Lessons from the Wild II (Devotion)

The rhino, as any fan of The Gods must be Crazy, knows is the self-appointed fire prevention officer of the jungle.   But maybe there are a few facts of the Rhinoceros that you might not be aware of and can apply to live & ministry on STINT. 

A group of Rhinos is called a crash.  The reason is because a Rhino runs 30 miles an hour but can only see 30 feet in front of them.  (Props to Erwin McManus for this insight.) This propensity for running into things is perhaps why God created Rhinos with thick skin and gave them one or two horns depending on the species.  

Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:18  says, 'we fix our eyes on what is unseen rather than what we can see' and in the next chapter adds 'we live by faith and not by sight'.  What if we charged through life like Paul and his buddies, like a crash of Rhinos - full force, break-neck speed, by faith, not worrying about what we can see with our limited eyesight?   We don't have a horn and we're not pachyderms (though some of us are thick-skinned & some thick-sculled) but we have the same promise that enabled Paul to live & minister this way.  It's a promise of the coming resurrection; a promise that while this measly aging body will waste away its not the end.  

We can be pressed down but we are not crushed.  We can be perplexed but we are never in despair.  We might be persecuted but we will not be abandoned.  We possibly could be struck down but we will not be destroyed.  Life, eternal life, real life is guaranteed so we can charge ahead like Rhinos - full of faith.

Another little tidbit about Rhinos is their symbiotic relationship with the oxpecker.  The oxpecker feeds off of parasites that live on the Rhino.  And it seems like they get the best of them because they get a little of the Rhino's blood when they remove ticks or whatnot.  But with the Rhino's myopia, he knows that danger is near when the oxpeckers fly away.  (The rhino also has amazing sense of smell and hearing but those facts blur my analogy so ignore them.) 

It's teamwork in action.  Where the Rhino is limited, the oxpecker is strong.  When the Rhino might not even know there are little guys beneath the thick skin slowing sucking life away, the oxpecker shows up for a groom and a snack.  For the Rhino, while sacrificing a little blood in the process, this relationship saves his hide.  For the oxpecker he gets lunch and a free wild ride.

 In the same way of God's created order in the wild, He has placed you together as a team for a purpose.  It's no accident you are together. Everyone has a role.  Sometimes the role is defined: team leader, person who handles finances, team prayer leader, buyer of snacks for socials, etc.  But sometimes the roles are undefined.  Maybe one of you is the team encourager speaking life into others.  Perhaps you are the one God has gifted with humor who brings light moments to heavy ones.  Perhaps you are the team servant joyfully serving others and not wanting to draw attention to yourself. Maybe you're 'the team mom' caring for others when they are sick or 'big brother' looking out for others and making sure folks are safe.

Do you really believe that God has uniquely made everyone on your team and brought you together for a purpose?  Everyone!   Do you just accept each other's differences or do you appreciate them?  Or maybe you are just still back at the stage of being aware that you are not alike or acknowledging these differences but just trying to tolerate one another.  How often do you say, "God I am so thankful that this person is on my team and that you made them different than me.  They might even bug me at times but I need them... I need those who are thick-skinned.  I need the bloodsuckers, too.  I need every person on this team and they need me."   

We need each other to forge ahead by faith as a crash of Rhinos.

An Invitation to a Cool Event

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 a.m. Craig Johring, who has been a key player in Enfoque Mexico (the City Focus strategy in Mexico City) will be doing a 35 minute training on how to launch movements on multiple campuses. He's presenting it in Minneapolis, but it will be available on the web, free for all. Because that's the way the internet should be.

Here's the link... there's no login or cost of any kind*.


*Because the internet should be free.

Call Me Brother Zed (A Devotional)

When I was in college, there was this guy called Brother Zed who came to my school every year. He wore all white, and his wife wore homemade clothes and carried a sign that said something about Hell, and his little son came and sat at his feet. He’d stand in the quad and verbally abuse everyone who came by. We were all sinners, prostitutes, hellions with a one-way ticket to the devil’s dinner table. This was the sort of thing he said to us. Of course all the students loved him. We’d form a crowd and yell things just to get him worked up. We’d also throw pennies at him.

