Category: March 2010

David Alan Black
Known for his love for New Testament Greek and passion for teaching, Dave Black is a husband, father, professor, author, preacher, lecturer, web journalist, and (above all) a sinner saved by God’s sovereign grace.
Dave is a political iconoclast who takes his constitutional ideals seriously. He is also committed to challenging the church to return to the simple patterns of Scripture.
Dave Black holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel in Switzerland and has taught New Testament and Greek for over 30 years. He is also the editor of the popular website, Dave Black Online. He has published over 20 books, including The Myth of Adolescence, Interpreting the New Testament, It’s Still Greek to Me, and Why Four Gospels? He and his wife live on a 123-acre working farm in southern Virginia and are self-supporting missionaries to Ethiopia, which they visit twice each year.
Ephesians 4 speaks of God’s appointments to pastors, prophets, apostles, evangelists, and teachers. It does not mention “missionaries”. Did God leave this appointment out?
Reader, you are correct that English translations of the New Testament do not contain the word “missionary.” However, the Greek word apostolos can have that meaning in certain contexts. For example, in Philippians 2:25 Epaphroditus, who represented the Philippian church to Paul in prison, is called an apostolos. Here the term clearly refers to someone who is sent out from a local congregation on a mission trip, in this case to minister to Paul’s needs while he was in prison. A modern example might be the missionaries Becky and I take with us to Ethiopia. Each of them represents their own local church in America. They must be approved by the church leadership, they must be appointed by them to serve, and they must be held up in prayer while they are gone. When they return from their trip they must report to their churches what God is doing in Ethiopia. Our goal in taking such “apostles” with us is to deepen relationships between local churches in America and local churches in Ethiopia.
Notice that I did not refer to our team members as “professional” missionaries or “paid” missionaries. In the New Testament, Paul worked hard to support himself when he could, so as not to be a burden on others. One does not have to be on the staff of a missions organization to be a missionary. In fact, if I understand the Great Commission correctly, every follower of Jesus is to be His personal representative (i.e., apostolos) on this earth!

Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected theses and so have shipwrecked their faith. 1 Timothy 1:18-19 (NIV)
Erin McClellan, youth director, wife, and mother, has a heart for the young people that she has been charged to pastor. Like most who are in youth ministry, she must work with little financial support and leftover space and resources. BSP asked Erin to share her heart about the ministry she has been given.
The focus for the young people that I work with may not fit in any stereotype you know. My group of young people, by and large, do not come from “church-going” families.  I do not have the luxury of many years of Sunday School exposure when it comes to Bible study and lessons.  With Bible study, I am simply trying to find stories or passages that introduce who God is, his attributes, as well as his love and plan for salvation.  I do not focus lessons on outward things such as dress, music styles, or even profanity.  I would rather spend the short time we have together focusing on what they should do, rather than what they should not do.
I have found that if I can get a young person to love God, family, friends, and even strangers I won’t have problems with theft, fighting, or a plethora of bad deeds.  If I can show them the importance of speaking kindly to one another, there won’t be the need to teach about profanity.  I have such a short period of time with my kids, that I don’t want to draw so much attention to trivial stuff – If they get the important stuff in first, the rest will follow naturally.
The tools that I use to gain that focus are absolutely anything that will reach my young people.  We play games of all sorts, videos, music, acting things out, and field trips.  One of my favorites is to use a completely secular movie and then ask them to explain to me how all or any part of the movie relates to God, Jesus, or church.  It makes them think and I am frequently surprised by the answers.
For example, two weeks ago I took them to see “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”  When I asked what symbolism they saw, I got answers about how it seemed the Greeks made their gods very human-like with fighting, sex, anger, hatred, and selfishness.  Also, how real hell seemed and how the main character was Jesus-like in his quest to redeem his mother.  I feel that if they can learn to look for God or examples of God in everyday situations and circumstances, they’ll be far more likely to hear Him when He speaks or notice where He might be working.
Parents, church leaders, and those who are ‘older’ in their faith are so important to these young adults as they grow up. The bottom line is: Love them. Period.  It is the hardest thing to do and the only thing that will bring real results.
More than once I have heard negativity from people in my own church and other churches as they complain how kids today are so much more disrespectful and heathenistic.  Perhaps that is true.  Yet, my thoughts are always: “well, how much time did you spend on your face before God praying and interceding for them, body, mind and soul, before you came to me?”  “Why is it that you haven’t come to me before and asked how you can be involved with sports or discipleship or Bible study or prayer?”  The painful and incredibly harsh sounding answer is: they don’t really love them.  If I truly love someone, I will be willing to spend time with them, pray for them, sacrificing my time and money to make sure they grow up to be Godly men and women.

