Holy Saturday... living in the tension between Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection on Sunday morning

In his book "The Orthodox Heretic: and other impossible tales"  Peter Rollins imagines a story of a group of early followers of Jesus. 

Living alongside Jesus, they followed him, learned from him and were trying to order their lives so as to give witness to what they saw in Jesus everyday.

And then something happened that changed everything.

Jesus was apprehended by the authorities and put on trial. Being found guilty, he was sentenced to death on a cross, where he died.

After Jesus was buried, this little group of followers left the area to try and live out the ideals of Jesus as they had learned from him when he was alive. His death did nothing to change their love for him, or their desire to follow him and his teachings.

Their little community lived in relative peace for over 100 years. Until one day a Christian missionary from Jerusalem found them. As this missionary and some of the leaders of this community were talking, the missionary quickly learned that this community had no idea that while Jesus had died on that cross, he had also risen from the grave.

That evening there was a huge party as the group celebrated that Jesus has won the epic battle against death, and because of that, they would experience life in eternity with him. As the party was going on, the missionary noticed one of the leaders was missing. He soon found him in his tent, on his knees praying, with tears streaming down his face.

He sat with him awhile and finally asked the leader why he was crying. Didn't he understand the importance of Jesus resurrection? What was the matter?

The leader looked at the missionary with his swollen eyes and then he spoke. "For 100 years, my people have followed Jesus unconditionally. We have tried to live as we believe Jesus called us to live, simply because we believed that was his will."

"Now" he said, "I fear my people will live instead for the resurrection."

What the leader was saying was that his people would no longer live for Jesus, but for themselves. What he was saying was that faith for his people would soon change. Gone would be the focus on Kingdom now, traded in for Kingdom later.

Rollins brings us to Holy Saturday, the day between Jesus death on Friday and resurrection on what we celebrate as Easter Sunday. How he asks, might our faith be different if all we knew was Jesus life and his death? What would life look like if we lived it on Saturday, instead of in the light of Sunday.

In essence, he is asking the most pressing of questions. If there was no resurrection, would we even follow Jesus? Would living a life totally devoted to Jesus and his teachings be null and void if the resurrection never happened?

We are forced to look deeply at the motivations for faith, and our decisions to follow Jesus. Do we follow Jesus because what he called us to do was right on Holy Saturday when he was dead in the tomb? Or, did it only become right with the resurrection, on Sunday?

I hate questions like this, because they call into question my motivations for following Jesus. If I am being honest, these are the type of questions I wrestle with everyday. Ask my wife! She will frequently ask me what I am thinking, and out of fear, I'll say "nothing really" because the questions, and the answers scare me.

This week as we enter Holy Week, many of us will attend one or more remembrances of the last few days of Jesus' life here on earth. Maybe it will be a Maundy Thursday service that looks back at the Last Supper. Perhaps some will take time Friday to remember the crucifixion. Almost all of us will be celebrate his resurrection on Sunday, and then perhaps we will break bread together, at either a potluck, or with friends at a local restaurant.

But what about Saturday? Do we follow Jesus because he called us? Because he was the son of God, not just in the resurrection, but in his death as well? Or, do we follow him because, as the leader in Rollins' story feared, we want want eternal life? Are we into God and Christianity because of what we can get? 

Tough questions during the holiest of weeks for believers. Tougher still when we stop and consider how and what we, as missionaries for Jesus, communicate to others about the central truths and reasons for our faith.

Adventures in Life Ministry, Oaxaca, and Short-Term Mission Success

I feel like Adventures in Life Ministry has won the lottery.

At least, never having ever bought a ticket, I feel like I think people feel when they win the lottery.

Let me explain.

Pastor Steve checking on the progress

In 1999, AIL Ministry went to Oaxaca to talk with a group of pastors and leaders to talk about coming alongside their ministries.  We were hoping to help them realize their dreams for ministry.  We did not go there to tell them how to do their ministries or to tell them what we were going to do.

We went to listen and offer our help in any way we could.

For the first couple of years we were essentially in a dating relationship with our new friends.  We helped a couple of churches in their outreach plans and then one day Pastor Saul asked us to help his church build a training center for Zapotec Leaders and Pastors in the Tlacolula Valley, 25 miles east of the capital city.

We broke ground on that training center in 2005.  This October, the National Baptist Convention of Mexico will be holding the first official training event there.

It is part of the national strategy of the Baptist denomination to reach the indigenous people groups of Mexico and teach cross cultural mission strategies to young missionaries for worldwide evangelism.

Let me put this in practical terms... The largest Protestant denomination in Mexico is now using the facility that Adventures in Life Ministry built in Oaxaca to train national leaders not just to reach the indigenous peoples of Mexico, but to inspire and send missionaries around the world.

This is a really big deal, and here’s why.  That little facility that AIL Ministry built with the tithes and donations of people and churches in the United States is set to train and empower a new generation of missionary leaders.

I cannot think of a better example of effective short-term mission.

From the US Standards of Excellence for Short-Term Mission, to which Adventures in Life belongs, lets see how our STM in Oaxaca stacks up to the 7 Standards....

