9 Minutes!

During my time in Sudan, I enjoyed the laid-back, joyful lifestyle of the Sudanese people, so my last few minutes in Sudan were certainly the most eventful.  We were saying our "good-byes" to the church planters and new friends on the dirt runway, as the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flight was landing to pick us up.  Right after the plane landed, the pilot hurried out of the plane and urged us to board the plane immediately.  She briefly explained that she heard "reports of gunfire in the area" and "was barely able to land the plane!"  We cut our goodbyes short, boarded quickly, and prayed for safety. 

After an otherwise uneventful flight back to Uganda, we overheard our pilot describe the incident by stating, "I was only on the ground nine minutes!"  That's right, from touchdown to take-off, including loading up the plane with our bags and ourselves, we were off the ground in nine minutes.  We made it out safely, and when we arrived in Uganda, I telephoned the church plant trainer back in Sudan who assured me that they were also safe. 

This whole event showed me how clearly God poured His grace out over us and the church planters during this time.  It also clearly shows some of the dangers that the church planters experience, as they spread the Gospel in Sudan.  Please remember them and their growing congregations in prayer.

I hope you take the time to watch the videos from Sudan on the website.  You can see a glimpse of what I saw in Sudan and see God’s movement there. 

Grace and blessings to you,

Brad

 

"Rough, but Good!"

I spent only four days in Sudan, but those four days will forever impact my life.  Conditions in Sudan are unlike any that I have seen before, due to the previous war and extreme poverty.  We traveled down war-torn, dirt roads that were jagged, and some made for a very rough ride.  During one journey, we were forced to carefully drive on a carved path because of the danger of land-mines.  These hazards, along with no electricity, no running water, malaria, malnutrition, and even death due to lack of healthcare are common perils that the Southern Sudanese people face daily. 

Over the four days that I was there, though, I wrapped myself in the lives of the Sudanese people and witnessed that in spite of the conditions there, our brothers and sisters had a true joy.  Alongside them in my time there, I experienced this joy, laughter, true worship, reverent prayer, brokenness for the lost, heartache for the oppressed, and thankfulness.  You see, the Southern Sudanese people are rejoicing in the midst of suffering, because they are experiencing God through church planting and ministry.  All the harsh conditions do not prohibit the Grace of God from being poured out on them.  Yes, God is moving in Sudan!  Please pray that He continues to breathe life and pour out His grace upon the Sudanese people! 

"Hi... I'm Brad!"

My name is Brad McElya.  I've done medical missions in a variety of capacities and now live in India with my wife, who works for a Christian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).  I was approached by my friends at Entermission to survey the work going on in Sudan through the ONE Prayer movement.  So, on March 15, 2009, I traveled to Uganda and then on to Southern Sudan for ONE Prayer.  I praise and thank God for the amazing opportunity I had to travel there and gain a larger vision of the Universal Church!  Our brothers and sisters in Sudan welcomed and embraced me with the love of Jesus Christ, blessing me abundantly.  

ONE Prayer: Brad McElya... "Contract Shooter"!

I want to introduce you to my friend Brad McElya!  He's a great guy, and husband to another great friend (Jill Ulrich/McElya)!  They both live in India, and work with bonded slave laborers and the Indian legal system.  They're amazing people, and it's a privilege to know and love them.

But the reason i want to introduce you to Brad is that he recently spent about 10 days in Sudan to gather necessary recon and reporting on the ONE Prayer work going on in that country.  His job was largely to photograph, record, report on that work, as well as train someone else to do the same for both this current cycle of ONE Prayer, as well as ONE Prayer '09/'10.  I think that Brad had a great experience in Sudan, and, as a result, what follows are 3 quick posts that i thought you would find interesting.  

Yeah... I Can TOTALLY Score You an Autograph!

I know cool people.  Seriously.  One of them is my friend Kem Meyer, our Director of Communications here at GCC and newly published author of her book titled "Less Clutter/Less Noise".  I've had the privilege of watching and getting to know Kem for years now, and can honestly say that if she's talking, you should probably be writing it down.  Now, however, she's done you the favor of writing it down for you, and you can get the benefit of her collected wisdom in one convenient package (you can click here to get your copy through Amazon!).

