Family

Our whole family is excited for my mom’s visit!  She arrives tomorrow morning from Pennsylvania, USA, and will stay for a little over a week.  It’s been a little over a year since I last some my family when we had returned home for a month last summer.  We talk regularly on the phone, but it’s not the same.

My wife is taking the girls to visit her family in New Mexico next Spring.  It will have been 5 years since we last visited them.

There is just something special about family.  It’s not like my friends whom I chose, and could walk away from.  We are connected by blood.  Sometimes we argue and sometimes, we can’t stand each other, but we are always there for each other.  There is a mysterious commitment that is hard to walk away from.

When I entered a relationship with God, I joined another family, also bound by blood – the blood of Jesus.  I’ve traveled to many places around the world visiting various churches, India & Haiti, hispanic churches, black churches in Arkansas and Pennsylvania, even was a member of a black gospel choir.  (There is a funny story there as one of the few white guys in a 100 person black gospel choir which I’ll save for another day.)  In all of them there is an instant connection as a fellow member of God’s family.

Sometimes we argue and disagree amongst ourselves or with other churches, but there is a bond between us even stronger then the human family bond, for the blood of Jesus is far greater. 

I love both my families, my natural family and my church family.  I don’t know where I’d be without either one of them.

Treasure Everywhere!

I can’t explain it.  I was so eager to find treasure today!  I couldn’t wait to review our treasure hunting clues and get out there.  I had a feeling it was going to be a fast start. 

It was!  My first treasure was not 50 feet outside Costa Coffee shop.  Somedays, I’ve gone up to 30 minutes without seeing any clues, but today, it was one, then another, then another…  In the end we talked to/prayed with 20 people in a little over an hour!  I’m approaching 200 people having talked to/prayed with in 3 months of doing this, just 1 hour a week on a Saturday morning (and personally not every Saturday, though someone from Pioneer Engage Church is out every Saturday).

I have to admit somedays I’ve gone out and felt reluctant to talk to people.  Just being out there though is a victory in itself.  But treasure hunting is so easy, after building up my courage and talking to 2 or 3 people, I’d get more comfortable then go for it.  Not today!  I was ready from the word ‘Go!’

Everyone was so open today too!  We talked to young men in their late teens/early twenties, a young couple praying to have a baby, a woman concerned about her sick grandchild and another woman worried about her dying 95 year old grandmother.

In addition to sharing about how they are God’s treasure and praying for them, we were handing out flyers to the Christmas Carols event in the Leatherhead Theatre on 3 December at 7.30pm.  Canon Andrew White, the ”Vicar of Bagdad,” will be the guest speaker.  He has an amazing minstry as the Archibishop’s Special Envoy to the Middle East for the Church of England.  This also gave us something else to talk about as we built a rapport.

It was another amazing morning.  Treasure was everywhere!  We just had to open our eyes and see, then go get it!

Relationships Take Time

Human beings are inherently social creatures.  Tom Hanks, when all alone on a deserted island in the movie, Castaway, creates a fictional person to talk to named Wilson out of a volleyball.  Yes, it’s a fictional movie, but it’s based on real life survival stories.

Real relationships take time.  Some people talk of an instant connection, and perhaps there is a spark of interest, but that doesn’t make a relationship.  A relationship only comes by spending time together, when you get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and see past the facade and truly into the heart.

In team building training, the experts talk of the 4 stages of building a team, forming, storming, norming, and performing.  In the forming stage, people are just getting to know each other and everything is new and wonderful.  After a while, the things that are new and interesting about other people get annoying and the team transitions from forming to storming.  This is a critical stage in team dynamics and any relationship.  How this is managed and the attitude of the team members determine where this goes next.  If people let the differences get to them, the team falls apart.  But, if they are determined to work together, they can move from storming to norming.  In the norming stage, team members accept the differences in each other and begin to work with their strengths.  Finally comes performing.  Team members go beyond their strengths to covering each others weaknesses, and really learning to be able to count on each other.

