Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation is closed for business

2010-01-06T12:58:00.002-06:00

After (on and off) blogging for the last number of years on Blogger, I've decided to blog on our home site (boydhome.com) in English and on our new church website in Spanish (impactobiblico.com). I have a goal of posting on both sites once per week, so please bookmark the two sites or subscribe to receive notifications about updates.

Where has Jon been?

2009-12-09T10:17:00.005-06:00

I haven't been blogging faithfully (can you say "nada") because I've been logging some quality hours on our church website for Colombia. You can check out the result here:

Impacto Bíblico

By the way, the site runs on Wordpress and the Thesis theme. My experience with Wordpress makes me want to change this blog over, but we'll see if and when that happens.

An interesting article on pentecostalism in Latin America

2009-12-09T10:13:00.002-06:00

This is really nothing new for us who work in Latin America, but if you're not up to speed on the majority of growing "Christian" churches in that region of the world you should read the following article by Christianity Today:

Power Pentecostalisms

Missionary ETexts

2009-10-14T21:57:00.003-05:00

I just ran across a good source of material for missionaries, especially if you have a Kindle (see my previous posts on the Kindle for conversion of files to a Kindle-readable format).

Missionary ETexts

They say the following on their website:

"Our emphasis is on missionaries whose spiritual lives or missionary experiences are of potential value to us today. This is motivated by Paul's teaching concerning the value of following the example of worthy lives (Phil. 3:17)."

I don't know about you, but I like their focus, and I'm sure I can find much good reading material for the future on their site.

Back to the trivium

2009-10-01T12:12:00.002-05:00

My brother just sent me a link to one of Kevin Bauder's posts on liberal education and the trivium.

Liberal education

Lectura frecuente de la Sagrada Escritura

2009-09-30T22:26:00.002-05:00

Por San Juan Crisóstomo s. IV.

Queridísimos, es una cosa muy buena la lectura de las divinas Escrituras. Da sabiduría al alma, eleva la mente al cielo, hace al hombre agradecido, nos impulsa a no admirar las realidades de aquí abajo, sino a vivir con el pensamiento puesto allá arriba, a realizar todas nuestras obras con la mirada fija en la recompensa que nos dará el Señor, a dedicarnos al trabajo de la virtud con gran entusiasmo. Gracias a ellas, podemos conocer la providencia de Dios, siempre dispuesta a prestar auxilio; la valentía de los justos, la bondad del Señor, la grandeza de los premios. Nos pueden impulsar a imitar fervorosamente la piedad de hombres generosos, para no adormecernos en las batallas espirituales y para confiar en las promesas divinas antes de que se cumplan.

Por esto os exhorto: ¡leamos con mucha atención las Escrituras divinas! Alcanzaremos su verdadera comprensión si nos dedicamos siempre a ellas. No es posible, en efecto, que quien demuestra gran cuidado y deseo de conocer las palabras divinas se quede en la estacada. Incluso si no tiene ningún maestro, el Señor mismo entrará en nuestros corazones, iluminará nuestra inteligencia, nos revelará las verdades escondidas; será Él nuestro Maestro en lo que no comprendamos, con tal de que nosotros estemos dispuestos a hacer lo que podamos (...).

Cuando tomamos en nuestras manos el libro espiritual, hemos de poner en vela nuestro espíritu, recoger nuestros pensamientos, echar fuera cualquier preocupación terrena. Dediquémonos entonces a la lectura con mucha devoción, con gran atención, para que se nos conceda que el Espíritu Santo nos guíe a la comprensión de lo que está escrito, sacando así gran utilidad. Aquel hombre eunuco y bárbaro, ministro de la reina de los etíopes, que era un hombre importante, no descuidaba la lectura de la Escritura ni siquiera cuando estaba de viaje. Teniendo en sus manos al profeta [Isaías], leía con mucha atención, incluso sin comprender lo que tenía ante sus ojos; pero como ponía de su parte cuanto podía -diligencia, entusiasmo y atención-, obtuvo un guía (cfr Hech 8,26-40).

Considera, por tanto, qué gran cosa es no descuidar la lectura de la Escritura tampoco durante los viajes, ni yendo en carro. Escuchen esto quienes ni siquiera en su propia casa admiten que haya que leer la Sagrada Escritura, con la excusa de que conviven con su mujer o militan en el ejército, porque están preocupados por los hijos, dedicados al cuidado de los parientes, o comprometidos en otros negocios.

Ese hombre era eunuco y bárbaro: dos circunstancias suficientes para que hubiese sido negligente. Otros factores eran su dignidad y sus grandes riquezas, y el hecho de viajar en una carroza, pues no es fácil dedicarse a la lectura cuando se viaja así; más aún, resulta costoso. Y, sin embargo, su deseo y su celo superaban cualquier impedimento. Hasta tal punto estaba enfrascado en la lectura, que no decía lo que muchos repiten en el día de hoy: "No entiendo lo que contiene, no logro comprender la profundidad de la Escritura; ¿por qué, pues, voy a sujetarme inútilmente y sin fruto a la fatiga de leer, sin que nadie me guíe?". Nada de eso pensaba aquel hombre, bárbaro por la lengua pero sabio por el pensamiento. Creía que Dios no lo despreciaría, sino que le mandaría alguna ayuda de lo alto, con tal de que él hubiese puesto lo que estaba de su parte, dedicándose a la lectura. Por eso, el Padre benigno, viendo su íntimo deseo, no le descuidó ni le abandonó a sí mismo, sino que le mandó enseguida un maestro.

Este bárbaro está en condiciones de ser maestro de todos nosotros: de quienes llevan una vida privada, de quienes están enrolados en el ejército, de quienes gozan de autoridad. En una palabra, puede ser maestro de todos; no sólo de los hombres, sino también de las mujeres -tanto más que siempre están en casa-, y de los que han elegido la vida monástica. Aprendan todos que ninguna circunstancia es obstáculo para leer la palabra divina, que es posible hacerlo no sólo en casa, sino en la plaza, de viaje, en compañía de otros o cuando estamos metidos en plena actividad. Si nosotros hacemos lo que está en nuestra mano, pronto encontraremos quien nos enseñe. Porque el Señor, viendo nuestro afán por las realidades espirituales, no nos despreciará, sino que nos mandará una luz del cielo e iluminará nuestra alma. No descuidemos, por tanto -os lo ruego-, la lectura de la Escritura.

Tomado de Estudios bíblicos de la red

Books, classical education and ministry

2009-09-29T09:16:00.003-05:00

Several things have come together in the last month that have caused me to evaluate the books that I read and how I read them. I went to a conference at BILD International here in Ames, which challenged me on this topic. I read a post by Kevin Bauder called "Give Attendance to Reading." And I've been talking to my brother Josh, who is working on a master's degree in English from the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities.

Let me share a few things I've learned.

We should turn every book we read into a resource. In other words, we should have a system for saving the insights we receive from any book. Jeff Reid, the president of BILD, has a good set of points that this resource should include from each book.

Bibliographical info

Statement of main idea/thesis

Description of core concepts

Diagram or chart of key ideas (if applicable)

Summary of key issues and questions: What are the "disturbing" issues or questions that the book raises for you? List at least two issues and several questions that come to your mind about each of the issues. These main issues and questions can be used later to engage others in discussion about the book.

Significant quotes

List of growth and development ideas that come out of your reading of the book

This information needs to be stored in a retrievable format. I'm using Mendeley Desktop for this task, although you could just as easily save it in Word.

The benefits of doing this for every book you read are obvious. Why didn't I start this about ten years ago? I also think that every pastor and missionary should read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It was revolutionary for me.

Dr. Bauder writes about having a plan for reading. He reads regularly from six categories: biblical studies, theology, philosphy, history, fiction/literature, and miscellaneous. As a missionary, I would include a category on Colombia and another on Spanish, but I'm sure his system could include those two categories.

The idea of the trivium in classical education has an interesting application to the reading of books. The trivium includes three aspects: grammar (understanding the basic principles of any subject), logic (analyzing the subject), and rhetoric (expressing your ideas on the subject). This applies nicely to the reading of books, especially more difficult ones. We must first understand the book, which means we must read it through. Then we can analyze it, and finally we can express our view of it. Usually we skip ahead the the third level without doing the hard work at the first two levels. This also means we need to read books multiple times (if they're worthy of it).

The third level of rhetoric requires the interaction of other people. I can see a wonderful application of this stage towards ministry training. We can engage our disciples and interns in Socratic-type discussions of important books during their time with us. We all develop more depth of understanding and wisdom as iron sharpens iron.

This focus also lends itself very well to reading the "Great Books." Of course the Great Book is the Bible, but other books have stood the test of time. As Adler says, the Great Books are "over our head" by definition and therefore stretch us as we reach towards understanding them.

This approach also guards us from meditating too much on the latest fads in ministry. The Great Books have endured precisely because they are not faddish. We do have to occasionally read popular books because they are influening people (I'm struggling through The Shack right now), but I think that our long-term impact will be greater if we focus on reading books that have endured.

Well, I hope this post has been helpful. I know that I've been opened up to many new possibilities in reading as I've pondered these resources and ideas.

Presentation on graphic arts for missionaries

2009-09-18T16:32:00.002-05:00

I just presented a 50 minutes session today in two missions classes at Faith Baptist Bible College on graphic arts for missionaries. If you're interesting in the topic, you can download the two sets of notes I used:

Basic Design Concepts by Dr. Wayne Haston

Graphic Arts for Missionaries by Jonathan Boyd

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat

2009-08-29T15:34:00.006-05:00

My dad hired fishing guide Ross Crowe for a day on Rainy Lake on Thursday. Believe me when I say it was the best walleye fishing I've ever had! We caught over 50 fish in total, and I think that I landed about 20. We had to throw back about 7 because they were in the slot size (about 20-23 inches each). Ross takes you to the best spots and has great equipment and had just the right hints to help us catch fish. He showed us where to find the walleyes (hidden reefs not on the topo maps are best), what bait to use (minnows on orange/red/black jigs), what rod to use (sensitive graphite), and how to fish (use a Lowrance sonar to find the fish and stay in one spot no more than 20 minutes because there are only so many active feeders).

Well, after the thrill of victory on Thursday, Dad and I took Holly out on Friday. I figured that we could give her a little of our experience. Wrong! Can you say "agony of defeat"? We got basically skunked (Dad caught a baby walleye) and came back wet and cold.

This made me think about ministry. Why is it that some churches flourish like the fishing with Ross, while others languish like our experience yesterday? I obviously don't have any definitive answers, but here are a few of my thoughts. (Note: These are not formulas to success, rather they are emphases that lead to God's blessing. He's ultimately the One who blesses or withholds his blessing.)

1) How central is the gospel to your ministry? The more we can center our lives and ministries on the gospel (the fact that Jesus died for our sins), the more we will see God's blessing. Now, numbers don't give us a good indication about how central the gospel is to a given ministry. I know that some ministries in difficult countries (e.g. Germany) may be more gospel-centered than a ministry with big numbers in an "easier" place of ministry (e.g. Brazil). My question is, "How gospel-centered is the average member in my church?" In other words, when a conflict comes up, does your average member think about the cross, or think about other things? What motivates our members? It should be the love of Christ in the cross (2 Cor. 5:14-15), but I'm afraid that's far from many people's minds on a regular basis.

2) How well are you working as a team in your ministry? The longer I serve as a missionary the more I see that one guy cannot build a ministry like a team can (even Paul worked with a team). Are we looking for qualified servants in our churches and training them for ministry? Are we handing over ministries that do not match our gifts and abilities? Are we humble enough to work with a team and hear them tell us what we're doing wrong?

3) Are we passionate about Jesus Christ and the ministry we're involved in? I've seen a number of churches in which it seems that no one is passionate about anything (except maybe sports). I tend to be a fairly laid back guy, but I've realized that I need to grow in passion for Jesus Christ and ministry. I'm asking God to change me. I'm not content with where I'm at.

