Tag: God
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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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Training Trainers: A New Paradigm for Discipleship
No one likes to be told they are doing something wrong, especially leaders, pastors and church planters. We’ve devoted our lives to growing the Church but have we been doing it all wrong? I hate it when I’m wrong. My pride always says that I am right. But my pride can’t argue with results. The…
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Easter Doesn’t Exist…For The Unreached
Last week I found myself with a broken motorbike surrounded by jungle and stranded in a mountain pass with no cell phone reception. There was no other choice but to split the group up and push the heavy ass bike back the way we came – up and down the mountain in the heat of…
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When Failing Feels Like Crap
We spend a lot of time cleaning up crap. You know…the mess we make as a result of our own selfish decisions. It doesn’t matter if we are leaders, missionaries, or pastors, we all fall to pride, lust, anger, self-righteousness, worry and self. In those times that we fail to triumph over sin we feel…
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Reblog: Over the Mountain & Into the Valley
I just couldn’t resist reblogging this! Here is a post from a friend where she poetically summarizes the 5 highlights of her most epic journey to pray for the unreached in Laos. You can visit her blog here: The Afterglow The highlight of March was going on a prayer journey to The So People. It all…
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Osama Bin Laden and Church Multiplication Movements
One day we Americans turn on the television to find out that Osama Bin Laden is dead. The U.S. President announces that the most wanted terrorist in the world has been double-tapped by a team of highly skilled Navy Seals during a secret raid. That’s so freakin awesome but how did this happen? For more…
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The Motivation for Mission
There are many honorable and noble reasons to engage the lost in a cross-cultural setting but there is only one that will truly sustain you for the long haul. Missions is not about alleviating poverty, eradicating world hunger, stopping human trafficking, and listen carefully…it’s not even about saving souls. Missions is about spreading the fame…
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Radical Faith is BS
I love David Platt’s book, Radical. It’s taken the western church by storm and I resonate with anything that upsets the status quo – but the title can be a little misleading. There is no such thing as “radically” following Jesus. It’s only radical because we Christians are content with a surface level faith. Jesus…
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The Curse of Christmas
The absolutely worst thing about Christmas is that not everyone gets to enjoy it. There are more than 3 billion people who do not know the story of Jesus, His birth, death and resurrection. We are part of the blessed few who can truly appreciate this time of year. Ironically we are also part of…
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Chapter 6: Routine
Southwest Michigan. Some small crappy town. 6:40 am. Snowing and pitch black except for the orange glow of street lights. The air was cold enough to freeze the snot running down my nose. My greatest motivation to wake up and walk to school in this shitstorm was the thought of packaged blueberry muffins, cafeteria sausages…
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Thankful for Diarrhea
I awoke to a sharp pain in my stomach. It was the middle of the night in a rural and remote Asian village. The house was cold. Of course it was, it stood on stilts and there were no doors or windows. Speaking of which there were no bathrooms or latrines either. Not a single…
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The Joy of Persecution
A few weeks ago we took a sweet little boat ride up river to visit dear friends. No big deal. Just two hours of zigzagging through mazes of dead trees in a tiny leaking boat, to reach a remote village in the mountains with no electricity, phones or latrines, where there was a real possibility…
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Is Faith in the West Dead?
One day I’m sitting on a sky train in a major bustling city sipping Starbucks frappuccino while the next I’m sitting in a thatched hut in a jungle eating a rare and newly discovered species of squirrel. In both places I get to live life with people who are lost and people who are found.…
The Asian Rough Rider 