Our week in San Francisco was great. We hope yours was wonderful too!! Our month of September is really busy. Please keep us in your Prayers in this coming week. Friday night Loren Cunningham the founder of YWAM will speak at a big event close to San Francisco and Sunday we have a big Block Party which Jen helped to organize. Thank you for all your Prayers! We really appreciate you!
Get involved
When we look at our communities we often see things that aren’t going so good. In our neighborhood as an example we have a street which attracts the most crime in the whole city. This is not Gods Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. No He has a different plan. God called us to bring his Kingdom into this world.
How can we do that? We can do that by getting involved into our communities. We can serve on committees or programs for our neighborhood, like a neighborhood watch or helping at local events that are going on. We can just help out with little things like cleaning up in our neighborhood. It is important that we as Christians get involved in events outside of the church, because that is actually the place where we meet the people that still don’t know Jesus. We need to get out of our 4 walls and start showing our presence in our communities.
Loving your neighbor needs to be tangible.
I want to challenge you to find a place in your community where you can serve and invest in. Bring Gods love to the people that don’t know Him yet.
We hope you had a wonderful week. Jen and I got really blessed with a trip to South Carolina. Last year a good friend from the neighborhood passed away and he told his son that he should do something special for us so his son flew us out to his home in South Carolina. It was an amazing time with also remembering this wonderful friend. Thank you friends for that wonderful time.
While we were gone everything else just kept moving forward. One of our Staff started to give Computer classes for seniors in a local neighborhood center. Through that we are able to connect with more people and also bring hope to some of the elderly by connecting them for some to their far away family by email.
Invest your most precious gift, your time
When Jesus talked about to love our neighbor in Mark 12.31 it was not just a good advice, not it was a command. So in a practical way that means: To love someone we have to invest in them. If you want to see an outcome in anything you are doing you need to invest into that area. If you think about your finances, if you put all your money in a box under your bed you will not have any gain. But if you invest it you hopefully will see a gain. The same is true for relationships. When you spend time with family or neighbors and invest in them as an example by encouragement, bringing them closer to Jesus, help them with garden work, just spending time with them, you show in a practical way that you care. You are showing them by your action that they are loved. Over the years I met many fathers, but I have to say the best ones where the ones that took time out of there busy life to spend it with their child. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter what you do in that time, just you showing up already makes the difference.
I want to challenge you this week to make your most precious gift available to further the Kingdom, your time. Pray this week and seek God on how and who you should invest in. I promise you none of that time will be wasted.
We hope you had a great week. One of our highlights this week was a house concert at a friends house. It was amazing listening to them play. We also had a wonderful time at the coffee shop. The last few weeks have been a little bit slow and it might be because of summer time, but please keep praying with us for an increase of attendance
Learn from your Heavenly Daddy
When you read through the bible you see many times how God is choosing people that were mostly not the most educated. Just look at Jesus and some of his disciples. Some of them were fishermen and there family was probably doing that for generations. Fishermen was not a highly educated job at that time,so for them being asked by Jesus a Rabbi to follow him was a huge honor. But along with that Jesus didn’t keep them were they were at, instead he kept teaching them and they kept learning, and more important they wanted to learn. Most of the time he didn’t teach them in a traditional sense of a classroom, but more in the way of showing them how to do it and then have them do the same (Luke 10 Jesus sends out the disciples).
I believe this is something each one of us has to think about. We always have to position ourselves in an attitude of learning. Yes God chooses us the way we are. But to know Him better and also represent him well in this world, we have to learn from Him. We always have to live our life with an attitude and openness to learning something new. It can be through studying the bible, through spending time in God’s presence, reading books as an example on Gods character or by doing something that God called you to do and learning in the process. These are just examples, and there are many more ways but it is important that each one of us keeps learning from our father. Just remember Paul and how he talked to the studied people in Athens and how he used the unknown God as a way to bring Jesus to them. Of course he had to learn about that culture before he went and through that he was able to share with them in a way they understood. I want to challenge you to start looking this week on how to learn more from God.
We hope you had an amazing week. We had our review and evaluation meeting this week in which each ministry is evaluated. We brainstorm and pray in those times together on how to move forward. It is always a really encouraging and wonderful time. We are also amazed by looking back how much God has done in the last 6 month.
We also had a personal blessing through God last week. The friends from the boys and girls club gave us tickets to a Raiders game, my second and Jen’s first American football game. Through that we could join 2 of our staff who are going regularly. We had such a wonderful time. We are so thankful!
Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did you leave us on our own
You are faithful god you are faithful
During the worship time on our Staff Retreat we sang Never once from Matt Redman and just by singing the lines I started to feel courage build up in me . How amazing is it to know that our father is always with us. I feel sometimes we say it but do we truly believe it? Do we believe it in the dark and hard times in our lives and do we believe it in the good days when everything goes by plan?
When you read through the bible you see it all the time how god confirmed the truth of how he is with us all the time. Here are some examples:
Deuteronomy 31.8 ESV: It is the Lordwho goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31.6 ESV: Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lordyour God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Joshua 1.9 ESV: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lordyour God is with you wherever you go.” Matthew 28.20 ESV: Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Like I said these are only a few examples, but when you read through the bible you notice that it is full of passages that are talking about that God is with us in every circumstance. It doesn’t matter what you are going through, He is with you and has a solution for you. Our God is faithful!! But we also need to remember that this message is not only inclusively for us. Share it with people that go through their lives and don’t even know that there is father out there who wants to walk with them and loves them so much. Sometimes people right next to us like our neighbors need to hear that. Its not just the obvious person that is homeless, but it is often the old man right next to us that lost his wife, it’s the rich man who runs your company and doesn’t have anyone that loves him, it’s the woman that models and has no one to be real with, it’s the Hollywood actor that doesn’t even know who he is because of all the different roles he played. These are just some examples but again this applies to every person that doesn’t know the transforming love of Jesus.
Remember it for yourself today and also share it with someone else.
What a great week. It started of with receiving a package from good friends in Germany. It had lots of German goods inside like Swabia Flaedle soup, chocolate and gravy powder for a wonderful sauce! It made me (Markus) so happy.
Doing ministry this week was also amazing. One common theme that I notice with each person is hope. Many people walk through there life without hope. It got me thinking of how important hope is in our lives. When you read Hebrews 11.1 you notice something interesting, faith is actually a substance of hope, meaning without hope it’s hard/ impossible to have faith. What people need in our days is hope. Many times we don’t even know what’s going on in peoples lives. Look at the sad death of Robin Williams last week. Everyone knew him as the great actor and comedian and everyone knew his funny side. But a few knew about how he dealt with depression and addictions. I believe his biggest problem so was not having hope. Let’s not just look at the surface of a person but look at how they are really doing.
So when we reach out to others let us make sure that they leave with more hope then what they had when they came.
Also watch this new Video about the ministry of YWAM San Francisco in the Tenderloin which was just released!!
Heroes of challenge Part 5
Today I want to wrap up our series heroes of challenge. There are many more heroes of challenge, i could actually write for the rest of my life and would not run out of them, but all good things have come to an end someday.
To end with a blast let’s look at the ultimate hero of challenge, Jesus. His life started off with a challenge. His parents had to run from the leader of the time since he saw a thread in Jesus as a king and ordered to kill all babies. The interesting thing is that the same happened to Moses as well. He was called to lead the people into the Promised Land but didn’t make it himself, but Jesus made it and through him all of us can make it to heaven.
Jesus got challenged by Pharisees with different tricks and ways to bring him down (one example Matthew 22.15-22 the story of taxes). But Jesus came out as a winner in each one of them. Another time Jesus get challenged by Satan with lies (Matthew 4.1-11). But how did Jesus respond? He responded with the word of God which took Satans power. So if we are under attack from the enemy, lets listen to the holy spirit and let him guide us on how to go through the attack and come out as a winner! Another time Jesus spoke the truth to people and for that they wanted to stone Him (John 8.56-59 and John 10:27-36). This happened twice, but it didn’t change his perspective and approach. He stayed true to His calling. That is also a challenge for each one of us. Are we standing for the truth even with the risk of being attacked or killed (look at situation in Iraq and how Christians get killed for standing for what they believe)?
But then Jesus stood in front of his ultimate challenge to die on the cross. Before that happened he met with his father in the Garden, really having a hard time (Luke 22.39-46). One thing that really stuck out to me was the fact that he asked his disciples to stand with him in prayer. After he prayed, His father sends an angel to comfort him.
God didn’t take away the challenge, but he stood with him through it.
Looking at Jesus and his life I picked 4 things as a challenge for us.
The place you came from or the way you grew up doesn’t disqualify you for doing great things for God.
Never compromise the truth but stay true to it. The same is true for your calling.
Make sure you have people around you that can stand with you in times of challenge and also make sure to keep your eyes on God.
Never give up in challenges. When you walk through them and stay strong, you open the door for others to have the same victory. Look at runners, after the first one broke an impossible time record, many others followed him and did the same. When you stand strong in challenges your ceiling becomes the floor for the people that follow you!
We all will face challenges in our life, but always remember that a father who loves you is standing with you in each one of them. Choose to look at Him and ask Him for help!
