Make New Friends....but Keep the Old....One is Silver and the Other Gold

Let’s Make Time for Some Rn’R this Summer: Relationship and Rest!
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself until it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. John 15:4

Refresh your relationship with Jesus; what does this look like for you?
Relax with people whom are important to you~enjoy the friends and family God has blessed you with.
Relish the opportunities for new friendships as you participate in Missio Lux activities.
Relinquish the summer to God~let him restore and revive you for the season to come.
Rhythm: Jesus practiced a rhythm of life and as his disciples; so should we!


Does anyone remember the song we used to sing as children? Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold!


Our friendships in life are invaluable to us. Some of us have friends all the way back to our childhood and they are gifts to be treasured and polished for their significance in our lives.
But, new friends bring life and a renewed sense of interest and hope to our lives. New friends widen our circle and surprise us with the little tidbits of fun information and coincidences we pick up as we spend time with one another.


Jesus knew about the value of old friends and new friends. He had his 12 disciples; they were the friends that he lived life with! But, he also had an ever increasing circle of new friends; they became his circle of 72. Eventually, they became the New Testament Church as everyone who commits to follow Jesus is called his friends.


Reflect on John 15:12-15
“Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.”


When I take in the reality that the One who created the entire universe draws close to me and calls me his friend, it changes my perspective on my life and my world. I realize the depth of value I carry because my “friend Jesus” gives it to me by telling me that he’s letting me in on all the Father’s wisdom and plans. His love to me shows me how to love those around me.


It also reminds me that if Jesus felt a need to expand his circle of friendships, I should follow his example as well. I have much to offer a friend because I can share God’s love with them. I can also share an invitation to join our missio community because I know that their life will be blessed through the experience.


Our commitment to RnR this summer is to abide through engaging relationship and rest. My summer has been filled with BBQ’s, dinners, picnics, hikes, blueberry picking, concerts in the park~all great invites to people that I am seeking to know better by spending time with them!


Jesus told us that one of his biggest priorities is for us to go and make disciples. We do this best through relationship. Standing on street corners preaching doesn’t make too many disciples; in fact, it can stand in the way of making disciples.


But, genuinely caring about people, inviting them into our lives, being interested in their lives, does open the door for a conversation about Jesus after trust has been built.


Very often it comes in the form of a comment such as “You seem to live differently than most people. You don’t seem as worried about your finances as others; or as stressed about your children; or as concerned about your job security….or a number of other observations that opens the door for us to speak about the peace we have because we know that Jesus is in control of our lives, so we don’t have to worry!


Missio Lux is committed to creating opportunities for you to continue to build new friendships. It isn’t really an option for us if we are committed to following Jesus and modeling our life after his. In our structure of creating missio communities, it is easier to invite new people into our lives and to make time for them through the real life that takes place in our communities.


There’s still time left for you to invite some new friends to come and experience Missio Lux through the Thursday night concerts in the park, our Celebration on August 16th, parties with a purpose for Children of the Nations (check the website for dates), and baseball on August 12th.


Here’s my challenge to you: Pray and ask Jesus to show you who it is that he is pointing out to you to come alongside as a new friend.

It will be someone that you enjoy and brings greater meaning to your life. Invite them to check out Missio Lux through one of the fun abiding activities we have this summer! Then, email me or call me about your new friend as you follow Jesus’ example and make new friends of silver.

Doing Life Together

Okay, sometimes I underestimate things. Such as giving my husband a surprise party for his birthday and thinking that I could do all the cooking for 25people in just four mere hours.

But, God loves this about me. He knows that my faith includes moving mountains for obstacles and so he comes alongside me in my overestimation of reality!

This is my story of how one woman listened to me say a quick sentence about a surprise party for my husband and took note that I would need help.

She called me that morning and offered to come and spend some time helping prepare for the party; even though she was having guests over that night herself.

I was delighted because I HATE to cook alone and I was beginning to discover that there was no way that I was going to pull this feat off myself--no matter how much I multi-task!

So, my dear friend, came over and worked circles around me. She anticipated my every need and met it before I could get there. She taught me little cooking tricks along the way. She helped to make floral arrangements and even brought me Mexican memorbilia to help decorate.

Rosemary was God's gift to me that day. He gave me his help through his faithful friend Rosemary. She responded to his call for her to come and did it happily and with great love!

Everything came together with at least 3 minutes to spare!

The party guests came and waited for Bill to show up. He was absolutely flabberghasted when he opened the door to a huge number of people yelling SURPRISE!

I was delighted that we pulled the surprise off; but I am also grateful that God surprised me with a gift too: the gift of Rosemary!

It's All About Relationships, Part 4

I floated home tonight from the Healing Prayer Service. No, it isn't because of the 97 degree heat; it's because Jesus met us tonight in a profoundly moving way.

We were able to pray for a couple at the Healing Conference last month. Ken had a stroke on their one year anniversary and has been completely paralyzed for 24 years. Cheryl, his wife, was 22 years old at the time. They called and asked to come and give their testimony at the prayer service because of the magnificent healing they received at the conference when our team prayed for them.

Ken, who is unable to speak, wrote a moving testimony that his father-in-law stood up and read for him. Cheryl kept wiping his eyes because he was crying while it was read. They weren't tears of sadness, however, they were tears over how Jesus had met him and changed his entire life.

Cheryl was very honest about where she was at the 5 year mark of Ken's stroke. She was so DONE. She was angry and she disdained her paralytic husband. But, she asked Jesus to give her love for him, and in an instant, she fell madly in love with her husband, seeing him as handsome, strong, and even the smell of him made her practically faint with love. She knew at that moment that Jesus had given her his own love for Ken and she has lived with that love ever since.

She said that if everyone loved like she loves Ken, divorce would totally disappear.
Imagine this. A woman who hasn't had children because they were unable due to Ken's stroke. She lost her house because he lost his income. She had to move in with her parents. They lived in the family room, separated by a sheet. In this world, she had nothing.

But, in God's economy, she was given everything.

She has an overflowing of God's love for her husband that continues 24 years later.
Tears fell freely from everyone's eyes as they saw the spiritual giants that stood before them, and heard their deeply moving testimony. Cheryl now goes and prays for others to be healed and guess what? They are getting healed!

They fully believe that Ken will walk again. They know because the Lord has given them a deep sense of knowing. As we prayed for Ken tonight, I remembered Jesus, how the faith of the paralytics friends caused them to rip a roof apart because they wanted their friend healed that much. We tore the roof apart tonight too, as we desire for the miracle you promised to come forth!

It's all about relationship with you and one another. I was profoundly impacted by Cheryl's story and how you so completely and dramatically changed her heart. That's my new prayer for those that I pray for; Lord Jesus, give us your heart for this person: our spouse, our child, our neighbor, our boss, our co-worker......anyone you bring into our path!

Our Sudanese Brother Arok Goes to Sudan

Sunday night Seeds of Hope (our missio community that is helping Sudanese orphans go to boarding school) had a BBQ. The purpose of the BBQ was to bring people together to hear the vision and give support through finances and prayer for the upcoming trip to Africa.

Angie, the leader of Seeds of Hope, gave a terrific presentation on her upcoming trip where she will get to go and meet our children, as well as the headmaster of Roots Academy where most of the children go to school.

Arok wasn't at the BBQ because he is already in Africa. He left a couple of weeks ago and had to cross the border from Uganda to Kenya. But, just three days ago, he crossed the border from Kenya to Sudan.

Arok is going back to his village for the first time since he left it as a scared little six year old orphan.

Unlike our transient culture, Africans know that the land is their home. They don't ever stop longing to be there; even if a war has been waged over it for over 20 years.

It's rather like the Israelites in the Bible. Their land was their inheritance. But it always comes with a price. Many times that price is war.

Arok was concerned about the flood of emotions that could hit him when he returns.
Will the memories of the screams of his village pound his ears?
Will the smell of the fires from the huts burning incense his nose?
Will the cold of the night remind him of being all alone after his village was destroyed?

Perhaps.
Most likely.
But, my prayer is that Arok will be struck with the great sense that God has saved him and strategically positioned him for such a time of this, just like Esther.
God put Esther in the palace to help save his people from destruction.

God has placed Arok with Seeds of Hope to help get his village children educated so they can return and rebuild that which was decimated.
I dream about the village of Paliyu having many wells for water, thriving farms with abundant crops, clinics for medical care, a government that is just and fair, and schools to educate the children.

This is what can happen when children are educated. The cycle of poverty and hopelessness is broken and seeds of hope are planted.

