Ministry Call?

Read more here about the oldest known (3rd century) purpose-built church, located in Jordan.

My role in promoting biblical parenting in the Arab world became more clear after my 12 days in Lebanon. I taught at an Arab church, attended a conference for the church of Sudan, and had individual conversations about parenting ministry with approximately 50 Arab church leaders. For now, it seems that my role is to have as many of these conversations as possible, asking leaders how they think God wants them to train believing parents, then offering suggestions if appropriate. I was able to begin the conversation further down the road with those who were able to fill out this parenting questionnaire prior to our meeting. While most of the past 20+ years of full-time ministry I have been very task-oriented, please pray that I learn how to be a faithful friend, especially to younger, up-and-coming leaders.
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I've been thinking a lot lately about a "call to ministry", either locally or cross-culturally. I don't see it in Scripture. I see a "call" to Christ. In that "calling", all believers are spiritually gifted and "called" to bring God as much glory as possible. If a believer, along with his/her church and by the Holy Spirit living within him, discerns that he can bring God the most glory by being "freed up" financially to invest most of his time serving the local church(s) through evangelism and/or discipleship, he should do so. No special "sign" is needed. This would be confirmed through a season of fruitful volunteer service, as well as through God's provision of finances through his church and other believers. If a believer discerns that his life can bring God more glory by continuing to financially support himself and others through a job while volunteering in ministry, he should continue to do so. He earns income to meet the needs of his family, to support financially those who are "freed up", and to buy himself time to expand the Kingdom himself. Neither our job nor our ministry should be our source of significance and identify. Our relationship with Christ is our significance and identify. Please ask the Lord of the harvest to send more "freed up" workers into His harvest field, especially among the unreached people groups of the world. This very short article expands on much of what I have just said using Scripture.

Preparing for Lebanon

Max spends 2 days a week using his English to serve at a Baptist School.

What do you think of when you hear "Beirut"? For many of us growing up in the 80s, we think of the 16 year-long civil war in Lebanon that killed 150,000 people. However, Lebanon now has the highest Human Development Index and GDP per capita in the Arab world, other than the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries. It is the only Arab nation that allows freedom of choice regarding religion. While one-third of the country would consider themselves "Christian", less than 1% would consider themselves "evangelical", meaning that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone.

I will visit Beirut for 10 days at the end of this month. I will meet with Arab pastors as well as a few Westerners involved in ministry, primarily to discuss how to promote biblical parenting. Would you ask God to use these meetings to clarify my role in training parents, as well as to strengthen Lebanese evangelical families?

Also please pray for our church here in Jordan as we make decisions regarding eldership, teaching, reproducibility, etc. Please also continue to pray for my pastor friend's relationship with his wife. Pray that both of them would be humble and clear-minded and that some older sisters in Christ would speak the truth in love to her.

Simplifying

Sometimes I get "into" something so much that I can't see the forest for the trees. For example, two weeks ago I was meeting with the wife of the president of the Jordan Baptist Convention (a pastor who just happens to be taking classes at our local seminary and comes to our city twice a year). We were talking about how to train parents at their church. As I'm telling her about my inability to overcome tech challenges, she says something like, "Well, until you get that worked out, I can create a Whatsapp or Messenger group and send the parents the first chapter of Shepherding A Child's Heart. After reading it, each of them can message the group one thing that they want to begin obeying consistently." That sounded much more simple than what I was trying to do! So here it is in English but don't blink... I will probably change it tomorrow :-\ Please pray for many conversations with pastors and leaders about training parents over the next month.

Please pray for a friend who is a pastor and his wife who are struggling in their marriage. We will begin counseling soon.

Pray for a church that is outgrowing its current location. Pray that their next steps would be highly missional and highly reproducible.

Handling Two Things Well

Click here to quiz you and your family's knowledge of Arabic cities. 

Christian ministry is primarily about handling two things well: the Scriptures and relationships. Certainly, it is important to be strategic, creative, and relevant but it is more important to "love the Lord your God with all of your heart.... and love you neighbor as you love yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). This past month I have had the joy of visiting younger church leaders from Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, and Lebanon. During each of these visits, we primarily talked about living in Jordan, ministry, and family. Please ask God to give me wisdom how to be a good friend to these young dads and love them well.

