Impact Europe ’09: Reflections, Part 1

In late May, Micah Osborne and Chuck and Tiffany Replogle joined me for a 10-day vision trip to Rome, Italy, and Marseille, France, to consider new international impact work for LifePoint. The purpose of this trip was defined by three goals. One, identify potential partners to expand the international impact work of LifePoint Church in participating in God’s kingdom work around the globe. Two, engage dialogue to discern the best point for initial and ongoing partnership. Three, begin to create a strategy to engage the people of LifePoint in personal, international gospel impact work. We traveled with Upstream Collective, a collection of missionaries targeting newer churches to help and equip them to engage in global mission. Find out more about them at www.theupstreamcollective.org. The guys at Upstream Collective were excellent hosts for the trip. As well, Ed Stetzer helped lead the trip and offered some teaching. We joined several others from around the country to form our team for the week.

Arriving in Rome a day earlier than the rest of the team allowed us to get acclimated to the city. This was a great idea as it gave us time to spend together and discuss some of the specific goals that we wanted to accomplish, as representatives of LifePoint Church in Ozark, MO. Micah has considerable experience with short-term mission projects, and Chuck had only recently been on his first mission trip within the last year. Tiffany was our respective newbie. As I introduced them to the things I wanted us to accomplish for the week, a great sense of expectation rose among us. There is something about spending time with people in this setting that really encourages bonding: long layovers in airports, long flights, lots of walking together, unknown territory, etc. It’s always interesting to see how people react in different situations. Well, to an extent it’s interesting. At other times it’s just painful to endure. Thankfully, my traveling partners made this trip a blast. All three of these people are people I have met in the last five years in planting LifePoint Church.

Our first task after landing and getting our luggage was to find a map of the city and get transportation to our hotel. There was no shortage of those wanting to transport us. We just needed to make sure we would actually end up at our desired destination. Rome is a very tourist friendly city, so navigating the city was almost natural. This time was excellent for us as we saw a few sights, which is not difficult to do in Rome, ate at a local restaurant, enjoyed our introduction to gelato on the first day and immediately began conversing with a Romanian immigrant who left his family, including his 14-year-old daughter, to come to Rome for work because he could not find work in Romania. In our research prior to the trip, we learned that a great number of immigrants come to Southern Europe, especially Italy, every year in hope of work. Because of this we were not surprised when he told us. What really shook us was his response when Tiffany asked him, “Do you enjoy living in Italy?” “Enjoy?”, he responded. “Life is not to enjoy. I live to survive. I work so I can send money back to my family. I miss my family.” It was an abrupt welcome to this city for us, and one we thought and discussed all week. I look forward to sharing my thoughts about this trip and the future work of LifePoint church in Europe over the next several journal entries.

Book Review: In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day

I do not want to live a life with regrets, instead I want to make the most of the situations that are in front of me—those that I still have a chance to effect. Even though this is the case, there are moments in my life that come to mind every once in a while that give me pause. The ones that stand out most vividly are those that are born out of my inactivity, the missed opportunities which will never come again. I have been thinking about this lately after reading a book by Mark Batterson entitled In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day. Mark believes that “the church has been fixated on sins of commission for far too long. We have long lists of don’ts.” He calls this “holiness by subtraction.” Mark also says “I think God is more concerned about sins of omission, those things that we could have and should have done.“ I agree with Mark, I tend to fixate on the things I should not do for God instead of looking for the opportunities God has carefully orchestrated in my life, the things I should do for God. These opportunities come, and if we are not diligently watching, they go.

Mark shares many examples from his own life, one where he planted one church that did not even make it to its first Sunday. He then picked up his family and moved across the country to plant a church near Capitol Hill in Washington DC. His new church, by God’s grace, is thriving today out of many challenges and struggles. Mark also uses many examples from the Bible including one obscure story out of 2 Samuel from which his book gets its title. In this story a man named Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. This event is one of many events in Benaiah’s life that leads him to being selected as one of King David’s body guards and then promoted to commander and chief of Israel’s army. God is continually creating “opportunities” for his children to glorify him in spectacular ways; in the case of Mark and Benaiah those “opportunities” came in the form of a failed church and a 500 lb. lion. I don’t know about you, but most of the time, I purposely avoid these types of “opportunities.” But then I would miss out on what God has planned for my life and the opportunity to truly glorify him. And so my prayer is to be watchful and ready for the next lion that might come my way.

This reminds me of what Jesus said to Peter when he gave him his name. “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.” Gates are not used for offense; they are used for defense. Jesus is speaking of his church, which is the aggressor not the defender against the gates of Hell, and he promises they will not stop his church.

Everyone Gets Somewhere In Life…

by Micah Osborne

No one starts a road trip without deciding on a destination. Most of us however live life without ever deciding on a destination. I just finished reading “Visioneering” by Andy Stanley where he states that “Everyone ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose.” One of the steps to getting somewhere on purpose is finding where there is. While reading Visioneering I realized I do not have a clear picture of where “there” is in, my relationship with Christ, my marriage, my family, my career and so on. In the book, Andy explains that a “Vision is a clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be.” Without that clear picture or destination in mind I am adrift to the whims of today, unable to move directly toward what could and should be in my life.

In “Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision,” Andy Stanley uses the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem to illustrate how a God-given vision is born and then executed to completion.

This book has had a profound impact on my life as I have been thinking and praying through what could and should be in my life.