What Missions Means

Why Christians Need a Mission Field

IMG_0693There are a lot of challenges to sharing the Gospel of Christ today, but for many Christians the biggest one is they don’t have a mission field.

Of course the Bible is very clear that God wants everyone to be saved, so actually the whole world is our mission field [1]. However there is a need to be a bit more specific since we can’t witness to everyone.

When thinking about thier own mission field Christians focus on things like

  1. Family members
  2. Co-workers
  3. Friends
  4. And neighbors

These are definitely people groups in need of the Gospel. Yet I personally believe a mission field goes a little bit deeper than those we interact with regularly

The fact is God gives each one of us interests or gifts that equip us to reach a specific group of people for His glory.  For instance God has provided gifts that prepare me for ministry in Australia:

But believe it or not though Melbourne Australia is still too big of a mission field.  Trying to reach every individual in a city filled with immigrants from over 100 different cultures is just not possible for by myself

so I have to go deeper and find out what SPECIFIC PEOPLE GROUP in Melbourne God has called me too.

Editors Note: Of course this doesn’t mean I only share the Gospel with one group of people. Instead my energy is focused mostly on those individuals God has given me special gifts for

With the Lord’s help I’ve learned my mission field is young children [2]

  1. Because I have a genuine love for working with them
  2. The Lord has given me a gift for connecting with children
  3. My speaking and teaching style fits very well with them
  4. Working with children honestly comes very easy to me
  5. And they listen to or respect me when they won’t obey other adults

More than anything experience has taught me there is a special calling upon my life to reaching kids with the Gospel (I just know this is what God created me to do).

  • So I volunteer in elementary schools four days a week
  • teach Bible to twenty-four first and second graders
  • Work in Sparkies on Wendesday nights
  • Help with an after-school fitness program
  • And am looking to do more because all of these ministries give opportunities to share the Gospel

I’m aware that not everyone has as much time or energy to put into reaching their mission field. But it’s still important to have understand what that specific people group is, for only then can they become truly involved in God’s plan for their life.

  1. II Peter 3:9  ↩
  2. Kindergarten to second grade  ↩
The Adventures of JB

What Two Days Without A Cell Phone Taught Me

IMG_0008Okay guys I have a confession to make…I love technology. No seriously…I REALLY love technology. Which made losing my iPhone on Saturday that much worse.

For those of you who may not be aware I ran the Richmond marathon last Saturday (pretty hard to miss with the ridiculous amounts of running posts on my Facebook page).  About a half hour after the finish I got some food and began transferring everything into a free bag.

There was only problem

my phone wasn’t there.

The same one that I had been using to take a ridiculous amount of pictures with just a few moments before was no longer there. Which of course means.

  1. I set my phone down and forgot about it
  2. I dropped it
  3. Or my personal favorite, a ninja snuck up and took it right out of my hand [1]

Quick backtracking to all the places I had been proved my phone was indeed gone for good.

Thankfully I was due for a free upgrade so the phone situation was fixed by 11:00 Monday morning. However this also meant almost two days “off the grid.”

  1. No tweeting, Facebook posts, or Instagram
  2. No GPS (had to actually use printed directions to get home, which made me feel like I needed to churn some butter)
  3. No getting email away from my computer
  4. And no phone calls or texts from beautiful women asking me out on a date (okay you can stop laughing now)

More than anything the time without a smart phone showed just how much I relied on it

For instance I use mine to:

  1. Wake up every morning
  2. Read the news
  3. Check internet websites
  4. Sort through emails
  5. Get directions
  6. Set a timer for my french press coffee
  7. Check my schedule
  8. And occasionally do my Bible Reading (usually this is done with a Bible)

Keep in mind that’s just one hour of the day!

What really worried me was the fact that I instinctively reached into my pocket ten or fifteen times looking for the phone even though my mind knew it wasn’t there.

In the end being without a phone taught me a very important lesson about life; you can survive without technology.

  1. I made it home safely with printed directions
  2. The world didn’t end when I went a few days without posting on Facebook
  3. It’s possible to use an ACTUAL CALENDAR of all things instead of your phone for scheduling
  4. And you won’t miss much being off the internet

Technology is truly awesome, however losing it shouldn’t be our worst nightmare

  1. Coincidentally that’s exactly what happened when the right hand mirror of my parents van magically disappeared while driving home from work one night.  ↩
Teaching Structure to Children

How to Survive a Child’s Meltdown

IMG_1164Last weekend while visiting my brother and his wife it took just one minute for my dog (who came with me) to locate a small cat toy my niece had bought and begin chewing it to pieces.

As you can imagine this resulted in tears, and the dog being confined to a downstairs bedroom.

This experience reminded me that reaching children for Christ involves viewing things from their perspective.

See in my niece’s eyes the dog hadn’t just eaten a cat toy from dollar general.

  1. It was a toy that she personally bought with her own money for the family cat
  2. That matched him with color (they were both orange)
  3. And she watched him play with for hours

While in my eyes

  1. It was a cheap toy so a replacement could easily be purchased
  2. One of many toys that the cat had
  3. And wasn’t really that important [1]

It shouldn’t be surprising that trying to explain this didn’t end the tears…because you can’t rationalize with emotional children

This truth is hugely important when reaching children with the Gospel of Christ because if you can’t get one child to stop crying uncontrollably then you will soon have a room full of crying children [2].

So instead of focusing on “ending their tears” we should understand WHY they are crying.

  1. By asking questions [3]
  2. By making sure we understand the situation [4]
  3. By learning what we can do to fix the problem [5]

After learning why the child was upset (see their perspective) we can help them understand ours

  1. By explaining that the dog thought it was her toy [6]
  2. She made a mistake [7]
  3. Telling them a story about losing something very special when you were younger
  4. And in this case encouraging them to forgive the dog for her mistake

I’m not saying every outburst should lead to a deep discussion (often it’s just best to let them cry it out). But there is a great need to understand it will take more than just rationalization to fix the problem.

You have to get down on one knee and look them in the eyes

Realize why the cat toy is important

And together with the child make a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

Because in their eyes it’s much more than just an orange ball

  1. my niece thought differently and immediately wanted to buy a new one  ↩
  2. I know this from experience  ↩
  3. was that cat toy really important? Why was it important to you?  ↩
  4. So your upset because the toy was the same color as the cat, is that right?  ↩
  5. in this case planning to take a trip to dollar general and buy another cat toy  ↩
  6. I would make it clear that she didn’t understand the importance of it  ↩
  7. using words that a child understands helps a lot since now you can have a deeper discussion about the situation. Have you ever made a mistake?  ↩