"Preach the Word to ALL Peoples." I Can't Wrap My Mind Around That

 

Along the Roads Christ is the sacrifice that takes away our sins and the sins of all the world's people. -1 John 2:2 “Then he told them: Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world.”  -Mark 16:15 I’ve never been good at numbers. Especially the big ones. “For all peoples,” for instance. I can’t wrap my mind around that. This year in Novo we’ve been leaning into three places to flourish as a follower of Jesus: The Cave (in private with God), the Table (in fellowship with believers), and the Road (being a light and witness to the world). These years since returning from Asia, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Cave. After four years in Chattanooga, we're now sitting at many different Tables, and often have people around ours. In 2023 I've been on many kinds of Roads. Have you been paying attention to the roads you are traveling? Here are some of mine. A 5-Lane Freeway of an International Metropolis As the year began, my family was having a cultural crash course in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil. Nine nights. Each in a different hotel (Jim and Tyler planned the packed schedule). On the last night we traveled across Buenos Aires on a strip of highway we’d already driven more than once. The highways of major cities are just about the same in every country. As you drive, you pass blocks and blocks of apartment buildings. We pass by not thinking that behind every window of every high rise there is a human, or humans. Each has a story. Each wants to be seen. To be loved. I can’t wrap my mind around the numbers of people God created, Jesus knows, and the Holy Spirit woos. "Lord, you know them. You know their story. What do they need from you right now?" I lean my heart in to listen and intercede. "The gospel is good news for all peoples." I can’t wrap my mind around that. An Interstate between Nashville & Chattanooga It’s a dark night in February and I have a two hour drive home. A stream of white lights are on my left. Going back home on Hwy 24 from an event in Nashville. There are pairs of red tail-lights running on ahead of me. Sedans. SUVs. Semi-trucks. Where are they coming from? Where are they going? The pairs of taillights are all different sizes and shapes. I never paid attention to taillights before tonight. Inside the dark vehicles, behind those windows, are people of even more different colors, sizes, and shapes, and concerns. And dreams. It may be a single driver, or someone rides along. Who? "Lord, you know them. You know their story. What do they need from you right now?" I lean my heart in to listen and intercede. "The gospel good news is for all peoples." I can’t wrap my mind around that. ----- Click to read the rest of the story on the Novo blog a devotional series "What is the Gospel?" (Hint: My roads get smaller - to what I can wrap my mind around.)  Or click here for the entire devotional series ebooklet. Never stop learning! I'm just about to finish reading Streams of Living Water. Have you read this? It's about the essential practices of 6 great traditions of the Christian Faith. Oh my, how did I miss such a spiritually enriching book? I feel like I'm a brand new follower of Jesus as I read it! Nearly a quarter of the book is now underlined. Amazon makes the first part of it available through the Look Inside feature. Would you join me for some Summer Reading? If I can find a couple friends to read it with me, I'll just start right back at the beginning and read it again. If you'd like to join me I'd like to read at a clip of about 30 pages a week, shoot me a reply if that sounds appealing to you. The first chapter is a brief intro of all 6 of the traditions, then subsequent chapters take a deeper dive. I'm not sure we'll get through Appendix A & B (Critical Turning Points in Church History, and Notable Figures and Significant Movements). But it's so good, I've found myself reading all the endnotes as I read this first time. Join me at a conference? I've registered for Inner Healing Prayer and Deliverance, June 22-24 (in Costa Mesa, CA). Everfree is my Novo Colleagues Keith and Megan Peeler. I've registered for the conference online, but if someone wants to meet me there and attend in person, I'll book a plane flight). Keith was part of the retreat in Spain, and I've enjoyed learning from them on their Everfree podcast. I'll be in Ft. Worth, TX September 11-14 for Global consultation on Arts, Music, and Missions. I been able to attend this every 4 year event only once, and it was great! If you are a Creative living missionally, you will be inspired with some outside-the-box creativity and inspiration for sharing the Gospel. Some from my Makers Team in Novo will join me. Anyone else interested in a trip to Texas? Speaking of my Makers team...Will you pray for me? I leave Friday for 6 days in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with Novo colleagues. Alice Collier has invited me to help with a Women's Retreat on the weekend. She's cooking up some other things to do through creativity and prayer during the time. Jim's doing well too... As you are well aware, people LOVE Jim. The way he facilitates, coaches, and offers wisdom to meetings or Bible Studies has resulted in a fuller plate than this retired man had expected! He loves it.

