¡Viva la Vida!

Making Disciples, Internationally. Towards a mission statement ...

In working on putting together this Missions Discipleship Project, we've been hammering together something like a missions statement.  It's divided into three parts:  the why, the how and the what. 

The Why:  In everything we do, we seek to transform the status quo in evangelical missions.  We believe in doing things differently.

The How:  The way we are working to transform the status quo in the world of evangelical missions is by building a new type of missions organization which would disciple a new breed of missionary and connect the gospel of the reign of God with an interconnected, globalized world.

The What:  From our home base in Monterrey, Mexico, we assemble and facilitate the training of multinationals to live, work, play, serve, be creative, and minister locally as well as in other global locations.  We do all this together, which means in vital relationship both among ourselves and with those in the communities in which we operate.  We go to great lengths to remember the human scale of life and ministry - as exhibited by the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul - which means to keep it simple, love God, love people, lead by serving and by tapping into our creativity, among others.

Won't you join us?

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Here are some other thoughts ...

We take the cheesy old saying Live Locally, Act Globally quite seriously.  We are proud to be evangelicals but we believe evangelicals have personalized and commercialized and institutionalized the gospel almost to irrelevance.  In American culture at least, the "gospel" has all too often been presented as nothing more than Jesus the personal Savior giving a personal salvation to an individual personally and this personal salvation has little public value, i.e. social justice engagement.  Personal salvation is, as if we have to say, important but it's not the whole of the gospel message.  For example, it's like saying that all of a marriage relationship is about sex.  Of course sex is a part of the marriage relationship but to say that sex is everything about it ignores all the other aspects.  As such, the personal salvation focus on the gospel has ignored many other aspects of what the gospel really is.  Yes, we were individually saved but we aren't left just to be individuals.  Have we forgotten that we are part of that numberless sand on the seashore or stars in the sky known as the children of Abraham?  The Apostle Peter called us a "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation" and this, we believe, supercedes our individuality.  In this spirit we want to be in relationship with our brothers and sisters who live all over the planet. 

We believe that the government of Jesus, God's Davidic Messiah, will be extended to all nations, which are, by the way, our inheritance.  We, being a part of this great scattering of Abraham's seed, believe we 've been sent as heralds into the nations bearing God's grand announcement:  the government of God has been made manifest in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  This "gospel" is more than just the message of personal salvation - it's the consummation of Heaven and Earth, the opening of a worldwide government of God's Shalom peace and justice proclaimed in the name and authority of the Master Jesus.  It is made manifest by His people, the Church Universal, who have for centuries borne His standard of righteousness.  Today we are the heralds and standard-bearers and we've been called into the nations.  Our message is public.  Our message is political.  Our message is provocative.  This message will challenge all other political orders - whether it be the globalized, democratic neoliberal world order, the Islamic ulama or the dictatorial and communist regimes scattered across the face of the Earth. 

We want to challenge this generation with the reality and commitment of the Great Commission.   These are big dreams but they've got to begin somewhere.  They've got to begin with somebody.

In the words of one of our mentors and heroes, Professor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Here and there people flee from public altercation into private virtuousness.  But anyone who does this must shut his mouth and his eyes to the injustice around him.  Only at the cost of self-deception can he keep himself pure from the contamination arising from responsible action.  In spite of all that he does, what he leaves undone will rob him of his peace of mind.  He  will either go to pieces because of this disquiet, or become the most hypocritical of Pharisees.

Who stands fast?  Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God - the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. 

Where are these responsible people?

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison)

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary on Short-term Missions

 Jamie, I think I love you.  But you scare me.  You are the Tyler Durden of the world of evangelical missions.  You say things (in your blog) that provoke and enrage otherwise well-meaning, nice, missions-minded evangelicals as no one else can.  You are the child on the street who, when the Emperor rides by in his lavish parade, screams, "He has no clothes! He's butt naked!!"  You are a brave, truth-telling soul.  Clearly you have issues but, unlike the rest of us missionaries, you don't try to cover them up with a veneer of spirituality.  If we evangelicals sainted people, girl, you'd be on my short list. 

One of the battles many missionaries face is the issue of hosting short-term missions trips.  I have to be honest and admit that we missionaries have a love-hate relationship with these.  The issue is not, per se, that we don't want people coming to visit and learn and help, as much as it is with the pride, presumption, and well, self-interest of these short term groups.  Though we've hosted many wonderful, awesome groups (you know who you are!), we also have a lot of horror stories of hosting the short-termers who did not share our vision of missions.  Over the years we've learned how to weed out beforehand those whom we detect are of a different "missions philosophy."  I could show you some emails I've had between myself and churches who've wanted to send groups down and how they've responded to some of my questions...

In our case the Mexican Drug Wars have effectively solved the short-term missions dilemma.  Simply put, 95% of the short-term missions groups stopped coming when the bullets started flying.  This says a lot in and of itself but, alas, that's a topic for a different time.

But this is obviously not the case in Costa Rica where my esteemed colleague Jamie lives and ministers.  Like I said above, she's a truth teller.  So brace yourselves!  If you are reading this and have been involved in short-term missions trips, you really need to READ THIS - it's actually a five-part series but it's worth it.  Jamie's purpose, in all seriousness, is not to discourage you but to give you a different perspective, well actually the real perspective, on what happens when you and twenty others show up in her country wearing matching t-shirts armed with boxes of tracts and eager to "impact" her nation in a ten day trip (well, nine days actually, because there's the beach & shopping day).  So let yourself be provoked but in the positive, redeeming sense of the word.  And don't forget to keep your sense of humor because one thing I've learned more than anything in missions work is that "if we don't laugh we will just go insane."  So ... without further ado ...