I think any relationship, whether its a business, military unit, church, or even a marriage or friendship, goes through these 4 stages, and sometimes things happen to send you back one or two, and you need to work through it again.   One thing is clear, there is no way to start at Performing.  A relationship has to go through the 4 stages, and this takes time.

I was thinking about the 3 years we’ve been in Great Britain.  The first year, it just took us to get settled and find our place.  Yes, the boxes were unpacked in a couple months, but to really find our place in church and society took a year.  In the second year, we started to step forward into what brought us here.  Resistance came as people were unsure of our motives or commitment.  Now in the 3rd year, I think we’ve reached the norming stage in the area.  People know our strengths and weaknesses and also know our heart, so working together is coming more easily.

If you look at it in terms of participation, in the first year, we joined The National Trust so we could see different sites in the country, but didn’t really participate much in the community.  In year 2, we started attending community meetings, and now in year 3, we’ve joined the local residents association.  We went from sightseeing to being informed and some involvement to belonging and active.

There are advantages to short term activities like meeting a specific need, but I’m convinced that real effectiveness only comes from long term relationships.  When people see your care, love and commitment worked out day in and day out, in good times and bad, only then do people trust and open themselves to you and real change can happen.

Treasure Hunting: How To Guide

One of my first posts was about this amazing technique for sharing the love of God with people called, Treasure Hunting.  At the time, I focused on the difference between this technique and other street evangelism techniques I’ve tried.  Primarily, instead of leading off with bad news, you share the truth that God sees them as a treasure and loves them, which is entirely in accordance with the ancient manusripts. 

The basic premise is it generally takes people 7 to 9 positive experiences before someone will enter a relationship with God through Jesus.  By blessing people on the street with the love of God, it’s the intent of treasure hunting to add one of those positive experiences.  What I’d like to do today is actually explain how the technique works so you can do it for yourself.

1. Gather.  You should at least go out in pairs.  Those going out on a particular day should gather to pray.

2. Prayer.  Though God loves everybody, we know the Holy Spirit is often working specifically on certain individuals at one time.  Ask God to lead you to those individuals today.

3. Clues. Ask God for clues to direct you to the right people.  We have a worksheet where the top part of the worksheet is for writing down the clues.  The clues come in 5 categories.

• Location – Where in the town will we find these people
• Appearance – What are they wearing or carrying
• Unusual Indicators – Unusual things like balloons, flowers or elephants (Don’t laugh – one lady in our group a few weeks ago had the store, Boots, a yellow bag and elephants.  We saw a lady walk into Boots with a yellow bag and orange elephants on the bag.  We immediately found our fellow treasure hunter with these clues and she and her partner caught up with this woman inside Boots and had great conversation and time of prayer with her.)
• Name – This won’t be obvious right away, but if they give their name in conversation and it’s on your list, it’s another confirmation.
• Needs – This often won’t be obvious either, but again is another confirmation if it comes up in coversation.

Try to get 3 to 5 clues in each category.  Don’t think to much about it.  Write down whatever comes into your head.  The more clues, the more treasure to look for! 

4. Share your clues with the group.  Help look for each others clues, as well as looking for multiples.  If more than one person has the same clue, then maybe God is trying to say something specific.

5. Divide into teams.  Go in pairs (or more, but only approach other people in pairs).  It’s preferable for a man and woman to be partnered together.  Also look at the clues to see if you have similarities with another person, then perhaps you should be partnered together.

6. Set a Time Limit and meet back location.  We generally find 60 to 90 minutes is enough, especially if you are organized and going out regularly as more than that could wear people out.  I’ve talked to as few as 3 and as many as 25 in an hour.

7. Go out in your groups and head to the locations on your clues list.  Keep your clues list out so you can keep checking for clues.  How long you stay at a location is up to you.  Our town, Leatherhead, is small, so we’ll linger in one location for a few minutes then move to the next, and can usually make 2-4 rounds in the hour.

8. Look for treasure, someone that matches your clues.  We look for someone with at least 2 clues, unless it is a really unusual one.

