The Power of Short-Term Missions

I just found out that my sister is going on a two-week missions trip to Rwanda next week, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. In fact I’m pretty jealous that my schedule won’t allow me to go too. I know that would seem like a crazy sentiment for most people to have. Why would someone want to go to Rwanda of all places? To me it shows the extreme value that short-term missions have had in my life.

I’ve been on three overseas missions trips to Third World countries (all in Latin America), and I can say that those few weeks have impacted my faith, my worldview and my life in an amazing way. The beauty of a trip like that is that God uses it to bless both those who are receiving aid and those who are "giving" aid. I put that in quotes because everyone I know who has been on one of these trips feels like they always receive way more than they give.

When you travel on missions trips, God changes your perspective in a way that just cannot be learned or experienced in America or other wealthy countries. You can’t be told how valuable faith is until you have seen the exuberant smiles of those who have nothing other than their faith in Christ. You can’t be told how enormously poor most of the world is until you have seen the miles of slums beneath the highway. And you can’t be told how real the kingdom of God looks until you have seen it spread like wildfire from person to person, village to village, without any sort of evangelistic strategy or materials.

Although the West continues to slowly step further and further away from Christ, God is transforming whole populations of people in Latin America, Africa and southern Asia. The growth of the gospel in the Southern Hemisphere right now is absolutely astounding, a true revival. Yet we are always caught up so much in our American worldview that we often miss what is happening around us. After you’ve seen it in person, you’ll never forget.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend getting involved in a short-term missions trip with your local church or one of the many organizations that host trips. Not only do our brothers and sisters in poorer countries need us, but we need them. We need their passion and their powerful faith. You will be amazed at how God will bless you so much more as He uses you to bless others.

The New NewMan.com

I wanted to give you all a heads-up about the changes to our Web site, newmanmag.com. We’ve been listening to a lot of reader feedback, and I’m proud to announce that the Web site has a totally new look, although it is a familiar one.

We have turned the new site into a clone of the current issue of the eMagazine. A number of readers said they wanted to see the articles they get in the eMag on the Web site because they wanted to be able to link to stories for their friends. Now you should be able to see everything you get in your e-mail box right there on the site.

The new site will also soon be featuring an archive of all the past articles we’ve published in the eMagazine. This will allow people who missed a week or can’t find an article they wanted to save to search for it quickly and easily. We hope you enjoy the ease of use with the new site.

And this is just a start of the changes we’ve got coming up. Look out for some new columns to start running regularly that we think you’ll love. Also, while the new site is a great improvement over the old one, know that we’re not stopping here. We’ve got plans to launch an entirely refurbished site later in the year, with areas for feedback and communication between men. Look for us to soon become a better place for Christian men to seek and join in community together.

Faith in the Face of Trials

I love it when God hits you over the head with a point. I had two interviews this week that dealt with the same subject, the subject that a lot of people are dealing with these days: why bad things happen. It’s a tough time and it’s a common question without an easy answer. I’m not going to try to tackle the whole topic of theodicy here, but I would like to share some of the similarities in what the two men I talked to said.

The first was Marc Gonsalves, the man who was held captive in the jungles of Colombia for 5-1/2 years. You can read about his whole story in this week’s issue, but the most amazing part for me was the fact that his faith was saved through this horrible experience. Before all of this happened he wasn’t even a practicing Christian, but because of his confinement and the fact that God provided a Bible for him, he rediscovered his faith and relied on God to get him through the truly horrifying situations he was put in. He wasn’t bitter at God for allowing his plane to crash land right in the middle of a rebel terrorist camp; he was amazed at how God used the situation for his good. Instead of blaming God, he was thankful.

The same subject came up a few days later while talking with Brian Zahnd, pastor of Word of Life Church in Missouri and author of What to Do on the Worst Day of Your Life. The book tells the story of David’s worst day in the Bible, when David and his men found their village burned, their crops and flocks destroyed, and their wives and children taken prisoner by the Amalekites. Zahnd uses this story from David’s life as a template for what happens to us on the worst days of our lives. In the end, God gave David and his men back everything they had lost, and actually increased their blessings. Zahnd actually wrote the original form of the book in 1997, and it was never fully published until last week, when it would touch a lot more people than normal. He sees God’s hand in that.

Obviously every bad situation doesn’t turn out the same. Some tragedies cannot be recovered. But we know from Romans 8:28 that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). God will never leave us, He will always be there for us, and that is a promise to rest on in tough times like these.

The Good Work of James Dobson

Dr. James Dobson stepped down from his position as board chairman for Focus on the Family last Friday. This isn’t a controversial move--he wasn’t upset with the organization or forced out in any way--it’s merely part of his succession plan for the ministry, another wise move by a man who has made a career out of giving evangelical Americans great wisdom.
I don’t know of many Christians in the U.S. who haven’t been touched by Dobson or Focus on the Family in the last 30 years. He and his company have effectively wielded nearly every communication tool available to give good advice, counsel and guidance to millions of Americans.

The company has particularly excelled at helping families function in a Christ-like manner. I’m sure countless marriages have benefited from their wisdom. I know a whole generation of children (including me) were raised on things like Adventures in Odyssey, an amazing resource for learning to grow up as a child of God. And I’m sure it’s almost impossible to count the ways Dobson and his organization have helped parents over the years. They have dealt with nearly every challenging topic, from the earliest stages of child rearing to adolescence and teenage years, in a godly, well-balanced way.

It’s interesting today that many associate Dobson with his foray into politics over the past 10 years or so. This has made him a more controversial figure, particularly in the mainstream media. But I will always prefer to think of him as the gentle-voiced psychologist who helped me learn to grow up as a strong Christian with rock-solid wisdom and insights from the Word of God.