Category: Missional Living
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A Story of Hope: From Afghanistan to San Diego
Ghaffar was furiously digging a hole through a prison wall in Pakistan. His life depended on it. Over three years ago the Taliban captured him, an Afghani refugee, on his way to the United Nations refugee camps (UNHCR) in Turkey. He was separated from his wife, Shabana, and their four kids. He remembers how much…
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Die to Swag and Live for Suffering
We want it all and we want it now. As a culture, we in the West are enslaved by a near-worship of comfort and convenience. I seriously just saw this app that digitally enhances your photos to make your face and body look slimmer. You can post your weight loss photos on Facebook and get…
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3 Reasons Why Social Justice Will Not Change the World
For those of us who followed the news in 2014 it was a depressing year. Images of violence, racism, government coups, injustice and world-wide evil have wracked our brains and broken our hearts. As we look at our lost nations, communities and target people groups we have to ask ourselves an important question. What is…
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A Church for the Rejects
We are always talking about reaching the unchurched, unreached and unengaged. That’s a good thing. The problem is we have no plan to reach the rejects of society because we aren’t willing to become rejects ourselves. We are always separating “us” and “them”. We put them in a different category as if we have something…
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A New Way to Do an Old Thing in a New Year
Sharing our faith with lost family, friends and strangers can be a daunting task. We all know that we should be good witnesses of the most important message in the universe – that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again – but none of us have the evangelistic gifts of Billy Graham.…
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Nameless & Shoeless for God’s Glory
The true heroes of the faith are the ones without faces. They are the ones who don’t own a single pair of shoes but walk miles to proclaim the Gospel. They are the ones who have never written a book but have seen the dead raised to life and the oppressed set free. They are…
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Dear Tobias…What’s the Worst & Best Thing about Being a Missionary?
November 23, 2014 Hi Tobias, We’ve never met before but I’ve heard a lot about you from some mutual friends. My wife and I spent this past weekend with some missional families stateside and I know God has broken our hearts for the lost, especially for those in the 1040 window. I just wanted to…
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The Lack of Cultural Diversity in the Missional Movement: Where All My Colored People At?
I was a ghetto Asian-American juvenile delinquent, fresh in the faith, when I first walked into a southern California mega-church with a group of other knuckleheads wearing saggy Dickies and oversized t-shirts. This church was located in the heart of one of the most ethnically diverse cities in America and we were excited about connecting…
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The Lack of Mission in the Missional Movement: Let’s Just Tweet About It
These days everyone has the vernacular down. The word “missional” has been trending for the last 15 years among post-modern, culturally sensitive followers of Jesus. We’re changing the way we communicate with the un-churched by trying not to sound so religious. That’s great, but changing what we say versus changing what we do are two…
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Is the Gospel Worth the Risk?
I was on a skinny wooden boat recently traveling up river to a remote cluster of villages we had never been to. We’ve only seen these villages in our minds as we prayed for them and on satellite images surrounded by mountain valleys. We were determined to get there despite the fact that we didn’t…
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What Next? The 4 Stages of Launching Church Movements
As church planters, “What next?” is probably one of the questions we ask the most. What do we do after reaching the lost? How do we make disciples and train them to train others? How do we form groups and catalyze a movement of reproducing churches? There are so many methods and answers out there…
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A Vision for Missional Living
In our part of the world travel is determined by the weather. No matter how much we plan and prepare our trips can be cut short by the onslaught of monsoons, washed out roads, flooded paths and knee deep mud. In the dry season we are faced with clouds of dust that cake our motorcycle…
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True Struggles of Missional Workers
My wife and I have served overseas for almost 7 years now. Towards the beginning I remember a horribly vivid dream I once had. In it I was approached by a beautiful woman. As she got uncomfortably closer her entire faced transformed into a hideous snake like demon. She gnashed her teeth at me and…
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How to Change the World for Jesus in 7 Easy Steps
The secret (which is not really a secret) to magnifying the fame of God and bringing lasting global change and is to make disciples…who make disciples, who make disciples. In a previous post, I said I’d give you further details about a process called Training for Trainers (T4T). T4T is a simple & reproducible process…
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6 Reasons Why Asian Americans Make Great Missionaries (Part 2)
The last post gave you 3 reasons why Asians can be strategically positioned to fulfill the Great Commission. Here are the final 3 reasons why you’d make a great ninja for Jesus. Reason 4) Pioneering Opportunities: Caramel Faces Just the other day we sat in a thatched house in a tiny little village at…
The Asian Rough Rider 