Many students and families, now more than ever, are asking “What is the point of church anyway?” A lot of people get the importance of knowing God or honoring God, and many even understand the point of trusting Jesus to pay for your sin and give you forgiveness. Those individual commitments are all very biblical, but sometimes the group commands of scripture are ignored like “Do not forsake gathering together” (Hebrews 10:25) or that ‘through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known…” (Ephesians 3:10) and other great truths about the Church as Gods’ mouthpiece to a lost world.

Still, I get so many people asking “Why is the church so important, again?” or “Why do I really need a local church, when I can just believe in God on my own, and my family?” I usually reply this way before going to more scripture; “Do you have a family you belong to?” “Why don’t you simply live life on your own?” “Why do you choose to stay in the same home with your family?” or for single people i ask “You have a family you belong to, right?” “How much could I pay you to disown your family?” Usually the weird looks all end up communicating something like “I would never think of living away from or leaving my family. I love them, and they are the biggest reason why I live.” or something like that.

And then I ask “Do you think God would want to provide you with a spiritual family, of men, women, teens and kids who also want to worship and serve Jesus with you?” Usually the smart ones get this analogy and are then ok with that, but for the confused-looking ones I add “Do you think it would be easier to worship and serve Jesus alone, or with other people helping you to do that on a daily basis?” usually this clears up any confusion and people get it…BUT WE REALLY DONT GET IT IF WE ARE HONEST.

Oh, we say we understand the importance of belonging to a church family, but come Sunday morning, or evening, or any other day of the week for that matter….when it comes time to choose to be with our spiritual family or choose to be with ourselves or our own families (or football pre-game shows), we will glady make an excuse to not fellowship with the church. It’s even easier to avoid church, when we know we will actually have to talk to people who may ask us questions about real life and stuff that matters most. We (myself included) have missed the real definition of a true local group of believers who gather as ‘the church’. Jesus and Paul do a great job of explaining what a true local church is, and how a true follower of Jesus needs to be deeply involved in one…but are we willing to be corrected by the scripture, or define church on our own?

So heres a diagram I give to students and families, (or anyone) who is interested in seeing the beauty and benefit of belonging to a real local church family.

I’d like to think someone out there would benefit from my ramblings, but this comes from a couple years of studying in the book of Acts, and Pauls letters, alongside some key teaching moments from Jesus on the Church. Feel free to fire back thoughts, questions, or concerns you may have with anything you see here. My hope is that you would see the dignity and care that God has given you, and the hope that He has that you would reject a selfish life and follow Jesus into a local church. Contrary to what you may have heard, there are real people with real issues still wanting to come together and worship a real Jesus who cares.

I doubt if anyone read this thing since all the feedback emails I get are spam….but if you’re curious my wife and I took a trip to San Francisco for our 10 yr anniversary to Burgess Cellars Vineyard in St Helena CA.
The big thing that spoke to me is that the vine has to dig down deep in this rugged climate to get the water and nutrients to produce it’s fruit. As a result, the fruit is juicier and the wine is tastier.

Im no wine conoisseur, but Jesus talked about vineyards in John 15 especially, that we need to abide closely in Him just like a branch stays connected to a vine. Jesus dug down deep on our behalf, endured the shame and agony of the cross, and produced a fruit innumerable…I am just one grape branchlet who Jesus mercifully gave life to. We still are pruned and prodded to produce fruit for Him, but ultimately I live because of His death.

He is the ultimate vine, the Vine-dresser, our Father God meant it to be that way, for His Son to suffer for us the branches, so that we would abide deeply in him and bear fruit to bring glory back to the farmer, our Father in Heaven through Jesus His Son.

Jesus-followers! Lets live juicy, overflowing, fruitful lives for our King, and lets never stop abiding in Him and casting all of our failures and concerns on Him who knows how to take care of us as his vine branches.

