I Can Only Imagine!

The past two years have been a tremendous time of growth and stretching. God has done things and led in ways I had never imagined!

When God first called Wendy and I to Brazil we saw the call as very specific. We came to Brazil to see God raise up laborers from the campus for the lost world! By the grace of God that’s exactly what He has done! However as the years have passed we have been plagued by the lingering challenge of seeing them all actually equipped as life long laborers for God’s Kingdom! During the college years we participate with God to reach students for Christ and help them begin a lifelong process of laborer completion as disciples of Christ. However, considering where most of our students in Brazil begin their spiritual journeys with us [what experiences they have had with God, His Word, and His Body] we don’t have enough time with them before they graduate to help them really form as equipped laborers and no local churches with the vision to see this happen.

As a result we have wrestled to understand God’s desire in this and what role He desires us to play in it. We are convinced He desires His disciples to be complete and we know that He promises to do that very thing through the letter of Paul in Philippians 1:6. The question remained for us however, how would this happen for our spiritual children and what role does God intend for us to play in that! This is where God brings my personal pain and stretching to a whole new level! Personally I was very content and excited about the work of making disciples through the university campus and could see myself doing that for years to come. However God had a different plan for Wendy and I. It was really the same call that he made in our hearts many years before, only with a larger expression than I had ever imagined!

As God used many faithful friends and teammates to help me better understand myself, my giftings, and my passions, I began to feel my limited vision of my future splash against the wall of reality and God’s plan. Before, I had always imagined that I would go on to lead a campus team out to pioneer another frontier for the Kingdom of God in Brazil or South America! Little did I know that the pioneering God had in mind for me was directly related to the laborer completion questions that had torn my heart as a shepherd for the last several years!

Last year God began to call me and some of my teammates to play a principle role in responding to the need to see God’s disciples equipped! It was no longer just college students, but the reality is that God had raised up students, graduates, couples, and families all around us who all needed to be equipped. We had tried to answer this through partnering with some local Brazilian churches, but under whelmed by their lack of capacity and vision we began to understand God’s second call for us!

As the year has moved along, working with a local church, we have planted a new church! God has brought a Brazilian pastor and his family to work with our team on this and has raised up Brazilian campus staff who are now leading the three campus teams for our ministry here at UFMG! We have also seen God raise up developing ministries among the children, young professionals, and families within our church as well!

This is where Wendy and I have felt God’s blessings the most this year! We have been working together with Raul and Vivi Pacheco to develop a vibrant community among the families in our church. So far this year we have seen God build caring relationships where each family is really seeking to relate, care for and pray for the needs of one another. We have been studying God’s word and talking a great deal about how the gospel transforms our relationships and marriages. We are now beginning to challenge our first leaders and help them form their first disciple groups from among our community. It has been so amazing to see God expanding His impact out into new parts of the city and developing new leaders and laborers! We are really excited and have been so blessed through them and through God’s grace in them! We are all Growing Together! All praise be to Him!

As I think about what this means for our ongoing campus ministry I get even more excited! The students who now begin to consider and investigate Christ through the campus have real life examples in the church of men and women of all ages living with and serving Christ with their lives, professions, and hearts! They see people relating and loving one another within the body of Christ! They have many examples of what life on life discipleship looks like! They see people living for something bigger than themselves! This is something that we never had in the first ten years of ministry here! Praise God for this new opportunity and privilege! I can only imagine how God intends to use all this to raise up more and more laborers for His Kingdom!