Harder road, more fruit

I was recently struck by a quote from Alex Kendrick. Many of you know Alex from his movies like Facing the Giants (2006), Fireproof (2008), and most recently Courageous (2011). A friend of mine (another Alex) introduced me to a wonderful resource called I AM SECOND--a collection of short films detailing some amazing testimonies. Alex Kendrick's story is one of them. The film opens with Kendrick speaking these words:

God said something to me. It's like He spoke to me so clearly I heard Him word for word. And He said, "Alex, would you rather have an easier road with less fruit, or a harder road with more fruit?"

You know, when God asks us a question He's not looking for information, He's looking for a response from us. He's eliciting faith within us. When I heard the question God asked Alex Kendrick, it resonated so deeply within me that I responded with tears. I have believed for many years this very thing: God is doing something hugely significant through Leaders 4 Life, but the path to get there will be long and difficult, kinda like the old Elvis song, "True love travels on a gravel road."

The last few years have been really hard for Lisa and I and our team. There have been difficulties of many kinds--relationally, financially, and organizationally. In January our personal checking account balance registered $2.63 before a check came in. February wasn't much different. I'm not asking you for money, because money won't necessarily solve the things we're going through right now. We're not worried about it either, so please don't you worry. My point is this: we walk this long, difficult gravel road because 1) God has called us to and, 2) because we know at some point God will intervene in a big way. And God has already been intervening. In quiet but significant ways, God has started healing those fractured elements in our lives and in our ministry. In the meantime, we remain faithful, consistent, and we set our faces like flint toward the goal of establishing and creating this mission.

So I ask for your prayers. In this next season I want to spend some time praying about the next step for us to take. We feel ready. Our faith has become stronger and stronger and our confidence in the mission has never been higher! We believe now more than ever that God wants to do something significant through this ministry entrusted to us called Leaders 4 Life. We believe it cannot be stopped by trial or tribulation, although our unfaithfulness would surely have a damaging effect. So, our trust in God to come through cannot be quenched!

Here is the short film on Alex Kendrick's story: Alex Kendrick - I Am Second

We Need Your Help! Major Changes happening

It has been nearly two months since my last blog post and there are some major changes to report.

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others" is a motto we strive to live by. While we have a wonderful community scattered around the globe, the community we have been developing here locally in Phoenix is still fairly thin. So after much wrestling in prayer and listening to wise counsel, I have decided to begin pursuing full time pastoral work here in the U.S. We don't see this as a step backwards at all, but we believe such a move has the potential to create a community of people who are passionate about mission.

So, I need your help. Pastors know churches looking for pastors. Please forward this blog post to your pastor, asking if he knows of any churches looking for a pastor. If you yourself know of churches which are passionate about mission and which are looking for a lead/senior pastor, teaching pastor, or mission pastor, please let me know! I would love to talk with them.

A second major change which has occurred is that our church here in Phoenix with whom we have been trying to partner over the past couple of years has lost its pastor. Earlier this month I had the privilege of preaching on the first Sunday we were without a pastor. I addressed what Scripture says a church should be looking for in a pastor. You can listen to my message The Good Pastor in its entirety, or you can listen to a short clip below. Thanks for your help in passing the word along!

Values 1 of 3

“Values” are demonstrated in behaviors. Leaders 4 Life has three main values: 1) preaching the gospel and building the church; 2) leadership; and 3) expertise. Below is an explanation of the first of these three, along with a few additional aspects which flow out of this first value. 

First Presbyterian Church, Freetown

·         Preaching the Gospel & building the Church – We preach the gospel. It is the only thing which can remedy the basic problems of humanity by changing the human heart. We build up the church. The church is the vehicle which God has ordained to bring redemption to the world. Out of this value flows the following traits …

o   Prayer – Prayer is woven into who we are and into everything we do. We cannot produce true and lasting transformation without God’s help, so we pray.

o   Discipleship – The “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:19 does not prescribe evangelism per se, but commands that we “make disciples.” The preaching of the gospel and the making of fully-committed followers of Christ is the essence of the church’s mission.

o   Compassion – We strive to be people who exude compassion and love in both our attitudes as well as our actions. We seek to be compassionate whether we are engaged in evangelism, leadership training, or providing clean water.

o   Responding to the Holy Spirit – Just as the Holy Spirit empowered and guided the early church (Acts 2), so we seek to be sensitive to the Spirit, submitting to His leading and relying upon his power. This means we submit our plans to the Spirit but we are also flexible enough to capitalize on un-planned for, Spirit-led opportunities.

o   Integrity – Integrity (honesty, truthfulness, uprightness) is basic to the Christian faith as well as to the running of any organization. Integrity instills confidence in those who partner with us. Unfortunately, corruption is rife in Sierra Leone. The lack of integrity in some charities also causes mistrust. Therefore, we seek to be transparent in our dealings, especially with our finances, and we refuse to participate in bribery or corruption of any kind (Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19). In addition, we seek to have integrity in dealing with the vulnerable, especially children.

