Upward Call

2018 was a landmark year for me and God has changed my life and thinking in many ways. I write this to stay true to His lessons even as I enter not only a new year, but a new season of life. God's Work in My Life Marriage When God brought Elynne and me together six months ago, I knew she would be a great blessing to me, but since then, she has continued surprised me! Our six months haven't been easy (which was partly by our commitment to push ourselves in serving the Lord), but they have been precious. In my dear Elynne, the Lord has truly given me a help-meet. We help each other by biblical counsel, prayer, and practical service. She has journeyed with me as the Lord taught us the centrality of missions to the Christian life. She is with me  as I endeavor to serve our Savior in new and better ways, even when it requires much sacrifice on her part. Her perspective always enriches, and sometimes corrects, my thinking. I am teaching her to be more objective, and she is...

(Delivered at the HRCC Missions Seminar on 17 November 2018. This is the last of three sessions.)     Introduction Gina stared at her prayer list. Some months ago, she had attended a Missions Conference, and learned about the importance of praying for Christ’s global cause. After that, she made sure to include some kind of missions-related item in her daily prayers.   Today, it was “Qatar”, and the entry included some information about the country and its spiritual needs. Gina wanted to be excited about it, but she wasn’t. Other concerns pushed their way into her thoughts. Her deadlines at work. The demands of her three ministries in church. And on top of all that, she had a ton of housework to do!  Gina loved the Lord. She knew that missions was important. But the conference had been months ago, and she had had little encouragement to keep up her missions-related “resolutions”. With a million other things demanding her time, she decided that t...

In a previous post , we said a bit about how helpful prayer lists can be and why I use PrayerMate, in particular. Today, I want to share some of my favorite features of the app, and how it helps me maintain a prayer list that is both accessible and balanced. My Favorite Features Clean Look PrayerMate has a very clean, minimalistic look that doesn't call attention to itself. Cards PrayerMate stores each prayer item as a "subject" which functions essentially like a card. If that's hard to imagine, think about two different ways of keeping a pen-and-paper list. The traditional way is to have bullet points on a single piece of paper. But it's difficult to take out, modify, or rearrange items. A second way is to write down each item on an individual index card. This allows you to change a few items without having to re-write your entire list! PrayerMate functions like an electronic version of the index card system, and I love it! Catego...

There are many reasons why we fail to pray as we should, but I've learned that underlying all these is one principal reason. Find out what it is and how to address it in this short video. Manuscript Someone said that if you want to humble someone, just ask them about their prayer life. There's some truth to that. We all struggle with prayer. We are usually very undisciplined, very irregular in prayer. Sometimes we think we're doing ok, but other times, many times even, we fail to make time for it. Now, there may be many reasons for that, but ultimately it boils down to a failure to appreciate the blessing and necessity of prayer. There are two most basic disciplines in the Christian life. There are many disciplines, but none are as absolutely essential to discipleship as these two: Bible intake and prayer... Through Bible intake God speaks to us, and through prayer, we speak to God. If we compare the believer to a baby, Bible intake is like a mother...

Prayer lists are nothing new. In fact, when the apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them... yes, a list of things to pray for! (See Matthew 6:9.) I was taught to keep prayer lists early on in my Christian life, and that discipline has developed gradually ever since. 1  Now, I know that this discipline can easily degenerate into lifeless, meaningless repetition, but this can be easily avoided. 2  I think the advantages of the discipline more than enough reason to overcome such a minor obstacle. I'm naturally lazy, and I know that without structure, there will be too many days that I'll "skimp" on my prayer time. I'm forgetful, and I need to be reminded what to pray for. I'm selfish, and therefore, I need to be intentional about Christ-centered praying. I have six categories in my list, and only one of them is labeled "Personal". That being said, I tried different ways over the years. But several years ago, I found Pra...

One of every ten Filipinos is a Muslim. Plus, Muslim peoples comprise the country's last "unreached people groups" 1 . They represent the last frontier of Philippine missions. And what's more, there's a growing population of Maranaos in Metro Manila. Just walk around Greenhills, and you're sure to see them selling their wares! Many people are alarmed at this, but I'd rather focus on the fact that God has sovereignly brought our Muslim neighbors much, much closer to us. We don't have to fly to Mindanao to tell them about Jesus Christ and the gospel! That's why I was excited to observe the Muslim outreach ministry of one of HRCC's sister churches. They've been conducting it for over 20 years, so I knew we'd have a lot to learn from them. And they didn't disappoint! Our Take Home I can't share the details of our trip here, but I think it's enough to put down what I and the rest of the team learned during this tri...

(Delivered at the HRCC Missions Seminar on 17 November 2018. This is the first of three sessions.)     Introduction 923 years ago, on November 18, 1095, the Roman Catholic Church began organizing the First Crusade. 200 bishops gathered and decreed that anyone who would fight for the Church and the holy city of Jerusalem would be granted a plenary indulgence. It didn’t matter what your personal history was. The indulgence was your ticket to complete pardon with God! What a prize for being a Crusader, and anyone could have it! I can easily imagine a monk carrying a poster saying, "Join the Crusade and Be Forgiven of All Your Sins! THIS MISSION IS FOR EVERYONE!" (Of course, that’s not historical, but who knows, it may have happened!) In any case, the Crusades happened because of a complete misunderstanding of the Church’s mission on earth. They thought they could accomplish the Church’s mission by fighting Muslims and granting indulgences. Everyone who joined the...