Biblical Community

I was given a great reminder today by J.R. Kerr at Park Community Church today. First of all, I am so thankful that I am able to attend a church where I am challenged and convicted by the Word of God that is brought before me each week.

Today J.R. talked about the idea of community (and no I'm not talking about the new show on NBC starring Chevy Chase above), specifically Biblical community. Many times we only go to church to have our needs met. The needs of music, lighting, video, a good sunday school for my kids, etc. These things are ok, but when we start making them our drive and purpose for attending a church then it becomes sin. Today was a reminder that church and Biblical community is not about me.


J.R. also talked about the aspect of investing into other people's lives in community. This builds off of the idea that is not about me. If we take the focus off of ourselves, then we will get close to one or two other believers and encourage them in their walk with Christ, as well as gain insight, and perspective about our own lives.


This point really convicted me. My time here at Moody Bible Institute has been great, but it has been a time that has not exactly been intentionally filled with one-on-one accountability. For the first 2 years here I met with 3 other guys once-a-week who kept me accountable, and we just shared life together. But then one of those guys transferred to another school, and another guy became very close with his girlfriend and is now engaged (I'm not saying those things are bad, I understand life happens). And myself and the other guy became roommates, which has been great, and we have grown closer and kept each other accountable for things, but that once-a-week meeting never happened again.


Today I have been convicted to disciple and invest in someone else's life. To begin a relationship with someone, grow close to them, disciple them, and keep them accountable. I guess this builds off of the selfishness post I wrote a couple weeks ago. I have become so selfish in my own life, and I have not really taken the time to get to know someone new, and really help someone through life.


How are you doing Biblical community? 

Money & Business in Missions

The classroom session that I went to today was called
"Money & Business: The Challenge Ahead of Your Generation"
Here are my notes from that session.

Money and Business
Trends

• Internationalization of governments
• Wealth redistribution
• 95% of the worlds resources are used by America
• The growing non-American church ("The Changing Face of Christianity")
• Increasing marginalizing of Christian organization in the USA and abroad
• Growth of Islam - ("Impacting the World for Islam") (Islam demographic video)

The challenge for your generation

• How to work in places that will not permit religious visas
• How to integrate your background, training, and passion with your profession/business or platform

Implications

• Fewer platforms for you to perform your passions

My thoughts:

I felt like the presenter knew alot of helpful information, but it could've been presented in a better way. He didn't really use his time wisely, and at the beginning of the session he showed a video (A Thousand Questions) which we had already seen two nights ago in the opening seminar. Don't get me wrong, I love the video, and I don't mind seeing it twice or more, but I feel like it wasn't necessary for that session. 

So with those thoughts aside, I thought it was helpful to get at least some information in using a platform on the mission field. And again we see this issue of the growth of Islam, which seems to be a overarching trend that is being highlighted throughout this year's Missions Conference. 

I think one of the biggest challenges he presented us with was the difficulty of entering countries that do not permit religious visas. The solution he gave was to use a platform to enter the country. Enter the country with a work visa and use that as your platform to do ministry. While it may not be formal ministry, a job can be the best form of ministry. 

What do you think about this method of entering closed countries with a work visa? 

The Changing Face of Christianity

I've got some more Missions Conference love for you all.

During last night's session Dr. Soong-Chan Rah of North Park Seminary spoke. He talked about how the church is becoming more African and Asian and less American in its population. I haven't quite processed everything that he talked about yet, but here are my notes on what he talked about.

"The Next Evangelicalism"

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Acts 15

• Jerusalem Council
• Animosity towards Gentiles
• Changing demographics

The Changing Face of Christianity

By the year 2050 the church will be:

• Africa - 29%
• Asia - 20%
• Europe - 16%
• Lat. Am. - 22%
• N. Am. - 12%

Those are the end of his notes, and now here are my thoughts.

He also threw out some other crazy stats that made it clear that Christianity is becoming more and more minority in population in America, and less white American. What does that mean for us as Christians?

It means we may need change our strategy a bit. Maybe be a bit more sensitive to the African and Asian culture in our churches. 

He also talked about how he thinks the church in North America today are conforming to culture in their structure and formats, and especially in their buildings. He made an illustration by comparing an older colonial church with a church of today. This illustration seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but if you take a picture of a ceiling in an older church and turn it upside-down it looks similar to the shape of an ark, and he made a play on words by saying "ark-itecture." But now today we build our churches to look more like shopping malls, or entertainment venues. His point was that in early history they did not build their churches to conform to culture, but today we want to appeal to the culture so much that we are conforming to it. The "ark-itecture" illustration was a bit of a stretch for me. But I somewhat understand what he's saying. 

More thoughts on this later. 

Do you agree with these thoughts? 

Do you think the American church today has conformed too much to culture?

Missions Conference Kickoff

Well Missions Conference has officially kicked off here at Moody Bible Institute, and it proves to be a good week. Probably not as good as last year, as the keynote speaker last year was Steve Saint. Last year was the best Missions Conference in my time here at Moody. (Read my two posts from last year: Juntos No More and The Call)

For those of you who don't know, Missions Conference is a week when many, many missionaries from all over the world come into our school and teach different sessions throughout the week on various different aspects of missions. It is always a great week, and I actually find the workshop sessions more beneficial than the keynote sessions. This week also gives students alot of time to meet and talk to different missionaries and missions agencies, and get a good feel for the opportunities that are out there after graduation.

So tonight was kicked off by a professor from Wheaton College, Dr. Jerry Root, who spoke on being intentional about loving others around you, and reproducing the life of Christ. The main point of his message was that there are people all around us, and God loves them, and God wants us to show them His love. He told many stories about started relationships with people by just doing simple things like starting conversations with his garbage man, or mail man, and those conversations turned into showing God's love to them.

I'll be honest, I wasn't impressed with the message. It was a good reminder that we need to be intentional about building relationships with others around us, but as my roommate point out (@natenearpass) he stopped his stories at the point of the people being saved. He didn't really say much about follow up with them, or if they reproduced the life of Christ in other people.

So it was a good reminder, but I'm hoping for something better as the week goes on.

So you can expect to read some summaries and reactions to this week's sessions here on my blog. So feel free to give your feedback and opinions on missions conference this week.

Also, for all you Moody students who are tweeting this week, the official hashtag for missions conference is #mbiMC so anytime you send a tweet about missions conference just make sure to include that hashtag at the end of your tweet, that way it will be easy to look back on all the tweets from missions conference.

What did you think of the first session tonight? 


If you weren't there, what did you think of the summary I have written?

Selfishness

I am a selfish creature.
If I really think about it, a ton of things that I do everyday, I do to benefit myself.
This in itself is not necessarily wrong, but when I start to put myself before others then it is a problem.
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think that if we all think about this concept, and think about the things that we do everyday, then I'm sure that all of us can think of something that we do to solely benefit ourself, and many times we put ourselves before others, or at least I do this alot.

I know this is a very simple concept, but I was just reminded of it the other day, and it shook me to my core.
It was kinda intense.

We need to be aware and thinking about this constantly.

And take the picture above any way you like, I just thought it was an interesting painting.