We also need to be passionate about the location and people we are called to serve. As one writer said, you need be able to say "Give me [insert your location here] or I die!" This passion for Jesus Christ and a love for the people should translate into a passion for evangelism. Just as we caught a lot of fish with Ross, we should long for a sould harvest in our communities. It's happened before; why can't it happen again?

These are just a few things I've been thinking about as a result of our fishing trip...

Mapas de ciudades de Colombia

2009-08-29T15:26:00.001-05:00

Acabo de encontrar unos mapas de ciudades de Colombia (como Mapquest) que se pueden usar para encontrar las direcciones:

Mapas Publicar

Trip to Colombia

2009-08-14T14:17:00.002-05:00

We just got back from our whirlwind trip to Colombia. All we had to do was touch down so they could stamp our passports, but we tried to use the time as profitably as possible.

We ended up staying an extra night in Newark because they offered us $400/person in credit, hotel, and food for the night because the flight was overbooked. Not a bad deal.

We arrived late on Thursday night and spent Friday resting because Lucas got sick from the change in altitude.

On Sunday I preached at Grace Baptist Church in Chia... wow, my brain didn't want to work too well in Spanish, but people said it was okay. Later we ate lunch at the pastor's house. Pastor Daniel has had his share of struggles in the ministry but things are looking up.

We visited our friends Alfredo and Juana in Tenjo and had a refreshing time with them. We visited a number of other friends during our time in Chia.

Conclusion: We enjoyed our time in Colombia, but it was clear that our burden for the country has changed. We felt like visitors in Bogotá and Chía because our burden has moved to the coast. I can't believe that it's only about 5 months until we go back! I'm more excited than ever about beginning a new church plant on the Colombian coast.

Course on the NT - Curso acerca del panorama del NT

2009-07-31T10:55:00.004-05:00

I'll be facilitating the first online course ever offered by our seminary in Bogotá through the Horizon International Schools (ABWE's distance education entity). I'm pretty excited as the course looks very well-designed. It's on the panorama of the NT. I'm looking to only have ten students as this is the pilot course we're offering. The course runs for 15 weeks, starting on September 1st.

http://moodle.horizonintl.org/
Look at the link below that says, "Español - Bogotá" (haga clic en el vínculo de abajo que dice "Español - Bogotá").

Voy a dirigir el primer curso por internet que nuestro seminario en Bogotá ofrece. El curso empieza el 1 de septiembre y va por 15 semanas. Si quiere inscribirse, por favor comuníquese con Claudia en la Denominación Bautista en Bogotá.

Aquí está la descripción del curso:

Por siglos la Biblia ha demandado los mejores esfuerzos de los que la estudian. Es nuestro privilegio unirnos a la legión de estos eruditos, conforme iniciamos un estudio sistemático sobre la literatura del Nuevo Testamento, la cual relata la historia de Cristo y sus apóstoles. Si nos entregamos a la tarea de todo corazón, cosecharemos beneficios eternos al adquirir una comprensión de la obra de Dios en el pasado y el presente. Cada libro del Nuevo Testamento, sin excepción, testifica de Jesucristo. Por lo tanto, queremos que nuestro estudio tenga como resultado una relación personal más profunda con el Cristo resucitado. Como Pablo, queremos "conocerle" (Filipenses 3: 10). En la medida en que lo conozcamos mejor, seremos enriquecidos personalmente y nuestras vidas harán un impacto cada vez mayor para Dios.

On the road again

2009-07-27T22:45:00.003-05:00

We had a great week of camp at Bass Lake Camp in Winnebago, MN. Thanks for your prayers! I was noticing that being in your home culture makes things easier for communication. I could say "aunt" with the MN pronunciation and no one would look at me funny.

I've also been thinking about cultural adaptation and location. I could work in any part of Colombia and adapt. I'm a missionary to Colombia. But I don't know if I could work anywhere in the U.S. because it's my country and I've developed ideas and prejudices about certain regions. Or to put it more positively, I would really struggle with certain regions. I would constantly be fighting the culture. I've recently heard of several pastors who've had this problem. You can't expect to move from the South to Iowa or Minnesota and not have a bit of culture shock. Things are just different.

This is another reason that cross-cultural missionaries are needed. Many times the "locals" are blinded to the needs or unwilling to meet them. Take the example of hispanic ministry here in the U.S. How many churches are reaching out to them? For many it's a stretch that they're not willing to make. I was excited to hear that First Baptist in Austin, MN has started an outreach to hispanics and now has over 50 in attendence on Sundays!

May the Lord stretch us all to reach people with the gospel... even if they're from a different culture.

Pray for the Bass Lake Senior High week

2009-07-17T12:25:00.002-05:00

We'll be at Bass Lake Senior high camp next week. Please pray for the following four sessions that I'll be leading (Tuesday to Friday).

Class outline – 4 class sessions

• The gospel should be the center of life and ministry.
• The cross is the key to peace with God and growth in God.
• Colombia is a beautiful country with a great need for the gospel.
• Missionaries are normal people who’ve been called to share the gospel in another culture.

Here are some prayer requests for the students:

• That they will feel more profoundly their sinfulness.
• That they will feel overwhelmed by the grace of God in the gospel.
• That they will feel more interest for Colombia and her people.
• That they will feel that if God calls them to missions, they will gladly surrender themselves to him.

Color scheme designer

2009-07-06T22:44:00.002-05:00

I didn't want to forget where this tool is located on the web... It's fantastic for getting a color scheme that impacts. I've just been thinking about designing a church website, so I was looking at some color schemes. Oh, it's also a fun toy.

Color scheme designer

Prayer requests for July

2009-07-06T13:17:00.003-05:00

I was talking to Holly about the changes we made to our website. One thing I'd dropped was the prayer blog, mostly because I wasn't disciplined enough to update it regularly. But prayer is indispensable for our ministry. We're going to be on the front lines of church planting and leadership training. Satan does not like that! So, from now on I will post our prayer requests here on my blog and on our homepage there will also be a link to the "prayer" category.

Prayer requests for July:
1) We're traveling out to ABWE for our board meetings this Thursday.

2) We'll be at Bass Lake Camp from July 20-24. Please pray that God would work mightily in the teens' lives. I have four sessions to teach them, and the topic is "Cross-centered missionary ministry in Colombia." Pray that they would understand the gospel and all of its implications for our lives. Pray that teens would be saved and called to missions.

3) We are praying that the last $260 of monthly support needed would come in. Pray that the new churches considering our ministry would have the economic capacity to take us on as missionaries.

4) Spiritual growth in our lives. Prayer for chances to share the good news of Jesus with more people. Pray for our personal walk with God and as a family.

Taking care of your brain

2009-07-03T11:58:00.004-05:00

Think Smart: A Neurologist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance

I skimmed this book on brain health and learned some interesting things. I've always felt that missionaries, pastors, and seminary professors need to take care of themselves. As we seek to share God's Word, we must devote much energy towards studying.

A lesser emphasized point is that we must spend time taking care of our bodies (which directly affects our brain and thus our ability to think well). For biblical proof, note that Paul says that God is "for the body" (1 Cor. 6:13) and that our body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 6:19). Obviously our body can become a god to us if we overemphasize it, but we must not neglect its care either.

Here are a few points about our brains that were new for me:

Our bad cholesterol level affects every aspect of our health, including the ability of our brain to function well. This is an important point for me to read, as the doctor said that I need to lower my bad cholesterol levels.
Our short term memories are stored in the frontal lobes of our brain. We need to develop this part by intentionally trying to hold different things in our memory at the same time (work it a little), and by trying to remember things that we should know (Google doesn't help here).
Memory experts use the part of the brain that deals with spatial relationships to remember things. For example, a man who could recite about 10,000 digits of pi saw all of the numbers in a landscape of colors and sounds. Now, I can't do that, but I have tried to view the Bible as a spatial entity. For example, I almost see Romans as a cathedral in my mind. People sometimes wonder how I can remember passages so well and that's how I do it. I don't just think of a the numbers of a Bible reference, but think about the book like a building and note where I'm at in the building.
Working on memorization or on a certain skill is only effective up to a certain point on any given day. Your brain needs a night of rest to cement the memorization or the new skill. In other words, writing your whole sermon on Saturday night is not the best way to recall your study on Sunday.
People who have an advanced degree (or extensive informal study) are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease (or at least it staves it off). Along a related note, watching TV is one of the worst things we can do for our brains. In contrast, reading a book or writing or even playing video games can help us develop our God-given mental capacities.

One final note for those who love Colombian coffee: It's very likely that drinking two cups a day is beneficial for our brains. Yeah science!

New (simple) website

2009-06-27T11:06:00.002-05:00

I was thinking yesterday about how we should spend our time on furlough. I thought about how I should be doing everything that I might want to do next year but won't have time because we'll be in the midst of a new church plant.

One goal was to redesign our website and blogs. You can see the results. Let me know what you think.

The Boyds to Colombia
Holly's blog

Reasons for a Christian NOT to use a Kindle

2009-06-09T22:27:00.003-05:00

I finished reading a free ebook on my Kindle last week called World Wide Rave, which the author offered free for a number of days on Kindle. What an interesting book! His basic idea is that you need to write something and offer it for free on Internet. If a ton of people start downloading it and talking about it, you'll soon be known as an authority on the subject. Then you can charge big bucks to speak at conferences, etc. Although his focus is different than mine, you can learn a lot about how today's culture works and how to spread your ideas better.

All that to say that he recommended negative titles in blogs. So you'll notice the word NOT in the title, which according to the author will drive more people to this post.

Here are a few reasons not to use a Kindle reading device (see my previous post on the Kindle to hear my initial reaction):

1) You don't want to read great Christian classics for free.
I had wanted to get Calvin's Institutes for a long time. The price tag was stopping me. Now I have it on my Kindle and I can read it lying down (try that with the print edition!). To access lots of free Christian classics, go to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and download the book in PDF (unfortunately it can't be scanned images of the pages). Download the free Mobipocket eBook Creator and convert the PDF to an ebook. Then just dump the SRC file into your Documents folder on the Kindle and you've got a free Christian classic. But if you want to pay for all of those free classics or not read them, don't get a Kindle!

2) You don't want to get a feel for new/interesting/important books for free.
How many of you have read The Shack? Neither have I, but I have read the first chapter for free on my Kindle. You can always download the first chapter for free from the Kindle store. If I see a book that listed in "Books of Note," I'll often download the free content just to get a feel for the book. Or if I am reading in one book and it mentions another one that interests me, I'll just download the first chapter for future reference. But if you don't want to be up on anything new for free, don't get a Kindle!

3) You don't want to be able to take advantage of downtime on the spur of the moment.
Yesterday we were traveling back from Illinois and it dawned on me that I had some time to do some reading in the car, but I didn't have the book I wanted. I talked to Holly about buying it and went onto the Kindle Store and bought it within about 2 minutes. In our trip back I read about four chapters of my new book on apologetics. But if you don't want to be able to stock your library in a few minutes with a new book, don't get a Kindle!

Well, it's kind of fun to be negative, isn't it?

You've gotta read this book!

2009-05-29T14:41:00.002-05:00

I've mentioned various cross-centered books before, but I received a book for free that is frankly one of the best books I've read on the Christian life. It's entitled The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.

The book explains practically how the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit need to be the two bookends of our Christian life--in other words everything in our lives must be channeled through these two aspects of the Christian walk and rely on them.

The book helps us answer the following questions (taken from their material):
* How can I overcome persistent guilt?
* How can I deal with the pressure to measure up?
* Where can I find the motivation it takes to grow?
* How can I live the Christian life with both my head and my heart?
* How can I be sure God loves me?
* How can I change in an authentic and lasting way?

I'm not done with the book yet, but I've already been encouraged and challenged by a number of points in the book, especially when the authors talk about the gospel enemy of persistent guilt. For each topic they ask a series of practical questions to see how you're doing. The section on persistent guilt spoke to my heart as I tend to beat myself over the head with my failures and shortcomings.

