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International Justice Mission Mobile App Now Available

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I really admire the work of International Justice Mission. So I was glad to see they now have an iPhone app. Here’s the description:

International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to ensure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to ensure that public justice systems – police, courts and laws – effectively protect the poor from violence.

The IJM iPhone app empowers users to stand against oppression by giving them tools to engage in the fight for justice. Users can stay connected directly to IJM staff and projects around the world – while helping to drive the movement in their own networks and communities.

Features:

+ Get breaking updates on IJM casework, including the latest IJM-related headlines and breaking news on rescues, arrests, convictions and more

+ Write encouraging notes to IJM’s frontline staff

+ Get equipped to take action with urgent advocacy opportunities

+ Learn about simple steps you can take to fuel the movement, and easy ways to generate buzz by posting to your social networks right from inside the application

+ Organize your church, Bible study, or Campus group into a giving team around an IJM project

+ Interact with a map of IJM’s progress in eradicating slavery and oppression

+ Find events in your area and connect with other users who attend the event

+ Read great culture changing blog content from Gary Haugen, and others

What to Ask for for Christmas This Year

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Kiva gift certificates.

If you have thought before that you’d rather not just receive more stuff each year for Christmas, a good alternative is to ask for Kiva gift cards. Here are two benefits.

First, it’s a gift that enables you to help others.

Second, it’s fun. Figuring out the best way to invest $50 or $100 or more in some thoughtful entrepreneurs in the developing world is more fun than getting a new sweatshirt.

Nothing against giving sweatshirts and other such things. There’s a place for that, too. But it would be exciting and even more fulfilling to make “gifts that enable you to give” a larger part of our Christmas giving and receiving.

In South Africa

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I’m in South Africa for the next few weeks for the Lausanne Congress.

For this week, I’m with John Piper and some others from DG as he speaks at a couple pastors conferences.

Then, beginning Sunday, I’ll be in Cape Town for the actual Congress. It’s a gathering of more than 4,000 Christians from more than 200 nations to discuss the state of global Christianity and world evangelization. The first congress was called by Billy Graham in 1974 and was a major landmark in the progress of modern missions. The second congress was in 1989, and this I now the third. You can learn more about it from the Lausanne website and the helpful article in Christianity Today, The Most Diverse Gathering Ever.

While I’m here I’ll post some updates from the congress and possibly some various insights on issues of missions strategy, Christianity and culture, solving large global problems, and just being in Africa.

Giving to the Lausanne Congress

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In a little less than a month, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization begins in Cape Town.

The first Congress was held in 1974 and is regarded as a milestone in the history of modern missions. Here’s a bit of the history:

In July 1974 some 2,700 participants and guests from over 150 nations gathered in the Swiss Alps for ten days of discussion, fellowship, worship and prayer. The Congress achieved an unprecedented diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, ages, occupations and denominational affiliations. In fact, TIME magazine described the Lausanne Congress as “a formidable forum, possibly the widest-ranging meeting of Christians ever held.”

Congress participants heard addresses from some of the world’s most respected Christian leaders of the time, including Graham, Samuel Escobar, Francis Schaeffer, Malcolm Muggeridge, and John Stott. Ralph Winter’s plenary address, in which he introduced the term “unreached people groups” was hailed as “one of the milestone events in missiology.” In contradistinction to those calling for a moratorium on foreign missions, Winter argued that because thousands of groups remained without a single Christian witness, cross-cultural evangelization should be the primary task of the church. Dr. Scott Moreau (Evangelical Missions Quarterly) and Dr. Mike O’Rear (Global Mapping) have called the people groups concept “the most significant development in evangelical mission strategy over the last 25 years” (Moreau 1998).

Lausanne II was held in 1989, and the third Congress is next month. You can learn about the Lausanne movement here.

I noticed that as of last week, there are still some funds left to raise to ensure that the Congress is fully funded. This would be a worthy cause worth giving to, and if interested you can give online at their site.

God-Centered Living at Work

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Here is a good, short article by John Piper reflecting on Ephesians 6:7-8. Here’s an excerpt from his fourth point, “Encouragement that nothing good is done in vain”:

Perhaps the most amazing sentence of all is this: “Whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” This is amazing. Everything. Every little thing you do that is good is seen and valued by the Lord. And he will pay you back for it. Not in the sense that you have earned anything by putting him in your debt. He owns you and everything in the universe. He owes us nothing. But he freely, graciously chooses to reward good things done in faith. Nothing we do. Nothing. Not one thing is done in vain. “Whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” Astounding!

You Will Suffer from Your Work, and It Is Not Sin

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I feel like I could write a trillion words on the subject, and I hope to write on this in more detail in the coming months (we’ll see). Ajith Fernando captures the essence of my thoughts very well in his article To Serve is To Suffer. He’s hitting a note that you rarely see these days, and I think he’s right on:

I have a large group of people to whom I write asking for prayer when I have a need. Sometimes my need is overcoming tiredness. When I write about this, many write back saying they are praying that God would strengthen me and guide me in my scheduling. However, there are differences in the way friends from the East and some from the West respond.

I get the strong feeling that many in the West think struggling with tiredness from overwork is evidence of disobedience to God. My contention is that it is wrong if one gets sick from overwork through drivenness and insecurity. But we may have to endure tiredness when we, like Paul, are servants of people [emphasis added].

The New Testament is clear that those who work for Christ will suffer because of their work [emphasis added]. Tiredness, stress, and strain may be the cross God calls us to. Paul often spoke about the physical hardships his ministry brought him, including emotional strain (Gal 4:19; 2 Cor 11:28), anger (2 Cor 11:29), sleepless nights and hunger (2 Cor 6:5), affliction and perplexity (2 Cor 4:8), and toiling — working to the point of weariness (Col 1:29). In statements radically countercultural in today’s “body conscious” society, he said, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16); and, “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:11-12). I fear that many Christians approach these texts only with an academic interest, not seriously asking how the verses should apply in their lives.

The West, having struggled with the tyrannical rule of time, has a lot to teach the East about the need for rest. The East has something to teach the West about embracing physical problems that come from commitment to people. If you think it is wrong to suffer physically because of ministry, then you suffer more from the problem than those who believe that suffering is an inevitable step on the path to fruitfulness and fulfillment. Since the cross is a basic aspect of discipleship, the church must train Christian leaders to expect hardship. When this perspective enters our minds, pain will not touch our joy and contentment in Christ. In 18 different New Testament passages, suffering and joy appear together. In fact, suffering is often the cause for joy (Rom 5:3-5; Col 1:24; James 1:2-3).

In short, suffering is not just persecution. As Paul’s own example shows, it is also the pain, tiredness (2 Cor 6:5 — even “sleepless nights,” in which I would also include all-nighters), seasons of extensive work (2 Thessalonians 3:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:9), confusion (2 Cor 4:8), emotional pressure (2 Cor 11:28; Gal 4:19), and “non-mind-like-water” mental “weights” that come our way as we are simply being faithful. These things are not automatically signs that we are working too hard. They are often part of the path, and they are supposed to be.

What is Vocation?

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Stephen Nichols booklet What Is Vocation? (Basics of the Faith) is a helpful and quick read on the subject. It helps to remind us that, whatever our work is (ministry work, marketplace work, or working in the home), it is a calling from God and therefore is immensely meaningful when done for the glory of God.

Another helpful read on the doctrine of vocation is Gene Veith’s excellent book God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life.

And, if you haven’t made the connection already, it’s worth noting: everything that I write on productivity is really a fleshing out of the doctrine of vocation on the practical side.

Upcoming Lausanne 12 Cities Conversation Thursday Night

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I’m looking forward to attending the Lausanne Congress this fall in South Africa. Prior to the congress they are hosting 12 conversations in 12 cities to start a conversation on major issues facing the church such as global poverty, injustice, world evangelization, and more. The next one is this Thursday night at Saddleback Church. It will also be webcast live (7:00-9:00 Pacific Time). You can find more info here.

Also, here is the description from that page:

The Saddleback Conversation Gathering

Global Poverty, Injustice, Other World Faiths, HIV/AIDS, Religious Persecution
We live in a new world with new realities, and it’s time for a new conversation about the internal struggles and external pressures facing the Church. 12 Cities | 12 Conversations, hosted by the Lausanne Movement, are free gatherings in strategic US cities to facilitate conversation among church leaders, thinkers, pastors, authors, musicians, advocates, artists, social entrepreneurs, and YOU.

Rescuing Ambition

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Dave Harvey’s excellent book, Rescuing Ambition, releases next month. Through the end of Friday, you can pre-order it for 35% off at Crossway’s microsite.

Harvey argues that ambition needs to be rescued from a false understanding. We tend to think of it “as nothing more than the drive for personal honor or fame.” And ambition that terminates on ourselves, to be sure, is dishonorable. But ambition directed towards a purpose larger than ourselves — ambition for the glory of God and the good of the world — is not only good and right, but essential.

Ambition in this sense is a God-implanted drive to improve, produce, develop, create, and make things better. When ambition dies or is neglected, big dreams die. And when big dreams die, the world misses out, and we fail to realize the full potential that God has given us.

I think that Harvey is right on in this. We have let ambition lie neglected, and as a result have become too accustomed to dreaming small dreams. By rescuing ambition, Harvey encourages us to dream big dreams that are worthy of a big God, instead of being content with life as usual and the status quo.

(This is very related to the topic of productivity, by the way, because ambition drives productivity. Further, I argue in the about page that productivity is not simply about our own personal effectiveness, but is ultimately about helping to make our places of work, our communities, and society more effective. The kind of ambition that Harvey is talking about fuels the drive to be productive in this holistic way. Without ambition, you are more likely to be concerned merely with your own productivity, which aborts the whole concept and turns it inward. Productivity is really about making things better in all areas of life — especially our work, communities, churches, and society.)

So I’m very excited about Harvey’s book. Which makes it fitting that this is the first book for which I have written a blurb. Here’s the blurb I wrote for the book, which sums up my above sentiments:

Dave Harvey teaches us that God wants ambition back in our understanding of godliness and spiritual health. As Christians, we are to be zealous for good works (Titus 2:13) — that is, ambitious for them. We are to be people who dream and do big things for the glory of God and the good of others. This is a critical book for the church today because it helps us recover the spirit of William Carey, who ambitiously said ‘Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

For more on ambition, let me also recommend John Piper’s sermon Holy Ambition: To Preach Where Christ has not Been Named.

John Calvin on the Common Good

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“It is an error to think that those who flee worldly affairs and engage in contemplation are leading an angelic life… We know that men were created to busy themselves with labor and that no sacrifice is more pleasing to God than when each one attends to his calling and studies well to live for the common good.” John Calvin