Author: Ryan Hale

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General

January 8 2021

West Africa for Phase 2 Course

I’ve been working on the Phase 2 Training course, specifically trying to think about how to introduce the complexity of all of the different nationalities, tribes, languages, and backgrounds that we work with here in Catania. My initial plan was to try to work through it by region – for example, West Africa, East Africa, North Africa, etc. The peoples in each of those areas are very different, and see themselves as different, despite living on the same continent.

I think I’ve arrived at the idea of introducing these different nations and people groups through our times of prayer. Our weekly prayer calendar already reflects prayer for specific nations and their top people groups by population, so as people come in to train and work with us, I think they can learn about these different nations and peoples in preparation for our times of prayer and then experientially as they meet them during the day.

I’ve created a template per country that uses various resources for Geography, Culture, and Spiritual background information, and just started to fill it in. It certainly doesn’t feel complete, but for the breadth of people that we are working with, the likelihood that we will ever learn any of these in-depth, especially when we are meeting them in a third culture in Italy, seems low to me. Here is what I created for West Africa to date with more to come in other regions of the world.

Prayer Walk

On Friday, we have been going for a prayer walk, praying specifically for Muslims in our area given that their Friday (Jumu’ah) is similar to our Sunday in that they go to the mosque for congregational prayers and a teaching by the imam.

We know the imams in each of the mosques and have enjoyed spending time with them and sharing with them. During this prayer walk, we met an assistant imam at one of the mosques. We had previously given him some food as part of Covid relief, so as we were outside of the mosque praying today, he saw us and called and greeted us. We spent a few minutes talking and he invited us to come visit the mosque next week, so we’re hoping to take some time together one afternoon next week to visit their prayer time and then sit and visit together, hopefully having an opportunity to share our hope in Christ with them as well.

Abiding in Christ

We have been working to disciple a man that was baptized in this last year. As part of our discussion in the afternoon, we read John 15:1-8 and talked about what it means to “remain” or “abide” in Christ, as some of the translations say. As part of that process of abiding, we discussed three ways that we believe that we can do that:

  • Reading the Word of God
  • Obeying what Jesus tells us to do
  • Praying and hearing from God

There are probably other ways as well, but these were the ones that we identified and discussed. The result of this conversation is that we’ve decided to start meeting for a short time each day, even online as needed, to read God’s Word and pray together. This particular man has no background with the Bible, so I’m looking forward to see him grow as he learns what the Bible says.

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General

Dancing Robots

I’m generally pretty fascinated by advances in technology. I love seeing how sciences and technology advance to do things and create a world of new opportunities and help people and economies in new ways.

I do also think that there is reason to be concerned. As you think about advances in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, it isn’t a long leap to begin to think about how the world of the movie Terminator could be too far away. Even Elon Musk has spoken strongly of these things in the past.

But sometimes it can just be a little fun as the robotics companies show off some of their most recent advances in their abilities of the robots. Boston Dynamics recently released a video of their robots dancing to the song Do You Love Me. Enjoy!

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General

Earthquake Tracking

Last night around 8:30, we had an earthquake here in Sicily. It was down to the south of us near the coast by Ragusa, but some of our friends here in Catania felt the quake all of the way here in Catania. Some friends from our church sent this website to us from the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology so we can track the quakes if and when they happen: http://terremoti.ingv.it/

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General

Facebook Rejects “Love Your Enemy” Ads as Dating

Even though it is frustrating, this was also a funny thing that happened as I have been developing the Come Follow Me sites. Yesterday, I developed an advertisement for Facebook based on Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5:43-48 to love your enemies. Facebook rejected the ads on the grounds of their dating policy. HA!

When I saw the rejection initially, I laughed because I thought that it was just the algorithm messing up. But then I appealed the ruling, presumably to have a human look at the ad, and it was still rejected! Well, on to the next one, I guess…

Just for posterity, here are the videos and the landing page for those ads:

English – https://comefollowme.it/post/3542

Italiano – https://vienieseguimi.it/post/1588

Français – https://viensetsuismoi.it/post/310

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General

Holy Ambition

Categories
General

NoPlaceLeft Summit 2020 – Established Churches in the Work

I appreciated the stories and background from these pastors talking about how their churches started down the path of working toward a NoPlaceLeft vision. Here is a quick Table of Contents for the video:

  • Sugar Creek Baptist Church, Don Waybright – 00:25
  • Ross Ramsey – 7:44
  • Brian King – 16:35
  • JT Timblin – 23:30
  • What’s a barrier you faced in implementing NoPlaceLeft disciple-making / church planting? – 31:15
  • What would you encourage someone to do who wants to implement what they have learned with regard to NPL or help their church catch the vision? 36:45
  • Can you share a story from the harvest, something you have seen God do? 39:45
  • If you had to do it again, what would you do differently? 45:20
  • As pastors in established churches, what encouragement or challenge would you give to someone else in your shoes? 48:45
  • Common objection: Can we trust individuals who you are releasing to not become heretical? 52:50

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Catalyzing Movement

Finding Movement Leaders

One of my fellow workers recently sent me this podcast. I encourage you to give it a listen, especially if your aim, like ours, is to catalyze discipleship and church planting movements. For reference, if you would like to follow the show, check it out here.

