Ramblings

Hey, so just finishing up some days off. Here's what went on. Wednesday night we picked up a couple of other Americans from the airport (Nate and Lauren from Kansas). Thursday, with most of the staff off doing their own things at home, we Americans all had a fun tourist day in Cape Town. Went to the waterfront, looked in shops, blah blah. Friday we drove out to Stellenberg which is a primarily white neighborhood of Cape Town where Gerhard and several other members of JAM are from. Stellenberg Church is also a big partner with JAM, Gerhard's dad is the missions pastor there as well. Hung out with Anton (Gerhard's brother who I also met at Hume last summer) all day Friday. I gave him a tapout sweatshirt and he gave me rugby jersey. Great trade. Friday night was a service for Team 1000 (The outreach movement that we're working with for the World Cup, more to follow on that). Saturday I watched Rugby all day, it was awesome. This morning (Sunday) we led worship at a church in Hout Bay, five minutes away. It was awesome I thought. More on the church service to follow.

Now for the good stuff...

At the Team 1000 outreach meeting, the message moved me in a couple of ways. Because of the FIFA World Cup the speaker spoke along the terms of winning the battle against the enemy (like winning a soccer game you know). He challenged us as to whether or not we're winning the battle against the enemy. We get so caught up in our own personal life, our own personal growth and performance that we lost sight of the fact that we as the church have a global mission of winning this world for Christ. Today in church there was a presentation by some YWAMers on sex trafficking in South Africa and all the specific ministries being done during the World Cup in response to this issue. Not to take away from the heartbreak of something like sex trafficking but God took my focus to something else. I was thinking about all the people who will be doing ministry here because of the World Cup. It's great that so many people are committed to impacting the world at this point but I got to thinking about how the church should be concerned with reaching the whole world all the time. I think of the book of Revelation where John talks about seeing a multitude from every tribe, nation, and tongue praising God. Such a feat is possible if we all had this "world cup" mentality towards the world all the time. People would always be concerned about social justice issues like sex trafficking, poverty, malnourishment, etc. People would always be concerned with the American teenagers drowning out the voice of God with Xbox and iPhones and the man losing his family the the pursuit of the American dream. How do we turn a whole generation, worldwide, back to the heart of God?