Yes, I did change the words of the Declaration of Independence, but with a point…I have become increasingly frustrated with modern America’s (and the modern church’s) definition of true ‘happiness’ or ‘joy’.  Joy in the New Testament, especially for the first followers of Jesus was found in obeying and following Jesus, even if it meant following Him to their own deaths. 

‘Happiness’ or ‘joy’ in our times has become every person’s right to please themselves first and worry about others after you get yours…something not what Jesus or the apostle Paul taught in Philippians 2:4  ‘consider the interests of others’ and the kicker later in 2:21 “For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”  How many of us could actually list the top 5 interests of Jesus Christ for our lives?  The top 2?  Name the Great Commandment or Great Commission? (Matt 22:37-40, Matt 28:18-20)

When I see a group of young people, and wonder how many truly understand the Jesus that took their punishment on the cross, I cant help but feeling frustrated in trying to get the real gospel message out there (not the false ‘just invite Jesus into your heart’ message)  When I see a crowd of young guys disrespecting people at a Twins game, and cussing three feet from a family with young kids, I can’t help but feeling frustrated that they are missing the point of the American dream and the Declaration of Independence, and everything that the apostles bled and died for…

Our lives are not our own, they were given by God, and we should use the time, talents, and treasure to serve Him and others so more could experience forgiveness and new life through Jesus Christ.

So here is my version of the Declaration of Independence for followers of Jesus, or a way of life especially designed for young people based off of living out the Great Commission and Great Commandment.  Maybe the students and young adults in our generation would be something different, and follow God’s design for our life and country…

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1W-OgENiQkzkz1MbmFRXTIOYCVd3a91fCWXLmiu_wLfE

Our students have been an awesome example of humility and joy in hard circumstances. Record highs and humidity, but through it all I’ve seen simple things like these middle school guys serving the young women and the group taking care of each other and being mindful of our purpose…to serve northeast MPLs for Jesus and build up Antioch Community Church.

Today it was ministering to the Ukrainian/Polish event center where ACC does their Sunday worship. I saw students doing the entire kitchen and linen inventory, cleaning inside and outside, and being sure to respect the people there without getting too squirrley.

One of our middle school guys told me that he’s glad he came because he wanted a challenge to serve strangers and people he barely knew…we talked about that and about how serving our own friends and family is different sometimes, but how we still need to start in our own home and make sure that’s healthy.

Jesus started in his own home, his own people, namely Jews and Jerusalem…but news quickly spread to other cultures that this hope of forgiveness of our sin and intimacy with the Father God would not only be for Jews but for all cultures of earth. (Rom 9:24-26)

Pray for our day tomorrow as we minister to northeast MPLs at Pillsbury Elementary School with some more service oriented works and conversational time. We are consistently hot and sticky at our work sites, fellowship times, and in our non AC dorms…but you have to think that our Author Jesus went through infinitely more than we could ever experience, and He and His people are worth it. He went through multiple hot and sticky Mediterranean days and nights for you and for me…will we follow Him even in extreme discomfort? Absolutely, and He will get the credit for giving us the strength to endure.

have you ever wondered what t he main point of the bible really is?  could you explain it to someone else?  do you have any kind of confidence based on your own study of God’s Word?  recently my wife and i have been looking at the importance of studying the old and new testaments as ‘one long story’…sometimes referred to as doing ‘biblical theology’.

Jesus even had a way to study the bible.  You can catch a glimpse of it in Luke 24.27: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to [the disciples] what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”   The assumption of this text seems to be that the Old Testament anticipated the Messiah and that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. In Luke 24:44-47, Jesus plainly states that as God revealed Himself to His people in the Old Testament, He was giving more and more information to point people to Himself in the New Testament, and as the apostles gave us more information in the New Testament, we see the mission of the church played out for us to follow until His return.  Bottom line, in doing ‘biblical theology’ the Bible is one long story we are all a part of!  Pretty cool if you ask me.

