Thinking About One's Legacy

For what will we be remembered when we’re gone? What will be our legacy? From time to time I enjoy reading through the obituaries in the Kansas City Star. The things that family members choose to include about their departed loved one can be quite interesting. Reading these death notices reveals that many folks were consumed in their work, as the writing focuses on their accomplishments in the business world. For others, pastimes and hobbies seemed to dominate their time and interests. On the same day this past week, two different obituaries highlighted the deceased’s passion for golf. One spoke of the places where the individual had traveled to play golf, while the other gave the date and location of a hole-in-one that the man had achieved. Frequently there is mention of a special relationship with a family pet. While those things may all be interesting and worthwhile in their time and place, wouldn’t we all prefer to be remembered more for how we lived our lives in relationship to God and others? As we enter eternity and face our Maker, I don’t think God is going to ask us what our golf handicap was, or how successful we were in our business endeavors. I think He will be more concerned about how we measure up on the scale of having lived in accordance with Jesus’ identification of the two greatest commandments—to love God with our entire being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Applying a crisis event to church life

Jim White, editor of the Religious Herald of Virginia Baptists, recounts an interesting story of an in-flight crisis aboard a plane on which he was recently traveling and makes some great applications of the experience to church life. I encourage you to read it.

SMART Baptists

I received the latest edition of Baptist World today, a news magazine that is published by the Baptist World Alliance. I liked the article written by BWA president David Coffey who says the BWA needs Smart Baptists. He credits Teddy Oprenov, General Secretary of Bulgarian Baptists with the idea.

S - Standing together in worship, fellowship and unity
M - Moving strategically in mission and evangelism
A - Acting justly for human rights and religious freedom
R - Responding to human need and engaging in sustainable community development
T - Thinking theologically.

Coffey elaborates on each one of these principles with illustrations from around the globe where Baptists face unique challenges in each of these areas. I like the acrostic and concur that we could surely use some SMART Baptists.

A Challenging Quote

I heard Bill O'Brien share this quote last weekend at the BGCM's annual meeting and Google'd it to see if it was attributed to anyone. Evidently it is anonymous. I share it because it spoke to me. Here's the quote:

"Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future; but faith is having the courage to dance to it today!"

Bonhoeffer's Death Marked

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who participated in the German resistance during WWII. Bonhoeffer was a leader in the Confessing Church movement which sought to combat the anti-Semitism of the Nazis. His ties to some high-ranking military officials who were plotting Hitler’s assassination were discovered and Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in April 1943. He was executed on April 9, 1945, just three weeks before Berlin fell and a month before the Nazis surrendered to the Allies. Among Bonhoeffer’s most famous writings is The Cost of Discipleship, which begins with these words, “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” Bonhoeffer goes on to say, “When Christ calls us to follow Him, He bids us to come and die.” His words and his life’s example remind us that the cost of following Jesus can at times be extremely high—even to the point of martyrdom. In our culture we know little of the suffering and persecution that others experience daily for being a Christ-follower. My prayer is that we would prioritize our walk with Christ far above all other things in this life, no matter what that might cost us.

Two Conventions Contrasted

Today marks the beginning of the 6th annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri, meeting at the historic Fee Fee Baptist Church in St. Louis. I drove across the state last night to be here, delaying my departure from Lee's Summit a bit after learning that the Guatemala Baptist Convention president had run into a snag with his passport and wouldn't be arriving yesterday as originally planned. Dios mediante (the Lord willing), he will be getting here at 4:05 p.m. this afternoon, just in time for our missions banquet celebration that starts at 5:00. He will miss a bit of the afternoon's proceedings, but if all goes well he will be here for the banquet and in time to bring greetings to the convention on behalf of the Guatemala Convention this evening.

As usual for the BGCM, no unusual or disturbing business is slated to occur. There will be no hotly contested elections for president or the other convention offices, as these positions in the BGCM aren't invested with any significant power and no one in the convention is seeking to wield that kind of influence anyway. Our meetings are joyful celebrations about what God is doing in and through the life of our convention as we seek to be about our First Priority--Serving Churches. We'll celebrate our partnership with Guatemala and reflect on how God has blessed many through those efforts. We'll hear some great preaching as we focus on this year's theme, "Faith in Action: Making the Most of Every Opportunity."

What we won't observe I'm quite positive is self-destructive denominational infighting and struggles for control as continues to take place in the MBC. The latest edition of the MBC's own official newspaper, The Pathway, recounts a rather tense debate that took place recently on March 27th as the nominating committee fought over a proposed restructuring of that committee in an attempt to influence the direction of the convention through nominations for the new slate of officers to be proposed during their annual meeting this fall.

On top of that, Associated Baptist Press news is reporting today that a Missouri layman is proposing in effect the re-creation of Missouri's own version of the SBC Peace Committee that met years ago to seek reconciliation between moderates and conservatives. The catch this time is that it's conservatives who are fighting against other conservatives. It has long been affirmed that fundamentalism must have an enemy to fight or the movement loses strength, and it would appear that this scenario is being played out in the life of the MBC.

I'm grateful to the Lord to be a part of a convention where our focus isn't on denominational politics and who's in control, but on the work of the Kingdom. If you're a Missouri Baptist who is tired of lawsuits against Baptist agencies or fed up with the internal squabblings of those whose methodology involves power politics, I would invite you to visit us in St. Louis today and tomorrow at the Fee Fee Baptist Church. If you can't attend personally, you can tune in via the Internet as the event will be live-streamed. Go to the BGCM website and click on the tab for the annual meeting. There you'll find a link for the live-streaming video option.

Thanks for your prayers for our gathering as we seek to serve churches.

The Latest Round of Legal Wranglings in Missouri

Alice in Wonderland's signature phrase, "curiouser and curiouser," would be an apt description of the latest development in the ongoing Baptist legal battles here in Missouri. Springfield developer William R. Jester has sued the Missouri Baptist Convention for $10 million for lost business and additional punitive damages. An article by Vicki Brown in the Word & Way reports Jester's position as follows:

Jester’s counterclaim charges the convention with making unsubstantiated and negative claims publicly, primarily through the MBC’s news journal The Pathway. Comments “relative to Defendants’ business capabilities, financial capabilities and the status of ownership…are derogatory and were made without any effort to confirm the accuracy…,” the petition notes.

Jester claims the MBC or its representatives warned prospective lenders against financing development of the property. He alleges the convention acted “with evil and malicious intent” and “outrageously when they intentionally interfered with the Defendants’ valid contracts and business expectations.” The MBC also acted “with reckless indifference” to Jester’s rights.

The developer claims the interference has cost him more than $10 million in possible sales or development of the disputed property.

In his counterclaim, Jester is seeking at least $10 million to compensate for those lost profits. He also asks the court to grant punitive damages “in an amount that punishes them.”

“The financial damage they have done to my clients is beyond substantial, and we are looking to the plaintiff individuals and organizations to right that wrong,” Shostak said.

This legal action was taken by Jester this past week and I've been monitoring the MBC's Pathway site to see what if any response the MBC will have to this suit. They are still carrying the earlier story about Judge Callahan's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Windermere and to dismiss the MBC's suit against Windermere. There is also an interview with MBC attorney Michael Whitehead who expresses confidence that the MBC will win the case in appeals. It remains to be seen if the MBC will go forward with the previously announced decision to appeal Judge Callahan's decision in light of Mr. Jester's actions and the potential of having to pay $10 million if his suit prevails against the Convention. Perhaps some cooler heads among Missouri Baptist pastors can prevail upon the Convention to finally abandon the lawsuits against the 5 agencies which have already cost millions in attorneys fees and allow these Baptist institutions to carry on their vital ministries without further interference. A possible obstacle to that happening could be Whitehead's interest in seeing the suits continue since his firm represents the MBC as legal counsel. Given the fact that Whitehead also serves as parliamentarian for the convention, he could potentially rule as out of order any motion from the floor of the convention to drop the suits. One cannot help but speculate about the potential conflict of interest this represents.

BGCM's annual meeting

This weekend the Baptist General Convention of Missouri will be celebrating its 6th annual meeting at the Fee Fee Baptist Church in St. Louis. This historic church celebrated its 200th anniversary this past year, making it the oldest Baptist church west of the Mississippi River. Among our featured speakers this year will be Bill O'Brien, former executive vice president of the FMB and husband of Dellana O'Brien, former WMU executive director.

