Thoughts on Lent – Fasting

by Dr. Mark Brewer :: One of the most common questions I’m asked about Lent has to do with the whole ‘giving something up’ deal. Where did that come from? The idea of fasting is about making a ‘holy space’ for God. It is not about trying to ‘bribe’ God by our spiritual sacrifices. Remember what Samuel told Saul when the king declared how much money he was going to give God. “God desires obedience – not sacrifice.” When we deliberately set aside a common behavior, it triggers our thoughts when we mindlessly go to our little routines.  We have to ask ourselves out loud “Why am I not doing this thing?” It gives us an opportunity to ’set the direction’ of our life’s rudder towards the things of God. So whether it’s a food, or drink, or media, or whatever, the goal is to be more yielded and not enslaved to daily habits. Lent and liberation are connected.

A Week of Harvesting!

by Pastor Enock :: It was early Tuesday morning, I got up an hour before the usual as I need to prepare for a early meeting with a couple of missionaries serving in China. After some devotional time, I decided to open my e-mail before I left the house, as I usually do. As I browsed over the many messages I received, one of them caught my special attention. The subject read “A Week of Harvesting in Bihar.” For more than 100 years, Bihar (a state on the Northern India) was considered by mission strategists and missionaries as the “graveyard of missions. So many missionaries had spent their entire lives serving there without almost any result.   The reality now is different. In that email our mission partner in India, SD Ponraj, shared with us great blessings in the work of God in Bihar.

As I read “A Week of Harvesting in Bihar” my heart was taken by a strong sense that God is changing the reality of Bihar as many people come to Christ. In this last week alone,

• 823 people from 13 villages were  baptized

• 85 new lay leaders graduated. Our partner in India started four Portable Bible School training. Many of their students cannot read or write well. But through a special training program they have been prepared to teach and disciple others.

• The whole villages of Jheangai Dihara and Ghorahi responded to the gospel. These two villages had been resistant to the gospel for a long time and now, for the first time, the entire villages have invited Christ to “live among them.”

Bel Air Pres is working in partnership with Ponraj and the Bihar outreach Network for about two years. We have learned so much from them in their visits to us and when we send teams to visit them. Ponraj will be with us by the end of April and we are sending teams to visit them in the fall. It has been a blessing to us to be part of God’s work in India. As for them, it has been encouraging to know that they are not alone in the challenges and struggles to make Christ known in Bihar. Ponraj concluded his letter to Bel Air Pres saying “Thank you for your prayers and support for BORN Movement.  The Lord is answering your prayers.  Please continue to stand with us and support us. We need you very much at this time of “great harvesting” in Bihar.”

God is at work in our midst and in Bihar. We just have the blessing to see it and from time to time to be part of it.

In His Shalom,

Enock De Assis

Deliberate Simplicity

by Exec. Director Glenn Reph :: I live and breathe to get more done - even better in ministry.  I enjoy quantitative and qualitative operational ministry management.  God wired me to enjoy the challenges of complexity but recently I have been fascinated by the efficiency of simplicity.  My thinking has been influenced heavily by two authors.

Here are two books I recommend to those who wonder how we can “get more done – even better.”

1. Simple Church:  Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples by Tom Rainer & Eric Geiger
2. Deliberate Simplicity:  How the Church Does More by Doing Less by Dave Browning

Many of you may not be aware that in early summer of 2008, prior to my arrival here at BAPC as Executive Director, I was retained as an operational ministry management consultant for Dave Browning @ Christ The King in Burlington, WA. ( www.ctkonline.com )  Dave’s book was not yet in print.  Over the summer prior to my coming on staff at Bel Air Presbyterian Church I had multiple meetings with Dave to build (complexity) some internal infrastructure for the expansion of the global ministry of Christ the King Ministries.  The core challenge was to build systems that were simple not complex; expandable and collapsible; inexpensive and adaptable.  This idea appeared more  oxymoron than visionary leadership.    Can you actually build a growing deliberately simple church without the complexity of  management systems (infrastructure)?

The challenge is still before me here at BAPC.  As I write this blog, the team and I are getting ready to do Easter at the Hollywood Bowl in seven weeks on April 12th, 2009.  There is nothing easy about doing an Easter service at the bowl:  Union workers, decorating, orchestra, choir, tickets, parking, budgets, audio, etc.  We will invest plenty of time, money and management cycles to do Easter in a venue for one hour.  The Good News will be brought to about 10,000+ people at one worship service.  Worth it? You bet. Simple? No way.

The question that always seems to lingers in my mind (after each ministry event) is this:  What part actually made a difference in peooples lives?  Or to put it another way: What parts are superfluous? or just not all that necessary? or what can we remove and yet not reduce the number of changed lives?

Pray for me, I seem to be cursed with a complex mind trying to do simple.  I really want to do simple, and this time I really mean it.

Glenn Reph, Executive Director:  glenn.reph@belairpres.org

Humbleness

by Dr. Mark Brewer :: I love the old story of the pastor who was given the ‘most humble pin’ from his congregation. They took it away when he started wearing it! The bible says Moses was the meekest, or most humble man who ever lived. What a story of leadership. Humility is not hating our selves. That is the flip side of pride. When we punish ourselves for not being perfect it betrays the fact down deep we thing we are! If only I tried a little harder I could be perfect is the opposite of humbleness. True humility like Moses was to trust the Lord to lead life and do what He said He would. Moses believed and looked to God every time life put him in the corner. He didn’t need to get his value from the world or even his people. Humbleness is more about forgetting ourselves as we journey with God because we’re focused on loving and reaching others. We don’t need to prove anything to anyone. We are no better or no worse than those around us. True, we have different gifts and places in life God has assigned us. But the Lord is the one to evaluate in the final analysis. An accurate ’self concept’ is tougher than it sounds. We let others paint the picture of us far too often. Self concept is sometimes impervious to feedback. Once we get a picture of ourselves (regardless if its true or not) we resist any new facts about ourselves. But the Lord calls us to not just have an accurate picture of our strengths and weaknesses. He calls us to the life of self acceptance. Why? Because He has accepted us in Christ. God has declared us His own daughters and sons in Christ. Can’t get better than that in telling the world and the Evil One to back off! We belong to Him and no one can ’snatch us from His hand.’