Small Steps. Big Faith.

Last month, I met with Ruth, co-pastor of my Spanish church, and Miriam, director of evangelism at the church and Nacho, our national Ágape Director  to consider how Ágape and our church can continue to grow in partnership to take the gospel to Spanish people. One of the needs that was surfaced during that meeting was an effort to better equip church members in their "natural witness," increase their capacity to initiate one-on-one spiritual conversations and to share their faith with the people around them. The idea we landed on was that Ágape could provide a 4-5 week Sunday School class where members could explore the biblical basis for personal evangelism, prepare their own personal testimonies and also learn about relevant evangelistic tools that they could learn. I am very encouraged about the possibility to facilitate this Module on Evangelism and have prepared a proposal of topics to touch on during this class that will be launched this fall. Pl...

Sometimes life throws curve balls. The month of February has seen the loss of the fathers of two different friends here in Sant Vicenç. In addition, the older daughter of our LDHR Directors required surgery for a serious heart condition. When we pass through a crisis like these, everything comes to a halt for a time. (I know this all too well from experiencing our car accident in 2007  or my miscarriage in 2012 . .) As companions in the journey, we pray, we call, we support....but our lives may not necessarily stop in the same way. Our lives and responsibilities continue. At the same time, while our friends/co-workers are absent, sometimes it creates a hole or a pause in our activities as well while we wait for grief, for logistics, for healing. This pause, this " white space " is something that I experiencd today during our normally-scheduled LDHR meeting on Thursday mornings. Because Rex and Gema, our LDHR Directors were out of pocket, another staff member, Garr...

This week, Donna, my LDHR teammate, (pictured left with her husband) and I met again in Terrassa, the city half way between hers and mine at a restaurant called Viena.                                                                                                             During our weekly meeting, we  catch up on our personal lives, pray together and, this week, to talk through priorities for New Staff Training (NST) over the next few weeks. As we reflected over our time of working together, it is amazing to think about how God has used Donna to bring structure and order and to lay a strong foundation for our incoming staff and, really, our entire ministry, through her leadership and supervision of our...

The question I am asking this week involves partnership : What does teamwork or partnership look like? How do we agree on common objectives and at the same time allow the various partners to focus on different priorities? How do we ensure that each partner looks out for the good of the common objective, rather than merely looking out for himself /herself? (Even as I write this, Aaron is at school talking through some problems with his teacher as he and a couple of classmates develop a group project. One student is pulling more weight than the other two.) This challenge of teamwork is not unique to the 21st century. Even Jesus' disciples struggled with this. Consider this comment from the book of Mark... “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”  “ Do not stop him ,”  Jesus said.  “ For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me,   ...

So many things, activities, processes, initiatives fall into the category of Staff Care. An orientation for New Staff does too. Hear what our 7 new staff said about being cared for at their NST experience last weekend: "I have loved the quality of this event, especially the high spiritual and human quality of its leaders and the atmosphere of love and communion that were created." "Oh, how they have cared for us!" "It's been a pleasure to meet the staff kids. I see that family is important." "Something, I think you should keep doing in the future is the puzzle idea as a way of integrating the new staff. As we were putting it together, we had moments to talk and get to know each other better." "This event should last longer!" "It helped me a lot to connect with God and I was moved by the prayers for each person and the anointing with oil. Excellent." "The Sunday morning devotional helped u...

With their own words from their responses on the NST Event Evaluation, the new staff included notes about things they learned during the sessions...  "The main points are very pertinent for the process and path that we are initiating." "The Bible passages were right on mark with clear examples of God's calling and the traits to develop as a leader." "It is good to understand how everything started, how it works and why." "Learning the history of Bill Bright and the 3 things that He asked the Lord for were very inspiring." "Ágape has as its mission to help fulfill the Great Commission and reach people so that they know Jesus and His gospel." "Knowing the main mission of Ágape helped me to strengthen my conviction regarding joining staff." "I love the vision of the Kingdom and the openness in sharing materials, vision of discipleship, etc." "Reaching all the nations with s...

  With their own words from their responses on the NST Event Evaluation, the new staff praised the community that God created during our time together.... "Thank you for creating time and space to have this time of community." "Very good time" "Much harmony among the whole group: trainers and new staff." "The time for games was very fun!" "We had a really good time playing and chatting." "Excellent times of communion. High quality people and harmony and love among the all of the group." "Pleasantness and empathy"