A Real Missionary, part 2

Tonight is Tuesday night. That's one of the 2 evenings each week when I go up to my team-mate Dave's house and we walk through his neighborhood, praying as we walk and searching for opportunities to share the Gospel.

Tonight as I was riding my bike and almost to Dave's house I passed a guy I met last week. He had made a profession of faith months before but then seemed to lose interest. Last week he seemed more interested and it seems like God orchestrated several events for us to meet together tonight. This young man is bored and restless and unemployed. Are his motives to meet with us in hopes of some financial gain or is he really re-interested? Only God knows, but we were happy to go and drink a coffee.

He took us to a coffee bar that he recommended. And then he did something that is very rare in Albania -- he deliberately took us back in among some trees at the back of the property so we could sit alone in peace and quiet. It was a delightful setting for an equally delightful conversation.

We each took the opportunity to share something God had been doing in/through us recently. And this young man took the opportunity to tell the story of the Prodigal Son and waxed eloquent on what impression the father's forgiveness had on him... Dave and I had talked and prayed before we went out that we would have the opportunity to implement some CPM principles in whatever happened so...

(1) When this young man suggested we start meeting and having Bible studies together we asked him if he could bring some other people with him

(2) When we talked about what we would study we introduced the idea that we would (a) hear a story/lesson, (b) practice telling it to each other, (c) share it with someone else outside our group, and (d) tell one another how that went when we got back together.

Will it "work"? Who knows. Worst case scenario we're learning what does and doesn't work while trying to "raise the sails" for a CPM in Albania...

(If you're not familiar with CPM and "raising the sails"...it's a long story... CPM = Church Planting Movement. Basically churches that plant churches that plant churches that plant churches very quickly. In other words, a STRONG emphasis on reproduction and multiplication built into the new church from the very beginning. Typically churches are much smaller and there will be almost no "institution" (building, staff, liturgy, etc.) -- it's just people getting together and studying the Bible and worshiping God. AND TELLING OTHERS AND STARTING NEW CHURCHES. Clearly if something like this is going to take off and churches are really going to start multiplying that is going to be the work of the Holy Spirit. So, to that end, we do all we can to get things ready in case the Holy Spirit begins to move. And we liken this to raising the sails of a sailboat to be ready in case the wind begins to blow. I haven't given CPM an adequate explanation here -- maybe I'll write a blog [or series?] sometime in the near future to give it a fair shake...)

Again, I felt like a "real missionary," whatever that means. Maybe it means something as simple as the fact that I'm (finally) getting actively involved in evangelism. Whatever it is I pray that God will keep allowing me the opportunity. This whole missionary thing -- it's kinda fun... :-)