Mission

             Our mission statement: “To provide access to the highest caliber leadership and expertise in the world in 4 areas—spiritually, physically, socially and intellectually—in order to transform local communities in one of the most challenging places on earth.”  

The Cotton Tree has been a national symbol of freedom in Sierra Leone since the late 1700's.

             Our mission is to create life in Sierra Leone by providing access to leadership in 4 areas: spiritually, physically, socially and intellectually. Jesus addressed these 4 basic aspects of humanity in Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart (social) and with all your soul (spiritual) and with all your mind (intellectual) and with all your strength (physical).” We believe, therefore, our mission is not complete unless it is holistic, addressing each of the basic facets of humanity.

         

Vision

            Our vision statement: We exist to create life-giving Christian leaders and to transform local communities in one of the most challenging places on earth.   

            Simply put, the vision of Leaders 4 Life is to bring heaven to earth in Sierra Leone—to bring God’s goodness, peace, truth and healing to this country. We want to bring high-caliber Christian leadership and expertise to bear upon one of the most challenging situations in the world. We exist to create life-giving Christian leaders in Sierra Leone. 

Scriptural Justification

            Why should Christians be concerned about a country like Sierra Leone? What does Scripture have to say regarding mission work to such a country?

            A first justification for such mission work to Sierra Leone comes from Scripture’s numerous statements about the believer’s responsibility towards the poor. For example, God’s people are to care for the poor through charitable provision (Leviticus 19:10) and through providing justice to those who are defenseless due to their poverty (Leviticus 19:15). God’s ideal is that there be no poor among His people (Deuteronomy 15:1-11), and the early Christians demonstrated this by sharing their goods with one another so that no one was in need (Acts 2:44-45). Sierra Leone has consistently been ranked among the poorest of poor nations in the world. If ever these Scriptural commands concerning poverty applied to a nation, Sierra Leone fits the mould. 

            Second, one might simply note that mission work is the primary focal point of the early church. The church’s birth and its first efforts are rooted in mission. It is no accident that the stories about Jesus in the gospels are followed in the Christian Bible by the book of Acts: Jesus’ coming (and the coming of the Holy Spirit) gives birth to the missionary work described in Acts. The first leaders of the church—men such as Peter, Paul, James and Jude—were all missionaries, preaching about Jesus and his resurrection from the dead and planting churches. This is what the church in every age should primarily be about: the making of disciples of Jesus and the building up of the church. As such, the church should be putting its best and brightest on the mission field.

            One final instance from Scripture will suffice. In writing to the Corinthians who were confident in their own wisdom and strength, Paul explains God’s thinking on human power:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:25-29)

Similarly, James writes that God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith (James 2:5-6). Jesus’ message is in fact good news for the poor (Luke 4:18-19). In short, Sierra Leone—humbled by its poverty and its civil war—is ripe for the gospel and for genuine Christian service. And, as the gospel takes stronger root there, one can be confident that Christians in this country have the potential to be very ardent and faithful believers. Indeed, our experience in the country has proven that there are some amazing Christians in the country, however small in number they may be.

The Challenging Context of Sierra Leone

When starting a new venture it is crucial not only to assess your strengths, but also to take stock of the challenges and potential obstacles. But being wide-eyed about the obstacles can help us overcome them. The major challenge for Leaders 4 Life is the context in which we are called to work. It will take a Herculean effort to prevail in a place like Sierra Leone. Here's why ...

