The "M" Word

The Wedding Dancer II

Part of any good Central Asian wedding is dancing for the bride and groom.  It is a way to show that you honor them and say congratulations.  Even if you look foolish doing while doing it.

All Finished!

One of the problems with a blog is that when you get behind, it is impossible to catch back up.  I want to share those who read my little blog that the outhouse project is finished.  The building is built and the ceremony is done.  We are pleased with our first project as a team and we learned much from the experience.

What were the results of the project?  First of all, we gained a presence in the village.  There was a reason for us to be there and the community welcomed us.  Second, we were able to encourage our belieiving friends in the village.  It was a good time to visit, to share, to answer questions, and to be encouraged in the Word.

Next, we built relationships with two men who seem interested in who we are.  This is most encouraging.  Now we are praying about how to continue the relationship with these men and share Christ with them.

Pray for us.

Village Work part 2

After two weeks of intense activity, I am taking some me time and updating the blog.  Having visitors is a fun and intense experience; however, it leaves you wiped out.  That is the way I have felt the last two days, wiped out.  Now, I want to catch you up on what we have been doing.

We went out the village to help them dig a hole for an outhouse project.  Twelve of us loaded up and made our way about an hour and half from where we live to village we are working at.  Like all other things in Central Asia, what should only take an hour and a half turned into 4 hours and we did not get the village until mid-afternoon.  Knowing that digging this hole could be time consuming, we were nervous.

When our group showed up, the director of the school, the main teacher, and the village leader were all there to great us.  Immediately, a discussion developed on how big to make the hole and where to put it.  Again, anxiety was the emotion of the moment.  Will this work?  Can we build an outhouse?  Can we dig a hole deep enough by hand?  How much will all this cost? 

An hour went by and a decision was made where to dig and how big the hole should be.  Finally, the digging began.  Anxiety made itself present in a real way at this point.  There were twelve of us out there, a village leader, a school teacher, a school director, not to mention the growing crowd of young people watching this spectacle; and they were all looking to me for guidance.  It was at that point that we stopped the digging, publicly bowed our heads and prayed.  I prayed for the Lord's protection, the Lord's guidance, the Lord's speed, and most of all the Lord's presence in this dark place.  A translator put the prayer in the local language so that everyone knew what we were praying for and in whose name we were praying.  And the digging went on....

What kind of hole have I dug our team into?

Platform work is a new concept for me.  In Argentina, one is allowed to be there with a "religious" visa.  That is not the case in other parts of the world.  Here in Central Asia, you need a platform to be in the country.  A platform is a real service that is performed for the people here.  It could be community development, preventative health, disaster management, etc..  Over the years, M's have experimented with various platforms and have approached the work of evangelism from various ways.

We believe, that are service to humanity should be without strings.  We serve people to serve people, not so that they will listen to our message.  There are no requirements of sitting through a Gospel presentation to receive the service we offer.

So what does a platform offer?  It offers a legitimate reason to be in a place and be the religious people we are.  We get to serve and we pray for opportunities to share.

Tomorrow, we are going out to a village where there is one believing family.  Actually, they are the only believing family in the whole region.  We want to help them grow as Christians, so we are creating a reason to be there and encourage them.  We are going to dig a hole.

Our team has agreed to build an outhouse for the local school, theirs fell down.  In order to do this project a hole 18 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 14 feet deep needs to be dug.  This means that 12 of us are going out to the village for the next three days to come along side the local people and break our backs in the sun.  We will dig, they will dig, and a hole will be dug.

What else we do?  We will worship together publicly, we are a religious people.  We will encourage our sister, she is a Christian.  And, we will share our faith with any who will listen, it is who we are.

Pray that the hole will be dug safely.  Pray that the hole in the hearts of those villagers will be filled with the love of Jesus Christ.

