emerging generation Archives - Foundational Missions

September 11, 2011September 11, 2011

Interview with a Former World Racer

I have a good friend named Caleb Lorenson. In the forge of affliction our friendship was created, but that is another story. Maybe we will get back to that some other time. Let's wrap the part about Caleb up by saying that I trust Caleb with my life. Enough about that for now.

Caleb has a friend named Samara, and she is a missionary type, like many of us are. Caleb and I were talking on the phone a few weeks ago, talking about a trip he had recently returned from to Thailand. We talked for quite a while, and in the conversation he reminded me about Samara, and that she was back from the race. I told him I really wanted to talk to her about it, because of my familiarity with The World Race. It is something of an emerging expression of short-term missions in my mind, and I have talked with the founder, the director, and some of the staff in person in recent years to try to understand what they are doing and why it is experiencing such growth. If Samara was willing to talk with me, in some ways it would make my exposure more complete. I was hoping to get something deeper than the marketing view. I did. Continue reading “Interview with a Former World Racer”

April 3, 2011April 25, 2011

Institution-alized

The institutionalization of the Lord’s church, and of various ministries and Christian organizations, continues. Once an organization or group reaches a certain mass, it will tend toward institutionalization. I don’t think this happens at the same mass for every example, and it will likely vary, depending on a lot of different factors. However, once it begins to be institutionalized, it’s mission will be changed from what it was originally, to self-perpetuation. At this moment, if not before, it will also begin to calcify and lose it’s flexibility. It will respond in a natural way to threats, to silence or marginalize them, and also remove dissenting voices from it’s midst. This is often done with the proclamation that the group is more important than the individual, which has an element of truth, but is the wrong comparison. In Christ, we should be following Christ, not the group, or the individual. Systematically, Christ Jesus and His leadership fade into the background, and the original mission becomes the focus of marketing efforts, though it has likely been supplanted by a motive that the “organization” must continue. This is one of the reasons why the institutions of man are temporary, but what God does lasts forever.

More thoughts on this later….

February 17, 2011April 25, 2011

Telling us what I already knew…..

Young People Reaching ‘Adulthood' Later : Discovery News (click photo or link below for the back story)

http://t.co/G8lHaxh

– I was a consultant on this project. Well, I could have been.

February 6, 2011April 25, 2011

SO…. what is coming?

Prophetic people get a sense of identity from the thought that they are seeing things that are coming. It makes for good feelings, and a sense of spiritual validity. This should not come as a surprise to us, and we shouldn't be alarmed by this reality, though it is probably omitted from most of the self-commentary that we put forth.

SO? What is coming?

Sadly (do you hear the word sadly a lot lately?), there is very little being said about what the Lord is preparing and embarking on anew. We do hear a fair amount about what is going on in the world around us, what the enemy is planning, and what will happen if we let things continue in the direction they are headed. Unfortunately, this is mostly human reasoning, which is not completely useless, as we know.

But who has a voice and perspective, a heavenly perspective, that affords one view to where the Lord is headed and what He is up to? Can you hear the crickets in the background? Seems a little quite on that front. This is a voice and a perspective we desperately need, and should be primarily devoted to. Continue reading “SO…. what is coming?”