He must increase, but I must decrease

For the past few days, I have been going through the book of John chapter by chapter with my girlfriend, Elaine, over Skype. Yes, you read that right, I did say girlfriend! :-) We decided that this would be a good opportunity for us to remain focused on the Lord, get to hear each other's opinions on Scripture, and give us another reason to talk. hehe She's had some great insights to the Scripture that I never would have seen before if not for her sharing it with me.

A couple of days ago we were talking about John 3, and this section just really jumped out at us: "Now a discussion arose between some of John's [the Baptist] disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness - look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.' John answered, 'A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, "I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him." The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease" v25-30.

John displays perfectly the servant attitude that Jesus talks so much about! A normal human would have responded, "Man! Why is that Jesus dude stealing all my thunder?? I was the bomb!! But now, everyone goes to see him, instead of me... What can I do to make myself better, so I can trump this guy?" (That would have been 'The Message' translation I'm sure...) But John the Baptist gets it! He's not mad at all, in fact he's rejoicing that everyone is no longer coming to see him. His joy is complete, as he says. How many Christians today actually display this servant attitude in every aspect of their lives? I know that many times, I fail utterly. Being raised in America, where it's all about me, me, me, and what I want, and how can people serve me, it's so hard to be counter-cultural with regards to this teaching.

That's why what I see in the institutional churches today makes me so sad... Let me pose a question: is a bigger, nicer building a way to decrease? Are better, more hip programs "every day of the week and twice on Sunday" a way for us to decrease? Is trying to hire the "best, most relevant" senior pastor a way to decrease? Or is all that junk just trying to make the institutional church increase in the eyes of the people? Brothers, WE ARE NOT CALLED TO TRY TO IMPRESS THIS WORLD!!! The church is not about the people, making them feel more 'comfortable'... sorry, American consumerism that has invaded the pews (that "me" attitude, "well, I like this better so we should do it"), it is about Christ! Sadly, institutional churches are run more like businesses today, rather than allowing Christ to move through His people, and speak to them.

But it's simple... if we try to increase, seeking glory for ourselves, and not for God, then we take the focus off of Him, and there's no opportunity for Him to increase. But if we give Him the glory He is due (all of it!), and let Him be responsible for everything in our lives, then people will take notice of that, and He will increase! The servant attitude isn't easy; it's my prayer every day, and some days I fail horribly. But the beauty of it all is that I can pray for God to work in me to make me more like my Lord, step by step, and know that His strength is sufficient.

A quick update on things down here... Hmm, last week I finished the first draft of the English Training manual for our team! That was a big relief! Now I'm fine-tuning it and seeking feedback from the leaders on how to make it better. Also, since that's mostly done, I've moved on to focusing on the Spanish version of the Manual. Please be praying for that because that is a bear to finish! Next weekend marks the start of our XGM, the annual meeting of everyone on our team, in all three countries (Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again, most of them I haven't seen since the XGM, a year ago! Please be praying for the travel of everyone to and from Lima. Thank you so much for reading!

No, I Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Planet

It's been a long three months since I last updated y'all as to what is going on down here. I apologize (it seems every time I write an update, I'm apologizing...). I had plans to write at least one while I was in Ecuador, helping out with the training (it was even already typed up), but then the worst luck hit me when my laptop got stolen... among other things. But I promise to write every two weeks, until I'm finished down here in Peru. I pinky swear, there! ;-)

The training in Ecuador went very, very well! Puyo, Ecuador would be a perfect retirement spot!! I'm just saying... haha We had a solid group of 5 guys who really understood what the missionary's life is all about, and what it means to BE the church... amazing!! I wouldn't be surprised if the 3 Latins all joined up with one of our teams; the other 2 are IMB Jouneymen. I spent the first two months there onsite helping out J with anything that needed to be taken care of, and then we left the training in the last month in the capable hands of other Xtremers. The training ends in 8 days so please be praying for these young men as they are trying to listen to the Lord, and find out where they should be serving.