Finding a Routine

The first month or two in any new country is filled with sights, sounds, and smells that are very different.  Creating a home in a new culture has its challenges.  Finding a routine in the midst of the sights and sounds while creating this new home is the most challenging of all.

We have been striving for this routine and have settled into a routine many of the days of the week.  One thing we have done is created the GFN, the (our last name) family network.  The GFN is a two hour television station a few nights a week that carries our favorite television shows we have on DVD.

(a security note:  I try to be open about what I am doing on this blog, but I cannot reveal to much.  Two main security protocols are in place: 1. I do not use my last name so that the blog is not search-able by name in Google.  2. I don't use the countries name so it is not search-able by Google.)

Another thing we have done to try to create a routine is go the lake once a week with some of the families.  This has provided some fun moments as well as some interesting moments.  So far, we have come home with a cut toe, a big bruise, and a black eye (Leah got hit with a rock when some of the kids were playing a local game which consists of boys throwing rocks at girls). 

The last thing we have done to help us create a routine is find a local fellowship to attend.  Every Sunday, we go to a local house church that is filled with ex-pats like ourselves.  At this moment, we are unable to attend a national fellowship because of the language as well as a few security concerns (theirs not ours).

Each of these things; the GFN, the lake, and a local fellowship; have helped us find what will help us acculturate the fastest, a routine.

Support Raising and Prayer

Yesterday I did not have time to get my blog in, but today I am cranked up.  My part in training our new candidates finished yesterday with an incredible time of prayer.  All day we examined how to present you missionary ministry to someone face-to-face.  We examined questions from "How do I ask for support?" to "What kind of technology should I use in presenting my ministry face-to-face?"

It was a good time and for many of it was a very profitable time.  What grabbed my heart most is in when Ray (a COP'r) asked that we pray.  This turned into a 25 minute excursion before the Throne of Grace.  It was incredible to listen to the hearts of the next wave of missionaries.  They prayed for their future ministries as well as their future supporters.  Would you pray for them?

Support raising is a daunting task, yet it's rewards are beyond measure.  Pray for all of us.

The Strategic, God-enabled process ...

Short-Cycle Church Planting is a our solution to help reach the world that is going to hell.  It is a strategic, God-enabled process which to continuously shorten the amount of time it takes to develop a mature church.  To make the process work we need a heavy dose of innovation to be part of the culture of each of our teams.

Today, the candidates in COP (candidate orientation program) looked at how to formulate a Support Raising Strategy.  We did this by first examining the bottom line: the total amount it takes for each missionary to live and minister in their perspective country.  Next the total was divided by the average gift from an individual to missionaries, $50 a month.  This gave the candidates a realistic look at how many supporters they will actually need.  Normally, the moment is a sober one.  Each of us are willing to pay the price for our calling and lay our lives on the line for the Gospel of our Lord. However, the price that seems higher than we can pay is finding those partners that will take their giving as seriously as we take our church planting.

A family going to Europe needs 100 to 150 partners to meet their monthly needs.  My team mates going to Central Asia need 60 partners and we need 140 partners because of the size of our family.

Once the process of determining the need is finished, the next step is formulating a strategy to meet those partners and get them on the team.  This is the hard part.  This is the part where innovation must exist.  The normal networks of people for the average Christian are just not vast enough to generate 150 donors.  But that does change the task.  The world won't come to Christ if we sit around and lament the lack of donors. 

What can we do?  Get creative and get innovative in how we fund raise.  What that innovation looks like, I'm afraid I don't have the answer, YET!

Missionary Support and Game Theory

Friday, December 08, 2006

Nash Equilibrium: A Beautiful Idea

"He intends only his own security, only his own gain. And he is in this led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention." - Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776

John Nash is the protagonist in the movie A Beautiful Mind. A "Nash equilibrium" refers to a situation in which individuals participating in a game pursue the best possible strategy while possessing the knowledge of the strategies of other players. It works on the premise that the player cannot improve his/her position given the other players' strategy. Nash equilibrium is sometimes referred to as the non-cooperative equilibrium because each player chooses his/her own strategy believing it is the best one possible, without collusion. Nash shows that in attempting to optimize one's returns, he/she should consider the strategies of the other players. Thus, Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" is incomplete.

