Pictures from Day 3, Water Night:

DTWOTYL (pronounced ditwattel) stands for dump the water on the youth leader. Brian Gingrich awaits the inevitable.

The old yellow tent continues to serve.

Ammo!!!!!!!!!

TEENWEEK continues:

I'll get some more pictures up in the morning, but PTL, we had 197 teens at the Basketball night of TW.
Thank you for your support of this great ministry. I look forward to testimonies tomorrow, so I can hear about some of the decisions that have been made.
I was able to talk to a young lady about her soul. She told me that she had recently trusted the Lord. She said that she was very glad that she was here this week.

We have a great staff. Thanks!

hm

Pictures from Monday Night at TEENWEEK

Last night's activities consisted of 5 group obstacles. Teens had to use brains as well as braun, but mostly team-work to get through them:

Tonight we are at the City Pool, 6:00.

Over at 10:00

TEENWEEK day #2:

It is Tuesday morning.
I'm sorry that I didn't get this posted sooner, but the system wasn't working right last night.

We had 120 teens at TEENWEEK Sunday, and around 160 last night. Greg Alderman had a great message. The kids listened especially well.

As you can see our staff is enthusiastic and the kids are having a great time.

Tonight we meet at 6:00 at the Main Street Park, Covington (Swimming Pool)

We do swimming, D.T.W.O.T.Y.L. (pronounced, ditwatel, it's a traditional teenweek game from antiquity.) Greg will be speaking again.

Sometime during the day on Sunday we'll show the TEENWEEK video at CBC. I'll give copies to Pastors Price and Gillette so they can show it as well, if they want to.

More later.

TEENWEEK is here:

TEENWEEK is an amazing happening.
Grace Brethren Church, Faith Baptist Church, and Covington Bible Church put on a great series of events for teens every summer. We began, yesterday with an event at Lake Moomaw.
We went green this year. Other than transporting the group and the equipment to the Lake we used no fossil-fuels in TEEENWEEK Day #1. The kayaks and canoes were propelled by very young muscles.
God is good! He would be good even if our event had been held up by rain, but the weather was a reminder to us about God's grace. We drove through a major rainstorm to get to the Cole's Point recreation area. By the time we got there it was dry. Later, during our meeting, when we were under shelter #1, the rain resumed. for some reason I had emphasized getting all the teens under the roof before the meeting started, so when the rain came the some adults who were on the perimeter had to move in, but the kids were already in place in the dry. : ) PTL!
I don't have the official #s, yet, but there were around 120 teens there, yesterday.
Since our main speaker, Greg Alderman, is arriving today, Chris Merrell shared a message about how to make the most of this week. The bottom-line is something all of us, old as well as young, need to apply.

• Pray--a number of kids signed up to pray at 10:00 & 2:00. Join in!
• Realize that life is not primarily about me, but about God, and what the Lord wants to do through us, particularly,
• Reaching out to others. Draw them in. Reach out to them. Share the Lord with them.
• Make the most of the opportunities. We can see our area change as we see lives changed.

I hope to put up some pictures later today.

Check back for updates.

Some further thought on Micronesia:

Missions work is complicated. It always has been. I think it is more so today because of the rapid change in the world around us.
I have already introduced you to Asial Ruda. I enjoyed getting to know him while I was in Palau. Like me, he was visiting there for Gospel Day. Though he is Chuukese, and ministers in Yap, for a number of reasons--involvement with Liebenzell Mission, being a graduate of PIBC (Or as it was known when he graduated, Micronesian Instutute of Biblical Studies), etc.--he has a number of connections to the church in Palau. Over a couple of meals that we shared together, Asial shared with me about some of the changes that have taken place in his Island state. Asial is still in his 40s. He told me that when he first went to Yap it was common for people to show up at church functions wearing grass skirts. When there was a meal at their meeting place, many people would bring food wrapped in leaves. No more. Now it is Western clothing and Tupper-ware. Former Missionary on Palau, Bill Schuit, told how when he was there, boats were the primary means of transportation, now roads and bridges have changed life so that one local told him that only tourists and fishermen use boats now.
In the West, we have been dealing with negative culture for decades and we still aren't doing as well as we would like. There is no gradual change in these Islands on the other side of the world. When satellite TV comes, it all comes. When Internet access arrives, everything can be accessed.
Missionaries, pastors and other Christians workers are constantly trying to hit a moving target. "Let's see what is the status of the culture of the people I'm trying to reach, today?"

