JOEL 2 GENERATION

This blog post comes from 2 separate visits to a mall involving a couple of co-workers in this Muslim-majority country. One a Muslim and the other a Christian. Our primary focus has been outreach, but not only have we been praying for anybody and everybody who wants/needs it, but along the way we have really found that the Christians we meet are isolated, in need of encouragement (in spite of "virtual church" - take note pastors!!!) and however we can do that, we are trying to be such encouragers in this hour. About 2 weeks ago I met a couple working in the information booth at the mall's entrance. I began to speak with them and see how things had been going with COVID...everybody has a story they want to tell (take note Christians!!!) and just like that, we were having a meaningful discussion. The man was a Muslim from India and the woman was a Christian from the Philippines. She was an active member of Church here that I knew well and had even ministered in formerly.  W...

While out Fear Extinguishing in this Muslim-majority country, we were burdened by the lack of fellowship that the Christians we met were getting. None of their churches have started meeting in person yet (which they SHOULD BE even if in smaller numbers, diverse locations). The Zoom meetings were NOT meeting their needs - not that God hasn't used and isn't using them...but they are NOT a substitute for incarnational ministry where the Body of Christ gathers together IN PERSON.  The Incarnation itself is our model that God became flesh and we need to meet IN the flesh, in person at this time. (more about that topic in another blog post). So as we were praying with a number of different Christians who were working in their places of employment, it became clear that God wanted us to be doing something about what we had learned.  The following idea came to both my wife and I as we were ministering to a few restaurant employees in a Food Court.  We had started ministering to th...

I don't know how to adequately capture and express the types of reactions, incredibly powerful and positive ones, that we have experienced in the past week seeking to love the people we are encountering in this Muslim-majority country. And also at the pain and regret, I feel knowing that the vast majority of Christians living and working in this country are not reaching out, are not taking risks, and are not opening their mouths with the people they meet.  I wish I could say I was wrong, but when people are telling you, and we've heard this a number of times, "No one has ever asked me how I am doing or offered to pray for me" then my assumption is almost certainly correct.  I wish I were wrong. But the evidence is that the tens of thousands of Christians who live and work here are keeping their faith to themselves. Or in the case of one Muslim woman who asked when my wife described what we do offering to pray for people, "Who even does this?"  The answer sho...

I know that I have used this illustration now for years. I can't even begin to count the number of times I got the WRONG word of knowledge for someone and yet God turns the encounter into a significant Kingdom one.  For example, I might have gotten a word for a back problem, the person doesn't have one but asks, "Does your God heal knees though?" And then we pray and they get healed. Yesterday, I got a few words of knowledge incorrect (I also got a few correct too!) and God opened up incredible opportunities to minister to people especially as I was partnering in a mall with my wife. On one occasion, I told my wife that I felt the Lord was highlighting a particular woman and that she had an upper back/shoulder issue. She didn't but my wife got to minister to the woman for like 10 or more minutes. She is a Gulf Arab Muslim woman and was so encouraged...asking my wife, "Who even does something like this?" (in response to my wife explaining that she often p...

This has been an incredible week for us - ministering to many different people, many of them Muslims, some of them Hindus, and others from a Christian background.  Many different nationalities - from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some of the encounters were in Arabic, most of them were in English and even one morning there was an encounter in Tamil and another in Hindi as I was with an Indian couple who had those languages.  Even though it has been a great week of reaching out, let us not think a week like this should in any way be unusual. This is what normal Christians should always be doing - praying for people, getting words of knowledge and/or other prophetic words for people, seeing unbelievers getting healed, and hearing the Gospel. We prayed for back problems, leg and foot pain, a skin condition, headaches, a wrist problem, shoulder, and neck pain. There were other issues/conditions that I can't recall right now. Too many to remember is a good problem! In addition...

Yesterday was an incredible day. After a mandatory quarantine of 14 days, we were excited to be out, interacting with people freely and to see what God would do.  And the logical place to do that when it is over  110  ° F (or  43.33 ° C ), is to head to one of the large malls. Over the course of a few hours, we were able to once again pray for and minister to many people.  Here is one of those stories. In my morning Bible reading, the Lord highlighted the verse that says Jesus "does what He sees the Father doing" (Jn 5:19).  I felt like the Lord was emphasizing that in our new outreaches, God wants us to rely even more on His prophetic guidance, leading as we go. And He led us  Back in March and April, when we had been out fear extinguishing, our community ministered to hundreds and hundreds of people in cities/towns in this country. And so it wasn't surprising that in one of the first places we felt led to stop, the group working in this restaurant as...

After several months in the West, we are back "on the streets" here in the Middle East engaging in our mandate to be "Fear Extinguishers". I'm entitling this post "101" because along the way we've discovered that there are some basics that we share with others and minister to them with. Here are the "BIG 3" - the basics of for Fear Extinguishing 101: We have... 1. Promises of Protection - whether it is Psalm 91, or any of the dozens and dozens of promises in God's Word, we have been promised by God that He will protect His children.  Even today as I was sharing this with a Filipino man, he was "taking notes" of these truths that we have to remember! Do we believe this? 2. Promises of Healing - Today I shared Matthew 10, but I will more often share the promises in Luke 10. The Old Testament contains promises of healing but our promises under the New Covenant are "better" (Heb. 8:6-8).  Do we really believe that God ...