GCC India Teams 2009

Had our "Introduction Meeting" last Wednesday for people interested in travelling to India with a GCC Team this year, and it was great!  More than 100 people from GCC turned out to hear about what's going on next and how they can be involved, and i heard from a few people who were unable to make the meeting, "is it too late?  Can we still apply too?"  The answer is "of course!"  You can apply online (all our applications are digital this year) by clicking here and you'll want to download the "packet" that gives information as to where we're going, what we're doing and relevant deadlines along the way.  

EnterMission Coaching Network!

Okay, i'm really excited about something that we've been running with for about 3 months now, and wanted to make you aware of what all is involved.  

One of GCC's core values is to "resource the Church" at large, meaning that if there is anything that we do well or have done well that honors God and inspires people, we want to do whatever we can to make that "thing" (service, structure, resource, etc) available for other churches and organizations to use in their own contexts.  In fact, we have an entire department/division of GCC called WiredChurches that is built specifically around that purpose, and have been doing everything from classes, workshops and seminars to hosting events (like the Willow Creek Leadership Summit) to facilitate growth and health in the Body of Christ as a whole for years now.

And now, we in the Life Mission Department here at GCC are jumping in as well by building a network of churches who are attempting to figure out how to take the passion and transformative power of the Kingdom of God that exists "within their walls" to the community around them "outside of their walls".  We're calling it our EnterMission Coaching Network, and it's a pretty intense gig.  We're taking 15 churches from around the country through an 18 month journey that includes "in real life" modular sessions, monthly conference calls, ongoing digital "chat" around around the "7 big buckets" of Theology, Calling, Field Strategy, Leadership Multiplication, Organizational Structure and Mobilization, Partnership and Technology (if you want to see additional details, you can click here , even though our current "cycle" is full).  In addition, we're doing this in conjunction with Saddleback, Willow Creek, and WoodDale , so will be sharing resources all around the table to make sure that this kind of experience truly yields the greatest overlap and cross-over for maximum impact as possible!  We're excited, and are already on a great journey!  

On Deck: India Teams for 2009

Now that we've been back from our latest round of experimental community development initiatives with our staff, friends and partners in India, many people have been asking the question:  "Now what? What's on deck?  What are we doing next?  When are we going back?" 

So, on March 18th, from 8 - 9pm (in the Great Room on the GCC Campus), we'll be putting the "Now What" on the flight deck at our India Team Informational Meeting, and i have to say that i'm really excited about what is coming up next!

For starters, we now have enough good data about what has been working well to roll out fairly comprehensive plans in three village communities in India, with long term plans to impact each in much the same way that we have been working here locally at Monroe Circle.   We will be sending teams to do a variety of things, therefore, in those contexts, and the purpose of the meeting will be to give participants everything they need to know about dates, mission objectives, costs, training parameters and support.  If you're interested in hearing more about what's going on next in India, or are thinking about being part of a GCC team, i'd encourage you to come!  See you there! 

Tech Zombie: LiveScribe's Pulse "SmartPen"

I keep wanting to say, "Say 'Hello' to my little friend!" in meetings when i bust out a nifty new device that we have been testing in our department for the better part of three months now, and feel that i have enough "field testing" to give you the low-down on its benefit and uses.  Here goes:

The rather bulky (but not TOO bulky) pen i'm holding in this photo is a new Pulse SmartPen from LiveScribe.  It's "Smart" because it remembers everything you write and then transfers it to digital format, along with all the ambient audio of whatever you were listening to when you were writing stuff down.  Example:  Let's say you're a student and you're taking notes in class.  The teacher is talking faster than you can write, and you panic that you just couldn't keep up.  No problem.  The SmartPen just recorded the teacher's entire lecture, and when you dock your pen to your computer later that evening, it shows you a PDF style version of your written notes (see other photo for example), and if you click any point on the page, it will either re-play the entire lecture, or just the part of the audio you were listening to when you were writing those particular words.  Even better, you can then upload your notes (plus audio) to LiveScribe's online server, and then dope them out to all your friends (maybe that friend who was sick that day and missed the notes altogether) as a link that the server will provide you for others to access either "openly" or with restrictions that you can set.