THE WHOLE CAN OF WORMS (OF SHORT-TERM MISSIONS) AT A GLANCE 

And, dear readers, as always, feel free to opine in the comment section below!        

Lifecoaching Jesus: The Savior Falls into the Hands of a 21st Century Life Coach

This is a guest blogpost on success I did over at the Heart of Campus Ministry blog.  I hope you enjoy it! 

Lifecoaching Jesus:  The Savior Falls into the Hands of a 21st Century Life Coach 

Guarding sound doctrine without hurting people

I am a teacher.  And I must confess that I have an obsession with being correct - especially when it comes to my theology.  Not (I hope) in an arrogant way but rather (again, I hope) my desire springs from an honest desire to know truth.  We teacher types can be annoying with our attention to detail and obsession with doctrinal purity.  Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of other teacher types who have taken me to the "theological woodshed" and I can testify that it's really not a pleasant experience.  I teach theology at a Bible Institute but not just in the confines of a hermetically sealed classroom.  My teaching, of course, is reflected in how I actually live my life and especially how I conduct myself in challenging situations.  One such challenging situation happened last week.  Let me tell you about it.

My oldest son is in charge of the "Juniors" group at our church (I call it the Tweens - ages 10 to 14) and he has a staff of five or so youth workers to help him run the group.  So recently one of his staff members got ahold of an "exorcism manual" and, well, pretty much started trying to  cast demons out of everything.  So my son asked for the manual and gave it to me to check out.  I won't get into the specifics of the manual here but, suffice it to say that, at its best moments it's alarmist and at its worst - heretical.  In short, this particular excorcism manual is not what a young Christian youth worker needs to be reading.  So I sat down with the youth worker and explained to him some of the non-, anti- and extra-Biblical points of the manual and he was both receptive and appreciative of what I told him.  End of story, right?  No!  It turns out that the manual was given out to all of the youth staff volunteers of the youth group (ages 15 and up) at our church by the youth pastor himself!  So now I have to go to the youth pastor and talk to him about why it's not a good idea to be reading this "exorscism manual."  Herein lies the challenge:  I can be right in doctrine but wrong in spirit (the way I go about doing the correction).  "But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine." (Titus 2:1) and "the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach ... correcting his opponents with gentleness" (II Timothy 3:24,25).  

So this is what we must do as teachers - teach and correct with all authority but in kindness and humility.  Not that we're the "experts" in everything - and of course we ourselves are not above correction - but the role of teachers in the Body of Christ is an important one.  So at present this story is pending ... I hope to be able to talk to the youth pastor and his wife today.  Pray for me!            

A Short Primer on the Exciting New Discipline of "Social Entrepreneurship"

"Capitalism is under siege.  Diminshed trust in business is causing political leaders to set policies that sap economic growth ... Business is caught in a vicious circle ... the purpose of a corporation must be redefined around creating shared value."  So begins a recent article in the Havard Business Review that, in my view, is just as revolutionary as an 1848 treatise written by two other men that began:  "A specter is haunting Europe ..." 

You might have heard the term social entrepreneur lately.  With all the attention the concept is getting, it's quickly getting buzzword status.  So I thought I would write up a short primer on the subject.  David Bornstein and Susan Davis, in their 2010 book Social Entrepreneurship:  What Everyone Needs to Know, defines social entrepreneurship as "a process by which citizens build or transform institutions to advance solutions to social problems, such as poverty, illness, illiteracy, environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and corruption, in order to make life better for many."  Dr. Greg Dees, considered the father of social entrepreneurship education, says, "social entrepreneurs create public value, pursue new opportunities, innovate and adapt, act boldly, leverage resources they don't control, and exhibit a strong sense of accountability."  

I like the way Dr. Kathryn Blanchard, author of The Protestant Ethic or the Spirit of Capitalism:  Christians, Freedom, and Free Markets (2010) puts it:  "Social entrepreneurship is a world where financial capital can merge with spiritual capital to generate social capital.  It's sympathetic self-interest rather than competitive self-interest."

I believe this concept, which aims to bring the for profit business world and the non-profit NGO world together to tackle some of the world's toughest challenges, is one of the most revolutionary concepts of our time.  The quote at the beginning of this post from the Harvard Business Review is from the article entitled:  "Creating Shared Value:  How to Reinvent Capitalism and Unleash a Wave of Innovation and Growth,"(pdf) which places the concept in the wider discussion of how capitalism is shifting, or should be shifting, to better address markets in a globalized, rising-tide-lifts-all-boats kind of world.  The idea is surprisingly simple:  if businesses can transform and become as ethical as the best of our NGOs, then think of the potential for powerful global transformation.  If it sounds too good to be true, read the article.  

The wikipedia entry for Social Entrepreneurship.

Duke University's Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship

As the Ashoka definition illustrates, social entrepreneurship is nothing new in history.  Just so we don't get too carried away with the newness and novelty of this, Bornstein & Davis point out early in their book that "Social entrepreneurs have always existed.  But in the past they were called visionaries, humanitarians, philanthropists, reformers, saints, or simply great leaders.  Attention was paid to their courage, compassion, and vision but rarely to the practical aspects of their accomplishments."  That is, until now. 

