End of the Road, Just the Beginning

When summer approaches, Montevideo shuts down in many ways as people head to the beaches! Most of the normal activities come to an end until the beginning of March. As La Ruta (the route/road) came to a close for the semester, we have been looking back and thanking God for a great year of building relationships and having significant conversations with college students in the heart of the city! I am amazed at the way the Spirit is using this innovative, yet simple ministry to touch very deeply the lives of many and to stir up a sense of intrigue based on the way those who serve there incarnationally live their lives with them. Please join me in praying 1) for the informal opportunities to deepen friendships during these summer months outside of the official events 2) for a refreshed team to start the next chapter well and 3) that God would draw these students all the way to Him.

Here are few pictures from the last couple months of this semester!

Halloween Party - if you are a fan of The Office, you will get me!

I'm Game

Argentina vs. Uruguay with the men of SIM

 Team USA came to town to play in the FIBA Americup

A family in our SIM Uruguay team has begun planting a church which just moved, by God's grace, out of their apartment and into this beautiful place they were able to find to accommodate their growing group! It's been great to partner with them a few times by leading worship and being a part of their gathering!

I stumbled upon the LGBT Diversity fair in the main plaza yesterday and had the opportunity to demonstrate kindness and God's love. I spent time praying that everyone there would trust in the same God who is saving me!

And You Make a Difference

Continued thoughts on getting involved in ministry in local church and beyond!

1 Cor 12:27 “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 

You make a difference...

A. For others...the body needs you

1 Cor 12:21 “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’”

1 Cor 12:15-16 “Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.”

Not having the function of a part matters. It goes both ways too. It may be trendy to go it alone, but God has designed Christian life to be lived as a community.

B. For you...you need the body

1 Cor 12:17-20 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

If you’re just a severed eye laying on the ground, or an Van Gogh’s ear in a box – the function is severely limited.

Ministry partners are the some of the best lifetime friends and great sources of encouragement. Paul takes whole chapters of His letters sometimes remembering with affection His fellow-workers for the Gospel.

C. For God...He wants you in the body

Using your gifts gives Him joy (John 15:8)

It’s like if a father restored a car and gifts it to his kid. It sits in the garage until it has trouble running. Does the dad get much joy out of that? Seeing His hard work going to waste?

But think about how much joy the father gets when his kid doesn’t just say “Thank you, dad” but takes it cruising every weekend with his friends and drives it everywhere - to work, to school, to the gym, and to church!

God has restored our life and gifted it to us and given us spiritual gifts on top of that, but then He says, “Now go use it”

The Bible says God made us to...and saved us to...do good and serve (Eph 2:8-10). That’s ministry. Whatever your role, lives are changed in part because of you.

The Mission Is Yours

Some thoughts on getting involved in ministry in local church and beyond...

People get involved because

1. They believe the mission is theirs and

2. That their participation in it makes a difference 

They not only believe in the mission, but they own it. They accept that it’s not just a worthwhile mission to be done by someone, but that it’s for them to participate in.

And they are motivated not just because they should (because it’s theirs) but because they see that they are needed - that their involvement isn’t just a nice thing to do that really doesn’t affect anything. No! They can see tangible ways that their life makes a positive impact.

All believers are ministers.

The apostle Peter writes to all Christians:

1 Peter 2:9

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

In the Old Testament, to put it super simply, a priest connected God with the people and the people with God. There were priests for the nation of Israel who interceded or were the “in-between” to reconcile the imperfect Israelite and the perfect God.

THEN God told the whole nation of Israelites in Exodus 19:6 that just as they had priests, a chosen group of people to connect them with God, God made them, as a whole, a priesthood to all the other nations. These Israelites had experienced the reconciling grace of God and now it was their job (the farmer, the merchant, AND the priest) to connect all people with the means to experience the same thing.

God through Peter now tells all Christians that just as Israel, as a whole, was a priesthood to the nations, we are all part of the priesthood (in the business of connecting people with God) - "to declare the praises of the one who brought us from darkness to light" – so as many people as possible can experience the same thing. (The farmer, the lawyer, the nurse AND the pastor).

The big difference now is that we don’t need to go through a priest and make sacrifices to be reconciled to God because Jesus came to be the ultimate sacrifice once and for all so that we could be reconciled with God permanently and have direct access.

2 Cor 5:18-20

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

¡Party Pics!

Here are some pictures from a fun birthday party for our pianist and cool pal!

Slurping & Clapping: Cultural Observations to Take to Heart

God created humans in His image to love and adore Him back, but we return His love with rebellion as we live contrary to His will for us. So, even though the image we bear is tainted or distorted by sin, every person still bears it and that reveals itself in many ways.

A couple of the most foundational characteristics of God are love and beauty. He loves in community (always has and always will) and His beautiful creativity demands worship and praise.

Humans are designed to worship something – and every human does. On the whole, everyone worships themselves, but that can lead to secondary worshipping of some enjoyment, some person or some pursuit.

The goal of missions is to bring people back into the proper state of worshipping God as John Piper has pointed out.

But even cultures who, in large part, claim to be anything but interested in worshipping the Creator, can’t help but show fingerprints of that Designer in their customs.

Here are a couple beautifully interesting customs in Uruguay that can point to who God is and wants us to be.

Yerba Mate: Community

Mate is a strong herbal tea that is much more than a beverage. It’s served in a gourd and sipped through a straw called a bombilla. There’s etiquette and unsaid expectations when drinking mate but a couple interesting things to point out:

• While you or I might meet up and have our two separate coffees while conversing, a single gourd of mate is shared among an entire group. The owner will fill the gourd with water from her thermos that she carries around and offer it to her friend who then slurps up the entirety in one gulp and hands it back to be refilled for the next person.
• While there is great divide between generations in terms of what they do (younger people tend to live life very differently than older people do). In Uruguay, virtually everyone does this!

For me, the value of individualism in the US versus the value of the collective in Uruguay can be seen in the simple way we take our beverages when we’re with people. Both cultural values can point us to aspects of how God would like us to live as His people, but life is to be shared quite a bit more than we’re used to where I’m from. Love isn’t about keeping my bubble, my toys and my life to myself. The emphasis is on sharing what’s important – ultimately time - with people.

Sunset Applauding: Praising Beauty

A very typical Uruguayan pastime is to grab the mate and head down to the beach to watch the sunset with your friends and family. The sunsets are phenomenal here as they often involve recoloring the sky in the west, north, east and south! What’s intriguing is that Uruguayans will often applaud the sunset! That’s right – a people that is predominantly atheist and agnostic praises the beauty in the sky with outward expressions. “Who are they clapping for?” we might ask. I’m not sure what their answer would be, but their appreciation of something that, in reality, God did in His creativity, inspires me to praise His works more consistently.

So people who, on the whole do not believe, have unknowingly taught me a lot about enjoying community and enjoying God in that community. It’s inspired me to live more for the group than for my individual comfort. I’m challenged to stop to notice God’s hand and give Him the praise He deserves. I love witnessing things in other cultures that give different perspectives to add to who I am in order to be more of who God wants me to be.

Taking in the Abode

The abode

Enjoying La Rambla - the walkway along the water. [click to enlarge]

Part of my walking commute as fall comes and proceeds to winter.

Another part of my walking commute that makes my eyes think I'm in a much warmer place!

Volunteer Leadership Training at Christ Church

More hanging out with college students at La Ruta.

The SIM Uruguay team at its biggest!