In a way it might remind you of the Apostle Paul. Here’s this guy trying to tell people about Christ, and the brilliant philosophers of the day (that would be us, the penny-throwers) gathered to mock and abuse him. Of course, Brother Zed’s gospel--though actually correct in places, and presented with great enthusiasm--bears little relation to Paul’s gospel.

Paul wrote, “Our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.” (I Thessalonians 1:3) Here are a few thoughts I’ve had while ruminating on this verse:

1) Paul’s gospel came with power. A hallmark of Paul’s message is the “power of the gospel to change lives.” It might mean the lame walking, the blind seeing or the dead coming to life. The gospel transforms those it touches. It’s not merely a set of propositions to be accepted or rejected, it’s the offer of metamorphosis, an invitation to the caterpillar to enter a cocoon and be changed forever. The old and dead falls away like chaff and the seed of the gospel bursts into new life.

2) The Holy Spirit is integral to the gospel. If we are not presenting the gospel in partnership with the Holy Spirit then it’s nothing more than lifeless words. Finite words cannot introduce one to the infinite God unless God himself whispers through them. The single most effective thing I can do to ensure I am presenting the gospel well is to make my relationship with the Holy Spirit a priority in my life.

3) Paul expressed his gospel with deep conviction. Too often I think my conviction for the gospel will deepen if I study enough, or understand the battle between evolution and creationism, or if I spend some time polishing my ecclesiology. And of course those things are valuable and helpful. But in the end, reading all of the apologetics in the world won’t bring me to deep conviction in the gospel unless I am experiencing the life change that comes with the gospel and growing in relationship with the Holy Spirit. Knowing Christ intimately creates conviction about His gospel.

I think of Brother Zed sometimes. I wonder if he knew the God he was haranguing all of us to follow. He had deep conviction, yes, but there was no power to his words, and I never once saw the Holy Spirit speak to someone through him. But then I wonder, how often is that true of me, also?

Holy Spirit, may the power of your gospel be evident in my life and ministry. I ask that you would speak to the hearts of the lost as I share your good news with them. Give me deep conviction of the truth of your words and boldness to share the gospel as I should.

Finding the Leader

Here are some thoughts from our Fearless Leader, Doctor Steve Douglass, that should be helpful when you get to campus and start building Bible studies and setting up leaders:

“I can’t find any people to lead Bible studies or movement groups!” is what I sometimes have heard from staff. “Do you have anyone at all?” I ask, to which they usually answer “Sure, but there are some problems that disqualify them.” In other words they are not without flaw.

Well, guess what? None of us are without flaw, and we have yet to grow to what we can be. Now I am not saying that there are no disqualifiers. What I am saying is that God can salvage people from a bad past.

Consider the apostle Paul. When we first met him in Scripture, he was a leader in the persecution of the church. He was responsible for the arrest and abuse of many first century Christians. If asked, I am sure almost all Christians during that time would have agreed that there was no way Paul (Saul) could ever be used by God to be a leader in the church.

Yet God called Paul, brought him through trials and teaching, and eventually used him to author more of the New Testament and to inaugurate more ministry among Gentiles than anyone else. Is it unusual for God to salvage people? No! In fact He seems to relish it.

Consider the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. In it we find:

• Rahab – a harlot from Jericho who married Salmon and became the mother of Boaz, and she is mentioned in Hebrews 11 and James 2 as an example of faith.


• Ruth – a Moabite, whose people were traditionally enemies of the children of Israel, became a timeless example of loyalty. Her marriage to Boaz, an Israelite, led them to become the great grandparents of King David.


• David - a dutiful King, yet one who committed adultery and murder.


• Bathsheba – an adulteress with David who eventually becomes the mother of King Solomon.


• Four flawed people, whom God was able to redeem out of bad backgrounds and shame—as they were willing to turn from their sin and serve Him.

You might be saying it isn’t always sin that disqualifies people; sometimes it is a lack of ministry competencies. I will grant that it is good for people to have innate abilities to lead groups or start spiritual conversations. At the same time many of the twelve apostles selected by Jesus lacked ministry skills. Peter had a knack for saying the wrong thing. Thomas wasn’t exactly full of faith. And I can only imagine how Levi came across as a seasoned tax collector. God can make anyone useful if he or she is willing.

