Skipping Towns!

Friday is almost here! After months of planning, praying, and packing, we leave for our Discipleship Training School on Friday afternoon.

We'll drive here:

Atlanta, GA

We'll leave from here:

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

We'll fly to here:

Short layover in Chicago, IL

Then, we'll fly to here:

Another short layover in Copenhagen, Denmark

And then we'll fly over these:

The Alps

As we enter into:

Switzerland

And land here:

Geneva, Switzerland

Then, we'll take a train along this:

Switzerland's Lake Geneva

And eventually stop here:

Burtigny, Switzerland

Where we'll live here:

YWAM Burtigny - Home!

Daily Tragedy

Today, Nicole and I had the opportunity to attend the Georgia vs. Arkansas football game. We weren't planning on going to the game because we couldn't afford tickets but were given an unbelievable opportunity when someone we don't even know gave us their extra tickets and said "Merry Christmas." Although the Dawgs lost in heartbreaking fashion at the end of the game, we had a great time and savored the experience of getting to attend a game at Sanford Stadium again. Yet, as I sat in the stadium and looked around I was stunned at how many people fit into this massive stadium. And, I was convicted because seeing this many people put a tragic statistic into reality for me.

Sanford Stadium holds 92,746 people. It is the seventh largest stadium in college football and the Bulldogs sell out most of their home games. According to UNICEF, 24,000 children around the world die each day because of poverty. What does this mean? It means that right now Sanford Stadium is empty. And if you took this example and filled it with 24,000 children per day over the next 4 days - by Wednesday you would have a stadium full of dead children. In the next 4 days, 96,000 children will die because of poverty! If something had happened today and the 96,000 people at Sanford Stadium had died, it would be considered one of the worst tragedies in history. There would be investigations and people would be demanding explanations. There would be major reforms and changes to ensure that something like that would never happen again. Sadly, a Sanford Stadium full of children (and then some) die EVERY week from poverty and we go about our normal lives like nothing is wrong. Our lives don't change. Our attitudes don't change. Our time isn't spent differently. And our priorities are still focused on our own selfish desires. That is the true tragedy.

Radical - Chapter Eight

It's tough to narrow down my selection to five quotes from every chapter, but here are my five from chapter eight:

"What if we began to look at the design of God as the most dangerous option before us? What if the center of God's will is in reality the most unsafe place for us to be?"

"To everyone wanting a safe, untroubled, comfortable life free from danger, stay away from Jesus. The danger in our lives will always increase in proportion to the depth of our relationship with Christ."

"How far we have come when we paste the symbol identified with martyred brothers and sisters in the first century onto the backs of our SUVs and luxury sedans in the twenty-first century."

"We seem to have organized ourselves, not to engage in battle for the souls of peoples around the world, but to indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of the world."

"When we consider the promises of Christ, risking everything we are and everything we have for his sake is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It's just common sense."

Radical - Chapter Seven

Here are some quotes from chapter seven of Radical:

"If people are dying and going to hell without ever even knowing there is a gospel, then we clearly have no time to waste our lives on an American dream."

"There is not one verse in the book of Acts where the gospel advances to the lost apart from a human agent."

"God clearly has decided to use the church - and only the church - as the means by which his gospel will go to the ends of the earth."

"Some wonder if it is unfair for God to allow so many to have no knowledge of the gospel. But there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard."

"The will of God is for you and me to give our lives urgently and recklessly to making the gospel and the glory of God known among all peoples, particularly those who have never even heard of Jesus."

Radical - Chapter Six

Here are some quotes from chapter six of Radical.

"If there is no sign of caring for the poor in our lives, then there is reason to at least question whether Christ is in our hearts."

"What is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church."

"Regardless of what we say or sign or study on Sunday morning, rich people who neglect the poor are not the people of God."

"Are you and I looking to Jesus for advice that seems fiscally responsible according to the standards of the world around us? Or are we looking to Jesus for total leadership in our lives, even if that means going against everything our affluent culture and maybe even our affluent religious neighbors might tell us to do?"

"There will continue to be millions and millions of people who do not hear the gospel as long as we continue to use spare time and spare money to reach them."