Adventures of JB – Page 2 – svgmissionary.com

Entering a Season of Studying

About a week ago I finished my devotional at a Easter sunrise service by publicly referring to myself as a “spaz.” This earned a chuckle or two from the audience, but the truth is God’s definitely created me that way. Please understand I’m using the word spaz not in a disrespectful manner…instead it refers to someone whose “activity-cantered” or must always be doing something [1] and usually has a very short attention span.

Most of the time my activity-centred personality doesn’t create a problem since theres always plenty of work to do. However since coming back to the States for a two-month furlough its created challenges.

Oh don’t get me wrong I’m still working very hard. The difference is my ministry now is focused on studying, reading, writing and developing discipleship material while in St Vincent my ministry focused on teaching and discipleship ministries that involved lots of human interaction.

As a “spaz” I love those island ministries because they bring excitement and energy into my life. Most of all it gives me something encouraging to tangibly evaluate my day with [2]. This reading and lesson plan preparation ministry (or as I call it my season of study) on the other hand isn’t all that fun.

I spend most of the day by myself [3]
Lots of time reading and writing can become pretty boring
And worst of all there aren’t many tangible things to celebrate [4]

Lately my Spastic personality has started to complain

Man this is boring!
Can’t we go do something fun?
Wouldn’t it be more important to volunteer somewhere instead of creating those evangelism lesson plans?
Wow you haven’t accomplished anything today…your pathetic.

Now of course I’m not pathetic but as someone whose geared for relationships working from home can be sort of discouraging. Yet when my impatient side speaks up I remind him the seasons of studying are an incredibly important part of ministry.

The thing is it’s almost impossible to go through this season while on the mission field because the problems are too pressing, and its difficult to study Hermeneutics with little kids ringing your bell all day 🙂

While this season of studying is helping me learn many truths about God’s Word one in particular has become precious to me.

Ministry isn’t always fun

It’s tempting to look at the fun parts of ministry [5] and forget that for each one of those there are others not enjoyable at all. Yet its only after we faithfully complete the study seasons of ministry that ministry can be truly effective.

Would I be rather playing football with kids in barrouallie than marking textbooks? Of course! But its the lessons learned in those textbooks that will raise a generation of Godly men and women on the island.

[1]: has a very hard time sitting still or relaxing

[2]: I had two Bible clubs today!

[3]: yes this is a good thing, but after coming from a ministry based on interaction it can be a big change

[4]: kind of hard to get fired up about reading twenty-five pages in a theology book

[5]: teaching, discipleship, leadership

Adventures of JB

The End of Bachelor Living

A few weeks ago I was talking with my parents about the things to include in barrels being sent to St. Vincent and my mom suggested buying Correlle dishes. This began a conversation that included pampered chef, Tupperware, the softness of towels, and how many thread counts would be in my sheets 🙂

Just finished a conversation with my mother about corelle, Tupperware, pampered chef, and bedsheets…have the sudden urge to eat red meat

— John Wilburn (@Johnhwilburn) March 18, 2016

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I didn’t question the need for kitchen items like pots and pans in my new home. However the amount spent on such items was a different story.

You see though I’m in my forties part of me still embraces a part of bachelor living. Not the part about being lazy, never cleaning up after yourself, and being cheap. But the part that doesn’t have lots of people over for dinner. It isn’t that my cooking is awful of course, there are just lots of people in town who cook better meals, with more variety. In other words there is no reason for me to buy correlle wear for my ham sandwich or scrambled eggs.

Yet I found myself spending lots of money this week on Correlle, a toaster oven, microwave, fluffy towels, and 450 thread sheets.

Why? Because you can’t do missions and be a bachelor.

All ministries (and missions in particular) involve work in church on Sunday or Wednesday, but other teaching is done outside of church during the week. This is where the majority of your evangelism, discipleship, and counseling takes place as we use teachable moments for God’s glory. Unfortunately those kind of moments don’t necessarily arrive on their own, so we must create a place for them.

In a perfect world people would come to my house for a Bible study even if the only thing offered was slightly burned popcorn. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so I need to offer hamburgers and hot-dogs with french fries and Pepsi while we discuss how the historical narrative of Acts affects our interpretation of the book.