The authors also have a website that includes study guides. I would recommend this book for every Christian, for small groups, for church-wide reading, etc.

My only question is, "When is it coming out in Spanish?"

Back to the drawing board

2009-05-22T14:04:00.001-05:00

(Photos of Santa Marta from vcardenas' on flickr.com)

Well, it looks like Operation Cali has been put on hold. I talked to José two days ago, and his family will not be able to accompany us to Cali for various reasons. I told him not to worry about it because God is sovereign and we have other options.

We are not committed to a Plan B yet, but right now our most likely option would be to join the Carters and the Medinas on the Colombian coast. In fact, Alfredo called me today to encourage me and talk a little about the possibility of working on the coast. I've gone with Alfredo and Scott on three investigative trips around Colombia and have always had a blast with them, not to mention been spiritually encouraged and challenged.

Our most likely starting point for working on the coast would be Santa Marta. If that's the case, I'm sure we'll have more "work teams" that want to come down to help us.

Note: I'm blogging from a Mac... We bought the kids a used iMac G5. It's nice.

Bring the (cross-centered) books!

2009-04-27T20:53:00.002-05:00

Since we've been on furlough I've have had more time to read. I've been reading a number of "cross-centered" books, but have also had time to read some more diverse books. Here are a few:

Living the Cross Centered Life by C. J. Mahaney
This book is easy to read, but the concepts are wonderful! I've been on a six-month quest to think through the implications of cross-centered living and ministry and this book helped me.

The Cross of Christ by John Stott

I'm reading an older edition (McGrath doesn't show up), but this book has given me a deeper understanding of the cross. Stott is great for pointing out things that I'd never noticed in the text before (e.g. Jesus was "saying" "Father forgive them...", not just "said").

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
This has been the most fascinating book I've read this year (I read it on my Kindle). It's about a student from Brown University who goes to Liberty University and pretends to be a Christian. He experienced in one semester more of college life than I think I experienced in four years at my Bible college. He writes from a secular persective and sheds light on many aspects of Liberty's culture and the way that American college students view the Christian faith. There are a few things that are a little rough around the edges, but I felt like I was living in the Liberty dorms with Kevin. Highly recommended for you Bible college deans out there!

Cross-cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christ-like Humility by Duane Elmer

Pastor Will loaned me this one and I enjoyed it. I thought that most of the book was common sense, although I know that that isn't always that common. We need to model openness, acceptance, and trust in order to serve people as Jesus did. The author shares a number of moving illustrations of these truths. Note: this book is not just for missionaries. If we look around we need cross-cultural servanthood almost every day in a lot of the U.S. (Today in Ames I interacted with two people from Colombia, a friend from Morocco and a lady from Israel).

Great church music

2009-04-08T17:38:00.002-05:00

I just ran across a site that offers free-of-charge hymns that are Christ-centered. I've only sung "His Robes for Mine," but it brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful piece!

Church Works Media

How to make (great and inexpensive) prayer cards

2009-04-07T21:04:00.004-05:00

We used Innovative Graphics for our first prayer card, and Nate Horton did a great job. I was thinking about using his services again, but a missionary told me about a way to do it myself. Note: I'm a second termer now, so I tend to think more about the budget (if I spend less on the cards I can spend a little more on conferences this year).

I designed our new card in Photoshop Elements. The key is to use large images and set them to a resolution of 300 DPI. We had to get a copyright release from Target to be able to use the photo for our prayer card. The only other thing that I had to learn about is that they should be formatted in CYMK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key [black]) for printing, rather than RGB (which is for graphics on your screen). Photoshop Elements can't do that, but the Copyworks in Ames has the full version of Photoshop which can easily convert the file.

Once the design was ready, I went to Overnight Prints (thanks Jim Leonard for telling me about this site!). 1,000 glossy cards only cost $115 plus shipping!

Here's the front of our new card:

Traducciones de recursos centrados en el evangelio

2009-03-31T11:40:00.001-05:00

Acabo de encontrar un sitio bueno con recursos centrados en el evangelio:

Traducciones de recursos

Getting things organized

2009-03-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

I have several goals for this home assignment year that have to do with organization. So far I've been doing well at improving. I thought that I'd mention two tools that I think are helpful:

1) You Need A Budget (YNAB): I bought the Excel version of this software about two months ago. So far it's been working wonders on our budgeting. The software is simple. Each month you allocate all of your money to different categories and then track your spending. To make the budget work you need to spend last month's income, so you need to have a buffer of one month's pay. This tactic makes living off of a variable income more manageable. I've never stuck to a budget very well before, but we're doing great so far. The only problem will be dealing with two currencies in Colombia... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2) Getting Things Done by David Allen: This book is great! It's teaching me how to organize my life into a coherent system so that I don't lose things and waste so much time. My problem before was that I had systems for some things but not for everything. This book teaches you to manage the "stuff" that comes into your life in one system.

The Kindle 2 and missionary ministry

2009-03-18T20:42:00.007-05:00

I just received my new Kindle 2 reading device on Monday. I wanted to write a review of the Kindle with special attention given to this device as a huge blessing for overseas missionaries. Missionaries, although it's a little expensive ($359) this might be a good gift that you could suggest to a church (Thank you to the family that sent us a personal gift that covered more than half of the cost of ours!).

First impressions: I didn't get to look at the Kindle for a while because it was Monday and I was the professor in our homeschool. My wife began reading the book (of course on the Kindle) about how to run it. Not a bad idea seeing as I messed something up today because I didn't know how to connect/disconnect it from my computer. The device is slick looking, and not too heavy. The new screen technology is interesting. When you shut it down you see a light impression of the last image that was on the screen. When you put it into sleep mode, a full screen picture or painting of some famous author appears. Very stylish touch! I expected the screen to look a little whiter, but you get used to its light gray color after a little bit. As far as the physical aspect of reading is concerned, a book beats the Kindle. Unless it's an unwieldy tome, in which case the Kindle would win (I think of Grudem's theology as a possible Kindle winner).

Big blessings: Hey, let's be honest, the Kindle has some features that are better than a normal book. For example, I've found many books for free. Amazon has classics for free, and with the free Mobipocket eBook Creator you can convert many books in PDF to books that you can read on your Kindle. I just downloaded a bunch of John Piper's books (including one in Spanish) in PDF and converted them. They're now happily on my Kindle waiting to be read. This possibility to read PDFs is a huge benefit as a missionary. I had a number of PDFs on my desktop about church planting that someday I was going to read. But reading a PDF on my computer is about as fun as dealing with traffic in Bogotá (it's not). Now they're on my Kindle, waiting to be read.

Another blessing is the dictionary that comes with the Kindle. I was reading Robinson Crusoe (another freebie) to Lucas yesterday. I love that book! When I read it the first time in book form, I didn't understand a lot of words, but now I can expend roughly 2 seconds to place the cursor over the word and see the definition at the bottom of the page. I would like to see more language support for the Kindle (español por favor), but until then I'll have to use my dictionary in book form while reading books in Spanish on the Kindle.

Two other cool features:
It's very cool to be able to hear about a book you want, look it up, and have it in your hands in roughly 3 minutes. The Whispernet feature, which allows that, isn't available in other countries yet, so we missionaries will have to enjoy it while we're on furlough. On the field we'll have to rough it to such an incredible degree that we'll have to connect the Kindle to our computer to load the books on it (granted, on the Amazon River that may not work so well, but in Bogotá or Cali it'll be fine).

Do you like things for free? I do! As you may know, the best news about something free is the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ (look up Ephesians 2:8-9 on your Kindle). The Kindle also offers something for free--while in the U.S. you can read the first chapter of books for free in order to sample them. My pastor was talking about the book Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. So I downloaded the first chapter for free. As Dr. Myron used to say, dating before marriage with books. Read the first chapter and buy the book if you like it. If you don't, say goodbye and get on with your life (without losing a penny).

The best benefit for overseas missionaries: For me the best benefit for missionaries is the cost savings on books. I believe that missionaries should stay connected to the rest of the world to some extent. Gone are the days when missionaries had to live in isolation from all theological and ministry discussions going on outside their country of service. For that reason I read Evangelical Missions Quarterly (a journal for missionaries) and like to order a book every so often. But the shipping prices were ruthless. To ship to Colombia we were paying about 50% of the total cost in shipping, and about six months ago the government started taxing any package from overseas (even gifts) so we were going to have to pay that. Say goodbye to shipping costs with the Kindle! Not to mention that most Kindle books are cheaper than the print versions. For example, Worship Matters costs $12.23 in print form and $7.99 on Kindle. That's a 34% savings if you like math. In my case I suspect that the Kindle will pay for itself in a year or two.

Bottom line: Churches, think about blessing your missionaries with a Kindle. Missionaries, weigh the cost and the benefits to see if a Kindle might help you live out the gospel better where you're at.

How to make a (great) missionary presentation -- part 2

2009-03-06T09:24:00.006-06:00

Okay, Scala is not the way to go for your presentation needs because it is a program from about 9 years ago. I called ABWE, and they recommended ProShow Gold ($69.95). Wow, what a great program! I was able to set up all of our presentation yesterday (granted I had all of the pictures in order, etc.) in several hours. You can add video, sound tracks, images, and cool transitions. The best thing is that you can export the presentation to various formats, including DVD. No more worrying if my computer will function properly because almost every church would have a way to show a DVD.

How to make a (great) missionary presentation

2009-02-28T13:47:00.004-06:00

The word (great) is in parenthesis above because I don't claim to have all of the secrets, but here is the basic strategy I used for our presentation.

1) Start with your script. It's best to center the script around one basic idea. In our first presentation we used the idea of "A new perspective on Colombia." This time I used a comparison between the operation that rescued Ingrid Betancourt and Operation Cali, which will be the effort to rescue people from spiritual darkness in Cali. Read your script out loud several times and have another person read it to help you evaluate it.

2) Record your script. I used our church's sound system in Colombia to record it.

3) Pick your music. For our script I used about five different tracks to go along with the script. A site that I used was Audiosarx. Since a missionary presentation is an educational use of the music I was able to purchase two tracks for about $2 each. You can search based on mood and style. I also purchased another track or two from Amazon.

3) Edit your recorded script and mix the music. Thanks to my ministry partner José for the idea to download a 30-day trial version of Adobe Audio Adition. Excellent program! I was able to fix up a few errors in my recorded script and mix the tracks together to make the final version of the sound track.

4) Organize and edit your fotos and backgrounds for the presentation. I used Photoshop Elements 2.0 for this task. Elements (now available in a more advanced version) is cheap and great for this kind of thing. I bought a book before we got to the field on using the program and it was worth every penny. You can make some very professional looking slides. I used flickr.com to find many photos for the presentation. I use Advanced Search and search for photos that are licensed under a Creative Commons license, which can be used for non-profit stuff. Just be careful because sometimes photos show up that are not helpful spiritually, although that is rare if you're using search terms for a missionary presentation.

5) Put the photos into the presentation and sync to the sound track. I'm at this step right now. We use Scala's iPlay Studio (now a legacy product) as our presentation program. It can sync each image to a hundredth of a second. I think that it costs about $60 and you can google it's name to find it.

This process has definitely gotten easier since we did it six years ago. We didn't use any of the above websites, which make the process a lot easier.

Contrasts -- from Colombia to Iowa

2009-02-20T09:03:00.004-06:00

(Note: The picture of Marcos has nothing to do with the post... it's just to make you smile.)

We've been back a little more than a week now. How do I feel about being in Iowa? Here are a few contrasts I've noticed:

1) Iowa is cold. I'd forgotten just how cold, but after four years in climates ranging from 55 degrees to 85 degrees, these Iowa winds and temps are making me miss Colombia.

2) Sticker shock on some things. Some things are a lot more expensive here. We're paying twice as much for our two bedroom apartment as we paid for a three bedroom house in Chía. Eating out here is expensive! But some things are cheaper here, like cereal and pork.