1. God Centered... The entire idea of this project was centered around sharing the love of Jesus Gospel message in a largely under-reached population and extending God’s Kingdom here on earth.

2. Empowering partnerships with a focus on local initiatives... The center was the dream of local churches that were already working in the area.  They were looking for a way to improve their mission.  AIL Ministry came alongside them and helped make that dream a reality.

3. Mutual Design... Both local leadership and AIL Ministry worked hand in sometime difficult hand to get this center done.  It was a team effort all the way through.

4. Comprehensive Administration... AIL Ministry worked hard to raise the funds necessary for the center and together with our local leadership, strove to be good stewards of both the people and financial resources God had entrusted us.

5. Qualified Leadership... Again, together with locals, AIL worked to make sure that participants in this project had the tools, training and resources needed to successfully complete our portion of the project.

6. Appropriate Training... We made sure that when people took part in our STM, they saw how it was connected to God’s larger plan in Oaxaca, were prepared culturally and came with an attitude of a learner-servant, respectful of the local church.

7. Thorough Follow-Up... This is where we are now.  The ministry is now in the hands of local indigenous leadership in Oaxaca and the National Baptist Convention.  We will continue to work together whenever and however we can, but this season of work at Tlacolula has been completed.  It was a short-term mission for Adventures in Life Ministry and that mission is now over. 

One of our teams working on the water system at the training center

 But while our mission is over, the ministry moves forward.

Some of the strongest criticisms of short-term mission are a lack of long-term impact and a focus on projects designed by Americans for American ministry.  From the start, this project was birthed, fed, and nurtured to completion by the local church in Oaxaca.

It was not easy.  There were times when like any married couple we fought.  I remember one particularly bad day when I was literally yelling at Pastor Saul insisting he was wrong.  But we got it done.

Together... in Christian partnership.

And now that little ministry center in Tlacolula, directed by local Oaxacan leaders, will begin training cross cultural missionaries to share the Gospel of Jesus in Mexico and beyond.

I feel fortunate, blessed, and incredibly honored to have played a part in making this happen.

If you’ve ever contributed to Adventures in Life Ministry, participated on one of our Oaxaca teams, or prayed for our ministry, you should feel likewise... because this is the fruit of your ministry and investment in Adventures in Life.

Thank you for being part of extending God’s Kingdom not just in Mexico, but around the world through your investment in Adventures in Life Ministry.

Short-term mission... long term impact.

Photos courtesy of Mission Focused, a ministry partner of Adventures in Life... check them out here!

He is Risen Indeed!

We serve in mission because when Jesus said "It is finished" it was really just the beginning!

He is Risen Indeed!

Have a blessed Easter holiday and celebration of our Lord and Saviour. 

A Texas Sized Love Affair

I spent the last week in Texas.  Like the popular jokes say, everything really is bigger in Texas.

Especially churches.

Everywhere I looked there were gigantic church buildings, almost all of which had mega-sized electronic billboard signs.  No matter where you went, one of those larger than life signs would be giving you a bible study schedule, a bible verse, or telling you that God wanted to have a little talk.

Now as most of you know, I travel, serve, and live a significant amount of my life in Mexico.  As we look at the people of Mexico, we are able to see that although a significant number of people identify with the Catholic Church, many are what we would call “Cultural Catholics.”

As Protestants, there are times when we speak almost derisively about the average Catholic and his or her faith.  We argue that even though they are connected to their church, the reality of Jesus is not making a real difference in their lives.  To put it another way, there seems to be a disconnect between Sunday and Wednesday.

Every Sunday millions of Mexicans flow into cathedrals and chapels all across the country, yet on Wednesday, that Sunday experience seems to auger no real transformation.

Driving through Texas, looking at the millions of dollars that have been spent on these massive churches, I was confronted with the same questions.

Are our churches making a difference in the daily life of people here in the United States?  Or, as we say about our neighbors to the south, has the US church experience become just part of the culture for a majority of our people?

Has church here become what my friend Camilo would call just a show, much like it would be described in Mexico for the Catholics?

I’ve been asking pastors here recently a very simple question... “Who in your church is in love with Jesus?”  Not the concept of Jesus, mind you, but Jesus himself.

I wish I could say these pastors were rattling off lots of names, but I can’t.  The last pastor I asked got a little contorted and told me that was a very hard question.

Really? 

Let me just say that if in our ministries, whether they be here in the United States, or around the globe in countries like Mexico, China, or perhaps Uganda, we are not seeing people come into a loving relationship with Jesus, something is wrong.

If we are not seeing lives radically transformed by the reality of the Gospel, something is wrong.

If all we are seeing is people who know a lot about Jesus, but are not passionately committed to loving and living for Him day by day, something is wrong.

I fear that many people here in the US have become little more than culturally Christian, much like the great majority of Catholics in Mexico.

What say you?  

Is it all as my friend Camilo calls it, a show?  Or can you say that the great majority of people in your church are passionately in love with Jesus?  How about you?

I hope and pray you are able to say you have a Texas sized love relationship with Jesus!