all of this is that pharisee-lady was from a prominent church in the area. Like so prominent that people who don’t even go to church know where it is. That day not only was that church represented badly, but the kingdom of God was misrepresented. So Pharisee-lady, I commit to spend my days fighting this cheap gospel of yours because it is not what Jesus had in mind when he allowed himself to be murdered for our sin on the cross.

P.S. Lev. 19 is not a prooftext against tattoos as we know them today, it is talking about pagan worship rituals.

There…I feel better!

I have a confession to make…I am a 5th day Adventist. Now this is not to be confused with those who practice sabbath on Saturday and are known as 7th Day Adventist. See our 7th Day Adventist freinds believe that one should worship ONLY on Saturday and that worshiping on Sunday is the mark of the beast or something (At least I read that in this really scary and somewhat cheesy tract I saw one time) . Well mainstream Christianity chooses to worship or observe sabbath on Sunday since this is the day Christ rose from the grave. The more I think about the idea of Sabbath and study the scripture it is not so much about when you have a sabbath as it is that you do take a sabbath. Sabbath simply means to rest. Rest is very biblical because after God had created everything the scriptures say that he rested. If God takes a sabbath you can be sure that I need one and so do you.

Well since I am a pastor Sunday is a “work day” so to speak. In fact it is nowhere near a day of rest. At times it is one of the most stressful and busy days of my week. That is just part of the gig as a pastor and I knew that when I took the job. So the church I work for is gracious enough to give us another day off during the week because they know this. Many choose to take Friday off, I choose to take Thursday because I am so wiped out after Wednesday and I get more done on Friday with no one around. I say all this to say my sabbath is on Thursday….the 5th day of the week.

I am still learning how to take a sabbath. It does not come easy to my busy and hurried soul. My tendency is that even when I am “relaxing” I am thinking of something that needs to get done, or worrying about how some future event may go. This is exactly why God wants us to Sabbath. It is to take a day and remember that after all our work and effort he is sovreign God. By stopping my busyness for Him for 24 hours I am acknowledging my dependace on Him and that everything is not going to fall apart if I don’t work on the ministry today.

I’m convinced we need to re-learn the art of taking a true Sabbath. We are such a busy society and we never just stop to take a day and dwell on God. Where I live in Houston the pace of life is stupid ridiculous. It seems like everyone I know is going in a thousand directions like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off. Why can’t we stop?

Now I don’t think Sabbath means you lock yourself in your closet and listen to the gaither vocal band all day, or do gregorian chants while watching the passion of the Christ. I believe it is taking time to stop, breathe, and enjoy all that God has given us. It is a time to worship God through enjoying time with family, taking a walk outside, going to the beach, the list goes on and on. I believe it is something that causes you to relax and be grateful to God for who He is and what He has done. So here is what I did yesterday:

1. woke up and played with Ava

2. Made grilled cheese for lunch

3. watched old gilmore girls shows with my wife (her choice)

4. played with Ava some more

5. made some coffee

6. read a book for a while

7. tickled Ava

8. Talked with my wife about what God is doing in our family

9. played with Ava

10. Ordered a pizza at 9:30 pm

11. watched House Hunters

Good day!

I confess that I am madly in love with my wife, but I also love another woman. I know it sounds horrible but I must tell you how much I LOVE my little 18 month girl, Ava!!! She is at that really awesome age where she seems to be discovering everything and learning new words everyday. Right now we have to still “decode” her language because she has not mastered her words yet, like she has mastered calculus. I love her for many reasons…like for instance they way she is so happy in the morning and bounces all over her crib. Or the way she dances when we put music on. Or the way she loves to get to just run around naked (which I hope changes by the time she is a teenager). She brings so much joy to my life and reminds me even on horrible days and through some recent tough times that there is hope. I realize when I look at her how God looks at me and loves me, and it blows my mind. The scripture says something to the effect that if we as human parents that are fallen know how to give good gifts, how much more would our Father in heaven who is good and perfect give good gifts and want the best for us! Thankyou Father for baby Ava…she helps me realize how you love me and will never leave me!