DETOX: Day 1 (Daniel 2)

Thursday April 30: Daniel 2

Read Daniel 2

“With the all-powerful God nothing is impossible.” This was Daniel’s reply to King Nebuchadnezzar in verses 27-30. Wisdom and power belong to our God (v.20), but He freely gives to us because of His mercy (v.18). Before you go too much further today, ask God to enable you to make Him known and intercede for the lost in this city.

Deeper Study: Compare Daniel 2 with Genesis 41 the story of Joseph and Pharaoh

My Reflections:
In ch 2, I am reminded of God's sovereignty as He works out His plans through the faithfulness of His people. Daniel was brought into Babylon as a slave with no rights and because of the goodness of God and his faithfulness, by the end of ch. 2 he finds himself standing in front of the king that is bowing at his feet. Wow! I am encouraged by this text as I share Christ in Uptown. There are a lot of people that don't care anything about Christ in this city. It seems like it is impossible for them to come to faith in Christ. But God is calling us to be faithful. I pray that these people who refuse to even consider Christ, will be bowing at the feet of Christ in the near future. I believe it can happen for the glory of God. Nothing is impossible!

Invitation: WANNA DETOX?

I want to invite you to join Vintage Church for a 10-day fast. Here are some of the details that you can find online at www.vintagenola.org:

Detox Overview

The Daniel Fast is a spiritual discipline designed to better connect us with God. As Vintage Church, we’ll take 10 days within the two weeks of the DETOX series to deepen our relationship with God and center ourselves around what God is going to do in our church and in our lives. We are praying that many people will come to faith in Christ during the DETOX series as we invite and share with our friends who are searching for God.

Who is doing this: The entire Vintage Church staff and leadership will be participating in the fast and we are asking for our Vintage family and friends to join us as we seek God during this exciting season.

When are you doing this:
Thursday, April 30th, 7pm: Begin the “10-Day Daniel Fast”.
Saturday May 9th, 7pm: Break the Fast!

We have plenty of resources online like recipes, websites, books, etc.

Visit www.vintagenola.org. The entire website has been DETOXED.

I will preach two sermons from the book of Daniel. The first sermon on Fasting was this past weekend and is already available online @ www.vintagenola.org/podcast/

In conjunction with the fast, we’ll be reading a chapter in the book of Daniel per day for the duration of the fast. The book of Daniel has 12 chapters so we will read one chapter of Daniel to prepare and conclude this fast. This will be a challenging process, but we look forward to seeing what God does in our church and experiencing him with intensity during the 10 days of the fast. Thanks @mattthebrick for writing these for us.

Here is our first devotional out of the book of Daniel:

Introduction
The book of Daniel is divided into two sections: the first half of the book provides a historical account and the second half is prophetic. The theme throughout is God’s sovereignty and power over all nations and powers. Yahweh is the one true God. All other gods are merely idols.

Wednesday April 29: Daniel 1
Daniel detached from the pleasures of his status in Babylon in order to maintain his identity as one of God’s children. Prayerfully consider other activities, objects or “royal food” of the world that God would have you abstain from in order to focus more clearly on Him over the next 10 days. May God grant to you favor, compassion, understanding and wisdom (v. 9, 17 & 20) as a result for your undeterred loyalty to Him.

I will post the devotional each day and share some of my thoughts. It's gonna be a great 10 days! Expect great things!

Reflections from Myanmar

Well, it has been over a week since I got back from Myanmar. I am not sure if it was because I had a really challenging week or if the flight was really that bad...but I have really struggled getting over this jet-lag. We traveled over 39hrs and flew over 27hrs. Nasty!

This Myanmar Trip reflection is going to be short and sweet. Because of the lack of internet I was unable to keep posting blogs each day. However, I have over 10pgs of journal notes. Instead of posting all of these I have decided to just share a short summary.