Corruption is rife in Sierra Leone and recent efforts to root out corruption in the government, army, and police force are slow-going. The main airport, Lungi International, is notorious for bribery and corruption. The infrastructure of the country was decimated during their 11 year civil war and it is only beginning to be rebuilt. For instance, although the war ended in 2002, consistent 24-hour electricity in the capital city of Freetown was only just restored in 2010 along with the city’s hydro-electrical plant being put back on track for completion. Roads are just beginning to be rebuilt so that travel remains slow and difficult. The postal system is notoriously unreliable so nothing can be mailed in or out of the country except by UPS, which is extremely expensive. Less than 1% of the people in Sierra Leone have Internet access, and it is one of the few countries left which is wholly reliant upon expensive satellite bandwidth. (The World Bank estimates that Sierra Leone pays 10 times as much as East Africa and 25 times higher than America for Internet access.)[1] Clean water is a substantial problem in the country (although bottled water is plentiful enough). Food is scarce as subsistence farmers struggle to obtain the skills, equipment and raw materials to improve their food supply.

            The rainy season in Sierra Leone—May to November—makes travel and construction slow and difficult. This large amount of water in the country is, however, also a potential resource for power, etc.

For many people, gathering firewood to sell is the only way to survive.

Unemployment remains high at 74%. Besides contributing to a depressed economy, such high unemployment is a potential threat because it has the potential danger of creating civil unrest. Many of the unemployed or under-employed are youth, and some of these youth are former child soldiers (an estimated 10,000 child soldiers were forced into military action during the war). Such frustration and “idle hands” among the country’s youth is a continuing security threat. 

            Sierra Leone has been consistently ranked near the bottom of the human development index for the past 20 years.[2] Due to the extreme poverty, the crime rate in Sierra Leone is very high with the most common being petty theft, burglary and muggings. Pick-pocketing is also common in highly populated areas such as the ferries or major city centers. More high profile crimes in Sierra Leone are drug and human trafficking. Along with Guinea and Guinea Bissau to the north, Sierra Leone is considered a “weak state” or a “narco state.” Drug traffickers from Columbia and other drug-producing countries in South America use these West African countries as hubs en route to Europe, often bribing airport officials to refuel and make their passage. In the process, drugs often filter into these countries themselves. Women and children are also often taken from the rural provinces of Sierra Leone and trafficked for the purpose of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

Children at a school in Lungi.

            The effects can still be felt in the country from its history of colonialism and poor governance, leading to a brutal civil war. The education level in Sierra Leone is poor, with only a 40% rate of literacy among adults, 66% among male youth (15-24 yrs) and 46% among female youth (15-24).[3] Tribalism makes social cooperation, in general, difficult. The fair and equal treatment of women is also an issue. 
          The level of health in Sierra Leone is poor. Malaria and yellow fever are common as is tuberculosis and HIV. Polio is also present. Sierra Leone’s mortality rate for children 5 years old and under is the 5^th worst in the world and the maternal death rate the 4^th worst in the world.  

The tools of witchcraft for sale at the local market.

Secret societies and witchcraft remains prevalent religious influences in Sierra Leone, keeping the country in spiritual bondage. The practice of female circumcision related to such religious practices occurs in 95% of women in Sierra Leone and often creates health problems such as severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and stillbirths. 

             Sierra Leone is not an easy place to operate and initial progress may be slow. However, it is in light of such challenges that we have chosen our particular tactic. The first phase in building our L4L Communities addresses—at least on a small scale—many of the infrastructural challenges (more on this later). Later phases address spiritual issues such as corruption and witchcraft through the planting of churches with the preaching of the gospel; health challenges through the building of clinics; and tackle social and educational issues through the starting of orphanages and schools. The L4L Institute aims to raise the level of technical and leadership expertise (again, more on this later).

I don't know what kind of emotions are evoked in you when you read about these challenges, but I get an adrenaline rush thinking them. I get pumped because I dream about the day when Sierra Leone is rebuilt, revitalized, and renewed.    

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[1] This situation will hopefully soon change; in 2011 Sierra Leone—with a grant of $30m from the World Bank—connected to a submarine fiber optic cable which will run from France to South Africa. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/sierraleone-fibre-idUSL5E7LA2W920111010 and http://www.theafricareport.com/201110105174258/reuters-feed/sierra-leone-gets-fibre-optic-link-to-internet.html: both accessed October 10, 2011.

[2] See the United Nations Development Programme’s statistics on Sierra Leone here,  http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/SLE.html: accessed October 11, 2011.

[3] Statistics from UNICEF’s website, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sierraleone_statistics.html#77: accessed June 26, 2011.