This week I heard a message entitled “The Greatest Hour of the Church”.
The faith-filled part of me affirmed the statement. My inner skeptic, however, wanted to simply reduce the title to a by-product of today’s tendency to describe EVERYTHING as… “the biggest”, “the best” and “the most incredible”… ever!
In the end… my inner skeptic lost the bet.
What a great week we have had… The Lord is good and I’m glad to share it all with you Continue reading
Did you know that we’re starting week #39 of 2015?
Week 38 was pretty cool, if I do say so myself…
Last Sunday after service, we embarked on a much anticipated afternoon! We’d planned a youth outing which included 4 hours of ziplining, followed by a bonfire back at the church for roasting marshmallows and hot-dogs (generally uncommon for most European kids).
It was a bit of a task because I was the only participating adult that day… so it involved balancing the younger ones’ need to remain on easier courses and the older ones’ longing for death-defying heights! We struck a good balance. There were 9 kids in total which was awesome! First time we’ve had that many since the Spring.
Between the “Tip-toeing through the tree-tops” and “fire-side fun”, it was a great bonding time for this group of kids.
Our midweek service is typically a Bible Study format. This week, however, we did something a little different:
We’d been looking at prayer for the past couple of weeks, so we took a time and focused on prayer. Each one present wrote down a couple of key prayer requests, sealed them in an envelope and we’ll open them up in several months to give God glory for answering specifically.
Each one prayed on their own for 30min or so, then we came together to pray corporately. We prayed for the requests that had just been made and then capped off our time by praying around a map of the US (where we’ve been tracing the Brochu’s deputation travels). Specifically… we focused on Nashville, TN where Thursday night was the Global Missions service, the outcome of which would impact the Brochus return.
That Thursday night service was incredible. I caught the livestream which, with a 7hr time difference, meant that church for me began at 1:30am and went until after 4:00am (four late nights all in all and coffee has been my friend!).
Back to Thursday… I could listen to Bro. Mooney preach for hours! Pictured from the livestream are France’s two currently-deputizing missionary families, the Brochus and the Nowackis, on the platform. Results of the incredible #IAmGlobal offering are as follows:
We serve a great God and are part of a great body of believers!
I’m THANKFUL for the family of God.
The next logical question is:
“What does an earlier return for the Brochus mean
for the length of OUR time in France?”
The short answer: it’s a bit soon to tell yet, but we do know this:
In other news… I planted lettuce in the garden this week (surely different from back home). I turned over a small plot in the backyard so it’d be better ready for next Spring and when my neighbour noticed it, he asked if I’d like some lettuce: He was thinning out his and assured me that we could easily have another month or two of growing season. Very excited to see what comes of it.
Aside from our itsy-bitsy plot… our neighbours – on either side – have blessed us several times (including again this week) with overflow from their gardens: a couple baskets of tomatoes, apples, parsley, basil, zucchini, rosemary, cherries, and lots of tips. I love having such good relationships with our neighbours… they’re a little bit like family really.
That’s it for today. Whether you’re reading this from home over coffee or in a plane somewhere on your way home from General Conference… thank you for checking in again this week. Let what you read inform your prayers for France and for us!
Sunday night, I had the incredible pleasure and great privilege of baptizing Timo in Jesus’ name for the remission of sins…. what a thrill!
In Timo’s own words Sunday night…. “These will be four great days!” He was referring to the fact that:
It’s possible that Timo received the Holy Ghost earlier (he’s very sensitive when praying in the altar), but we never pushed the issue too much with him: we wanted it to come from him… we wanted him to be convinced enough about it to tell us… We thank God for his incredible gift!
There were a couple of things that were very neat to see / hear: 
How neat to hear statements like that which make me so grateful for Liz’s influence and the influence of Sunday School Teachers who put that kind of understanding in the heart of an almost-9-year-old!
As of Sunday night, November 9th, all three of our kids have been baptized in Jesus’ name for the remission of their sins and filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as God gives the utterance. (the promise of Acts 2.38, exampled in Acts 2.4)
All three have been baptized since I became a licensed minister and so I have had the incredible honour of baptizing them all myself. I’m somewhat in awe when I stop to think about that.
When Timo told us Saturday that he’d gotten the Holy Ghost, I didn’t put it together immediately, but Sunday night before service, I remembered that there was a connection between that day and the #IAmGlobal offering taken at General Conference.
Liz & I pledged an amount in the #IAmGlobal offering… an amount that was a stretch for us. We determined that, rather than rent our house while we went on AIM, we would sell it. This would not only allow us to leave completely debt free, but would allow us to make a sacrificial offering as well. It wasn’t an easy decision: not only would it require more preparation prior to our departure, but it also removed one of the safety nets for our eventual return home post-AIM.
So what’s the connection with Timo’s Great 4 Days?
I think the best way to make that clear is to quote you from my journal entry of October 2nd, where I describe our experience of the Global Missions service and the #IAmGlobal offering:
“During his sermon, Bro. Mangun said that the supernatural would follow the sacrificial, so he urged people to not leave… to wait for the giving to be completed, then we would pray and there would be healings & such.
In my head I was thinking:
“I don’t need a healing, but God, give us our city (thinking of Châtellerault).”
“I don’t need a healing, but Timo needs the Holy Ghost.”
“I don’t need a healing, but we need to leave fully funded.”
After we came back to our seats, someone that I did not know came up to me and prayed:
“It’s not that it ‘will happen’, that it is ‘going to happen’… it ‘has happened’. God has seen your desire, your tears and it has happened; He has brought it to pass, He has heard your prayer.”
.
What else can I say? We trusted him with something that, eternally speaking, is of little consequence (our house & our finances) and within barely a month, he established the eternal in Timo’s life! Stepping out in faith is never easy (or it wouldn’t be a step of FAITH) but there’s nothing like the way that God answers!
God is great!
God is real!
I can trust Him!
Praise the Lord!
Steve Shadrach makes the following #wowQuote in his book “The God Ask,” and I have wholeheartedly embraced… because it’s bang on!
“In some churches, you will raise support
and in others you will raise supporters.”
Since reading it, I have quoted it numerous times… Here’s the essence – for me:
A pastor may, for any number of reasons, express to you that their church is unable to offer financial support at this time (size, stage of growth, economic climate, etc.), and it’s often just as difficult for them to say “no” as it is for you to hear. My response…
“No problem, here’s how you can help…”
I then talk about my kids who will experience much change as they become global and suggest getting a Sunday School class or seniors in the church to adopt them as a Prayer Project. We will provide their photo, birth dates and other pertinent information and they only have to do two things:
Not only does it mean the world to us to have our kids encouraged, but it will also benefit those taking part as well.
For Kids: It’ll embed in them a connection to world missions in general and Western France in particular. This connection is then part of their early memories, paving the way for greater missions involvement later on.
For Seniors: It allows them to contribute in a meaningful way, even if a limited income hinders them from giving financially the way they’d like or if mobility issues prevent them from getting out regularly.
Over time, these kids or seniors are becoming supporters even if they can’t offer financial support at this time. To get back to Steve Shadrach’s quote… this is how we raise supporters.
…that reminds me. I wanted to tell you about he fourth workshop we attended at General Conference: “Raising Children with a Global Outlook.” It’s facilitators were Angie Clark (author of numerous resources on developing kids’s prayer), Linda Poitras (WEC staff, author & retired missionary) and Cylinda Nickel (MK Ministries).
The goal… help children develop a sensitivity to God and to the work of missions in a global environment. Here are some steps that will help accomplish that.:
“For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
This passage of scripture, Shared by Sis. Poitras, is relevant for a couple of reasons…
Tips for growing a child with a global vision:
When you find them looking out their window… ask them how they can impact the place where they are living, right now.Resources:
Now…. go grow some global kids… !
Thanks for stopping by today… Let what you read inform your prayers.
For today’s post I’m reaching back to the Global Missions Service at this year’s UPCI General Conference… thinking not only about the incredible things that God did that night, but the “trickle-down” effects of that service as well.
That’s what was raised in the span of roughly 2 hours, by 6-7,000 people in one room and more that were watching via streaming video. It didn’t happen by itself however…
The service began as many do: Anointed singing, some preliminaries and Liz & I were invited to participate in the parade of nations. What an honour! Then someone introduced the #IamGlobal offering that was about to be taken. Missionary kids began heaving inflatable globes through the audience and Liz caught a couple, with the help of missionary to Ireland, Cindy McFarland (pictured above). People or churches offering $5,000 or more would receive a small “I am Global” crystal globe. Some went up to do that but more went once the number dropped below $1,000.
Then something changed. Pastor @AnthonyMangun (Alexandria, LA) got up to preach. #WowQuote of the evening was this:
“We’re very quick to use the term apostolic on our facebook & twitter profiles, but before we use that term next, we need to also look at our bank accounts.”
… his implication: does our giving reflect the same pattern of sacrificial giving as seen in the life of the apostles?
Something happened. Conviction swept in and many people gave offerings larger than $5,000…without the promise of a trinket. One person was selling a business for $150,000.00 and that money has already been received by Global Missions.
Therein we see the power of the word of God: to convict the hearts of Christians and bring about sacrificial giving for the purpose of global missions. What caused that miracle offering: the teaching of God’s word received by soft hearts.
I love the name of the offering… “I am Global”, because every time we say it we:
Liz brought back a globe for each of the Kids. They weren’t in that service, but we want them to be connected to that same spirit… to see themselves as Global.
Of course, they’ll see themselves as Global by virtue of the fact that they’ll be living in France for a time, but more than that, we remind them that they’re not just going to France to “watch mom & dad do their missionary thing,” rather, God wants to use them as well: whether through helping with music in the church or showing the love of God to new friends outside the church.
Thank you for your prayers… they make you part of #Revival_inFrance!
AIM Long 