So are you ready to dive into actually doing biblical theology?  Would you like a place to begin this journey, of doing your own study of God’s Word, and learn for yourself the plan and purposes of God?  Are you tired of reading someone else’s notes about the themes of the Bible?  Tired of relying too much on your pastor to spoon feed you?  Here are a few simple steps to get you pointed in the right direction.

Step 1- Get a couple Bible versions like English Standard, New American Standard, or New International versions.  You’ll want to compare the scriptures you are reading to see how those scholars used certain words.

Step 2- Get a good english dictionary so that you can get accurate definitions of harder words, because let’s be honest…before we get out the Hebrew and Greek we need to know our English first!

Step 3- Get a notebook and mechanical pencil because you’ll need to erase without having to use a sharpener every 5 minutes.

Step 4- Mark out at least a half hour a day for your study and reading time.  Without at least a half hour a day, you have no business being a student of God’s Word. Yes, I said it.  You may be a casual reader, but not a student.

Step 5- When you meet with God and His Word, first thing’s first…PRAY.  Invite your Lord Jesus to open your mind to understand His Word.  Take a minute and confess sin, acknowledge His forgiveness, and dive in the Word.

Step 6- Begin SLOW.  Email me, jeff@lakecommunity.org for a bible reading plan or use one that helps you chronilogically walk through the Old and New Testaments, for a balanced study of the whole counsel of God.

Step 7- Read through Genesis and John within the first two months of study.  These two books are both ‘in the beginning’ and will help you get a taste for seeing things unfold as God unfolded them in history.  As you read ask yourself the main question, “Why did the author write this book and to whom did he write?”  This is called getting after the author’s intended meaning, the plainest meaning of the scripture.

Step 8- As you read in both Old and New Testaments, continue taking notes on how everything you are reading plays into the authors intended meaning of the book or letter.  Look for supportive clues, cultural differences, key people and places, that may support the authors intended meaning.

Step 9- Every month or so, take a break from your regular reading plan and look over the notes and invite the Holy Spirit to use what you have learned to help you pray more specifically or apply something directly in your life.

Step 10- Share your results with others and help them do biblical theology as well, so they can understand God’s Word on their own!

For more info on biblical theology, and practicing it, I highly recommend two books by Walt Kaiser called “The Purpose-Plan of God” and “Recovering the Unity of the Bible” both out by Zondervan publishers.

Enjoy your abiding time with Jesus and trust His Word today for all things!

I dont know about you, but I get excited when the weather gets above 60 degrees in MN!  Thats summer!  People are out of their houses, finally talking again with one another, bonfires, house parties…I love it.  Let’s remember that as Christ-followers this is a great season to pull together with friends we’ve missed, neighbors we haven’t spent personal time with, and co-workers we could invite over for a dinner.  Let’s love and live like Jesus, sharing our joy in Him!

Here’s how we plan on doing that this summer with our Epic Student Ministry…more detaisl to come soon!

————————————————–

Parents and Students,

            END OF SCHOOL YEAR COOKOUT, WED MAY 25TH!  MS/HS Families join us at Fillmore Park (across from Pizza Ranch) at 5:30pm.  We’ll hang out, play games, and eat some grill food!  It is here where we will chat about summer mentoring groups, activities, home-gatherings, monthly events/activities, etc.  Everyone’s welcome! 

            Please follow these instructions below as you continue with this letter….

1) Read below’s article as a family.  It explains a lot about our vision as Epic Student Ministry that both reaches students with the gospel into our culture, and also why we build students up with the Word of God (and materials based on the Word of God).

            2) 2011 Senior Grads- Sun 9am May 22 is your chance to be recognized before you transition into the ‘real world’!  We’d love to pray for you during worship.  Email angie@lakecommunity.org a senior picture and your post-grad plans by Fri May 13.

            3) 6^th grade grads through 11^th grade grads!  Epic will be hosting a summer discipleship track designed for you and your families at the Alex YMCA this summer!  Invite your pals for ‘Foundations’ in God’s Word, a 5-week course (see details below).

            4) Would your family like to host a Wed night Epic student gathering this summer?  We are looking for families that would want to invite other students and their parents into their home for an evening this summer.  If this is you, contact Pastor Jeff!

————————————————————————————————————Welcome to the Religion of Modern America- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

“We the people, of the United States of America, believe that…

1. …A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. …This god wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most other world religions.
3. …The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. …This god does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when this god is needed to resolve a problem.
5. …good people go to heaven when they die.

We ordain and establish this Common Belief System for the United States of America.”

Approximately 3000 teenagers were interviewed in 2005 and yielded the results above.  It’s easy for pastors to bully people with stats like these, but isn’t this the awful, sad, and disturbing truth of our American religious landscape?  Students who responded to the survey rarely mentioned ‘Jesus’, ‘the cross’, ‘resurrection’, ‘repentance’, or ‘faith’.

My question for us, as parents, is this; 1) If the above is what most teens believe, what does that say about their primary influence from their parents?  Kids do rebel against parents, but are parents being equipped with the right tools to properly disciple kids?  2) What does this say about pastors, elders, and church leadership, and our inability to effectively equip families in our churches to stand on biblical convictions?

I think about the heart of our Father in Heaven, who sees these generations going through life without a care or a clue about Him, and how He truly grieves over our sin.  2 Chronicles 16:9 says the Lord’s eyes roam across the globe looking for someone to support whose heart is completely His!  The hope is that some parents, and adults, and mature enough students are willing to teach and disciple other teenagers…its happening!

Epic Student Ministry has a group of about 10 parents, adults, and a couple mature enough students who want to help act out against this common ‘American Religion’.  Moralistic Therapeutic Deism will have no place to grow within our church family, as we will work together to bring God’s Truth to expose all of the lies of false worldviews.  We invite you this summer to re-commit to teaching His Word to your students, or to join us at the YMCA of Alex for “Foundations” of God’s Word, our summer student courses.

We’re asking parents from Lake Community Church and other local church friends, that have a heart for training younger students, to pick one of our two ‘Foundations’ 5-week tracks during the summer- Track A meeting the weeks of June 15^th-July 13th and Track B being July 27^th-August 31^st.  For each 5-week track, we will have two course options mid-week.  Middle and high school students can register for Wednesday or Thursday afternoons, both courses from 1:30-3pm in the aerobics room.

Currently our essential teaching material will look like this:

            Week1- Intro on ‘How To Handle God’s Word With Confidence’

            Week 2- ‘Trusting God’s Word in a Culture That Doesn’t’

            Week 3- ‘Worldviews that Affect Ways We Share Our Faith in Christ’

            Week 4- ‘Having a  Biblical Worldview to Influence ‘Moralistic’ Friends’

            Week 5- ‘How Your Foundation in God’s Word Impacts Your Family’

Each week will contain meditating (thinking deeply) about certain scripture, music and the arts that highlight God’s truth, and after some discussion some activity time on the trail or in the gym!  Through relationships, we hope ‘foundations’ are built in families!

To register for ‘Foundations’ visit www.alexandriaymca.com or call me personally.  Here’s to a great summer of building each other up in our daily walk with Jesus Christ!

Sincerely, Jeff Pankratz- Epic Student Ministries

office: 320-762-5424     cell: 320-760-5286     email: jeff@lakecommunity.org

Links to cited surveys: http://www.christianpost.com/news/moralistic-therapeutic-deism-the-new-american-religion-6266/

http://www.youthandreligion.org/news/2005-0929.html

Hey guys, a quick recap from our trip now that my jet lag is a little bit tolerable.  Weve been up at 3am the last couple nights but were starting to get back on the MN time schedule.  Thanks so much for praying and thinking of us as our family has been traveling and ministering with our friends in Izmir.  You can read the previous ten posts on  your own, which speak about most of the activities and conversations weve had.  Ill recap here the few things that stand out…