3) A lot of things are easier here. The Qwest guy came to hook up our phone and did it in about 1 minute without even entering our apartment building. In Chía we struggled for almost two months to get that line installed. Here we have a dishwasher, hot water in our sinks, Clorox cleaning wipes, etc. Driving is a cinch here. I could probably go to sleep at the wheel and be safer here than driving in Bogotá or Cali with three Colombian coffees to keep me alert. One blessing has been a good-sized pothole in our parking lot here. It reminds us of Colombia.

4) The language. Although English is my native tongue, I have to admit that I like Spanish better. Maybe because it's a challenge and I have to keep working at it. Several times I've been tempted to answer people in Spanish, especially over the phone or in the supermarket.

5) Our church. Wow, talk about organized here! It seems that every ministry has leaders; people seem to arrive on time... we would like to see that happen in Cali in our new church plant. Obviously it takes time, but I think that starting well will help.

All in all, it should be a good year in Iowa. It's a bit of culture shock, but we're missionaries and that's part of the fun.

Library online

2009-02-19T14:45:00.002-06:00

We're back in the States now, and I'd like to write something about the contrasts I'm noticing after being out of the country for four years, but that'll have to wait. In the meantime (since I use this site to remember things) I found an online digital library from Colombia (in Spanish) that may be of help in the future.

Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango

Homeschooling for a college degree?

2009-02-03T20:40:00.002-06:00

As many of you know we homeschool are kids with Sonlight curriculum. I find the concept fascinating and ran across a new option for earning an accredited college degree with a homeschooling type model. Interesting idea!

CollegePlus

Farewell sermon

2009-01-25T20:09:00.003-06:00

I preached my farewell sermon at La Gracia today on 1 Corinthians 13 and the gospel. We looked at 1 Cor 13 through the lense of the gospel, noting that the gospel equips us to love. For example, love is patient (a verb in Greek), and God has shown his patience with us (we looked at the parable in Mt 18 of the man who owed 10,000 talents and wouldn´t forgive the one who owed him 100 denarii... it uses the same verb as we see in 1 Cor 13).

As I pointed out this morning, 1 Cor 13 is beautiful but doesn´t tell us where we get the strength to put it into practice. But in the gospel (which Paul focuses on in chapter 1-2 and 15) we are freed to love.

I didn´t see what the attendence was, but it was the fullest the building has been in a long time. Pastor Daniel has a lot to learn, but I trust that God will bless him and the church.

Evangelism -- Why didn´t we try that sooner?

2009-01-08T08:32:00.002-06:00

A group from one of José´s supporting churches is here, and they´ve been an inspiration. On Sunday we went to Zipaquirá to do street evangelism and pass out flyers to the new Baptist church that´s starting there. We went to the main plaza in the city and the group started singing. José preached a short five-minute message and we started to talk to people about Christ, using the Evangecube. Wow, people were really open and several people made professions of faith in Christ.

We did something similar but even better yesterday here in Chía. The team brought their huge Evangecube (www.e3resources.org), and they starting making free balloon animals for kids and painting faces. While the kids got their gifts, José preached the gospel using the huge Evangecube various times (I did it once). We estimate that 300 people heard the gospel in about 2 hours as we gave out 200 balloons and about 1,000 tracts. The amazing thing was how many people were interested in learning more. In fact one of the teachers in Lucas and Eliana´s daycare was really interested. We going to have her over to our house next week to share more with her.

My biggest regret: Why didn´t we do thing sooner? I would guess that at least two new people will come to church on Sunday because of our outreach. If we had done this every week, how many would have come to Christ by now? But no, instead we got wrapped up in church problems and missed many blessings. Oh well, in Cali!

Seminary website/sitio web del seminario

2008-12-31T10:11:00.005-06:00

I just finished one of my projects for the year (nothing like last-minute work, heh?). Please visit our new seminary website:

Seminario Bautista de Colombia

Por favor visíte nuestro nuevo sitio web del Seminario Bautista de Colombia.

Jonathan Edwards and Faro de Gracia

2008-12-19T20:55:00.011-06:00

I finished about two weeks ago the biography on Jonathan Edwards by Ian Murray. Excellent and very interesting! My new goal is to start reading more of Edwards, seeing as I share his name, he is John Piper´s inspiration (Piper says he´s trying to be a 21st Century Edwards), and his theology is challenging to me.

A new guy at church loaned me Edward´s Religious Affections in Spanish, so I´ve started reading it. I was at the biggest Christian book warehouse in Bogotá today and noticed a whole section by the same publisher, called Faro de Gracia. They are publishing helpful Reformed books in Spanish, especially for pastors. What a blessing to see more and more good materials in Spanish!

Day to rejoice

2008-12-14T19:46:00.004-06:00

Today started early at about 4:30 a.m. as Marcos woke me up. I got up, made some coffee (yes, I love Colombia!), and opened my new Bible (la Biblia de las Américas) to Jeremiah 24, where God says, "My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart" (NIV). I was thinking about how today was such a crucial day for our church. We were going to vote on whether to accept Daniel as the new pastor. I didn´t think there was much chance humanly speaking because I had talked to a member last night about the vote, and he said he wasn´t going because he didn´t feel peace about the selection process; you gotta love boycotts of church business meetings.

Things didn´t look promising at church as we got everything ready. José and I had done the count, and apparently we had the potential to have a quorum, but everyone we were planning on had to show up. During the break between Sunday School and church I noticed Alvaro who had not been able to be at church for a month. Blanca showed up, who had been gravely ill for about two months. God was at work!

When we started the meeting we ended up with one more person than the quorum we needed. Of 37 members we had a total of 27 people to vote (we needed 70% of the members to have the meeting). We ended up voting for Daniel with 22 votes in favor, for a percentage 81% in favor!

We also approved three deacons and the rest of the administrative committee.

Later we went to Bogotá to see our friends Nic and Megan and their 3 new adopted kids! They now have five, and in my opinion they are heroes. I´ve mentioned their blog before... check it out -- Colombian Brewed

Marcos Dylan Boyd

2008-11-19T14:49:00.004-06:00

Here´s the little man! He was born at 9:11 p.m. on Nov. 14th.

Malicia indígena (native cunning)

2008-11-10T19:15:00.004-06:00

I´ve begun to work on the initial research to write an article on la malicia indígena, or native cunning. I´d seen other translations of the phrase in English, but they sounded terrible. For example, "Indian malice," which is very misleading because malice and malicia are not the same thing. I wrote about the concept a while back under the title Reading between the lines.

My hope is to get published in the Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ), but obviously I have to write the article, and it has to be good enough. I honestly think that the idea for the article merits attention, but maybe not everyone else does.

I´m considering the title "The truth of the gospel in Colombia," with a focus on how the gospel should change many Colombian practices related to this "native cunning." Jorge Morales, speaking about la malicia indígena, says, "According to popular opinion, it´s a “combination of creativity, astuteness, prudence, and hypocrisy” which are “sufficient to make up for underdevelopment evident in education, poverty and abandonment by the State."

We´ve seen a number of ways in which the native cunning is made manifest in the ministry here. To note a few: manipulating, lying, taking advantage of others, mistrust, slandering, expressing a victim mentality. Now I know that these examples are not unique to Colombia, but what was new was the subtlety in which these sins are expressed. We´ve seen some masters at lying and giving false impressions. I´d never run into something similar in the U.S.

I want to focus in on how we should deal with these actions from a biblical point of view. What do you do when you have two people in your church fighting about the same issue and explaining the situation in completely opposite ways? (Say you´re going to cut their baby in half.) How can a missionary not get a completely negative attitude toward Colombian culture? (Have close Colombian friends.)

At any rate, you get the idea. If you have any ideas, let me know.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

2008-10-16T10:49:00.009-05:00

I just finished reading The Five Dysfunctinos of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. I would recommend the book, not for being profound but for clearly portraying something that I´ve seen happen here in Colombia. His book can be summarized in the pyramid illustration that he uses, which includes the following levels from the base on up: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, inattention to results.

For me the point that most interested me was the fear of conflict. According to the author, in a good team there should be healthy conflict. If there´s no conflict in meetings, that shows that something is wrong, probably that there is a lack of trust because people are afraid of what others will say. This lack of trust leads to a fear of conflict, and when people don´t express their thoughts openly, they don´t commit. When there´s no real committment there´s no accountability and without accountability we can all do what we want with inattention to results.

I recommend this book for executives, pastoral staffs, and missionary teams. I think that it crystalizes some neglected concepts about working as a team.

Various plans. God can.

2008-09-24T14:15:00.006-05:00

We´ve been working on a number of different fronts to wrap up things here in Chía before we head back to the States on Feb. 9th. First, we need to leave the church with a national pastor and all of our ministries covered. God has answered prayers, and we have two candidates for pastor--Daniel and Pedro. I think that either one would be good, but we just worked up a plan today about how the church is going to be able to get to know them and finally choose their pastor. As far as our ministries, the goal is to step down in the middle of November from almost all of our responsabilities (Holly has the excuse of having a baby) and just guide and give feedback as necessary.

We´re also working on our plans for the following term. At this point we´re looking at working in Cali, a city of about 2.2 million people. We need to work through a myriad of details with the mission team here before this can happen, but God can work it all out.

The other project is our furlough. We need to prepare our new missionary presentation and set up meetings for 2009. In the midst of these different challenges, we know that God can work out all of the details for us.

Hermeneutics and two professors

2008-09-08T21:28:00.002-05:00

We´ve been teaching a class on hermeneutics in church on Friday nights. It´s been a lot of fun. We just covered textual criticism and Bible versions in Spanish. José and I are hoping to upload the whole course to our church website in the future.

The course also reminded me of a professor whom I´ve never had but who has taught me a lot. Rodney Decker is a professor at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. You can access his valuable website here. I also just ran across the faculty site for Thomas Schreiner, who is a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His commentary on Romans is my favorite for that book (and Romans is my strongest suit in commentaries).

La crítica textual

2008-09-02T16:51:00.004-05:00

Estoy trabajando en las notas para este viernes en el curso de Hermenéutica y encontré un recurso muy útil en español acerca de la crítica textual y otros asuntos del estudio bíblico. De hecho, es impresionante ver todo lo que este señor ha hecho en sus numerosos sitios web.

Criticismo bíblico

Bautistas en Colombia

2008-08-29T15:59:00.004-05:00

José subió la página de la Federación Bautista Fundamental Independiente a la que pertecemos para que la conozcan...

Bautistas en Colombia

José uploaded the webpage for the fellowship of Baptists churches with whom we fellowship so you can get to know them...

Two resources

2008-08-23T13:38:00.002-05:00

I just ran across two free resources on internet. First, the Peacemaker brochure is available as a free download on their website. If you haven´t heard of Peacemaker Ministries, you need to look at their materials because they are a real blessing for developing a culture of peace in the church. Their website is www.peacemaker.net. and you can access the brochure at Peacemaker materials in other languages

The other site is The Gospel Coalition which now has Themelios Journal online for free. I perused the issue online and read one good article on the definition of "mission," a topic that is of great importance. What is "mission"? For many it has become only the Missio Dei or the social mandate, but the author argues that "mission" should be defined by the Great Commission. Good stuff!

Trip to Neiva

2008-07-26T13:27:00.008-05:00

We went this week on a trip to Neiva (6 hours to the southwest of Bogotá) to rest and also investigate the possibility of church planting there. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and the heat actually for me wasn´t as bad as everyone says. Holly said it was hot, but in comparison to a humid Iowa July day it wasn´t bad. We were able to travel to a desert about 45 minutes northeast of Neiva which was really interesting. We also traveled to a dam about an hour to the south of Neiva. As always it was fascinating to see how different the geography of the country is. It reminded me of Arizona in some ways.

As far as church planting, the city has a need, but we found that the location is not central enough for branching out to other cities. We talked to one Baptist pastor who is serving faithfully.