Try Prayer Walking

 

This month walk with me in learning about Prayer Walking Only 10 minutes from downtown Chattanooga, our Lookout Valley is a sleepy little suburb of Chattanooga with about 6000 residents. One big supermarket, one High School and Elementary School, one Thai food place (that's great), and two Chinese (which are terrible). Six fast food joints, two bars, and one CBD store. This is where I've begun to prayer walk this year. Prayer walking is a type of intercessory prayer that involves walking in a particular place while praying. As we prayer walk, our prayers extend beyond your own concerns, focusing directly on the needs of others and opening yourself to see them with God’s eyes and heart. Prayer walks are a means of asking God to give us a heart for your neighborhood, city, and land.  It gives us a concrete means of doing something for the well-being of our town as we ask the Holy Spirit to pray through us as we observe the world around you. Before heading out for a prayer-walk ask God to give insight into what other's needs might be. Your heart will be moved to pray for the things you see during the walk. Full article from the CS Lewis Institute Have you thought much about what YOUR "patch" is? Whether it's the square footage of your apartment, your street or office, or something much larger, God invites us to be intentional about spiritually cultivating that place. We do this in work, service, engagement somehow; but also in prayer. If you haven't really thought about it, I'll bet it wouldn't be too hard for you to figure it out. I would love to know what it is for you. At the end of last year my Novo team challenged one another to identify the "patch" that the Lord has invited us to spiritually garden. Many of us have spent years in foreign places. We find ourselves now in the USA applying a missionary perspective to the place we find ourselves. Starting in January, each month we have chosen a different cultural topic (ie. Government, Education, Families, etc). In a posture of prayer, we take the month to listen and learn more about the places where we live/serve, go to some of those places and pray. During the month we will often create something, capture images, or write something. Then, on the 3rd Thursday (10:30AM EST) we meet by Zoom to compare notes, learn from, and inspire each other. The Makers Space has started to grow beyond Novo colleagues. One of my Singapore artistic friends joining the calls from a little village in Germany where she lives now. If you're curious about it, and want to know more, please let me know.  Here are some of my "creations" that you might enjoy too:   Prayer Walking Playlists Below are links to playlists on music streaming platforms. The lyrics of the songs are prayers for others, or proclaiming who God is. All suitable lyrics for praying for places as you walk or drive through your "patch." YouTube* Spotify Playlist Amazon Music   A Guide to get started Here's a link to download a 5 page Prayer Walking Booklet. Jim and I now have a regular date (once a month) to explore Lookout Valley with others. This booklet helps participants feel more prepared. I'll also repeat the workshop from March again in July. Here's another booklet that might inspire you to enlist saints who may feel set aside because life is keeping them stuck at home: Prayer Walking for the Homebound. I made a set of 30 printed photos to inspire them as they pray with visual reminders of the familiar places in our community. Lord guide and go with us as we begin to visit believers in Lookout Valley who are shut-ins. For Ashley, a young mom in my church, who will be going with me, may this be a special time of ministering and mentoring. Inspire us all to pray more earnestly and offensively for the places where we live. Give us eyes to see the spiritual needs, and wisdom how to meet them. AMEN. Family News Tyler's been in Asia making us all homesick. Cameron called me today from Austin, TX where he lives. He confirmed again: the Singapore photos Tyler's sent our family chat even got him choked up. The Asia Adventure started out in Singapore staying with the Wuus. Sally and Franklin are the closest Singaporean Aunt and Uncle he has. Our 3 Wuu godchildren finally learned that Tyler was a REAL person, and not just a photograph. Twelve years after he left for University,Ty revisited important places from his childhood. He's been in Thailand with an Army friend for a week, and off to 7+ weeks in Taiwan. He'll get some Chinese language cultural immersion with some divine appointments we're all still marveling at. He'll get to play wing man to @yvonnejiann @taiwanocc and some other missionaries in Taipei. Then hel'll be back to Singapore again to be a tourist with another <3 Army friend. We have all LOVED being this being his base camp for a year. His last Global Nomad adventure will end when he moves back to Columbia, SC for an MBA in International Business. Graduate School starts the end of July. Rejoice with us that his "Year of Discernment" ends with clear direction from the Lord. Jim and I just enjoyed a weekend with his Creasman cousins in Savannah, GA for the memorial of on of their dear cousins Janet. For this only child from California, Jim is thrilled with these opportunities to grow closer to his family here in the Southeast. I always look forward to hearing how God is working in your life too! Kimberly Creasman *The YouTube QR code above takes you to mine and Jim's recent favs. I have playlists of other genres of worship music that are suitable songs for prayer walking. You can search of them in my YouTube account. Search for them in YouTube @KimberlyCreasman.  "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (The Bible, New Testament. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10)

Prayer Walking Playlists - An Easter Gift from me.

The most significant four days of the year. If the busyness of life has kept you from dialing in to the significance of these next few days in our calendar year, this email is an invitation to remember! It's Thursday of the Passion Week. The night Jesus had his last meal with his friends. My favorite section of the whole Bible is what he did and had to say to them that night. John chapter 17 is the best! Jim is thinking the same things today. An hour ago I popped in on him where he was working, with a "What's up?" and he'd read this to me. It's too good not to share with you as we head into the weekend! These few days changed EVERYTHING.  "...not for people to go to heaven but for people to discover that God's new world has begun, and we can be part of it.  I hope it is now clear why the reurrection of Jesus is so central and vital -- as Paul insists again and again, especially in 1 Corinthians 15:17. 'If the Messiah wasnt raised,' he writes, 'your faith is pointless, and you are still in your sins.' If the Messiah is not raised, the covenant is not renewed, creation is not renewed, and...he is not even Messiah in the first place.... He was inaugurating a whole new world, a new creation, a new way of being human. He was forging a way into a new cosmos, a new era, a form of existence hinted at all along but never before unveiled. 'Here it is,' he was saying. 'This is the new creation you've been waiting for. It is open for business.'" N.T. Wright Simply Good News, p 100-1. (I loved this so much, I made a recording for you of the whole devotional and put in dropbox here.)

Ramadan 2023, Gillian Ferwerda

My new friend in the Maker's Space* has prayed for the Muslim world during Ramadan. Gillian wrote this as she prayed. Used with permission.

The fasting hunger -

Like empty spaces

Between ladder rungs;

You cannot place feet

Where there is nothing.

See the Son of Man:

Fullness of God and

Fullness of mankind,

Flesh of your own flesh;

Who knows your hunger

But fills all in all;

Who opened wide the

Heavens and now stands,

Stands high your Ladder.

On him the angels

Ascend and descend.

On him and in him

You are invited

To heaven’s fullness.

Let him take your feet

And carry you high.

(April 2023)

*The Makers Space is a private FB group that is growing out of what was an artist group meeting to practice creativity with activating prayer. There is now a small Novo Mission team from that original group for whom this is no longer our "side-hustle" ministry, but the main focus of what we do full time. Where we have our boots on the ground, and serving other mission teams in need of some creative juice. If you are interested in perhaps joining our Makers FB group which meets by zoom on the 3rd Thursday of the month, contact me!

I've been drawn to "The Lord's Prayer" a lot recently.

Today I was listening to A Beautiful Church (the podcast from Chattanooga House of Prayer). In the episode, Adam Whitescarver and MickiAnn Harris unpacked The Lord's Prayer which the Catholics call the Our Father. 

Since my trip to Spain last month, I've been practicing this prayer using a rosary ring. I've been wanting to write up instructions for how I do this, for my sensory friends who like to keep focused in prayer by touching something. I've been mulling over what we have in common with Catholics, and what are the sins or blind spots on both sides of the reformation divide.

Have I written anything before on this prayer? I searched my computer and found a devotional I wrote in 2015 and had completely forgotten about! Looks like I never posted it before here.

SCRIPTURE READING This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. - Matthew 6:9-13 (NIV) MEDITATION These five verses of the Lord's Prayer present a powerful compact primer from Jesus himself, but it easily can become thoughtless and rote. Growing up in a Christian family, reciting this prayer was common practice both in church and as a private discipline. I have not done it much lately. I need to. We first address the one true and holy God. Before the example of Jesus, Jehovah God had been feared and worshipped but never related to as a Father. We acknowledge that he powerfully reigns over all the universe. But because of the liberty he has given us and the mess we have made, his Kingdom has not come in fullness yet. His will is not yet done, and it should be. So we ask and wait in hope. We can also ask for the small things, expecting him to provide for our needs. We must admit our failures and forgive those who fail us. In walking with him, we can know he will not lead us to temptation. He will keep us safe from the enemy of our souls. He is a good and gentle Father. Years ago I used to use a drama sketch regarding this prayer. It was written by Tom Long of Friends of the Groom in Ohio.  In it, God talks back and surprises the person who is ritualistically saying the prayer. God keeps interrupting her. Midway through, the woman complains, "Here I was, doing my religious duty, and all of a sudden you break in and remind me of all my hang-ups." And God answers, "Praying is a dangerous thing. You could wind up changed, you know. That's what I'm trying to get across to you. You called me, and here I am. It's too late to stop now. Keep on praying. I'm interested in the next part of your prayer." She reluctantly prays the next part, knowing that God will certainly have something to say about the forgiveness part: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." And God reminds her of the friend she's holding a grudge against: "What about Sue?" You see, God knows what you need, or need forgiven, or need to do, even before you tell him (Matthew 6:8). But we need for our sakes to say it. In Andrew Murray's classic book from 1858, Lord, Teach Us To Pray, each chapter ends with a recap prayer. The first chapter includes: O my Lord! Strengthen my faith so in the Father's tender love and kindness, as often as I feel sinful or troubled, the first instinctive thought may be to go where I know the Father waits, and where prayer may never go unblessed. May we, too, understand the Father's tender love and kindness, and may we be willing to go to him in prayer, trusting in his eternal goodness.   QUESTIONS FOR APPLICATION Have you ever memorized this prayer that Jesus gave us? Take five minutes today to shut out the distractions around you and read it again, trying to memorize one line at a time. If you can recite it at the end, say it by memory one more time.   As you say it, don't rush. Listen for what your Father in heaven has to say to you on each of the subjects. It will not necessarily be audible words, but you will experience his presence. Thoughts as reminders, or conviction, or other gentle suggestions will come to mind. Pay attention to these and respond to them in your heart.   The Lord's Prayer is a great way to talk about Jesus with people who don't know him. Many pre-believers are familiar with the prayer. Look for a time this week to talk to someone about it. You could simply tell them you've been thinking about The Lord's Prayer this week, and ask if they are familiar with it, or if they have ever sensed God speaking to them. You do not need to convince them, just get them thinking. God's Spirit can do the rest. Even if there is no initial positive response, you've let them know that you're a praying person who they can talk to about spiritual things.   ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kimberly Creasman and her husband, Jim, served for the past 17 years in Southeast Asia. They are now taking a transitional home assignment year in Los Angeles. Jim is a spiritual mentor and executive coach to Christian leaders with a passion for Asia, and Kimberly, a creative artist and performer, is now focused on her writing and speaking. Their two sons graduate high school and university this summer.