So what is the lesson for life? Ignoring others does not lead to optimal outcomes. Failing to consider other's strategies negatively impacts one's expected revenue. So, pay attention to those around you. Indeed, love your neighbor as yourself.

When is cooperation as vital as competition? What is "evolutionary economics?"

posted by Whit Keuer

Who should we consider in the equation of support raising?  The missionary for sure, after all they are the object of the support to be given.  Then there is the donor, the one doing the giving.  God plays an integral part of the equation because He is the one moving the missionary to go and the donor to give.  But, what about other missionaries?  Is there room to consider what other missionaries are doing to raise their support and factor that into what you are doing? 

Here is a question for the Body out there:  Do you compare missionaries?  Is it possible to consider only the person standing in front of you?  Do you only look at the pamphlet in your hand?  The reality of support raising in the 21st Century is that the competition is  stiff for the money that Christians give today.  Now don't me wrong, I am neither whining nor complaining, just trying to have an honest dialogue. 

I think that most of us view the giving ecenomy to have a sum of 0, meaning that if a Christian gives to one missionary then another missionary is left out.  It is a big pie that only has a limited number of slices.  However, once we put God back into the equation we change to a stream of supply rather than a pie of supply.  A stream that flows from His riches in glory rather than a pie of limited Christian resources.  My big question is how do jump into this stream and go for a swim?

I would like to thank Whit for a great post about game theory and how it shows us that we are not alone in this world.  What I do impacts others.  Is there another way to raise support today?  Maybe you have the answer.

I can't get me no Satisfaction

(http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2007/01/george_barna_on.html#comment-27560494)

As I read this post, Mick Jagger was singing in my ear.  If North American Christianity is now reduced to looking for satisfaction as a dominating feature of their church experience, then no wonder we have lost a missionary vision. Have we completely lost the concept of suffering in our Christianity?

I am still looking for some answers on how the House Church movement (organic, simple or what ever you want to call it) can effect positive change in the realm of missions.  I see the posibilities of connecting a small group with a missionary and a people group.  But how?  How do we connect a missionary with a house church?

House Churches on Mission?

This is my thought on a blog found at http://sojourner.typepad.com/house_church_blog/ about an article by ABC on house churches.

I am very excited about the movement toward house churches even though I do not attend one at present.  All over the world the most effective form of reproducible churches are house churches.  These churches and/or movement of churches more easily become three self (self governing, self propagating, and self supporting).  In other words they become more effective ministers of the Gospel in their communities at a faster rate than the tradition church plant.

What interests me most in the house church movement in the US is its possibilities for Missions.  Many missionaries feel they are on the outside looking in when it comes to the North American Church.  Trends come and go while we are on the field making us out of touch with what's happening back home.  Disturbingly, the trend of larger and larger churches has had a reverse effect on missions.  As the size of churches keep pushing the limits, the time it takes to fund missionaries is increasing.  Twenty years ago it would take a missionary six months to find the funding to go to the field.  Today, it takes eighteen to twenty four months.  There is no conclusive data to pin this completely on the shoulders of the mega-church movement, but the consumption of resources by the mega-church is hard to ignore.

So where does the house church fit into this?  I see the house church as being a place that frees people up to be the stewards God designed them to be.  The house church with lower overhead does not put the demand on the believer for their obligatory tithe just to keep the machine working.  The believer, as a priest, can then invest in local and world wide ministries that match the value structure of the believer. 

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do not believe in the "storehouse" mentality of the tithe.  I believe that the New Testament priesthood of believer gives each Christian the responsibility to determine where there offering should go, not the governing body of the local church.) 

Just some thoughts to spark some conversation.