9. Approach the treasure.  When you spot someone with at least two clues, approach in pairs and say something like, ‘This may seem a little odd, but we’re on a treasure hunt, and we think you are a treasure.’  The usual response is, ‘No, I’m not.’  We then show them the list and point out the clues that they match.  At this point they generally ask what they have to do, we explain you don’t have to do anything.

10. Build rapport. Try to have a conversation, and find out their names.  If their name is on the clue list, you can share that it’s another matching clue.  You want to get to the point where you tell them that we are Christians from a local church, and what you to know you are God’s treasure today. 

11. Ask to pray for them.  Ask if there is anything you can do for them or if they have any needs that you can pray with them about.  Be encouraging.  If they don’t have anything or want you to pray for them, wish them a good day and enjoy being a treasure. 

12. Prayer.  If they do ask for prayer, be sensitive not to embarrass them in public.  We tend to pray on the spot, and here are some guidelines:

• Keep you eyes open
• Ask for the presence of God to come
• Pray in a normal tone of voice
• Avoid Christianeze in the language you use
• Do not pray in tongues (at least out loud)
• If you have a word for them, share it in a conversational way rather than ‘Thus sayeth the Lord.’
• Always be encouraging

If you were praying for healing, take authority, but don’t do so in a way that would embarrass them. Ask them to test it out (if possible) and how does it feel on a scale of 1-10, and is it better.  Ask if there is something they can do now that they couldn’t do before you prayed.

If they are healed or had an encounter with God, explain what happened and that God loves them, cares for them, and wants the best for them.  If they are not a Christian, ask if they want to know Jesus personally.  If they say, ‘Yes,’ go ahead and lead them in a prayer to ask Jesus into their life.  

13. Literature. If appropriate, have a church card to give them as follow-up.

14. Look for your next treasure

15. Meet Back Together.  At the end, gather at the appointed place and time to share stories, pray over the people you spoke to, and pray over each other.

Other Tips

• A man and woman pair can talk to anyone. 
  • Two men should not approach women or children.
  • Two women should not approach men.
  • If a child has the clues, approach the parent(s) first and ask permission
• If someone is in a hurry or otherwise occupied, let them be.  We are not here to harass people, and chasing someone down the street could scare someone more than blessing them.  If they have several clues, ask God to bring them your way again when they are less hurried.
• We are not entering a debate or trying to be right if we engage in a discussion.  That said, if someone wants to discuss, don’t hide the truth either.  Be sensitive.  Just keep in mind the objective is to bless people.  If it is getting argumentative, get out of the conversation.
• Getting out on the streets is a victory in itself.  If we can help people on their journey to God, then all the better. 

Anyone can do this technique.  I would advise going with someone who’s done it before before trying yourself for the first time.

In 2 months of doing this and speaking to over 100 people, I’ve never had an angry reaction.  We’ve had a few people not interested, and just wished them a good day and enjoy being a treasure, but never an angry response.  Far more have been quite appreciative! 

At Pioneer Engage Church, we go out every Saturday in Leatherhead, England.  We encourage people to go for it at any time during the week, but recommend first timers come out with the team on Saturday morning to get a little training and experience first.  We meet at Costa Coffee in the Swan Centre at 9:45am.  Everyone is welcome! 

If you’d like to come along, email me at daveb.uk@hotmail.com, and I’ll give you the contact person for that week.  I can also send you the clues and basic instruction sheet we use in either MS Word or Acrobat PDF file.

Tuesday Trivia Answers

The answers to yesterday’s trivia questions are:

1. Who were Moses’ two siblings? Aaron and Miriam (Ex 6:20)

2. Who was beaten with rods 3 times, stoned once, shipwrecked 3 times, and whipped 5 times? Paul (2 Cor 11:24-25)

3. What did Mary use to wipe the feet of Jesus after anointing them with perfume? Her hair (John 12:3)

4. Who was famous for having hairy arms? Esau (Gen 27:11)

5. Who caught a fish with a coin in its mouth, enough to pay the tax for Jesus and himself? Peter (Matt 17:25-27)

6. How many generations are there from Abraham to Judah? 3 (Matt 1:2)

7. When a Jewish couple were married, how long did the law permit the honeymoon to be? 1 year (Deut 24:5)

8. Who is the only Elizabeth in the Bible? Mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1)

9. Who is the father of Ham? Noah (Gen 9:18)

10. What did Jesus use clay to restore? blind eyes (John 9:6)

11. What did Paul escape Damascus in? A basket (Acts 9:25)

12. Who was the oldest son of Jacob? Reubon (Gen 29:32)

13. What does James say is a restless evil and full of deadly poison? The tongue (James 3:8)

14. To what city did Jonah go to tell the citizens that they would be overthrown in 40 days? Nineveh (Jonah 3)

15. Who was relieved when his father sacrificed a ram? Isaac (Gen 22:9-14)

Tuesday Trivia

Test your knowledge of the ancient manuscripts.

1. Who were Moses’ two siblings?

2. Who was beaten with rods 3 times, stoned once, shipwrecked 3 times, and whipped 5 times?

3. What did Mary use to wipe the feet of Jesus after anointing them with perfume?

4. Who was famous for having hairy arms?

5. Who caught a fish with a coin in its mouth, enough to pay the tax for Jesus and himself?

6. How many generations are there from Abraham to Judah?

7. When a Jewish couple were married, how long did the law permit the honeymoon to be?

8. Who is the only Elizabeth in the Bible?

9. Who is the father of Ham?

10. What did Jesus use clay to restore?

11. What did Paul escape Damascus in?

12. Who was the oldest son of Jacob?

13. What does James say is a restless evil and full of deadly poison?

14. To what city did Jonah go to tell the citizens that they would be overthrown in 40 day?

15. Who was relieved when his father sacrificed a ram?

Email me at daveb.uk@hotmail.com with the answers.  I’ll post the winner’s name with the correct answers. 

It’s Not Always Obvious

I was out treasure hunting on Saturday on the streets of Leatherhead.  There were 2 people out with us for the first time, and I was paired with one of them.  It started slow.  For the first half hour, no one met the criteria we had written down in the prayer time beforehand.  (Unless it’s one of the really unusual criteria, we usually look for someone who has at least 2 criteria before approaching them.)  Then it picked up dramatically, and we had several really good conversations and times of prayer for people.

In one case, there was a big guy in shorts in the area between the banks.  The area between the banks and shorts were 2 of my criteria.  (By the way, it was cold and overcast, so I didn’t expect to see too many people in shorts on Saturday.)  At 6 foot 1 inch, and admittedly overweight, I’m pretty big guy.  But this guy was bigger than me in every dimension, bald and very tough looking. My partner said, ‘I think he meets your criteria.’  I replied, ‘Let’s see if we get a third.’  To be honest, I was a little intimidated to talk to him.

As he was looking at market stalls, the Holy Spirit moved me to go talk to him.  So we approached him, and I told him we were on a treasure hunt and I believed he was a treasure today, and explained why.  He looked at us quizzically.  I then explained we were Christians from a local church and is there anything we can do for him or pray about.

His son died a week before in an accident, and yes, he would appreciate prayer.  I stood dumbfounded, then obediently prayed for him and his family right there on the street for comfort during this time of loss.  He was very appreciative.  I would never have guessed looking at the outside appearance of what was going on in his heart or that he’d be open to us and receive prayer, but the Holy Spirit knew.

When I was a new Christian and in the military, I was having an on-going discussion with a colleague in my unit about Christianity.  He was very open to discussion, but couldn’t quite commit to invite God to enter a relationship.  One day, another man in the unit approached me and asked if we could pray together to invite Christ into his life.  I didn’t even realize he’d been listening!

Soon after his wife also came to Christ.  When they left the military they returned to their home state and he became a pastor now leads a church.

I know when leading short term mission teams, I had in my mind who would be perfect for the mission.  But they seldom accepted the invitation.  Instead, I’d get the most unlikely group of people applying to go.  Yet, during the trip, it became evident these were the right people.

If you look at Jesus’ disciples and all their character flaws, it wouldn’t be the team I’d picked to lay the foundation of an organization that would span the globe, but God looks past the exterior and sees the heart.  Only when we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, can we see heart as well.