Editor’s Table
More prophets – More pastors – More evangelists – More teachers – More apostles? Paul says that God gave us these to build His kingdom  (Ephesians 4). He also said that we have been given gifts to help each other; these gifts are not just for ourselves (Romans 12). I believe that one of the gifts we most need in abundance is encouragement. If our time in the world (job, relationships, every day stresses like finances) doesn’t beat us up enough, we also receive plenty of bruises and verbal flogging within the church. Yes, within the church! If you are puzzled by my statement, maybe you have never been the chairperson of a committee, organized an event, been a Sunday School teacher, or noticed the fatigue in your pastor or the worship leader. Where is Barnabas?
We first hear about Barnabas (originally Joseph) in Acts 4 when his name change is clarified as ‘the Encourager’ as he brings the offering of the proceeds from the field he sold. His free offering is set in direct contrast to the manipulative, partial-offering of Ananias and Sapphira. Barnabas is then portrayed as the ‘other half’ of the team for the very volatile and high-energy Paul. It is Barnabas who connects the man who was Saul the persecutor to the disciples in Jerusalem who are understandably wary of bringing Paul into that inner circle of the Church’s leadership. Given Paul’s personality I believe it is reasonable to assume that it is Barnabas who takes care of the details that will implement the visions that Paul has been given for the various churches. I can see Barnabas meeting with the workers in the church and showing them how to set up widow and orphan care and encouraging the worship leaders to bring together all the pieces on Sabbath. And when Paul hears of dissension in the church they left flourishing three months ago, it is Barnabas who is used to sift through the emotions and hear the truth of the choices that each fellowship has made as they move through growing pains.
We need encouragers who will listen to God’s Spirit that inspires a note to a struggling member in the Body. We need encouragers who will speak the truth of God in a committee, bringing the focus to God’s plan of serving others, especially unbelievers, new believers, children, and those in His focused mission of a given church. We need encouragers who will inspire and empower others to be involved in the ministry of Christ, not just pew sitters. We need encouragers who will send that card, that email, that text message to workers, those seen and those behind the scenes, who need that “’Way to go!”, “Thank you!”, and “We so appreciate you!”. It is Living Water from the well of God. The thirsty workers may have allowed themselves to become so busy that they do not even realize that they are dehydrated!
An encourager who greatly impacted my life and many, many in our church was Janet, a senior citizen who told me that she sometimes felt that she wasn’t doing enough for Jesus since her health had declined and she spent a great deal of her time caring for her husband who had Alzheimer’s. She did not realize the HUGE impact her well-timed notes. Her notes would arrive so timely, usually not because of any significant thing that I had done but because she felt the “nudge of God” (her words) to write a note to encourage. When she died a few years ago, the gathering to celebrate her life filled a sanctuary with an infinite number of stories about Janet’s notes. I will even go out on a spiritual limb and say that her notes made as significant an impact on God’s Kingdom as any prophecy that has been spoken.
Have you felt the “nudge of God” this week? Have you taken the time to notice someone’s weary eyes or slumped shoulders? In this day of texting, email, ecards, Twitter, Facebook, and Skype, we all have many, even convenient, ways to send a word of encouragement. The Kingdom multiplication of those few minutes to receive that “nudge” and obediently respond would be … Let’s do it and see what happens!

BSP: When and how did you initially become connected with the people of Ethiopia?

BeckyLynn: Very shortly after my birth 🙂 Before I was walking, my parents loaded me and some large metal barrels with our stuff onto a freighter in New York, bound for Yemen, and then from there to Ethiopia by airplane. Until I was almost 11 years old, Ethiopia was the only home I knew. Half of that time was spent in boarding school far from my parents “down-country”; the other half was spent on the mission station, squatting in the huts eating roasted corn called “kolo”, helping the Ethiopian children herd their goats, etc. It was a very special upbringing, full of unique challenges, but also wonderful blessing.

We left Ethiopia on an emergent basis, with only 3 days’ notice. We thought my mother was dying of a brain cancer. Parting with Ethiopia was very traumatic for me. I planned to return as a nurse, so got my bachelor’s degree in nursing. But then God appointed me to be a wife to Dave….so all those preparations were abandoned, and for the next 28 years Ethiopia remained only in my heart.

In 2004 I took Dave back to Ethiopia to visit my home sites, “so that he’d understand me” 🙂 The second night we were there he plopped his head on the pillow & said, “I love these people so much it hurts!” It was then we knew that God had a work for us to do there. Since then we’ve spent on average 3 months of the year in Ethiopia.