I wanted to work through what I heard as some of the most important elements of finding and working with these people who will start movements. Here are the things that I took away along with some thoughts that I will include:

There is very little written on how to recognize a movement leader and how to help train and sustain them over the longer-term.

In the beginning, Bruce asked himself if he should follow the advice that he was given and go find and hire the best church planters that he could. After thinking about this for some time, he decided that this was not the right way to go.

Instead, over time, God gave him 6 people to invest in deeply. He prayed that God would bring them to him, and God did exactly that.

What was the most important thing to recognize within these people?

The answer is Vision – Do they have a vision to grow their ministry? Or do they have a vision to reach the nations? It isn’t easy to find this person that has a vision for reaching the nations and not just growing their own work.

At the same time, we see humility in movement leaders. It isn’t about growing their work. It is about seeing the Kingdom grow.

Bruce’s advice, then, is to pray that God will bring these people to you.

Next, we should, of course, say that we believe the Word of God is inspired from a doctrinal perspective, but do we also believe that the methods and practices that we see in the scriptures are also inspired? Or do we need to turn to other books and studies to determine our methods? Some thoughts to help round out this point:

  • Jesus was a master disciple-maker. Disciple-makers should make disciples like Jesus did and in the way that Jesus taught.
  • Jesus cast out demons – we should cast out demons. Jesus found people of peace – we should find people of peace.
  • Jesus discipled the few and shunned the crowds – we frequently like the crowds and shun the few. We need to rethink this!
  • Jesus said Come and see, follow me, be with me, and then go. That should also be our model.
  • So, the question to ask is: What did Jesus do? Let’s do that!

Disciple-making movement leaders ask themselves about their hope for those that they are investing in. As movement leaders, the hope should be that there are more workers. We desire to see that their ministry will exceed mine. This is what Jesus did and the example that Jesus gave.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

John 14:12-14

So, we have to find the right people. Jesus was the master of finding the core disciples and pouring his life into them. He filtered through the crowds, calling out the disciples using parables and difficult teachings, but the right ones stay.

Jesus fed the crowds with the loaves of bread and fish, but then called people to eat his flesh and drink his blood. As the crowds left, rejecting his teaching, Jesus looked at the disciples and asked them if they were going to leave too.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

John 6:68-69

This is an important way to find someone who may become a leader of a movement because they are dedicated to the teachings of Jesus. He is the Holy One of God in whom we can put our faith.

Categories
Holy Spirit

Am I filled with the Holy Spirit? pt. 2

One immediate question that we need to ask ourselves as we think about whether we have received the Holy Spirit is what we must do to receive him. As I mentioned back in the first post in this series, I don’t believe that there are recipes – first I do this, and then he does that – when it comes to the Holy Spirit, but I do believe that there are some important things that we must do in our relationship with God if we want him to be with us.

The first is that we must be repentant. Our attitude before God must not be proud, but instead understand that we are sinful and that it is our sin that has made us unclean and caused us to be separated from God. We were the ones who disobeyed, revolted, and walked away from God and his commandments, so my first step is that I must stop insisting that my way is the best way and instead admit that God’s way is right and do what he wants us to do.

When Moses initially went on the mountain to receive God’s laws, he came back down to find that the Israelites had built an idol, a golden calf, and were in complete disarray as a people. The result was that God told Moses that he would send an angel to go with the people but that he would not go because of the wickedness of the people. Moses pleaded with God to go with them, but the first thing that he had the people do was to remove their ornaments and the people mourned over what they had done. In the end, God relents and shows himself to Moses, showing that God will be merciful and will come near to the people who will be repentant before him. (Read the story in Exodus, chapters 32-34).

I think that this is why both John the Baptist and Jesus also called for repentance as they started their ministries. They knew that the first step to come into relationship with God is to be repentant before him.

As Jesus returned to heaven, it was now the disciples’ turn to continue in the same vein, calling people to repentance before God. On the day of Pentecost, as Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the Messiah and explained that the Jesus was the one that the Jews had been waiting for, the Messiah, and that the Jews had killed him. When asked what they can do, Peter immediately returns to the same square one:

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, so he requires the same attitude that God the Father and Jesus required: an attitude of repentance. If we desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the first step is absolutely clear. We must be repentant before God. Only then can we be able to move forward in our relationship with him.

