Christians and Jesus-followers.  These are supposed to be synonymous, yet a 20-something woman with tattooed arms and pins in her lip doesn’t think so.  In last night’s Bible study she explained why she needs Christ not Christianity in her life.  After being burned by churches, she is reading the Bible for the first time.  Not only that, she is sharing God’s Word with her boyfriend and a close friend, whom she brought to the Bible study.  Holding a new Bible in her lap, she told the story of how her younger sister recently caught her reading scripture at home.  The sibling harassed her, saying, “What the ****!  Are you gonna be a Christian now?”  To this the young woman replied, “I’m not trying to be a Christian.  I want to follow God!”

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Three new Bible studies just started, and possibly a fourth will begin this week. I am hopeful the individuals requesting these Bible studies will soon gather their family members and/or friends to read and spiritually journey with them.

Two of Meredith’s co-workers in their mid-twenties, who have teased Meredith for being a “Christian,” requested a Bible study with Meredith. So last night they came over for dinner and we read and discussed a biblical story that sparked a lot of discussion about what God is like vs what their impressions of “churches” have been like.  They told us stories of how they felt judged by their appearances (lip piercings, tattoos, all black clothing, etc) when they went to churches in the past.  They said they are looking for people who are really living out their faith and experiencing a transformed life, not just going to church all the time.  They have been burned by religious people, but they are very open to exploring a relationship with God.  One of the girls wants to bring her boyfriend to the study next time.  They also talked about bringing another co-worker with them. 

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I usually email a weekly update on our ministry to people who have offered to pray for us and want more personal and up-to-date info than what we can provide on the blog.

Today I discovered my email distribution list was wiped out. Until we get that fixed, I’d like to post a modified version of the update I tried to email to folks today. Enjoy!

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A prayer update from your missionaries in East Hollywood (E-Ho), Los Angeles, CA:

Dear Prayer Team,

Wow, the weeks flew by! My apologies for no updates… I’ve been very busy with job hunting. As you know, this July we go from full-time salary to half-time salary as a missionary family (and then to zero salary by January 2010). Please keep us in your prayers as I look for a “regular” job and my family makes this transition from being funded missionaries to self-supporting missionaries in LA. Also please pray for our relationships with supporting churches, as we continue partnering with them in other (non-financial) ways!

How we’re doing:

Meredith and I praise God we celebrated 13 years of marriage last month! We left the kids with Ed and Katie and stayed at a nice bed and breakfast on the coast. Praise God that Ed and Katie are about to celebrate 9 years in July!  Now it’s our turn to watch Ed and Katie’s kids while they go celebrate!  Pray for Meredith and me – this summer we will decide if we’re going to keep our kids in public school or home school them next school year. Pray for our community of faith to trust God as we all go through lots of life transitions and face uncertainty with our finances/jobs.  Especially pray for our children, neighbors and co-workers as they watch us go through times of uncertainty – these become great discipling moments.

How the ministry is doing:

• Bad news: We returned from Asia to find nearly every family with whom we had studied God’s Word is no longer interested in journeying spiritually with us. This is due in large part to a group that has stepped up its presence in the neighborhood. There is heartache involved in gospel planting; it hurts to see people come and go.
• Good news: Yet there also is joy in watching others find hope and deliverance in Christ. Despite this setback we can see God is using us to show people what he is like and to attract people to his Son. For example, a grandma and her grown daughter continue to study God’s Word with Meredith. A school mom who adamantly said she doesn’t like religion can’t get enough time hanging out with the women in our group.  She has begun to pray and study God’s Word with them.  We continue to find people really want to spend more time with us.  They know something is different about us.  They just don’t know (yet) that it’s Jesus who is making the difference.  You’ll recall Wendy’s gangster friend Talia (not her real name) was arrested. While Talia was in jail, Wendy helped take care of her little son. Talia is out of jail now and her heart unfortunately is hardened to God right now. Yet other neighbors noticed. Wendy’s home has become a safe haven for their kids, too. During the school year Wendy had a homework club in her apartment. Now that school is out of session, we will find different ways to engage these homework club kids and their families.
  
• Interns: We are excited about a newly married couple who will be joining our community of faith as interns for the next nine months.  More about this wonderful couple in future updates.
  
• Pray for our Summer Outreach: We will be adding different kinds of outreach activities to our repertoire in addition to what we have been doing, to meet people in different ways and see what other responses people will make to the message of Christ we are living out and telling.

Thank you for lifting up the people of E-Ho in prayer!

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If you’re an aspiring missionary waiting for funding or a team to come together, don’t let the fact that you are in a ‘holding phase’ stop you from planting the gospel as a way of life right now.  If you’re wanting to lead people to Christ “over there” and the pieces haven’t come together yet for you to go there, then by all means lead people to Christ “right here” while you wait.  It could be God is trying to grow you up for the task he has given you.  

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Please pray for my search for a “normal” job.  I’m looking for a job that blesses both my family and the mission.  Right now it seems my best option is to be a public school teacher again.  I’m in the process of renewing my expired teaching credential.  Pray I can get hired as a teacher for this fall.  But as they say in Spanish, “primero Dios.”  (If it’s the Lord’s will.) 

This weekend I’m taking a class in Downtown LA which fulfills one of the requirements to renew my credential.  Among my classmates is a man who teaches juvenile court school.  His job sounds cool so I went up to him to ask what his teaching experience has been like and if there are teacher positions available.  Also in my class is a young woman who, after serving as a police officer for awhile, decided to be a teacher because, in her words, “I thought it would be more exciting.”  She has taught gangsters in a tough neighborhood of South Los Angeles “where the cops didn’t respond to my 911 calls”.  Her stories of her teaching experiences really scared me but also left me with a desire to do this, too.  I talked with her as well on the break.  Please pray for my job search.  I don’t know where God will put me next. 

Lord, as I continue this mission work from the platform of a regular job, if it is your will for me to teach, guide me to the school and position you want me to take.  If not teaching, then show me where you want me to work in this city.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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When class was dismissed today, a cool thing happened.  I was walking to the Metro Rail (subway) and my friends Dave and Faye from my overseeing church in Bakersfield, CA happened to drive up out of the blue just as I was crossing the street.  They were visiting family in LA for the day.  I hopped in their car and we hung out for an hour in Downtown LA.  What an unexpected and fun visit! 

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I’ve been asking God to show us how to use our remaining months as a paid missionary family. Will you please join me in praying about this? If you have suggestions for how we could use this time, please leave us a comment.  I’m open to your ideas. Here are mine:

I want to keep it simple and focused.  I want to get way more aggressive about praying, trying out some “new stuff”, meeting and sharing God’s Word with new people.  In all of this I’m focusing on reproducing myself in others. I’m trying to continually ask myself, “Who needs to be learning from what I’m doing right now? Who am I mentoring? And more importantly, who are they mentoring?” My hope is to see our “way of life village” grow in number, in the broader sense, across this city!

Most importantly, please pray I will follow God’s lead, not my own, and honor Him in everything I do.

Thanks in advance!

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Here is the news I promised: My family is transitioning away from funding and being clergy. We will continue the mission in Los Angeles, but I’m going to find a job in the community to meet our basic income needs. To help us make this transition, the Westside Church of Christ (Bakersfield, CA) and the Highland Oaks Church of Christ (Dallas, TX) will continue to provide us with full-time financial support for the first half of this year. Beginning in July they will pay us half-time support, so that by 2010 we will no longer be hired as paid missionaries.

This decision has come after much prayer and fasting, and seeking advice from others. This is NOT a situation where supporting churches cut us from their missions budget. My family is doing this to be more effective missionaries. We’ve found our clergy identity has been getting in the way when sharing Christ with people who distrust religion. By getting a “regular” job we can remove this obstacle. Also, like our kingdom friends Ed, Katie, and Wendy who have regular jobs, Meredith and I will get to model for new believers what we are asking them to do – that is, to be missionaries as a way of life. In East Hollywood most if not all of the leaders who emerge from the harvest will not go to seminary or leave their jobs to be a leader in Christ’s church.

Pray for us, this is both scary and exciting. I don’t have another job lined up yet, but we know this is what God wants us to do. He will provide. Also pray for our ministry. It will slow down at first, but we believe in the long run this will be an even more fruitful work because of this decision. At least it’s something we’re going to try out and see what happens.

We are grateful to our supporting churches for the financial support they provided these past two years. Many of you have made it possible for Meredith and me to devote ourselves full-time and lay the groundwork for a church planting movement. We will build on this foundation as we engage the community on a deeper level. To those of you who are supporting us financially, our relationship with you is not ending, just morphing. There are many ways we can continue to partner.

Please keep us on your prayer list as we continue this mission. Thank you for caring so deeply for us and for helping us reach the nations God is bringing to our country to be introduced to Jesus Christ.

Categories: stuff to pray for, the how
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