BSP: What is the vision God has given you for His mission in Ethiopia?

BeckyLynn: The work He’s appointed us in this section of His vineyard is simple: help the local Ethiopian churches in Burji, Alaba & Gondar. Burji consists of 33 local churches in the Burji District, far to the south, almost to the Kenya border. No one wants to go to Burji because it is so isolated & it is surrounded by an aggressive warring tribe. It was one of my childhood mission stations, but since 1975 no one has helped these churches. When we visited in 2004, the church elders were pleading with us, “Don’t forget us.” Alaba is an area of Ethiopia that is easily accessible, but it has an almost 100% aggressive Muslim population; persecution of Christians is active. Hence, many are afraid to venture into the Alaba area. In both Burji & Alaba, God has removed all fear from us. We are the only “faranjis” (white-faced foreigners) you will find there. And I cannot tell you how much it means to these dear brothers & sisters in the Lord that we have come to share their burdens! The fellowship we have with them is extremely sweet. The plea from the Gondar churches was for financial assistance in funding evangelists into

areas of Ethiopia completely devoid of any believers. This area of Ethiopia is almost exclusively Ethiopian Orthodox; the people are bound up in a religion that is a mixture of superstition, traditions, OT Law and NT Gospel. They are so strongly bound to this religion that they will actively persecute (on order of their priests) anyone who presents the pure, simple Gospel of Jesus’ faith alone. In fact, there is an organization within the church that targets any who forsake the traditions of the church; persecution is far worse than any Muslim’s persecution in Alaba. Because of cultural issues & Ethiopia’s history, only people from the Gondar region can gain a hearing of the Gospel from the people of Gondar. So our evangelists are largely “under cover”; God has blessed this work, and now 3 new local churches have been planted in this spiritually-hard area!

How do we help these Ethiopia churches? We listen to the church leaders and then pray about what they have said. As the Spirit impresses us, we present to the church leaders a plan of action. They then pray about it..and the Spirit gives us unity in the work. Because each area is different, the help given has been different. For example, in Burji we’ve distributed thousands of Bibles, hundreds of reading glasses, established a medical clinic, established solar-powered loudspeakers & lights in rural churches, helped with buildings for Bible school & church, etc. In Alaba, the great need has been for rural church buildings, charity for the persecuted believers, and Bible teaching. In Gondar, the great need has been salary supplement & assistance with evangelists.

The Work is fairly fluid. Once an engineer asked me, “What is your 5- and 10-year ministry plan?” “Simple, ” I replied…”It’s the same as our 1-year and 1-day plan: to be obedient.” God knows what He is doing in His Work. He knows the future. And when it is time, He will show us our role in His plan. It is too easy to organize the Spirit right out of the Work. We guard ourselves against that.

BSP: How do you raise money?

BeckyLynn: We don’t! (Gotcha, didn’t I :)) Seriously though, we don’t. We do not set targets or goals. We don’t have a budget. We don’t look under every bush or behind every church door for what might be there for the work in Ethiopia. Charity/Church/Mission fund raising has become a huge professional enterprise; whole organizations exist solely to raise funds for other organizations! And they are always doing studies to try to figure out how to be more successful at transferring funds from someone’s pocket to theirs! We don’t participate in any of that.

God has promised to care for His own. He has clearly said “don’t worry about it!” So we don’t. And when the Evil One starts insinuating that our Lord is not going to be faithful, the Spirit quietly asks “Has there ever been a time when the money you needed for the Work I’ve appointed was not there?”

When we started this appointment in 2004, it was only Dave & me; we set aside all of my income as a nurse for the Lord’s church in Ethiopia. Someone heard what we were doing, and accused us of being selfish by not letting others know about it. So we began to share the work appointed to us, and God began to bring partners. We simply tell the story of His glory in Ethiopia, and the Spirit appoints laborers, just like He did with us.

The work changes each year; it is dynamic. We don’t have a “program” that we try to sell the Ethiopian churches. We listen to them, we pray about what they have said, we seek His appointment, we plan with the Ethiopia leaders under His guidance….then we communicate that plan/vision/issue to whoever wants to listen…and somehow God creatively sends the things needed for the Work.