Liberation

2008-07-11T12:16:00.003-05:00

I haven´t had a chance to blog about anything because the team that was with us just left on Tuesday and we´ve been trying to catch up this week. Last week while we were with the group we heard the best news for Colombia we´ve heard in a while. Ingrid Betancourt, the three American hostages and 11 Colombians were rescued by the Colombian military from the FARC guerrillas. When we saw the announcement on TV, I was moved emotionally. The operation was a huge strike against terrorism in this country because the FARC lost their most important hostages and the way that the military tricked the guerrillas shows that they´re closer and closer to defeat.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the group from Campus Baptist Church. In fact, nothing went wrong on the trip. We didn´t have any troubles; everyone had a great time; we had about 65-70 kids total in our basketball camp and were able to teach them the eight essential truths about the gospel (God, man, sin, death, Christ, cross, faith, life) in relation to basketball. On Saturday, 23 kids came to a youth activity at our church and 10 made professions of faith in Christ. As I was meditating on the liberation of Ingrid, I thought about how she was a captive when she woke up on July 3, 2008. But later in the day she was rescued and free. This is exactly what happens when someone places their faith in Jesus Christ. They are rescued and set free!

Team coming and a great couple

2008-06-26T22:09:00.004-05:00

Today we spent almost all day shopping for food for the missions team that is coming down tomorrow. 16 people are coming down from our sending church, Campus Baptist of Ames, Iowa. God has blessed with the preparation for the trip, as it looks like a good number of teens have signed up for the camp (70 had already signed the last time I checked), and more will surely sign up (we´re shooting for about 100-120). The team should Lord-willing get in tomorrow night at about 8:45 p.m., so we´ll be getting to Chía about 10:30-11 p.m. We´ll have an orientation day on Saturday, then church on Sunday, a camp prep day on Monday, the camp from Tuesday to Friday, a youth activity on Saturday, church on Sunday, a trip on Monday and then on Tuesday they´ll be heading off.

I also just wanted to plug the blog of Nic and Megan Olson: Colombian Brewed. They are a couple from one of our supporting churches in Minnesota, and already have adopted two Colombian babies. The amazing thing is that they are working towards adopting a sibling group of children between 0-10 years of age. We consider it a privilege to know Nic and Megan and pray that God would bless them richly in this new adventure.

Free online seminary courses

2008-06-22T22:05:00.005-05:00

I just ran across a free online seminary, called Biblical Training. They offer courses for new believers, foundational courses, and upper-level courses.

Biblical Training

They also have a page of links to other online courses with other institutions.

Other online courses

I think that buying an iPod was one of the best things I´ve done to grow in wisdom. Since we got ours last year, I don´t know how many hours of good lectures and sermons I´ve listened to while I wash dishes or jog. It´s been a real blessing.

David Brainerd´s diary and related thoughts

2008-06-19T09:06:00.004-05:00

I started reading David Brainerd´s diary this week, which is included in the works of Jonathan Edwards. I was struck by his constant desire to be closer to the Lord. He definitely wasn´t perfect, as he speaks of constant bouts of discouragement and melancholy. The interesting thing was to think of how I´ve felt similarly many times, wondering what I´m doing in the ministry, and then coming back to the truth that it´s not about us. It´s about our Savior. The gospel message keeps us humbled and dependent on Christ.

On a related note, I started The Way to Joy discipleship material with one of my disciples, and I think that it´s helping me to expand my understanding of the gospel. Sometimes we think that the gospel is a series of three facts (death, burial and resurrection of Christ), which it is, but it´s more. Because the whole message of the Bible points towards Christ, and without that context a person won´t understand the gospel.

José and I have been talking about where our church members are at spiritually. We came up with a list of ministry competencies (what we want each disciple to understand and do), and now we´re developing a questionaire to evaluate where they´re at. It´s a little scary to begin thinking about this. For example, how many of our members shared the gospel with someone this week? Or, how many have a consistent devotional time each day? How many are giving faithfully on a regular basis? I think that simply asking the questions is going to help us as a church.

Resources

2008-05-23T09:50:00.002-05:00

I thought that I´d mention two resources that may be of blessing or challenge:

Web site of Ron and Val Berrus (two of my heroes from ABWE). They have a ton of great discipleship, church-planting, and spiritual discipline resources.

Acts 29 network. This is something new for me, so I don´t understand all about this group, but the two messages I´ve listened to have been a real blessing and challenge. Have you heard of missional living? If not, check it out.

Santa Marta

2008-04-13T20:26:00.014-05:00

We were planning to spend most of our week in Barranquilla on our survey trip to the Colombian coast but ended up spending as much time in Santa Marta because after two days of work in Barranquilla we realized that it´s not the best place for us to start. We saw a directory of churches that listed around 800 churches in Barranquilla. Of these there are at least 35 Baptist churches. Granted most are Pentecostal now, but we decided that we don´t want to have to work in that type of environment, at least for our first church plant. In constrast, Santa Marta, a city of around 400,000 (or up to 600,000 in some estimates), has only one Baptist church. We weren´t able to talk to the pastor but asked if the pastora (lady pastor) was around. The girl told us that the pastora would be there later in the afternoon. Scott asked when their healings service was, and the girl said on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

As you can see from this example, it´s really not that hard to figure out when a church isn´t fundamental here. That said, Santa Marta is now looking like our number one possibility for a future church plant. The three of us left enchanted with the place and the need for sound churches is evident. Please continue to pray with us!

Trip to Barranquilla and other thoughts

2008-04-06T15:00:00.009-05:00

NASA image of Barranquilla on the Magdalena River and Caribbean coast

I fly out this evening with Alfredo and Scott to Barranquilla on the Colombian coast. The goal is to do an investigative study of the churches and need in this city. We have set a goal of interviewing 63 pastors in this week, and I also plan to talk to a seminary director. We also want to understand the cost of living in Barranquilla.

Of the main cities on the coast, this one seems like the best possibility for future church planting because it is the most industrialized and doesn´t rely on tourism so much. Cartagena is busy during vacation times, but for more than half of the year the people don´t have work and that makes it more difficult to serve as a future hub for church planting. Barranquilla is also the most centrally-located city on the coast.

I´m looking forward to the trip and praying that God will give us direction for future ministry. The time without José in Chía has helped me see that serving as a pastor alone is not my calling. I struggle on the pastoral side of things, as far as visitation and running after sheep that have strayed. Our pastoral intern Wilder has more gifts in that area, which is a blessing, but it also makes me feel bad when he asks "Have you called so-and-so?" and I haven´t. Obviously I need to grow in this area, but at the same time I know that some people are gifted for it and others are not.

I sometimes ask the Lord what I´m doing here as I seem to struggle to find the role for which I am gifted. For example, I´ve had a real burden for evangelism and reaching out to our neighbors, but it´s often difficult to work that area of the ministry while guiding the church, preparing messages and lessons, and preparing for an upcoming seminary class I´ll be teaching in a two weeks. I sometimes wonder how good I am at balancing things. I can balance things to "maintain" the ministry, but it´s hard for me to help it grow when I have several ministry roles to fulfill. For that reason I like these trips to other parts because I can focus in on one thing and do it well.

Please pray for my trip and God bless!

Good courses in Spanish

2008-03-31T22:03:00.003-05:00

I was just directed to some good courses in Spanish that use the Moodle platform that we will be using for ABWE´s distance education. I was invited to take one of the courses, but I think that I will see if I can enroll our pastoral intern, Wilder, in the course.

Desarrollo Cristiano Bíblico

Missionaries are like the ant of Proverbs 6

2008-03-06T11:16:00.003-06:00

Proverbs 6:6-8 (NKJV) "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest."

I´ve been preaching a series of messages on Proverbs and have been meditating on the them every morning. This morning I read the proverb above and thought, "Wow, that´s a perfect description of a good missionary." Being on the mission field I hardly have anyone who directs what I do each day. You pastors know how that is too. On one hand it´s liberating and on the other hand frightening. The question that constantly haughts me is, "Am I doing what´s most important as a missionary?"

I definitely think that "doing ministry" is not the place of a missionary. But it´s so easy to fall into that trap. I "do the ministry" when I preach, teach, counsel, etc. without thinking about training anyone to do the same. As the old addage says, "Teach them to fish. Don´t just give them a fish."

On a practical level our church started this week with Wilder as our ministry intern. The church is going to be paying him for a year to study and work with us. This Sunday he´s going to be preaching his first sermon. In spite of a lot of failures on my part as a missionary, I don´t think that we can lose with this idea because after a year Wilder will be more equipped then he is now. He´ll have learned a lot, and he´ll be able to avoid many pitfalls that José and I have fallen into.

Evangelism training

2008-02-14T10:50:00.004-06:00

Last week we were in Girardot, Colombia (about 2 1/2 hours down the mountain) for the conference we have with all of the ABWE Spanish-speaking missionaries every four years. It was a great week. In my opinion the highlight was the Good Soil evangelism training that we received. ABWE has already published "The Way to Joy" discipleship book, which is for new Christians, and they are beta testing the "Story of Hope" evangelistic study. To access, go to CEIM Resources

I highly recommend these resources. The evangelistic study is especially good, as it covers the 40 most important events in the Bible so the person can capture the big picture, and also includes the Bridge to Life, which includes the six essential concepts someone needs to grasp to be saved (God, Man, Sin, Death, Christ, Cross, Faith, Life).

What really struck me is how I´ve often short-circuited the process of evangelism, skipping over key concepts or not explaining the story line of the Bible. In our culture here, you may get "decisiones" but the person may not have truly understood the message of hope.

The course was especially timely since I´m going to be teaching an evangelism course at church next week.

Moved in

2008-01-29T16:04:00.000-06:00

We´re moved in to our new house in Chía, which is a great blessing. The house is a little smaller than the one we had in Bogotá, but has some nice features. It has a big patio out back with a grill, so maybe we can have people over for a grill-out. The house also has hot water, but I´m not sure how great that will be when the electric bill comes. The neighbors have been great... in one week we´ve noticed the difference in culture from Bogotá to a smaller pueblo (okay, 100,000 people isn´t that small). The neighbors actually have a minute to chat, and we´ve been able to talk to a number of them.

One negative is that the phone line was cut because the bill wasn´t paid on time, so we don´t have a telephone nor Internet. Sorry for the lack of communication.

We´ll be in a conference next week also, so we probably won´t feel totally settled for a while.

On the church front things have been going pretty well. We´re looking at the possibility of working with Wilder, a young man from our church, full-time in the ministry. We proposed the idea to the members on Sunday and will vote on the idea next Sunday. He would be like a pastoral intern for a year, working with us in every aspect of the ministry.

La Iglesia Cristiana Bautista la Gracia website

2008-01-09T20:54:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to mention that we finished our church website and you can access it at:

www.lagracia.org

You can also hear a sermon I preached on administrating our time at:

Administrando el tiempo

Team from Chía

2008-01-03T10:43:00.000-06:00

I just ran across a great photo of the team from our church that helped us do the couples´ retreat in October... looking back on 2007, that retreat was one of the biggest blessings of the year, as we saw teamwork, a great weekend, and a number of spiritual decisions.

Other missionary websites in Colombia

2007-12-27T07:54:00.000-06:00

I´ve recently run across three other missionary websites of people working in Colombia. It´s interesting to see different perspectives from other parts of the country.

The Washburns in Medellín
The Morelands in Pereira
David Ford in Medellín

Rethinking the statistics

2007-12-26T20:00:00.000-06:00

In a previous post (Future possibilities) I talked about statistical need in Colombia. Well, after corresponding with another missionary who lives in Pereira and thinking about it, the national registry of churches doesn´t have as much bearing on the situation as I´d thought. For one thing, many churches aren´t registered. For another thing many churches are under the coverage of a church in a different city.

So how can we get more reliable statistics? I found a national church directory of Colombia that seems to offer a better idea. Granted that not every church is listed, and unfortunately a few of the buttons in their website don´t work, so I can´t get numbers for several cities I want (Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Tunja).