Will it be the best food they ever taste? Of course not! But that’s okay because eventually the will start coming for something much more important than hamburgers like Godly counsel, a challenge, encouragement, or listening ear. Of course there will always be something I can whip up for them in the kitchen 🙂

Walking through Wal-Mart yesterday with a toaster oven in my hands I reached a moment of frustration. “Lord I don’t need all of this stuff!” part of me said “I can live off peanut butter and grilled cheese sandwiches for the rest of my life!” The Lords answer to me was “John this isn’t for you! This is for all the people who will enter your home not understanding the truth of the Gospel. The people who want to study my word but don’t know how. The people who just need someone to talk to.”

So in the end it isn’t about how good my cooking is but creating a place where people feel welcome and ministry can take place.

Even if they have to eat an occasional bowl of burned popcorn.

Adventures of JB, Uncategorized

Why I Don’t Give Things Away

This morning I read a very interesting article called “How to avoid the Messiah Complex” by Joseph Sunde. In it he explained that many short-term missions groups damage the relationship or ministry of the Missionary serving in that Country by meeting the physical needs of the people.

By itself that isn’t a bad thing…however it can create an attitude of dependency on the missionary to continue meeting physical needs.

When you roll in and hand out a bunch of soccer balls and candy to kids, it undermines the bridges of trust built through partnering and instead sends the message of easy “Aid” and spreads dependency. It makes it much harder on them when you leave when they wonder why this friend who has been staying with them over years never “gives them stuff.”

The article doesn’t encourage missions groups to do nothing but instead ” If you have gifts, only bring what they’ve asked and let them hand them out at a time they deem appropriate” in this way the short-term teams strengthens the ministry of that missionary.

As someone who serves in a mission field where you see poverty its hard to say no when people ask me for things, but I’ve learned its necessary because Missionaries cannot give things away.

As Mr. Sunde pointed out in his article ministries that focus on meeting physical needs fail in two ways.

You cannot meet all of the needs
And you create an attitude of dependence or even entitlement with the people
The sad fact is in many places that sense of entitlement already exists so they EXPECT you to give things away

A few months after arriving in Barrouallie a young lady from down the street came with her sister and asked for a glass of water. I brought them out and we sat on the porch talking for a while before she asked for some cooking oil as well. It wasn’t my habit of giving things like this away (everyone would want cooking oil) but I decided to be kind and brought out enough for a few meals. She looked at me incredulously and said “this is not enough!”

Think about that for a second

She is siting on my porch,

drinking my cold water,

and complaining about not getting enough free oil! As you can imagine she ended up getting NO OIL but this illustrates why missionaries cannot just start giving things like oil away.

Now before you start picturing me as Ebenezer Scrooge sending hungry poor children away while living in luxury let me say I do provide for physical needs with one big difference.

I make them earn it

Today when someone in Barrouallie asks me for something (which often happens) my response is to smile and ask “why should I give you this to you?” It’s interesting to see the look of confusion that would come in their faces after asking that question because they felt having a need was enough reason but of course it wasn’t.

Instead help was earned by a willingness to do a job in return
an instance of extreme need
And most importantly obedience (a willingness to follow Mr. Johns rules)

It’s taken months but slowly people are starting to get it.

Last November a young lady came during my Bible club with children and noticed that I was handing out glasses of juice (koolaid) to some of them. She asked for one and after being turned down was indignant “why can’t I have a glass of juice” she asked, I was getting ready to respond when one of the children told her “you have to earn Mr. John’s juice!”

In a way generations of missionaries (myself included) have created a culture of co-dependency with those who we are to reach with the Gospel. Therefore its our responsibility to create a new culture that makes them earn juice.

Adventures of JB

Walking Away From What I Love

Yesterday was one of those moments that involved incredible happiness and a heart of sadness at the same time since it was my last day ministering in the school system.

A little over a year ago the Lord allowed me to become involved in a one on one tutoring ministry. It didn’t take long for this to grow from one day a week to five involving three schools

Though the opportunities continued to grow it didn’t create a serious problem since it only took about two-hours of my time each day (from 8:00 to about 10:00) and was something I really looked forward to.

Or at least it was

About five weeks ago something amazing happened. I’m not sure of exact day but one morning while driving to a school a thought popped into my head…“I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

That thought shocked me since working with children is something I love to do, and God’s blessed me with gifts as well as abilities to do it.