It will be my privilege to be the speaker at our annual missions banquet which will take place on Friday evening. We'll also be hearing from Jose Samol, the president of the Guatemala Baptist Convention, at the banquet. Each of us will be seeking to motivate the BGCM churches to an even greater level of involvement in our ongoing partnership with Guatemala. I'll have the opportunity of sharing about some of my recent trips to western Guatemala for leadership training as well as our church's trip in February where we partnered with 3 different churches in the town of Cantel. Jose will be returning to Lee's Summit with me on Saturday evening after the convention wraps up and he will attend our services on Sunday morning and preach in the evening service. It will be my privilege to translate for him as he does so.

The pastor of our church, Dr. Scott Harrison, will also be bringing the convention sermon. If you live in Missouri, especially if you're from the St. Louis area, I encourage you to attend the BGCM's annual meeting this Friday and Saturday. Additional information is available on the BGCM's website. If you cannot be present personally, the event will be available via live-streaming video and will be archived for later viewing as well. Information about the live-streaming option is also available on the BGCM website.

A Friendly Gathering

Tomorrow after I officiate what will be my fourth funeral in the last 4 weeks, I'll be joining with my colleagues of the BGCM to host a meeting of some key leaders from the BGCT, BGAV, and Washington, D.C. conventions here in Kansas City. We met for the first time last year in Dallas at the BGCT offices with the leaders of the other "moderate" state conventions to do some networking with our counterparts in the other conventions who are engaged in similar ministries. It was a good time of fellowship and information sharing as well as mutual encouragement as we talked about things that are proving effective and the challenges to our work. We'll follow a similar format this year as well, beginning our meeting on Wednesday evening with introductions and a meal and some preliminary reflections before continuing on Thursday with some smaller group meetings. We'll wrap up with a lunch on Friday before bidding farewell to our friends and colaborers. While the other folks are visiting with us, we hope to expose them to a bit of Kansas City culture, and that translates into some good steaks and barbecue along the way. My mouth is watering already.

Recent Guatemala Trip Photos

I haven't had a chance to post anything for awhile so I thought I'd upload some pictures of some of the children that we worked with on the trip to Guatemala last month--some in the public schools and some in the VBS sessions in the local churches. The children in Guatemala are absolutely adorable.

Funeral Ministry

Last weekend was a good one as the BGCM held their quarterly board meeting at Windermere Baptist Encampment. We heard a good report from Dan Bench, CEO of Windermere about the recent court ruling by Judge Callahan and some of the positive things that are taking place at this beautiful Baptist encampment. This is the one board meeting of the year when we have a two-day meeting in a retreat setting to do some team building and visioning exercises in addition to the normal ministry team meetings and business sessions.

I returned on Saturday evening and met with the family of a long-time church member who had passed away last Thursday in preparation for officiating at her service on Monday. I learned lots of interesting and humorous things about her that I hadn't learned in my frequent visits with her over the past several years so the funeral service included a good bit of humor and joyful celebration. I attended the service yesterday of another church member who has been battling cancer for many years and passed away on Saturday. Our minister of education had been neighbors with them years ago and conducted the service.

I met with another family this morning in preparation for another funeral I'll be conducting tomorrow afternoon. This will make the third funeral I've conducted and a total of five that I've been present at in the last two weeks. I spoke with one of the funeral home directors on Monday and he has been amazed by the number of folks dying recently. He told me that one day last week there were 104 obituaries in the Kansas City paper. I was checking on the lady whose service I'm doing tomorrow in the obit. section of the paper today and decided to count the number out of curiosity. There were 85 listed today.

Funeral ministry to me is something that is very significant. With senior adult ministry being one of the things I focus on, I'm asked to do a lot of funerals. I find it to be rewarding but also emotionally challenging, especially when they come as closely together as they have lately. I'm trusting warmer weather will mean less illness and healthier people.

Judge Rules for Windermere, Against MBC

Judge Callahan issued a ruling earlier this week on March 4, finding that Windermere had acted within its rights when it changed its charter to name its own trustees. The Missouri Baptist Convention has already issued a statement that it will appeal the ruling. Coverage of the ruling by Judge Callahan appears both in the Word and Way and in the MBC's Pathway. Both articles report the same basic facts in the ruling, although MBC expresses confidence that the ruling will be overturned in appeals court. Brian Kaylor points out on his blog that whereas the appeals court did previously reverse Judge Brown's decision about the MBC not having standing to even bring the suit, two of the three judges of that appeals court had significant ties with the MBC and probably should have recused themselves from hearing the case. Those judges no longer serve on the appeals court.

I will be at Windermere this weekend for a meeting of the BGCM board of directors in preparation for the BGCM's annual meeting next month at the Fee Fee Baptist Church in St. Louis. Dan Bench, CEO of Windermere, is scheduled to bring a report to the group and will undoubtedly reflect on this most recent ruling.

My sense is that many Missouri Baptists are tired of the ongoing lawsuits against the five agencies and would prefer to see their Cooperative Program offerings go towards missions and ministry rather than to the pockets of the lawyers who represent the MBC in this case. While I believe that to be true, I also seriously doubt that there will be a forum for them to express those sentiments, as the Legal Task Force of the MBC continues to paint an optimistic picture that the lawsuits will eventually be won by the convention and thus the exorbitant legal expenses are justifiable. Lost in all the rhetoric about the "renegade" institutions being stolen from Missouri Baptists is the fact that the five agencies in question still willingly serve all Missouri Baptists who choose to avail themselves of their ministries. The defunding of these agencies by the MBC and the efforts to harm their ministries represents a very sad chapter in Missouri Baptist history.

A Different Kind of Rain

I wanted to write a follow-up post about our most recent trip to Guatemala. This was the first time that a group had gone from our church on a church-to-church partnership as a part of the larger convention-to-convention partnership between the BGCM and Guatemalan Baptist Conventions. As I shared in the previous post, the Lord's blessings upon us were abundant and very evident each step of the way. From the miraculous provision of translators to the wonderful response of the children and the churches to the VBS activities, the time in the public schools, and the evening training conferences, all in all the week was a mountaintop experience--both literally and spiritually.

The two churches that we conducted the VBS sessions in were on mountaintops on the opposite sides of a valley where the main highway runs through the town. Unlike previous trips to the area when the skies had been mostly clear each day, we had overcast skies most days. In fact, we were in the midst of the clouds on several occasions as they rolled in over the mountains and surrounded us. Despite that, there was no rainfall until after our work in Cantel had finished and we were returning toward Guatemala City. That day it did rain considerably, a rather unusual occurence as this isn't their rainy season.

The title of this post though suggests a different kind of rain and that's what I wanted to share about in this follow-up post. I received an email on Monday or Tuesday of this week from Carol, our partnership liaison in Guatemala, who was an invaluable aid to us in the children's activities this past week. Her heart is in children's ministry and she directs that aspect of the convention's work there in addition to facilitating partnership activities. She had received a phone call from the pastor of the Joshua 1:9 Baptist church in Cantel, the first church where we worshipped on Sunday evening and where we held the first 2 days of VBS. He told her that it was "raining children" in their church. They had experienced a tremendous influx of new children as a result of the week's activities and had already had to name some new Sunday school teachers to respond to the need. I'm overjoyed to hear such an exciting report from this church.

I also failed to mention in the previous post that the pastor of the other church where we held VBS on the third day and conducted the evening training conferences has taken to heart many of the concepts shared in our previous pastoral training workshops--especially in the area of strategic planning. He had worked up a detailed plan for follow-up of the activity in the public school where we went on Tuesday (with 562 kids enrolled) and presented it to the school's director while we were there that day. It was well received by the director and a lady who functions as a coordinator for community relationships. The church hopes to offer after-school activities for children that would include tutoring and marketable skills as well as conferences for parents. It is exciting to see these churches respond to the challenge of impacting their community in positive ways with the gospel--living missionally.

This Sunday evening our team will have the entire worship service to share a report about our experiences in Guatemala this past week. I'm thrilled to be able to share with the church body what God is doing there.

Quick update from Guatemala

This is the first time I´ve had more than a couple of minutes to sit at a computer that had internet access since we arrived here last Saturday, and we´re being picked up in 30 mins. for a trip to Antigua for a little tourism on our last day here in Guatemala so this will be brief.

Just a word or two about the numbers of kids we worked with and the response we had in the various activities. We had a great worship service on Sunday evening out in Cantel in one of the 3 churches that we worked with this week. I found out on Saturday that I was preaching, so had the evening to put together a message. We taught Bible stories in 3 different public schools on Mon., Tues. and Weds. The enrollments for the schools were as follows: 305, 562, and 250. Our team of 5 had its hands full getting around to all of the classes between 9 and 12 or so in the mornings, but we had some assistance from some of the local church members in passing out cookies, crowd control, etc. The Lord also miraculously supplied some translators to help us when those who were scheduled to do so had conflicts. We had stopped in at a photocopy shop that we just randomly stopped at on Monday morning on the way to the first school and there found two twin brothers who had lived in New Jersey and were bilingual. They were Christians and agreed to help us for the 3 days of working in the schools and the afternoon VBS times. Our third translator was a girl probably in her early 20s who is a medical student and studies in Cuba. She was home for a break and was lined up by one of the local pastors to help.

I translated most days for Janis Mansker, our children´s minister, and we took the older children´s classes--5th and 6th graders. Janis would share some of her personal testimony, followed by a Bible story, and then gave the children an opportunity to receive Christ. We had a good response in each classroom, with only a few indicating they had no interest or had further questions. The majority either indicated on a response card we had them do that they had either prayed to receive Christ that day or that they were already previously Christians.

We conducted the afternoon VBS from 3 til 5 each of those same days in 2 of the 3 churches--2 in the church where we had services on Sunday night, and then 1 in the church where we had evening leadership training conferences for children´s workers. We had about 150 each of the first 2 days in VBS and then about 130 the third day in the other church.

About 70 people or so attended the 3 nights of training classes for children´s workers and Janis and 2 of our children´s SS teachers led out in the conferences and all did an outstanding job. There was good interaction and questions from the participants.

Well, my time is about done so I´m going to have to wrap this up for now. I´ve got some other things I´d like to share about meeting to encourage some pastors in some other areas near Cantel where we were, as well as some of the impressions of the week and the time spent with the beautiful children here, but those will have to wait until later. Thanks to all who have been praying for our trip. The Lord has really blessed our time and kept us safe and healthy as well.

I´ll post a follow-up to this one when I get back to Missouri.

Hinkle is non-Political?

In the most recent edition of The Pathway, the state paper published by the Missouri Baptist Convention, editor Don Hinkle makes the rather astounding claim that neither he nor the Pathway should be counted among those as involved in denominational politics. His exact words are these: “I expect to be criticized and I understand that people will not always agree with my position – that is the nature of being a state newspaper editor. All I ask is that as we debate difficult issues, we do so void of personal attacks. I understand that many are involved now in convention politics (I, nor this newspaper, should be counted among them), but it seems too many are falling to the temptation of using politics of personal destruction. How does such behavior bring honor and glory to God?”

I’ll freely confess to being one who has been critical of Hinkle in the past, and no doubt I’ll find occasion to criticize him in the future. I do concur wholeheartedly with his call that debate about denominational issues be free from personal attacks. I sincerely hope and trust that in the future that editor Hinkle will abide by his own words.

As to the rather preposterous claim that neither he nor the Pathway are involved in convention politics, one need merely peruse practically any back issue of the paper to find abundant evidence to the contrary. In his first column of the year, Hinkle extols Al Mohler as the right man at the right time for the presidency of the SBC. He even claims to have spoken with Mohler last June, urging him to pray and seek God’s will about the timing of allowing his named to be placed in nomination. Hinkle’s column goes on to urge Missouri Baptists to attend the convention in Indianapolis and vote for Mohler. (Baptist Press reported today that Mohler has withdrawn his name from consideration due to health issues that include surgery in the near future for a pre-cancerous tumor in his colon).

In addition to the blatantly political nature of the above-mentioned editorial, the Pathway’s coverage of the ongoing legal battles between the five “renegade” institutions (to use Hinkle’s terminology) and the MBC has been nothing short of a classic demonstration of denominational politics at its worst. The attempt to vilify those associated with these institutions and their ministries is purely yellow journalism and politicking. Added to that are the constant attacks on CBF and the BGCM with ungrounded and unsubstantiated accusations of these groups being theologically liberal.

No, I’m afraid that Hinkle’s expectations to be criticized will certainly not be in vain. When one actively engages in denominational politics and then denies such activity, criticism is both justifiable and inevitable.

Further Reflections on Guatemala

I had mentioned the idea of following up my previous post about the most recent trip to Guatemala with some additional reflections. I apologize that I’m just now getting around to doing so. I wanted to explain a bit about why the Baptist General Convention of Missouri has focused on leadership training in the western part of the country for our partnership efforts. When we first entered into the partnership with the Guatemalan Baptist Convention, we asked them to assess their own needs as a convention and suggest some areas in which we might be of assistance to them. I may be a little bit “old school” in this regard, but it’s my conviction (based upon some fairly extensive reading in the field of missiology as well as first-hand experience in Latin America for some 16 years) that cross-cultural missionaries can make one of their most meaningful and long-lasting contributions to the task of reaching a nation or people group for Christ and equipping believers in that setting to reproduce themselves when those efforts are done in cooperation with national believers.

I’m fully aware that this begs the question somewhat of what to do with there are no (or perhaps just a handful) of national Christians living in the culture. But when such believers do exist and have developed their own leadership structures—be that a convention-like entity or a similar body—to ignore these recognized leaders and fail to take their counsel under advisement in planning and executing mission strategy seems to be both counterproductive and a demonstration of an attitude of superiority or paternalism. Our focus on leadership training in western Guatemala is the direct result of the Guatemala Baptist Convention leadership having identified with us this area as being one of strategic importance in their work. We were informed when we were exploring with them about partnership possibilities that this part of the country had received very little in outside assistance, unlike some other areas that had experienced ongoing partnerships with some Baptist state conventions from the U.S.

While we haven’t had the degree of involvement I would desire from pastors and churches affiliated with our convention in the partnership, we’ve been able to meet our commitment to offer a training course each six months, beginning in January 2007. We’ve already tentatively set the dates for the next session for July 14-18 of this year. The response to our efforts has been overwhelmingly positive. The number of pastors and leaders participating has increased with each training conference, maxing out this past time at the number of 70 that we had established as an upper limit to keep the event financially feasible for our convention. The affirmation we’ve received both from the convention leaders and the conference participants has certainly served to confirm that what we’re doing is meeting needs.

We’re just a week away from the first of what I hope will be several church-to-church trips in this partnership. Our team met yesterday afternoon and were joined by one of the ladies from St. Louis who will be accompanying us this time. It turns out that I knew her daughter from the time she served as a journeyman in Argentina. As the Disney song goes, “It’s a small world after all.” We still have a few loose ends to wrap up, but it seems that the trip is coming together. The church is having a special commissioning time and prayer for us at the beginning of the service this Sunday. Well, I need to wrap this up and move on to some other things. Thanks for reading and for praying for our upcoming trip.

Wade Burleson's resignation

If you don't follow SBC politics too closely and aren't a frequenter of Baptist blogs, you might not be familiar with the two-year long struggle that an Enid, OK Baptist pastor and member of the IMB's board of trustees has fought against some rather notoriously misguided actions and policies of that body. I've read Wade's blog now for the past two years and have found him to be a gracious man, even in the face of scurrilous attacks on him by his detractors.

As a former IMB missionary, I've witnessed firsthand some of the negative impact of convention politics at work. I would encourage you to read his post today that provides a capsule summary of his struggles with the IMB Board of Trustees and the eventual impasse that led to his resignation this week. I posted a rather lengthy comment (about #7 in the comment section) expressing my appreciation to Wade for his efforts on behalf of missionaries and his fight to defend the right of principled dissent.

(The link above isn't working right now, as evidently the post in question has been taken down). Those interested in reading Wade's blog can go to his home page and find his explanation of his decision to resign.

De Regreso (Back home)

The trip to Guatemala went extremely well this past week. We had a total of 70 pastors and leaders who attended the training sessions and their response and participation was very encouraging. They were very pleased with the COSECHA materials that Guy Muse and his team are using in Guayaquil. I spent 3 sessions--about 4.5 hours total giving them an introduction to and an overview of the materials. My colleague, Owen Taylor, took about three hours and shared some basic church planting principles with them, including many personal stories and illustrations from his 3.5 year old church plant in St. Louis.

In addition, we had some good times of worship and then fellowship together, both after the sessions and around the tables during our mealtimes. I was able to sit down with the three pastors from the city of Cantel where our church is sending a team next month and finalize some of the plans for our trip. As it's only about 10 minutes from the hotel where we've been hosting these previous pastoral training conferences, our church team will be staying in the same hotel. Our partnership liaison has gotten some very good rates for us from the hotel management and the accomodations and food are very adequate.

We'll be speaking in three different public schools in the mornings, doing a combined VBS for the three churches in the afternoons, and then conducting a leadership conference for children's workers during the evenings. It promises to be a full schedule. I'm accompanying the group as guide and translator this time, but am leaving the teaching responsibilities up to our children's minister and her team.