Please also pray that God would provide volunteer or paid tech support for this project. I believe that God could use this online tool to bless many parents and counselees in this region, for His glory. Please forward this email on to anyone you think could help me create this app

I will be sending short, specific prayer requests several times each week. If you would like to receive these via email,  email me at kizfam@gmail.com and say, "I'm in!" If you would like to receive these via text, email me at kizfam@gmail.com with your cell number and provider name (Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, etc.).

The Parenting Challenge

The Parenting Challenge

Are you up for the challenge? If so, click here. "The Parenting Challenge" is training in gospel-centered, biblical parenting. Over the next few months, it will cost you about 10 hours and $10, unless you already have the book above. I created the challenge for Arab Christian parents but why not share the English version with you all? Please forward this email to parents you know who have young children.

"The Parenting Challenge" is all about learning, application, and self-initiated accountability. As I share the Arabic version here with Arab believers, I often hear, "We Arabs are not comfortable with accountability. Therefore most of us will not text our obedience points to other parents we know." I explain that resistance to accountability is less cultural and more a result of our sinful nature. We don't like to humble ourselves by asking for prayer and accountability, even if it is self-initiated. We don't like to reveal our weaknesses. But "The Parenting Challenge" is for moms and dads who desperately want to obey God when it comes to raising their kids, as well as encouraging other parents to do the same. I have been sending the challenge to 100+ cross-cultural workers and Arab leaders whom I know, asking for feedback and asking them to share the challenge with other Arab parents. Please pray that they will actually do so. Your feedback is welcomed also.

Our daughter Kendra recently got all of our family "together" online. Sam and Anna are running track. They also just returned from a trip to D.C. with my wife's parents. Max was invited to play basketball for the local Baptist school team. Heidi and Petra consistently have 2-3 weekly babysitting opportunities. Henry and Nehemiah are making lots of friends at the park, therefore beginning to understand more Arabic. My wife is homeschooling, exercising, taking our nutrition to an even higher level, staying connected to our older kids online, and being a faithful sister to ladies in our local church.

Egypt Trip

CLEAR THE ROAD! Anna has her license now! 

I just returned from Egypt. Four days in Alexandria and 5 days in Cairo. The goal was to learn from others who are doing family ministry and biblical counseling while sharing with them what I have been doing. I was able to meet one-on-one with 30+ pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders, as well as 7 groups, one being several parents from the homeschool co-op in Alex.

Another one of those groups was 4 Christian couples who asked me questions about parenting for a couple of hours. One of the couples arrived with a 4-year-old who had just woke up from napping in the car. He was NOT happy! His father later told me that he averages 7-8 hours of sleep at night while choosing his own bedtime. We talked about that. We also talked about getting a foundation of first-time obedience through calling his name. Mostly, we talked about parental anger. This precious couple actually believed that they should express anger to prove to their child that they mean what they say.

We read together Hebrews 12:5-11 and talked about the difference between discipline and punishment. Because of God's anger, justice, and goodness, he will punish unbelievers eternally. However, He disciplines the one he loves (vs.6) for our own good, that we may share in His holiness (vs.10) which produces the fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it (vs.11). This is how we should train our children. Parental anger often reveals that we are punishing our children because we are personally offended by their sin.

We talked about the difference between being angry and being serious. We talked about consistency in discipline without expressing anger. Here is a practical way that has helped me to discipline our children while repenting of the temptation to be angry. Please pray that we (both Arab and American Christian parents) would be open to learning more biblical ways to raise our kids.

Please also ask God to give me wisdom regarding my role in promoting biblical counseling in the Arab world. It's fuzzy for me right now.

