Reflections
What are the idols of our culture? If we were trying to teach a missionary how to reach people in Midland, what are the idols we would point out so that the missionary would better understand how to reach people in our city? These questions came out of our idol walk, I’ll talk more about the actual stops later, but essentially the idea was a walk around the city to understand the idols people worship. This is meant to help us have effective conversations with people about the gospel.
We had multiple stops where we discussed different idols that people worship. What would those stops be in Midland? Would we stop at the football stadium or the school? What about one of the banks in downtown? Would churches be one of our stops? A pump-jack? Every culture has things that people within that culture tend to worship. Our culture is no different. Awareness of the idols of our culture will help us reach our neighbors and even our family and friends.
Following Our Trip
Day 4, our first full day in Hamburg, we did an idol walk. We split into two teams and walked to different stops in the city. We went to the high end shopping district and to a couple of churches. We stopped at the port and at the edge of the red light district. We walked through the poor district and stopped one of the colleges. We talked about the idols of education, money, pleasure, and tradition.
Day 5, we started our ministry days. We started by helping a church plant work on some land that had been given to them. We helped them erect a tent on the land that will be used for Royal Rangers and a ministry they do along side that with the hopes of eventually having worship services in the tent. There will be a Bible study there THIS Sunday. The story of how the land and tent came to be was a joy to hear. It challenged us to ask God when we need to see him work.
Prayer Requests
Most of the students are over the jet lag and we finally have all our luggage. Today, tomorrow, and Sunday we will be focusing on having conversations with people in the city. We’re going to be talking to people in a couple of neighborhoods where our IMB Missionaries are hoping to plant churches in the next year or so. (1) Pray for the conversations we have with people in our neighborhoods. (2) Pray for the missionaries we are working with, I won’t name them but pray for S, R, M, C, B, B, & M.
