Have Grace and Time

Over the years I meet many new believers that had a huge excitement for there faith. But sometimes I saw them again a few years later and in some way they almost lost their faith. There are many reasons why that can happen, but I believe one of it is the use of grace and the time we give the person.

Let me explain it with this example: Imagine your whole body is surrounded by a thick layer of ice. Now the sun comes out and touches the top part of your body. Slowly the ice starts to melt and you are free. But it takes time for the ice to melt. It doesn’t help if we as bystanders stand next to you and scream that you are a terrible person and that you should have not been in the ice in the first place. What does it do to you? It lets you forget about all the melting that already took place on your body and you might move into the shadow ashamed for the ice instead of celebrating that the sun freed you.

I think that is sometimes true for us as Christians as well. When we meet new believers we expect them to be sin free. We expect them to get rid of all the bad in their life in 2 hours. But reality is it takes time. We need to give people time to grow. Of course we don’t want them to be stuck in there sin for the rest of their lives, but does it really help if we tell them all the time all the things they do wrong. Most of the time they will be discouraged and would actually stop sharing with us. But what about we start to encourage them in the things they do right? What about we have grace with them and give them time to grow?

It will as an example do 2 things:

1. When we encourage in what they do right, it shows them that we really care about them and our relationship with that person will go deeper. We actually celebrate their successes with them. That will grow trust and open up doors for us in the future to speak into their life and to help them grow but it also gives us another great friend.
2. When we walk alongside people and have grace with them in times of slip up, we show them more of Jesus and how He deals with us. It is also a good reminder for each one of us that we make mistakes as well.

I am not saying with that that we should ignore all sin in the lives of new believers. No what I am saying is to help them grow but in a way that actually helps them to grow. We need to learn to help people, but in the right time. We need to give people time to grow, and that is different for every person. How do we know the right time? We know it by letting the Holy Spirit guide us. Let Him guide you and be a part in raising up strong followers of Jesus.

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. Looking just at the first 2 weeks of this year I am just amazed how much God keeps increasing our favor in this work by just opening greater doors.

Our new DTS Students arrived which is amazing. We look forward to see how God will use them in North beach as well as later on in there hometowns. Please keep them in your Prayers. Please also keep praying for the safety of the police in North Beach.

Thank you for standing with us in this work!

God bless you

Markus and Jen

God restores broken things

When I watched a church service on New year’s day broadcasted from Frauenkirche in Dresden, I got reminded of how God is all about restoring. Let me tell you why. During the bombing In World War 2 Frauenkirche got totally destroyed. It literally looked impossible to rebuild. During the time of the separation of Germany in east and west, nothing was done to the ruins of the church for 40 or 50 years. After Germany was reunited a plan was made to rebuild the church stone by stone. For many years specialists looked through all the stones and started to mark them and display with a computer on how to put them back together. It was a huge and expensive effort. People from all the nations in the world donated to the project so that it could keep going. On the 30^th of October 2005 the impossible happened and the church  was put back into service, just in time for Reformation Day on the 31^st.

When I look at that church it paints a great picture of God and his plan for each person on this planet. God wants to restore everyone. He wants to rebuild us to our original design and get rid of sin and all things in our life that separate us from him and our original design. When you look at the story of Israel in the Old Testament you see how often they messed up, but God still choose to take them back and kept bringing restoration. It would have been easy for God to just destroy them and just start again at Zero, but no out of His love He choose to restore. The same is true for Frauenkirche, it would have been cheaper and easier to just build a new church, but if that would have been done we would have missed out on a reminder of Gods heart of restoration. God believes in us and wants to restore like the story of Frauenkirche and for that He uses each one of us. There are people around us that might exactly need that restoration in there live in order to see hope again. How? Easy: be the man or woman God created you to be and love on them. This can look different for every person. Example: If someone struggles with self-esteem, ask God how he sees them and then encourage them with the things God sees in them.

There are many ways to do this and it takes every single Christian on the planet to get the job done, so start this new year by joining God in restoring people.

Hey our friend

Wow we are already getting into week 3 of 2015. How are you? How are you holding up with your new years resolution? 46% of the new year resolutions are kept till June which is awesome. Lets try this year to get this number up by keeping the ones God gave each one of us for this new year.

We started well into the swing of things. For this new year our goal is to create more online content for the ministry to empower every believer to live the great commission practically. Please pray with us for someone who could help us in creating videos for that. I also start to work on a book that goes along all the other content. All those things are more of a long-term project and might take longer then one year, but pray that they are not put away because of the normal everyday things. Thank you for praying with us.

We also still need more monthly support. Pray about to join our support team. Every YWAM missionary is relying on support for all the expenses they have (ministry as well as personal), since none is paid. Our goal is to be fully funded by January and we had quite a few new people join our team last month. Find more info on how to support us by clicking on this link.  Thank you for considering us.

We wish you a blessed week.

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great start into this New Year. We made it back to San Francisco after a  time of joy and grief with family in Germany. Please pray for us for a smooth start with the ministry in 2015. Thank you for standing with us! Please let us know if there is anything we can pray for you!

Accepting one another

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15.7

This verse is the Verse that got picked by the Church in Germany as the verse for 2015. When I started to think about this verse, it made me think of a story I heard years ago. It plays in Russia during a cold winter. A old lady who had a small house heard a knocking at her front door. When she opens it she sees 2 German soldiers. They ask her if they can come in to warm up. She says yes if they would leave there weapons outside. They did and came in. After a while there was another knock. The lady opens the door and outside are 3 Russian soldiers and ask as well if they could come inside. She gave them the same conditions. When they walked in they were quite surprised to see the German soldiers. But then they sat down at the fireplace and warmed themselves up. That evening they ate soup, laughed and cried together and accepted each other. The next morning all of them left to go back out to fight the war. But all of them left with a love and acceptance for the other.

Like in that story we often have a hard time accepting people for who they are. Sometimes it might be cause of a different clothing choice or hairstyle. When we think about the story of the prodigal son we see how the father accepted that son even after he failed big time. He didn’t just accept him, no he embraced loved and blessed him. God wants us not just accepting people but loving them. When we accept people we give them the opportunity to maybe feel accepted for the first time in their life. When we do that we soften and open there heart towards there loving father in heaven who waits for them with open arms.

Let us live this year by this verse and love many people through that into the Kingdom of God.

Have a blessed start into this New Year

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We are on our last few days in Germany and will be back in San Francisco soon. It is such a blessing to celebrate Christmas and New year with family. Thank you to grandpa in heaven for getting us tickets to come!!

Please pray for San Francisco and North beach while we are gone since New Years week can be a little bit crazier. Pray for safety for the people of this city.

With the year coming to an end pray about giving a year end donation towards supporting Markus and Jen. Your donation will help us to keep bringing the hope of Jesus to many lonely and isolated people and to train Christians in how to live the great commission daily by reaching their neighbors. Also consider joining our monthly support team. Our goal is to be fully funded by January through monthly giving.  Click on this link then choose monthly giving choose the amount, under ministry Staff support and write under comments Markus and Jen. For one time gifts click one time donation type the amount and on the next site it will give you a point ministry designation, write down Markus and Jen. Thank you for partnering with us in bringing hope to North beach and beyond!

But for me its good to be near God

But for me it is good to be near God. I made the Sovereign Lord my refuge,… Psalm 73.28 NIV

2014 is coming to an end. It was a wonderful year with great moments and challenging moments. In Germany the church picks a verse out of the bible which stands for the year. For 2014 it was the verse at the beginning of this blog. It is so great to see how the Psalm writer knows how important it is to be near to God. And it is true. God is always near to us even if we are not near to him. In all the great moments and in all the challenges we are facing God is with us. When we are near Him we will automatically choose him as a refuge. I want to encourage you to reflect on this verse in the last few days of 2014. Look at your year and remember moments where you were near to God but also look at moments where you were not near. Think about why you were near to him in some of them and why you were not in others. When you did that pray and ask God for ways on how to always draw near to Him. When you do that, it will help you to change your perspective.

Have a great Start into 2015 and remember this year that you are amazing and loved.

Your friends

Markus and Jen