Ministry glimpses
Chronological Bible Study: Grand Finale Tonight!
Tonight is the grand finale of the Chronological Bible Study – week 15. It’s been a great 15 weeks! And now we have a set of material that we can use again.
This week’s theme is The Triumph of the Lamb, based around Revelation 5. Also, we’re going to do a whirlwind tour of the last 15 weeks, and take a look at the themes (or – theme!) that run throughout Scripture.
We would appreciate your prayers as we close this study. Pray that each person would continue to learn about the Gospel and God’s Word.
Jesus said…
because you think that in them
you have eternal life;
and it is they that bear witness about me,
yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
(John 5:39-40)
Here’s a brief video I came across recently that touches on many of the topics we talked about in our study…
Unscrewing the Door: A Sunday Ritual (Video)
… or, "coming unhinged". Or, "you belong in the kitchen" …
Last Sunday morning (the 15th of August 2010) I took some pictures and video during our time together as a church (Iglesia BÃblica Sendero de Vida Jesús María – that is, Path of Life Bible Church Jesús María). This video shows some of that, along with some thoughts. And that brings us to something we want to pray about and work towards.
Check it out!
The Guadalajara Team (Video)
On Sunday I flew to Guadalajara to join a team for a couple of days. It was a joint team from two churches in Hamilton – Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana and Garside Bible Church.
The team was involved (actually, as I write, they’re still involved – they leave tomorrow) in an outreach in the north of the city. It’s a poorer area where some people from a local Baptist church have been serving for quite some time in hopes that a church can be planted there.
So it was a great opportunity, and the team was doing a great job. They presented the Gospel clearly, they had lots of fun with the kids, they worked hard, and they were very organized (even when unexpected things happened, which they always do!). I’m guessing on the first couple of days there were 80-90 children.
On the first day, the police stopped by in the middle of the club. Were they going to shut us down? Were we missing some permit or doing something they didn’t like?
No, actually they came to congratulate us for what we were doing to help the kids in this neighbourhood!
It’s exciting to think that this team is a part of a work that may lead to a new church plant – which will be a witness in that community for many years to come – maybe until the Lord returns!
I made up the video below to give you a bit of a picture of what they were doing. It also shows the faithful Mexicans who are working here each week. Here it is…
Preaching – and Flying
This morning I’m preaching on Ephesians 1:11-14. Which is a little tricky, because verse 11 actually starts in the middle of a sentence.
The whole entire sentence is Ephesians 1:3-14 – yes, over 200 words in the Greek. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the English translations tendency to split this passage into more and more sentences as the years go by – surely Paul had a reason for writing this all together!
Actually, I can think of a reason right now. This passage intertwines the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three individual persons working in perfect unity – one God. At times, it’s hard to know which person of the Trinity Paul is talking about!
But anyway, this morning’s theme is inheritance (in Spanish herencia). I won’t give it all away, but if you want a clue:
- Check out which phrases or ideas are repeated over and over in 3-14. One will probably occur 7 or more times, depending on your version.
- Read the rest of Ephesians.
- Read John 17:1-26.
- Read Psalm 16:1-11.
- Read 1 Corinthians 12:13.
- Read John 6:27.
After today’s service, I’m headed to the airport. I’ll be flying to Guadalajara later today, to join up with a team from Garside Bible Church and their sister church Primer Iglesia Bautista Hispana.
As I understand it, the team will be joining some local believers and putting on a day camp north of the city, in an area that they hope will be a new church plant in the near future. Exciting stuff!
I’ll be returning on Wednesday. I’ll try to update my Facebook status and Tweets as I’m able, so you can see what’s going on. 😉
The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area mantains a large and dense population – over 4 million people. This actually makes it one of the largest cities in Latin America. Interestingly enough, the area also supports a huge Canadian population – some down for the winter, some year round.
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Guadalajara
Jalisco, Mexico
Ixtapaluca
Mexico
Spring/Summer Internship 2010 (video)
This weekend marked the end of the CAM International internship program here in Mexico. On Sunday they flew to Dallas, to spend a last brief time together before going their separate ways. (All except for Tiffany, who is actually a part of our team here and will be here for a year – hurray!)
The interns had a very eclectic few weeks here, there’s no doubt about it. They did ministry all over the place – here in Ixtapaluca, of course, but also in the State of Veracruz and up north of Mexico City at Camp Koinonia near San Juan del Río.
They taught English, Basketball, and of course the Word of God. They also spent a lot of time just sharing their lives.
I made the video below for their time in Dallas. Of course it leaves out a lot of things they did – I had to work with the video and photos and time that I had. (By the way, this isn’t all from me – it’s a pool of video and pictures from Rod and the interns and myself)
But one thing struck me as I watched the footage you’ll see here. There are so many people that I see that I didn’t know at all or knew very little about when the video was being taken. Now they are people that I do know… people that are involved in Bible studies, and in other events.
In other words, God used these men and women who came for the internship to bring the Word of God to more people, and to connect more people with the believers here. And I’m only going by what I see – who knows what else God did in and through them.
If you want to see some of what they did while they were here (maybe you want to come next summer!), check out the video below. It’s about 10 minutes long.