Coming soon:  Social Entrepreneurship and the World of Christian Missions

Success & Failure as bipolar teachers

Failure is the sum of  all my fears.  My fear of failure is one of the biggest things I've had to overcome in my ministry and it's something that has, at times, driven me to achieve things that perhaps otherwise I couldn't have done.  So, ironically, the fear of failure can be something that both inhibits me and something that also motivates me.  In my eight years serving on the foreign missions field, I can say that, despite many setbacks and small defeats, my ministry has been on the whole (and I humbly say this to the glory of God - certainly not to my own abilities & cleverness!) marked by more successes than failures.  However, success, like failure, also brings certain challenges.  The challenge of success, from what I've learned, is that it brings more responsibility.  And with more responsibility, of course, comes more pressure. With more pressure the probability of failure lurks and so success breeds failure which, properly handled, motivates toward more success... what a vicious circle!

What the Lord has been teaching me this year is to lay down my fear of failure and to even, at times, embrace it as a learning tool.  This is difficult because it goes against everything in me.  Missionaries almost never write about their failures to their supporters.  That's human nature, I guess, but honesty is, I would think, refreshing to people accumstomed to hearing reports of missionaries going from "glory to glory."  Let me confess here that 2011 for me has been a year of much failure.  Last spring I was called in to help a middle school and high school with their teacher training and  disciplinary policies.  The short version is that everything I tried to implement blew up in my face.  I was unable to win the support of the teachers or other staff members who all had their own ideas of how things should be managed.  Further, I was unable to sway the student population - something which surprised me - because usually I have very good rapport with students.  So after months of trying, I bowed out.  I failed.  Miserably. 

This is where and when the Lord began to minister to my wounded pride.  Embrace it, the Lord whispered, own it!  For me, embracing failure is like hugging a cactus but the reality, I was quick to learn, is that embracing failure is good medicine for the soul.  It left me with a dependency and a humility that success could never have brought.  It made me take myself less seriously.  So now I'm beginning the new academic year revising and refining my educational philosophies and practices.  Failure - though I have embraced you, you will not be a friend.  Though you have taught me, you will not be my sage.  And a word to success - I'm not going out of my way to impress you anymore.  Though you are still much preferred than failure, I have a greater Master to impress ...

Annapolis' Best General: The Values-Based Leadership of Major General John E. Sloan (USNA 1910)" Part 2

This is Part Two in a series (so please read Part One first!) examining what a leadership case study of an all but forgotten WWII American Army general can teach us about the current leadership deficiencies in many organizations.  The series was sparked by a CNN article I read outlining recent officer misconduct in the U.S. Navy. 

Simply put, my thesis is that the technique-based, therapeutic style of leadership common in American culture is flawed and would be best to be discarded and replaced by a more classical leadership style based on values and character and exhibited by certain men and women of valor in  history.

The person we are examining was the commander of the most combat effective American division of the Second World War, a man who was, ironically, a 1910 graduate of the United States Naval Academy:  Major General John Emmit Sloan, a man so forgotten by history that he doesn't even have his own wikipedia page.  But  he's a man whose character would behoove us to study and emulate.   

Sloan was an unlikely hero - at 55 years of age he was already too old to command a division but an exception was made for him and he was given command of the newly formed 88th Infantry Division in 1942.  Sloan had little to do with the selection of other officers of the division and, of course, he could not exert direct personal leadership influence on the 13,000 enlisted men under his command.  However, by example and by tireless supervision and guidance, General Sloan seems to have been able to instill his own high standards of conduct and leadership in all of the officers directly below him and, through them, in all other officers and non-commissioned officers of the division.  This was manifested initially through zeal in training - something which paid huge dividends later when the division faced combat.  The records show that leadership characteristics demonstrated in the 88th Division included:

Aggressiveness

Attention to detail

Strict discipline

Inspirational talks and messages

Personal presence in the front line

Being sure subordinates had what they needed to do the job

Making sure every assignment was carried out properly, including those not immediately related to military procedures

Requiring strict adherence to established standards for military courtesy and proper uniform (remember - the division was composed of conscripts, not of professional soldiers)

Prompt relief of any subordinate who could not or would not do his job

Establishing rapport with subordinate commanders

Tactical skill

Grasping and communicating the "big picture" and role of each unit in overall objectives

 

During lulls in battle and during rest periods, the division trained.  One reason why his division ranked right up with the best of the German divisions was that Sloan carried out rear-area training programs and demanded standards of performance very similar to those characteristic of the Germans, while showing similar interest in, and concern for, his men.  He also demanded of his officers a professionalism comparable to that of the Germans.  Replacements were soon imbued with the spirit of the division.  When the division was out on the line Sloan still insisted upon smart salutes and buttoned buttons, and got them from proud soldiers.  By dedicated professionalism, inspiring leadership, and very hard work, General Sloan was able to raise his division to a combat performance capability much higher than that of any other American division.  He was a man of character and integrity who led from the front and, like all the great military commanders of history, inspired courage and instilled loyalty by his own example.  The United Staes Navy would do well to have men of General Sloan's calibre in their ranks - a man I call Annapolis' best general.

