In this episode we sit down to talk about how the local church can responsibly and wisely enter into a robust engagement with the work of God’s Spirit around the world.
The mission of God has been a global story from the beginning… the trick that happens with any local church is that it’s easy to be insular…
A little perspective is sometimes what we need… we can often get lulled into a comfort where we’re surprised when bad things happen… we need the global for the gift of perspective…
Oftentimes when we go global, we think that we need to go preach, but I think it’s better to go and listen… the problem with the American church is that we go in as saviors and superheroes and we tend to do a very bad job of listening…
Missionaries often arrive with some “capital” into situations where people are devoid of it… the problem is that it teaches them to see us as a pile of cash… and it teaches us to see them as poor and needy… the Jesus way is emptying ourselves enough to really enter into relationship…
Partnerships are what we are looking for… friendships and partnerships sustain themselves… one of the sobering things we heard in Guatemala and Honduras was that pastors there felt abandon by American churches…
Countries are not changed by three-day trips, but by long term strategies based on trust and relationships…
My greater goal is to change my church here… to bring transformation to the hearts of my people at New Life… I want to change attitude, narrative, and perspective… the political climate is full of vitriol… we had pastors with tears in their eyes pleading with me to help Americans see them as people of hope and potential…
There are times when I’m in moments with folks overseas and I am saying to these brothers and sisters, “You are leading the way…” it is the third world showing the first world how to follow Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind and strength…
The global south is the church with the oil in their lamps… you see their reckless abandon and passion for Jesus… their zeal for prayer and for the poor… they have oil that we need… for us not to go harms US in the long term…