Category Archives: Quick Thoughts

April 2, 2012
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Someone wrote to me after listening to my 3 minute podcast on Saul and his struggle with lack of courage and deep insecurity. I wrote back with some practical suggestions that have helped me on my journey. Here they are:

1. I cried out to god for revelation of his love for me as a father and for understanding of who i was to him…

2. Godly men laid hands on me and prayed for revelation and for healing from deep wounds and insecurities – and kept on praying for me over time

3. I started on a journey of exploring the Father’s love through prayer and scripture meditation. I took hold of my place in Christ by faith as Paul describes in Ephesians 1 and Romans 5:17b

4. I started identifying lies i was believing about myself and started speaking God’s truth over my life. A great help to me at that point was the book, The Search for Significance by McGee. I saw lies in that book that I had been believing.

5. I prayed every day for a new revelation of the spirit of adoption and rejoiced in it by faith.

6. I learned every day to confess negative emotions to God that I had toward people – hostility, fear, hurt, jealousy – and to receive by faith the Father’s love. I learned to confess the sin of negative emotions without condemning myself but as simply the result of working through my heart issues.

7. I got involved in reaching out to others with the gospel – it is impossible to get over insecurity and lack of courage without going on mission with God to make him known to others all around us. Boldness and courage are the result of obedience, not the other way around.

I hope this is helpful. I describe these processes in much more detail in my books, The Father Heat of God and Finding Friendship With God.

March 25, 2012
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Below are some important definitions to help us think about making disciples of all nations in Africa. 

A people group is a distinct tribe, ethnic group, or race. Examples in Africa are the Fulani, Xhosa, Hausa, Yoruba, Oromo, Berbers, Larim, and Somali’s. There are 100 million Arabs in Africa, and over 65 million Berbers. There are 30 million Hausa in Nigeria, Ghana, Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Sudan and Ivory Coast. There are 30 million Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin.

- An “unreached people group” is a people group that does not have a sufficiently strong church among them to evangelize every person within their tribe/race/people. For a people group to be reached, a reproducing church must be planted in that group that is strong enough to evangelize every person in their group.

- An “unevangelized people group” is one where every person has not yet heard the gospel in a language they can understand. For a people group to be evangelized, every person must hear the gospel.

- An “unengaged, unreached people group” is one that no one is committed to reaching with the gospel. For a people group to be “engaged”, some person or some other people group or a church must commit to reaching that people by planting a growing, multiplying indigenous movement of churches among them.

- There are 926 distinct unreached people groups in Africa’s 55 countries. There are approximately 1.1 billion people in Africa. Over 300 million people in Africa are Muslims who have never heard the good news of Jesus. 

March 23, 2012
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Change

Change. Few people like it. Except those who thrive on change, such as visionaries, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. In today’s world, change is normal due to the rapidly expanding availability of information on the internet and the global nature of the … Continue reading →

March 22, 2012
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“We must work to resist the bewitching spell of naturalism.  Sitting here in the dark world, we must remind ourselves what scripture tells us about heaven.  We will one day be delivered from the blindness that separates us from the real world.  We’ll realize then the stupifying bewitchment we’ve lived under.” Randy Alcorn, “Heaven”

March 21, 2012
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“The truth is exactly opposite of naturalism’s premise — in fact the dark worlds lamps are copies of the sun, and it’s cats are copies of Aslan.  Heaven isn’t an extrapolation of earthly thinking; earth is an extension of heaven, made by the Creator King.” Randy Alcorn, from “Heaven”

In the below discussion, Joe Ewen and I discuss the prophetic & apostolic ministries, specifically targeting the tensions that exist between the two and how they are each vital to ministry within the local church.  The format was quite loose: Joe spent about 20 minutes discussing prophetic ministry and I spent 20 minutes on apostolic ministry and then we open the floor to questions and discussions from a crowd of about 50 local church leaders based in the Cape Town area of South Africa.  Feel free to download, listen and share widely as we feel that this is an important discussion to have within the church in our time. Click below to hear it in its entirety!

Floyd & Joe: The Intersection of the Prophetic & Apostolic

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13

July 28, 2011
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There is a must read post by my friend Carl Medearis on CNN about why we should stop evangelizing and start talking about Jesus. I encourage you to read it and give me your feedback. It is provocative, engaging and of critical importance. Carl makes some very important distinctions we should give serious thought to… 

Many evangelicals have turned their faith into a religion that they want others to join, which Carl believes – and I agree – is not why Jesus came to earth nor what he taught while he was on the earth. 
If more people learn to initiate spiritual conversations about Jesus that lead to mentoring people to faith in Jesus and growing in their faith with others in new faith communities, something exciting would happen on this planet. That is what we are about in All Nations. 
Carl believes Jesus transcends all religions and calls people to himself… and when they respond to him, that Jesus allows that person to grow in their relationship with him while they are still in their mother culture and religion. By staying in their religious and cultural context people are able to lead many more people to faith in Jesus; in effect they become bridges to Jesus. 
The opposite approach to staying in your context when you come to faith in Christ is referred to as “extraction” – i.e., it is best to extract people from their culture and religion. The belief behind this practice is that people will fail spiritually if they stay where they are, they are too weak; and they will compromise theologically, they are too ignorant. 
Sally and I have left people in their context when they journey to faith in Christ since we started working in the drug dens of Afghanistan and the streets of Amsterdam. We saw prostitutes and drug addicts stay where they were, grow to be powerful men and women of faith, and lead many others out of their addictions and brokenness. They didn’t continue in their sin, but they stay in relationship with those they knew and loved, their family and friends. It was hard for people, true enough, but people developed a more mature faith grounded in the culture where they came to faith. It is sad to see people lose contact with family and friends and adopt a new “Christian” culture that cuts them off from the very people God wants them to influence. 
We wouldn’t say to a banker or politician to leave their culture and vocation if they came to faith. Why? Because we believe God is big enough in this person to help them overcome temptations of greed or power and live faithfully as a follower of Jesus where they are. Yet, we immediately assume a Muslim or street person must leave their life situation. 
Church planting movements are exploding on our planet today, and one of the reasons is church planters and disciple makers have learned the power of a changed person remaining where they are to influence others for Jesus. 
In the end, it comes down to a matter of trust. Do we trust the Holy Spirit in people? Do we trust God to work in their life context? The reality is, whether we trust God or not, God is working in the lives of millions and millions of people right where they are – all over the world. 
Perhaps it is time for some of us to catch up with how God is reaching and changing people to follow His son Jesus, without them joining a religion called Christianity. Regardless, please follow this link to go straight to the CNN article by Carl Medearis if you would like to read his article and give this some more thought.