Happy New Year 2010!

May God's abundant grace be upon you during 2010! As we seek to resource the work of the gospel in Eastern Europe and build a stronger bridge to the church in America, thank you for walking with us on our journey of faith.

Top 10 Photos of 2009

Photography is one of my hobbies. Here are my favorite 10 photos that I took in 2009.



Slovenia: the day after a big snow.



Slovenia: Our son Ben launching while snowboarding with his friends.



Hungary: the weak winter setting sun made this photo possible.



Colorado: Quentin's 9th birthday with all of his cousins (and siblings) on his mom's side. Someone said they all have the same smile.



Greece: This past June for the first time in 10 years, EB and I got away alone longer than a weekend. It was so hot that day. We sought shelter in the cool stone rooms while touring an old castle. As EB came through the doorless entry way I thought I was seeing an angel.



Europe: a summer time beach.



Greece: the moment at 5:54 am when the sun rose over the distant mountains on the Turkish mainland.



Austria: Our daughter Liz playing for her high school basketball team in the championship game at a tournament in Salzburg. Liz jumped so high here that you cannot see her feet; the bucket was good and her team went on to win both the game and the tourney!



Switzerland: I was at a 3 day meeting in October with my missions agency. The meetings were held at a Catholic monastery. This was the view from the patio where we had our coffee breaks.



Greece: I love the texture in this photo. It is as if I can step into this photo, run my hand across the stones and feel the porousness as well as the weathered door. At the time I took this pic I was studying Revelation 3:20 which has some great imagery involving a door.

GOD IS THE ARTIST; I AM MERELY THE TOUR GUIDE.

Troop Surge Needed

Early December I was back in the United States recruiting laborers and resources for the work of the gospel in Eastern Europe.



Here we are strategizing with Cedar Crest Church in Dallas, Georgia about partnering together to take the gospel to unreached parts of Muslim Europe near the Albanian and Macedonian border. What significance! What importance! Investing our lives in new territory for the sake of the Lord! (from left: Bill Babione, with Campus Crusade for Christ in Eastern Europe; Brent Harrison [standing] of Experience Missions International; Wally Smith and George Wright, pastors at Cedar Crest Church; Eugene Simonov [standing] Campus Crusade's director of Moldova)




Here Eugene is showing a group of friends at Phil and Dianne Kopf's house where Moldova is on the map in Eastern Europe.



One of our church visits was to a church for Russian immigrants in Atlanta. Eugene was asked to speak since one of his many languages is Russian.



Laura Miller enjoys a bowl of chili at one of the several ministry planning parties we attended while in Atlanta.



I took this picture in my parents' town of Heber Springs, Arkansas. The local judge is convinced a new approach to fighting petty crime is needed.



Here is a great shot of Liz "boxing out" during one of her college basketball games that I attended on Dec 4th in Moberly Missouri. Check out the brief video below for highlights from that game; Liz lead the game in boards. It was absolutely wonderful for me to be able to watch her play!

20 years ago today

Why are the nations in an uproar?...the kings of earth take their stand against the Lord and against His Anointed...He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Psalm 2:2,4

The Wall: A Generation Later from Jim Southard on Vimeo.

It was 20 years ago today when the Berlin Wall fell. In one moment, God brought down a barrier that kept a significant part of the world in isolation and spiritual darkness. May we never forget the sense of awe that came upon us all when we heard the wall came down!

Many missionary efforts have today skipped past Eastern Europe and are heading toward China, Africa and even the Muslim Republics of Asia. Praise God for these missionary efforts! However, the belief that Eastern Europe is “reached” with the gospel is wrong. Although there are many religious expressions in Eastern Europe today, most countries of Eastern Europe have less than 1% of their population as Christ-followers.

There are probably more evangelicals who attend services at your local mega-church on a given Sunday than evangelicals who are in attendance in churches across some ENTIRE countries in Eastern Europe. However, the vast majority of Eastern Europe, including several Muslim countries, is wide open to Christian missionaries. We need your help; we need your church’s help. The Lord deserves the worship of the people of Eastern Europe.

There is no greater cause than the work of His harvest field. May we lay aside the weaker causes and the idols that drain away our vitality, rob us of our vision, and distract our focus on Him. As the Westminster Catechism reminds us, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Thank you for helping our family to glorify God in Eastern Europe. Please take a moment today and thank Him for bringing down the wall 20 years ago and please pray for the missionary effort across Eastern Europe and Russia.

"As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!" David Brainerd, missionary to Native Americans

A Photographic Look Back on October

EB turned the riser at this meeting into a beautiful living room. EB is called upon more and more for similar tasks. If there is a spiritual gift called "beauty" (to make beautiful) then she has it. EB added beauty to the evening of celebration honoring Larry and Debby Thompson for 33 years of service with Campus Crusade in Eastern Europe.



Even Vonette Bright (Bill Bright's widow) aged 83 made the trip to Budapest from Orlando to honor the Thompsons.



The next day we commissioned Marek and Ala Wyrzykowski (seated) as the new Campus Crusade Directors of Eastern Europe and Russia. Marek and Ala are Polish and speak great English; EB and I have become good friends with them. On the far left of this photo are Steve and Judy Douglas, Campus Crusade President and on the far right are Larry and Debby Thompson.



Meetings with Campus Crusade leadership from Western Europe to discuss national staff support crisis took me to a meeting location near Zurich at a Catholic monastery To my delight, the meeting site was high in the Alps. This was the view from the deck where we had our coffee breaks.



