Thanks for joining us for Part 2 in our friendship series. Last week we talked about the importance of consistency and commitment in a true friendship. Did you have a chance to think about the questions from last week and did you start investing into a friendship? Do it and it will totally pay off for you!

This week we want to talk about depth and trust. To establish depth and trust in a friendship you need a few things. First of all it has to start with what we shared about last week, commitment and consistency. But that is just the beginning. To create depth and trust in a friendship we have to be real and open about our own lives. Of course that doesn’t mean that you should share your deepest secrets right after you started the friendship, but over time you start going there. Why, because over time both sides share deeper things and you start building deeper trust.

Example: When you start sharing about a struggle in your life, you show the other person that it is ok to share about those things. You also show them that it is ok to have struggles and that they can see that they are not alone in it. So the other person feels more free to share about their struggle as well. As soon as you do that you take away power from the enemy, because he can’t lie to you anymore that you are a terrible person and that if someone would know your struggles they would not want to be your friends anymore. But in reality the opposite is true. Your friendship actually goes deeper because the other person sees they can trust you.

You see sharing truth about your life brings depth and trust. We want to encourage you to go deeper in your friendship by being more open and real. Share with your friend what is really going on. Start this week by sharing one thing with your close friend that you would normally have a hard time sharing. When you start in your friendships it will flow over into your ministry time as well.

Being real with people will show them more that being a Christian doesn’t mean that we are perfect, but that we have a perfect father who walks with us!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Ours was packed with many events in the neighborhood. We had some wonderful dinners with different people and also our wonderful neighbor brunch. It is always a blast coming together and share life. We want to encourage you to start your own neighbor brunch. We also had the game night at our house which was a lot of fun!

From left von links:
Lexi, Rachel, Rachel, Susanna, Andrew, Hester.

Also we want to ask you to pray for our Fall school students. We wrote last week that they graduated and the hardest part after graduation is always stepping into what God has for each one of them next. We shared with them a few ways on how they can get involved in their own community and make an impact there. I want to ask you to adopt one of them and pray for them for the next 6 month that God will guide them, on how that can look like and also on how to keep growing in their faith. Here are their names: Hester, Rachel, Rachel, Andrew, Susanna and Lexi. Thank you for praying!

Our Fall 2014 DTS North Beach Team
Unser Herbst 2014 North beach DTS Team

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Friendship Part 1 Committed and consistent

Over the next few weeks we want to look at what makes a great friendship. We hope you get encouraged and empowered to build a great friendship!

A little while ago we were able to see our friends up in Seattle. When my friend and I spend some time talking he talked about how our friendship is really committed. We call each other once a week and pray for each other. We did that since almost the beginning of our friendship while he still lived in San Francisco (of course sometimes the week thing didn’t work out). Over all those years our friendship got deeper and deeper and it has to do with 2 things, being committed and consistent. It doesn’t matter if you are in a good or bad season in your life, you will walk through them together with a friend at your side. When you look at the bible you can see friendships like that, Jonathan and David or Paul and Timothy. They stood with each other in bad and good seasons. You help each other through those, but then you also have fun together in the seasons between.

So when you want to have a lasting friendship make sure you are committed and consistent. This is true for your friendships to people, your marriage and also for your relationship with God. It is also true for ministry. To bring the good news to neighbors and friends, being consistent and committed is really important. Through that people will see you for who you truly are and they see through the way you treat them more about your relationship with God.

Our encouragement for you is to have or find a committed and consistent friendship and to invest into it. Set time aside on a weekly base to spend time with each other. After you setup a great friendship start to do the same when you bring the good news to people. It will make a difference in your life and it will make a difference in the lives of others!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Our Fall DTS graduated last week which was exciting since each of them will now go out and apply the things God taught them in this last season. Please keep them in your prayers since transition seasons are often challenging and can make you feel as if you are alone. Pray that they feel Gods presence really strong on their lives in that season.

Please keep praying with us for a new location for our game night. For now we will have it at our apartment, but in the long run our apartment is too small to host all the people, so we are looking for a new location. We have a potential location but don’t know if it will work out and if it is a good fit. Please pray with us for a perfect new location.

Thank you so much for praying with us.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Last Sunday our friend Alissa showed one of her paintings at church. It showed trees in a winter world bearing fruit. First I was thinking fruit in a winter season that doesn’t make any sense. But then thinking more about it, it made perfect sense. God calls us to be fruitful in every season. Remember the story of Jesus and the fig tree in Mark 11.12-21. The tree didn’t have fruit and Jesus was upset to the point that he cursed the tree not to carry fruit ever again.  When we look at that example we see that we are called to have fruit in every moment, even if it is out of season. But how does that work? I think sometimes we believe that we can only bring fruit if we are perfectly positioned, if everything works well, if we have all the knowledge and money needed and we are at our best. If that would be true we would never bring any fruit. The bible talks about that when we are weak we are strong.

As an example: When you go through a hard season in your life, don’t hide, instead be real about it. Through that you are actually helping others to do the same and you are both able to pray for each other and help each other. I agree with people saying that you can pull each other down in a situation like that, but if that happens I would ask you the question where did you put your focus on. If we would hide we literally would not bring any fruit, and we would bring ourselves down. But if we are real about it, God can actually bring fruit out of a situation by bringing healing to both people that stand with each other.