1) Local churches partnering and working together- For the first time, I have seen two churches and pastors (Fikret and Cetin) really work together and support each other.  Fikret and Cetin have a great relationship together, being good friends, and their respective church families work weekly together through an outreach to young adults and college students (Yeni Yasam).  Even though many churches say they work together in a given community, relatively few pastors and leaders actual have true friendships where it is more than simply lip service.  It reminds me of the networking of churches in the book of Acts, where Paul, Silas, and Timothy traveled from church to church to support and uplift one another.  A very cool thing to see in Turkey, even though it is just the beginning of more chances to work with other churches.

2) Opportunities to Meet New Friends-  Between the university, the hotel, families we met in the city, people on the ferry boats…we were able to develop a few new friendships with people that were quite interesting.  It was mutual both ways, as we got to know their lives, and they were interested in ours.  Some friends (facebook is a great thing for this reason alone) we will continue to keep up with, especially two friends we were able to share the gospel personally with and have multiple conversations.  One friend, K, is definitely interested in keeping on talking about Jesus and following Him.  One friend, A, has a lot of questions about Christianity and we will continue to share opinions and the truth of God’s Word.  Pray some friends would truly see the heart of Jesus and their need for heart change and life that follows Him.

3) Old friends that simply are going through rough times- Many of the long-term workers and old friends in the church are always struggling to live out their faith in Christ within a muslim culture.  Families are upset that they don’t follow Mohammed, as he denied that Jesus died and rose again.  When they believe the gospel, this is a slap in the face to families, or they simply hide their faith from their families in fear.  Pray our Turkish friends would be bold about it, and long to impact their friends and family despite the suffering they might face.  The long-term workers also are always struggling to connect with people and stay encouraged in the midst of a really hard ministry.  Pray that they would endure even in the mutliple years it takes to even see a few Turks truly live out their faith in Christ.

4) Leadership development as a priority with Turkish church leaders- We have been able to introduce the pastors to some of our Antioch School materials, which presents a comprehensive guide to developing character, biblical knowledge, and ministry skills in the daily life of potential ministry leaders.  Fikret and Cetin both are very to investigate resources like this, to be able to build a truly Turkish version of ministry training through the local churches.  Pray that the vision would grow, and that we could agree on a key resource to translate, and begin to invest in a few younger Turks- both men and women- to develop as ministry leaders.  Pray against the typical viewpoint that the pastors tend to control and monopolize ministry, and that they would see a plan to release ministry to new leaders and work towards their own replacement.  This is also a great need in the American church, but for another blog.

Thank you for praying and thinking of these core issues with us.  We would love to hear your thoughts and questions.  Not simply in Turkey, but here in MN we are faced with the same challenges of seeing people hear and embrace the true gospel, become true followers of Jesus, and some being called out as potential leaders and servants in the church.  True gospel centered community is just as much of a problem here in MN as it is in Turkey.  We are living in a culture that doesnt honor confessing sin and professing the gospel- righteousness is from Jesus and not our good works.  Good works can only come from a  heart to trust Jesus, and good works are a result of the work of Jesus in a human heart.  Our own MN religious moralism has replaced the cross with a system of “I can be a good person on my own”, when in reality we are all self-centered to the core.

Pray that both MN and Turkey would see people understand their own sinfulness and lack of respect and desire to know who God truly is.  Our Father desires to be personal- absolutely holy and infinitely loving, with each one of us.  He proved it by sending His Son Jesus to fulfill His perfect requirements, and give us a new heart to be like Him.  Let’s share the simple message often of Acts 17-  He created us all to build a people from every culture that would honor Him and trust in His Son Jesus for real Life.  Let’s not reject Him as so many others have done- let’s receive Jesus’ payment for our sin and be set free to live out our broken lives for His purposes.  Let’s boast in our weaknesses so that the strength and e of Christ would be showcased.

