Katie Davis Interview

Katie Davis is a young lady who inspired and ignited the fire in my heart for Africa when I was first introduced to her in my early college years. Katie came to speak and share about her ministry and book at SDCC where I was attending at the time. I remember sitting there blown away and dumbfounded as my heart was burned by all I was seeing and hearing. I was overwhelmed knowing I would one day visit and serve the Lord for a period of my life in Africa I just didn't know when. The Lord was present that day and little did I know that several years later the Lord would call me to serve in the same town and the same orphanage that Katie and her mom first visited on their trip to Uganda. That place of hope and love where so many volunteers hearts have been captured and where God has wrecked lives for His glory.

Katie is amazing to say the least and a great testimony to complete faith and trust in Jesus, as she gave her full yes and followed where she saw Him lead. On her last trip to the states she was able to do a 3 part interview with Family Life Today Radio Station. I would be lying if I wasn't sitting at work listening to it. I could relate to so much of what she was explaining and sharing , bawling multiple times. My heart beat is AFRICA , all my heart strings are so sensitive to this people, culture , color and country!! I have fallen head over heels in love ........take a listen for yourself , I am sure you will be blessed.


Katie Davis Interview

The Heart Of God and Missions

Here are a couple articles I came across this week that spoke to my heart and we're an encouragment to me. I hope you get the same from them. I have not posted in awhile as work has been soo busy and i am trying to juggle so much change and preparation for more change at one time. God continues to show Himself so faithful in this process and different needs arise , He is right there providing , leading and guiding. He continues to amaze me. Just when I think I can't give anymore , He makes my heart aware of His presence , and through blessings He constantly is pouring out.
Will try to write an actual post in the next week or so as I will have some nice down time before I start a new job after new years.

Gods Changing Hearts Through Adoption:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-god-changes-hearts-through-open-adoption



Not All Short Term Missions Are Bad:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/your-short-term-mission-trip-may-not-be-worth-it

There Are No Shortuts

Grest article I came across. So often as new missionaries with new dreams and visions and a clear calling from God we jump in head first. What keeps missionaries like my aunt and uncle on the field for 17 plus years? What keeps someone from not wanting to throw in the towel after a fwe years of service? We do not want to start with fire and end in smoke , we need to start with smoke so that we can end in a big blazing fire to the glory of God. In all we do we must lean soley on the pressence and power of Jesus Christ, setting aside methods , programs and techniques as the main event. Gods desire is to make it so evident in our lives that our vitality is nothing short of His life in us. We must surrender to the pain , trials, and denial of self so that above all else God's glory is made known. It is His grace that will sustain , we are His instruments !! 

What would you say to a budding missionary candidate? I have a close friend who is a veteran pastor, missionary, and now a member care director in the city in which I serve. He says there has been a surge of young adults in recent years who have landed on the field, enthusiastic to redeem the city and bring justice to the oppressed. But they do not stay longer than two years due to exhaustion, dejection, and even loss of faith. The member care workers call this the “radical effect”—young adults, with bleeding hearts, seeking to do something radical for Jesus and the world, who do not follow through with their initial impulse. Often the prospects of formal theological training prior to going to the field seem irrelevant and demotivating.

In light of this challenge and my experience, I recently thought of these two key points of advice that I would give every missionary candidate.  

1. Doctrine Matters

Little did I suspect that some of the greatest battles for biblical truth would not only be with Muslims, atheists, and Buddhists, but with others who claimed to be serving Christ alongside me. In my experience of many years overseas, the battle lines have been drawn on issues such as the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, the extent and the intent of God’s special revelation, the nature and mission of the church, the message and the means of gospel proclamation, the biblical qualifications of elders, the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Christ, and the nature of the unregenerate and regenerate heart. I began to observe an unspoken a-theological ethos in the missions world; indeed, in many cases, theological minimalism reigns. Mobilization efforts of would-be missionaries often focus on the prospects of exciting cultures, idealistic passions, immediate needs, and creative platforms; whole mission teams commonly unite around such emphases. 