My conclusion is that in a place like Micronesia, where there is a substantial church already in existence--flawed, but in many places, and ways, basically sound--that our best chance is to help train a generation of indigenous Christian-leaders, who can bring the changeless truth of scripture to their rapidly changing world.

Again, I welcome your comments.

Check out my friend, Dave Owen's blog for some more pictures and reports. http://owensonguam.com/

Can a church lacking in orthopraxy, really be orthodox?

Again, if this is the first time you are reading this blog for a while, you might want to read the last 2 postings. Hopefully, they will make this one make more sense--or less nonsense, maybe.

[in the picture to the right, Asial Ruda, a Chuukese missionary to Yap, and Harald Gorges, Liebenzell Mission, Germany]

I grew up spiritually in an Fundamentalist environment. My church was an IFCA, Bible Church. My pastor graduated from Moody, back when it was a bastian of conservative Christianity. I attended a Bible Institute and Bible College that both had a clear linkage to the birth of Fundamentalism in the early-mid 2oth

Century. I pastor a church that comes from the same heritage.

If I am talking to the right person, I might describe myself as a Fundamentalist. I owe a great deal to those who came out from among the liberals and Biblical compromisers of the past.

However, the word Fundamentalist has come to mean something different than it once did. It seems like Fundamentalists used to stand for something. Often, now, they primarily stand against things. Then there are many who call themselves Fundamentalists who have taken extreme positions--KJV only, various dress-codes, a very narrow view of aceptable music, etc. When people have this in mind when they use the term Fundamental, I reject the label. Unfortunately, in the current culture, I'm afraid that this is the kind of philosphy that people usually associate with the term. (Likewise the term "evangelical" is becoming so associated with politics that it may be a worthless description as well.)

I tell you a little about where I came from, in order to give you a frame of reference for what I am about to write.

Fundamentalist type mission agencies, in my experience have been rather quick to declare vast parts of the world as devoid of any sound churches and in great need of evangelism. I think everyplace is in need of a greater witness, and the Lord commanded us to go into all the world, but the following anecdotes will give some idea of what I mean:

• I remember hearing a missionary, speaking in a Bible College Chapel, say concerning an entire country that there was no sound gospel witness there. I remember sittng there, thinking about a friend of mine who was a missionary in the country that was being mentioned. The problem was my friend ministered with a mission that didn't have "Baptist" in it's name. So it didn't count.



• I was, a couple of years ago, in a preacher's meeting where a representative for a stateside church planting mission was speaking. He made the categorical statement that every community, not just town or city, but every community ought to have a Bible Church. I remember thinking what if a small community has a conservative Presbyterian church, a solid Baptist Church, through in a Brethren, Gospel preaching Charismatic, and a solidly Evangelical Methodist Church for good measure. Should that community have a Bible Church? Should the resources that are perhaps already spread to thin be further dilluted by the entrance of another church? I fear that the gentleman would have unequivocally responded, "Yes."



• In recent years I have become acquainted with some fine Christians from other parts of the world whose heritage is much different than mine. My Fundamentalist upbringing (and colleagues, I fear) look at suspiciously at these believers. (To be sure there are areas of disagreement between me and them, but) I have been impressed with these folk's passion to serve our Lord and to live life based on the teaching of God's word. These Christians don't cross their "T"s and dot their "I"s in the same way I do, but they are solid Christians doing good work. I have been privileged to be in parts of the world where they have left their missions imprint. Some of the churches they have left behind are carrying on solid ministry; others, not so much--not unlike the pattern I observe in churches founded by more Fundamental mission agencies. Yet many in the Fundamental camp are not even willing to give these folk a place at the table. They look at what they have done and instantly declare that it is insufficient, and not worthy of support.

I asked the question in the title of this post, Can a church be orthodox if it is lacking right practice? One of the problems is that we in the Fundamentalist tradition have been very good at "rightly dividing" the Word of God and constructing ever more narrow doctrinal statements to keep out various heterodoxies. It is much harder to look at a church and judge whether or not the ministry is leading to sound living. I know the two should go together. My observation is they often do not.

I fear that too often decisions about where to plant churches are being made on an entirely insufficient search for orthodoxy, without a correspondingly rigorous investigation concerning the difference that a ministry may be making in the lives of people.

Again, I'm open for comment.