Jo Saxton

Archive for the ‘Missional Living’ Category

Mark 2:22 you know better than to put new wine into old wine-skins.  They would burst.  The wine would be spilled out and the wine-skins ruined.  New wine needs fresh wine-skins.

Structure is important!  Think of all the routines/structure/boxes that you have going on in your life – whether they are self-appointed or imposed by others.  Some are particularly good and really helpful.  Take the example of a morning routine – shower, breakfast, cleaning teeth, some sort of devotional time.  Or traffic laws, without which there would be absolute chaos!

 Sometimes however, we can get so rigid in our structures and routines that we forget the bigger picture and sometimes the aim of what that structure is there to facilitate.

Last night we hosted a discussion with some of our missional community leaders – all lovely and very capable people.  One couple in particular had got very focussed on their group and how they were trying to make it work.  The over-riding impression we got from listening to them was one of tiredness (why is this not working?) and of frustration (we have all these openings with our non-Christian friends and neighbours but no time to pursue them as we’re too busy trying to make our group work).

Another leader came up with the passage of the wine skins.  Throughout the centuries, the ‘wine’ or the essence of the gospel has not changed.  Society and individual situations, of course have!  Sometimes we need new wine skins.  Let’s be creative, think outside the box and not necessarily be a slave to the structure.  Does the structure serve us and God’s purposes or do we serve the structure?

What is God calling us to do, both individually and as a group?  Can both of those callings work together?  Do the existing structures help or constrain?  Let’s ask God to breathe His life and energy in and through us and what we are doing.  May we and the whole body be used to draw others into an ever deeper relationship with Him in as many ways as possible.  May we not lose sight of our ultimate goals.  Let’s seek to bring God’s Kingdom to those people and situations that He has placed us with/in.  Let’s ask God to reveal to us the best way of doing that.

Picture from the New York Times.

We smile because we can’t speak. At least not in the same language, not quite, not yet. So we try with our eyes and our hands and expressions to communicate  - to show that we are interested, to welcome, to befriend. I’ve learned a couple of words, but their English is way better than my Nepali. But I’m learning.

For one hour a week I try to communicate with our new Bhutanese friends, and its sweetly awkwardly sweet. I bow and say “Namaste” by way of greeting and I can see its appreciated. We photocopy the Bible passages into Nepali – and God’s word becomes accessible.  We had this great Sunday School curriculum for the kids at church, and its utterly useless right now because we have yet to work out how to communicate.  And right now it seems that a church play set without broken glass, and scooters and trikes and toys are  God’s smile of provision that means more to these children in this strange new world. And we talk, but most of all we smile.

For me it’s one hour a week, but for them? I remember how bewildering it was when we first moved to the US, navigating the system, the roads,  the bureaucracy, even the food. And we moved a team, in a world where we speak (mostly) the same language. How bewildering must it be to move here, from a refugee camp to an unknown world? It’s as though the struggle has just begun again. And no matter whom a refugee was in their home country, now they had to start again, usually from the bottom up. I once watched a series called the New Americans which featured a number of refugees who in their former land were business leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists and political activists. Now in the US they were cleaners, kitchen porters and hotel maids. They’d learned to not hand in their resumes (UK read CV), so people wouldn’t learn quite how qualified they were. Makes you think.

We are learning new things daily, and leaning on the Lord for direction. In the meantime, our friends have practical needs. Clothes, skills, forms, language learning, and we can be His hands and feet for that. We’ve learned from Nepalese and Bhutanese Christians we’ve met that most have become Christians through encountering Jesus in dreams or a family/community member being healed in the name of Jesus.  So we’ll practice what we preach, and we’ll pray for the power of God to meet them where they are at. And we’ll smile until to find the words to communicate everything we want to say.

Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:40

He did tell us to get ready. He reminded us that the harvest was plentiful, and that as we went out – we’d reap it.

A couple of months ago, a group from our church, ( a motley crew of all ages and background if ever I saw one) connected with an apartment block near our church. Just across from our church is a sprawl of never ending apartment complexes, the most densely populated part of the state. Economically deprived communities, they house many of the forgotten, refugees, ex offenders, people relocated from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. We were connected with one apartment block by Lutheran Social Services, and began to think of ways to serve. We started with a free BBQ and crafts for the kids, and the offer of prayer to anyone who wanted it.

I remember driving into the apartment complex for the first time, with my kids in the back. This was a complex housing refugees from many different countries. I saw the playground, broken glass in the sand, and a metal play set – impossible to play on in 100 degree heat. Next to the boundary walls of the complex ran a telephone wire, with a solitary pair of sneakers hanging from them, marking gang and drug territory. “Welcome to America” I muttered, and pulled my kids out of the car to join in with the festivities.

It was a hot day, but over the next two hours we connected with loads of families. Most were Bhutanese. We did lots of kid’s crafts and resolved to use only chicken hot dogs in future, because people looked at the meat really suspiciously. We offered prayed and tried hard to communicate with hand signals and odd words. And it doesn’t matter how loud you speak, or how slowly, another language is another language. But somehow by the end of the time – we made a connection, a God connection. And we knew we would return.

I had conflicting emotions as I drove home that day. I was angry. Where is the church I demanded, somewhat judgmentally. How are people supposed to live like this? How is this a  place for them to raise their kids. These were refugees; it’s not like is been an easy life to begin with. And now they’re dumped in the ghetto? Why aren’t we doing  something, anything? And where are these gangs and dealers anyway? What are we doing about them. I felt embarrassed at our own ineffectiveness; I felt foolish for the times I’d debated about worship songs, or how to do church, and wondered how often I am distracted from The Great Commission. I think sometimes God lets me get provoked and ask these questions and then lets me hear the silence. In the silence ( well not complete silence because the girls are chatting in the back about My Little Ponies) I remember exactly how you live like this – you just do. In the silence, I remember the impact of Christian urban missionaries who moved into our lives like an unstoppable force of love, compassion and the power of the Spirit. My heart was set on fire and my life was changed. Forever. And to His silence, I responded with my own. Which meant: I get it, I know what you’re saying . Bring it.

“Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow”. Isaiah 1:17

Yesterday, along with about 60 other women, I went on a bus tour.  I wasn’t going to see any grand tourist destination but quite the opposite.  I went on a tour of 10 ministries which are reaching out to some of the most poor and marginalised of Oklahoma City.  OKC has some depressing and perhaps surprising statistics.  For example, Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any other state in the US.  However, it is probably the same as most cities world-wide in that babies are abandoned, children are abused and ignored, there are thousands of homeless each night, many young adults have no-one to turn to when they face trouble etc.  It was quite an eye-opener and an emotional rollercoaster.  We heard story after story of individuals of all ages who had experienced horrific situations, but because they had been reached out to both practically and with the love of Jesus, they had found that their life had been transformed.

One story was of a woman who had grown up with a single, drug pushing mother.  They pretty much lived their lives on the streets and were in and out of the homeless shelter.  When she was older she also got into the drug scene.  As a teenager she was given the opportunity to go on a Christian camp.  She did and there she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Saviour.  A while later a family offered to take her in, although that idea did not appeal.  However, she decided for the first time to pray and ask God what He wanted her to do.  She felt Him say to go and live with them, so she did.  She restarted her education and is now married to a guy who has continued to encourage her in life and in her relationship with God.  A while ago, she felt God ask her to reach out to other homeless and struggling families.  They now have the beginnings of a ministry of their own, offering low cost housing and other support to those needy people.

A couple of years ago, some good friends of mine left their comfortable lives in Southern California to live with their two young children on the same street as the homeless and addicted.  They are leading a radical group of young adults to transform that neighbourhood.

Unlike them, I don’t think that God has made my primary calling to be the poor.  However, I don’t think I’m let off the hook either.  Years ago I stayed in a virtual mud hut in the Philippines and the family killed one of their 3 chickens so that I could eat.  Now I’m living in my virtual palace and I have to think.  What is God asking me to do with the poor who are almost on my doorstep?