Right now, my principle job has been to finish our Xtreme Team Training Manual. There have been interesting moments, to be sure, while I've been working on it; moments that make it seem like I'm never going to finish it, but I need to just keep my head up, shake off the little roadblocks, and keep typing until it's done. :) The English version is almost completed; after that, I have to start on the Spanish version: seeing what classes I already have, which ones need to be translated, and then put them all into one manual for our Latin partners.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on down here. I haven't wrestled any gorillas, gone tooth-and-nail with a jaguar, or beat down an anaconda lately. I know, I know, I'm losing my edge... hehe Next month we have our annual team meeting in Lima, so I'm really looking forward to that! My mom is even going to be there... be that good, or bad... :-P haha No, I'm just kidding, I'm excited to see her. Then just a few days after that, I go home for a short vacation to see my brother's graduation, hang out with friends, and go on a cruise to celebrate Michael's finishing high school.

Please be praying for a few things these next few weeks:

• Patience for me to get this training manual done.
• That everyone's travels to our annual meeting in Lima is safe.
• That I can stay focused on being in the here-and-now and get my jobs done, instead of thinking only about going home in 6 months from today (not that I'm counting... :D).

There are a few praises as well:

• All of our teams are going to be able to make it to the annual meeting! There was a large possibility they weren't going to be able to, but they are!
• This training manual is almost done; there IS light at the end of the tunnel!! haha

I think God knows what He's doing....

I know my mother has been spreading the word about what direction I've decided to pursue after I finish my term here, but I figured that y'all would like to hear it from me as well. About two weeks ago, the earthquake hit Haiti as all of us not living under rocks know. At first, to be honest, I didn't pay much attention to all of the news articles written about it but then two days after it happened, one article caught my eye. It's amazing to me how God can take even one small, insignificant news article and remind me of His plans for my life. The article I read was about how the logistics for the relief for the Haitians was bogged down, and as a result, the victims were suffering even more from lack of basic things, like clean water and food. While reading that short article, it was like a smack to the back of my head that reminded me of things that I had forgotten a long time ago. When I was in high school, one of my mentors showed me a degree that she told me I would excel in; called Emergency Management, the study of the logistics of responding to national and global emergencies. Seeing as how I was in high school, I didn't really pay much attention to her advice at the time (even though I took her advice later, and joined the Journeyman program of the IMB). Now, a decade later, God, through this article, reminded me of that conversation like it happened yesterday, and everything seemed to click together, like only He can do. Talking with a really close friend and my family has only strengthened the feeling that I'm getting that this is what He wants me to do to bring Him glory in my life. I'm good at stuff like that (and enjoy it thoroughly), but only because God put it in me to be good at it for His glory. After talking about it with my friend, I realized that God even took it one step further... I've been thinking, brainstorming, planning, whatever you want to call it, about starting my own NGO that would respond to global disasters, and help the victims get the relief they needed the quickest possible way. And God has put very large plans in my head for this, as in a NGO with offices all over the globe to respond even quicker. So I've been looking at the University of South Florida's Masters of Public Health in Global Disaster Management & Humanitarian Relief (imagine how I would introduce myself with that title... haha) to do when I get back so I can start down the path God has put in front of me. So I ask for all of y'all's prayers in this. But at the same time, I ask for prayer that I can remain focused on my job here, and see it through to the end done well, and not looking at it as a hinderance to my 'life' afterwards. Thank you.
A little update as well as to what is going on down here in Peru because I know that not everyone has ways of finding this stuff out... Right now I am in Lima, the capital of Peru, but am heading to Ecuador today by bus (25 hours.... yipee.... and then another 12 hours.... woohoo...) to get everything ready for a training there. We have at least 10 confirmed trainees; they all know that it is 3 months long this time, and we have a really good feeling about it. Please pray for the trainees, and for the teachers as well during the next 3 months: that everyone can stay focused and seek God in all things. I will try to let y'all know how training went once it's over. Thank you very much for your prayers, and support.

