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Thoughts on Ralph Winter and His Life

“Of the three faculty members and those who would join them, Winter was the person most involved in new initiatives during his time at SWM. His ideas rarely sparked interest in or involvement from the greater Fuller community. There were just too many of them (ideas)!” (The Ralph Winter Story; location 1322; by Harold Fickett)

I still recall when Andy Andrews said, “Read as many biographies as possible.” What he meant, or what I interpreted from that, was how much you learn from history. In reading, The Ralph Winter Story, I am encouraged as a ministry leader with WorldVenture.

Ralph Winter used his creativity to make massive changes to global missions. He didn’t find his calling until late in life (like me!). While I don’t compare myself with someone of his stature, I do find encouragement in reading his life story. He is quoted a lot in the Perspectives course.

In trying to carve new roads to missions, I felt I needed to understand Ralph Winter’s life story.

A quote from his friend, Trotman is now on my Facebook profile:

“Don’t do what others can do or will do if there are things to be done that other can’t do or won’t do.”

Winter’s struggles to establish new thought processes in missionary work wasn’t always welcome. In one situation, his wife, Roberta clashed with a fellow nurse, Ruth, in Guatamala. Ruth insisted that medically trained missionaries, “…should decide what medical work should include.” Winter and Roberta studied the culture and noticed how the tribal people went to Shaman’s for medical and spiritual advice. To this people group it was strange to separate medical advice from spiritual advice, and Winter or Roberta had observed how often they came to the medical clinic to get marriage advice. However, the author states that Ruth was more traditional and fought them. The book asserts Winter found a way around that obstacle.

Winter had so many ideas and this meant that his creativity had him serving in many different kinds of projects at the same time. In fact, the book suggests his parents may have worried about his constant so-called “lack of focus.”

Tony, my husband, worried for a time about this. Since becoming a believer in 2002, I wrote skits for Solid Rock Christian Fellowship, directed dramas from the stage, ran a women’s tea and coffee for four years (randomly inviting people from the directory to my house which oftentimes meant women meeting other women they didn’t know attended SRCF), a prayer ministry, and helping in set up and take downs of SRCF’s third service. I also had author aspirations and wrote two novels during this time. One received a partial manuscript request from an agent and the other wasn’t fully ready before it was submitted by request to a small publisher. All of this was training for where I am now. Winter had a weakness, too.

With so many ideas, he didn’t fully commit to learning the language the mission board asked him to learn. The downside to having so much creativity is spreading yourself too thin. Winter didn’t really have a job. He got his education through the GI Bill, lived at home, got married, served as a missionary, and had odd jobs. Again, I am not finished reading it yet so I have not learned his whole story. Steady employment may have come later.

With a full time day job and working active online ministries, I am always careful not to do so much that the ministries I have worked hard to build fail due to lack of attention. This is why I read books about people from the past so I can learn from their mistakes and find encouragement in their struggles.

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Beyond Marketing: A Phoenix Workshop Coming Soon!

Beyond Marketing: Developing Evangelistic Outreach Teams is a Phoenix Pastor’s workshop coming January 9, 2018. I (WorldVenture) am partnering with Southwest Church Connection at Desert Springs Community Church to help pastors use social media to develop evangelistic outreach teams.

I would encourage churches to consider, not just sending your pastor to this workshop, but someone tech-minded from your congregation, too. Registration will be open soon. We want to let you know that this is coming up. Put it on your calendars and stay tuned. You can register to receive this blog via email or you can register to receive my prayer emails here.

TRC Magazine Publishing! #Christian

After the pie, when all the dishes are cleaned, and life returns to normal portions, my mind returns to pressing needs like TRC Magazine’s next edition. It’s the last edition of 2017. It’s been a fruitful year.

December means our Intern is coordinating the social media for TRC Magazine in honor of Advent. We’ll see devotionals and maybe some interviews. Renee, our volunteer, will compliment our intern’s social media with her art.

TRC Magazine is not an ordinary ezine. We publish stories to influence and make a difference. We also teach our volunteers and intern to engage with our readers. Our readers are global. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Not all are believers. Our vision is not to chase the stories everyone else is chasing. It’s a creative way to empower the church to serve online.

Read last edition by clicking here.

Interested in supporting this work and other works, give a monthly donation by clicking here.

“You Bring Your Phone to Church?” #Christian

“You bring your phone to church?” John asked me somewhat surprised and cautious.

“Yes, and so do other people.” I launched into great detail as quickly as I could due to a lack of time. “One person invites people to sit with her at church. She brings her cell phone to follow along the live sermon. Our church does a live sermon and a handful of us work to inspire deeper conversation about the sermon in the comment section of Facebook. I have a new phone, and this means, it can go total silence so I can have the live video playing and be there to serve the community online without disturbing others around me.”