I now have various lists from the places I visited yesterday with practical suggestions of what I can do.  These ideas range from donating food or lightly used children’s clothing, to cleaning streets, to mentoring children (or even those in the juvenile detention centre) to fostering a baby.  Currently, I’m thinking about what my family and I can be engaged in.  As I’m talking about it to friends and neighbours I already have quite a group of people around me who would be interesting in helping out too, including those who we’re discipling towards faith in Christ.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  Luke 12:48b.

Globally speaking, God has blessed me ABUNDANTLY.  What am I going to do with the riches He has entrusted to me?

For the past two summers I have led mission trips to Romania, both have been incredible trips. This most recent trip brought me renewed vision & focus. My summer in England had felt long and challenging. I was in need of the adventure when it came.

I took 15 of the students I lead. We were working with a charity seeking to see kingdom transformation in the area and country. We worked with the local gypsy communities. A people marginalised in society, scraping a living of the land.  The activities we did were fun and not you’re run of the mill activities. I don’t get to throw mud (dirt & horse poo) at houses back at home. We were helping, honest. But it wasn’t this that made the experience for me.

It was the fact that God turned up. I can’t explain it but it’s as if the gap between heaven and earth is thinner. I felt his presence in ways I hadn’t in a while. I knew his love, his affirmation, his voice with so much clarity, his faithfulness to come when I ask him to show up.

In the early hours of the morning I sat in his presence looking out over stunning mountains wondering why that was. What was it about being there? What was it about that place?

The conclusion I came to was this.  For me being there and being devoted to just 15 people, leading & discipling them through our time was one of the simplest expressions of what I’m called to do. At home this is a large part of what I do but often it appears clouded by responsibility and demands. There it was simple, clear like everything came into focus.

When I got home life hit again and for the first few days I barely new whether I was coming or going.

It seemed it would have been simpler to stay out there. But I knew I couldn’t. You see I am in training. My life in England is my training ground for the things that I am called to and I could focus on them again knowing that something in my heart had been reignited to go after what it is he made me to do. I had felt a glimpse of what it felt like to feel fully alive because you know you are doing the thing he made you to do.

So I am renewed in my direction and passion as I look forward.

So I ask what it is for you? What are the things that will speak to your soul again about how it was he created you and what for? It might catch you off guard in the unexpected places but God is the God of the unexpected. He has a habit of catching us off guard.  For me it was a mission trip and 15 special people that I get to lead. I don’t know what it will be for you, but I do know he wants to show you. He is always wanting to call out of us the destiny he has put before us and give us renewed passion to pursue it.

By Ally Proudfoot.

In Starbucks having coffee – I saw a friend and I said to her, “I love what you’re wearing”. She said it cost a pound. ONE POUND from a well know clothes store.

Now that got me thinking and speaking – and I said this store probably exploited people. Then I felt bad for saying that (after all she was wearing the top as I said it!!) so I went home and did what I do when I don’t know something – I googled it! And then watched a short clip following a celebrity into the slums of Bangladesh where the workers of the factory who provide the clothes to this shop lived.

This set me on a journey of conviction and repentance for my apathy. For the way I consume products without really thinking about the effect it has on others.

At the beginning of the year I was in a slum in Bangalore in a small church full of women and children. At the end of the worship, as the visitors to this church, we got the opportunity to hand out bags of rice to the women of the church who were widows. It broke my heart. They were so grateful to receive those bags of rice. It was nothing really. Just a bag of rice. But it was how they survived.

Many of the widows were old and there was no one to look after them. They were uneducated and had been economically dependent on their husbands. And when their husbands died they were destitute, so this church provided them with food twice a month. How amazing. The children in this church were all being sponsored by people from the West and they were really cool. They could speak English so we could have conversations and we had fun times together. They told me stories and played games with me. One girl told me about how she was the only person in her family who was a Christian and how she found that really hard and she asked me to pray with her.

To witness poverty in that very real way changed me. It humbled me. They were so grateful for the little they had. I saw how education gives people hope, lifts people out of poverty. Enables them to dream, enables them to aim higher.

Back home in the West, outside of the reality of the day to day grind of poverty and desperate need, we live lives full of things. We have disposable wardrobes, food we throw away, disposable incomes. I don’t want to feel guilty about the things that I own but I want to be responsible with my money and possessions. For me the outworking of that has been to attempt to live a simple life – not legalistic but simple.