Arok is a seed planter of hope and he is stewarding his life well. Please pray for him as he gets nearer to his village each day and for the two remaining border crossings that he has left to go!

Pray for Angie and Arok as they meet up in the town of Nakuru and then travel to Kodera, Kenya to observe the remarkable community transformation that has taken place with Pine Lake Covenant, so they can begin to make plans for their village.....

Jimmy Carter's Stand on Women in Ministry

It may not be in the newspaper, but it's all over facebook.

What's the conversation?

Jimmy Carter's decision to leave his denomination, the Southern Baptist Church, and his home church because of their stance on women in ministry. To read more click here

This is not a small sacrifice on his part. It meant that he walked away from the denomination he spent his life serving, as well as the church where he served faithfully for decades, building deep friendships along the way.

I am grateful for Jimmy's sacrifice.

In a world where much of the American Evangelical Church tells me that it is not okay for me to be leading a church because of their doctrinal position, it is a gift to have a major leader of our country and evangelicalism rise up and say, "I will not tolerate this any longer."

It's not easy being a female pastor. I don't have a lot of women to look to as role models. I don't have a lot of other female pastors to hang out with at conferences or in my denomination, even though the Evangelical Covenant Church actively supports women in ministry. see www.covchurch.org
(One benefit at conferences, however, is that the bathroom lines are non-existent!)

But, it's my life.

When Jesus called me to serve him in ministry; I knew I had to take the step of obedience. I knew that to turn my back on what he was asking me to do was to was too big an act of disobedience, and I would rather please him than please the world.

Amazingly, when Jesus called me to go to seminary, (actually it was more like he dumped me there with a shovel), I didn't know how I felt about women in ministry. I hadn't ever studied the issue, it wasn't preached from the pulpit, I didn't know very many women pastors, so I went to school rather uninformed on the issue.

I was forced to study the issue, however, when a good friend of ours had my parents, sister and ourselves over for dinner. Right after the prayer, he made this off the wall comment: "Women pastors, they make me want to throw up."

Dead silence.

Finally, my Dad spoke up and said, "Well, you know, that is what Tamara is going to seminary to study."

So, this gracious man wrote me a letter asking me to share with him my theological position so he could understand.

So, I started studying. (Good to be ahead of the curve.)

I studied all the typical passages, but it was this one that made my spirit leap up and say, "See, there is room for both genders to lead the church."

Pentecost. Peter stands up to preach and the first words out of his mouth are from Joel 2:

"I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike."

Jesus showed me that day that the New Testament Church had different rules than the Old Testament. The New Testament Church was for inclusion of everyone: men and women, slaves and free, young and old, Jew and Gentile.

This meant that what was previously reserved for Jewish men was now open to a passionate young Gentile woman who loved Jesus with all her heart and was willing to do anything to serve him, and to go anywhere to follow him.

That woman is me. I have followed the Lord for 20 years in ministry and have even boldly gone into new territory of Missio Lux.

It is a gift to me and many others like me that Jimmy Carter stood by his faith convictions and sacrificed his comfort for truth.

May his tribe increase.

Church in the Park

This summer Missio Lux is holding our Celebrations at a park. It's so beautiful in Seatttle this time of year; it only makes sense to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of God's creation.

The other reason, however, for meeting in a park is to simpifly our Celebrations so we can live out our intentional decision to follow God's rhythm for life in resting and Jesus' call to us to not just work, but also to rest and build our relationship with him!

Read about what one Missio Lux woman wrote in her blog: click here

It's All About Relationships, Part 3

We are learning in Missio Lux to "Do Life Together."
Today I had a fun experience of living life together with my next door neighbor.

She has a dog named Pepper and I have a dog named Nicki. When we meet together as vision partners for our Missio Community, I bring my Nicki to play with Pepper.

I have this amazing 100 lb Bernese Mountain Dog, but she is so gentle and compliant that it makes us laugh. She has never once run away from our yard! I often let her sit on the front porch to cool off and she has never once left it.

But, today, she decided that she and her dog friend, Pepper, needed some time together to do life. So, Nicki got out of the back yard through the gate and went to our neighbors house, sitting there patiently until the door got opened and Pepper ran out too.

They didn't run away, however, they came back to my yard to play!

My neighbor Nancy, came over and discovered that they were playing in the back and we got to share a moment of deep connection as we celebrated how even our dogs want to do life together!
It's all about relationships, and I am loving it!