So why am I writing about this to you? In my next Global Connection, I will be sharing with you strategy components that we should emphasize in Campus Crusade for Christ. They are phrased in a way that emphasizes the mobilization of people.

These components may be of no surprise to you. We are all about spiritual multiplication—which involves passing ownership of ministry on to others. But that won’t happen if we view most of our disciples as “disqualified” for one reason or another.

If we find it hard to have faith that God is able to use them, we won’t even try to challenge them toward their potential as a leader. Or, we may embark on a process of discipleship that is so drawn out that people drop out needlessly.

Am I advocating that we should ignore that people have certain barriers to becoming multipliers? No, not at all. I am just advocating that we:

Have faith that God can make people useful to Him.

Look for people whose hearts are right before God (“good soil”).

Work with them aggressively to use their strengths and grow in their weak areas.

Give them a chance to try to minister, perhaps a little sooner than we might think.

Encourage them throughout the process.

Anytime you find yourself reluctant to do these things, think first of one of your own experiences or those of someone you know well. How “perfect” were you when you got started? How skilled were you at evangelism and discipleship? How different are you now than when someone believed in you and let you try?

Thoughts to consider during your devotional times:

1) Look at the five points at the end of this letter. Think of someone whom you have been reluctant to let minister. Honestly assess how you are doing with them in each of the five points.

2) Select one area where you realize you can improve in your ability to help that person achieve his or her potential in ministry.

3) Ask the Lord to give you one or two action steps to help achieve that improvement.

WSN Interview: Chip Scivicque (part two)

Continuing a quick interview with our Bible teacher for our time together in Copper Mountain. Click here for part one.

WSN: So I’m sure you’ve heard the St. Francis quote, “Share the gospel with everyone, if necessary use words.” Would you say that’s the same thing or taking it too far?

CHIP: The best way to communicate the message is in word and deed, mixed together, blended together appropriately so that we can respond the way that Jesus did when the friends of the paralytic let him down in front of Jesus. If you read the account of the friends of the paralytic, they tore a hole in the roof and lowered him down in front of Jesus because they couldn’t get to him because of the crowd. That man had two pressing needs. One, he must have needed forgiveness, because that’s what Jesus gave him. That’s where Jesus started. “Your sins are forgiven.” The man also needed to be healed of his paralysis. And it says that Jesus seeing their faith, he responded to that by healing him. But there’s no indication that Jesus wrestled with, “Well, should I share how he can be forgiven and know God even though he’s a paralytic, or do I heal him and hope he gets it, that I’m God and I can save him.” He did both. He touched his human need and healed him of his paralysis and he spoke words of forgiveness.

WSN: I imagine some people would hear what you’re saying and say, “This is a great new evangelism technique. I can do something nice for someone and then they’ll listen to the gospel.” What would your response be to someone like that?

CHIP: Eric Swanson says that when we’re feeding human need, if it’s refurbishing a school, doing renewal in the community, or working at a soup kitchen or working in an orphanage, “Salvation is always our ultimate motive but it’s never our ulterior motive.” Of course we want to see people come to know Christ and be redeemed and live forever. That’s so much bigger than whatever human need they have. But we don’t do good deeds as a means to an end to share the message and chalk up how many people we shared the message with and how many decisions we got and how many members we got into our group. That’s not Christian.

WSN: It sounds like what you were saying earlier, that someone who is culturally very far away and would never sit down and listen to the good news, instead they saw it in action and realized that it could be a part of their life.

CHIP: Exactly. When they saw Christians serving sacrificially and when they saw them up to their ankles in nasty, moldy mud in New Orleans gutting these homes they said, you know, these people actually do have something to offer and that’s compassion and love.

WSN: How did this happen in your own life, how did the paradigm shift happen for you?

