Cherry Creek Community Church

What a wonderful day of fellowship we had today.  After a week of ministry, Paul, myself, Dr. Horrell, and a few other WOLH staff went into Budapest.  We visited a few sites and met with Brad and Kathy (the Cherry Creek founders) for lunch.  It was wonderful to see the joy and excitement and passion as they shared about their new ministry in Budapest and the work God has for them there.     There’s one thing I gleaned from that lunch;

There’s work to be done.

Hungary is place of great need but a place of great opportunity and a place where God is working to build His kingdom.  He has called out the staff of WOLH for His work there.  He has called out Brad and his family for His work their.  And He was gracious enough to allow me an opportunity to partner with them in Hungary this past week.  However, I’m a bit sad.  It is with mixed emotions that I prepare to leave.  I’m sad to leave the work in Hungary.  I’m sad to leave my friends in Hungary, both new and old.  But I’m excited to return to Kalamazoo.  Why?

Because there’s work to be done.

As sad as I am to leave, I’m equally if not more excited to return to the place where God has planted our family for His work.  Cherry Creek is a place that loves God, that honors His word, and takes their accountability to Him seriously.  I’m excited about returning to the need and opportunity in Kalamazoo County.  And the first job is wrapping my arms around Teah, Greg, and Bella.

There’s work for you too.  As you pursue the work God has prepared for you, please check back with us from time to time.  I can always guarantee you will find God being honored at this little stop on the ‘net.

OK! Break time’s over!

I was having lunch with one of the students in our class yesterday.  He is from the Czech Republic, and looked to be in his late teens or early twenties.  He was full of life and joy.  We spoke about everything, from our experiences at WOLH to how a guy as skinny as him could put down so many Hungarian noodles.  He shared his passion for being better equipped for youth ministry in his native land.  He was fun.  He was boisterous.  We were enjoying the fellowship that only brothers in Christ can enjoy.

Then it happened.

I asked about his family.

In an instant, before I could even finish the question, his entire countenance fell.  His shoulders dropped.  Eye contact was no more.  The fork that moments before was feverishly shoveling pasta became nothing more than a tool to aimlessly move pieces of food around his plate.   He was broken.

His firm belief in the Christ of the Bible and the clear scriptural teaching of salvation by faith alone was not popular among his family…specifically his father.  His dad is a Russian Orthodox Priest.  After learning of his son’s convictions and rebirth, the father asked the son to submit to the customs and practices of his family.  When this young man said he could not in good conscience do so, his father told him to leave the house.  He did, in tears.

He shared with me how our study of God expelling Adam and Eve from Eden was a continual reminder of His father’s rejection.   He shared how he knew that his father was doing what his father thought was right.  The result was alienation and distance.

Broken.  When we strip away all the distractions of our lives, all our gadgets and toys and time eaters, what we are left with is brokenness.  No wonder we cling to our junk.  Its a great distraction from reality.  Our world, at its very core, is broken.  Disobedience, Independence, and an I’ll-take-care-of-it-myself-thank-you-very-much-attitude are all symptoms of the deeper disease; sin.  We, just as all humanity, have a heart that is prone to independence and not dependence on God.  We’d just as soon follow our own plan rather than submitting to someone else’s plan, even if that someone else is our Creator (thank you very much).

We live in a world infected with sin.  And we’re infected.  Just like God created Adam and Eve to be in perfect fellowship with him, God created the family to be fellowship with one another.  But the subtle infection of sin creates alienation and brokenness, even in families.

As I listen to this young man finish his story, I was struck by the absolute absurdity of it all.  How could this be?  How could this happen?  For this young man, running toward the outstretched arms of his Heavenly Father meant the scorn and rejection of His earthly father.  And worse still, his earthly father thought he was serving the Heavenly Father by rejecting his son.  How ridiculous.  How absurd.  How…broken.  And how God must weep.  This is not how He created his world to operate.  Sin broke it.  And my friend is left with nothing but shards of a relationship with his dad.  But it can be fixed.

There is only one who can restore the broken world that sin has created.  His name is above every name, and He is the only way to a relationship with the Heavenly Father. His name is Jesus. Only He can restore your relationship with God to what it was always intended to be…unbroken fellowship in the garden.

I didn’t have any words for my brother.  So we talked.  We shared.  We went to the only one who could restore this situation, the only one who could restore the heart of this father and the heart of this son back to one another.  We spoke with Jesus.  We spoke with the one who took the punishment for sin and was raised from the dead so that he could begin curing this infected planet.  We spoke with the one who will have the last word.  It may be broken now, but one day soon it will be fixed, restored.  And it is my prayer that one day, because of Calvary, this son and this dad will be restored so that they can testify to the world of the restoring work of Christ that is available now!

This is the second week of the Bible Institute for these students.  They have classes in the morning, followed by chapel at 10am.  During the second week of the Bible Institute the focus of all the chapels is prayer. Today the focus of chapel was praying for those who are sick/hurting.  Given the demographics of these students, this little corner of the world was sending out prayers that traveled thousands of miles!  The focus of the first chapel was on praying for the world and specifically the leaders and the proclamation of the gospel.  Yesterday, we prayed for those who are far from the Lord or don’t know the Lord.  Most of the student’s families are not believers.  What a personal and powerful prayer session that was.   What a great ministry, to know that your prayers for me and these students are touching real lives and real souls who have intimate contact with those far from the Lord.

Thank You for praying.  Might I ask you, in the spirit of the chapel today, to pray for those in your sphere of influence who either don’t know the Lord or are far from the Lord? And for those to whom these students would minister?  There are few prayers closer to the heart of God than those.

Thank you all for praying.  God has been good over the first few days of classes.

It has been a joy to spend time with these students from all over central Europe and a few from Brazil.  We have been developing and unpacking the overarching themes that bind the scripture (especially the OT) together in our class time.   Their eagerness to learn and apply it to their life is encouraging and refreshing.

Every day I eat breakfast with the students in their mess hall around 7:30am (that’s 1:30am in Michigan).  Then we have our first class, followed by chapel and two more hours of class time before eating lunch with the students.  (I’ll share more about the chapels tomorrow).  I spend the bulk of the afternoons studying and preparing for the next day’s classes.  Every night the other guest teacher and I eat supper with a staff person at their home.  It is so enriching to hear from the staff and their families about how God is working and moving in their lives and in their work at WOLH.

Please continue to pray for God’s word to be taught clearly so that the students would be better equipped to serve and teach God’s word in their respective countries.  God is good, and he has answered your prayers thus far.  What a mighty and Faithful God we serve.  His word never returns void!

On a personal note, the other guest lecturer this week is an old seminary professor of mine, Dr. Horrell.  It has been fun being catching up with him and sharing suppers with him and the staff members.  He is teaching about the Trinity for the first year students at the same time I am teaching the second year students Biblical Theology of the OT.  It was over 10 years ago that I was a student in Dr. Horrell’s seminary class on the Trinity at Dallas Seminary.  It also happened to be the class where I met this really sweet and pretty girl named Teah    God is so good!

Awesome.  We use that word too much.  It has lost its effectiveness, but its the only word that can describe my Sunday in Hungary.  Paul, the director of the Word of Life Bible Institute in Hungary (WOLH), his wife Jill and I traveled to Budapest to worship.  We attended the Sunday service at the International Baptist Church of Budapest, the church where the founder of Cherry Creek now pastors.  As I worshiped with my fellow believers in Christ, who hail from over 25 countries, I was struck.  This is awesome.  What an awesome privilege to preview That Day, when people from every tribe and nation will worship the risen King!

As I looked around after the service, I couldn’t help but laugh.  I still can’t.  Here I am, thousands of miles away from the Midwest, sitting next to Paul, a fellow Hoosier and DTS graduate, as we listened to the founder of Cherry Creek teach the Word at his new church in Budapest.  I also caught up with Steve Farina, a missionary supported by Cherry Creek, who is an elder at the church where Brad now pastors.  What an awesome God!  I can’t help but see his sovereign hand throughout this entire scenario.  Two Hoosiers (me and Paul), a Michigan insurance salesman turned disciple-maker (Brad), and another Midwestern couple (Farina’s) worshiping the Lord in Hungary, a place in desperate need of the Gospel.  He has sovereignly placed Brad as a Pastor in Budapest, Paul as the Director of WOLH, Farina’s as Missionaries in Hungary through United World Missions, and He for some reason sent this broken vessel over for a week to teach at WOLH.  Was it all just coincidence, or was there something bigger in the works?  As we worshiped together I couldn’t help but wonder.  What is God going to do with this ragtag group in the future?  And is this a one time meeting or a divine appointment that He will launch to new and exciting Gospel partnerships in the future?

I don’t believe in luck or happenstance.  What I know is this; God is in control, and He placed all of us under one roof today.  He brought all of us out from our earthly home-land because he has sheep that don’t know the way to their heavenly home-land.  What an awesome God.  What a heavy weight.  So we worshiped.  Together.

How awesome is that?