The end of a great trip…many good byes today and a very special one to end the day.  K was with us in our hotel room and we were able to pray for him and his girlfriend S.  He is a very cool guy, and we were able to spend some final moments talking about his search for a meaningful career, good relationships with his family and girlfriend, and possible venture to the states.  As a going away gift for our team, he brought up some fresh fruit for our team in the morning since we leave so early (4:45am).

The goodbyes began at Izmir Protestan Kilisesi (Izmir Protestant Chuch) here in Alsancak next to the Migros.  The church meets at ‘Final’ Dershani in the top floor, which is a great view of the bay.  We hope many of our Turkish new friends will go there, ask questions, and pay a visit to our Turkish friends following Jesus.  It was a good time of fellowship to hug our good friends and spend some last times eating Turkish food reminiscing.  We then went over to a new friends house, Sait Bey from earlier posts, to meet his wife Elife.  As typical Turkish hospitality goes (konuk sevirli), she went all out preparing multiple deserts and appetizers.  It was truly an amazing thing to see as we were able to be in a fully Turkish home and visit with some of the neighbors.  One middle school boy named Kubi (yes, they named him after Kobe Bryant) got a chance to meet TJ and listen to his rap online.  Very fun to see the team engage this family and encourage Sait Bey to love his wife and family, even though they dont follow Jesus as he does.  This is a family we hope to get to know quite better, and please pray that Sait’s wife and kids one day will understand the truth of God’s Word.

We were one teammate short today, as Trevor Mueller once again has come down with a stomach bug (or probably never fully got rid of his from day 2).  We were able to get him some antibiotics and he is feeling better but please pray as we fly together for all of our health, especially Trevor and Anna  (if you remember Anna got severe motion sickness on the way over).  We are all very glad to look back on what God has done in and through each of us on this trip.  All of us were able to learn more, share more, and partner more with the churches than we would have ever imagined.  We truly feel there will be some long-term fruit from some of the friendships we are now able to hand over to the long-term care of the church.  Many new Turks are now being given opportunities to experience what the forgiveness and power of Jesus Christ truly is like.  Pray that many young Turks will rise up in the church for the future of this ministry here- the gateway to the nations of the Middle East lies here and the church has the hope of the gospel.  You dont need to look far to see God opening new doors in many Middle Eastern countries…He is bringing pride down, and rising up new leaders to bring the light and hope of the gospel to transform lives.  We see it first hand every day when we are here!

Continue praying for perseverance for these small churches in Turkey’s biggest cities.  Pray that they would multiply.  We gave Fikret a copy of the Antioch School’s ‘Acts- Keys to the Establishment and Expansion of the First Century Church’.  Pray that we could partner together to bringing key resources to develop new leaders- character, biblical knowledge, ministry skills.  Pray Pastors in Turkey and in the States would see that a good chunk of their time needs to be developing younger leaders like Timothy, and Silas’.  Pray that Turkish pastors and wives would be protected while they lead to establish and build into the families of their churches.  Pray that they would truly desire to network for the spread of the gospel and the building of His Kingdom…again, it’s very interesting to see the same obstacles in MN as in Turkey, and how we need to pray for both and be involved in both.  We truly need each other as the Body of Christ is designed to be inter-dependent on each other.

We look forward to communicating in person, instead of blogs.  Pictures can be found on our facebook (Jeff Pankratz, Anna Pankratz).  More photos and details to come as we return.  If you are interested in supporting leadership development in the churches of Izmir, Turkey please contact me.  Many cool projects about to go down.  We are enthused and ready to persevere with them into 2011, 2012 as Jesus prolongs His return.  If He does come back soon, then well do what we can now!  Please remember that what we read in the Incil (New Testament) can be trusted.  It is a trust-worthy document with tons of internal and external evidence.  Jesus said He was God in the flesh, died and rose again to set us free from our sinful and selfish lives, and will come again as Judge of the living and dead.  Please read the New Testament and choose who you will serve, yourself or the Son of God.