“How do you focus on what you are being taught?” John looked troubled.

“Before the live sermon, I used to Facebook and Twitter my sermon notes. I can easily follow along the sermon. I even use my YouVersion Bible on the same device so I can keep up. So many times, when one does handwritten sermon notes, they go into a Bible or a notebook and never are used again. Why not share what I am learning with my community? If I am wrong, people can talk to me online about that, and I continue learning; and if an unbeliever is watching my notes, it allows for the possibility of more private conversations. The whole idea is to build a community inside and outside of church. Being available to pray for and answer questions during the live sermon is no less serving than handing out bulletins on Sunday or manning the Welcome Center. Some children workers can’t even hear the sermon most Sundays because of their service.”

When I had this conversation with John, I wanted to explain so much more, but we had to part ways. The most important thing one can remember when thinking about how social media impacts missions and evangelism is how we should use it to serve each other online. You can arrange for teams of people to serve on Sunday and some to serve during the week. All online and all using their own social media. With today’s technology, you can even do so while sitting in the service (tip: if your phone doesn’t have total silence, plug in head phones or go to the cry room of your church; you don’t have to wear your headphones; it’s just a way to keep the sound off).

Let’s reflect Jesus in our conversations as it is not about growing the church, but inviting people to participate in meaningful conversations so we share the Good News with people in our communities.

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How We are a Citizen of Heaven #Christian

I’m on a social media fast today in a hotel somewhere in Phoenix. This means I fast from all social media so I can rest, study, and even write without distraction while I focus on God, worship Him, and focus on who I am in Him. I am reading, “How to Read The Bible For All It’s Worth,” by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart.

Page 109 through 110 brought me up short. So far, I had been reading about Hebrew narrative and how the Old Testament narratives implied things, definition of what is cultural and what is truth, and what something meant then and what it means now. As I read, Redefinition, I knew that this is the kind of truth that I am trying to share in my life with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in America:

“Redefinition. When the plain meaning of the text leaves people cold, producing no immediate spiritual delight, or says something other than what they wish it said, they are often tempted to redefine it to mean something else. An example is the use often made of God’s promise to Solomon as it is narrated in Chronicles (2 Chron. 7:14-15). The context of this narrative clearly relates the promise to “this place” (the temple in Jerusalem) and “their land” (Israel, the land of Solomon and the Israelites). Understandably, many modern Christians yearn for it to be true of their land wherever they live in the modern world–and so they tend to ignore the fact that God’s promise that he will “hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” was about the only earthly land God’s people could ever claim as “theirs,” the Old Testament land of Israel. In the new covenant, God’s people have no earthly country that is “their land” –despite the tendency of some American Christians to think otherwise about the world. The country all believers now most truly belong to is a heavenly one (Heb. 11:16). (emphasis mine)”

Pastors periodically talk about examining ones spending habits on their checking account to see if God is a priority. What do we spend most of our money on? Are we investing in God’s Kingdom or in pleasure? The same should be said of auditing our own social media profiles. What is posted most often on your social media expresses the depth of your faith, your heart, whether it bleeds from pain and anger or oozes political angst. Do we wish death on our enemies even in a joking way?

“Sarcasm is anger gone underground and come back up in a clown suit,” says Patsy Clairmont, a Women of Faith writer and speaker. Our citizenship is in Heaven as believers. How can we reflect this in our postings and honor the country in which we live?

Horror and the Bible: A Commentary

In our deeply divided country, Mike Duran is one of the few who can challenge our culture without being inflammatory or divisive. In reading his latest book, Christian Horror: On the Compatibility of a Biblical Worldview and the Horror Genre, the book goes beyond surface arguments and shows us how the church should embrace the horror genre.

The book delves into various horrific details of Bible stories, art history, and how some don’t believe a devil exists. The book also presents a compelling argument how Christians have white washed everything. “Thus, Christian art became an alternative to ‘worldly’ fare, often defined as much by what it didn’t have, as what it did,” the book says on page 53. My favorite story shared in the book was about Christopher Hitchen’s brother, Peter, who became a believer when he viewed Roger Van Der Weyden’s painting, Last Judgement.

The horrific images portrayed in the painting caused, “Peter to see himself, ‘among the damned.'” Peter Hitchens became a believer because a painter didn’t hold back about heaven or hell. The book is a think-outside-the-box kind of thought process that inspires a Christian like myself to not put such narrow boundaries on how to reach the unreached, the unloved, and the unchurched. The book makes a strong case how horror should be an accepted genre among Christians.

3 Ways to Start a Movement

Several years ago, I stood dangerously close to never walking into church again. I couldn’t pray in church. I couldn’t worship in church. I shut down the moment I walked in. The hurt was real. I kept wondering, “Are we alive? What is church supposed to be? Who am I supposed to be?” Part of my problem was being in the wrong place. God was asking me to start a movement, and that meant leaving the comfortable to become acutely uncomfortable.

