Team Worship

Our team gathers weekly for worship. Worship is not limited to what we can sing and play on a guitar though.  Because we desire to see God multiply healthy, spiritually well-rounded followers of Christ, we have committed to working towards and relying on God to cause us to be well-rounded disciples ourselves.

Our time together involves magnifying our heavenly Father through songs. (We have been blessed with a team member, Kyle, who does a great job leading us during this time.)

Prayer is an important part of ministry and worship.  We pray corporately as a team, spending time seeking direction from the Lord.  We also pray throughout the week in small groups, sometimes in our apartment and sometimes in the local park or cafe. 

We spend time studying God's Word because it is through the Word that we receive direction and guidance.  We challenge each other to search deeper for answers that are not clear upon first reading.

 Fellowship, (aka. just hanging out and often eating) is also important as it allows us time to encourage each other, talk about ministry struggles and successes, and build deeper relationships.

We do ministry together, not everyone all the time but as the opportunity arises.  This is a great way to check out other ministries and see where God may want to use us long-term.


Thanks to Brett Clark for most of the pictures!

Imagine

Imagine you are 10 years old.  You are small for your age, have beautiful long black hair, an energetic, attention-getting personality, and your name is Lia.  Instead of going to school, you work seven days a week from two in the afternoon until two in the morning selling gum on the sidewalk to passerbys, mostly tourists out for the latenight scene.  If you get enough money and are hungry, you go to a 7-11 store nearby and buy an ice cream cone.

One night, some of the passerbys don't just smile and pass by, but they stop and begin talking to you.  Are you supposed to trust them?  From your experience growing up in the city, you don't.  But when they pull out coloring pages and sharp, new colored pencils, the kid inside of you can't be held back.  You place the box of gum down next to you and begin coloring.  The friendly strangers talk with you as you color, asking about your school, family, and favorite things to do.  After a while, they must go, but they say they will return another night.  Will they really return? You wonder.

While you are working a few nights later, some friendly and familiar smiles greet you.  They did return!  The strangers introduce themselves again and pull out more coloring sheets and a dry erase board with markers.  You sit with them on the sidewalk against a closed storefront to play and listen to a story they brought, one about a man named Jesus.

Soon, you come to expect and look forward to seeing the friendly faces a few times a week.  You enjoy the chance to be a kid and do kid-things instead of working and hope not to get in trouble for failing to make a profit during these times.  So far, it hasn't been a problem.

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The friendly faces who reach out to kids like Lia are a part of a ministry called Word Made Flesh here in Bangkok.  I went with them one night this past week to visit some of the kids they have begun relationships with and learn more about their ministry.  This specific population is a fairly new area of ministry for them, but they hope to eventually start up an afternoon program for the kids to provide a safe house, a little basic schooling, and a place to learn about Jesus.   Although this is not the area I feel God leading me for long term ministry, I am grateful he has placed this burden on other people's hearts so that these kids can learn about Christ.

BJD 15th Anniversary

This past week we celebrated the dorm, House of One Heart (BJD)'s 15 year anniversary.  It was great to see the generations of students who lived in the dorm in the past return to celebrate the work God has done in their lives.  At one point a speaker asked those in the audience to raise their hand if they first heard of Christ at the dorm.  Many hands went up.  Praise God!  Now, many alumni are involved in different areas of ministry, some are staff at the dorm, others work to share the gospel with kids in the slums, and one guy is the pastor of a church.  We give God all the glory for the lives changed!

While the celebration was great, the preparation was just as much fun.  Here are some pictures:

We cut leaves and reeds from around the dorm, washed them, and de-thorned roses for decorating the entry way.

The students decorated like professionals.  It came out beautiful!

Cooking was a giant job as well...

The celebration wouldn't have been complete without a cake (well, maybe it would have, but we enjoyed the cake anyway)...

and the smear-icing-on-everyone's-face-fight between all the students at the end of the night.  :)

An Exercise in Trust

At this week's dorm family time we talked about trust.  Trust in our friends was put to the test when a group of friends was required to catch a falling dorm-mate from a ladder.  The students were hesitant at first, but soon many wanted to test their trust. 

After the exercise, a question was posed to the group.  "You are willing to trust your friends a lot, even with your life and physical well-being, but how much are you willing to trust God?"  The room got silent as students pondered this question, most realizing that they trust the God who created the universe, who became flesh to die for us, very little compared with friends standing behind them as they fall from a ladder. 

Many students are currently working through big life decisions.  Pursue a path of full-time ministry after college or return to their hometown to help with the family business?  Go to Discipleship Training School or get a "normal job"?  Become staff at the dorm for a few years or study for a higher degree at a university?  Trusting the Lord with their future and to guide them through the decision making process can be challenging, but always produces the best results.