Reflecting on the U.S. Navy's Leadership Crisis: A Lesson from an Unusual WWII Case Study (Part 1)

Yesterday I came across a CNN story ("14 Navy commanders relieved of duty, prompting conduct memo") which began with this line: "The Navy has already relieved so many commanding officers of duty this year that the chief of naval operations has written an unusual memo to all potential commanders reminding them of their responsibilities.  The four-page memo heavily emphasized professional ethics and personal accountability."  It turns out that some officers have "been drunk and disorderly (including drunk driving), mistreated sailors, had inappropriate relationships, and in one case failed to properly handle a loaded weapon" (well, that last one's not too surprising as it's the Navy hehe...sorry, I couldn't resist).  All violations, according to the admiral who wrote the memo, Admiral Gary Roughead, fall under what he calls the "loss of confidence in ability to command."  In short, loss of effective leadership.

In thinking about leadership and organizational theory these days - especially as it applies to Christian missions -  I try to draw as much as I can from every discipline.  And, in my opinion, no discipline teaches me more than the discipline of History.  So what can history teach us about current leadership challenges  - challenges that not just the U.S. Navy but of course every other organization is dealing with?  Plenty!  Read on!   

Just the other night, while reading Col. T.N. Dupuy's excellent tome Understanding War:  History & Theory of Combat, I came across something pretty interesting that applies to the current crisis of leadership as illustrated by what's happening in the U.S. Navy.  One of the focuses of Col. Dupuy's book was on the combat effectiveness of the best combat divisions of the Second World War and what made them so effective.  The top ten combat divisions in WWII, according to the Colonel's calculations, were all German except for one:  the 88th U.S. Infantry Division, the "Blue Devils."   World War Two history buffs might find this strange.  Why would a relatively unknown all-draftee infantry division occupy fifth place on Col. Dupuy's list?  What about the elite 101st Airborne or the 82nd Airborne?  And wait!  Did the colonel not consider Gen. "Blood & Guts" Patton's German-smashing First Armored Division?  Of course he did - the famous 1st Armored comes in at number 14.  So, the question is what makes the 88th Infantry Division so effective at combat?   The answer, it turns out, will have a lot to do bear on the current leadership crisis.  Read on...

At first glance it does not seem reasonable that the relatively unknown U.S. 88th Infantry Division should have such a high combat effectiveness.  The 88th was one of fourteen new all-draftee divisions, activated in mid-1942 after the mobilization of all Regular Army, Organized Reserved, and National Guard Divisions.  It trained for a year at Camp Grueber, Oklahoma, and participated in the Louisiana maneuvers during the summer of 1943.  The division got very high marks from inspectors during its training and during the maneuvers, and as a consequence was the first of the new green divisions to be shipped overseas in November 1943.  It was the first of the new divisions to go into combat, being committed to defensive positions about 50 miles south of Rome, on 1 March 1944.  Three months later, the division, having proven itself in continuous combat, was the first to enter Rome.

 In the ensuinig months of combat, the 88th division was noted by the German Tenth Army as a force to be reckoned with and as such the German commanders classified the 88th as a "shock troops" division, meaning they believed it to be an elite unit.  Captured German war documents revealed that the Germans shifted their reserves whenever the 88th was committed to the battle line.  Obviously, the enemy believed that the 88th Infantry Division was something special.

And the Germans weren't the only ones to recognize the excellence of the division.  During its 344 days of combat in the Italian Campaign, the division was awarded 3 distinguished unit citations and its soldiers could boast of winning a remarkable 2 Congressional Medals of Honor (the highest and rarest medal awarded in the U.S. Army), 40 Distinguished Service Crosses, 66 Legion of Merit medals, 522 Silver Stars, and 3,784 Brone Stars.  Perhaps the medal count speaks for itself. 

But the key question, with great significance for future U.S. military doctrine, was why was the division so good? 

The most important factor appears to be pretty simple:  leadership.  Let's examine this more closely.

In all other respects the 88th Division was similar to the thirteen other new divisions.  The 88th had no particular advantages in the officers and enlisted men assigned to it.  The training programs were identical as they were standard for all new divisions.  However, when one looks closely, there were differences in both leadership and training.  These can be mainly attributed to one man:  Major General John Emmit Sloan, Commanding General of the 88th.

 Next blog post:  Part 2:  "Annapolis' Best General:  The Values-Based Leadership of Major General John E. Sloan (USNA 1910)"   

 

Children & War Trauma

One of the saddest results of war is what it does to the children who have experienced it.  I don't intend this post to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject but rather to focus on one child in particular - my own 13-year old son.   We have now lived for five years in what has become one of the most violent places on the planet.  Over the last two and a half years especially, the violence of the Drug Wars has exploded all around us and we've had to endure living among everything that armed conflict entails:  the many military and police checkpoints, grenade attacks, shootouts, kidnappings and torture of close friends, having mass graves and arsenals uncovered in our town - in short, we are living through a very difficult time in the history of Mexico.  And this of course has taken a psychological toll on all of us but especially on our youngest son.  Recently when I was checking his homework notebook from school I came across this drawing he had made on the last page:

 

He had made an imaginary island (which he named "Maniki") and had written "they're famous for their body armor and weapons - this is the safest island - there are no malitos."  The word malitos, literally "little bad people," is a euphenism here for cartel gunmen - nobody dares utter the dreaded word Zeta in fact, besides malitos they also say, ellos de la letra (those of the letter).  When I came across this it made me sad because to me it reveals that he's dealing with a certain level of insecurity which causes trauma.  Fortunately we haven't had any personal run-ins with the bad guys, though we've seen them around numerous times and recently this same son was skateboarding with friends in a street when several cartel vehicles roared past.  The boys quickly sought refuge in a carport as the vehicles passed.  This is how this generation is learning to survive - they are growing up where violence and insecurity is their normal.

As parents we spend a lot of time talking things over with our three sons.  We process things as a family and I think this helps them cope with what they've seen and heard in living through this mess.  But there are many children who will face years of recovery from the trauma of living though this conflict.  Peacemaking is a huge and necessary task which will take years of work.

A related story:  last month a video of a kindergarten teacher in Monterrey keeping her class calm during a shootout went viral.  The video is a striking example of what so many Mexican children have to deal with.    

India: The Grad School Level of Missions

Why am I in Mexico?  I get this question often at missions conferences.  My answer is simple:  to train and send Mexican Christians into the nations.  I firmly believe that the Mexican church, long seen as a "receiving" church (meaning that they are the recipient of foreign missions work), is now ready to be a "sending" one (menaing that they are now able to take the gospel into the nations).  The Great Commission call to go into all the nations is the trumpet call I am sounding over Mexico.  In particular, I believe one target nation for Mexican Christians is the nation of India. 

Dr. Ralph Winter, the founder of the influential U.S. Center for World Mission and who passed away almost two years ago, said the following about the importance of India in world evangelization: 

"India by far presents the greatest missionary challenge.  Indians worship over 330 million gods, goddesses and demons.  It is a complex, multi-ethnic nation, consisting of more than 3,000 ethnic groups and over 500 languages.  It is the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Transcendental Meditation, Eastern mysticism, and Yoga, which are all elements of the New Age Movement in the West.  India's Muslim population is the world's third largest and India has the world's largest Muslim-minority.  Less than 2% of the Indian population are Bible-believing Christians and approximately 70% of the more than one billion Indians are children.  All this and it is predicted that India is poised to soon overtake China as the world's most populated nation." 

Indeed the challenge looms large.  But I believe Mexico is uniquely positioned to have a huge influence in India - and vice versa.  Mexico, like India, is also a very complex nation with many languages and ethnicities.  For example, linguists have classified Mexico's ninety individual languages into twelve distinct indigenous linguistic families and with more than forty subgroups.  Another interesting development is that Mexico and India have increased trade by over 600% in the last six years.  Trade between the two nations as of March of this year total $530 million USD.  Exciting things are happening!

A Northern Mexican Resurrection Reflection on Easter Sunday, 2011

They can't kill us all, in our little church gathering

In this the poorest colonia because

How can you kill 50 people all at one time?

But then I was reminded about grenade attacks and

Not to mention the 30-round clips of 7.62 mm bullets

Being spewed out to silence us and drown out the gospel -

Hosing us down in a river of our own blood.

But we felt safe, comforting the servants of Elisha among us:

Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

 

But I was wrong about one thing:  they certainly could kill us all -

We learned that the audacity of evil knows no bounds.

Jesus sent out his seventy-two but seventy-two here were

Lined up against a wall and executed - bullets sprayed into them like

Zookeepers hosing down elephants, and their river of blood

Still cries from the ground.

 

Easter Sunday in the killing fields of northern  Mexico

Gives me a new sense of the resurrection:

We've felt the sting but await the victory

If Christ has not been raised, then we are of all people

most to be pitied because that means Mao was right -

And ultimately power does grow out of the barrel of a gun

Or a cruise missile or a drone or even a clenched fist.

And when it's our turn to face the firing squad,

We are truly to be pitied.

 

Show me, O death, where is your victory?

The battles you've won are impressive

But the war's not over and we have the promise

That Christ's victory, our victory, will swallow you forever -

Therefore, I will labor here in the killing fields and avenues of death,

I will not be afraid, even knowing that there is no safety in numbers,

Except in refuge with the One who made the victory possible.

An update: What are we up to these days?

The Background (a brief re-cap of our story):

In 1990, I (Greg) received the missionary call to serve overseas.  The following year I married a lovely young lady who had a similar calling and, being young and zealous, we were ready to take on the world.  Throughout the summer of 1991 we researched and explored our options - a vast myriad of missions agencies, churches, etc only to come to the conclusion that it wasn't yet time for us to leave.  Every door we tried to open was locked.  So we bided our time and worked where the Lord had planted us - campus ministry at our alma mater, Appalachian State University, and various other jobs.  The long season of waiting lasted until 2002 when the Lord finally confirmed that we were ready to be released into overseas ministry.  In the summer of 2003 we left for Nicaragua, not as a pair but as a family of five (we'd been quite busy during those eleven years!) - making a commitment to two years to teach English at a Christian school and hosting short-term missions groups. 

The two years stretched into three and after our commitment ended in Nicaragua we were invited to serve at a Bible Institute in northern Mexico.  So once again we packed everything up and changed jobs, nations and climates.  Our ministry in Mexico has been much deeper and broader than Nicaragua.  This is because Nicaragua was more like a "missions boot camp" for us - learning the language, culture and surviving various things that the enemy (and at times God) threw at us.  In Mexico we worked as student deans at the Bible Institute, ran a language school, helped with a church plant in a poor neighborhood and, like in Nicaragua, hosted short-term missions groups.

So...now what?

In 2009 Jan and I both began to sense that a change was coming to our ministry.  Not that we were going to change locations, but more along the lines of our responsabilities.  Throughout our ministry together we have always had more grace for ministry to college-age people than any other group.  This is the age group of the Bible Institute students and, though we have had a very fruitful season at that institution, we believed that the Lord had something more.  So we committed to a season of prayer and exploration and waiting to see what the next step would be.  

In the fall of 2009 we started a home group for 20-somethings which became known as "Waffle Fest."  This was an English-speaking Bible study and dinner group and, though fruitful, we knew that still there was something more.  At the end of 2010 a more distinct vision began coming into focus.  This vision marks a significant change in our ministry from what we have been doing here since 2006.  This new vision is to start a "missions-discipleship project" which will host a group of English-speaking foreigners for the purpose of going beyond the typical short-term missions trip.  The project is based on the Gap Year concept which is popular in the UK .  The participants would commit to increments of three months - the ideal stint is six months to a year - and would live and serve alongside us here in Mexico.  The idea behind this new vision is to train and disciple 20-somethings who are considering a call into missions and want something between the short-term 10-day trip and a long-term commitment overseas.  The typical day will involve Biblical and theological instruction, language learning, cultural adaptation, and hands-on ministry and service - not in a sterile classroom setting but on the broad, dusty panorama that is Mexico.

We are currently hosting Spencer, a 21-year old Canadian, and are are expecting more to join us in the fall when the project will "officially" begin.  In the next few days I plan on further elaborating on this missions-discipleship project - putting further nuance and definition to this exciting new direction God has laid out before us.

What should a 21st Century missions organization look like?

It's easy to describe what the organization shouldn't be:  self-serving, hierarchical, top-down, dogmatic, centralized, information-closed, independent, etc.  This describes many 20th Century organizations and, unfortunately, even many current missions agencies.  But describing what my ideal 21st Century missions organization should be is a bit more tricky.  We could begin with the opposites from the list above:  others-serving, flexible, decentralized, open source, and interdependent.  This is a start.  We must realize that the challenges facing us in our time are far more complex, multinodal and interconnected than we can imagine.  Rather than focus narrowly on near term projects and solutions for today's missions environment, we must recognize the need to take a longer view, a generational view, for the sustainability of our missions calling.  Innovation, flexibility and resilience are critical characteristics to be cultivated if we are to extend this calling into the nations.  So we will begin by fleshing out these three key components:  innovation, flexibility and resilience. 

Innovation:  Being an innovator is more difficult than it may sound.  Innovators are usually demonized and opposed until their ideas are proven successful.  It is only then that they are held in high esteem.  That's the hard part of being an innovator.  One must be willing to be a risk-taker and do things outside of the accepted mold.  In today's missions environment, an innovator is, among other things, someone who is interdependent rather and independent, others-serving rather than self-serving, and works within a flat, decentralized organizational framework rather than a hierarchical/bureaucratic one.  With a quick perusal of the websites of many of the top denominational missions boards and non-denominational, parachurch missions organizations, one would find these to be in stark contrast to what we are proposing and would prove just how innovative an interdependent, others-serving, decentralized missions organization would be.

Flexibility:  Flexibility allows an organization to flow with the rapid-fire changes of our times.  The Information Age travels at the speed of light and the rise and proliferation of social networks, mobile phones and the endless apps accompanying them are all tools to be learned and harnessed for global missions.  A 21st Century missions organization has to be a flexible organization - this means a constant revision of its methods, strategies, leadership structure and ministry projects - all the while employing the new technological tools provided us.

Resilience:  To me, resilience falls more in the area of finances.  The financial model of an innovative, flexible and resilient missions organization must be first of all sustainable.  This does not necessarily imply self-sustainability, because an interdependent entity will live under a gift economy rather than a competitive one.  The gift economy draws from the close relationships, creativity and commitment between people and thinks "win-win," while in a competitive economy an organization seeks to draw and absorb money and resources into itself for its own self-perpetuation and glory.  The gift economy especially values open-source and renewable resources and lives by Jesus' words "it is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).  So why market books and music when at least some things can be given away freely as e-books and free downloads?  If you want to know where the true heart and vision of an organization is, simply follow the dollars.  A missions organization that seeks first funding through slick marketing techniques and only then the Kingdom of God has missed the heart of our Lord.  

In all this thought over what a 21st Century missions entity should look like, I've been meditating on this very descriptive passage of scripture:

5 Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength,

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

6 He is like a shrub in the desert,

and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in an uninhabited salt land.

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

8 He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

 

- Jeremiah 17:5-8

 Selah.  He who has ears, let him hear.  And he who wants to comment , let him comment!

The Mission at Mission

Last year our church in El Carmen planted a church in a nearby community called "Mission" (because a group from Mission, Texas initially funded the establishment of the community back in the early 1990s).  The locals call it La Hormiguera which means the anthill - a joke referencing the fact that it's built on a series of hills and the population is so dense that it reminds one of a large anthill.  The fact is that the Mission community is one of the poorest places we've ever seen in Mexico.  Many people live in simple, one-room cinder-block structures with no running water.  It's a place where, because of the poverty, the drug cartels easily recruit their young gatilleros (triggermen).  You might say that this is the front line in the drug wars.  The cartels love to play a Robin Hood type of role to these type communities by handing out school supplies at the beginning of the school year in August and blankets when the weather gets cold in December.  It's sad to see that many of the teenage boys have adopted the gang-banger style and look up to the cartel men as heroes.  Worse still, teenage pregnancies there are rampant.  The challenge we face is to capture the hearts and minds of these youth with the gospel!

So in October of 2009, taking up this challenge, our church sent several families to start a church in Mission.  We called it La Misión a Mission and after a few weeks of evangelizing and getting word out about the new church, by December it was firmly established with a core of around 50 people.  But this was not to be without struggle.  Last summer the pastor's  two brothers and several other members of the church were kidnapped and brutally beaten by members of the Zetas - the most vicious and bloodthirsty of all of Mexico's cartels.  They were fortunate not to have been murdered like the 72 Central American migrants whom the same cartel murdered during the same month.  Due to the continued cartel threats, the pastor and his family relocated to another part of Mexico.  The congregants, also fearing for their lives and without a pastor, stopped coming.  It looked like the church plant was going to die.  That's when our pastor in El Carmen, along with the leadership team, decided to "adopt" the Mission church.  Even though it was officially planted out of our church we had tried to maintain a level of distance so that the young church could stand on its own two feet and not rely on us.  But the changed circumstances called for different measures.  The leaders were given different responsibilities and Jan and I volunteered to take the Tuesday night service in which after a worship time the men and women divide into separate Bible studies.  Jan started a study on the "Supreme Calling of the Godly Woman" and I started a chapter-by-chapter study on the life of David entitled, "David:  God's Braveheart" (David, El Corazón Valiente de Dios).

During the first few weeks only a handfull of people came out.  The majority were still frightened by what had happened with the drug cartel.  On our second Tuesday night, a man told me that a rumor was circulating around the Mission community that the Zetas were threatening a grenade attack on the small church if it didn't shut down.  Though probably just a rumor, the cartels had been carrying out frequent grenade attacks against the government lately.  It's hard to describe my reaction in hearing about that threat but all I can say is that inside I had no fear at all.  I'm not talking about courage here but rather faith.  God had assured me that we were perfectly safe.   And so we carried on.  Slowly, over the next few weeks, the people began to return.  By the end of September we had over fifty consistently every Tuesday night.

The glory goes to God.  What I have learned from our involvement in the Mission at the Mission is that God is much bigger than any threat.  Human evil, though scary, can never thwart the purposes of God.  The people needed to see that the leaders were committed.  They needed to see that we weren't afraid.  In short, we had to model faith to them.  So now the little church is thriving and growing - though not without its problems.  After all, the only church without problems is a church without people - so we'll take the problems!  Our task, however, is not to staff the church indefinitely but rather to raise up a worship team as well as look for a pastor who can take the church plant and further nuture it.  But the lessons we've learned and the relationships we've made over the past four months have been worth their weight in gold.  Stay posted and in a later post I'll keep you informed of what's happening at Mission. 

Long Distance Friends: Advice to Campus Pastors

Last week I was asked by my friend Justin Wallace, who heads up ImpactUNCC, a campus ministry at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, to contribute an article to his Heart of Campus Ministry blog.  The series is called "Long Distance Friends."  Here's Justin's intro:

   "Sometimes I feel like a like a lion stuck in a cage. I can only see the 4 walls that have captured me. My world view is small and minimized. I wonder if, at times, we approach ministry from this place. We only see ministry from the perspective of our context, our culture, our generation, our 4 walls. So, we spin our wheels, thinking that we’re moving but instead the back axle is sinking deeper and deeper in the mud. I see this as a huge temptation that we as American college ministers face. We become so locked into how ministry is done in the context of America that we become more like America than like the Kingdom of Heaven. What is the remedy? How do we protect ourselves from such a myopic view of ministry? I believe we must surround ourselves with friends, mentors and Christian family from outside the 4 walls of this country. I have asked 4 of my friends that work with College students in other countries, other contexts, to share their views of college ministry and their suggestions for us here in America. I asked them, ”What would you, someone outside the four walls of the US, say to those of us that are working with college students in the US? Suggestion? Warnings? Advice?” Today’s post comes from Robert Millar in Munich, Germany. I hope you enjoy!

Here's the first article in the series:  Robert Millar, an Irish missionary who works with (mostly) American college-age people in Munich, Germany:  From Robert in Munich

I love this quote from the article:  "How do we reach a generation who unconsciously believe in a benevolent deity who rewards good behavior, while rejecting Christianity as an antisocial, intolerant belief system that appears to be attempting to institute a legislative, political theocracy upon the American dream of Happiness, Change and Tolerance?"  That, my friends, will preach!

As soon as my article gets published I'll post the link here!

Long Distance Friends:  Greg in Mexico

 

The Bravest Person in Mexico...

Meet Marisol Valles García.  She's a 20-year-old college student studying criminal justice who this week was sworn in as police chief in one of the most dangerous zones of the Drug War - the town of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a town of 10,000 near the city of Juarez, the bloody epicenter of the war.  Unsurprisingly, Marisol was the only applicant for the job as mayors, public officials, and scores of police officers in the Juarez valley which stretches along the Rio Grande border of Texas have been assassinated - some even beheaded - by the vicious drug cartels.  

The AP reports, "The tiny but energetic Valles García, whose only police experience was a stint as a department secretary, says she wants her 13 officers to practice a special brand of community policing.  She plans to hire more women - she currently has three on the force - and assign each to a neighborhood to talk with families, to promote civic values and detect potential crimes before they happen."  The article reported that Valles García won't carry a gun but has been assigned two bodyguards. 

Her aim is to establish programs in neighborhoods and schools, in order to win back security in public spaces and to foster greater cooperation among neighbors so they can form watch committees.  In an interview with CNN Español she said, "The weapons we have are principles and values, which are the best weapons for prevention."  It almost sounds like she's studied some COIN...