“Oh well” I thought to myself, “maybe I am just tired or having a bad day.” But with every visit to a school that lack of satisfaction just grew. It took two weeks of this before I finally figured out what was going on.

God was closing the door to my school ministry

There are moments in life when the Lord takes things we love away from us, in most cases these are actually good things (like ministering to children). The good news is when God closes a door it means that He is opening a new (and better) one to take it’s place.

it doesn’t give the feeling of fulfillment that it used to because God’s closing that door
But that didn’t make walking away from those children for the last time any easier yesterday morning.

Gotta love the fact that a student couldn’t remember how to spell my name, but didn’t forget I am bald 🙂

A photo posted by australianmissionary (@australianmissionary) on May 7, 2015 at 8:02am PDT

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As I made the long walk back to my truck yesterday here are some things the Lord brought to my mind.

Just because I love something doesn’t automatically make it God’s Will for my life
This closed door gives more time to focus on returning to Australia
This school ministry while good was fairly shallow (I ministered to many children for around an hour a week)
The Lord may now give me an opportunity to have a deeper impact (minister to one or two children for longer amounts of time)

More than anything my heart was comforted by the fact that it was God who took away this ministry. And as a loving Heavenly Father, I can trust Him to know what’s best for me.

Adventures of JB

The Triumphant Return of Silly John

Last week a friend of mine asked if I was willing to speak at a local schools Elementary Chapel, and one of her biggest selling points was, “you get to be Silly John!”

She used this as the basis of her argument since she is one of the few adults who has ever seen “Silly John”, and knew how much I enjoy being that way.

Experience has taught me there are many different roles (positions) a person has to take when working with children. The specific role in each situation is decided by things like the amount of children in the room, their behavior, and what’s expected of you. Because of this I have created different mindsets for specific situations, and jokingly refer to them as alter-egos. Some of my favorites are.

Mr. John: My role when leading a group of children (emphasizes being their friend)
Mr. Wilburn: My role when teaching or tutoring a child (emphasizes their understanding material)
Mean John: My role when children are out of control (also called Sheriff John)
And Silly John: My role when teaching younger children (emphasizing stories or entertainment [1])

As you can imagine Silly John just gives me an excuse to be loud and goofy. In other words it’s lots of fun 🙂

So last Wednesday I came and shared my calling to Australia with boys and girls from Kindergarten to thirdgrade. As much as I loved sharing the burden God has placed upon my heart, my favorite part was the question and answer session during which Silly John was in full effect [2].

This was especially enjoyable because I usually don’t share my silly side anymore. Normally Silly John is crammed into a box in the corner of my mind since there are so many other things that need to be dealt with.

Discipleship of Believers
Working on Visa Paperwork
Teaching children
Development or material and writing
Not to mention the normal drama of life

Bottom line…I’m just too busy for Silly John

The truth is even if there is time for me to be silly I rarely do it because adults are supposed to be responsible and hardworking instead of goofy [3].

Leaving the school with a huge inflatable kangaroo under my arm and drenched in sweat [4] I couldn’t help but have a massive smile on my face since being silly was so much fun. Yet while stuffing the kangaroo in the back of my truck part of me thought “okay it’s time to stuff Silly John back in his box too.”

As I started to make myself “more serious” a thought occurred to me…there is a place in life for silliness.

Of course it would be wrong for me to act like a ten-year old all of the time. But isn’t taking that goofy part of my personality given to me by God and continually beat it into submission wrong as well?

I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be Silly John for about a half hour last week because it reminded me of some very important truths.

God uses silliness [5]
The world needs silly people
And being silly is just plain fun 🙂

Last Wednesday has led me to be looking for strategic opportunities to unveil Silly John. I can’t promise you will see him, but I can promise you one thing. If you do see him…you won’t forget it.

Silly John works very will with kindergarteners since they have short attention spans ↩
I particularly enjoyed it when a kindergartener with an incredibly serious face asked me if Santa came to Australia…and of course I said yes ↩
most adult’s who have witnessed Silly John (like my friend) only saw him because I was working with children at the time ↩
being Silly John is very hard work ↩
I’m referring here to controlled silliness that uses opportunities God gives to be silly ↩