The Easy Path is Almost Never the Right One

This 'revelation' hit me hard tonight while riding in a mototaxi into town and I had no idea why at first. Fortunately, I was able to seriously think about it over dinner alone (yes, I know that's slightly pathetic... haha). As I began analyzing the statement, I realized that it was brought into my consciousness by the Holy Spirit. Because to be honest, I have not been trying to take anything BUT the easy path lately, and the HS convicted me strongly about it tonight. I don't know why tonight, but what I do know is that I can start figuring out how I can change my life to do more than just glide through each day. Let's take an honest look at ourselves (and I'll be the first to admit that I do this)... how many of us just try to get though each day with the least effort possible? It's amazing the number of posts I see on Facebook every single day that just beg for the weekend to get here already; why is that? Our path was never meant to be an easy one... In fact, ours should be the hardest path there is. Unfortunately - myself at the front of the line - we've lost sight of that, and we expect everything to be hunky-dorey, easy-breezy. God has given us this day - today! - to make something of it! Not to just be wishing that it was the weekend so we can 'officially' slack off. We need to be proclaiming God's glory with every word, act, and thought every day. We are called to be authentic with each other, and even love our enemies. Now, those two things are most definitely NOT the easy path! But we must do them, brothers and sisters, for they are what sets us apart from the world. They are what call the lost to us, and makes them realize that we are different from them, and then they desire to have what we have. Instead, most of the time, the lost see us no differently from them because we too try to slip into the Easy path, and we get stuck in 'survival mode.' The Lord gave us strength enough for each day, and He renews that strength every day, but He gave it to us to fulfill His Will for us, not to beg the weekend to get here faster.
For me, the Right path would be to spend time in God's Word every day, instead of watching 'Heroes' and 'Bones'; for me, the Right path would be to be a better steward of my time, focusing every action for His glory, instead of mindlessly stalking my friends on Facebook; for me, the Right path would be to become a better steward of God's money He gave me, instead of carelessly spending what I have so that I become reliant on my parents to help me out each month; for me, the Right path would be to develop deeper relationships with the people next door and back home, instead of closing myself off emotionally to make it easier for me. I can't do this alone; I would fail within the first 10 minutes! But with Him, and the strength He provides, I stand a chance to walk the Right path. How would the Right path look for you?? It's not going to be easy, and we may not always 'win' each day.... but it's going to be Right.

Family

It seems to me that I start out way too many of these with an apology for not writing a blog sooner; and this blog will keep the tradition behind those. I apologize for the amount of time between this blog and the last; almost two months if I'm not mistaken. Yikes...
Well, the topic for this blog has been on my mind since my birthday, the 18th of August. I got to talk to my family back in Falls town, and it was really good hearing them wish me a good birthday. Before you think me a bad son, or out in the boonies of the Amazon rainforest, that is common for me. I try to talk to my family at least once a week to catch up with them. I love them dearly, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that without my parents' influence on my life, I wouldn't be here serving the Lord. And my brother.... what can I say about him besides I'm proud of the man I see him growing into, and that the hardest decision of my life was to extend a year down here; the main reason for it being hard was that I would miss being there for his senior year. But.... this blog isn't about them, as much as I love them. No, my intention in this blog is not to confuse you. Yes, I know the title is "Family." So how can this blog not be about my family in Wichita Falls??
You see, the profound event that happened on my birthday was not a phone call, but a toast from one of my Latin partners working with us down here, Isaac. His toast touched me greatly because in it he talked about how even though we're from different countries, different continents, different hemispheres, we are brothers. He went on to say that he felt like I was his brother because of the times we hung out, and once when I gave him some advice when he needed a different perspective on an issue. I remember those times, but not with the vividness apparent in his eyes as he shared them; moments that I took for granted affected him greatly. He ended with saying that Jesus showed us how we ought to live with other Christians: Mark 3:31-35 "And his [Jesus'] mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting aorund him, and they said to him, 'Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.' And he answered them, 'Who are my mother and brothers?' And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoeever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.'" We spent a lot of time together, but every person who does the will of the Almighty is my family, and should be treated as a very close, and loved, family member. I sometimes forget this, and then God has to smack me upside the head again, like He did on the night on my birthday. I need to apologize to some of my brothers and sisters for not treating them the way I should be treating them, like my family. I have a lot of people down here who are like family to me, and have been big parts of my life: J and Susan, Trent and Kay, Doug, Jose, Isaac, Linzi, Nadia, Enoc, Misty, Amy, Johnathan, and so many more that I'm sorry I don't have the room to list. It's so easy in today's culture to just avoid someone that rubs us the wrong way when we should be loving them and hanging out with them because that's what family does. We admit that there might be a few nuts in the family fudge, but they make it a better family for it. :)
Well, thank you for letting me share this thought that's been rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks. A little update for y'all: on Monday, I'm flying to Lima, the capital of Peru, and from there I'm taking a bus to Quito, Ecuador, Thursday the 10th. We are going to be starting a two month training there in the jungle southeast of Quito for a group of indigenous tribes who want to reach some of their lost cousins farther up the river from them. It should be a good time!! But please be praying that everything goes well logistics wise, as well as the training itself. Oh yeah, one big praise that happened this last couple of weeks. The man of peace from the village where we work in Bolivia (I passed through the village once or twice) asked to get baptized!!! It's amazing what He does!