(Back to this past week's activities...) On Friday and Saturday, a fellow from Georgetown, TX led the convention leadership through a strategy planning procedure that enabled them to redefine a little more clearly their vision and mission statements and to focus on three priority areas that they want to give attention to in the next three years. This visioning conference was facilitated by WorldconneX. I think it was a very profitable time. I especially enjoyed getting to know Sergio Ramos a little better. He's a fourth generation Hispanic pastor who works with WorldconneX and comes from a family with something like 24 pastors altogether in the extended clan. He's currently working on a doctorate at Dallas Baptist and we have some mutual friends from Argentina and elsewhere.

There was also a large group of North Americans in the country participating in a series of evangelistic meetings and home visits through International Commission (formerly International Crusades). They had their victory service at the seminary on Saturday evening so I got to hear some of the music (including a Christian mariachi band) and to meet some of the folks. Several were on my flight home on Sunday. There was also a group from Louisville, KY that had been down working with two different projects--a Habitat for Humanity building in the Quetzaltenango area where we've been doing our training, as well as a Living Water group that was installing a water purification system. It seemed like 2/3 of the flight home was composed of Christian volunteers.

I'll probably share a few more observations in the coming days, but wanted to get this initial post up to inform those who were aware of my trip and especially to thank those who prayed for our efforts. I'm convinced that the Lord heard and answered those prayers. Thanks for being prayer partners in the effort.

Gracious Speech

The following is an article I contributed to our church's bi-weekly newsletter.

On January 21, 1990, at the Australian Open in Melbourne, American tennis player John McEnroe became the first player since 1963 to be disqualified from a Grand Slam tournament for misconduct. McEnroe had earned a well-deserved nickname as the “bad boy” of tennis for his explosive temper. He was constantly challenging calls by linesmen and umpires and did so with a dramatic flair. In the 1990 Australian Open, he crossed the line one too many times with two smashed rackets and a profanity-laced verbal tirade against the umpire that the TV audience heard. His reward for his bad behavior was disqualification for unsportsmanlike conduct.

We jokingly discussed in staff meeting this past week some of our favorite pet peeves. All of us experience things that annoy us in the course of daily living. Sometimes those annoyances are irrational, while at other times they may well be justified. Whatever their source, we aren’t free to vent our frustrations on others in the style of John McEnroe. In Colossians 4:6, the apostle Paul offers us some great advice about our verbal response to others whose conduct vexes us: “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to respond to each person.” Gracious speech is far more becoming to our Christian witness than a childish temper tantrum. Let’s commit ourselves to communicate grace by our words and actions.

Guatemala Beckons

On Monday I’ll be heading southward once again, destination Guatemala. I’ve lost track of how many trips this makes in the last 3 years or so, but it’s in the neighborhood of 5 or 6. This will be the third in a series of 6 or 7 projected leadership training events for pastors and leaders in the western region of the country. On this occasion, Owen Taylor, a pastor and church planter from St. Louis and the head of the church planting team for the BGCM, will be my traveling companion and fellow conference leader. We’ll arrive on Monday night in Guatemala City, travel to Quetzaltenango on Tuesday morning, arriving in time for lunch at the hotel where the conference will take place, and then begin a series of 5 training sessions that will conclude early on Wednesday afternoon. Owen will be talking about church planting principles while I’ll be giving an overview of the COSECHA manual that Guy Muse and his team utilize in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Cosecha (for non-Spanish speakers) means “harvest” and is an acrostic that focuses on various aspects of discipleship and outreach. For the previous 2 training events, the specific topics were more clearly detailed by the leadership of the Guatemala Baptist Convention in terms of the focus of the conference. This time it’s been more general—just the basic guideline of outreach and evangelism.

We’ll wrap up the conference and head back to Guatemala City on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday will be for some sightseeing in Antigua since this is Owen’s first trip to Guatemala. He leaves to fly back home on Friday since his church meets on Saturday evenings (no they’re not 7th Day Adventists). On Friday and Saturday, I’ll be participating in a strategy planning conference for the Guatemala Baptist Convention that is facilitated by WorldconneX. After that, it’s catching a flight home on Sunday.

The one other thing I hope to accomplish on this trip is to firm up some details for a missions trip that our church will be doing next month to the same area. We’ll be assisting 4 churches in the town of Cantel in western Guatemala with some leadership training conferences for their children’s workers, conducting a joint VBS for the children of these churches, and hopefully engaging in some community outreach activities as well. We have a team of 4 from our church and a couple of ladies from St. Louis who will be joining us for that trip. My son, a doctor, and his wife, a nurse, will be participating in a medical missions trip to the same region in March.