How can we be sure we measure the important things?

What can Paul teach us about how to measure our mission works?

Maybe there are advantages White people are not even aware of.

How to identify a few things that can get in the way of helping people get to Jesus.

Are we getting the point of the parable?

How can you get the best out of your mission efforts?

Could we be communicating unintentional messages when we “invite people to the table”?

Is there a wrong way to be right?!

How does God call us to respond to the horrible conflict between Hamas and Israel?

What role should we seek to have in God’s global mission? Perhaps “midwife”?!

One of the questions that churches often ask us is, “What are best practices in missions?” While we have a list we can give, I often reply first by asking, “To do what?”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this! I must be dreaming! I never thought I would hear an American say such things! For years we have been treated like slaves by Americans.

This changes everything.”  

Because I spent many of the formative years of my childhood living in Muleshoe, Texas, I have a fondness for the mule. After all, that was our school mascot. I've cheered for mules at pep rallies and rooted for mules at many ballgames. "Kick-em, Mules, Kick-em." But mules have one major weakness…

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.”

Why are some places open to the gospel and other places closed? Why does freedom of religion and prosperity seem to erode the power of the church, and persecution seems to purify and empower the church?

I’m not big on household chores, but at the top of my “hate to do” list is cleaning my instruments of cleaning.

What does this have to do with global missions? Read on to find out!

Ken Shumard graduated to glory last week. If you don’t have connections with Churches of Christ in Atlanta, you likely don’t know who he was, but Ken was a powerful man of God who liked to work in the background. If you didn’t know his name, he would be pleased about that, but he did want you to know Jesus’ name and follow him.

“Well, that didn’t turn out like I expected.” – every Christian worker ever, everywhere 

Ministry in any country rarely goes as planned. We had a picture in our head of what God wanted to do, and we moved in concert with that vision only to find out that our expectations were off. Frequently they were way off. Maybe that is because we didn’t have the right vision. Perhaps we were projecting our ideas on God’s call. Or maybe we just don’t understand how God works with limited creatures like ourselves.

“You really need to go visit the Holy Land! Nothing will make God come to life like walking where Jesus and all the other biblical characters walked. God is present there like nowhere else.”

I’ve heard countless statements like this for nearly 40 years of my ministry life. They come from people who have experienced massive life changes at some place/event and are so grateful that they become evangelists for the particular ministry that blessed them.

God’s dreams are bigger than ours, and his work is not bounded by our imagination. His time frame is not ours, either, and when he delivers on his promises, we often find it looks very different from what we imagined.