A Clarification

It has been brought to my attention that my previous blog might have caused some confusion among my home church with regards to a certain situation there.... That was not my intention at all, and I apologize to anyone that may have been confused by my blog.
I mentioned that we had asked two Latins to leave the church, and currently there is a similar situation that occurred in my home church. There are two differences in the situations that should be made aware to those reading my blog. First, is that those two young men were bringing major division to the church by their attitudes, and were completely unrepentant. They were given chance after chance to redeem their ways; sadly that is not the case of the situation in my home church.... Secondly, and most importantly, our ENTIRE church was in agreement with the decision we made; it was not a few people making a decision for "the greater good" of the people. I know for a fact that my home church (which means every member according to the Bible!) has not been in unanimous agreement with this decision, and that is the biggest difference between the two situations. Please also keep in mind that I am still a member of my home church, even though I am serving here in Peru for God's glory. It is not my intention to cause division in the church, only to bring the bride of Christ back to it's Biblical roots.
Again, I apologize to everyone that I may have confused, and I hope this has clarified it. If anyone wishes to talk to me, please feel free to email me at redhusky03@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Being the Church Is Not Easy (a.k.a. It's Hard!!)

I would like to share with y'all what's been going on the past few days down here in Iquitos... Where to start, where to start?? Well, I'll start at the end, and work my way backwards. Yesterday, as the church, we asked two believers to leave the training, and return to their home town. Some sins came to light about a trip they had recently made while going through the training here. We asked them about it, and they were completely unrepentant so we had to do what the Bible calls us to do in the situation (Matt 18:15-17): we had to, in loving kindness, ask them to leave because of the harm they were causing to the church. Through their attitude they were destroying the other believers' focus on God, and refocusing it on immature things of this world. I'm not going to lie; the last two days have been extremely hard on me because this is not the first time I've done this. I've done it before, last December in Bolivia; same situation... A missionary was in sin and was unrepentant, so we decided as the church to send him back home. I thought to myself; "When have I ever heard of a 'church' in the States asking someone to leave?! What in the world?! How can I have partaken two times in the last seven months asking people to leave and there are 'churches' in the States who have never done it in their entire history??"
The answer is simple enough: being the church is not easy! Yes, I know that pretty much everyone will agree with their mouths "we are the church all the time, Jeff" but the majority are not practicing that in any way. They've learned to parrot it whenever someone says that so as to feel Biblical in some small way, but to look at their lives speaks something completely different. Easiest example of this: where do Christians go Sunday mornings? To church, of course! Well, that seems to me like the underlying feeling then is that people aren't the church, and a place is. As a result, people revere the building because "it's God's house." I can't remember how many times I've heard that phrase from pastors talking about the building. That is nowhere in the Bible! Every time the New Testament speaks of church, "εκκλησία" in the Greek, it speaks of people. The word literally means "congregation." Hmm, that's interesting... Just crack open Hebrews and start reading; that letter just tears to pieces the idea of a building as 'the church.' Just listen to this (Heb 3:5-6): Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope." So we are his house....
1 Corinthians 3:16- "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" 2 Corinthians 6:16- "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, 'I will make my dwelling place among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'" So we are his temple....
Read chapter 9 of Hebrews... Go on, this blog will still be here after you finish. What did you think?
"So why did Jeff go off on this rant against the 'church'?" you ask yourself. I haven't... I'm just trying to open eyes and hearts to see that we are called to be the church every day, not just one pitiful hour on Sunday morning; that is NOT the church as Christ imagined it, yearns for it to be. At home with our familes, we definitely need to be the church. At work with our co-workers (as much as we may loathe them), we must continue to be the church. Yes, even in that building sadly called "church," we need to be the church. Being the church is not being hunky-dory all the time; it's being real, raw, more than the "I'm doing good" (when you're not good) of Sunday morning answers. And that scares people. To see the church in great action, read Acts. They knew what it meant to truly be the church. They were human as well; sometimes we lose sight of that, and picture all the real people of the Bible as saints who found it easy to be the church. No!! They struggled just as much as we do today.
I pray that God may encourage you in some way, and that He can give you the love, strength, honesty, and patience to be the church all the time in your life.