Monthly Archives: February 2006

Spiritual Warfare Part 2

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Well, this week Satan has certainly been at work in the life of our church, but God has been victorious every time. I have heard dozens of reports of people in our church sharing their faith this week. Seven BU students decided to go and do surveys in the student center at BU on Monday. They talked to several people in depth about faith and what distinguishes Christianity from the other religions. Others have had conversations with people and sat down with friends to be intentional about their conversations. Still others have told me about some sacrifices they had to make in their schedule or in their comfort levels, etc. just to do what they knew God was asking them to do.

Another great victory that we are seeing happen has to do with discipleship. Disciple-making is our church’s approach to reach the world for Christ and almost all of our leadership team have found someone to disciple and someone to disciple them and some of those relationships have formed in the past few days and weeks. Many of those that are being discipled by our leaders are unbelievers who value the time they can spend with an authentic believer. I don’t know what you might call it: friendship evangelism, lifestyle evangelism, relationship evangelism. I just call it being intentional about the relationships God has brought us and we are seeing it happen.

This week has been extremely productive in every way. Our team prepared for a mission team from New Orleans that just arrived tonight. ESL and an Alpha course are both picking up steam on campus. I have been able to get a lot of things done on my to do list and at the same time have some quality time with a few people that I needed to spend time with.

On the other hand, there have been some major things come up that are obvious attempts by Satan to destroy what God is doing. Satan wants to steal the seed that was emphasized Sunday night when we talked about sacrificing EVERYTHING for the message of Jesus Christ. A couple of people in our church are even going through some things this week that would have been difficult for Job.

Sunday night I developed a head cold because I couldn’t sleep all that night. My concern for our church was heavy and oppressive. I knew the storm would come in light of the gravity of the message and the amazing response from the church to sacrifice all for Jesus. I had trouble sleeping that night but Monday was a really good day (despite the cold that I was developing). Tuesday morning was HORRIBLE. I have never experienced so much frustration and for a couple of hours I was completely defeated and angry at life. Glory to God that He pulled me out of that and helped me to see that the circumstances of the morning were the spiritual forces that wanted to bring me down. They were succeeding too until my Father rescued me from it. The rest of the day was spiritually and logistically very fulfilling and productive.

Finally, I am encouraged by something that I thought was a negative thing at first. I have been traveling a lot and I have another trip this weekend (in 4 hours I head to the airport). However, God is doing a great work in my absence. Our leaders and others in the church are stepping up and taking responsibility for a lot of things while I am gone. Jessica will be leading worship completely on her own other than the instruments this Sunday. Josh is going to serve as my co-leader for the team we will be taking to New Orleans next week and he will be hosting the team meeting this Friday. Trisha, Anne and Dena will be doing most of the hosting of our current mission team (something TJ and I usually do). Others in our church will be spending time with the mission team and will serve alongside them. Others are planning upcoming events and my heart is overwhelmed at the things God is accomplishing through our church.

What a victorious week. I am encouraged. I am challenged. I am overwhelmed by God’s amazing leadership and guidance and His beautiful presence here in Boston. This round fought here in Boston between Satan and God, as always, goes to God Almighty.

Boston (42° 21′ , -71° 7′)

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Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual Warfare

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Well, over the next two weeks maybe all of my posts will be catch up posts like my last one. I will be doing a lot of traveling and may not get to update everyone very often. I will be in a wedding this weekend and my church is hosting a mission team at the same time so I am making sure everything is ready for that to happen while I am gone. I think me being gone so much is actually doing some great things for our church. There is so much that is happening without me having to be around. So many people are stepping up and getting things done. It’s been incredible to watch all of these college students take on more responsibility than most deacons I have known.

Over the next couple of days I will try to write down some thoughts about what I’m learning as I plant a church in Boston. Actually, I wanted to relay some of the stuff that happened tonight at church. TJ and I have felt incredibly burdened that about half of our church really needs to get to the next level in their faith. We have been preaching through 1 Thessalonians and tonight’s message was from chapter 2 verses 8-16. The title of my message was “Sacrificing Everything for the Message of Christ”. Paul said, “We were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives.” The text revealed that sharing the message of Christ demands sacrifice, requires integrity, needs accountability, motivates others to share, and invites rejection.