We would love to talk with you about this over a cup of coffee or even try making you a Turkish tea.  If you’ve already committed your life to following Jesus, don’t ever think that you are done.  Keep going, keep learning, keep loving.  We are not perfect professionals, but broken bone-heads…we all need to turn from our selfishness to trust in Jesus daily.  The best thing is that we dont have to pretend we are good people with only occasional bad choices.  We are all wounded in lives of sin, as a soldier in a bloody battle, and we must find healing in our Great Physician, Jesus Christ (Mark 2:17).  We lean on His perfection, not ours.  His holiness and righteousness give us the daily power to see Him move and live through our lives.  Ok, done preaching…sorry, i just miss preaching in a country we can’t really speak fluently.  Now Im off the soapbox, promise.

Love to all and it will be good to see you Mon night when were back in Alex around 10:30pm or so.  Our flight lands in Mpls around 7:30pm Mon night.  Here we come Minnesota Twins baseball (oh yeah, and all you guys too)

With love to our family, friends, and churches…

Anna, Justus, Jason, and Jeff, Bruce, Trevor, TJ and Jessica

Pilicmatik…yum.  The word means ‘chicken-o-matic’ and if you know Anna and I at all, you know every trip to Izmir needs a stop at this incredible one of a kind restaurant.   We are friends with the family that runs it, and tonight when we showed up they were closed and cleaning up.  The family, sister Elif and father Cemri saw us coming and said ‘no problem, well open the restaurant again for you and your friends’.  Now that is Turkish hospitality at it’s finest!  It helps that we tip well.

Our day today was a day to finish our conversations with our new Turkish friends we met during our church outreach.  We spent time on the bus talking, traveling to Ephesus (ruins and john the apostles tomb), had a nomad style dinner sitting on the floor of a cool ottoman-era cafe, and also was able to get to know them tons better and what they were all about.  We have three friends wed like your prayer for that are non-christians as of today, that may be checking out worship with us in the morning.  Simply pray for Apo, Ridvan, and Cem.  They are all younger guys we are trying to connect with the believers here and I think they might stick around and listen and contemplate if they really want to know Jesus from the Incil (New Testament). 

Tomorrow we will spend our final day here in worship at IPK, Pastor Fikrets church family, and then in fellowship all day (the Turkish way).  From our first post youll notice i mentioned Sait Bey (Mr. Sait).  We will spend a Turkish tea with his family (about three hours of tea to be exact…and they will try to make us stay longer).  We need to be back at the hotel around 8pm to pack up and try to get some sleep because we leave from the hotel around 5am.  I am very proud of our team for representing Jesus so well to new Turkish friends and the believers here.  They respected the people very well, and respected the work of the church and how we partnered with them and will continue to do so from our respective home churches and leadership.  It is a great picture of the book of Acts and the way churches would network together in the Great Commission.  Now let’s pray more Turkish leaders and churches would be multiplies in Izmir and other places in and around the Turkish people.

We will spend some time with K (from earlier posts) once the kids go down.  We handed him a ‘Gospel of John’ film in Turkish called “Soz” which means “The Word” in Turkish.  I asked him to watch it tonight or tomorrow with his girlfriend and let me know what he thinks about the true Jesus of the Incil.  I truly pray he would watch, read some Incil, think it through, and visit the believers at IPK at some point simply to ask questions and continue his journey towards faith in Christ.  Isn’t this what we all wish for our friends and family?  It is so incredible to help de-mystify who Jesus is and what He did, in a culture where there is so much false information.  Simply pray that who He truly is and what He truly said and did would become clear to Turks…and Minnesotans!  We are excited to come home and be about the same message of the gospel and building friendships and family back home…it truly has re-charged us in a different way to come back to MN and be about the only thing that matters, true Jesus-centered friendships and community.