All things considered, I came up with some interesting results. Based on a comparison with the number of churches listed, here are the most needy cities per person:

Florencia -- 146,249 people, 3 churches listed, 48,750 people per church listed
Buenaventura -- 339,096 people, 8 churches listed, 42,387 people per church listed
Valledupar -- 372,096 people, 16 churches listed, 23,256 people per church listed
Montería -- 393,179 people, 19 churches listed, 20,694 people per church listed
Medellín (metro area)-- 3,092,355 people, 150 churches, 20,615 per church listed

My biggest surprise was to see Medellín in this list and not see Cali, but Cali has 233 churches listed and fewer people than Medellín.

Now, all this is nice, but it´s only an estimate. What would an indepth study look like? Well, surprisely I found exactly that kind of study done for Medellín. You can find it at a site called prolades.com, in the document La pluralidad religiosa en Medellín. I only wish they´d done a study of all the major cities in Colombia, but the ground work would look very similar to what Profesor Mora has come up with for Medellín.

Alonso´s prayer letter

2007-12-16T20:15:00.000-06:00

Uff... (as we say in Spanish), I´ve been out of the communication loop to some extent because I was at kids´camp last week. I would like to get caught up with everything this coming week (prayer letter, finances, correspondence, etc.), but I´m not so sure that will happen.

For the time being I´ll post the Alonso´s prayer letter, which gives you a basic idea about what´s been happening with the ministry here. We´ve seen some real blessings as of late. We´re also looking at renting a house in Chía in the next few weeks. We saw one that we liked today, and I have an appointment to talk to the owner tomorrow. It happens to be in Ponylandia, a residential community you can read about in the Alonso´s prayer letter.

Alonso´s December prayer letter

Friends who leave

2007-12-09T19:43:00.000-06:00

Something that I don´t like about the ministry is that you make friends/disciples and then either you have to leave or they do. This happened today with two people who are special to our family. Ricardo Andrés has been a good friend of mine, and I was discipling him for a while. His family moved from Chía to Bogotá, and he has decided that another church more close would be better for his family. He was my apprentice in our small group ministry, so it´s a loss on that front too.

Lorena is another person who has become a friend of our family. I met her in Cartagena, and she accepted Christ. We have been discipling her by e-mail, and she has visited us in our home a number of times while she´s been in Bogotá. She spent all day with us today, going to church, eating lunch, looking at a possible house and then being stuck 2 hours in a traffic jam on the way into Bogotá (another reason why moving to Chía will be a big blessing!). She leaves tomorrow for Cartagena, and we will miss her. It´s amazing how someone can become a family friend (Lucas and Elie love her) in so short of time. Please pray for her spiritual life and especially that God would give her wisdom to seek her fulfillment in Him and His principles.

All this to say that I feel a little sad today. On the other hand I trust that the Lord will work in this two young people´s lives.

What´s our goal?

2007-11-26T19:50:00.000-06:00

I´ve been kicking around a question lately. Thinking about this country of Colombia, where should we go as missionaries? For example, I´ve heard that God is moving in Cali, a city of over 2 million people. But there are churches in Cali, obviously with a need for more. Is our goal to expand the work of our mission? Or of Baptists? Or should we focus on pueblos in which there are no gospel witness?

As I mentioned in a previous post Manizales seems to have a need for more churches. I wrote to a pastor who works in that city asking about the need. He said that there is more need in the pueblos of that department, especially in one called Ríosucio ("Dirty river"). This pueblo has an estimated population of 48,000 and is known for its festival dedicated to the devil. The whole town prepares itself for this festival held every two years. According to this pastor there are hardly any churches in the town.

So, where is there more need? In a city of 2 million or a town of 48,000? I think that God directs different kinds of people to different kinds of ministry. Please pray that God would lead us... the honest truth is that I am very restless here in Bogotá. (Note: photo from luis perez on www.flickr.com)

Invitation to La Gracia in Chía

2007-11-20T09:35:00.000-06:00

If you want to visit our church, here is our new invitation card. We´re looking forward to printing 10,000 of these to begin to invite as much of Chía as possible. I would also like this image to show up in Google when someone types in "mapa de Chia" because there really are hardly any maps out there of the city.

Invitación a la Iglesia Cristiana Bautista la Gracia de Chía, Colombia. ¡Te esperamos!

Future possibilities

2007-11-13T20:30:00.000-06:00

We´re in the praying, planning, and brainstorming stage for future ministry here in Colombia. My wife jokes that I change my mind every other day... "We´re going to Cali." "No, we´re going to Tunja." And so on.

But I have a possibly more objective way to help plan where a missionary team could go in Colombia. I found the national registry of all of the religious entities (90% are "Christian" churches) that have legal status in the country. These entities include some denominations that have different forms of government, for which there is only one name and address listed (For example Casa sobre la Roca has only one address listed but I know they have churches in 20 cities in Colombia). But, all things being equal this registry should give us an idea of how many independent, legally-recognized churches are in each city.

Here are my findings of the three most needy cities based on this calculation:

Manizales -- population 385,000; Religious entities -- 5 (1 per 77,069 people)
Pasto -- pop. 393,000; Rel. ent. -- 7 (1 per 56,240)
Sincelejo -- pop. 247,000; Rel. ent. -- 5 (1 per 49,441)

Now let´s compare Bogotá: population: 7.05 million -- Rel. ent. 468 (1 per 15,064)

As you can see the need is far greater statistically in the first three cities. Not to mention that you can easily take a bus in Bogotá from anywhere and attend a fundamental church.

At any rate, we´ll see what comes of this. On a human level I would love to live in Manizales, wouldn´t mind Pasto, but Sincelejo would be a stretch. Obviously the human factor doesn´t influence me too much though.

The next step would be to take survey trips to see things up close.

Alonso´s prayer letter

2007-11-05T20:06:00.000-06:00

The Alonsos posted their prayer letter which can give you their perspective of the ministry in Chía.

Alonso´s Prayer Letter

Historic hailstorm

2007-11-05T19:53:00.000-06:00

We´re all fine here in Bogotá, but an historic hailstorm fell on Saturday. We ended up with about 6 inches of hail in our patio. Here are a few pictures of the event...

Flan de coco y rosas (Coconut flan with roses)

2007-10-11T20:30:00.001-05:00

I usually write about the ministry here, but I thought I´d mention my newest hobby. Lately I´ve been big into cooking, and I´ve been taking a short cooking class on Saturday mornings. Sometimes I get tired of Bogotá more than anything because of the difficulty to build relationships with people in a busy city where everyone has something to do. But I also realize that the capital has some neat things to offer, like this cooking class.

Each week we´ve made a full-course meal from a different culture. We started with Arabic food, then Cantonese, and last week was Peruvian food. Below is the Cantonese dessert we made (Flan de coco y rosas) which contains edible rose petals and rose water. It was to die for!

Pictures from Cartagena

2007-10-11T19:55:00.000-05:00

Lessons learned in Cartagena

2007-10-11T19:46:00.000-05:00

As we left Cartagena, Scott, Alfredo and I agreed that we would write down some of the lessons we learned. Here is what sticks in my mind:

1) We could work together with a team of 3 or 4 couples in a city, and we could plant 3 churches at a time, rotating with a series of messages. For example, I prepare a 4 week series on salvation and then preach it in the three churches. That way we could spend a lot more time on evangelism and not so much on sermon prep.

2) We need to focus specifically on evangelism of men. We noticed that we were able to share the gospel with more women in Cartagena, but the key to a strong church is male leadership. We would have to compensate for the cultural tendency that men aren´t as interested in spiritual things.

3) A good bulletin each week would help with a church plant.

4) You can start a church in many different places. We did the study in a hotel. Why not start a church in one?

5) Even if we don´t have musical talent we could use CDs for the music until we were able to train musicians.

6) Mass evangelism with a team of people would well in some parts of Colombia (it appeared that it does in Cartagena).

7)Barranquilla is a possible ministry location. It´s the biggest city on the Colombian coast.

8) The focus of a new church plant should focus on strengthening areas that are weak in the culture. For example I talked to one pastor who said that in Cartagena they focus a lot of energy on teaching the importance of work because the culture tends towards laziness and unemployment.

These are some of the lessons I learned... some are more important than others, but I wanted to record a few of my thoughts.

Report from Cartagena

2007-09-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

I´m writing from an Internet café in Cartagena on the coast of Colombia. This missions trip has been a huge blessing. First, the time spent with Pastor Alfredo and Scott has been edifying, and I feel like we´ve grown a lot closer. We share the same basic philosophy of ministry and have been able to talk about how we would like to work together in the future to start other churches here in Colombia.

Second, the time with the main group of people we came to visit has gone well. We´ve been able to have a Bible study every night with a group of about 10-12 different people, many of whom are not believers.

We´ve also been able to share gospel with many other people in the city here. Today I "happened" to pass by a stand that sells ice drinks and began to talk to the girl working there. It turns out that she´s from Bogotá (I enjoyed hearing the accent from there because it´s a lot easier to understand). She "happens" to have attended a gospel preaching church in Bogotá for about a year but isn´t a believer yet. She also "happened" to be in a bad car accident last week. I was able to share the gospel with her and she was visibly moved. She said that tonight she was going to read and apply to her life the tract that I left with her. We´re also going to have lunch with her today.

Besides all of that, we´ve been able to find a group of fundamental Baptist churches here in the city that we can recommend to people we know. It was a blessing for Scott to visit one of them last night and find that they are faithfully preaching the Word of God.

Computer died

2007-09-21T08:27:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note from an Internet café here in Bogotá to say that our computer died on Sunday at church. For that reason we´ll be slightly out of the loop for a few weeks while we wait for our new one to come.

It´s actually nice to work without a computer at times. Less distractions and for some reason my ideas flow better on paper.

Jog to La Calera

2007-09-10T15:26:00.000-05:00

I haven't had many chances to write about great adventures here in Colombia, which may or may not be a good thing (sometimes "adventure" can have a bad connotation here, if we're talking about guerrillas in the jungle).

This morning I decided to jog to La Calera, a town of 25,000 people. On the map it said the distance between Bogota and La Calera was 9 km. Of course it's straight up the mountain on the east side of Bogota, but that's what attracted me in the first place. I took a bus to the road closest to the edge of the mountain and started out at 9:15 a.m. In the photo you can see the first undulating stretch up the mountain-- the first 3 km were brutal. Switch-backs straight up the mountain. I confess that I had to walk about every 300 meters. After running/walking for an hour, I finally reached the toll at the top of the mountain and figured I was almost there. Unfortunately the sign said that La Calera was another 8 kms! But I couldn't give up because I didn't go all that way to say I didn't make it.

Thankfully the 8 km were almost all downhill, so I made it to the pueblo in another hour.

Photo of the plaza en La Calera by "Diego en Bogota" from Flickr.com

Alonso's prayer letter

2007-09-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

I praise God for the ministry partner that I have in Chia. Jose and his family have been a great blessing, especially in language learning, cultural understanding, and friendship. This month's prayer letter from the Alonso's shows aspects of the ministry that I didn't have space to mention in our prayer letter. You can read it online at:

Alonso prayer letter (Note: there are three pages to the letter)

Teaching experiences and resources

2007-08-18T09:28:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to blog anything. I taught a course in our seminary here on Matthew, which was a stressful experience because I agreed to take the course with three weeks notice and without notes from another professor. That meant that I was working all day to prepare the class for that night, something that is not fun, especially when I had to continue with responsabilities in Chia. Well, I survived the Matthew class and now I'm teaching a course on biblical counseling at the Bible institute in Tenjo. It's been a lot less stressful because there are fewer students, it's more informal, and the topic is clearer in my mind (Matthew is difficult!).

Last week I started a new series with the men's Sunday school class on historical theology. They have wanted to understand better how our theology fits into the scheme of church history and why we believe what we do from a historical perspective. I have learned to really enjoy this subject, especially since I'm no expert and am learning a lot. The first week we looked at the sufficiency of the Scriptures and the contrast between the view of Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian on this topic. This week we're going to study the topic of the NT canon.

I don't know how many of you speak Spanish, but here are a few resources that I've found helpful.

