Tag: Gospel
-
10 Reasons Why Mission Matters in a Post Missional World
Last week I was with persecuted Christians. A young mother was taken away in handcuffs and placed in leg shackles and put in a dingy wooden village jail, treated like a common criminal. Her only crime…refusing to sign a paper that would effectively deny her faith in Jesus. This week I’m with privileged Christians. After…
-
3 Reasons Why God Doesn’t Need Pioneers in the U.S.A.
I love my America. But not in the xenophobic, nationalistic, make America great kinda way. I love it because Asian refugees like my parents are free to pursue hope. Mom and Dad risked their lives to escape a Southeast Asian country bombed to hell by war so that I could have opportunities. Through that journey…
-
Modern Day Slavery, From Fear to Freedom
Slavery comes in many forms. It exists in every culture…even among tribes in Southeast Asia. I had never seen a tribe so remote. After 2 hours of motorbiking and 3 hours of boating we finally arrived in a small village along the river. The houses sat on stilts, the roofs were made of thatch and…
-
The Way of the Ninja: 6 Ways to Define Our Missional Role
Every Asian kid growing up has one time played ninja. You take a black t-shirt, wrap it around your head, make some paper throwing stars and hide in the closet to get the drop on your unsuspecting brother or sister. Movies and pop-culture show the ninja to be a bad-ass warrior. But real life ninjas…
-
The Greatest Pioneer
The very definition of a pioneer is someone who goes where no else will. Someone who does something that no other person is willing to do. Someone who envisions far beyond what others can see. Jesus was the greatest pioneer. The Son of God laid aside his heavenly glory and went to the deepest reaches…
-
The Kingdom of Who?…Model, Assist, Watch & Leave
I walked into an immaculate church building recently and was blown away. It was brand spankin new. You could still smell the sky blue colored paint. It was equipped with everything you would need to do traditional church stuff; sound system, keyboard, projector, laptop, new kitchen, open cafeteria, all-you-can-drink powdered coffee and guestrooms with air…
-
3 Reasons Why Suffering is Essential in God’s Kingdom
From the safety of our homes in the US, being persecuted for our faith sounds like something that only happens in outlandish countries or ancient biblical stories. To be interrogated, threatened, beaten and jailed for our faith in Jesus is just something that doesn’t typically happen in America. When suffering does occur in other places…
-
4 Tips for Finding the Person Of Peace
As I was riding my motorbike through the rain in some rural Asian village I came to a huge brown puddle across the road. Over the years I have crossed hundreds of puddles, streams and rivers. I thought I had this down so I decided to go straight through. It was murky and deeper than…
-
4 Christian Responses to the LGBT Community
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states this week leading to a mixture of responses and heated discussions – my wife and I included. As missionaries on the other side of the planet we can’t help but think of the missiological implications, “How will this affect the faith…
-
The Greatest Injustice: Not Loving Those Who Hate
A few months ago I was I sitting in a small wooden boat in Southeast Asia with some of my closest friends and teammates. We were trying to find our way up river through a maze of thousands of dead trees rising up out of the water. The naked trees rose high above our heads…
-
Re-prioritizing Easter: 3 Ways to Share the Gospel and Collect Eggs
About 30 eggs filled with my wife’s “healthiest candies” lay hidden in the small patch of grass in our front yard. After a short reading of the Easter story in Luke 24 my three kids ransacked the green grass filling their baskets with the treasured eggs. I snapped a few really cute photos of the…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
The Asian Rough Rider 