So seeing fruit in each season doesn’t mean that each fruit looks the same. In certain seasons you might see many people being saved by you ministering to them. In others you might just lay a seed and see little progress in their lives. But let me tell you each of those processes or fruits are important. So its important that each moment of our life we are walking in that truth.

Our lives always have to reflect the one we follow and our eyes always have to be on Him.

When that happens it is impossible to not bring fruit. We want to invite you to think about areas in your life were you have to refocus to bring fruit.

Hey our friend

How are you doing? Send us a quick update on your life. The last week here has been exciting. We had a German night at our house which was a lot of fun and a great encouragement group. It was great to see how people could help each other and bring each other hope. This week on Tuesday we are sharing with our DTS about how to use the things they learned in their own communities back home. Pray that God will guide them and gives them perseverance to bring more of the things he taught them to others and so that they could grow as well.

Thank you for partnering with us! You are such a blessing!!

God bless you

Markus and Jen

Right now we are at a world population of about 7.2 Billion people. We also printed so far 6 Billion bibles. That means just by looking at the numbers that there should be a bible in almost every household. But we all know that this is not true. Many of us have 2 or 3 bibles and I believe some of those printed bibles have been thrown away. But lets say 2 billion people in the world have a bible, why do we still have only about 700 Million (I got this number at a recent mission conference) confessing and practicing Christians?

2 years ago I had a man come up to us in the coffee shop wanting to know more about Jesus. He was recommended by someone who saw Jesus active in our lives. That man checked me out for many weeks with hard and strange information and questions just to see if I would still love on him after knowing those things. After he was certain about that, he wanted to start a bible study with me, and eventually gave his life back to God.

You see in that story that it is not enough just to give people a bible or invite them to church, first we have to show them by the way we live, what it means to be a son or daughter of our father in Heaven. But how? Its simple, we need to follow the 2 commands Jesus has given us: Love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Keep loving a neighbor and show kindness even if all you get back is anger and hate. Keep inviting them to your home, even if you never got an invite from them. Always be generous in your love for them so they can start seeing a generous and loving father. Be real with them about your life; don’t try to make things look better as they are. It will help them to do the same with you and shows them that you don’t put yourself above them and that you don’t have to be perfect to come to God. When we start to have true relationship with people around us and live the way Jesus called us to live, I guarantee you that they want to know more about their loving father and then they want to read there bible and go to church with you. And that is the moment when the number of Christians will go up. That is the moment when we go from 700 million towards 7.2 Billion. If you think about it, that would mean each Christian has to reach 10.3 people with the good news during their life time. How many people around you don’t know the good news yet? I guarantee you, that you will find more then 10.3. So lets all work together to get the great commission done.

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. Jen and I had an evaluation meeting to share with different leaders about the ministry and get input. It was a really good time as usual.

Please join us in Prayer for more door openings for our game night. Sadly the restaurant we used to have it at, got sold and we have to find a new spot. We will have it at our house till we find a new spot but it will be more limited on space.

Thank you for all your prayers and financial support. You are a blessing to us!!

Markus and Jen

How to have hope despite circumstances

In 1.Corinthians 13.13 Paul talks about 3 things that will remain and one of them is hope. Since there are only 3 things, there must be a real significance in those including hope. Why is that? It is because hope helps us to keep going. Have you ever met a person that was deeply depressed and didn’t see hope, feeling hope again. It changes the perspective of that person and slowly helps them to get out of depression. So hope is really significant. But what generates hope in your life? Is it the moment when you get an increase in salary? When you find out that the worst you thought of was just something small? Is it maybe when a bill was lower than we thought it would be? There are many things in our life that can generate a moment of hope. That is good and we need those kinds of hope boosters, but reality is, that those won’t bring a lasting hope. Have you ever thought about for how long you were hopeful after an increase in salary? 1 month, maybe 2 months? But eventually you come back to square 1 with feeling hopeless because it is still not enough to cover all the old bills as well as the new ones we accumulated.

But when we look at our father in heaven we can actually find true hope, a hope that will not go away. Think about Noah and how he saw the rainbow; that moment was such a huge sign from God for a great hope for the future and gave Noah hope. The hope of God will change our perspective and it will just fill us so much that there are no more places for hopelessness. When we lay our hope foundation in Him it will change the perspective of our life. In Jeremiah 29.11 it talks about plans God has for the lives of his people.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

When you look at this verse you see that when we follow the plans of God for our lives they will lead us to a hope and a future. But to find that  we need to shift our focus away from the hope boosters and shift it to Him. I’m not saying with that don’t accept hope you get from a salary increase or any other thing, but don’t let this be the foundation of your hope.

Reflect back on your life and see what used to bring you hope. Asses what hope came from God and was lasting and which one was just a short term hope brought in by things. When you addressed that ask God to help you lay a true foundation of hope in your life based on Him. I promise you, it will change your perspective in life.

Hello our friend

We hope you had a week towards many restored relationships. How did the questions from last weeks blog challenge you the most? Share it with someone close to you.

Last week we were teaching in the DTS School which was wonderful. Our hope is that each one of them got a deeper understanding of His father heart for them. Pray that God will keep speaking to each one of them more intimate in the weeks to come. We also had all the normal ministry things going on and it is so great to see how God keeps on working in those. We feel blessed to have a great team of people. Keep praying for a great openness for the gospel in this season to come.

Thank you for joining us in Prayer as well as financially. You are a blessing to us!! May God bless you richly.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen