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Great Commission possible

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Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. During this week we had a vision meeting to see where we are at and what God has done in this last season but also to look at where we are going and what we need to do to get there. It is amazing to see how God is moving things forward and how he answers prayers.  Please keep praying for us and the ministry to stay in step with what God is calling us to do. Thank you for joining us.

IMG_8062Any fulltime ministry always comes with a cost. For Jen and me it is the cost of San Francisco. City ministry is expensive, but in the same way really needed since more and more people in the world live in cities. Consider joining our support team. We still have a way to go, but we are praying for that by January next year we are fully funded through committed monthly support. During this year we lost a few monthly supporters, so to reach that goal we need about $2852 more monthly. You can support us with any amount you like since no gift is too small or too big. Click here to find out more on how to do it! Thank you for considering us.

Great Commission possible

When we think about the great commission it can be become really overwhelming. The world has about 7 billion people and about 640 million out of those are Christians. Yes that seems like a big amount of people to reach. But reality is if every Christian brings the gospel to 11 people the job is done. That doesn’t seem too hard anymore right. But how can we do that?

Jesus told us in Matthew 28.18-20 to go to all the nations. So that sounds first that you need to go overseas to be able to share the gospel, but that is not totally true. He said all the nations. You are already in a nation, you already have coworkers that don’t know him and of course you have neighbors that live right around you that many times don’t know him either. Why don’t you start right were you are at? If you know 11 people that don’t know Jesus bring the gospel to them. If you don’t know 11 people that don’t know Jesus, find them! You can use the concept God gave us (Just click on the link and read the 11 part series on our blog. This link gets you to the first one and then just keep clicking to the next one at the bottom of the blog page) or use whatever way God is giving you. You might think 11 people don’t seem very significant in the bigger picture, but if each Christian thinks that way we are not moving forward. Mother Teressa said once:

“Not all of us can do great things. But all of us can do small things with great love.”

So lets start loving people like in 1. Corinthians 13 and through that show them the gospel in action and give them a hunger for Jesus!! Start today!!

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Get involved

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Hey our friend

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!
loren event

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.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Invest your most precious gift, your time

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Hey our friend

20140902_101641_Richtone(HDR) 20140902_085513_Richtone(HDR) 20140901_095028_Richtone(HDR)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.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Robin Williams and Hope, and Heroes of challenge Part 5

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Hey our friend

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.

IMG_8131Doing 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.

  1. The place you came from or the way you grew up doesn’t disqualify you for doing great things for God.
  2. Never compromise the truth but stay true to it. The same is true for your calling.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!

God bless you

Markus and Jen

Love your Neighbor

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Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. After a wonderful time in Pennsylvania with seeing family and celebrating at the wedding we started into a great week back in San Francisco. During this world cup season we often get the opportunity to connect with more people through our coffee shop work. Its awesome how little conversations will often leave a lasting impact. We also saw progress in many other areas of the ministry. Please keep praying for our training in July. We still have to finish up some more teachings and details.

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Our Winter 2014 DTS North Beach Team.

We also celebrated the graduation of our Winter DTS school. We were for them but also sad to let them go. Please keep praying for them while they transition

ywamAlso some good news from the YWAM Base: We got into a purchase agreement with the owners!! Yeah praise God. Now we have to work on raising 3.2 million dollars for the rest of the cost to keep going with all the ministries. That sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but more the 12.000 people helped out or worked with the ministries of YWAM San Francisco since its beginning. So if each of them gives $270 we are there. Help YWAM San Francisco in this journey by praying, giving and sharing of the need with others. You can find more info here on how to support:  http://www.ywamsanfrancisco.org/miracle/
or share directly the posts from the YWAM Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ywamsanfrancisco

Thank you for all your help with this.

Love your Neighbor

When we think about missions we often think overseas work or going on a short term mission trip. That makes it sometimes so easy to say that we can’t do that since we have a full time job or we cant afford to travel some other place. Many times the language issue is there as well. But guess what, there is a way. Jesus himself gave us a really good guideline which makes it possible for each of us to do missions: love your neighbor.

Some of us will say: It is hard to love our neighbor because they did something we didn’t like. Maybe some say we haven’t even met all of our neighbors. Others might say I don’t have time. But the truth is Jesus called each of us to be part of the great commission.

So how can we love our neighbor? Maybe through a simple word of encouragement, a helping hand when they need it or a dinner.

Think about it this week how you can love your neighbor. We have also written a 10 week series last year which can give you some more tips. Here is the link to the final part of the series which gives you links to all of the topics: https://markus-jen-news.com/lets-look-back-to-look-forward/

Be encouraged and challenged!

Markus and Jen

P.s. I saw this clip a little while ago and it shows how loving someone is making a difference