Tell the Good News

Every year the LCMS Wyoming district holds a mission convocation for pastors, lay leaders, and their families.  The title they use is "Tell the Good News about Jesus," a biblical and bold challenge to believers.  At the convocation, I met and participated with people from Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and St. Louis in a powerful and encouraging event.  The speakers reminded us that evangelism is more than a mere program of the Church.  They reminded us, as it is written in the Bible, that evangelism is about growing disciples.  Disciples live the Christian faith in their vocation, they participate in the faith with their children, they approach God with repentance, and disciples take care of one another.  

When we surround ourselves with God's Word, we are able to stand up to attacks on the faith.  The "Tell the Good News about Jesus" convocation surrounded disciples of Christ with His Word.  Saturday morning, we celebrated together in His Gospel by participating in Matins.  Through singing led by organ and wind and string instrument there were disciples of all ages hearing His Word and growing in faith.  It was a quite enjoyable experience.  It was a wonderful experience to have so many children present at the convocation as well.  It was truly a celebration of the priesthood of all believers.

This is a great example of LHM's description of "People of Christ, with the message of Hope."  Who are the people of Christ?  They are disciples of all ages.  They are people who don't live primarily by philosophies or wisdoms.  The people of Christ live by faith, a faith originated in God's holy scriptures and guided by the Holy Spirit.  In those scriptures we find the greatest hope we could ever hear.  We hear about a Savior who gave his life on a cross for you.  Not a popular concept, but true and a message of hope, none the less.  At the convocation we were reminded of this by the speakers, which LHM, LMCS, and the Wyoming District must always remember.  Telling people about Christ's message of Hope isn't an easy task, it can be a far cry from our enjoyable worship experiences when we are in the presence of Christ, but it is what we are called to do and why we exist as a collection of saints called "the Church." We are the people of Christ, so stand proudly and share the message of hope that comes through Christ alone.  

New congregation in Obama Country

As the World celebrated the inauguration of the new American president in Washington DC, we were in the LHM office in Kenya speaking with pastor Ngare giving us feedback and celebrating the planting of the newest Lutheran Congregation about 30 KM from where Barack Obama's Father was born. 

The new congregation named KODULA LUTHERAN CHURCH is as unlikely a story as the story of Obama ascending the most powerful office in the World.

In October we had a Mission in Samanga area on the shores of Africa's largest fresh water lake, and the world's second largest after Lake Superior.

After the team left with a good report we received an appeal from a neighbouring area to also send a team there. The resources were not enough and so I sent two people only to conduct what we call a 'weekend challenge.' This involves open air Film Ministry and preaching.

The surprising thing is what God did in this unlikely event. In this small market centre called Kodula two very new events were coming to town for the first time. A music band had been invited to bring a disco dance. This was the very first time the small market had ever attracted such an event. there was excitement in the air. The second event was the open air film being presented by Lutheran Hour. To Isaac Ngala the team leader and Geoffrey Gunyali It looked like a case of bad timing from the start.

However as they say in show business, the show must go on.

Both events took off at the roughly the same time and the Gospel event was nearly drowned by the larger sound systems of the Dance. then as so often happens in the village dances fights started to erupt over , over girls, gate crashers and drunken guys. On the other side however there was a hushed silence first because of the awesomeness of cinema but mostly because Jesus was speaking dholuo. 

When Jesus said 'Kwe obed kodu' Peace be with you, 

The crowd was so mesmerized they all shouted back amen.

(By the way this is Obama's father's mother tongue. Maybe Americans should try greeting their new president  this way and see if he learned anything from his grandmother when he visited her here.)

The stark difference between the chaos across at the dance and the peace at the Gospel meeting was a very dramatic setting showing light and darkness. Hope and futility. 

One person who caught the difference and whose life was going to go through a very dramatic change was Thomas Okuthe. A former teacher in a Lutheran School, married to a Lutheran but from a stanch Seventh day Adventist family. Over time he had become disappointed with SDA legalism and had lost his faith altogether. The end result was that his wife also stopped going to church. There was no Lutheran Church close by and this also contributed.   

In a very dramatic twist of events which only the Holy Spirit knows how, Thomas approached his father the next day and told him openly that he had left the SDA church and wanted to be a Lutheran. His father seeing the seriousness of his son asked to see the Lutheran pastor. At the end of the discussion he said if his son has found his faith again he could only rejoice and support. 

He immedaitely took the pastor and offered land for the building of the Church. Only God can explain this. The SDA Church des not consider Sunday worshippers( as they call us) as Christians.  

Today the entire Okuthe family is going through confirmation and baptism class and the congregation has 20 people, ten dechurched members and ten completely new believers. 

To God be the Glory. 

(Next mission Kogelo, Obama's village.Support it. The muslims there must hear the gospel.)

 

 God less

John Maina

God Watches Over Us

Romans 3:5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Things seem very different than they did a year ago.  We have a new president in the United States and we still see a very uncertain economy in our future.  Because Lutheran Hour Ministries is funded fully by the dedicated contributions of others, we too see the uncertainty of the current economic situations.  Only God knows the future, and only God knows how our economy will be and what our new president will be doing in a year. 

We have chapel every Thursday at our office in St. Louis and today's speaker was Rev. Doug Nicely.  He spoke about the current optimism of our country regarding a new president.  His frankness towards how much a symbol of change and hope our new is for our nation.  The point is that even President Obama answers to a higher authority.  We can get caught up in politics or the stock market, but true hope comes from God alone.  God transcends the issues of the day and what seems like huge dilemmas to man don't give man even the slightest worry. 

Origins

This is my first post, so I might as well talk about the beginning of Lutheran Hour ministries.  I attended a International Lutheran Laymen's League Board of Governors meeting this past weekend.  The average age of the governors is not low, however, I was inspired by many of the leaders of the LLL, the founding organization of LHM .  Even though they are older gentlemen, they do care about the Gospel and are committed to it.  They care about the lost and want to tell them about Jesus.  It is often easy to forget about the true purpose of your organization when in the midst of business as usual.  The question of the weekend seemed to be: is there a younger generation who care enough to carry out LHM's mission.  I tend to think so and am glad there are leaders of LHM that can keep on the focus.