This was an incredibly difficult message, and I knew that spiritual forces were rallying against me as I spoke. There were about five distractions during the first 10 minutes and after the last distraction I told everyone how important I felt this message was and that I fully believed that Satan was trying his best to distract us from this message. And so we paused and I prayed that God would be victorious in that place. Even as I prayed, God gave me a peace and I believe He helped us to focus on the message. There wasn’t a single distraction after that. Praise God for circumventing the attacks of the devil.

This was a powerful message…for me! It brought a realization to my own life that I don’t have as much urgency in sharing my faith that I need to have. Yet, God was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Sure, I get opportunities to talk about my faith, but when was the last time I really sacrificed something to do it? How often do we keep a tight reign on our schedules, our rights, our agendas, our money, our resources, our time? We are so inflexible that we are missing opportunities everyday to reveal the goodness of God.

It also was a tangible awareness of God’s presence with us tonight. Phones were ringing, the water fountain had to be unplugged because it was distracting, and there were other minor distractions. After we requested God’s authority over the room there was perfect peace. Undeniably, He brought everything back in to focus so that we could learn from His Word. It was powerful!

Please pray for our church every chance you get this week. I told them that if they accepted the challenge to follow Christ and to be more intentional about sharing their faith, they were going to experience persecution, rejection, and even spiritual attack but that the Lord is with them. Please be praying for all of us that we will be bold, that we will rise to the challenge to share our faith, and that we will resist the temptation to give up when those attacks start happening.

Boston (42° 21′ , -71° 7′)

Random Catch Up Post

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So it’s been eight days since I last posted. That’s more than a week in blog years! I thought I would catch everyone up to speed on what has been going on here in Boston. I haven’t posted in a while because for a few days I was either traveling or recovering from my trip. Then there was the weekend and that was kind of uneventful because I was still just taking it easy after my mad dash around the world and back. Anyway, without further ado, here is a summary of what’s been going on.

Tuesday the 7th, I returned from Tokyo. I forced myself to stay up for the entire flight (except a couple of short naps) so that I could sleep that night and get up the next day on my regular schedule, totally recovered from jet lag. I was up for 38 hours straight.

Wednesday the 8th, I woke up at 2PM. My plan to overcome jet lag was ruined. TJ told me that my alarm clock was going off for about 3 hours, but I never heard it. I guess I needed the sleep. That evening I went to my Community Group (they met the first week without me) and we had a great discussion on Psalm 2 and it was GREAT to be back with my church. I missed them while I was gone. I went to sleep at 5AM.

Thursday the 9th, I woke up 2 and a half hours after I fell asleep (7:30AM) because I had a meeting at the Baptist Convention of New England. I had to talk about my church, my ministry, and my vision for four hours straight with a panel of church planting strategists. That’s hard to do after less than 3 hours of sleep.

Friday the 10th, I slept in again because my original plan to knock out jet lag in one day hadn’t been implemented properly. I did absolutely nothing, which was probably what I needed to do. That evening several people from my church came over and we laughed at…I mean, we watched the opening ceremonies of the olympics. Seriously, the throbbing heart thing was creepy.

Saturday the 11th, Kim and Cristina and I finally found the movie theater in Somerville. We watched the End of the Spear and I frantically fought back the tears. Kim was sitting beside me, but I don’t think she noticed the shaking.

Sunday the 12th, we cancelled church because of the blizzard…and I was very sad. After all, I had already missed the previous Sunday because I was in Tokyo. Oh well, I’m praying for no blizzards next weekend.

Monday the 13th, I got up with no clue what I would wear because I still hadn’t done laundry since before my trip to Miami and Tokyo. So, I put on some dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat. I sent some emails, I organized my calendar for the week, I set up some meetings with students for the week, I met with a student to help generate an evangelistic survey that some BU students will be doing next week, I shovelled out the Hyundai, I played some snooker at www.miniclip.com and now I am writing this blog.

Now, normally I don’t give you a play by play of my week, but I just wanted to bring you up to date with what’s going on in Boston so that I can get back to writing about church planting or discipleship or apologetics or whatever else I usually write about. Don’t worry, I’m not going to fall in to the trap of frequently sharing the mundane details of my life with you. I really want this blog to be mostly about what I am learning and experiencing as I seek to be a follower of Christ and as a church planter in Boston. If this is the first post you have ever read of mine, let me encourage you to follow some of the links on my sidebar to a more representative sample of what goes on here. This is meant to be interactive, so please explore and comment and leave prayer requests and introduce yourself and whatever else you want to do.

Boston (42° 21′ , -71° 7′)

Buddhism is of the Devil

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IMG_2080Yesterday our coordinating team for the Tokyo project went to the main Buddhist temple in Tokyo called Osaksa. The first thing we saw was an entrance to a very long courtyard. Two devils on either side of the entrance “protect” the path to “heaven”. In the middle of the entrance hangs a large lantern that supposedly lights the path to heaven. Much of Buddhism has to do with finding the inner light or peace.

Once we went through the entrance, we walked down this long path that had markets on either side. It reminded me of the courtyard of the gentiles where Jesus overthrew the moneychangers. Thousands of people were shopping, but hundreds more were engaging in rituals to purify themselves before entering the temple. You could see some rubbing a copper buddha for health. One lady would rub the knees of the buddha and then rub her own knees. Then she would rub the buddha head and then her own. Others were lighting incense and waving the smoke all over themselves. Not much of a pleasing aroma was coming from that area. The incense was to purify the outer body. Then they could be seen purifying themselves internally by drinking from a certain well.

As we approached the actual temple, there was the sound of money hitting metal and when we went in the first thing we saw was a large altar and people throwing money into the altar, sometimes over the heads of the people in front since there was a mob of people surrounding the altar at places five or six people deep.

IMG_2064All of this was spiritually disturbing but what really broke my heart for the people of Japan was when our missionary pointed out the altars on either side of the money altar. There were two cabinets enclosed by glass that had doors on the front. Inside could be seen dozens of prongs that held candles. Some had candles on them and then there were about 20 to 25 candles that were lit in each cabinet. We were told that when anyone had an abortion they came to the temple to light a candle. The fact that so many candles were actually lit signified how many people had come by even in the last hour or so to light a candle for the baby they had just aborted. I saw one mom helping her two children light candles, maybe for her or maybe for a family member.

In my experience going in to Hindu temples, Buddhist temples and etc. I have realized that Christians must be intolerant of untruth. Buddhism and Shintoism and all other religions that don’t teach that Jesus is THE only way are lies from Satan. I understand that sounds close-minded and intolerant, but once you know the truth, there is no other choice. There are too many people around the world that are going to hell because we are trying to be sensitive. My heart has been broken again for the lost and my desire is to share the hope that we actually have in Christ.

I like what Billy Graham says, “If we weren’t narrow in chemistry they’d be blowing the place up. We have to be narrow. We are narrow when we are flying a plane. I’m glad that pilots are not too broad-minded and just come in any way they want to.” We need to approach our lost world with grace and love, but the fact remains that we do need to approach them. We don’t have the luxury of being overly sensitive and shut our mouths because we don’t want to offend anyone. The gospel is offensive and if we are to be ambassador’s for Christ we need to be a little more aggressive in our faith.

Famous God

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Michael Jackson is famous, but he’s dead. Johnny Damon is famous, but he’s hated by many (at least here in Boston). A lot of people love Kelly Clarkson because she’s famous, but how many people really know her?

I pray for the fame of God to be made known to the people of Boston and that His renown would spread around the world, but I think that is a limited prayer. God is already “famous” when it comes to people having heard about Him. Some think God is famous but that He is dead. Others hate God and are angry at Him for one reason or another. Still others love Him, but don’t necessarily know Him.

Most people in the world believe in a God, but don’t have a personal relationship with Him. My prayer is that God would be more than famous in people’s lives. I want to share my God with as many people as possible. You can know Him and know Him personally. He can be more than famous in your life. He can be your friend. I am praying for more than God’s renown. I want to pray for God to be known.

Miami (25° 45′ , -80° 12′)