Recursos para el estudio del canon, de la historia de la iglesia, etc.

El Texto Bíblico -- Nuevo Testamento
Recursos Teológicos
Apologetica.org Este sitio es católico, pero me sirvió para aprender más acerca de los padres de la iglesia.

Language thought

2007-07-23T22:13:00.001-05:00

In the online class that I'm taking on "Hermeneutics in a Postmodern World" from Pro-Meta in Costa Rica we had to read an article in Portuguese last week. I took one look at it and thought, "Nooooo.... you're kidding, right? I can't read that." But I thought I'd give it the old college try. Do you what? I think that I understand about 90% of the article with some minor help from my friends at wordreference.com! That was pretty amazing to me. I was reading it in Spanish, but the languages are close enough that it's actually not that hard. I just look up a few of the code words I couldn't get (like "no" which means "in").

Have I ever mentioned in my blog that interviews in Portuguese and Italian aren't translated here? The people can understand them well enough to make the translation unneccesary.

Cultural confusion

2007-07-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

We were in the States for about a week (June 27th to July 3rd), and not surprisely I felt out of place. Why? That's hard to say. The overnight flight without sleep didn't help. Nor did four straight days of rain in KC with a case of bronchitis.

But perhaps the funniest experience on the trip was when I picked up our rental car. It was a brand-new Dodge Caliber with about 1,800 miles on it. As I looked at it I thought, "Wow, that's a cool car." I thought that until I sat in the driver's seat. It was pouring, and I couldn't see much because the car was so sporty that its columns blocked my visibility. I started it up and tried to pull from the parking lot I was in to building where Holly and the kids were but I couldn't figure out how to get there. I pulled back in and asked the parking attendent. "No clue," he said. I pulled out again and finally found the entrance to the other parking lot. When I pulled the car up the rain was pouring down even harder, and I couldn't open the trunk. "Is there a button? What do I do? Aarghh..." After about 10 minutes I found the latch to open the trunk.

I missed by 1993 Renault 9 back in Bogota. Sure, it doesn't look like much but at least I can open the trunk and see the roads!

First-termer

2007-06-26T16:18:00.000-05:00

Being a first-term missionary can be an interesting role. Perhaps I overanalyze things at times and for that reason often feel a bit discouraged with the ministry. Thankfully I have friends like Jose and Scott who have lifted my spirits and helped me see things in perspective.

As a first-termer, you have so many preconceived ideas about the ministry in the country to which you are going. I don't have our ministry presentation set up on my computer now, but if I could watch it again I'm sure I would laugh at a lot of the things I said in it. This problem has to do with appearances/superficial understanding and the reality. Having only visited the country before on short-term trips, I didn't understand many things. It's the difference between an answer from a book and an answer from personal experience.

As Scott helped me see, the knowledge and understanding we have gained will be invaluable in our future ministry. We haven't seen the fruit in the ministry that we want to see, but that is because we are still building the foundation. A couple of the insights I've gained in a year and a half:

Colombians are equal partners in the ministry, but in order to truly understand them I must give myself to them in friendship, spending time with them. If they are not my friends, they will not share difficult things with me. On the other hand, if they know that I love them, they will be willing to tell me almost anything that they are thinking. This has implications because missionaries often make mistakes in the ministry and need to hear about it.
We must be honest. I've seen the temptation in missions to make the figures look good or exaggerate slightly, or place things slightly out of context so they look better. I am trying to reject this temptation on every level in our ministry.

When all looks good and then...

2007-06-19T09:59:00.000-05:00

I just realized that my blog could serve as a repository for sermon illustrations, saving them under the appropiate tag. Of course the beauty of a good story is that it can be morphed to illustrate various truths.

Yesterday afternoon I went to pick up a missionary family from the airport who had come in from Leticia. There were six in total and as I went to shut the back of the mission van one of the kid's head was in the way. I waited for him to move but because he was still close I didn't slam it shut.

As we were tooling along at around 70 km/h on the Avenida El Dorado (one of the nicest in Bogota to give visitors a good first impresion I'm sure) all was well. The family was happy. I was happy. My friend Wilder was sleeping because he had been up almost all night at a retreat out at camp.

I went to pull off the inner lanes into the outer lanes and heard a whoosh, looked back, and to my horror saw that the van door had conveniently opened and it looked as if several suitcases had flown out. I slammed on the brakes, ran at full speed to grab the suitcases. Thankfully the beautiful silver Mercedes right behind us had slammed on its brakes and the driver and his wife were laughing. I apologized profusely and ran back with the escapee in hand.

It turns out that only one suitcase flew out, and the family said that it was the most beat-up one they own. I learned that even if all looks good, it's always good to double check!

Pictorb -- Global Photo Resources

2007-06-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

A friend from college, Barry Farlow, just let me know about a site that he helped develop called Pictorb. The site provides missionary pictures from across the globe, and he wanted to know if we would contribute some photos from Colombia.

Revaluation of the dollar

2007-06-06T10:14:00.000-05:00

The Colombian peso has gained more against the dollar in the last year than any other currency in the world. The graph below gives you an idea of how it's value has plummeted. Yesterday it ended in 1,877 pesos per dollar. This tendency reflects the greater confidence foreign investors have in Colombia. The security situation has dramatically improved and dollars are pouring into the country, driving its value down. Importers are happy and the exporters are upset.

Conference message

2007-05-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

I was asked to preach at the 2nd annual missionary conference here in Bogota last Saturday. The pastors have now named the mission agency SIBAN, which stands for SIervos Bautistas A las Naciones (Baptist servants to the Nations). The preaching went very well, and the message reflected many insights that I have gleaned from pastors here. I'll just mentions my main points so you get the idea (the outline was nicer looking in Spanish).

Following the Compass of Paul's Strategy
Romans 15

The missions strategy of Paul consists of three tasks that we should emulate:

I. Understand the mission: vv. 7-13

We must understand that God wants to see unity that leads to more people glorifying Him.
Our goal is not to be comfortable, nor a social club, nor to brag about our sound doctrine but to reach more people for the glory of God.

II. Pass on the ministry: vv. 14, 19, 23

We see that Paul relied on the work of the Holy Spirit in people's lives.
He fulfilled his ministry because he left strong, reproducing churches in the major cities.
On a personal level, every pastor and missionary should be reproducing himself.
On a practical level... Are we doing all of the preaching and teaching because we're the best at it? We need to think about who we will leave in our place and think long-range.
We also need a reproducible model in Colombia for how we plant new churches.

III. Extend the mission work: vv. 20-24

We're at a crucial point in the history of missions here in Colombia.
Where do we go from here?
There's a lot to do in Bogota, but what about the rest of the country?
We does God want us to go next?

First seminary class completed

2007-05-21T17:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I finished teaching my first seminary class here--General Epistles. The class went pretty well, although we weren't able to cover 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John or Jude.

El eje cafetero in pictures

2007-05-21T13:37:00.001-05:00

El eje cafetero (the coffee region)

2007-05-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

We just arrived last night after our annual vacation... this time we ventured out on our longest bus ride to date of about 8 hours. The crazy thing is how close the cities and towns look on the map and then to see that those 100 km take 3 hours because it's non-stop switch-backs. Actually the bus drivers are more like professional race-car drivers than normal people.

El eje cafetero is the second biggest tourist attraction in Colombia after the Caribbean coast. I personally liked it even better than the coast because the weather was perfect (and always is), the people were very friendly (and their Spanish is easier to understand than on the coast), and the land is the most fertile country I have ever seen.

We stayed on a finca (a farm property converted to hotel) in Armenia, the capital city of the smallest department in Colombia, el Quindio. An earthquake back in 1999 destroyed much of the city, and ironically led to the resurgence of the municipality. I would say that Armenia is much more orderly than Bogota, although it's hard to compare a city of 300,000 with a city of 7 million.

As I mentioned, we were impressed with the friendliness of the people. Actually I have to say that we experienced that in every part of Colombia except in Bogota and the surrounding towns. We were able to able to share the gospel with our guide, and she was very open to listen and wants to receive some Christian literature that we are going to send her. She told us that we should consider starting churches in el Quindio because she send that there are hardly any Christian churches around except the ones that she considers fanatical (e.g. charismatic).

If we could leave tomorrow to go plant new churches in Armenia, I wouldn't think twice about doing it. But things aren't so easy to just go off and do. At least we are getting to know and love this country much more with each new experience.

New books and ministry quote

2007-05-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

I've been impressed lately by the number of challenging books being translated into Spanish. The publishing house Editorial CLIE has begun a new series in which they are translating some of the best contemporary theology books from English. For example, commentaries by Gordon Fee, Douglas Moo, F.F. Bruce, Peter Davids, etc.

I read a book on discipleship from this series by Gegory Ogden and am working through his manual for discipleship. I wanted to include a quote from this second book that has spurred my thinking (obviously it will be my translation):

"We should decide what we want our ministry to be about. Do we want to receive short-lived applause and recognition or do we want to transmit a model to the few who will continue our labor once we are gone?" This question is excellent. Pastor Jose and I have decided to begin pouring more energy into some of our men with ministry potencial here. Who cares if we build a church of 500 if we can't leave it with trained leadership?

On the short-term side of things, this means that our ministry "quality" may suffer a little bit. I don't forsee anyone preaching better than Jose in the near future, but we need to start letting other men share the preaching so that they will grow. The same goes for the music, for the teaching, etc.

It's easy to criticize models that have been used in the past that haven't produced strong, biblically-minded leaders, but the question remains: What are we doing about it?

First course in the seminary

2007-05-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I began my first course in the seminary here in Bogota--General Epistles. I have 35 students, and the class has been going well. It's definitely a challenge for me to teach from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in Spanish. The second night my brain felt scrambled by about 9 p.m. Since then I've decided to sleep in a little more so that I'm fresher at night.

Got Moodle?

2007-04-25T07:02:00.000-05:00

It's interesting how events converge in our lives. I just got accepted to take my first master's level class from a group called Pro-META. It turns out that they use an open-source environment for distance education called Moodle. I had never heard of Moodle until this week, and lo and behold, a missionary with ABWE who is in charge of distance education with the mission came through Bogotá this weekend and explained what the future will look like for theological education around the ABWE world. Talk about exciting!

We will be using the Moodle environment to facilitate distance education. The classes are super-dynamic... so far they have one class done in Spanish, but they are working in eight different languages. With this system we will be able to offer quality theological education to people throughout Colombia. Imagine, we could be training pastors in many cities of Colombia at the same time, even while we are on furlough ministry. The ABWE school is called Horizon International Schools.

Balancing strengthening and reaching out ministries

2007-04-10T20:47:00.000-05:00

Missionaries face difficult dilemmas. One of the hardest is knowing when it's time to move on to a different ministry, or if it's better to stay on strengthening the ministry in which you are serving. I mention this because the Lord continues to burden me for other parts of Colombia. We had a meeting with the men of our field team to talk about our church planting strategy and other possible locations for ministry in Colombia. Talk about exciting to think about!

We could go to the coffee region of Colombia in the west-central part of the country. Everyone I talk to says there is a huge need there. Armenia has 315,000 people; Manizales 357,000; Ibague 421,000; and Pereira 521,000. They hardly have any sound churches. The majority of the supposedly "evangelical" churches have drifted into charismatic practices, have women pastors, etc.

On the other hand, it's not like we can just take off and leave. Important ministries remain in the Bogota area. We need to make sure the seminary has qualified teachers, and that the camp continues to function.

I've advocated that we need to lift up our eyes and look on the fields... and then send a new team out to one of these needy areas. Of course there will be challenges to continue strengthening the ministries here in Bogota, but I think that God will bless our faith and planning if we purpose to branch out. If we don't look outward, I'm a little concerned about what could happen in the future. The words of Paul still challenge us: "And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation" (Rom. 15:20).

Small group ministry starts

2007-03-22T21:33:00.000-05:00

Next Wednesday is the first night of our new small group ministry, Grupos Agape. I am very excited about this ministry. If you can believe it, the only experience I have in a small group of a church was in San Antonio, Texas back in 1995, where I attended a small group led by some students who had just gotten back from missions trip in Russia.

It was a great experience. Of course I felt lonely in San Antonio, and the group helped me feel like I had someone my age with whom to talk. I still remember something funny. One night the leader said, "Let's just say that the next 30 minutes is prayer. We're just going to chat, but we'll consider that it's prayer. Maybe we can intersperse (of course I'm sure that was the exact word he used) random thoughts for God." I still get a laugh out of that! It's almost as good as one of my roommates who said that he used the snooze button to measure how long he'd prayed in the morning (yikes, his prayer life was spectacular... from about 4:45 a.m. to about 6:45 a.m.).

At any rate, we're starting the small group ministry with two groups. Pastor Jose will lead one, and I'll lead the other. We'll both have an apprentice whom we'll prepare to lead a group in the future. The goal of this ministry is that we grew in fellowship with our brothers and sisters.

We've come up with a basic vision statement for the church along the same lines as the authors of Simple Church advocate. In other words, each purpose of your church has one ministry that corresponds to that purpose, or to put it in other words, your vision is your process. Our statement (roughly translated) would be: "Growing in commitment... to God in worship, to our brothers and sisters in fellowship, to the church in ministry, and to the world in evangelism." To God in worship corresponds to the Sunday services; to our brothers and sisters in fellowship to the small groups; to the church in ministry to ministry teams (which don't exist yet), and to the world in evangelism permeates every aspect of our church life.

Reading between the lines

2007-02-12T19:48:00.000-06:00

The church conflict continues, and I keep learning. A concept that is very important to understand in Colombian culture is the malicia indigena. The word indigena is the word for "indigenous" or "native." Supposedly this ability comes from their Indian roots, but it's probably more from their Spanish heritage. It's a difficult concept to translate directly, so I'll try to explain the idea. The term refers to the ability (or vice) to see beyond the surface and judge the motives of another person, usually to avoid getting ripped off or to rip someone off. It's the ability to connect the dots in a situation in order to come out ahead or to tell what's really going on.

I asked my Colombian co-worker if it's ever a good thing. He said that it never is... but that sometimes we misname wisdom or precaution malicia indigena.

The malicia indigena can have terrible effects on a church. No matter what a person says, he or she can be misinterpreted under the guise of the malicia indigena. Lately I've heard comments, such as, "You just can't understand how so-and-so is manipulating because you are so pure and you don't have the malicia indigena."

How does this concept affect a reconciliation process? Wow, it can utterly derail it. "No... so-and-so doesn't want to reconcile, he just wants to manipulate." "When he asked for forgiveness he really didn't mean it." Or you ask someone, "Do you have proof of that?" "No, but I have the malicia indigena with which I can see through the smokescreen."

I've also learned some things about counseling. You have to directly ask people what they mean because they can easily use ambiguous words (obviously this happens in the U.S. too, but I think that it's more pronounced here). For example, "When you said that, did you mean A, B, or C?" This is an important lesson for me to learn so early in my missionary career here. I tend to take things at surface value (they reconciled), when in reality they carefully crafted their words to avoid confessing anything or to admit that "progress is impossible so why bother."

At any rate, I continue studying faithfully in the school of hard knocks.

The Peacemaker

2007-01-23T21:11:00.000-06:00

I was feeling super discouraged by the church situation the other day, until I picked up The Peacemaker by Ken Sande and read the first chapter. It's amazing how God can use one chapter of a book to infuse a person with hope and change disaster into an opportunity.

Read the first chapter of the book in PDF format.

Also see the related websites: www.peacemaker.net and www.peacemakerchurch.net.

Simple Church

2007-01-14T16:33:00.000-06:00

I'm almost done with a book that I received for Christmas, Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. I recommend it to you pastors out there. There basic premise is that less is more. Churches that focus on a simply explainable discipleship process grow better than program-driven churches that try to grow by bulking up the number of programs they add.

To see one of the author's websites, which offers some interesting ideas go to:
Eric Geiger.com

Radically different contexts

2007-01-14T16:10:00.000-06:00

Here is Colombia you'll notice extremes. What is Colombian culture? That would depend to some extent where you are and with whom you walk. I've been wanting to post on this topic for a while.

It started with our visa process. Here I don't see foreigners very often. I've read that there are only 200,000 in the whole country of more than 40 million people. That has to be one of the lowest percentage of any country in the world. But we I went to the Ministry of Foreign Relations to solicit our visas the picture was different (not much of a surprise, right?). I spent the morning talking to a student from an African country whose name I can't recall. He is a theology student at a Catholic university here. Later I met a man whose parents are English and German and his wife's parents are Colombian and French, and she was born in the U.S. Talk about identity crisis in the family! The guy spoke five languages: German, French, English, Spanish, and Chinese. We talked about NGOs and his wife's work, etc. Most of the foreigners here probably live on a level significantly higher than the average Colombian.

The ambience of that office is quite different from where I was several day later. I went with a young man from our church to share the gospel with his family. In the south--way south--part of Bogotá. We were on three different buses for about 2 hours to get there. We arrived to be greeted in a house with two small rooms. The "living room" had half of the floor missing because either the concrete had collapsed or they had never finished it. The hostess offered me one of the three chairs in the house, after I used the bathroom that had a metal outhouse-type door and water all over the concrete, almost-dirt floor. They served me a simple snack of cooked plantain banana with a sweet jelly inside.

They say that Colombia is the happiest country in the world, or maybe second after some island in the Pacific. I would dare say that between these two experiences the second is more typical of this country.

Sermon helps

2007-01-02T18:34:00.000-06:00

This last week or two I've started using technology even more to my advantage. When I left seminary I knew that I would miss the library. But, thanks to the Internet, it's not so bad anymore. How so?

If I don't have a top-line commentary on the book I'm teaching or preaching, I check with Google Book Search or Amazon.com, which offers a Search Inside option on many books.

For an example of what you can do, I was able to read about Ephesians 4:9, 10 in about four of the best commentaries out there. That's a blessing for a missionary who doesn't have access to a seminary library!

First impressions from the youth camp in Sasaima

2006-12-22T20:47:00.000-06:00

Spiritual inventory

2006-11-28T19:43:00.000-06:00

As you can imagine, the last few weeks have continued to be very full because of the difficulties at church. Thankfully things have gotten somewhat better in the last two weeks. I am particularly excited about the possibility to begin a men's discipleship group. This will probably start in January, since most people are very busy during December. I've already started the foundation of the discipleship program with one of our men.

The idea comes from Ron Berrus, who was with us here in Colombia last month. He was a pastor for many years and now serves at ABWE. He gave us a CD with all of his discipleship material (a wealth of wisdom and help) and shared with me how he runs a discipleship group.

The basis for the program is a spiritual inventory and ten accountability questions. I've been working on it for about two weeks now, and God has been blessing. I'll post the information here (Ron said it's not copyrighted).

Spiritual Disciplines Inventory

While there exists a danger of legalism, equating spirituality with list keeping or measuring ourselves by others, yet, we must make personal self-judgments regarding our pursuit of God. We must become men of God, men of the Word, men of prayer, men of discipline, growing, sharing our faith and helping others grow. We must become the spiritual leaders of our homes. We must know where we are as well as where we need to go.

Give a completely honest evaluation of your present practices (not plans or past history). Tell us what your present practice of the spiritual disciplines is really like.

1. Present practice of reading and studying God’s word (when, where, how long, how regularly)

2. Present practice of memorizing God’s Word (when, how, what verses in the last 3 months)

3. Present prayer life (when, where, how long, with whom, major prayer requests)

4. Present practice of using a spiritual journal (how often, method)

5. Present practice of leading family worship (if married)

6. Present practice of reading Christian books & magazines (when, how often, examples)

7. Present practice of giving to the Lord’s work (church, para-church, percentages)

8. Present practice sharing your faith (witness, tracts, home bible study – last month, year)

9. Making disciples (helping someone else grow intentionally)

Rate yourself regarding your current practice as a follower of Jesus Christ
(low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (high)

Accountability Questions

1. Have you fulfilled your weekly growth plan objectives this week?

2. Have you taken time to minister to your family (wife, kids) this week?

3. Have you been with someone this week that could be considered inappropriate by anyone, or could have looked like you were using poor judgment this week?

4. Have you exposed yourself or been exposed to any explicit material this week?

5. Have you dwelled on thoughts that were not Phil. 4:8-9 thoughts this week?

6. Have you been completely above reproach in all of your financial dealings?

7. How have you handled temptations in the last week?

8. How can you be more Christ-like in your workplace?

9. How have you shared your faith with an unbeliever in the last week?

10. Have you just lied to us?

Emergency mode

2006-10-31T15:13:00.000-06:00

I've been in "emergency mode" for the past two weeks. By that I mean I´ve had to attend a ton of emergency meetings to try to fix some major things that blew up in the church. Here´s what happenned.

Two Sundays ago, I had an inkling that things weren't going to go perfectly. We were going to have a budget meeting with the church after the service. I had thoughts of budget meetings at Campus Baptist, where the budget is presented, three or four respectful questions are asked, and then it's approved.

Not so on that day. We spent 45 minutes just debating the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. Obviously something was brewing. And Holly said that she saw Galatians 5:15 come alive, "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!"

Towards the end of the meeting a group of people stood up and read a letter basically sharing their desire to say "chau" to the Colombian pastor.

Of course this type of thing sends major shudders through the whole church. There was group of people who met almost every night for a week or two. Other people see the unbiblical foundations of such a tactic. Last Sunday the tension was palpable in the service.

As a church we need to work through many details of this situation. People were offended verbally. The Bible was not followed. As the interim pastor I felt like resigning on the Monday after this happened. Now I see that God needs to work through this situation to purify His church.

I´ve been mostly working on an individual or family level with this problem, slowly unraveling the knots of problems that should have been handled biblically a long time ago.

Crossing borders... Boyaca

2006-10-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

We took our first trip out of Cundinamarca (the department in which Bogota lies), crossing the border into Boyaca on our way to the city of Tunja, which has a population estimated at about 124,000. The drive of two hours is breathtaking and a good challenge for our Renault 9 (forget about running it with natural gas, it wouldn't make it).

As we arrived at Tunja, we drove by instinct to the center plaza, where I left Holly and the kids to look for our hotel. As I walked across the plaza, a man walking parallel to me made eye contact and greeted me. We talked for about five minutes about how it is to live in Tunja. In Bogota that would hardly ever happen! I was experiencing culture shock. That first impression continued for the whole time we were in Tunja. A whole group of girls on a school trip approached us to ask where we were from. Several police officers offered to help me find our hotel... the list goes on, but I was impressed with the friendliness of the people.

As far as churches in Tunja... lots of Catholic churches and few, if any sound Bible-teaching churches. We saw four evangelical churches, but probably only one would be of sound doctrine. The people are very Catholic. Lots of young people poured out of the Sunday mass. Everyone I talked to said that they were Catholic and believed very strongly in the "Virgin."

The most interesting experience was visiting a monastery where the "Virgin" had supposedly appeared hundreds of years ago. A man was sitting on the steps, reading his prayer book. I approached him and struck up a conversation. It turns out that he has two major problems: his son is into drugs and he's involved in adultery with someone. He was there to ask the "Virgin" for help with these two areas. He was very willing to listen to what I had to say about the gospel, but it is so radically different from his background and experience. The mentality of looking to the "Virgin" for everything and the idea that we have to always be "confessed up" with the priest or we're up a crick clouded his understanding. It least I was able to share the gospel with him and leave a gospel of John with him.

This trip was part of a desire that God has placed on my heart to see how we can expand our church planting out of Bogota and the surrounding towns. It may only be a dream, but I'm going to be praying that God would give us wisdom and a deeper desire to reach all of this country for Christ.

In the post below you will see some photos from our trip in the following order...border of Boyaca, Tunja from the north, central plaza from our hotel window, the cathedral outside and inside, and the last two are of the monastery.