So, here I am in a healthier place, loving the fellowship with other believers, and enjoying worship in church again. I’m in line with God’s will in my life and I have peace about it. But my memory of the question, “Are we alive?,” continues to drive me. How can I tap into the different talents and gifts of the church body to inspire them to serve online? How can I make these dry bones come alive? That’s when my movement (singular) became movements (plural).

Movements are ideas curated on Social Media to create online communities around a brand or hobby. The idea is to encourage conversation between people that build relationships; relationships that lead to Gospel conversations. I realized the way to begin positive change is not only through prayer and the heavy reliance on the Holy Spirit, but also to tap into the congregation–a resource rarely used by pastors to even market their own church.

It sounds easy. Set up a Facebook group, invite people, and post often to encourage participation. In all honesty, serving this way can be brutal. Social Media means bringing the unpredictable into your life. People are from different cultures, backgrounds, and are dysfunctional. Think of a family reunion and that crazy Aunt, and you have chaos coming through as notifications on your phone. Running a successful group means being the moderator.

The moderator is always the enemy–a heartless person always censoring people’s posts. What our society lacks is boundaries and when you set boundaries, they lash out. So, when you begin a movement to inspire a different way of living or thinking, or to encourage deeper prayer lives, don’t look for instant results. You’ll have to go through deep valleys and climb high mountains. You’ll have periods of, “Am I a failure?” You are not a failure. It takes time for a movement to capture people’s hearts.

Movements are ideas that take root and inspire a church body to act. How do you start a movement?

Open a Facebook group about a hobby you like to do.
Start a small group from a blog you write to encourage people. If you write for single again women, start a single again small group that meets at a coffee shop. The small group can be online or in person.
Your status updates, Instagram posts, or Twitter updates should all be around your own personal mission statement for your movement.

The key is to tap into those in the church body who are open to use their favorite hobby, their educational backgrounds, or (fill in the blank) and train them on social media to build up that movement so people are inspired by them to be different. When we create community, we are being the church. When we are alive as a church body, people can’t help but notice God first. When we are sharing hope through relationship, God will use you to point them to Him.

Let those dry bones come alive!

Putting Together Puzzles

Ever do puzzles?

For a very short period in my life, I liked puzzles. My grandmother would tell me, “Start in the corners.” I believe she also said to do the sides first so you can figure out which blue piece is the sky. Without the corners and sides, it was nearly impossible to finish a puzzle. I talk about putting together a puzzle because it is like creating a social media ministry.

Social Media employs my creativity, my love of story telling, reading, art, and it gives me boundless freedom to find new ways to frame the Gospel and help others follow Him and help Christians serve Him. Mike Duran, an author, often talks about the church’s uneasy relationship with art. Yet, it is the visual story that is gaining ground versus the literal story. Our world is becoming more secondary oral than literal and writers and Christian artists must find new vehicles in which to share the Gospel. To see all the pieces of how I serve, you must attend a presentation, even if you never intend to support me financially. How can you pray if you don’t understand what I do?

Everything I do online is a different frame in which a Christian can use their abilities and time to serve and share the Gospel in more strategic and authentically engaging ways. Our pastor at Grace Baptist Church said on Sunday that our society is feeling more hopeless, more anxious. We can blame that on technology, North Korea, or (fill in the blank); or we can get involved and share hope with them through our every day activity online.

I ran across this quote from someone I don’t know anything about, but he makes a point:

“Social media websites are no longer performing an envisaged function of creating a positive communication link among friends, family and professionals. It is a veritable battleground, where insults fly from the human quiver, damaging lives, destroying self-esteem and a person’s sense of self-worth.” (Anthony Carmona)

In my newsletter, you see one or two pieces of what I do. You may have come to some correct or incorrect conclusions about what you think I do online.

Would you like to meet for coffee sometime to see the whole picture?

Just let me know.

Thrive and a Hackathon

How do you participate in TWO great events the weekend of October 20-22, 2017? Thankfully, technology gives us access in small, portable devices like a smart phone and a tablet. Most of the time, Hackathons primarily draw heavily on the coders time rather than the creative marketer and social media person. I’ve only ever participated in helping with the research of a project at a Hackathon.

I plan on being available on Friday with Indigitous after 6 pm and after that time on Saturday. On Sunday, I have all day. Thrive is all day on Saturday with Chandler Bible. As you know, I have been working with them as they become more intentional in social media outreach since last August. They are continually in my prayers.

But I’ve also made some new friends there.

So, it is worth the drive to Chandler from up north to see them.

Click here to learn more about this public event. Let me know if you are planning on attending.