There was a missionary to Togo, West Africa in the service. She is a nurse who works with a hospital in Togo as well as many other hospitals through her mission agency as a leadership counselor. I refer to her several times in the message.

I wanted to put this up here because a friend recently asked me how a church can be a blessing to their missionaries. This is just a small part of what I want to tell her, but it is a good introduction to what I have to say. Maybe I will write a series of posts and share the ideas I have with you as I share them with her.

Mary:

• Focused on the most important–worshiping God (Christ). Luke 10:38-42
• Faithful in trials. John 11:21-40
• Forsook her greatest possession. Mark 14:3

Judas:

• Criticized intimate worship. Mark 14:4
• Complained about God’s work. Mark 14:4. 5
• Confided with wicked people. Mark 14:10, 11

What struck me is that while many look at missionaries and think that we are willing to give up many things to go live on a foreign field, most of us don’t see that as a hardship. However, we struggle with giving up some things. Maybe your struggle is the thought of giving up regular electricity, or moving away from family. We do give up those things, but personally my struggles are in giving up things of even lesser value.

I don’t think I fall into the category of a Judas, but I am not sure I am a Mary either. Sure, I am willing to give up some comforts to be a missionary, but am I willing to forsake what I see as materialistically important? I am not sure I am there yet.

As a missionary, if you feel guilty about putting money into an account for retirement then you are showing you are dependent on the donor and not on God. As a donor, if you are angered by missionaries putting money into savings, then you are demonstrating that you are giving to the missionary and not to God.

Our giving and receiving should be vertical; from me to God, or from God to me. Giving should not be horizontal; from giver to receiver. As soon as the donor thinks that he is giving to the missionary as opposed to giving to God then he starts to feel like he should control how the money is used. When a missionary begins to think that the money he has comes from individuals and not from God, then he becomes dependent on people and not on God.

Keep your giving and receiving vertical and not horizontal. By doing this then you don’t allow bad attitudes to creep in.

I understand that, as a donor, I want to know that my money is properly used, but if I feel God wants me to give it, I should give. Then whatever happens to the money is no longer in my control. It is up to God to take care of His money. As a receiver I should be very careful of how I use the money given, but not because I am concerned about what people think of how I use the money. I should be careful to be accountable to God for how I use His money.

He sent me an email last week asking if I would pay for one of his church members to come to the US so he could go to Bible college. Because, according to Beny, “he can be used of the Lord if he gets trained in the US.”

That there is my biggest issue with churches in one country becoming dependent on another country. Beny thinks that the US has some corner on the market of spirituality. And that if his church member can come to the US he can get trained in the right way to do ministry. I also know that Beny may just be playing me as a scam artist and thinks I will eventually give in and send thousands of dollars. Well, that will never happen.

Unfortunately I think it is the US missionary mindset that has propagated that mentality. There are too many missionaries who carry an attitude of superiority over the national churches and people. All pastors should feel responsible to work towards a higher level of maturity in regards to the Bible than where his people may be. But when he portrays to his people that one has to go to a certain Bible college in a certain country to get properly trained in the ministry, I think he is stepping into the realm of Romanism; the idea that one church in one place has sole authority over what you can and can’t understand.

I will still receive calls from Beny. In fact, he called again today. I told him I would do some looking around to see if we can find a Bible college in India his church member can attend. He was thankful for any help and begged me to continue to pray for him. Which I am glad to do.

When we arrived at the church a man met us at the door and noted that we were visitors. He looked on his paper to find out where the Sunday School classes were for our kids. He then grabbed a couple of people walking by and had them walk us to the different classrooms. He also suggested an adult class for my wife and I to attend.

Because the church is in the town where we went to Bible college, there were a few people there whom we knew. I don’t think this had anything to do with the reception we felt as visitors. Everyone was friendly and kind. But not the gushy kind that makes you think someone paid them to be that way. It is just the way they were.

After church we were invited to a short reception in an area that they set up for welcoming visitors. The pastor and a few of the church staff members met us there. We were the only visitors that day, but they were prepared with enough homemade muffins and drinks for probably 10 visitors. We had a good talk with the pastor and no one seemed like they were in a hurry to leave; however, they also did not try to monopolize our time and make us stay.

