About India...

I'm so grateful to have so many friends and family who, first of all, are aware of what we, as GCC, are attempting to do as we send teams regularly to India to support and bolster the work of indigenous Indian church planters, but second, are seeing all the havoc on television around Mumbai and wondering how this will affect us and our upcoming teams in December. As a result, i wanted to post here what i sent to all our India team members and their families. Hopefully, it will be helpful to you as well. -sj

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Dear December India Team Members and Friends!

By now, no doubt, you've heard about the tragic attacks and bombings going on in Bombay (Mumbai), India, pursuant to apparent Islamic terrorists targetting innocent Indian citizens and foreigners (if you haven't, please click here for update). As a result, i'm guessing that you probably have a variety of questions about the impact of this event on both a) our overall ministry in India, and b) our upcoming teams in December. While we are still gathering data and watching how events unfold along with the rest of the world, i wanted to drop you a quick line to give you some basic information that i hope will be helpful to you and to your support teams, families and friends as you field questions and attempt to direct your own prayers.

1) First of all, please let me state plainly and simply that we will never willingly drop a team of GCC members into a situation that is known to be overtly dangerous or hostile. While there is always a certain amount of risk associated with international travel of any kind, of course, we will monitor the situation in India closely for resolution, and will be paying attention to the US State Department for analysis about the relative safety of contiuing to travel to/from or operation within the country. If there is a genuine threat, if the US State Dept feels that travel to/from India is unadvisable, or we just don't have a good "feel" for our ability to maintain safety and security, we will simply cancel and/or reschedule our time there, and will keep everyone appraised of all necessary data along the way.

2) Also, be advised that the epicenter of this kind of terror is actually "far away" from where our teams typically operate. Think of what might happen if you saw terrorists attempting similar activities in New York, but you were planning on travelling to South Bend (the distance between the two is about the same as between Bombay and Chennai in Tamilnadu). While Bombay is a highly important city within India, and is a focal point for international attention, business, tourism and banking, it is some 700 miles from Tamilnadu, where we concentrate all of our work. In addition, Tamilnadu is nearly 100% Hindu, so there is a considerably higher degree of peace and tranquility than in much of the rest of the country where Hindu/Muslim conflicts occur regularly. Again, all of this to say not that we will ignore genuine international threats or concerns, but rather that what you are seeing on CNN is not necessarily indicative of what is going on in the rest of the country.

3) Next, our current airline tickets have us routing nowhere close to Bombay for any component of our travel to/from India. Most likely, we will either fly directly to Chennai (on the Southeast coast of the country), or to Chennai via Bangalore (in the South-Central part of the country) from our stop-over in Europe.

4) Finally, despite the above, please continue to pray diligently for India. As you have heard me say in your training DVD's, India is a country currently "in flux", trying to find its point of balance between the old ways and the new. In the last 10 years, it has attempted to bring itself out of the Stone Ages and into the light as a global super-power (economically, militarily, socially and governmentally), and the tension that occurs with that kind of seismic upheaval is always difficult, and sometimes (as in this case), violent and tragic. As you pray, please ask God that this horrific evil will result in a greater openness for those of us who are attempting to bring the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior into such Darkness, and that his Light and Love will triumph over the spirit of oppression and violence that is pervading India now.

I'm sure that what is above has most likely not answered all your questions, but hopefully, it has at least answered a few. Please feel free to contact your team leader first, or me directly for additional information if it would be helpful for you. Thanks, and we'll continue to give you more information as we have it.

All for One!

Jack Magruder
Director of Life Mission
Granger Community Church

Can Zombies Fly Planes?

When i was a kid, i thought i either wanted to be a fighter pilot or a US Navy SEAL.  While most of my friends could quote sports statistics, i could tell you the thrust-to-weight ratio of an F-18's GE404 engines, or the muzzle velocity of an HK MP-5 submachine gun.  And while i never pursued either of those courses of action, i have been seeing a debate in our culture that brings much of that same military imagery into sharp relief as a parallel metaphor.  Here's what i mean:

"Air Power vs. Ground Power" - It's ironic to me that when aircraft were first developed, everyone wrote off their military significance as trivial.  Confining them to reconnaissance and basic "anti-personnel" functions in WWI (literally a pilot of a bi-plane dropping a hand held bomb over the side as he flew low over a battle), most people never envisioned the awesome firepower of the fleets of B-17's that would dot the sky in WWII, or the fact that contemporary airpower is a "given" nowadays in that "whoever controlls the skies, controlls the war".   

But despite falling in love with our own birds of prey, any military strategist will tell you that while airpower is critical, you can't really "win" a war without eventually sending in ground forces.  You can soften,

 bludgeon or blast as many hard targets as you can see from the air, but eventually, the "real" battle happens person to person, room to room, inch by inch, acre by acre with men and women who are deployed in cavalry, infantry and support units in the mud, sweat and blood of even the most modern of warfare scenarios.  You can significantly help or cripple your ability to win a war through the use of airpower, but without ground forces, you'll never load the final tipping point to real victory.

I see the current debates raging about our government in much the same way.  People seem to be tearing themselves apart about our elections, the trajectory of our country, and its impact on our day to day lives.  I get that.  I get that our national leadership has HUGE play with where we go as a nation, and so don't think i'm being dismissive of that in what i say next.

But here's the reality that i see every day as we engage the most marginalized people in our community, or even in the ends of the earth in India for that matter.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

"No one's life is ultimately transformed by the government.  It's transformed by individual men and women who reach into the worlds of the lost and hurting and stand with them against whatever is preventing them from finding wholeness, freedom and the kind of Life that Jesus really intended for them."  I guess it's back to Air Power vs. Ground Power for me.  The Government is "Air Power".  It can leverage huge amounts of collective "firepower" against big problems identified in our culture, and it can either "hit them" or "miss them" with a variety of positive or ill effects.  But as a "Commander" of Ground Forces for the Kingdom here in a local church setting, i know that the real battle is ultimately not going to be won through that kind of Power.  Rather, it's going to be won by people like you and me working every day to gain inch by inch, home by home, person by person, family by family, life by life.

Once again, i know that there are smart zombies who fly planes (i.e. Christ followers who work in government), and God knows that we need them there.   But for me and my life, i'm going to stick to the ground. From my perspective, that's where the action seems the most intense, the change most possible and the results most visible for the Kingdom.  Charge! 

Of "17 Items" and Taking Over the World...

Okay, so i had a dream last night that my boss (Rob Wegner) came into work with a new personal program he was excited about called "17 Items".  Basically, he had decided to very deliberately sit down at his desk each morning and determine the 17 absolute highest priority items that he needed to do, write them down on a task list numbered 1 through 17, and then machine-gun them until finished.  If he finished the 17 early, he got to go home.  If it took him till midnight, he was going to doggedly keep at it until complete.  I remember, in my dream, being inspired by his radical and energetic committment to the idea until i looked over his shoulder at his first list and it said things like "put on shirt", "brush teeth", "close front door".  Still, after waking, i remember wondering what my own "17 items" list might look like, and told Rob about my dream first thing this morning when we both arrived at work.  We both laughed at the notion that i would dream such things, and then set about our days.  

I left my desk for a few minutes, however, and when i returned to my computer, this was on my screen...

Rob had been busy at my terminal.  And if you can't read it, it says:

17 Items

1. Try to take over the world
2. Repeat
3. Repeat
   
4. Repeat
   
5. Repeat
   
6. Repeat
   
7. Repeat
   
8. Repeat
   
9. Repeat
   
10. Repeat
    
11. Repeat
12. Repeat
    
13. Repeat
    
14. Repeat
    
15. Repeat
    
16. Repeat
    
17. Go to sleep

You may or may not be familiar with Warner Brothers 1990's animated characters "Pinky and the Brain", but they're two lab mice who sort of function as defacto mascots for us here in the Life Mission Department.  Each episode featuring them revolves around one central scheme and one central line of dialogue.  It goes something like Pinky asking Brain "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" and Brain always replying, "The same thing we do every night, Pinky... try to take over the world!!!"  In no small way, we're trying every day here to "take over the world" for the Kingdom of God.  Often we have the same kind of "anvil on your head" failure that other cartoon characters experience, and we're always cognizant that in the scheme of things, we're not much more visible than a couple of lab mice working away daily at our central mission.  But some days... and with more and more hope, we are part of something that is growing.  And we're increasingly aware that we're not the only "Pinkies" and "Brains" out there.  There are hordes of them, in fact, working every day to do the same things we're trying to do in bringing "Up There to Down Here" in real and tangible ways.  I call them Smart Zombies.  Are you one?