Summers provide great opportunities for short-term mission teams to serve the cause of Christ around the globe. At the same time, missionaries in cross-cultural settings are anticipating the arrival of those teams—a process that can bring joy and excitement, but sometimes fear. Short-term...

A lot will be said about cooperation in the Southern Baptist Convention over the next couple weeks. We will gather in Birmingham, Alabama and participate in our cooperative convention. We will talk about Cooperative Program giving. We will learn about the work of our cooperative institutions,...

We know the apostle Paul as the greatest missionary in the history of the Christian church. It goes without saying, Paul’s ministry was one of proclamation. He preached to Jews, Gentiles, pagans, philosophers, criminals, and dignitaries. In a sense, we can somewhat quantitatively estimate the...

The hustle and bustle is constant. Doors opening and closing. Horns sounding and alarms ringing. We brush shoulders in the breezeway, sit beside each other on the subway and stand in endless lines around the city. We see the flowers on your porch grow and hear the bark of your dog from our couch. A...

What about those who never hear the gospel? The question does not concern those who hear it and are indifferent or those who hear it and reject it, but those who never, ever hear the bad news of their rebellion against their Creator and the good news of the reconciliation found in Jesus. My wife...

The only constant in the life of a missionary is change. Missionaries live through seemingly endless transitions. Beloved teammates depart, and new teammates arrive. Meanwhile, all missionaries are at various levels of language acquisition and cultural acclimation. On top of all of this, missionary...

A quick tour of the world shows a beautifully diverse group of Christians participating in God’s mission. South Asian Christians in saris reach out to their Hindu and Muslim neighbors. Korean believers mobilize hundreds of Christians to go to the ends of the earth. Chinese believers...

As I write this, I am sitting at the 2 ½ mark in a church revitalization setting. As I reflect on the past couple of years, I see some things I did well in the first year. I also see several things I wish I had done better in the first year (and the second […]

The post Five priorities...

We should never presume to definitively know that God’s call on a pastor’s tenure has come to an end for his serving a particular congregation. We can’t know as God knows or see as God sees. Yet, as outside consultants or observers, as friends, or even as a close confidant, we may...

Living in a new normal doesn’t feel so normal. The word tragedy is too much a part of my vocabulary these days. I have searched for other words, but tragedy describes best the world events constantly swirling around us. From the recent Easter bombings in Sri Lanka to the terrorism in the...

Finding Your Place In God’s Plan For Missions I’ve come to find that as I get older, my desire to GO just continues to increase. I’m still not entirely sure what that means, but for now I know that means being a part of short-term mission teams. Just last week I returned from a...

Many years ago, David Garrison identified rapid multiplication as one of the universal characteristics of a church planting movement. Since that time, the rapid advance of the gospel has been a key value for many in the missionary enterprise, both in terms of many people coming to faith...

Alex Haley, the author of Roots, is known to have a picture in his office of a turtle sitting on a fencepost. When asked why kept this picture he said that it reminded him that if a turtle is on a fencepost you know he had some help. In an age of platform-seeking celebrities, it’s […]

Th...

20 minutes from the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and the College at Southeastern is a very unique community. It is a community comprised predominantly of refugees, refugees from more than 30 countries. These are men, women, and children who have fled their home country to...

For the past six months my husband Bob and I have been a tiny part of a new church-plant in Durham called Rebuild Fellowship. Pastor Chuck Reed’s goal is for Rebuild to start a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-generational “love movement.” Little did we know how much we needed...

You may not know this, but history is going to be made this summer. It’s nothing new, though. It’s been happening for a long time. Eleven years ago, I was preparing for my first overseas mission trip. As a college student, I was contemplating what kind of impact could I have. As a...

Suffering is a normal part of the Christian life. When we step out onto to the mission field suffering just might increase. We can prepare for this suffering by developing our theology of suffering, building a strong support team, and staying close to the Lord. However, suffering is always...

In April 2016, Dan Rockwell posted a piece on his leadership blog called “The Five Biggest Mistakes New Leaders Make.” I’ve been reflecting on this since I attended a Church Planting Pipeline Roundtable in Atlanta where we talked about leading potential church planters or interns...

It feels like another life since I was a missionary in West Africa. Today, my days are filled with questions like what I should make for dinner, whether or not I’m going to meet an article deadline, and “did you go poo-poo?” Being a work-from-home mom of two under two makes going...

Church planting is full of many joys. There is perhaps no greater joy than seeing people hear and respond to the gospel. You also get to experience the joy of seeing God establish the church, which includes seeing new believers grow deeper in their faith and watching God’s people to use their...

I took my first international mission trip to Central Asia last year. In this trip I served primarily as prayer support and an evangelistic partner with believers seeking to reach others during New Year celebrations. Since our roles on the trip were limited in comparison to the amount of talking we...

On Patience, and Why It Matters for Missionaries and Church Planters This week Haloti Ngata made news headlines when he announced his retirement from the NFL from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Ngata, a 13-year pro and insanely gifted defensive lineman, completed his career at the age of 35. Not 55,...

Remember. I sat under a speaker at a conference last week who brought me to the bottom of myself. He distracted us with the left jab, speaking on the importance of keeping Christ at the center of your life in ministry and everything else— then he hit us hard with the right hook. He said...

March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, and we should honor this early missionary. A few years ago,   Carrie Kelly wrote an article for the Intersect Project entitled “The Man Behind the Myth: 5 Things You Can Learn About St. Patrick.”  Kelly’s article is worth the...

One day in 2010, I woke up on the floor. Someone was trying to push a pencil between my clenched teeth. Moments before, I had been with friends enjoying dinner, including a memorable bowl of homemade peppermint ice cream. Suddenly, I was told, I had passed out, falling limply into the arms of the...