Wherever There's Water

Friday, I had a call at the church from a chaplain at the local hospital.  There was a fellow who wanted to be baptized, and was asking for a Methodist pastor.  I called him as soon as I could.  I talked to his wife, as he is terminally ill, can barely breath and can't talk.  I said, "well maybe I should come out to you?"  She was surprised that we could do that.  I said, "if you have some water, what can stop him from being baptized?"  As we got to talking, it was apparent there was no way we could immerse him.  And it seems that that is why she was seeking out Methodists, because we will sprinkle or pour in addition to immersing.

Well, the more we got to talking, I realized they live in Menifee County.  I told her we are starting a new church in Menifee County.  She said, "I didn't think we had any Methodists down here!"  I asked her if she would like me to put her in touch with Mike Adams, our planter down there.  She was really excited to think that they will have a church right there where they live.

We don't always know how God is going to use and reward our faithfulness.  Let's just do what He asks us to do!

Handlebar Confessional

So, most of you who know me know that I can't sit still. The children's minister at The Rock, Melissa Kramer, would always look for the part of the meeting where I decided it was over because I had to be out doing something! She'd say, “oops, there it is, the meeting's over, he's had all he can take...” Ever since I can remember, I have done all my most productive work while walking... or riding a bike.

Yesterday, Jessie and I had what will be one of our few days off together for about a month. When we see what's coming up, we try to talk together as a family and say, “We will be grinding hard for a bit, but then, when it's over we will hang out.” That helps the boys...but Nadia doesn't quite understand yet.

So we had a day... what to do... well, let me go backwards. We ended the day with a good bike ride. Met a guy who has a carbon-frame Fuji time trial bike. Never seen a $7,000.00 bicycle before! He was very complimentary of my $500 Fuji... Anyway, about 5 years ago, Jessie and I started riding long bike rides (40 miles or more) to train to ride from Lexington to Covington for Annual Conference. It was going to be a fund-raiser. That part did not turn out so well...but we had a lot of fun. Ok, so we did not have much fun, etiher. It was the hottest Jun 7 on record the day we rode. And have you seen that hill out of Falmouth!?

One thing I have discovered about long bike rides. I don't run out of legs (except around 55 miles. Then my right quad cramps and I have to slurp on sugar/electrolyte gels for 10 miles or so and then somehow I am ok). I don't run out of breath-- you can coast to catch up. The critical decision is: will you stay in the seat? There are no comfortable bike seats. It gets to be about persistence. Will you stay in the seat for another mile? Another crank of the pedals?

I guess about a week ago, I was riding. For a few days I had been thinking about something unproductive, in an unproductive way. I had kind of arbitrarily decided that maybe you can hear 10,000 bad things, and when you hit 10,001, you're tapped out and need a new brain or something. I was starting to have a pity-party thinking, maybe I am at 12,000 or more bad things that have happened or people have told me about!

Like I said, a bike ride clears the head. You may think this is weird but God spoke clearly. I was thinking about the yoke in Matthew 11. Being yoked to Jesus means we are learning how to respond to the Master's commands from Him. And when the load is too heavy, He pulls most of it. And then what I heard, “Jesus is strong enough to help you carry one more burden, and one more, and one more...” I came back with a new lease on life!

So, I was really looking forward to a bike ride with Jessie and Nadia. Nadia rides in a cart that has a hitch on Jessie's bike. I did not have any revelations, just a lot of well-being. It was a great way to cap a great day. We had started earlier by going fishing with Mike Adams in the North Fork of Triplett Creek. It's such a relaxing and beautiful place, barely ten minutes away, and you feel like you have stepped away from everything.We crawled up and down the creek for about 6 hours. All we caught was four smallmouth bass. On that score it might seem like a waste of time. But I have never found fishing to be a waste of time. For one thing, two of the bass we caught were FAT. I use an ultralight rod b/c it is small and so you can fish in small pools and tight places, AND when a fish hits it feels like you have a monster! And nothing more than a decent-sized smallmouth. I caught my hard-fighter in a small pool maybe as big as our living room. Cast under a fallen tree and bam, fish on!

Let me go back... I have never found fishing to be a waste of time. I wonder if this is why Jesus called fishermen, used fishing as a metaphor for evangelism and discipleship? In Ezekiel 47, the prophet has a vision of a river flowing from the Temple into the Dead Sea. As it enters the Sea, it will make the water fresh. And there will be places for fishermen to spread their nets. A.B. Bruce, a Scottish theologian and expert on the training the disciples received from Jesus, notes that when they are called to be fishers of men, they would have understood that as a fulfillment of Ezekiel 47! That's the kind of awesome moment we are waiting for, when God calls us and we understand we have a clear and deep purpose! One that resonates with the heart of God!

Fishing in creeks, going farther and farther upstream to see where you can pull the biggest fish out of the smallest holes, beyond being the best fishing I have ever done, also speaks to me about part of our task as Christians. Sometimes we will get to be on a seashore, spreading a net and catching a multitude of fish. And sometimes, we go upstream where no one has been fishing before...

I hope y'all are still checking in with my friend JD Payne, and signing up to receive his emails. His website is www.jdpayne.org Please subscribe! Please read, pray and absorb!

In the spirit of creek-fishing, I also want to recommend to you https//unengagedunreached.wordpress.com

This wesbite is about the people groups in the world who do not have anyone preaching the Gospel to them. Talk about going farther and farther upstream to fish!

EverydayEvangelism: Apprenticeship

After the talk of surfing and plowing, some more thoughts. My friend Theo commented that perhaps we should spend a year tending sheep and working on a farm...

I think there is something hiding in that thought-- not so much that we might simply do something like what people experienced in Jesus' time, as if we might gain a deeper insight into His words (although that might happen). Rather, the insights would be about discipleship.

Of the number of smells that remind me of precious childhood memories, two of them are the smells of dry dirt and fresh beans. Some of my best times were spent hanging out with my grandfather on his farm in California. The smell of dry dirt is everywhere in Central California. Last night, I smelled it in our garden on Charlie Derrickson's farm. It took me back. As I watered, I was reminded of a thought I used to have when I was a kid. When the dry dirt is damp, it has a different smell. I always associate that with morning. Days are hot in Central California but nights are very cool, in the 50s and 60s. There is a lot of dew in the early morning. And so we would head out to the ranch, the scents of dirt and dew and Papa's coffee swirling in the air. I used to think that smell of the dew and dirt was what the world must have smelled like right after God created it. It's funny, even when I was a hard-core atheist, I would remember that.

My grandfather grew a lot of beans, and when they were being harvested and taken to the processing shed... you could smell them for miles. Jessie was weeding the beans last night and I was thinking about how good it will smell to pick them.

But I digress. What I meant to say was that spending time growing things is a great lesson in evangelism and discipleship. Sometimes we hear Jesus speak and we wish he had told the parable of the remote control or the airplane. But He spoke of seeds and sheep and vines and growing things. Perhaps because to make things grow:

You have to work hard.

You have to be diligent.

You have to pull weeds.

You have to protect the plants from bugs.

You have to be patient, and wait for the harvest. You can't lose heart because you have worked hard every day, sweated, missed out on fun, and still no beans. But it's not time yet...

And you have to have faith that the process from seed to plant to flower to fruit to harvest is what is bound to happen.

But if I put faith first, you'd quit reading and be tempted to think it is magic fairy dust, and if we just have faith we won't need hard work, diligence, fighting pests, and patience!

Get out into the field today!

The Gospel Plow

One of our church members, Norma, told me about her response to my surfer-discipleship story.  She said that she loved her Dad, and one of her strongest memories is how he would plow their fields with a one-horse plow, and she would walk behind him, making sure to walk in his footsteps.  Wow!  I am not sure you can wear out the Gospel implications in that!

It reminds me of something that our friend Theo has said, "Memorize what the backside of Jesus looks like so you can be sure you are following Him."  He goes on to say we should know what His heels look like!  I am reminded of Teddy Ray's prompting me to have a Holiness/Evangelism/Discipleship conference called "Beautiful Feet."

Yesterday, another member, JoAnn was talking to some people at the grocery store.  She told them about our church and invited them.  The two she talked with were interested, saying they had been thinking of going to church.  JoAnn asked for their numbers, if they were interested in the pastor calling them.  They gave her the numbers.  Awesome to work together in the fields of the Lord!