Seeing Poverty for the First Time

In Europe and North America, we generally live comfortable lives.  We are rich compared to the majority of the world.  Seeing poverty first hand changes your perspective on life.

I experienced poverty for the first time on a medical mission trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in February 2001.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with the average annual income of $200 and at the time 80% unemployment.  My life has never been the same since.  Here’s a section from my journal of the first day.

“As we flew overhead of Port-au-Prince, it sits in a horseshoe around the bay.  You can see even from up here the wealthy live up high and the poor down at the water front.

We arrived and our bags were nearly last.  This turned out to be a blessing although it worried us at the time if our bags had been stolen before even reaching us.  By the time we were ready to go, customs quit checking bags.  They’ve illegally confiscated medicine on previous trips to sell on the black market.

Throngs of people stand outside the airport entrance waiting to do anything for money or to steal to survive.  Some members of the church came to pick us up.  We had to stay in a close pack to guard our belongings and push through the crowds to get our stuff safely into the vehicles.

The ride to the house where we were staying was enlightening to say the least.  Driving was more like dodging potholes, cars, and people.  Next to the engine, the most valuable piece of equipment on the car is the horn.

We past people in rough shacks with poles holding up tin or tattered cloth for shelter.  Trash was everywhere, and people burned trash or charcoal for cooking and heat.  A pig roots through a 3m pile of trash joined by dogs and children.  Raw meat at a road side stand covered in flies.  A dog eating an animals skull which fell to the ground.  Raw sewage running through the streets; children in bare feet walking through it.  A man relieves himself along the side of the road.  A truck billowing thick black smoke into the faces of those staring blankly at the side of the road.  A thick blanket of noxious fumes lay over the city.  Despair & Hopelessness.

The house where we stayed is considered upper middle-class by Haitian standards.   The woman who owns it is loving and grandmotherly.  There are lights and ceiling fans in the rooms, but the electricity is only on for a random 4 hours per day.  When the electricity is on, water is pumped from an underground tank to one on the roof to give water pressure.  There is no hot water. We only drink bottled water and even treat that with iodine tablets.  Everything is wiped down and we constantly wash our hands with rubbing alcohol.  We sat down to each sandwiches and drink a Coke out of wine glasses.  The power went out, so the old woman brought oil lamps and we enjoyed our meal together including jokes and stories.

Afterwards, we went on the terrace at to see the city under the stars.  Amidst the poverty, praises to God rise from a distant corner.  The glory of God bringing light in the darkness.  I sensed God’s presence throughout the day, but even moreso now.

I am but dust.  Why am I so privileged?  To those who have been given much, much is required.  This trip will be blessed, but will also break my heart.”

Pictures of my trips in 2001 and 2002 can be found here.

Surprise Treats

I love surprises, at least good surprises.  One day my wife came home from swimming with the kids and said, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’  I asked if it was a good surprise or a bad surprise, and she said a little of both.  The kids found a bird in the neighbourhood outdoor swimming pool and the lifeguards encouraged them to keep it.  Of course, the bird needed a cage, food, toys, a trip to the vet, etc. so the free bird wasn’t very free after all.  I’m not big on those kind of surprises.

I just booked a weekend getaway for our anniversary.  I’m so excited because I’ve been wanting to do something special for our anniversary and haven’t been able to do much the past few years.  No, it’s not a weekend in Paris, though it would be very romantic, that’s still a bit out of my price range.  One day!

Anyway, I know time away is special to both of us, and I like doing nice things for my wife.  I’m sure she wishes I’d do them more often.  Even the little things like hidden love notes or the random texts in the middle the day, just to say, I love you,’ are special and brighten her day.  As I made the reservations, I was overwhelmed with joy in anticipation of how excited she will be.  I’m reminded about how much God loves to give us good gifts, the surprise treats and blessings which bring joy to our hearts.  Even when in the slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on a medical mission amongst some of the poorest people on earth, I’ve seen the joy in the hearts of those who have a relationship with God and the good gifts He blesses them with.