Valles García's decision to accept the job, whether seen as courageous or foolhardy, surely wasn't taken lightly - as the AP story reports the situation in the Juarez Valley:  "Local residents say the drug gangs take over at night, riding through the towns in convoys of SUVs and pickups, assault rifles and even .50 caliber sniper rifles at the ready.  The mayor of one nearby town and the assistant mayor of another were recently assassinated even after they took refuge in the nearby city of Juarez."  The stakes, then, are very high.

"Yes, there is fear," Valles García said in the CNN interview, "There will always be fear but what we want to achieve in our municipality is tranquility and security."  God be with her...this lamb among wolves.  Protect her, O Lord, and give her strength. 

Student, 20, Heads Police in Mexico Drug Corridor (AP)

20-year-old Woman Becomes Top Cop in Violent Mexican Municipality (CNN)

College Student Named Police Chief in Mexico, No One Else Applied (Yahoo! News)

ABC News Video:  Mexico's Bravest Woman

 

It's all Greek to me...

"Græcum est; non legitur!"  This Latin expression, which means "It is Greek, [therefore] it can't be read," was scrawled by monk copyists in the margins of ancient works as knowledge of Greek dwindled among those who were copying ancient manuscripts in monastic libraries during the Middle Ages.  The expression later surfaced in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar when Servilius Casca, trying to understand Cicero's speech in Greek while crowning Caesar, replies to his friend and fellow conspirator Cassius:  "It was Greek to me."  Apparently Greek is a tough language to learn.

So, perhaps for that very reason, I've decided to finally learn Greek - ancient Greek, to be specific.  The real reasons are many and, I would think, are obvious:  to be able to read various ancient texts in their original language  - the New Testament being principal among them, but also Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus to name a few, as well as to engage my mind in the complex thought processes that the language develops in the learner.  The latter point is well-stated in the Oxford University Press' Classics:  A Very Short Introduction:

"The tooling of the Greek language for analytic thought and theorizing made further advances in the fourth century.  Philosophers deployed and developed the language in their assault on the whole range of philosophical questions, about the nature of reality, truth, society, psychology, mortality, rhetoric, ethics, and (not least) politics.  Greek, and specifically Greek philosophic discourse, was quite simply the most highly developed critical apparatus available through the duration of the ancient world.  It was respected as superior even by the Romans who reduced the Greek world to the rank of provinces in their World Empire, and has continued to inspire intellectual work to the present day."

Fortunately there are many superb online resources for learning ancient Greek.  Two of the best, in my opinion, are:

 William Ramey's New Testament Greek course

Elpenor's Home of the Greek Word

I'll keep you posted on my progress, and in the meantime, please be on me about keeping with it!

Updated stats from President Calderón

President Felipe Calderón announced today that 28,000 people have been killed in the crackdown on drug cartels since late 2006.  In addition, Mexican authorities have confiscated 84,000 weapons (the majority of which came from the USA), as well as seized $411 million US dollars in cash and $330 million pesos ($26 million US dollars).  The Milenio newspaper reports that July was the deadliest month so far in the Drug Wars with 1,234 reportedly killed.  Most interesting in today's news was President Calderón's statement that he would consider opening debate on the legalization of drugs.    

What US students need: the Gap Year concept

The Gap Year, according to the PlanetGapYear.com, is a period of time when students take a break from formal education to travel, volunteer, study, serve, intern, or work - typically, but not necessarily, in a foreign country.  A gap year experience can last for several weeks, a semester, or up to a year or more.  Typically a gap year is taken between high school graduation and starting college, during college, or between college graduation and starting  a career or grad school.  The gap year has its origins in the United Kingdom, and since the 1980s taking time out has become a right of passage for thousands of UK students.  The gap year is becoming increasingly popular with more US students.  Studies done by leading universities indicate that students who take a year out before college are more focused and motivated when they arrive on campus than those who don't take this detour.  In fact, Harvard's admissions department is so convinced of the benefits of a gap year that they offer the option to every admitted freshman in their acceptance letter. 

Taking time out between high school and college used to evoke fear that the student would not follow through with college.  Today, the college admissions offices at both public and private colleges and universities are getting more requests from students to defer enrollment, and are freely granting these requests provided the student can demonstrate they have specific goals and that the experience will better prepare them to succeed in college.  The gap year can be a win-win experience for not only the students themselves but also for parents given that the dropout rate of college freshmen is nearly 30 percent.

What I'd like to see among evangelical Christian youth is the gap year concept applied to missions. Each year, thousands of evangelical youth take short-term missions trip all over the world, which is a wonderful thing, but very few of them actually stay in a foreign country and culture for more than the usual ten day short-term trip duration. I think a longer duration overseas - three months, six months, or at best a year - would be immensely beneficial to American teens by broadening their perspectives on the world so much more deeply than the 10-day short-term experience. Your thoughts?

2010 Mexican Census

One of the cool things about living in foreign countries is that you get counted in their censi (what is "census" in the plural?  Censuses?  Censi?).  Our family has now been counted in the national censuses of three countries - USA in 2000, Nicaragua in 2005 (that blog post here) and now Mexico in 2010.  We like being good citizens and participating in them!

This is Blanca, one of the local census workers (she also goes to our church):

 

Here's the census form:

 

And after you've filled out the form and been "counted," they post this in a visible spot (usually on your front door):

 

And, of course, the 2010 Mexican Census has it's own facebook page!