We like them!  Only drawback is that you have to use LiveScribe's "special paper" in order for the pen to work, but we were pleased to see that you can print the paper out from your own computer and are not restricted to HAVING to buy it from them.  Right now, you can pick one of these little guys up at Target or from Amazon.com, or directly from LiveScribe's site for about $150 (or $200 for the 2 Gig version).  

Thomas Cleary is My Homeboy!

Thomas Cleary is one of my favorite authors... well... actually, it's not that he particularly writes a lot of "original" work, but rather that he's one of the foremost authoritative translators of classical Far Eastern literature that i've ever had the benefit of coming across.  From Tiara no Shigesuke's Code of the Samurai to Sun Tzu's The Art of War to Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings, Cleary brings a masterful blend of scholarly knowledge and commentary with a contemporary translation of each text that still honors the original intent and "flavor" of some of those ancient (but still potent for the modern aspiring warrior) treatises.  

And one of his newest works is currently captivating my spare reading cycles.  It's called Training the Samurai Mind, and is unique because it walks through the Japanese history of the concept of Bushido (the warrior code of conduct that governed Samurai thought and action) chronologically from the mid-1300's all the way to the Meji restoration at the turn of the 20th century.  Each section is told from the point of view of a samurai general or warrior from their own particular era, and so as you read, you begin to understand how a warrior caste whose soul occupation was combat coped with everything from outside invasion, internal strife, political intrigue and the eventual threat of domination from the rapidly modernizing outside world.  Like all of Cleary's works that i've read to date, this one is fascinating, and i'm totally diggin' being able to immerse myself across nearly 600 years of Samurai thought in just a few hundred pages.

Tech Zombie: Kindle vs. Kindle iPhone App

I just found out through our resident Tech Jedi Master (Jason Powell) that Amazon just released a Kindle application for iPhone.  This is funny since i said just a week ago (after having to replace my Kindle and just having purchased an iPHone), "You know, i probably wouldn't really need my Kindle if Amazon ever made it possible to download .kdl (the encrypted file format Amazon uses for digitial book downloads) to my iPhone", and now, here it is!  As a result, i thought i would just offer the following as my first blush reactions to the strengths of both.

Kindle (pictured here on the right)

Okay, i don't have one of the nifty new Kindle 2.0's, and recently have harbored somewhat of a grudge against Amazon for their overall poor support of their product.  They don't offer to repair or support difficulties (but they'll happily replace it for a mere $180), and the flimsy plastic construction of the 1.0 can't survive much more abuse than only the most delicate of handling.  Still, the plus points are noteworthy.  You can download books from anywhere in just over a minute, make your own notes and marks, and carry around a library of several hundred books with you all in a device that weighs only a few ounces.  Plus, Amazon backs up whatever you order so that if you ever...say... drop your Kindle in the Brussels International Airport (ahem!) and it splinters into unuseable little plastic shards, you can have everything back up on your replacement Kindle without having to "re-buy" everything.  Overall, it's a nifty little piece of hardware, and i'd give it 3 stars on a 5 star scale, with major drawbacks being a) cost of unit (a new Kindle will run you $350) b) availability of books (Amazon still doesn't have about 60% of what i want to read for Kindle, but they're adding to their library at a massively accellerated rate), c) fragile design and d) poor customer loyalty.

Kindle iPhone Application (pictured on left)

The iPhone application is FREE, first of all, which is great if you own an iPhone.  Books are also displayed in color, which is fun, and if you're reading a downloaded book on your iPhone, it automatically tracks your "place" and syncs to your Kindle so that when you pick up your Kindle, it takes you to where you left off on your iPhone (and vice versa).  That's all pretty cool!  Plus, i don't think that you have to have a Kindle to use the iPhone app, though i'm still playing with it and am trying to figure out how you would do that.  Downside is that a) you don't appear to be able to make notes and marks on the iPhone app (something i like to do on my Kindle pages), and the page turning is a little tedious (you have to "swipe" your iPhone screen like you do when you're viewing pictures or other documents) when you're only cramming about 150 words per page.

