Putting Education into Practice

After 10 days of Keystone training (March 16-25), yesterday I was finally back in the field to begin the process of taking all that we had talked about and putting it into practice. One of the things that was talked about a lot in the Keystone training was to make sure that the discipleship process that you use is highly missional. In other words, the idea is to spend less time in study situations looking at what the scriptures teach us about discipleship and more time living it out.

Years ago when I was working at my youth ministry degree from Fuller Seminary, one of my professors had taught us the same thing when he instructed us that we should never go any where alone, that we should always have a youth with us so they could see what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Over the years I have done this often with youth, but not enough with adults.

My opportunity arose to start this yesterday with one of the guys I have been working with. While I was at Keystone, Kevin emailed me and told me he had been laid off from his job. For him this was devastating. There is the obvious economic problem of loss of work, but there is also the problem for Kevin that he, as many of us do, put his personal value on going to work each day and doing a job. So between us, we decided it would be a good thing for him to travel with me on this Thursday and take part in the ministry that I do at the schools.

Now it was a different kind of a day, and we did not end up helping at the schools in the manner I usually do, but it was still time well spent as we had conversations with various administrators and other people. As our day ended together I suggested to Kevin that he look for ways to serve at the school and in his community while looking for a job. He agreed, and we parted ways.

This morning I got a call from Kevin. One of his sons, who had traveled to Red Bird Mission with me on a number of occasions had contacted Kevin and told him he should ask me about going to Red Bird with me next week. To make a long story short, I had had the same thought. And when Kevin called me, I took it as a confirmation from God. And so tomorrow Kevin will leave with our group for a week in Kentucky re-roofing an elderly lady's home.

This is a start. I have become more and more aware of the need to do missional things outside the church. This encounter has reinforced that idea in my life and I pray in Kevin's also.

I will be in Kentucky next week so expect to hear from me again in a couple of weeks. Thanks for all your prayers.

Your Servant in Christ,

Brian