an implication of faith

"Faith implies an action."

Those words spoken in French and echoed in Wolof by a young Serer pastor hung in the air like the smell of freshly baked bread. I’ve been ruminating on those words spoken from the pulpit in a small storefront church that sits along a bumpy urban dirt road where young children stop to play and stare and women carrying loads home would cautiously glance in our direction.

It is great to be back in Africa, and even in a new place we still have plenty of desert scrub and Saharan sand layering our floors and feet. Each morning we wake up to find ourselves living on this isthmus jutting into the Atlantic ocean where the shores are laden with beautiful fishing boats and the men that work them. Down the street from us is the main fish market, filled with noisome fish and wonderful people made in the image of God. Faith implies an action.

Sitting on a smooth wooden bench that Sunday morning among the faithful, these men, women and children we have dreamed of, have sought visions for, have longed to see face to face, I heard the words once more and think of Peter. Faith implies an action. A step, a confession, a casting of a net.

The only difference I can find between the Senegalese fishermen who set out each morning into the ocean breakers and that fiery fisherman from Galilee is Jesus. Peter met that preaching carpenter when Jesus stepped in his boat and began to speak (Lk. 5.3). Faith implies an action and we must ask ourselves, as followers of Jesus, if will we be found on the shore or on the waters of life in the boats of the unreached.

Although our first month in this great country has flown by us, as we drink from the open hydrant of culture, language and starting life over from the beginning, we now sing new songs, new songs of worship to the One who is the root of our faith, the carpenter King, the preaching Word, the Lord of our lives, the One who is calling us to action. We sing songs of His name and renown and we sing them in Wolof.

Thank you for your faithfulness toward our family in prayer and support acted out in love toward the Father. We are so blessed to be your personal link from the local church to the unreached peoples of Senegal! And together, as we step out in faith and cast the net of Good News over this land we will see Him create space to grow a movement of men, women and children who will soon call Him Lord!

thrill of hope

Driving through Washington DC, in the flow of meetings in and around the capitol, I decided to stop by and say hi to our family at National Community Church. As we were saying goodbye they went over to a stack of freshly arrived narrow cardboard boxes, and carefully cutting through the clear tape produced a CD case. Fresh in its plastic wrapping was their worship team’s new Christmas album.

I thanked them for their gift, above and beyond their incredible prayer and financial support they’ve given our family over the years, and started walking back to my car. Walking through the brisk cold I looked at the case in my black-gloved hands; white words set against distant lights coming into focus, “Thrill of Hope”. The words on the cover began to resonate with my heart.

Like unwrapping an early Christmas present I sat in my car and began to listen to the collection of christmas carols and hymns, with those words, “thrill of hope,” still reverberating in my soul. For “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, / ’Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth / A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, / For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” Driving through DC traffic I longed to fall on my knees, to lift my voice with angels and sing out the truth that Jesus Christ our Lord has come! That day when the Messiah would appear has come! The Lord of all creation that would redeem the lost and transform our brokenness with His restoring hand has come!

Seeing dreams and visions materialize is exhilarating! It drives to the very heart, the very core of our hopes and expectations. And the Gospel goes beyond our hope for a particular present under the Christmas tree. It goes beyond the “I do” at the marriage altar. It goes beyond hearing the baby’s cry at birth. Eternal salvation purchased in the palms of Christ and redemption into the arms of our Father is more exhilarating, more thrilling than any other hope.

And out of my car stereo they sang, “The thrill of hope has come through an act of love / The prince of heaven now here on earth to be our saving grace / Hail Emmanuel, God with us!”

Dear friend, as you walk through this advent season, these days and weeks that lead to Christmas, can you approach the manger with expectancy? The thrill of hope for all humanity has come to us through an act of love. Jesus Christ our Lord, our Messiah, stepped out of His eternal glory so that we might find His saving grace. Jesus the Messiah is our Emmanuel. He is our God, and He is with us!

And as our hearts thrill with expectancy, as we worship our Lord moving ever closer into His presence by His Holy Spirit, can we remember those still a far way off that have yet to hear. They are still out on the hillsides of this world waiting without hope. They are still unreached, living in the shadows of false religion and without the Good News of Jesus. Let us pray for them, let us call out to them by name and share with them the gift of eternal life.

just like breathing

Have you ever had your breath taken away? It’s one thing to inhale and exhale on your own, but to have the wind knocked out of you is something completely other. In my life I think I’ve had my breath taken away in every conceivable way. An unexpected kick to the chest (as only roughhousing boys will know), the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains suddenly appearing along the distant horizon, the unparalleled beauty of your future bride walking down the aisle toward you. They take your breath away. Even if you are expecting it, it can still come as a surprise and surpass your wildest expectations.

Enjoying the closing chapters of Isaiah I was tapped in the chest with 65.1: “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Look at Me, behold Me,’ to a nation that was not called by My name.” I had to stop and worship. What glory! What grandeur! What grace! I should have seen the round house kick that was coming when I got to chapter 66 verse 18, but no matter how many times I’ve read these words they laid me flat for “the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory.”

Gasping for breath at the greatness of our God, His revealed word to Isaiah continues as He promises to send out His people to the nations, to the lost and unreached, “to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations,” (v.19).

Our family vision is to be “A Personal Link from the Local Church to the Unreached” and in these verses the Lord confirms for us that He is calling to the unreached nations. He is crying out to the unreached peoples through His people, the Body of Christ, “Look at Me, Behold Me!”

The truth is, when we inhale we have to exhale. I’ve known Annabonese fishermen who could hold their breath for five minutes underwater, but even they have to give in and exhale. We will either breathe out or pass out, and this natural truth is spiritual truth as well. We were never intended to hold in the breath of God for ourselves alone. As we breath in His Spirit, His presence, His beauty, Jesus fills our lungs with praise and proclamation.

If we refuse to breath out, as a Church, we will pass out. We will pass out of our purpose, pass out of our calling, and like the audience of Isaiah, pass out of our place in the Kingdom. And knowing that we will pass out seeking to contain the uncontainable, the merciful Lord we serve takes our breath away. He knocks the wind out of us, and calls out to the nations through our exhaling. To borrow the words of John Baschieri, the Pastor of New Life AG in Lehigh Acres, “The longer a church exists the more they must fight the tendency to invest their resources in personal comfort and preservation rather than outreach and evangelism.” How is God taking your breath away today?

Thank you so much for lifting up your voices for the unreached, exhaling the praise of His glorious Name and renown over the unreached people of Senegal!