So, it's still under "review", but initially, i like the iPhone application and am pleased to see that Amazon didn't hoarde their file format or worry that releasing the application would hurt their hardware sales for their release of the Kindle 2.0.

 

Resurfacing!

Okay… after nearly 2 months of “running silent”, I’m resurfacing to jump back into the Blogosphere.  My apologies to anyone, therefore, who has wondered if I just gave up on the whole blog idea, but it’s been a packed 60 days, so I offer the following as a quick summation of activities that hopefully justified the lack of comms traffic:

India Teams  We took a total of 7 teams to India in ’08, 5 of which were over Dec and January.  These teams accomplished a variety of objectives with our ministry partners on the ground, ranging from Clean Water, Justice, HIV/AIDS and Medical, Conversational English, Micro-enterprise development, Construction and Media.  I did my best to blog each team, and you can get more info about the specifics of each by clicking here for the July/Aug (HIV/Medical and Conversational English) Teams, and here for the Dec/Jan (Construction, Clean Water, Justice, Micro-enterprise, Media) Teams.

Food Drop  For the past 6 years now, we have done an annual Food Drop through our partnership with Feed the Children to service the poor and hurting in our community.  This year, we did the same on January 10^th, and had the cool add this year of having 3 other area churches partner with us.  Total, more than 6,160 boxes (215,000 pounds) of food and personal care items were delivered to families and agencies around the community in a massive outpouring of love and compassion for those who need it most!  Nearly 3,000 people from across GCC, GCC Elkhart, Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist and Bethlehem Baptist Church gathered to help, and you can see a short media of the event by clicking here.  

III Text  Rob and I began another round of an online learning community experience called III Text, conducted by Dr. Ron Martoia (author of Morph, Static and Transformational Architecture).  It's a fantastic experience, and involves a combination of reading, online discussion, conference calls, and an "in real life meeting" at the end, where participants spend some quality interaction time with each other and with Ron.  We did one of the first III Texts a year or two ago and it helped to radically re-shape how and what we think about what we're doing ministry and organization-wise on a daily basis.  This round focuses specifically around the idea of revitalizing spiritual practices, and has been fantastic.  I'll post more about what we're reading and studying in later posts.

EnterMission Coaching  We rolled out something that we're SUPER excited about called our  EnterMission Coaching Network.  It's an opportunity for us here at GCC to intensively coach and collaborate with 15 other churches from around the country in doing this "new way of doing Mission".  We're meeting in person with representatives from each of those churches 6 times over the next 18 months, doing monthly conference calls to hack through specific issues and obstacles they are facing in their communities, providing "direct line" contact to each of our GCC Life Mission staff for ad hoc coaching and troubleshooting, and interacting regularly through Facebook and other collaborative tools to make sure we walk together along the way.  It's been an amazing journey, and our first two days together were fantastic!   

ONE Prayer We're nearing the half-way point on our effort to coordinate the ONE Prayer campaign's "Missional" component in conjunction with our friends and partners at LifeChurch.tv, and have been compiling updated field stats for each of the four regions (India, Cambodia, Sudan and China) for their progress toward the goal of planting 500 churches across those four nations by the end of 2009.  If you'd like to download the newest and most up-to-date set of stats and reports, you can click here, and i'd encourage you to stay tuned to www.oneprayer.com for further updates as ONE Prayer 2009/2010 ramps up!

Prepping for India/Cambodia in 3 Weeks Finally, I'll be off to India and Cambodia in about 3 weeks, but this time am taking my wife (Sami) and my son (Elijah) along!  This will be Elijah's first time out of the country, and he's pretty excited about it.  We have a deep love for other cultures in our home, and it will be fun for the little guy to see the beauty and diversity of life "outside of his bubble" in all its living color.  While in India, we'll be graduating a batch of 50 church planters and comissioning them to service, and in Cambodia, we'll be doing a field report for ONE Prayer progress in that nation.

Stay tuned.... i'll do a better job of not going "under" for quite so long next time.