Billy Graham (and the Apostle Paul) on Evangelistic Urgency

"The evangelistic harvest is always urgent. The destiny of men and of nations is always being decided. Every generation is crucial; every generation is strategic. But we are not responsible for the past generation, and we cannot bear full responsibility for the next one. However, we do have our generation! God will hold us responsible at the Judgment Seat of Christ for how well we fulfilled our responsibilities and took advantage of our opportunities." (Billy Graham, Just As I Am, p. 565)

Amen, Billy. May we never lose our sense of urgency!

More than anyone in the history of the Church, it seems the Apostle Paul understood this sense of urgency. He writes:

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" (Romans 10:14-15)

Amen, amen, and a-men!

Weekend in Zanzibar

With no classes to teach on the weekend in Tanzania, Bhuti, Biggie, and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to see Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania (see map on the left). To give you a brief history lesson, Zanzibar was formerly its own island country. First, in the 7th century, it was an Arab state. It later passed into the hands of the Portuguese, then to the British, and finally back to the Arabs in 1963. However, in 1964 the Sultan of Zanzibar was overthrown from power. At the same time, Tanzania (then known as Tanganyika), had been colonized by the Germans, then passed on to British rule until 1962, when Tanganyika became an independent republic, with Julius Nyerere as President. After the Sultan of Zanzibar was overthrown in 1964, the two independent states combined to make one state: the United Republic of Tanzania. Interesting stuff.

I digress...

So, we decided to go check out this crazy Arab/Portuguese/British/African island called Zanzibar. We took a boat out to the island, which looked like a yacht from the outside, while the inside looked more like the cabin of an airplane. It was to take nearly 2 hours to reach Zanzibar. The cabin got hot and stuffy quickly, so Biggie and I retreated to the upper deck of the ship. There, we met a few Muslim guys who were studying IT (Information Technology) in Uganda but were traveling on holiday to Zanzibar (you seriously meet the most interesting people when you travel).

For over an hour, we had quite an interesting conversation with these guys about Jesus. They were very hung up on the Trinity, thinking that the Trinity meant that Christians worship three gods. They also had some very interesting beliefs about Jesus. For instance, they believed that at the last minute God replaced Jesus on the cross with another man who only looked like Jesus. The real Jesus, then, still has to come back and live on earth for 40 years, at which point he will die. I had never heard that theory before.

I asked them to share with me everything about their god, Allah. So, they did, and then they asked me about my God. I walked them through creation, the fall, separation from God, the need for a Savior, all the way up to Jesus himself--his death and, more importantly, his resurrection (which I contrasted with Mohammed, who is still in the grave). The guys listened intently, and we had a great discussion, but, in the end, we agreed to disagree. One of them, not knowing my vocation, actually said, "You'd make a great preacher. I believe that you will someday become a Muslim and be a great preacher of Islam." Not exactly the response I was looking for, but I shook their hands and told them that even though they don't believe the way I do, I still consider them friends. And I do. It was weird walking away from those guys, troubled by the state of their souls, but knowing that there was nothing more I could do. It was their choice, and fighting with them, like so many Muslims and Christians throughout history have done (and even still do today), was simply not the answer. I will likely never see them again, but they are in God's hands now. It will have to be a work of His Spirit to guide them to the Truth (I suppose it's always that way, isn't it?).

Biggie chatting with our new Muslim friends on the boat to Zanzibar.

A view of Zanzibar from the ship.

Welcome to Zanzibar!

You Look Like Jesus and $%@#

During my first 6 months in South Africa, I touched a basketball exactly zero times. Soccer is definitely the sport of choice around here, along with rugby and cricket. The few times that I had ever even seen anyone playing basketball, I was pretty sure that they didn't know what they were doing.

During our STeM trip to inner-city JoBurg, we walked to a nearby park where we had planned to run a dance clinic as an outreach to local kids. Now, dancing was clearly a gift for a few members of our team, but this white boy (that's me!) was not one of them. So while our dance outreach began, my eyes kept wandering over to the basketball courts, where I saw some pretty decent games going on. In one of those moments where you know the Spirit of God is speaking to you, I realized that I just might be able to better connect with the guys on the basketball court, rather than the dance floor.

So I jogged over to see what was up on the courts. I immediately jumped in to play some 2-on-2. One of the guys was wearing an Indiana Pacers shirt, which I just thought was hilarious. Anytime he messed up, I'd say, "You better take that Indiana shirt off! That's not how we play in Indiana!" And anytime he hit a nice shot, I'd let him know that he was making Indiana proud. It was in this setting that the following conversation ocurred between me and one of the other guys:

Kamal: Are you a Christian?

Me: Why do you ask?
(The question caught me off guard. I had not shared about my faith with these guys yet. For all they knew, I was just some random Joe Schmoe off the street. I was kind of excited though, figuring that maybe he had noticed something "different" about me).

Kamal: Well, you look like Jesus and $%@#...

I almost busted up laughing on the spot. First of all, I wanted to laugh because just seconds before I had been feeling proud, thinking that these guys must have seen some Christ-like feature in me that made them see that I was a Christian. I was humbled to find out that that Christ-like feature was my long, dark hair and overgrown beard! And second, I wanted to laugh because in my 24+ years of living I had never heard "Jesus" and that word used in the same sentence. (I won't tell you what word he used, but it has four letters and my mom would wash my mouth out with soap if I ever said it!)

It was just one of those classic moments that made me realize that Jesus meets us where we are at--whether that is an I-grew-up-in-a-Christian-home-and-accepted-Jesus-at-the-age-of-4 kind of guy like me, or a you-look-like-Jesus-and-$%@# kind of guy who is still on the journey of finding his Creator. Jesus wants to know us both better. Jesus is passionately pursuing us both!

It was in that moment that I knew that the Spirit had spoken to me, that I was in the right place. It was cool that God used one of my first but forgotten loves, basketball, to speak into the lives of these guys. I was able to earn their respect on the court, and, more importantly, I earned their respect off the court. Over the course of a couple days, I got to know some of the guys and was able to speak some truth into their lives. I was able to share with them who God is in my life and what He's done for us through Jesus. It was a blessing to be used by God, and it was a lot of fun because I got to play basketball in the process!

It was also on those same courts that I was able to build a friendship with M'Easy. This guy is a natural leader and a wizard on the basketball court. He could certainly play some college ball in the States. We had quite a few intense games together!

Enjoy the pics...

J-Life 2009 Highlights: Part 5

Evangelism Training--Extension 23

After going through a course on evangelism, we spent an afternoon in a local township, Extension 23, sharing our faith with anyone who would listen. We spent quite a bit of time building relationships with the kids there. One of the J-Life teams was sent into Extension 23 last week, where they will be doing ministry for the duration of the year.

Walk as Jesus Did...

This morning as I was reading through 1 John, I came to this passage:

"But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." (1 John 2:5-6).

A pretty simple, yet incredibly difficult teaching, isn't it?

Last night I was hanging out with my buddy Justin at a Starbucks in Granger, and Justin got a call from one of his friends who wanted to hang out. I knew the kid as well, and my first response was, Oh great.... You see, this particular friend is just about as different as it gets from Justin or me. He does not love God. He hates his parents with a passion (always a hot topic of conversation when we're with him). He struggles with deep insecurities and depression. He's a 20-year-old practicing homosexual, currently in a relationship with a 42-year-old man. And that's just the start of the demonic strongholds in his life...

So here I was just chillin' at Starbucks with my best friend, entirely immersed in my own comfort zone...and I found myself not wanting to step outside of it. How often does that happen? Too much...

Well, like I said, I didn't exactly want to hang out with this guy, but yet somewhere in the back of my head I knew that Jesus would be jumping at the opportunity to hang out with someone who needed him so much. For as Jesus says in Mark 2:17, It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

This particular conversation with Justin's friend began like so many that I had witnessed before. This guy began sharing all about the horror that is his life. It made me uncomfortable enough to realize one thing: I spend WAY too much time with Christians! I'm so used to conversations that are centered around the Church, God, and Scripture. This conversation was far from that.

But yet somehow in the midst of this conversation (a mostly one-sided conversation as Justin and I sat and listened), things actually took a natural shift to allow Justin and I to speak truth into this young man's life. He recently got a tattoo on his back, and part of the tattoo was a verse from Proverbs! Kinda crazy, I know. So that opened up a huge conversation about Scripture and Truth. This kid began to share about how he thought that we were all born "neutral" (in a spiritual sense). Because of this friend's interest in Scripture and in our thoughts on "good vs. evil," Justin and I were able to share with him about the fall and about how we are born in sin. Justin shared clearly with his friend about how the only way to be free from this sin nature is through a relationship with Jesus. It was pretty cool. I was so proud of Justin for the way he clearly presented Truth in a loving way to his friend.

So this morning when I read: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did, I think I had a pretty good visual of what this looks like. We are to walk in obedience to God, and we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus on this earth.

So what about you? Are you being a doctor to the sick? Are you learning to walk as Jesus did?

God wants to use YOU!!!