Meeting in Germany Today
Chris has arrived safely in Germany and in a few hours several German pastors and church leaders will attend an informal session he’s organized for the purpose of networking, sharing the OPEN opportunity, and discussing the church online opportunity for German leaders to consider as a way of reaching out to people in their country who will not/can not attend local churches.
*** Keep Chris in prayer at 1pm Central Time today that the meeting would go well and for great Kingdom connections to be made. ***
Exciting: Click here to see the OPEN resources in German!
Returning to Europe
Today Chris (and our friend and Blue Door supporter John Otjen) head to Europe for 10 days of meetings with churches and leaders with whom Blue Door is engaged in projects. Here is the itinerary so you may follow along.
Tuesday – Wednesday: OKC to Frankfurt, Germany
Wednesday – Thursday attend Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, share OPEN with 10,000 pastors
Thursday – Flight to Vienna then on to Nove Zamky, Slovakia to meet with partners at Krestanské centrum / Christian center of Slovakia
Sunday – Chris speaks at church in Nove Zamky about managing your money God’s way
Monday – Wednesday – Overnight train to meet with partners at Hosanna Church Chestochowa, Poland & with friends in Krakow experimenting with a network church service
Wednesday – Quick trip through London to gather the remaining few belongings we have there to bring back to OKC
Thursday – HOME
Please keep Chris and John in your prayers for safe travel, that new relationships would form for advancing The Gospel online and in other languages, and for productive meetings with existing partners. As you can imagine, we look forward to seeing what God has in mind when we combine our consulting and translation efforts with church leaders in Europe who want to reach people far from God.
Déjalo
Below is the first Spanish blog post we included on the church online website this week. It’s incredible seeing translated blog posts and church materials help other people. As you consider your sphere of influence, is there any way you can translate what you provide in order to reach more people?
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En el pasado he dejado de estar donde quiero y me he incluso se alejado de una relación abusiva en mi vida. Cuando Craig habló esta semana sobre la necesidad de desprenderse de algo para captar algo nuevo, el Espíritu de Dios me mostró lo que necesito para soltar – un patrón de pensamiento negativo, en un área específica de mi vida.
Es con gran entusiasmo que tengo previsto volver a trabajar este año despues de una ausencia de 6 años. Recientemente me sorprendió descubrir los pensamientos negativos han sido sistemáticamente pasa por mi mente acerca de volver al trabajo: “Usted no tiene lo que se necesita”, “Sus
hijos y el matrimonio sufrirá”, y – lo mas sorprendiente – “Eres una mujer y por eso nadie te tomará en serio, debes quedarte en casa. ”
No es exactamente un montón de diversión de compartir mis pensamientos más íntimos, pero me siento aliviado al reconocerlos. Lose estoy dejando… y reemplazandolos con las promesas de Dios. Aunque sé que nunca personalmente tendre toda la experiencia o calificaciones para cualquier trabajo, yo sé que Dios mismo me dará lo que necesito para tener exito. Porque me he preparado en muchos aspectos, y Dios ha confirmado que es el momento para mí para volver a trabajar, confío completamente que Él me ayudará a seguir buscando apoyo en mi familia. La ultima idea contaminada última (sobre ser mujer en el lugar de trabajo) es una idea a la cual quizas muchos de ustedes probablemente pueden relacionarse. Si bien la experiencia laboral anterior contribuyó a la formación de mi creencia incorrecta, el ser un voluntario en línea de la iglesia me ha dado valor para participar con todo lo que en mí siempre que me acaban de trabajo. Estoy dejando de esos pensamientos y confiando en que Dios va a cambiar mi punto de vista como un paso de fe.
Creo que en todas las etapas de la vida de cada uno de nosotros está en posición de tener que dejar que algo vaya (que impiden las relaciones, bienes materiales que nos distraen, la mentalidad negativa, y los planes de nosotros que no son de Dios) para que podamos seguir a la próxima aventura
que Dios tiene reservado. ¿Qué está lanzando ahora mismo?
Dana Byers
Providing Tools, Reaching Europe
Even though we are based back here in the US, Chris is taking off for Europe in a little over two weeks. In addition, a friend and expert in video production and church online, John Otjen, will be traveling with him to Germany, Poland, and Slovakia.
Chris and John will attend the German Willow Creek Association conference to connect with OPEN users. In preparation for the conference we are developing a set of translated OPEN resources for the German-speaking world. We are excited to share these new resources, recruit others to help translate more resources and begin talking about church online opportunities in Germany.
In Poland, they will meet with the team of churches who launched Polish church online this week. More than 400 unique visits were recorded this week at KosciolOnline.tv! This is an incredible response and proof of people interested in hearing the saving Truth. Chris will meet with our friends and church leaders in Slovakia who’ve recently shown interest in translating English materials into Slovak and pursuing online ministry as a congregation in order to reach people in Europe who are far from God and unwilling to visit their local churches.
Please keep us in your prayers as we prayerfully consider which ministry opportunities Blue Door should pursue at this time and which to invest the most time into. We see a tremendous global response to God’s love, and it’s a blessing to be part of many teams out there planting seeds.
January 6
When I woke up today a reminder on my phone states we were to fly back to London today. I nearly jumped out of my skin! After the moment of panic passed, I was numbed by the reality of the many changes that have come into our lives in the past 2 months.
I still remember crying while running one morning in London as I realized there was a chance we’d not be returning. Though I still have moments of missing our friends and life in London, I cannot stop praising God for the redemptive experience we’ve had of returning to a home, a school and friends for Blake, the prospect of me returning to the workplace (a longing of mine for a few years now), and Blue Door’s projects in Europe continuing to expand!
Looking back (that’s always the clearest view, isn’t it?) we see that being based in the US for now will allow much more stability for our family structure while Chris continues travel to Europe from time to time to check in on and expand our relationships and projects with various churches.
A stipulation of our visa while living in the UK was that we could not seek employment. We are forever grateful to those of you helped provide for our family. We will continue raising funds and need support. However, Dana plans to begin work soon as a means of allowing any funds we raise to go toward Chris’s travel expenses and funding the projects we’re directly involved with.
I’ll update you tomorrow as to the plans in place for Chris’s trip to Europe this month!
