The Seabourns

Travel

Off to Singapore

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How well are we doing?

That is a very important question that we in Campus Crusade for Christ want to become better at answering. We want to know how we are doing in building local movements everywhere. We want to know how we are doing at helping everyone know someone who truly follows Jesus.

We are serious about our mission of

  • helping fulfill the Great Commission
  • through winning, building and sending
  • in the power of the Holy Spirit
  • so that local movements of evangelism and discipleship are established among every nation, every tribe, every people, and every language.

So I’m off to Singapore to meet with our leaders from around the world to help plan a measurement system to help us keep our finger on the pulse of movement-building around the world. This is a complex issue because we operate in over 140 countries, many languages, different cultures, similar but sometimes different priorities. In fact, the more I learn about Campus Crusade for Christ globally, the more I am amazed that we work together so well. It’s a testimony to God’s grace and his call on our lives. I don’t think it would work without our strong emphasis on walking in the power of the Holy Sprit.

It’s kind of like the way the church works!

Please pray for the following things:
1. For each of us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and be sensitive to His leading
2. That God would bind us together in unity even as we discuss difficult issues
3. That we would stay focused on the task at hand and leave with clear objectives
4. That God would lead us to His creative solutions to complex problems and opportunities

I’ll keep you posted…

Visiting Utrecht

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Rob and I made it to Amsterdam this morning, then took a train for the 30 minute ride to Utrecht. We’re trying to stay awake until 7 pm or so. It’s HARD! We’ve walked around Utrecht.

Domkerk churchWe visited a cathedral that has become a protestant church, called Domkerk. We got there just as the service was ending. They have a massive pipe organ and someone was playing enthusiastically. A few people were still sitting in the pews but most were having coffee and fellowship. It was fun to see.

This church as an interesting past. It was designed in the 1200’s and 1500’s in the shape of a cross. In the 1600’s, a massive hurricane destroyed they main section, the long stem of the cross. So that all that is left today is a huge tower which was the church entryway, and was originally at the bottom of the cross. Also remaining today is the upper “cross” section. This is still a massive structure and is still a functioning protestant church. Look at photos of the three sections.

You can see all the photos from this trip also. I especially thought the Eten en Drinken restaurant and the Potten and Pannen store were interesting.

Then we had lunch at Broers restaurant. I had soup and a salad. Wanted to keep it simple until tomorrow.

We’re on our own today. Tomorrow morning, we’ll meet with Roger Vann, staff member who has lived in Europe for 25 years. He’s the organizer of the training. We’ll meet to finalize plans for the training. In the afternoon, we move to the training site, about a half hour’s drive away. Then we train on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday, we fly back to Orlando.

Travel adventures

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Kay and I have been on an adventure during our travel from Nairobi to Dallas, Texas so that we can drive back to Orlando, Florida. We were delayed a day in Nairobi due to technical difficulties. We finally made it to Paris last night. This morning, we learned that our flight to Houston, Texas was delayed 6 hours.

On Friday night after canceling our long-delayed flight, Kenya Airlines shuttled us to a hotel near the airport. Riding in the bus about 2 am, I recalled one of those critically-important lessons I learned from Henry Brandt. I had no choice about being on the bus. The flight was canceled. I was going to spend a few more hours in Nairobi, and I was going to only get 3 hours of sleep. I had no choice over those things. What I did have a choice about is my attitude. I am going to be sitting in a seat on the shuttle bus, but I could be sitting there full of joy or full of anger. I could sit there relaxing in God’s sovereignty, or stressing out because my plans where thwarted. The choice of my attitude is mine. “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13).

The herd rush to grab seats on the airplane about noon today caused me to rejoice that my place in heaven is secure. It’s promised. It’s guaranteed. I have no fear of missing my seat.

Growing fruitfulness in online discipleship

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Kay and I have returned to Florida. On our flight from Dallas to Atlanta, we sat next to a recent college graduate who was so excited that his University of Florida Gators made the BCS bowl. He graduated last May. He likes his new company, likes his salary, but doesn’t like the attitudes of the people he works with. He was deeply concerned about ethics issues, particularly interpersonal relationships. We didn’t make much headway talking about spiritual things. He is Jewish but not spiritual. He is thoughtful, but not open. He is concerned about treating others right, but not able to sort through his own spiritual journey very well. He said other Christians were always leaving him with a pamphlet or tract.

So we just talked with him. And prayed for him.

Today we meet with our global operations team. It’s all day, and all good. We’re praying and planning how to build greater capacity for sustaining the Great Commission around the world.

Tomorrow, I travel to Vancouver, Canada via Seattle. We’re calling the conference iStrategy. It’s a small, highly-select group of the top practitioners of internet ministry in Campus Crusade for Christ (at least the ones that I know about!). God is blessing us abundantly in internet evangelism. Over the past year, we have seen a 100% increase in the number of indicated decisions for Christ and a 30% increase in email conversations with seekers. And we have not really increased the number of visitors to our websites significantly. This is increasing fruitfulness.

But I also feel that we can do better in internet discipleship. The number who continue into basic follow-up and discipleship are too few.
We can do better.

This is the focus of our iStrategy conference. The top practitioners of internet ministry will meet to pray, to share, and to seek ways to do better discipleship in our internet ministries.

Please pray for the iStrategy conference. Pray for a rich time of fellowship at the foot of the throne. Pray for new wisdom and relevation from God about how to increase our effectiveness in discipleship. Pray that we’ll understand how to be more effective in building movements everywhere. We want everyone to know someone who truly follows Jesus.

Smoking in Europe is all about the ashtrays

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I’ve learned that the difference in Europe, or Budapest at least, in smoking areas and non-smoking areas of public places is the placement of ashtrays. Earlier today, I was sitting in the Budapest airport waiting to board. I grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch. I sat at a non-smoking table, since my table didn’t have an ashtray. The table next to me was a smoking table, since they had an ashtray.

This can be very conveniently self-reconfigured easily. I noticed that one person sat at a non-smoking table (no ashtray), but needed to smoke. So he reached over to the smoking table next to him and took the ashtray, hence “reconfiguring” the arrangement.

Now, I’ve walked through the Frankfurt airport and noticed the “smoking” area is a table in the main hallway with several ashtrays. It was very crowded as people stood and puffed. There was a measure of anynomity, though, since there was quite a cloud of smoke obscuring the smokers.

By the way, this is my first time through the Frankfurt airport in maybe 25 years. It is a l-o-n-g way from my arrival gate A64 to my departure gate A22! It asctually feels like another terminal, but it’s still called “A”.

I’m going from Budapest to Amsterdam for a meeting tomorrow (Monday) helping develop internet evangelism and discipleship for Western Europe.

Well, they are boarding. At least, even in Europe, the flights are non-smoking!