Standing Firm

Ok, I’m back now. The last couple of months have been kind of crazy. I’m back in the US for a few more weeks. I haven’t had much access to the internet recently, but now I have it again pretty regularly.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. One notable thing was the Stint briefing in Copper Mountain, Colorado. It lasted for one week: August 14-20. This was the first time that all five of us were together. We had a good time getting to know each other. I’m looking forward to spending this year with these people.

God taught me a lot during the week of briefing. I will spend the next few posts writing out some of my journal entries from last week. I’ll sum up with some thoughts at the end.

It’s now Sunday night and we are done with the briefing weekend for the summer project. Yesterday was the bulk of the briefing. We talked to the students about many different aspects of this summer and this culture. Some of the things that we talked about were barriers that they might experience in sharing their faith, how to clearly present the Gospel, what student’s perceptions of us tend to be, and random cultural tips. We ended the night with a consecration time and reflection.

Today we had a worship service, and Aaron, the project director, spoke on II Corinthians 3. Our theme verse for this summer is 18. Aaron will be talking about transformation during the next few weeks.

It’s been really great to sing worship songs during the last few days. It’s been since January at our midyear conference that I last had this experience. We’ve got a great group of students that love to worship God. The environment is great! I’ve forgotten how much I missed it.

This afternoon we split up into groups of men and women. In the men’s group Aaron shared his life story. This was followed by us breaking into our Bible study groups and each leader then shared his story. The purpose of this is to increase the depth of our relationships quickly because the summer is so short.

We’ve had a good weekend and everyone is looking forward to getting out and meeting students tomorrow.

Please be praying that God would continue to guide the students as they adjust to this culture. Pray especially for this first week as the students meet Serbs and share their faith with them. This will be a new experience for many students. Pray that they would learn how to trust God and follow His leading during conversations.

We will be praying and fasting every Tuesday. Would you join us as we lift up the needs of the summer project students and all the people that we will meet here?

These are my notes from a John Piper sermon I listened to today. I accidently posted them instead of making it a private post, but I’ll leave it up ’cause it’s got some good points you might enjoy. Since it is just the notes I was taking, some of it might not flow that well…

We exist to spread the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. Isaiah 26:8 I want to be a match set to the kindling of your joy. I want you to see that these two reasons are one. God is most glorifed in you when you are most satisfied in Him. There’s no competition between God’s passion to be glorified and your passion to be satisfied because they are one.

I’m here to torch a glacier.

Matt 24:12 The love of many will grow cold. I’m scared to death of growing cold. Jesus says it’s coming. It’s coming like a glacier across the world. But look at the next verse. Those who endure to the end will be saved. This Gospel of spreading the passion for the supremacy of King Jesus will be preached to all the nations and then the end will come. There is a tension here. Because it’s not cold people who will take this Gospel.

Look at verse 9. It’s white hot worshipers of King Jesus who will take this Gospel. As the the end gets near there will be people who grow cold and people who grow white hot. The glacier is moving and people are drying up and growing cold. But nothing in the Bible says that this has to be the case in your church or your city. If there is a torch lit, it will burn a hole through that glacier.

This is the foundation. Your passion for the suprepacy of God in all things is based on God’s God centeredness. God is supreme in the life of God. God’s treasure is God. He treasures God more than He treasures anything. Th chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Himself forever. I Cor 10:31 God does everthing to the glory of God. God loves Himself more than He loves you, and therein lies the only hope that God loves us.

If God is only a means to your self advancement and exhaultation rather than your seeing in Him something infinately glorious as a God consumed with His glory.

Ephesians 1 He chose you that His glory and grace might be magnified. Isaiah 43:6 You were created for the glory of God. Ps 106:7

I guess this is the season of holidays in Serbia. I’ve lost track of which day it is because everyone’s schedule is messed up.

First, the four of us Americans celebrated our Easter which was on April 16. We didn’t do anything much, just had dinner together. Katey cooked sarma, a traditional Serbian meal of stuffed cabbage. Katey’s dad had just come the night before, so we had dinner with him. And we also invited Cuki over.

Then April 20 - 24 was the Serbian Orthodox Easter holiday. They celebrate each of those days as ‘good’ (e.g. Good Thursday, Good Friday, etc). And Easter Sunday (Uskrs in Serbian) is started by midnight services at the Orthodox churches that go sometimes until sunrise! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend any of them.

April 27 is a national holiday of some sort (I didn’t catch the significance of this one).

And May 1 is Laborers Day, marked by many people going for a picnic, so I’m told. They usually take two days off for this one, Monday and Tuesday.

Maybe after this week things will start to get back to normal. Sometimes it’s hard to get anything done when everybody’s on vacation!

For any of you who check this regularly, know that I don’t intend all of my posts to be two months apart. I know that in saying that I could fit in with many a good intentioned blogger who simply lets life get the best of them and lacks the time to say a few words here and there. I certainly do have a lot of things that take up my time, but I do want to make this a priority. God has been recently impressing upon me the importance of prayer and I eagerly covet your prayers for the ministry here. My intent is that this blog can be an up to date report of what is going on here in my life and in ministry so that you can pray specifically and with intent.

This will also be a oportunity where I can let you know what God has been teaching me. I will try to divide my posts into different catagories so that you can easily peruse this blog.

Thanks so much for your faithfulness to pray for me and for the ministry here. I could not be here without many of you.

So much is going on here, where to start?