This was my first opportunity to return to a mission location that I had already visited. Both trips were incredible and had their own unique elements. Since my first trip in the fall of 2005, I have wanted to go back to Myanmar. As I entered the country, I remembered my heart breaking for this people group and how much I fell in love with their culture on the first trip. This second trip was no different. It was awesome learning about the various traditions, especially those centered around Buddhism. The people were extremely kind and loving. Even more so then most of my Christian friends. On this trip, I loved the basketball (coaching & playing), the food, the massages, the hotel...but most importantly I love the people.

Our typical day looked like this:
Early Breakfast 8
Coaching Clinic from 9-12
Lunch 12-1
Coaching Clinic from 1-3
Basketball Games 4-6
Shower and Rest 6-7
Dinner 7-9
Devotion Time 9
Bedtime 10

I was excited to see so much progress on the bball court in comparison from my last trip. Their basketball skills had improved and they gave us a run for our money in the games. Well maybe not, we still crushed them by over 40.

One of the greatest aspects of this trip was the fact that Sean and Rob came with me. I have really grown to love these guys. Sean is a high school basketball coach and Rob is a student at Tulane University. Both of them are members at our church. I had a blast getting to know these guys better over basketball, wierd food, massages, and long flights. It was excellent! I know that God is going to do great things in each of their lives through the lessons that were learned on this trip.
Throughout the week God opened up doors for us to share the Good News one on one and around the dinner table. I believe that we were faithful to the mission and many seeds were planted. Most of our opportunities came when the coaches and players asked us about our faith. We were given an opportunity to be in Myanmar because of the government and basketball. The basketball federation would love to grow in their basketball ability and compete with other nations, possibly improving in order to compete in the Southeast Asia Games. One of our guides shared with me that it is not illegal to be a Christian in Myanmar, but the government restricts all proselytizing. I was amazed at how God used the game of basketball as a tool for us to build relationships with the people. Here are a few friends that I will be praying for until I am able to return again: Swan, Sue, Lance, Victor, Zarni, Arthur, Diana, Nigel, Kenneth, Jessie, Austin, Omah, Kg Sett, Japanzee, Sun Dai, Swie.

Myanmar Day 1-Saturday March 28th

First let me tell you who is on the trip with me.
Scott and Wendy Duke are the leaders of the sports organization. I have known Scott for a couple of years, but this is my first time meeting Wendy. Jonathan is from Greenville and is currently living in Spartanburg. We supposedly played ball against each other in high school. Sean and Rob are members of Vintage and good friends. Sean is a high school teacher/coach in Chalmette and Rob is a freshman at Tulane. That’s it. I thought we were going to have a couple others, but I wasn’t mad. It meant that we had less subs for the games.

We arrived in Yangon, Myanmar this morning around 8:00am. I have done a lot of flying around the world, but this was one of the most intense journeys. 1hr to Houston. 11hrs to Moscow. 11hrs to Singapore. 2.5hrs to Myanmar. Over 25hrs of flying! Singapore Airlines is great, however they don’t know how to keep a plane cool. Dang it was hot, but I seemed to be the only one that struggled with it. I’m always hot. I probably slept a total of 10hrs of the flight, watched 3 movies, wrote over 5pgs of Vintage notes, and read almost 2 books on my new kindle. Everyone else did great on the trip. Sean had a little allergy issue, but survived.

When we finally got to Myanmar, I got a little shock. Looking on my passport, I found my Myanmar stamp from the trip that I took back in the fall of 2005. I had told the guys that the airport was extremely ghetto and hot. Not the case this time, they had built a complete brand new airport with air conditioning. Our government guide for the week was waiting for us after the passport check (which is not as intense as the one in ATL). His name is Arthur. Arthur served as their guide on the last trip that they took. He is a very friendly and gentle man, which is typical of most people in this country.

All our bags arrived and we went outside to wait for our taxis. As soon as we stepped outside the HEAT SMACKED ME IN THE FACE. This place is HOT! March and April are the hottest months in Myanmar. I think I am going to lose some weight just from being in a constant state of sweat.

Our journey to our hotel was amazing. It brought back so many memories from the first trip. Crazy drivers, no set road rules, driver on the wrong side but driving on the right side. I love it. I also got a quick reminder of the dirt and the poverty in this country. Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia. And from what I have been told Yangon is one of the richest parts of the country. As we drove the streets I immediately began to reconnect with an intense burden over the physical and spiritual status of this country. G you have to intervene with groans that cannot even be expressed.

Our afternoon was pretty chill. We checked into the Summit Parkview Hotel, got some lunch in the middle of town (I got some stuffed chicken meal and some S-prite. That is how they say it), and then rested at the hotel. I am rooming with Rob this week and we decided to not nap like the others. We instead lifted weights at the gym and took a dip in the pool. It was very refreshing.

Around 4, we headed off for our first basketball scrimmage. After almost losing our lives on the road again, we parked in front of an amazing open-air gym. Kinda had a Hoosier feel to it. The gym was packed with kids watching and playing ball. As we entered the gym an immediate buzz entered the room. The Americans have arrived. Let’s play ball.

We played against a pretty decent team. I love their style of bball. Run and Gun. They are scrappy and never stop moving. The first two minutes caught us by surprise. We found ourselves down 8-0. Fortunately, we woke up and after 6 quarters of bball we won 98-78. It was a lot of fun, but man I was tired. In between quarters I connected with a lot of friends that I had made on my first trip. I will tell you more about some of these people later in the week. I also entered the crowd with some clapping and goofing dancing. The gym was packed with spectators and you could see that they loved having us.

The rest of the night was recovery time. Shower, Dinner, and then of course the massage. However, this time it was a little different. Instead of getting a massage from a recliner, we all had our own beds. These little Burmese girls bent us in positions that we have never been bent before. It hurt like heck, but I loved it. We got a full hour, full body massage for $8. Not bad.

Right before we passed out we went to Scott’s room for a little devo time in the Big Book. G spoke to us about having a strong compassion for these people and believing the unexpected and impossible can happen.

What a first day! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week will hold.

Myanmar, Here We Come

It is 2am and I just finished packing up my stuff. It was an amazing night where I was reminded of God's grace and blessing upon my life and Vintage Church. Maybe one day I'll tell you the story.

I leave in the morning for Myanmar. Holy cow, this is going to be a beast of a trip. Here is our flight schedule: NOLA to Houston, Houston to Moscow, Moscow to Singapore, Singapore to Yangon. I am staying up so that I will be sleepy and the flight will go by faster.

I have heard that I will have access to internet at our hotel, so it is my plan to write a quick blog after some ichat time with the family each night. Before I go, I wanted to give you a few stats of the 10/40 region. I will be serving within this area.

STATS:
10/40 Window: across Africa and Asia from 10 degrees latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees latitude north of the equator.

• Center of population:Two-thirds of the world's population -- more than 3.2 billion people -- live in the 10/40 Window.
• Unreached and unevangelized: 95% of the people living in the 10/40 Window are unevangelized.
• Good news: There's a difference between unreached and unreachable. In 1989 there were only four known Christians living in Mongolia. That country now has an estimated 10,000 indigenous believers.
• Poverty: Eighty-five percent of those living in the 10/40 window are the poorest of the world's poor.
• 865 million unreached Muslims or Islamic followers in 3330 cultural sub-groupings
• 550 million unreached Hindus in 1660 cultural sub-groups
• 150 million unreached Chinese in 830 groups
• 275 million unreached Buddhists in 900 groups
• 2550 unreached tribal groups (which are mainly animistic) with a total population of 140 million
• Forming a smaller -- though important -- unreached group are the 17 million Jews scattered across 134 countries
• Good news: Missions researcher David Barrett says the country with the most rapid Christian expansion ever is China where there are 10,000 new Christian converts every day.

So...you’re bored with Jesus. So...that weekend party is more important right now. So...you’re gonna wait till you get married and have kids tilll you get serious about Christ.

• 66,000 people die every day in unreached poeple groups around the world, never having heard the gospel of Christ.
• Over 160,000 believers will be martyred this year while trying to preach Jesus.

New Series at Vintage: Seven

This Sunday, Page Brooks will launch our new series called "Seven: A look at the 7 Churches in Revelation". We will spend 7 weeks walking through a greater understanding of these 7 churches. It is our prayer that we would be inspired to learn and apply the truths found in God's Word. Here is a video intro to the series.


7 / The Seven Churches of Revelation from Vintage Church on Vimeo.

You can listen to these messages at www.vintagenola.org/podcast

Myanmar Blog (Day 10-Prep)

Day 10 (17 days till Myanmar)

Spiritual - It has taken me a couple of days to process what our church heard this past Sunday at Vintage. My Uncle Buzz took us through a foundational understanding of what a Spirit-filled life looks like in the Gospel of John. Trust me, you want to take some time and listen to this message. Click on this link: www.vintagenola.org/podcast. God is using my uncle in an amazing way in the Huntsville marketplace. Check out his website, www.murraywiltonministries.com. Here are a couple of challenges from Sunday:

• Christianity is not about DUTY or THEORY...it is about LIFE.
• God does not want slaves, he wants children.
• Christ came to give vibrancy to dead souls!
• If you follow the law, you are on a stair-stepper not a step-ladder. At the gym, a lot of people are doing a lot of work but getting nowhere.
• Key to following the Spirit is understanding the heart of God.
• Jesus humbled himself to find the height of human righteousness.
• Where is Christ today? Seated at the right seat of the Father. Where is His body? We are His body filled with His Spirit.
• Jesus said it was better if I go, the Helper is coming.
• John 20:22 He breathed the Spirit on them.
• The Christian Life is a DAILY EXPERIENCE.
• Practical Advice: Praise the Lord, Surrender to the Lord, Invite the Lord.
• The Holy Spirit is not a force, power, etc. The Holy Spirit is a person. Welcome Him daily into a Lordship over your life.
  
• You can quench the Holy Spirit. It quenches someones Spirit when you reject them. The same applies to our lives in Christ.
• Don't just worship the God out and up there, worship the God who is in here (within you).

After talking with my uncle, God has led me to continue this subject next week at Vintage. There are two aspects of being Spirit-led. One is all about your relationship with God. The second is all about your relationship with People. Hence, Love God, Love People. I am going to focus on the Spirit's work through His church. Can't wait.

Physical - I have certainly been working out really hard. But I am a little disappointed in my ability to eat right. I have very little self-control to Annabeth's goodies. Oh well. I am feeling good and healthy.

Myanmar Facts -
“Burma, a country of fifty million people, is ruled by fear. A military machine of 500,000 soldiers denies the whole nation its most basic rights.” (Burma Campaign UK)

With no known external enemies, the military government of Burma has been waging war against its own people for over50 years. Forced labour, confiscation of property, extra judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and absolute censorship in all forms of gatherings and media are just a few examples of the way things are where the citizens of an entire country are the casualties of war.

For those who are ethnic minorities in Burma, the ongoing war is an even harsher reality. Forced relocation and the systematic destruction of villages occurwith impunity. Rape is common and the Burma Army maliciously terrorizes its citizens with the strategy of placing thousands of land mines in and around villages in order to keep residents from returning. In 2006 alone, more than 25,000 men, women, and children joined hundreds of thousands of others who have been internally displaced in the last few decades. Most end up trying to survive in the jungle. Additionally, more than 200,000 have fled the country and are living in refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border.

For displaced persons who are hiding in the jungle the situation is desperate. With little food, water, shelter, medicine, and no sanitation they are extremely vulnerable to sickness, disease and malnutrition. Malaria is common, especially among children. For women the situation is particularly difficult, especially for those who are pregnant. Many give birth prematurely or miscarry. Amazingly, most who are displaced want to return to their homes, villages, and rice fields; they simply want their lives back. With breathtaking precision, Burma’s leaders have managed to take what was once the “Jewel of Southeast Asia” and reduced it to one of the poorest, least educated, most corrupt, and mismanaged countries in modern history.