When we left they gave us each a coffee cup and a friendly smile.

That was not the end though. The next night, Monday, a couple from the church stopped by the house with a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread. They stayed just long enough to thank us for visiting the church and extend an invitation to return.

We felt special.

Contrast that with another church we visited several weeks ago. It was a similar situation in that I had previously met the pastor. We were in his town without a meeting for that Sunday morning service. It was a good opportunity to just stop by.

The reception at the church was cold. The only person who came up to us other than to shake our hand briefly and walk off was the visiting preacher. He came over and chatted and acted interested in us. If the pastor came by before Sunday School or church, I don’t really remember it.

After church we hung around a short time just so that the crowd could thin and I could thank the pastor for teaching a class I was in a couple of months before. He acted like he was in a hurry and did not have time to chit-chat at the back of the church even though there was no one waiting to speak with him.

The church, while full of visitors that day, felt dead. They had a special push to bring visitors to hear the guest speaker. I think there were 20 or more visitors for that service, but none of us were made to feel welcome by the church as a whole. I would hope that those who brought friends did a better job in thanking their friends for being there.

Of course I don’t expect that church to visit in my home since I live about 10 hours away, but I doubt they would have visited if I lived 2 blocks away. It just seemed like they were not interested in adding anyone new to their congregation.

I spoke with a friend who had also visited in that church and he felt the same thing.

Two churches, two very different atmospheres. What are you and your church doing to make visitors feel like they are welcome?

As soon as we got home we started preparing for the coming week. I had a seminary class I was taking and really was not well prepared for it. By Tuesday afternoon I started feeling like my head was back in the game. Fortunately my teacher is one of these wise, practical scholars. He did not expect us to memorize everything he taught. He is more interested in us getting the information on paper so that we can access the material in the future. For my tests this week we had to write a couple of long papers (took me close to 6 hours Thursday night). These papers were “open Bible” essays. As long as we knew how to dig in the Bible and intelligently explain what we had learned, he was satisfied. I don’t know my grade yet, but I feel like I did well and learned much.

We will be there for 3 nights. I am the guest speaker this year. Since I have been gone a year (we left a week after camp last year) then I get to be the special guest. I am still doing basically the same things I did last year except I didn’t have to do as much of the planning. Can’t get much better than that. Well, it could. I could be given special napping privileges while everyone else is outside playing in the sun. But, alas, I get to help run the games too.

So, while I have now committed to being a better blogger, I step away from the Internet for a few days. Look forward to some pictures this weekend.

We talked about prayer letters, how to write them, and what the importance of the prayer letter is. We had a pastor come and share with us what he expects from missionaries. The neat thing about his time with us was that he used to be a missionary. He was able to say “I understand you. I know what you are going through. But here is what a pastor expects from you and here is why you should comply.” It was really beneficial. We also had sessions taught by our bookkeeper about how to keep the proper paperwork in order. She shared with us the new tax rules for 2009.

Some of the more spiritual lessons were on overcoming anger and depression. These sessions were taught by a medical doctor. While he did concede that sometimes depression can be a medical condition, he taught us from the perspective that it is often a spiritual problem that results from a loss of hope in the future. He used Psalm 42 as his basis. However, when he talked about anger he simply stated that anger was wrong and wicked.

There were a couple of sessions about holiness and forgiveness towards others.

I taught a few sessions on technology and why to use it in the ministry. I did not get into the “how” as much as I was trying to explain what tools were available. I focused on open source offerings talking about compatibility within OpenOffice.org and compatibility in general. I was asked to run most of the presentations through my computer. We popped in CDs and USB drives that were loaded with PowerPoint presentations as well as various media. My Linux machine was seen in good light as there were very few issues with something not looking quite like the presenter expected. Mostly they were small formatting issues that the general audience did not even notice. I was glad to show them that they could save hundreds of dollars in software by looking at open source tools. Two of the missionaries are considering investigating Linux more thoroughly.

One evening in the conference we went to a lake and had a big picnic. We played on a Sea-Doo and pontoon boat.

There were new and old missionaries at the training school. I think there were 13 or 14 couples represented. Four of the couples are new missionaries who have not spent a term on the field yet. The rest of us were either home temporarily or returning to the field after an extended stay at home. It was good to interact and share with one another.

Great week, but busy.

Bro. and Mrs. Hartsfield came to Odessa, Texas to take charge of our Christian school at the beginning of the 1980-81 school year. They moved to Odessa from Little Rock, Arkansas with their 3 children. Bro. Hartsfield is now 70 and I turn 40 this year. He has been a part of my life for 75% of my time on this earth. The Hartsfields have had more direct influence at different times on me than they do now, but the indirect influence has continued for these many years, and will continue into the future.

I can’t say that they are perfect people since I know human nature and the Bible would say otherwise. But, they have been consistently faithful to their beliefs and have instilled a deep seated desire in me to do the same. Bro. Hartsfield has always been a disciplined and consistent man, and while that may not have transfered into my life completely, it has been a joy to see someone who essentially is the same man I met 30 years ago.

Recently I heard a sermon based on the book of Third John in the Bible. The pastor mentioned a character I have never really studied. But as he talked about Demetrius I immediately thought of Bro. Hartsfield. The verse is 3 John 12: “Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true.”

Demetrius was well spoken of by men. Bro. Hartsfield has a great personal testimony. Today in Mr. Ramirez’s shoe repair shop I mentioned the retirement party to the owner, who I knew to be an acquaintance of Bro. Hartsfield’s. Mr. Ramirez said some incredibly kind words about Bro. H. Every person that Bro. Harsfield met in business or personally became a quick friend. Bro. H. conducts himself in a way that causes you to want to get to know him personally. He has always been well spoken of by men.

Then the Bible says that Demetrius had a good report from the truth itself. According to God’s Word Demetrius lived a holy and right life. Anyone who knows Bro. Hartsfield knows that just being in his presence causes others to think twice about their actions. Not because Bro. H. is going to preach at them, but because they know that if it is an activity in which he would not participate, then it is because the activity probably violates the Bible or a Biblical principle in some way. While Bro. H. does plenty of preaching, he is not one to raise his voice or lose his temper. He is one of the most fun men to be around because you know that in his presence is an opportunity to have clean comedy, games and activities.

Thirdly it says of Demetrius that the apostles spoke well of him. These were men who had been in the presence of Jesus Christ himself. They knew perfection and they still spoke highly of Demetrius. While I have seen people say horrible things about our school and turn away from the teachings of the Bible, I have not met anyone who would speak to the fact that Bro. H. and his wife were not genuine people. The people who know him best, his family and co-workers, also speak highly of him.

I will miss seeing the Hartsfields on a regular basis, but I know that the impact they have had on the lives of the many students who have passed through the school is tremendous. I am just thankful that I can be here for the retirement party and take part in this special event. It is great to be able to honour a family that has been such a blessing to so many.

There is one unique thing about him and his ministry. For some reason he tends to attract retarded people and folks with mental handicaps. I am not being mean, that is just a fact. He currently works a second job outside of the church driving a bus for the adult special ed program in the city.

At least 10% of the congregation this morning were mentally handicapped people. This attraction is not because he seeks out the handicapped; he gets just as frustrated with them as anyone else. While he loves people in general, he has not made an effort to build a special needs congregation.

But they are attracted to him. It is humorous to see how this works.

I was pondering all that while listening to him preach today. Then the startling realization hit:

What does that say about me?

The book is titled Mentoring and Modeling: Developing the Next Generation by Dr. Mark Rasmussen and Dr. John Goetsch. I am not sure exactly how I would define mentoring, so I had no prejudice as to what the book should contain.

Not until I got 2/3 rds. of the way through the book did I start to understand what the authors meant by that word. Their definition could easily be called “a good teacher.”

I thought the book was well written. It was very practical towards the end of the book. They moved from theoretical teaching to practical application. It was in the practical application section of the book that it became clear as to what was meant by being a mentor. They gave great tips on how a teacher could change their attitude and actions in the classroom to help their students move forward.

There were a couple of things I did not like about the book, both of which could probably be helped by having a professional editor look over the material. There seemed to be an inconsistency in the layout of the book. Sometimes the authors had some long quotes that apparently were supposed to be block quotes in the book. They ended up just being paragraphs that looked like the authors’ own words. It was hard to know where the quote ended and the writers were speaking again.