Our actions in the West affect people in the developing world whether we like it or not and the actions of the people in the developing world affect us too. We can continue to ignore the fact that people are suffering in order to produce us cheap clothes. We can continue to profit from other people’s poverty or we can choose to spend our money wisely.

Recently in the news there has been lots about the end of disposable fashion because of the recession and because it’s just time for the tide to turn and for us to return to the days of mending and investing in good quality garments. Then there’s also the fact that we in the West, cocooned as we are, do not need to confront the reality of the women who work in bad conditions for up to 16 hours a day and then return to a dirty, stinky slum without running water or electricity, and who cannot provide for their children to go to school so they have to work or even beg. These children are not offered the opportunity of education. The cycle continues.

Jesus talks about two commandments – firstly to love God and secondly to love each other.

As a Christian – as a human being, as someone who has seen people living on the poverty line, as someone who has read stories of suffering, as someone who has seen children living in rubbish dumps in Africa, I have to say we need to care about the developing world.

How can we continue to go on our two or three week mission trips to poorer nations and come back only to live as we lived before? How can we continue to shop in places that clearly exploit people and prevent them from improving their living standards? How can we choose to buy cheap clothes without thinking about the impact this has on the people on the other end of the production line? As I write this I know this is as much about me as it as about anyone else. I feel my apathy, I feel my selfishness and consumerist mindset.

How can we? This is not meant to be a guilt trip, far from it. But we need to think about how we spend our money and what this means for the people in the developing world.

I dared to go where I had not gone before – I researched the shops I most regularly go to. I looked into whether or not they had signed up to various agreements to be more ethical and to engage with fair trade. There are some shops I will not be shopping in any more. There are some shops that are surprisingly ok. None of it is as good as buying with full on fair trade companies so I have ordered the catalogues; I am reading the online magazines about how to consume more ethically.  I am pleased to report that as scary as it was to confront the fear that all the places I shop at would be unethical I found that was far from true.  I continue to feel massively convicted that we in the West are so laid back about how our actions affect people in the developing world.

Jesus didn’t have to deal with a world that was massively globalised but I reckon he would have been fighting injustice with the best of them if he was here.  I have been thinking about the parables about the talents – Matthew 25:14-30 – we have been given much so what are we going to do with the much that we have received?

Personally I have a massive heart for the developing world and I want to do more than sponsor a child in India, because to be honest that money is no great sacrifice for me. I want to live a life that reflects my values and I want to be willing for that to be uncomfortable and inconvenient.  I have realised that even if this is a journey I take on my own, I need to do it.

There are so many different ways in which we can practically change our shopping habits so that they benefit people as opposed to cause them to continue to live in poverty.

I spent 6 months in the Philippines a few years ago and was privileged to meet some amazing people; the most physically poor yet spiritually rich I have ever met. The first day I arrived we were taken on ‘outreach’, which involved going into the slums, telling people about Jesus, and praying for them. The first person I met was a young woman whose two year old child didn’t look any older than 6 months. Their house, made of sticks and rubbish, was about 3 square metres, they had no food and her husband was abusive. I was told to give them an ‘encouraging message’…and promptly burst into tears.  I had never witnessed such brutal poverty and it was utterly heartbreaking. We prayed for her and then moved onto the next hut in which we met more people in similar circumstances. Person after person. With nothing.

Six months later I came back to England, indignant and frustrated with ‘Westerners’. How dare they march round shopping centres spending their hundreds and thousands of pounds on pointless objects, when there were people who could not afford to eat?

Nevertheless, within a few months I was right back there with them. Acquiring more and more ‘stuff’ that I ‘needed’. It was all too easy for me to forget what had broken my heart a few months before when removed from it and surrounded by luxury in a materialistic culture.

I’m massively challenged by this because if what I have witnessed on mission trips does not infiltrate my day to day lifestyle then such trips become yet another form of western consumerism.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, more will be asked”. Luke 12:48b.

So how can my life reflect and acknowledge the responsibility that comes with ‘much’ when I am part of a culture that is essentially built on the exploitation of the poorest of the poor, the people closest to God’s heart? Surely a massive part this has to involve a lifestyle that stands out and refuses to support such exploitation. Yet how often do I just turn a blind eye and buy a t-shirt for £3 from high street retailers, ignoring the real cost involved, even though it completely contradicts what my faith stands for? As a Western Christian in an economically privileged country, what does it look like to live my faith intentionally in a way that reflects God’s heart for humankind, aware of the responsibility I’m going to be held accountable for?

My husband James and I and our two small children are about to sell up, leave our family and friends and go to South Wales to do a year of mission training,  with the long term vision of going to Australia to work amongst Aborigines. What was once, to me, an interesting but quite far fetched dream of my husband has suddenly become my reality! I feel like I’ve walked the miles of this journey in my mind countless times but now it’s time to actually take the first step and go everything in me is going into panic overdrive. All my fears and insecurities about money, our home, uprooting our kids, and the future, are threatening to overshadow the amazing potential of this adventure. I’ve found it is so easy to talk about going anywhere God calls me but when it comes down to packing my bag and going, it’s terrifying!

In the midst of all this I’ve felt drawn to read about the disciples and their willingness to leave everything and go with Jesus. When Jesus called to those first disciples, “Come, follow me,” they didn’t first rationalise their decision and then come up with Plan B in case of failure. They left their nets at once and followed him (Mark 1v16-18). When Jesus sent them out in twos, he said, “Take nothing for the journey…no bread, no bag, no money in your belts” (Mark 6v8). They literally went in the clothes they had on and yet I’m upset about selling my washing machine and sofa and wondering how to take all my little home comforts to make my journey easier! When Jesus told them to “go into all the world and preach the good news” (Mark 16v15-20), they knew him so well and completely trusted his provision that they just went. What incredible faith and obedience.

The choice to go on a journey with God is ours. If we take that first step then the Bible is clear that we will see signs and wonders, healings and people saved because we go in Jesus’ authority. Ultimately what have we got to lose? Nothing! Earthly riches don’t matter because our treasure and reward are in heaven! But imagine the great adventure we could have if we are just willing to take a step and GO!

I just got back from 3 weeks in India. 3 completely transforming, inspiring weeks, where I felt so close to God, so intimate with him. I had spent a lot of time as a teenager dreaming about being out in the developing world, reading books about missionaries and dreaming about leading a mission focus life (although I probably would not have put it like that at that point!) India is one of the countries I have a real burden and passion for. I know for now though that God has definitely called me to be in England, to serve the people of this nation. He has been teaching me that being a missionary doesn’t start when you get somewhere it happens where ever you are. My journey has already begun. However it was a massive blessing to have the opportunity to get out to India, a definite fulfillment of some dreams.

 The day before we flew out to India it really, really snowed. Like it never snows that much in England and everything was cancelled – trains, buses, trams. Heathrow was cancelling flights and when I found that out, my reaction was to feel really, really angry that there was a possibility that my flight would be cancelled and my plans would be disrupted.

At that point I got a reality check – why was I feeling this way and why was I reacting like this? I had to go to before God and repent because going to India had become ALL about me. It had become about MY calling as opposed to my relationship with God. My focus had shifted from Jesus to me. So often I can choose to allow my calling to define me and my calling can become my purpose in life. It can become my idol so easily, which is so distorted because my life is not just about my calling, where I live or whom I reach out to.   Ultimately if my hope had been fixed on my potential calling to India being the reason for my being, I would have been crushed and my foundations rocked if I had a negative experience there. But thankfully God reminded me, convicted me that my calling is to Him and my foundations are fixed in him. So regardless of the place I am in or the people I am with, I will continue to worship him, I will continue to live out the values and principles he set out before me. I will continue to speak truth and to live the life he calls me to because it is about him, not me or my calling.

So for those wondering whether or not we got our flight – we got on our plane without any problems but with a little bit of adventure and as we got on that plane, I knew, I knew, I knew the next 3 weeks were definitely not going to be about me and my little idol – my calling.