The Seabourns

Archives for July 2006

Reunited with Kay in England

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Kay and I met in the Manchester, England airport. I have flown 14 hours from Singapore via Amsterdam. Kay had flown about 10 hours from Orlando via JFK. And our planes landed a little over an hour apart. It really worked! I was able to remain in the arrival gate area and meet up with Kay. We went through immigration and other entry stuff together.

We are a party of 5. We rented a “7” person “minivan” since we knew we would have luggage. The emphasis should be on the “mini”, not the “van” part. It was really tight but we made it.

We are in Nottingham, England, staying in dorm rooms at the University of Nottingham. There are about 1,200 people at the European All-Staff Conference.

Yesterday, to stay awake until evening, we wondered around the town of Nottingham, especially in the Nottingham Castle area. I’ve uploaded photos of our first day at
http://flickr.com/photos/61374547@N00/tags/greatbritain1/

Why are we here? This conference of all the staff in Western Europe happens every 4 years. This is a tremendous opportunity to spend time with Yvan, Wouter, Andreas, Roger, and others who work together to build effective internet ministries. Last February, we met with internet ministers from Europe. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangejack/94666954/.

This is a great opportunity to fellowship, plan, pray, and dream together. Thank you for your partnership allowing Kay and me to be involved in lives of our staff around the world.

Lifelong friends

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Our Measurements conference ended Friday. Some will stay a few more days for additional training. I’m now sitting in Manchester Airport waiting for Kay’s flight to arrive from the U.S. I’m reflecting on the power of going through life with friends.

I spent Saturday afternoon with great friends John and Lynn. John and Kay and I went to school together.

Daniel is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were friends who went through Babylonian captivity together. Their fellowship gave them strength to remain pure in God’s call on their lives.

Friends do that. Lifelong friends help each other make sense out of God’s workings in our lives. The go through trials together. They strengthen one another.

So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death. [Daniel 2:13]
…
Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. [Daniel 2:17]

Some other thoughts on friends:

[Proverbs 17:17] A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

[Proverbs 18:24] A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[Proverbs 27:9]: Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel.

[Eccles. 4:10]: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

That’s how John and Lynn go through life with Kay and me. We’ve trusted God for ministry victories while students at Texas A&M. We’ve shared experiences in Africa together although separated by the entire continent most of our time there. Now we are sharing together as our children launch out into their lives, working through the 3 big issues all of us sort through: life’s Master, life’s mate, and life’s mission.

It’s great to go through life with friends.

Seafood in Singapore at the harbor

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Jumbo Seafood Restaurant

Jumbo Seafood RestaurantOur training continues in Singapore. Last night, we went out for seafood. Where else would you go but Jumbo, the big name in seafood? Sitting in the harbor, right on the beach. It was beautiful. The fellowship with people from Eastern Europe, India, the big country, Singapore, all of whom are committed to seeing the glory of God expand around the world as people’s hearts are made new, as people respond to the pardon of God, attracted by the promises of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit (to borrow a little John Piper).

East Asia Office, building on top of a buildingBack to Singapore. It’s amazing to think of a city as an entire country. It’s really crowded here. The city is crowded. The East Asia Office is in an amazing building. Land is at a premium. So the owners of the building decided to build another building — on top of the existing 18 stories. There are huge piers that completely support the 9 stories of the new building. The original building has floors 1-18. The new building has floors 19-27.

But the new building does not touch the old building. It’s built above the old building! Amazing! They each have their own elevator shafts. We get into our elevator each morning and select from floors 19-27. (Actually, for safety’s sake, there is a staircase/fire-escape that connects the two buildings, but no structural support.)

Singapore harbor is crowded also. I haven’t even tried to count the ships. It’s amazing.

Even the geography is crowded. While sitting at dinner last night, I could look across the South China sea channel and see Indonesia across the way.

We are spending our mornings being trained in how to use the measurement tools. We’ve learned how to configure the tool to duplicate the organizational structure of a country or region. We’ve learned how to enter statistics into the tool as end users. We’ve learned how to generate reports that help leaders identify effective strategies, areas of unusual responsiveness to the gospel, and staff teams who have found unusually effective ways to build spiritual movements.

The afternoons are spent with each initial rollout team configuring the tool for their region, and the countries in their region. Each team will return to their home areas and train others to use the tools.

We expect a tremendous documentation of what God is accomplishing around the world, for His glory. We expect a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we build an infrastructure that allows Him to bless us even more with more fruit, more movements, and more glory for Himself.

I’ve added more photos. Click here to see the new photos.

Or click here to see all Singapore trip photos.

Measurements for the glory of God

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One of the interesting things about being in Singapore is that I live my day and prepare for bed about the time most of you are waking up to start yours. Singapore is 12 hours ahead of Orlando time, 13 hours ahead of Dallas time.

I’ve place some photos online. To have a look, click here.

We’ve just completed day 2 of the Global Measurements project beta launch meeting. This project is to replace our current measurements tool with a much more robust and flexible system that better reflects the continued growth of our organizational structure.

Why do we measure ministry activity? Why do we document results? I can think of several reasons.

  1. Psalm 105:1 says: O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. We cannot make known what we do not know.
  2. John 15:8 says: This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. We bring glory to God by bearing much fruit.

Today, a friend shared a devotional message that really excited me. Speaking from Exodus 35:30-36:1, he called this the first operational team. That is, this is the first team called together to build something that supported the activities of the entire community.

Remember that Israel was probably more than 1 million people at this time. God called just a few to do this work as a blessing to the rest of the community. Their job was to build a tabernacle.

God called Bezalel and Oholiab and a few others to be the skilled professionals to design and build his tabernacle. It only takes a few who are

  • gifted by God
  • filled with the Holy Spirit
  • motivated by God’s call

These professionals were also required to equip (teach) others. This would release the gifting of others to participate in blessing the community.

That’s what we’ve worked on. We’re a bunch of professionals, using our gifting, skills, and calling in the power of the Holy Spirit to capture the breadth of what God is doing through only one movement, Campus Crusade for Christ. To him be the glory.

Tried to get bumped up!

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I made it to New York City, but the flight to Amsterdam is delayed. We have finally boarded, but sitting.

The plane is about half full but was expected to be oversold. I met the head attendant and volunteered to be moved to business class! She just smiled! I offered to use an upgrade coupon. She smiled and said they are not allowed to change class of service within 24 hours because of security. (Sounds good but I don’t believe it. Just makes good PR and makes it “not Delta’s fault”.

She told me that everything shut down because lightning hit the plane to Istanbul two gates over and destroyed the electrical system. They pulled all workers inside for an hour and a half.

Glad I wasn’t going to Istanbul tonight!

So although we’ve boarded, we’re not going anywhere soon. They are waiting for passengers. I wonder how they decide how long to wait?

Anyway, I’ve chatted with the person next to me. He lives in Amsterdam. He’s in New York on an intership. His father lives here and owns a riding school. He’s traveling to Amsterdam to bring his little sister back on Sunday to visit his father.

I hope to talk about spiritual things.

The wait continues…