The book lacked the chapter titles at the top of the pages. While this is certainly not necessary, it is helpful in a book like this. The chapters dealt with specific principles. Looking up at the top of the page to get a reminder of which principle you are studying each time you picked up the book would have been helpful.

I was impressed with the authors’ general style. As I said, I knew Dr. Goetsch several years ago, but had never read anything by him. He (along with Dr. Rasmussen) is a great writer.

The book itself had some good reminders for teachers on how to engage their students and pull them into the lesson. It also talked about how teachers should look for teaching moments. With practise these moments can be found all around you.

This was definitely a book for teachers. I read the book because it was offered to me, but if I had picked it up looking for tips on being a good mentor, I am not sure I would have found what I was looking for. While I agree that teachers should be mentors, this book seemed to be specifically for teachers in a classroom. I don’t have a clear definition in my head as to what I think a mentor should be, but certainly a mentor is not limited to 4 walls and a chalkboard.

I have started to see the difference between books that go through a large publishing company and one that is put together by a smaller outfit. If this had been run through a larger organization it probably would have something about teachers in the title and the formatting would have been more consistent. In the notes I wrote about the book as I read it, I jotted this down: Well written, poorly presented. I don’t think I can improve on that simple statement for this book.

Dr. Goetsch is a great preacher and writer. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future. I just hope that the production quality improves.

Mentoring and Modeling, Dr. Mark Rasmussen and Dr. John Goetsch, Revival Books, 2000, 192 pages.

Wednesday
We rescheduled a meeting a couple of weeks ago and were needing a place to pass a couple of days in Pennsylvania. I called Dave, a college friend, who pastors in the area we wanted to be in to see if he had a missionary house/apartment at his church. We had trouble making the connection. When I finally got in touch with him and confirmed that he had a place we could crash for a few days we were only 15 minutes from the church. Dave has been at the church for 9 years as the pastor. He allowed us a chance to put up our display table and let me preach his Wednesday night service.

Sunday AM
Knowing that I would be in Michigan for a couple of other meetings I called a friend from college who pastors near one of my scheduled meetings. Unfortunately Mike was going to be gone the weekend we had free, but he allowed us to be in his church and present our work. Mike has only been at this church about 9 months. We will be seeing him later this week as we drive back through the area headed south.

Sunday PM
One of the meetings in Michigan we were most excited about was with our friend Bruce. He has been in this church about 6 years but we got to know him best when he was an associate pastor in Florida. Bruce’s wife and my wife were suite-mates in college. Bruce and I had several classes together and many mutual friends. It was great sitting and talking with him and his family after church tonight. We ate some great pizza and reminisced for a couple of hours.

There was a time in our ministry when we seldom ran into guys from our college days who were pastoring churches. I guess as they get older they move from being youth pastors and associate pastors into the driver’s seat. I am excited as I think about the many more meetings we will have in the future with former college friends.

I know when people make a comment about my work being satisfying they are talking about the social good that I do amongst the Deaf. They are assuming that the purpose and goal of my ministry is to help the perceived needs of the Deaf. In third world countries these needs might include help learning job skills and communication. One thing I have done in Mexico to further my goal was to work in a school for the Deaf. At the school I taught physics and math. I also had some classes on social skills and general manners. Mostly I taught basic forms of English (which I always thought was the craziest thing since they didn’t even know Spanish). But none of that was my ultimate goal. Those were simply a means to an end.

So what is my goal and from what do I draw my satisfaction in my work?

My goal is to see the Deaf accept Christ as their Savior. The reason is they need someone to save them from the wrath of God against their personal sin. The Deaf, like the rest of us, have one dominant problem: sin.

We don’t need a Savior to give us a better life. We don’t need Him to help us have a better job. Nor do we need Christ to solve any problems we might have. These MAY be a result of salvation and living a life based on biblical principles, but they are not the goal.

Sure, I get satisfaction from my work. But my satisfaction does not come when a person learns to read or gets a job. My satisfaction comes when I see a person accept Christ for who He is: a Savior from their sins and punishment in Hell. While God may grant them a better place in society, that is not my job nor my passion.