One thing we feel strongly about….that is, to try to replicate the ministry of Paul and Jesus. As it pertains to administrative expenses and personal expenses in the work, the Apostle Paul discusses this very plainly in I Corinthians 8-9. In short, he says that as a minister of the Gospel, he has the right to take from the kitty for his personal needs. But in exercising that right, he exposes the Work to the Evil One. He names specifically 4 areas of vulnerability resulting from the exercise of that right: 1) He is tempted to become a servant of those who pay him; their wishes might supersede the Spirit’s prompting; 2) People might accuse him, rightly or wrongly, of doing Gospel work for financial reward; 3) His own motive can become muddied; how does he know for sure that he is not doing the work for its salary or other perks; and 4) receiving support from the kitty tends to blur his vision of the ministry; he will always be thinking of whether the kitty is large enough for his needs, plus that work. Paul’s own testimony was that he “worked day & night” to supply the needs of himself & those with him. It was a costly decision he made is forgoing his right to support.

So, for ourselves, because of these dangers, we have covenanted before the Lord not to take one penny from donations for our own personal needs (our airfare, our in-country expenses, our clothes, immunizations, etc.). Furthermore, we willingly & joyfully pay all administrative expenses (wire fees, speaking costs, printing, phone charges, etc). In this manner, the Evil One has less “ammunition” against us and the Gospel Work, and 100% of the funds sent by partners goes to the Ethiopian churches. (This has always been our policy; it continued in this way even when I retired from my nursing job 3 years ago.)

BSP: How do you bring together team members?

BeckyLynn: It’s funny that you ask this question. We’re getting ready to take the largest group to Ethiopia we’ve taken, and I’ve been asking myself for the past 6 months at least “Lord, how do You bring the Team together?” In the book of Acts, we find such phrases as “it seemed good to us” or “the Spirit led us”….God is certainly a God of order, but He is not a God that is rigid, lifeless, predictable. Part of His glory is creativity. And He delights to do things in a way that floors us!

“The Team” spans the whole continent. Some of the Team goes physically to Ethiopia; our next batch of people is going for the month of July…23 people from the Roxboro/Durham/Wake Forest region of North Carolina. The team after that will probably be from churches in Texas. (Those going are always sent as representatives of churches who have partnered with the Ethiopian churches.) Some of the Team contributes their skills to the work…technical advice in solar power, making recordings, computer expertise, financial management expertise, sewing skills, etc. Some of the Team contributes Prayer…on their knees daily, faithfully struggling for our evangelists, or the clinic staff, or any number of issues that arise; this is probably the hardest & most necessary work of all! Without prayer, there is no power; without power, there is no Kingdom. And finally, some of the Team contributes financial resources…money. Many members of the Team are doing more than one job. The point is that none is more important than the other, no contribution is too small, and all contributions are God-appointed for that individual or church, for that time period, and for that purpose.

“Are you on vacation?” A million responses flew through my mind the first time I was asked while on a road trip for the Lord. The simple answer, “Why, yes. And what a great vacation it has been!”

I never knew how important places were to God until the Holy Spirit started taking me to some really strange places! GPS? Unless you are talking about “God’s Positioning System”, you won’t find anything more than an interstate level map in the car and a Frommer’s book in the carry-on! The buildings and things He’s revealed in those places and the people who have been encountered–no travel agent can plan a better trip than Him! Availability, not ability, is the key to traveling with God. With Him as the pilot, you will go farther and longer than you ever dreamed. Remember lesson one: Loosen His Spirit wherever you go. Sometimes that’s all He needs someone to do.
In 2006, my daughter and I took our first trip to NYC and spent the week of Thanksgiving amongst millions of other travelers on the island of Manhattan. A decision was made to see and do all the “touristy” things in that large city, which included taking in some sort of show. My daughter, Lindsey, loves Christmas; so, I decided to take us to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. While viewing that truly spectacular event, in the most amazingly-designed building, it became apparent that a form of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s love was being told through a vehicle that any person could understand–seeds of truth were being planted in that building, through that show. Whoever wrote that play must have known Him. A gentle loosing of His spirit inside of a most beautiful place, over a truthful thing–He can handle the rest on His own.
Our tickets included a back-stage tour. We were able to walk through all parts of that building, seeing old things, hearing stories, seeing places that famous people had been–secular and Christian artists had/have/will perform inside one of the most interesting places I have ever had the privilege to pray in. No one else knew I was praying, nor did they need to–that’s one cool thing about prophetic intercession.
One of the last things we did in Radio City Music Hall was to meet one of the Rockettes. She was a beautiful and lovely young woman. It was this experience that helped me realize that God’s people are everywhere. We have no idea the prayers that go up to Him, from what place they go up, or the reasons or hearts behind them.
That trip taught the lesson that place, things, and people are the reasons that prophetic intercession is important to God. Carry Him with you and let Him go into everywhere place you go, and signs and wonders are sure to follow–whether WE see them or not. Knowing His heart and seeing things with His eyes can change the world. Try it the next time you’re out and about on your everyday errands or family vacation. After all, isn’t that where THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD?