Archives for July 2008

Here are some interesting facts:

• Over 3,000 miles in the car.
• 5 states
• 6 different lodging accommodations
• Lots of meals in different houses
• Living out of 1 suitcase

The joys of traveling.  This is the final week of our five week trip before we return to Panama.  This week has us visiting family for the week and our kids enjoying time with the grandparents.

We’ll be visiting two churches, fishing on the river, golfing, crabbing, and enjoying the general quiet of country life at the remote northern tip of Kent Island.  Our kids are enjoying playing with Grandpa, fishing, and doing "movie madness" staying up late watching movies outdoors after dark.

This period of rest gives us a chance to think through all the new connections that we have made, new friendships, new churches, new supporters.  It gives me a chance to write, to share with our supporters about how our ministry is advancing and growing.

After leaving Family Camp, we then continued on to Richmond VA, our hometown.

We had three ministry events where we got to share our mission work in Latin America, talk about www.EvangelismCoach.org, and receive offerings to advance our work in Latin America.

Christ Presbyterian

Christ Presbyterian Church is where I served first as an intern, then as associate pastor for about 7 years.  It was good to make a visit and to update friends and new faces about our work in Latin America.  For the family, it was a great opportunity to reconnect since we last visited over a year ago before we left town.

I preached a message on the joys of forgiveness, based on Psalm 51.  It is enjoying your forgiveness that gives you motivation and fuel to share your faith with others.

Victory Life Fellowship

After the service at Christ Prez, we visited another supporting church that afternoon, Victory Life Fellowship. 

Pastor Wilson gave Brenda the chance to say hello and to greet the church.  We had a few moments to share about our work in Latin America, and afterwards, Pastor Wilson gave me the privilege of officiating the Communion service.  What a joy to co-labor together!

Iglesia Communidad Evangelica

This is our family’s church.  That first Sunday evening, we gathered with them in their new facility, and again, we shared a minute for mission with them, updating them on our work in Latin America.  This is our sending church. 

For about eight months prior to our leaving for Panama in 2007, we connected with this little Hispanic fellowship, and it was a place of healing for our family after some struggles in finding a church home after we left the church we helped to plant. 

The relational connections that were established during those 8 months really helped feel whole again and their love for us as a family meant a great deal to us.

They adopted us, as it were, and recognized us as "their missionaries" in Latin America.  While most people in this church had left everything to come to America, we left everything to go to Latin America.

Fear Free Evangelism Seminar

On Thursday, a local church gave us use of their building and 5 volunteers to host an www.EvangelismCoach.org workshop on Fear Free Evangelism.  This was the first time we tried to offer a workshop in this kind of setup: a free location, available to the public. 

We had no idea how effective our publicity would be.  We used the viral networks of emails, blogs, and social sites to get the word out, and many of our supporters helped us greatly by forwarding emails to their friends.

For a first attempt, the turnout was good.  We spent about 2 hours presenting a model of evangelism that removes nearly all the fear in talking about your faith.

Based on the feedback received, this workshop went very well and many of the attendees are really jazzed about the material.  I’m in the process of gathering testimonies of attendees and hopefully, some will do the assignment (have conversations about faith with 2 people).

I’ll be offering it again as a webinar in August.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

The final Sunday of this week, we had the chance to preach 2 services at Westminster in Richmond.  It had been a year since I had preached there while their pastor was on vacation.  This year, he was there, and it was good to visit.

I shared a similar message based on Psalm 51, expressing the joys of forgiveness, and the fuel to share our faith.

After a brief lunch with the pastor, our family continued on to our next destination. . .  .

After saying our good byes to family, we headed off to our next ministry location: Family Camp, hosted by Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International, or PRMI.

Family Camp

The theme for the week was again, the Armor of God. 

For our family, the two back to back weeks on the same topic helped reinforce the message for our kids about the armor of God and how we can put it on in our walk with the Lord.

Brenda and a co-worker led the children’s ministry time, and from the conversations that I had with the kids there and their parents, I hear they did a great job.  Brandon and Anakarina are still singing songs they learned. 

I served as keyboard player in the worship band that had been formed for family camp.  That was something that was meaningful to me as it has been nearly two years (with one exception), if not more, since I have had that privilege.

PRMI

PRMI is a renewal organization that provides us our 501 c3 covering (How to Support our Work), and has called me to serve as Pioneer Faculty for Missions and Evangelism in the Americas. 

It is part of our ministry to take the teaching material of PRMI on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, translate it into Spanish, and build the network in Latin America for the spread of the material.

Our family has been connected to PRMI for over 10 years, if not longer. 

I am convinced that the body of teaching material they have on the person and work of the Holy Spirit helps many people to experience the fullness of life in the Spirit, and to experience the equipping and empowering work of the Holy Spirit in their lives to accomplish the work of spreading the gospel.  This material has spread globally into other parts of the world, and it is our task to pioneer that work into Latin America. 

The material has been translated into several different languages, International Schools (training sites) are being developed now.  To find our more, visit www.prmi.org and dig around the website — as of this writing, it takes a little work to find the information, as it’s not that well organized.

Week 2 of our Summer road trip had us visiting with family and attending Capilla Cristo Redentor, a Spanish language Assembly of God church in Spring Lake NC.

This week was entirely connected to Vacation Bible School, which this year was based on the Armor of God.  Brenda had the privilege of serving in a teaching role.

I had a quiet week, recovering from being sick the previous week.

On Sunday we were given the minute for mission time and we got to share about our work in Latin America, being based in Panama City, but working throughout the entire region of the Americas.

Brenda shared more about www.mismanualidades.org, a new website that we are building to publish the material that she is developing to train Children’s workers.  That seemed to really resonate with this particular church (the website is in Spanish) and many signed up for the newsletter that will be forthcoming.

An area of teaching ministry that we were called to in Panama was to train Children’s workers.  We’ve had two significant events where Brenda was teaching a few hundred at a time.  Each time that she teaches, the need for the information that she is providing becomes more and more apparent.

Every time that we teach at a conference or a seminar in Panama or in Latin America, our sense of calling is affirmed.  We know that we are in the center of what God has us doing.

Would you continue to pray for us as our ministry develops in Latin America?

During our road trip, we were able to spend the weekend in Charleston SC.

We visited with friends from Seacoast Church, spent some time with their missions director about our work in Panama, and I had the opportunity to preach in two churches, and expand the vision of our work.

Rockville Presbyterian Church

The first church we visited, Rockville Presbyterian Church was at the southern Tip of Wadmalaw Island. 

The church was established in 1850 and is a beautiful white country church.  The congregation that meets there now is generous, and loves the Lord.  Elders cornered me for prayer before the service starts (as an itinerant evangelist, I can tell you how rare that is).

The little waterfront town of Rockville was truly at the end of the road, a quiet respite on our journey.  The old trees, the Spanish moss, and the quiet ocean breeze all made us feel like we had just walked into a Southern Living photo spread.

I shared a message based on the story of Phillip And The Ethiopian Eunuch, the foundational teaching for our model of evangelism. 

El Buen Pastor

Later that evening, we visited a Spanish language congregation that meets inside a Presbyterian Church.  I had a translator help me share a similar message on Phillip.

Most of this church was made of immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico.  In fact, as we asked some of the members if other countries were represented, no one could think of any others.

The difference:

The opening introduction to the message that I am using on this trip is about Fears of Evangelism. 

What I discovered in comparing these two churches is that many of these evangelism fears are more common in typical Mainline, North American churches.

The people at Rockville quickly identified with these fears, but the Hispanic church seemed surprised that evangelism could be so scary.  This gave me further insight into how to adapt the teaching material for different audiences.