I have heard about the Holy Land Experience for some time from my brother and sister-in-law. I was very interested in going. One thing that I had not previously thought to consider was whether or not this attraction believed in Jesus as the Messiah or not. I was pleased to find that they do. They actually do quite a bit of evangelistic teaching while you are attending the different events within the park.

The other thing that I noticed was that it was very expensive. We got in free, but if we would have had to pay, my family would not have gone. Even after having such a positive experience there, I still cannot recommend that people pay the $35 per person to enter. It just is not worth that amount of money to me. I don’t know what the price was before TBN took over the park, but it is very commercialized and obviously a serious money making endeavor. Of course they are allowed to make money (I am not one of these Christians who believe you have to be poor to serve the Lord), but if I am going to make an investment in something, I want to get my money out of it, or completely believe in what they are doing.

Market Area
When you first walk in you arrive at a traditional market area. To me this was not all that special since I have been in countries which still have their markets set up the same way. What was neat about this one is there was a man playing a drum while we were there. The kids got to hit the drum with him and they enjoyed that. He, as well as much of the stuff, was dressed in period dress.

Hanukkah Presentation
One of the shows we attended was a presentation on the festival of Hanukkah. It was very entertaining and informative. It was a musical drama put on by a small group of actors. It did not go into great detail, and you would have had to understand some inter-testamental history to get the full meaning of what they were saying, but it was still informative. It was probably enough information that people felt like they learned something without being scared away.

Along those lines, I think it is better to think of the Holy Land Experience as an attraction and not a museum. I expected a museum with lectures and information. This was more of an attraction to entertain with hopes that there might be a bit of education in the process.

Jerusalem Model
For me this was the best part of the “Experience.” The model is something like 40 foot long by 20 foot wide. It is a diorama of the city as it would have been in AD 66.

The man giving the tour of the city stood on the model and gave a 20 minute presentation of the different parts of the city. He also gave a description of the events the night Christ was arrested and crucified. After the tour of the city my older brother and I got a chance to talk with him alone and ask a few more questions. It turned out that he was the school administrator at the Christian school my sister-in-law attended.

Scriptorium
The Scriptorium was the closest thing to a museum they had there. It housed several old Bibles and fragments. Like most other presentations at the Holy Land Experience this tour through the history of the Bible was a multi-media event. We were directed through the scriptorium on a 55 minute show which sometimes proved a bit frustrating.

We were directed into different rooms with a group of 10 or so people. There was never quite enough time to see all the books and displays before the lights were turned off in one room and we were pushed into the next. If you were not one of the first people in line, you may not get a chance to see all the Bibles. (Except for the room where John Bunyan was highlighted, we had too much time and not enough to look at). Some of the cases had lights that were out.

The most amazing thing about the Scriptorium was the final room where we were privilged to see some of the most amazing art I have ever seen. They had 4′X8′ oil paintings of some of the human authors of the Bible. I think there were 8 or 10 of these paintings. Not only were they well done but they seemed to be in line with my thinking of what these men would have looked like. David, for example, was painted as an average height man who looked physically strong as any rancher would be. John, however, was painted as an older, gaunt man who looked like he lived in exile alone.

Tabernacle
There was a very nice presentation of what the wilderness Tabernacle might have been like as well as the furniture within. They also had an actor playing the part of the High Priest in his priestly garb.

Temple
There was a 1/3 scale representation of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. This is known as Herod’s Temple. It was quite impressive.

There was a presentation that was supposed to be about the Temples of Israel, but the man did not talk much about the temples. That was a bit disappointing. If you didn’t know that there were 3 temples in Jerusalem then you would not have learned it from this show.

There were several other shows and displays throughout the day that we did not see. It would have take most of the day to have seen it all. We were only there 5 hours or so.

It was all well done though I feel it was a bit weak on real educational content. But, as I said before, it was too expensive. I know it was less than half the price of the larger theme parks, but it still seemed to be too much.

Everyone knows where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001. For us, we were at this church. We taught a sign language class at the church to help them reach out to the deaf community.

I preached there last night. They recorded the service.

Download audio file (112308pm.mp3)

My part starts about 8 minutes into the recording.