Thank you for all your prayer for the above mentioned, and the boys and Anna and I’s marriage.  We feel like we struck a good balance between being a family, and leading this group.  There have been the typical frustrations and minor conflicts, but all in all it has been a great journey to travel as a family and represent this short-term team and increase our knowledge of what a long-term partnership looks like in a place that needs the absolute holiness and infinite love of God.  Today we took both kids to Ephesus and we made it all the way through without major meltdown with the kids-  however we dont advise doing that again for younger kids…a lot of walking and little kid friendly stuff.  Anna earned some more ‘mom stripes’ today and dad just tried to keep the peace any way he could.

We love you all and thank you for praying for our last day here tomorrow with the believers.  We will be packing and heading out tomorrow night and once again please pray for the boys on the flight…very difficult to travel with them both if there are any issues, especially when Anna got motion sickness on our way over.  We are excited to share more detailed stories in person, and excited to see our family and friends again back home.  Iyi geceler arkadaslarimiz! (good night to our friends!)

Another shorter update tonight, because of another long day!  After some other long days of outreach and ministry, (if you’re confused see my earlier posts) we were able to start the day and get some shopping done in Kemeralti in the district of Konak of Izmir.  Basically that means we were harassed for a couple of hours by some leather jacket salesmen- no, we really actually had a good time talking with some of the shop owners and sporting around Justus and Jason in the rain.

After we were able to get some gifts for folks back home (sorry we cant get something for everyone…you’ll just have to come along next time!) we had a chance to have a captive audience with Pastor Cetin and Pastor Fikret for some conversation about the Turkish church and the plan for developing younger Turkish believers into ministry leaders.  It was about an hour video which will be available through our american churches.  Because of the sensitive information shared, we cannot upload these to the internet.  many good questions were surfaced such as helping new believers become grounded in their faith, and helping some of these be trained in character and ministry skill through the local church.  Remember the true biblical picture of church (gospel community) is a foreign concept to a muslim world.  Western models and even eastern models do not work here in a Turkish metropolis.

After having some time to pray for leadership and future developing leaders, we were able to spend some time with another long-term family in ministry.   They are working with another organization, partnering with IPK, Fikrets church.  This is a very good thing to see IPK partnering with both another local church, and another local organization serving under the authority of IPK.  This family looks to the Turkish leadership of Fikret and Cetin, and they look to this family to bring a heart of family relationships and discipleship to the church.  It is a very good partnership, and they are seeing the benefits.  For instance, one of the Turkish church members is an older empty nest woman, who helps this younger family with their 4 kids’ daily needs and schedules.  Very cool to see people coming together and helping take care of each other!  After praying for that family, we were then able to make our day’s tour complete by visiting with Dave and Vicki Frazier, some of our best friends and partners in the gospel.

Through Turkish ‘Dominos Pizza’ (yes it tastes pretty much the same) and some Cokes, we were able to have an evening of fun times and real conversation about the challenges and success stories about helping Turks to follow Jesus.  Dave has a wealth of information and wisdom from his years doing everything from A to Z in ministry, and Vicki has been so faithful in her own leadership within ministry and using their home as an open door for fellowship.  Their kids, Emily and Lizzy are both almost completely grown, and it was a blast to see them and spend time with them.  The team loved the evening with them simply to think, behave, and eat ‘american style’.

Pray for tomorrow as we head out with a tour bus full of contacts and people we have met along the trip.  We are hoping that many people from our conversations will be able to join us and spend some time at the Ephesus ruins.  It will be our last day to travel around the area, as we worship and pack up on Sunday.  There is so much to be thankful for here, that God is doing in and around Izmir.  However, there is still simply a darkness that is undescribable in a city of such need of the truth and grace of Jesus Christ.  Tomorrow night is our last night with the Boceks.  Just as today, we are hoping to simply encourage them and truly hear them and how we can learn best from them. 

Love to all and thank you for praying.  We have all been able to see God’s guidance in numerous ways.