Refugees

As we think about refugees, let's not confuse the role of government with the role of the church. The primary role of the church is to bring God glory by making disciples of all nations, including the 7 countries listed in the recent executive order (Matthew 28:19-20). Biblically, the primary role of government is to protect people by punishing the evildoer (Romans 13:1-5, 1 Peter 2:14). I'm persuaded that the executive order is excessive and unnecessary. However, my opinion is irrelevant. More important is the fact that each of us as followers of Christ has a role to play regarding the refugee crisis in our world today. In no particular order, I would like to highlight 4 ministries for your prayerful and financial consideration.  Click either 1, 2, 3, or 4. If you would like to receive more information about any of these ministries, email me.

For the past several months I've been visiting a refugee family from Mosel, Iraq each Sunday. They have one son. Initially we talked about parenting but lately, our conversations have moved to other areas of discipleship. The husband is a young believer. He recently found out that ISIS completely ransacked the interior of his home before leaving. He was also discouraged about the executive order, saying that it is difficult for him to discern whether he should go back to Mosel or wait for relocation in the West. I showed him from 1 Thess. 4 that God's will for us is more about "who" we are (joyful, faithful, thankful) than "where" we live or "when" we move. We also talked about the need for Arab believers to return to Iraq to strengthen the church. Please ask God to give believing refugee families like his courage to make decisions based on God's glory more than personal happiness.

Also, pray for my 10 day trip to Egypt next week as I meet with others involved in ministry to Arab families, as well as visit many of the families I used to visit when we lived there in 2010.

Honor and Shame

Our frequently updated list of online family videos here. 

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Honor and shame influence our behavior in the west. However, their influence is super-sized here in the Middle East, especially when it comes to a subject as sensitive as parenting. Perhaps many believing couples genuinely want biblical advice about raising kids but, like all of us at times, are ashamed to admit their struggles. While most may confide in a relative, close friend, or a pastor, perhaps some would prefer to speak anonymously online to an expert trained in coaching parents according to scripture. These experts could help them find answers in the Bible, while at the same time encouraging them to healthy transparency and accountability within their own church community. I'm prayerfully taking steps toward developing such online parent coaching in Arabic. Would you please ask God to give me Arab partners and wisdom along the way?

Recently I summarized some of the teachings of Growing Kids God's Way and Parenting Made Practical into 3 one-page documents in English: Marriage and Parenting, Training ages 1+, and Discipline ages 3+. These are now translated into Arabic and added to my list of resources to train parents (You can see the list in English here). If any of you have questions regarding these resources, message me to arrange a time to talk via phone, Skype, Facetime, Facebook, etc.

Please pray for my wife as it was difficult for her when Kendra left after being here 6 weeks. She really misses her, Samuel, and Anna.

Southern Jordan

​Kendra took this photo when she and Max assisted w/ a CPR class to families in southern Jordan

I have been learning a lot about how to engage pastors and other leaders here in conversation about parenting ministry. There are only about 70 evangelical churches in Jordan. Most have approximately 50-100 attenders. There is only one evangelical church in southern Jordan.

Last month I was given contact information for the pastor of this church. After texting back and forth, I told him that I would eventually visit him in his southern city, which is 5 hrs from us. Well, last week when a taxi driver told me that he was a Christian, I asked him which church he attended. He told me that he does not attend church often but that his brother is the pastor of an evangelical church in southern Jordan. Knowing there is only one, I told him that I had been texting with his brother just a few weeks ago! The taxi driver had just picked up his brother from the bus station in Amman to attend a funeral. He was to return to the south the next day in the afternoon. He called his brother and we arranged a meeting for the next morning.

Like initial conversations with most pastors, we got to know each other and talked about the challenges that believing parents face here in Jordan, such as the limited opportunities for education, the influence of media, Islamic culture, etc. Please ask God to continue to use this pastor and the families of his church as a bright light in the midst of spiritual darkness. Please ask God to give me wisdom how to serve him and other leaders as they train couples in biblical parenting.

Thanks to those of you who have supported the Haddad's adoption. Unfortunately, the girls' home country refused the adoption. However, Issa and Abbi have already begun the adoption process with another agency in another country. I'll keep you updated. I met with Issa this week to help him prepare a parenting class for families in his church.

Thanks for praying for my wife's back pain. She is feeling better :-) We had wonderful Thanksgiving dinners with two different groups of families here and look forward to doing the same with Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!