CHIP: Several factors converged. By God’s grace he’s given me a love for the Bible. I’ve read it over and over. For most of my life I’ve tried to read the Bible through every year. And as you read the scripture, it is so obvious that God cares about widows and orphans. Prophets always are condemning Israel for their lack of concern for the people on the margins of society, for the poor and oppressed and Jesus took up that same message when he came. So the first thing was looking at scripture and looking at my own life and the ministry I was in and saying, you know, we’re not really touching those groups of people. We’re just sharing the gospel message with the young, the bright and the beautiful and even when we do come in contact with the poor and needy we’re just sharing the gospel message with them and not really helping them with their needs. So that was the first thing, God’s word.

Number two, we went to Thailand in 1983 and I was 30 years old and the human need in Thailand began to get my attention. There were lepers on the street, there were deformed children on the streets begging. There were 70,000 orphans in the country and we, early on, began to visit orphanages. And the wealth and the poverty there was a lot more mixed in. Here in American we’ve done a great job of partitioning the poor off into certain sections of town that we upper-middle class white folk don’t have to go in and we live our lives and do our shopping and working and playing in these nice upper-middle class areas and never have to go through the depressed neighborhoods of our community. In Thailand it wasn’t that way. Wealth and poverty were all mixed together and you lived among the poor. That was helpful for me. It opened my eyes to the needs of this world.

The biggest thing in Thailand was in 1991. We walked into a handicapped babies home that had 450 children with all kinds of birth defects and we got involved in that orphanage and volunteered there regularly for two years and actually adopted a little girl from the orphanage. That, too, opened my eyes to how much human need is in the world and as I observed the Christians who were working in this government orphanage I realized what a beautiful thing they were doing and that sharing the gospel message among the bright and the beautiful is not the only thing that God values. I know he loved what these folks were doing in that orphanage. Then, coming out of Thailand, a big thing for me was—Thailand is 95% Buddhist, 4% Muslim and 1% Other. The Protestant population is still only about 4 to 6 tenths of one percent. And that’s after 200 years of Protestant missions.

WSN: Wow.

CHIP: So obviously the gospel has not been experienced as something powerful or effective in Thailand, so I wrestled with our own lack of effectiveness. Mine personally, Campus Crusade, Evangelicals. I just looked at the landscape and thought, there are all kinds of Christians here. We have people who are theologically liberal here doing mercy ministry and not sharing much of the gospel message, we’ve got people on the other end who are real conservative who are sharing the message but not doing much compassion ministry. We’ve got high church and low church, the stiff Presbyterians and some wild, crazy charismatics and nobody is responding to any of this. As I thought about that the thing that I saw was, you know what, everybody over here is either meeting human needs and hardly ever talking about Jesus or they’re talking about Jesus all the time but they’re not actually showing any concern for the poor and the needy in this country. So I walked away from Thailand when I was 40 saying, I wonder what would happen if someone were to put those two things together in a place like this?

WSN: And then the tsunami hit….

CHIP: When the tsunami hit we did begin to put those things together. And it’s been phenomenal. In the hardest hit province of Thailand, before the tsunami hit there were three churches. A year after the tsunami hit there was an article on the front page of a Thai newspaper that said that there were now 65 churches or Christian centers in that province. That’s in a Buddhist country where there’s never any Christian news because the Christian population is so insignificant, but on the front page of the Thai newspaper there’s an article about all the Christians who had been down there responding to the tsunami and how much good they had done as far as cleaning up, relief and re-building and –by the way—there’s now 65 churches where there were only three a year ago.

WSN: That’s pretty amazing.

CHIP: It really is. My buddy Mike Christians led a park ranger to Christ that has gone on in his faith and is still walking with him two years later. This guy received Christ with tears rolling down his cheeks and then turned around and shared with his friends and family and Mike said, “I’ve been here for twenty-five years and I’ve never, ever seen a Thai respond to the gospel the way this man did.”

WSN: I guess it does show that we’ve been presenting these different pieces of the gospel, but not the whole thing. And the whole thing put together is pretty compelling.

CHIP: It really is. I was talking with my friend Jay Lorenzen about this one day and he said, “I guess we as Christians have to bear the weight of the gospel’s implications before our message has any power.” That is so true. The gospel’s about a great God who condescended and came down to man not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. That’s what the good news is. So when we live that out, when we lower ourselves and humble our upper-middle class white selves (or whoever we are in the world) and go anywhere not to be served but to serve and to spend and be spent on behalf of the people’s needs and tell them the gospel as we go, it does become a really powerful thing.

WSN Interview: Chip Scivicque (part one)

Our Bible teacher at the Global Briefing is Chip Scivicque.

Chip has been on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for thirty-two years. He served for two years at “Ole Miss” before moving on to direct the ministry in Auburn for five years. He’s spent a total of twelve years living and doing ministry in Thailand. Then he worked to help send college students to do ministry internationally. Since the tsunami in Thailand he’s been asked by Campus Crusade to work on a new “Good News, Good Deeds” focus, helping the US campus ministry to turn our attention toward living the gospel, not just talk about it. He jokingly refers to himself as the “Good News, Good Deeds Guru.”

WSN: As if world evangelization wasn’t enough, now Crusade wants to be a humanitarian organization?

CHIP: We don’t want to become a humanitarian aid organization, but continue to be who we are. Students are our target and the proclamation of the gospel is our lead foot, but--and here is the operative phrase--we want to weave the compassionate works and words of the gospel into the fabric of the campus ministry.

WSN: This sounds like a pretty major paradigm shift.

CHIP: Well, yeah, it is a major paradigm shift and I think it’s a lot bigger than Crusade. All of Evangelicalism was born in the 50s (pretty much). Theological liberalism had really swept the Protestant church and the great majority of Protestant Christians rejected the miraculous and the supernatural and removed that from scripture. Their approach to scripture was, “If I can’t prove it scientifically, then it must not be true.” So they rejected the virgin birth and the miracles of Christ and the bodily resurrection and a literal second coming and Christ became a good teacher rather than a savior and a redeemer and the Son of the Living God. When they did that the gospel message really had no power to redeem and to save mankind. They were left with the teacher’s advice to love your enemy, turn the other cheek, feed the hungry, take care of widows and orphans and in their minds, evangelism and missions became mercy ministry. Evangelicalism was born, and one of the things at the heart of it was belief in the inerrancy of scripture, that it’s the inspired word of God.

So Evangelicalism was born in this sea of theological Liberalism where there was almost nothing but mercy ministry with no gospel proclamation. We said, “Wow. If you feed someone or build a home for them or make their life better or heal them of their sickness and then they die and go to hell, what good did you do them?” A false dichotomy was created, that there’s either mercy ministry with no proclamation or proclamation with no compassion demonstrated toward human need. So the shift that’s going on is huge. Evangelicals and Campus Crusade are realizing that it doesn’t have to be either/or, it should be both/and. So all Evangelicals, including Crusade, are trying to bring proclamation of the message into the context of demonstration, trying to share both the words and the works of the gospel.

WSN: So how do you answer the critics who say, “What does it matter if we mow people’s lawns and they still go to hell”?

CHIP: One, you need to realize that the gospel is not just a verbal message. The gospel is a person. It’s Jesus. And the good news about him encompassed everything about who he is or was when he was on earth and everything that he did and taught. It wasn’t just propositional truth. So as we share the gospel with people, we need to share it through who we are, and how we live, and what we say. The gospel was never just a verbal message.

Second, usually for people to understand the gospel they have to both hear it explained and see it lived out. The further a person is in their worldview from the Biblical worldview, the more true that is. I learned that in Thailand. You take someone who has a very eastern worldview--like a Buddhist worldview, or Taoist or Confucianism-- they have to see the gospel both lived out and explained verbally or it just doesn’t compute. You have to put “the mowing of the lawn” and the proclaiming of the message together.

Another realization a person like that needs to make is that we are not here to just get people into heaven. We’re here to get heaven onto earth. That’s what Jesus taught us to do. He taught us to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God wants his will done on earth as it is in heaven and Jesus taught us to pray and work in that direction. And so we are to try to expand and expend the loving way of Jesus Christ on earth in every way possible and every place possible so that heaven breaks into earth and people get a taste of it and they want to go there. That’s what we’re here to do. They hunger for heaven and the king of heaven and want to know him and spend eternity with him.

Look for part two of the interview tomorrow!