The doctrine of choice is often pragmatism: “If it works, then it must be true.” Doctrinal distinctives are usually the least common denominator. In our urgency, there is impatience with the slow work of sowing seed and for the even slower work of training up biblically qualified, indigenous elders. The need-for-speed and result-driven methods commonly shortcut the tiresome labor of training local pastors to be mighty in the Scriptures. Yet our missionary methodology always reveals our theology, or lack thereof. For instance, a deficient view of Scripture leaves the Bible unused and/or misused in evangelism and discipleship. Defective views of depravity and regeneration employ methods of “reaching” people that do not command repentance and submission to Christ’s kingship. Errant ecclesiology leads to teaching hopeful converts that they neither have to leave their native religious structures nor forsake their religious texts.

In his book Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies, and Methods(InterVarsity, 2008), Eckhard Schnabel helpfully explains:

Missionaries, evangelists, and teachers who have understood both the scandal of the cross and the irreplaceable and foundational significance of the news of Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah and Savior will not rely on strategies, models, methods, or techniques. They rely on the presence of God when they proclaim Jesus Christ, and on the effective power of the Holy Spirit. This dependence on God rather than on methods liberates them from following every new fad, from using only one particular method, from using always the same techniques, and from copying methods and techniques from others whose ministry is deemed successful.

We must heed the appeal “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). One of the enemy’s oldest tricks is to coax us to let our guard down and assume the gospel.  When the hard edges of gospel doctrine are assumed, they are quickly forgotten; the mission, then, is aborted. 

2. Pain Is Part of the Plan

I grew up with a health disability that would have prevented me from ever going to college, obtaining a job, or living a long, normal life. Before God mercifully delivered me from it, he graciously delivered me through it. Many days and nights I laid in the darkness of my room in much pain and nausea, praying in the silence that God would give me the sustaining grace to preach the gospel to the nations. I started pre-seminary at the age of 5 when God sent me my wisest and most influential teacher: affliction. Through his loving discipline, God taught me about his sovereign goodness and inscrutable wisdom. 

Having grown up facing much affliction, and having learned well the theology of suffering under a sovereign God, I was still naïve to how unrelenting and inexplicable are the trials of the missionary life. If not for the doctrine of God’s wise sovereignty in suffering, I would never have made it. Long-term missions can indeed be a place of excitement and adventure; however, it is also inescapably a place of adversity and barrenness. It is moreover the land of self-emptying and learning to laugh at yourself; learning to think, feel, dream, and reason in a foreign language; learning to enjoy the adopted family of Christ in light of distant relationships back home; learning to keep silent in the face of stiff criticism from those who once supported you; learning to eat the Word of God as your daily food; learning to pray for your wife and children because their lives literally depend upon it; and learning to navigate wisely on the path of self-denial amid a global culture immersed in self-indulgence, self-promotion, and self-preservation.

I would soberly admonish any missionary candidate that the mission field is not all romance and radical adventure; it is also mingled with heartbreak, loss, and self-denial. But therein we discover God’s boundless love and wise providence. C. S. Lewis said in in his poem As the Ruin Falls, “The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.” Perhaps D. A. Carson says it best in his excellent book on suffering, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil:

The more the leaders are afflicted with weakness, suffering, perplexity, and persecution, the more it is evident that their vitality is nothing other than the life of Jesus. This has enormously positive spiritual effects on the rest of the church. The leaders’ death means the church’s life. This is why the best Christian leadership cannot simply be appointed. It is forged by God himself in the fires of suffering, taught in the school of tears. There are no shortcuts.

God loves his servants so much that he allows them to suffer, so that his grace will sustain them in order to make his glory known. Our weakness is the God-ordained instrument through which the Holy Spirit fills us with the power of Christ.