Critical Mass

Here is my “conversion chain” not sure what else to call it. These are the moments of witness that I remember, things that when I came to Christ I realized were the people whose words and actions added up to the moment the Holy Spirit had His way and I came to Christ. I cannot completely put them in chronological order. It's close though. I do this for two reasons:

1. There is no pastor on this list. That's a good thing, not a slap against pastors. I was hostile to Christians and church so there would be very little chance for a pastor to reach me. You lay people have to do this!
   
2. Your seemingly small things, things you probably do not remember have worked with others to bring a harvest of repentance and salvation that you won't know about this side of glory. You won't always or often be like Larry Isitt, Dane Conrad, James Sims and Drew Barnes and get to see that I came to Christ after they witnessed to me.

Ed Higginbotham, my dad's commanding officer when I was 4 or 5, invited us to a service at a Presbyterian church
C.S. Lewis. No lie, in third grade, the idea that Aslan—an innocent—died for the sins of others stuck in me, even tho someone very important and influential in my life told me that was a ludicrous idea. I could not let it go.
Kids playing basketball in my subdivision in Texas. I knew one of them from Germany (Air Force brats...) I cussed while we played. The boy said simply “we don't talk like that here.”
FCA group playing flag football on a weekend at my high school. I was on a long bike ride and stopped to play, too. Same story. I cussed. They said please don't. Older kid tried to tell me about Jesus.
Kathy Kedzierski. Open about going to church.
Tim, from Governor's School. Just told me about salvation and asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus. He was totally ready to pray for me right then and there.
Guitar player at a party. He shared with me about the blues and Jesus.
Abortion protesters on a street in San Luis Obispo, CA.
JoAnn, my cousin. She invited me to church with her a lot while I was in college in Mississippi.
Anastacia Feldman, history professor.
Audrey. Can't remember her name. Would not go out with me because I was a pretty rank pagan. That stuck with me, too.

Erwin Burt, a friend who let me hunt on his land, and took me to church with him.

Tommy Blanton, boss

Stan Hauer, English professor
James Sims, English professor

Larry Isitt, fellow college student

Two girls from 37th Avenue Baptist Church who asked me if I knew where I'd go if I died.

Dane Conrad, fellow college student
Drew Barnes, fellow college student
Buddy Pittman, co-worker
Robert Allen, co-worker
Barry Burruss, co-worker

The Gideons. Getting that Scripture in October of 1994...

There are 23 items on this list.  There are no doubt some I do not remember.  The point is, will you be intentional about telling someone about Jesus, and be ok with always being number 13?  Never knowing that the person you share with will come to faith or not?

A Surfer's Joy

I have been reminded recently of something I saw a number of years ago, something that is speaking to me again about evangelism and discipleship. I think it has to do with a theme of joy. I was fishing with a friend who has not quite decided what he thinks about Jesus. His kids came to our Vacation Bible School. His comment about the closing ceremony was revealing. He said that he was impressed that everyone was smiling, that the kids were having fun. “There was a lot of joy. I think that's what church ought to be like."

I am reminded of an image that sticks with me. I was visiting family in California. We had gone to Morro Bay. I saw a fellow, perhaps in his 60s, long salt-and-pepper hair, in a wet suit on a surfboard. He was there with his granddaughter, perhaps 7, with her own wetsuit and child-size surfboard. What sticks out at me is not just the neat silhouette they made together, but the great joy he had in teaching his granddaughter to surf.

I think that is how we must be about evangelism and discipleship. Specifically with our children; let them see and know our joy in following Jesus. Do we pray with them, to teach them how, to hear and see the quality of our relationship with Him? Do we teach them to love to read the Bible? Do they know our joy when we are in worship with them?

And I suppose the same can be true with our friends who don't know Jesus. Do they know our joy? Do we share who Jesus is? What He has done for us? And the joy we have because of Him?

Recommendation

I want to recommend that you subscribe to a blog written by my friend, JD Payne.  JD is a church planter, was professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and is now on staff at Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, AL.  His work is on how to be effectively in mission-- through evangelism, missions, and church planting.  He disseminates cutting edge information about the current needs in mission and evangelism, with a strong Biblical foundation.

Check it out: http://www.jdpayne.org