Immediate. You can find and fund a small business in a developing nation in under five minutes on Kiva.org. Buy a pair of Tom’s Shoes, and a second pair is sent to a needy child in a developing nation (you can actually go on a “Shoe Drop” trip and deliver the shoes yourself). The action is (or, at least feels) [...]
You shouldn’t compare ministries. If we’re all obediently doing what God leads us to do, such comparison shouldn’t even enter our minds. Nevertheless, we compare. Consider the words we use when we describe the work we’re involved in. We always seem to point out the huge population of the cities we work in. We spout statistics of “lostness” and “reachedness,” [...]
Not Biblical, no longer helpful: -”the 10/40 window,” “last frontier,””edge of lostness.” When the world was two-dimensional (and to most Christians, that was until very recently…), it made sense to think of people as places on a map and to put them into categories (population, religion, demographics, reached-ness, number of churches, accessibility, etc.). Today, people defy taxonomy; the world is [...]
You may have heard about the controversy over the elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo is building a $42 million exhibit for Billy, its only elephant. There are three sides to the argument: those who say that $42 mil is too much to spend on one elephant, those who say the new “Pachyderm Forest” project is just [...]
Dear Missionary (or “Believer Actively Working Toward Building the Kingdom,” for those of you who don’t like or use the word, “missionary”), Although I like to think that my entire blog is written with you as its intended audience, I realize that my thoughts here can sometimes come across as talking about you rather than to you. With this post, [...]
Unless writing a lot makes one a "writer," Ernest is a former missionary. After more than six years in Western Europe, he moved to Portland, where he drinks too much coffee and over-analyzes human behavior. For more about Ernest, visit the About page where you can read a long-time reader's interview with him. Or, if you don't mind waiting a very, very long time, send him an email.