ST Highlight

28 February 2016

Coordinating Team: Mexico

Jim Ministry glimpses, Missions, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 1

As the leader of my team of Camino Global missionaries, I’m also a member of the Coordinating Team for Camino Global in the Mexico field.

Now the Coordinating Team (CT) actually doesn’t coordinate all that much – most decision-making is done at the team level. And most of that tends to be done by consensus (on our team, anyway). You thought I was actually important there for a second, didn’t you? 😉

Camino Global Mexico Seriously, though, the CT does have some important roles. Facilitating communication between the various teams of missionaries, for example. Making sure field-wide events happen, talking about field-wide strategies. And representing Camino Global in communication with certain organizations in Mexico – in our case that includes Camp Koinonia and the Puebla Bible Seminary, as well as the churches that are related to our mission.

There are a lot of seismic shifts taking place among these groups here in Mexico, which makes our job much more interesting – and challenging.

Today I’m on my way to the city of Puebla, where the CT (made up of of missionaries from various parts of the country) will be meeting tomorrow to discuss a variety of things – many of them very important, things that could impact the ministry here in Mexico for many years to come. We would very much appreciate your prayers as we meet!

22 February 2016

A Visit, and This Week

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Visiting Laura - February 2016 — Visiting Laura – February 2016

Thanks to those who prayed for Laura and her Mom last week. We enjoyed a good visit with them, and made some new friends along the way. If you want to continue praying, that would be great. Lord willing He will allow us to visit again later this year.

For those who have our prayer calendar and are following along, you can most certainly pray for the children at the orphanage this week. However, it looks like Hannah’s visit there on Saturday has been cancelled.

But there are other things coming up this week! I have a couple of English classes on Tuesday (my regular class, plus I’m filling in for Tina). Shari has her baking class on Thursday, and the kids’ club and Bible study is on Saturday. We had a great kids’s club on Friday, but no one came for the adult study. But we did have a youth study, led by Rod.

We’re also gearing up for an anniversary service in March, which means that both Shari and Nathanael are going to music practices this week.

I’m also preparing for my last sermon in a series this Sunday – dealing with some pretty major topics, so hopefully my brain will be awake!

Thanks for your prayers – have a great week!

16 February 2016

Preaching in February

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Those of you who have received our newsletter now have a prayer calendar for the next few weeks. Of course, I could only include a very small portion of what’s going on, so I’ll try to keep you up to date a little here at Finding direction as well.

One thing that I didn’t mention was that I’m preaching every Sunday this month. On the first Sunday I was able to choose my own topic, so I ~~took the lazy route~~ decided to do something I’ve wanted to do for a while – preach Hebrews. Not preach on Hebrews, but basically preach the book – read it all, word-for-word.

I used a PowerPoint presentation, mainly to put up the verses that the author quotes from the Old Testament, and also had a hand out with some questions for reflection.

It was an interesting experience – great for me, I hope some other people got something out of it. They were at least very attentive anyway (I warned them ahead of time – I think it took around 55 minutes!).

Anyway, it’s amazing what a little context will do. The book of Hebrews may very well have been a sermon that has been written down for us – it does sound a lot like one when you say it out loud. 🙂

For the rest of the month we’re going through 1Corinthians 3:1-5:6. Next week the children will be there for the sermon, so hopefully it will be fun for everyone.

As with every area of ministry, I really appreciate your prayers for these sermons. Unless the Spirit of God works, nothing will happen. And most of these sermons are posted over at en-la-Biblia.com, which means they will be listened to by many other people, both in and out of Mexico.

The job of the preacher, as I’ll be sharing this Sunday, is the be faithful (1Corinthians 4:1-2). That means read God’s Word, explain what it means, and sit down. God’s power is in His Word and Spirit – He is the one who brings true growth (1Corinthians 3:7).

29 January 2016

More Praise!

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For those who have been praying for our kids’ club and Bible study Friday nights – thanks for your prayers! God answered our prayers in an obvious way this week, and we had some new people come, and a bigger group than ever. We had some great conversations in our Bible study (focused on Genesis 3 this week) – so keep praying that people will come back, and keep learning! May God do great things in Las Palmas through His Word!

Ready for Bible study!

22 January 2016

Thanks for Your Prayers for Sunday School

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Thanks to much to all of you who prayed specifically for my adult Sunday school class last year. As many of you know, I was teaching a series from October to December (actually, I finished it up in January because one week was cancelled).

Ten Words The series was on the 10 Commandments. It was a great opportunity for us to wrestle with what they mean for us today, and also to look at so many of the related laws, especially in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There is just so much there that can transform our lives and communities if we just listen.

I don’t think that we as a Church in general (I mean as the worldwide Church) spend enough time in the Old Testament. And one of the greatest reasons to study it would be the reason that Jesus Himself gave – that it bears witness about Him (John 5:39-40). And so each week we looked at the New Testament as well, and saw the 10 Commandments in the light of Christ.

As I warned my class, we don’t want to assume that we are to ignore the New Testament and the reality of Christ’s coming as we study. We also don’t want to assume that the New Testament is really the only thing that’s important. And finally, we don’t want to “pick and choose” which laws to obey, but instead let God through the Scripture tell us.

And it’s amazing what comes clear when you actually take the time to see what the Scripture says!

The series is going to have new life as I share it on my Spanish blog, where I’ll post the handouts so that others can use the study as well.

Thanks again for your prayers! Now I’m headed to teach another Bible study…

* Note on the graphic: The logo from the class says “Ten Words”. The word “commandments” can be translated “words” or “declarations”, as in “a word from the king”. The first class was entitled “He spoke to you out of the midst of the fire” from Deuteronomy 4:12. “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?” Wow – Deuteronomy 4:32-35.

11 January 2016

A New Semester Begins (and it sounds delicious)!

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Kaycee teaching numbers A new semester of classes began today at the community centre! Kaycee, teaching English, had a packed class – I think there were over 15 people there this evening.

Tomorrow the fun continues with three more English classes, and a special addition for this month – Asian Cooking with Kaycee! Shari also has a baking class this week – I think doughnut muffins may be on the menu. 😛

Praise the Lord for the many new friends we have made, and great conversations we’ve had. We’re looking forward to some great classes this semester, which runs from now until St. Patrick’s Day.

English students — Some of the students at Kaycee’s class

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