As Jesus began his preaching, he called people to repentance, plus even one step more. He said that the kingdom of God is near, so we must repent and believe. I believe that this means that we must have faith and believe that God has come near to us in human form through Jesus, and now, looking back to his time in history, have faith and believe that his sacrifice was intended by God to be the punishment for our sins.

If we will believe this, the apostle Paul then says that we will receive the Holy Spirit:

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:13-14

To receive the Holy Spirit, we must be repentant, turning away from our sins, and believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord, the one to whom we give our lives.

But what about these other teachings, that we must have an additional experience beyond our point of belief, and potentially also other steps in receiving the Holy Spirit?

I don’t discount these possibilities, because we do see situations in the book of Acts where people have believed, and then they subsequently receive the Holy Spirit. For example:

  1. The disciples received the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 after previously believing in Jesus.
  2. The apostle Paul receives the Holy Spirit after having seen Jesus and through Ananias laying his hands upon him.
  3. When Paul was in Ephesus, he found some disciples who had received the baptism of John the Baptist for repentance, but were not aware of the Holy Spirit or of Jesus. They were baptized for their belief in Jesus and then Paul placed his hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

However, in addition, we also see the situation at the Centurion’s house where Peter and the believers that were with him saw the Holy Spirit come upon the Gentiles who were listening and then they were baptized, making this situation even different from each of the previous three where the Holy Spirit came after baptism.

But one thing seems clear in each of these situations: God found each of these people in repentance and belief in Jesus Christ which made room for him to enter their lives in the form of the Holy Spirit coming upon each of them. So a question that we must ask ourselves as we are considering whether or not the Holy Spirit lives in us is whether we have been – and are still! – repentant for the things that we have done in rebellion against God and his ways, and turn to believe that Jesus is both our Savior and the Lord of our lives, giving him control over all parts of our lives. This is the first step toward receiving the Holy Spirit.

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Commentary

God is about to do something great

The title of this post is a refrain that I have heard throughout my life in the church. I’ve heard this regularly from pastors, from people who are explaining what they believe is a prophecy from God, or just from someone who is telling us what they think God is doing within us or around us.

As I write here on this blog site, I don’t like to write in the negative or be a critic, so I want to say that this is not my intention here. However, what I do want to say is that I have frequently been disappointed by these statements that “God is about to do something great”, because, through my eyes and in my experience, life seems to kind of roll along normally without anything seemingly “great” happening.

I want to allow for some possible explanations here that I think should be considered. Here are a few that I can think of:

First, I might have my head down or my heart closed such that I don’t see the great things that God is doing around me. This is a very real possibility and something that I have realized about myself at times after I have looked back in hindsight. After having realized this, I have put myself through seasons where I was specifically trying to look for God at work around me, and thankfully I have been able to see it at times. Thank God for this!

Second, connected to the first point, my expectations of what “great” means may be a bit too grand. I, of course, believe that God can work through everyday events as much as the spectacular, so looking for God within the everyday is important as well.

Third and finally, it may actually be that there is an optimism about God’s movement and working among us that is unwarranted given our lack of obedience and taking action upon his commandments.

Recently, I was talking with a friend about a difficult situation that he was facing. He told me that God would need to intervene and that he felt like Moses facing the Red Sea. He knows that God will need to act for him to go forward in the situation that he is in and he quoted what Moses said to the Israelite people in Exodus 14:

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Exodus 14:13-14

We find out that Moses is exactly right. God does fight for the Israelites. As we go forward in Exodus 14, we see that God gives the Israelites a rear guard throughout the night, he parts the Red Sea so that they can cross, and then he covers the Egyptian army with the sea such that it wipes out both Pharaoh and the entire army. Truly, Moses is correct that God will fight for them, and we see that God follows through on this promise!

My sense is that this is the nature of these promises from the pastors and the prophetic words that say God is about to do something are similar to the words from Moses. In many ways, I think that they are right. I believe that God is typically up to something and ready to move, ready to draw others to himself, ready to use someone.

So why have I not, then, sensed significant movement when these things are proclaimed and declared? Wouldn’t I expect to know that, if God is moving around me, I should be able to recognize it? It certainly seems that way as we look in the scriptures as the people typically knew that God was moving, even if they didn’t know precisely the nature of what he was doing.

Keeping in mind that it could be any of the three areas that I mentioned above, I want to suggest that I think it really is related to the third issue above, a lack of obedience in the things that we have already been told to do.

Interestingly, about the time that I had this conversation with my friend, I also had been reading this exact same passage with my family during our morning time in the Bible that we have while eating our breakfast. At that time, I noticed that God, right after Moses told the Israelites to be still and to stand firm, God immediately then tells Moses to get moving! Directly in the next verses, here is what God says:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

Exodus 14:15-16

We see, therefore, that God tells Moses to get moving. He doesn’t want them to stay put. He wants them to go!

So was Moses wrong when he told the Israelites to stand firm, and to be still? Was God overruling him? Maybe / maybe not. In my opinion, I think that, if Moses means that the Israelites need to have a dependency upon God and that he will do everything that they need to escape, then he is exactly correct. And in truth, I think that this is precisely what Moses means.

But if we look at the entirety of the passage, we see that God calls Moses and the Israelites to move, to continue their escape from Egypt, to continue to do what he had already told them to do. He wants them to continue to obey him. They are to continue to trust him, that he would deliver them, but they are to continue in their obedience because of their trust in him, and in this way, God will save them from destruction at the hand of the Egyptians.

How do we apply this, then, to our situation today? When people say, “God is about to do something great”, can’t we also say that we must trust that God is working while at the same time being certain that we’re doing what he has already told us to do?

Jesus said:

If you love me, keep my commands.

John 14:15

Here are some foundational commands that we might consider:

Are we loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Are we loving our neighbor as ourselves?

Are we making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that he commanded?

In what real, practical ways are we doing this? If we say that we are doing it, is it the case that we are simply agreeing with the scriptures that these things are right without making it practical in our lives, or are we actually putting time, energy, money, and effort behind making these things real? How? In what way?

I believe that it is true that God is about to do something great, but I don’t know that we will see it unless we are doing the things that he has already told us. God is always doing something new, but as his people, we need to remember that God has already given us all sorts of things to do, and we need to be sure that we’re doing those things. I believe that it is likely that through our doing the things that God has already told us to do that we will see God do something great.

Categories
Holy Spirit

Am I filled with the Holy Spirit? pt. 1

This is the first of what will probably be a few posts touching on this topic. Like all things that I post to my blog, this is the result of study that I am doing, so feel free to let me know where you think I’ve gone wrong and we can think about it together!

I think this question is difficult to answer for a few reasons:

First, the Holy Spirit is invisible and typically doesn’t speak audibly, so to always be certain that you are connecting with him in the moment, without the advantage of hindsight, can be difficult.

Second, I’ve found that the Holy Spirit doesn’t operate according to step-by-step recipes that people try to create. While I believe we can know his character, he is not, and will not be, put into a box that will allow us to say how he will act in each situation. People might say that you can expect him to do certain things in a certain way or in a certain order, but I’ve just never found that he works that way.

Third, Jesus even seems to tell us that the Spirit moves as he pleases and you know him by the effects that he leaves behind. Like the wind, for example, you can hear its sound, but you don’t know where it is going. So also with the Holy Spirit, you may find yourself seeing that he is working based on the effects of his work.

There are several other reasons for these difficulties, including differences in teachings about whether the Spirit is still operating today, the gifts of the Spirit, etc.

Despite all of this, I think it is important to try to understand as much as we can about the Holy Spirit, according to the Word of God, and be able to help other people understand it as well. In this way, we can try to work together with the Spirit, with him in the lead, to see the Kingdom of God come here on earth.

Jesus seemed to think it was pretty important as well:

Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.

John 3:5

So, given all of this, I think we should dig in and learn more, so here goes…

How can I know that I am filled with the Holy Spirit? John gives us a direct test to consider:

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

1 John 4:2-3

And then a little bit later, he says:

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.

1 John 4:13-14

From what I’m reading here, I think this means that a good starting point to know whether or not we are filled with the Holy Spirit is to ask who we believe Jesus to be. John says that every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

Beyond this, John goes on to say that if anyone acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God, God lives in them.

This is a good start, but God’s Word has much more to say about how the Holy Spirit works, so let’s go one step further in this post. I heard a recent podcast on this topic suggesting that we consider the opposite viewpoint: What would I be like if I didn’t have the Holy Spirit? Here are a couple of additional scriptures, this time from the Apostle Paul as he wrote to the church in Corinth:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:14

Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3

Paul seems to go one step beyond John, beyond acknowledgement of Jesus’s divinity in the flesh, saying that it isn’t possible to say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. In other words, only by having the Holy Spirit inside of me can I humble myself underneath Jesus, submitting to him and what he commands of me and my life. Otherwise, the things that Jesus says, and those things that come from the Word of God, which at the least are the things that come from the Spirit of God, seem to be foolishness to me.

These are a couple of ways to get started to know that I am filled by the Holy Spirit. The scriptures have much more to say on this topic though…stay tuned!