Swimming Upstream

From whom are you learning how to live? From God and His Word or from culture? Culture inevitably influences us. And if we're not intentional about swimming against the cultural currents where culture goes against God, then we will just be swept away downstream becoming just like the sinful culture around us. This was the topic of my message on Judges 19 at church today. You can download it here or listen below if you'd like.

Mission Trips Trailer

Each year we divide up our student body into mission teams and send them out to different places in Namibia to share God's love and the truth of the gospel. At our last Devotions for the first semester we gave them a little sneak peak of what's to come . . .

Last Day of School

Today marks the last day of our first semester at NETS. Everyone takes the last of their final exams in the morning, then we all share a lunch together as a NETS community. In the afternoon we had our final Community Devotions for the semester. We've been preaching through the book of Joshua this semester, so the director of our distance program preached from Joshua 24 to close off the series.

In the middle of Devotions we had a crazy storm pass through bringing thunder, lightning, lots of rain and even some hail! This is typically the dry season and the country is going through the worst drought in years. They say the city of Windhoek will be out of water by October! But today it rained pretty steadily throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Nothing can stop God from doing as He pleases, not even dry season. :)

After Devotions everyone said their goodbyes and we will all head our separate ways for the month long winter break. Some students will do week-long practical ministries at various churches. Others will return home to farms and villages where they will have opportunities to share Christ with their family members. But hopefully they will all get some good rest and relaxation to come back refreshed for the second semester!

Singing during Community Devotions

A few NETS students saying their goodbyes 

Driving home in the crazy out-of-season thunder storm

Photo of the Day

God put all His creativity on display when making Africa.

These are two grey hornbills who visited our garden this afternoon.

Spiritual Formation

Drawing a picture of what
spiritual maturity looks like

Christianity in Namibia has often been called "a mile wide and an inch deep." That's why, when asked to facilitate the Campus Crusade for Christ staff retreat, I chose the topic of developing the inner spiritual life. They sounded about as excited to hear about the topic as I was to share it! Not only that, but they always say the teacher learns more than the student. I must say I have greatly benefited from my reading and study in preparation for facilitating this topic.

In our first session together we looked at our goal for spirituality. What does spiritual maturity look like? We often get the idea that it's external things, like how well we dress for church or how much money we give. But spiritual maturity cannot be defined by external criteria. So we looked at inner spiritual maturity through three different lenses:
1) Spiritual maturity is becoming the kind of person who lives out a spiritual life.
2) Spiritual maturity is learning to want what God wants.
3) Spiritual maturity is thinking God's thoughts after Him.

We spent our second session diagnosing our spiritual lives with questions that reached to our inner lives and not just the surface stuff. So we didn't ask things like, "Do you read the Bible?" But rather we asked, "Do you love the Bible and allow it to have authority over your life?" These kinds of questions reach to our inner spiritual lives.

Then we looked at some hindrances to spiritual formation, or ways that we sabotage our own spiritual development. We discussed how things like Christian education, spiritual busyness, unconfessed sin, and self-deception can all hinder us from growing toward spiritual maturity.

Communion service at sunset on the dunes

Then lastly we looked at how developing the inner spiritual life takes self-discipline. We have to become masters of our sinful flesh instead of allowing it to master us. Throughout the history of the Church people have used practices called spiritual disciplines to help develop their inner spiritual lives. The disciplines aren't anything magic in themselves, but they help put us in a position to receive God's transforming grace. God is the one who does the work, but it takes discipline to allow Him the time and space to shape our inner lives.

This is easily one of my favorite topics to talk about, especially here where religion largely stops at the external. I think this is an aspect of discipleship that has generally been left in the Middle Ages. We mostly focus on the external, not the internal. But when we recognize that our external lives are simply an overflow of our inner lives, it places a greater value on developing the inner spiritual life. As we shape our inner spiritual lives by pressing deeply into the depths of God, only then can we live out of those depths in our external lives.

Learning football on the beach

But besides our main sessions, we also had a lot of fun! On the first night I taught them a new card game, Up and Down the River, and they were so hooked that we played it every night! Also, using a mini-rugby ball, I taught them American football on the beach. It took a few times of explaining the rules, but they picked it up pretty quickly. Overall it was a really nice time and great getting to know the team that ministers to our nation's university students.

They must've seen "the huddle" in a football movie somewhere.

Sunset from the dunes

Guys pic!

CCC Namibia staff (minus 2)

Fall in SA

One of my favorite things about fall in New England is the extravagant colors of the changing leaves. I don't get much of that in Namibia. So it was nice to see some changing leaves at the conference center in Joburg while I'm here for this year's regional SIM Conference. This week I've joined SIM missionaries and church leaders from countries all over southern Africa at this lovely, quiet conference center in Johannesburg, South Africa to discuss issues like member care and discipleship in the southern African context. It's been great to meet lots of other people who have a similar passion for ministry in this part of the world. It's also been reinvigorating hearing stories of what God's doing in their countries and envisioning what He still has planned for Namibia!

Aside from the meetings and sessions, we also had some good downtime which was nice for me. The conference center has a nice garden with a little pond where I could sit on the grass (which we don't have much of in Namibia!) and soak up some vitamin D while typing away at my lessons for the upcoming CCC retreat. The cooler fall weather made it bearable and actually pleasant to sit in the sun. Not too shabby for an afternoon office space! One time I almost stepped on this big guy, which could have been painful since I was wearing sandals!

It's also been cool because many of the people are originally from all over the world, places like Korea, Australia, Switzerland, and the UK. I love the inter-cultural flavor of the Christian church! After one session we sang the simple chorus "God is so good" in all the different languages represented in the room. It was a nice foretaste of Revelation 7:9, "I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb."

Colorful sunset by the pond

False "Profits"

One of my co-lecturers at Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS) has long been an Evangelical voice against the prosperity gospel in Namibia. His latest brazen response against these false teachers, published in today's Namibian newspaper, gives an unfortunately accurate picture of a large segment of "Christianity" in Namibia and the effects on its followers. You can read the article online here: The Spiritual Supermarket.