Before Zurich, EB joined me in Geneva where we toured all things John Calvin (please see essay in the next blog entry). EB is standing outside the main door into St. Pierre's church where John Calvin's preaching sparked the Reformation in the 1500s.



While outside the UN facility in Geneva, I was able to capture with my camera this car with EB's name on it!



During October I made two trips into Romania to lay the ground work for church partnerships with our campus ministries. It seems that almost each trip into Romania is like a trip back in time, as I try to capture with this photo.



Here I am as the old man trying to be relevant among a group of hip, Jesus-lovin, English-speaking college students in Timisoara, Romania.

One of my main goals the next few years is to connect our campus ministries in Romania, Albania and across Eastern Europe with USA churches. We believe we must partner with USA churches in order to fulfill the Great Commission in our part of the world. I really want to talk to you and your church!

Oct 31, Reformation Day: the debt we owe John Calvin

Inside St. Pierre's Church in Geneva where Calvin's preaching sparked the Reformation in the 1500s.



St. Pierre's in Geneva

“Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by ‘glorifying’ him.”

from the October 21, 2009 issue of Time Magazine, where it says the “New Calvinism” is one of the “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.”

I was on my way to Campus Crusade meetings in Zurich, Switzerland last week, so I convinced EB to join me for a few days prior so we could visit Geneva. It was with a sense of awe that EB and I walked the streets of Geneva, Switzerland. I remember thinking, “These are the streets that John Calvin walked.” It was with great anticipation that I entered the lofty sanctuary of St. Pierre’s Cathedral where Calvin preached; it was with great interest that I toured the museum dedicated to the Reformation Movement that Calvin started in the 1500s.

John Calvin in Switzerland and Martin Luther in Germany, contemporaries born only 25 years apart, were twin pillars for what we call today the Reformed Movement from which sprang the Protestant branch of Christianity. Calvin and Luther protested many things against the Catholic Church, including the selling of indulgences (purchased to supposedly spring the recently deceased out of purgatory).

If not for John Calvin, Christianity today would be just another religion focused on man’s attempts to please God through religious good works. Calvin and Luther took the spotlight off of man and put it squarely back on God. While Calvin emphasized the sovereignty of God in all things, Luther emphasized justification by faith alone.

Life was very difficult in the 1500s. And Calvin suffered greatly during his time on earth. He outlived his wife and son; he had death threats from the French king (that is why he fled Paris and came to Geneva) and he had enemies both within and without the institutionalized church. He was sick most of his adult life (as were many in that day) and he worked ceaselessly under conditions that were barbaric by today’s standards.

Many people today associate Calvinistic theology with fatalistic sour-faced religious piety. However, I find joy and rest in the thought that my heavenly loving Father rules sovereignly from His throne over the affairs of men including the circumstances of my own life.

October 31st is Reformation Day on the Christian calendar and 2009 marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. It would serve humanity well to remember this quote from John Piper, one of the pillars of "New Calvinism," a quote which has had a huge impact on my life: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Embracing the Glory of God in Revelation 3:20

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me." Jesus in Revelation 3:20

During the early years of my ministry I wrestled with Revelation 3:20. Should I use this verse evangelistically? Was this verse written to believers or non-believers? The conclusion I came to would not allow me to use this verse when sharing my faith. Now my attitude has totally changed about Rev. 3:20.

Yes, this verse is from a letter written to a church, a dead church at Laodicea. This church makes Jesus even want to vomit! (Revelation 3: 16). And this church is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. (v. 17) Never does Jesus use this kind of language with His redeemed, the sheep of His pasture.

As we dig deep into the Biblical text, lets not miss the forest for the trees... Embrace the glory of God on display in this verse!

Imagine, the One who speaks the stars into existence, the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God (Revelation 3:14), wanting to dine with us! We are sinful, rebellious, helpless, ungodly, even enemies of God (Romans 5:10). Yet here we receive an invitation to dine with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!

Dear friend, no earthly pleasure will delight your soul like fellowship with Jesus!

George Sheldon Ladd, in his commentary on Revelation, says this: “A shared meal in the ancient Jewish world had far more significance than it has today. It was a symbol of affection, of confidence, of intimacy.”

Imagine, the Lord Jesus Christ seeking entrance into a place where He has been shunned, neglected, ignored and even despised! All Jesus has to do is to call down His wrath and this lukewarm church would disappear into a cloud of judgment and smoke.

Jesus does in fact use harsh language with this dead church. But He also beckons them, pleads with them and gives them a heart call to repent. Beautiful. Just like my Jesus.

Charles Ryrie says , “How incredible that Christ should be kept outside His own church! How gracious that He should still seek entrance!”

Why in all my frailty and flesh do I follow Jesus? It is because of verses like Revelation 3:20.

For this verse is gospel; it captures the core of our faith; it is the end result of the Cross: restored fellowship with our Creator!

When that day comes and you read my obituary, do not weep. For then I will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb! For then I will be complete, lacking in nothing, more conscious and alive than at any moment in my existence. I will experience the reason for which I was created!

Is the door shut between you and Jesus? Do you hear Him knocking? It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or not a Christian; the invitation is the same. Jesus’ death on the Cross for our sins is the key to the door. Open it. And dine with the Great God of the Universe, the Lover of your Soul!