The Blog

The Holidays are always so much fun, not just with the people you know and see every day. But complete strangers are in such a great mood, and just love to talk! It’s awesome. Selling Christmas is such a great opportunity to just talk to everyone and be all extra happy and to tell people about Jesus and how awesome he is.

Today was the first day I sold Christmas trees, and it is just so exciting. We only had a few customers come in, but let me tell you, the ones that did come in were so excited and happy and talkative. I spent almost half an hour with a family helping them pick out the perfect tree for their family and they just began to talk and talk and talk and just share with me so much. And then they asked me a bunch of questions, and that just opened the box right there. I was able to share why I was there and about how much Jesus had done in my life. How we’re going to the Philippines in March for our missions trip and how this fundraiser is helping with that, and they were amazed that students our age, would even want to put themselves aside to do something like that for God. He wasn’t use to hearing about that.

We finally got their tree picked out, and they paid and left. And as he paid he told me he hoped I had a great trip and that I changed someone’s life. And at that moment I realized that selling Christmas trees is not just a fundraiser. I mean we hear it all the time, but like other situations and things you hear, you don’t understand it until you experience it. By us selling Christmas trees we are able to reach our community and tell people about Jesus, people we would not normally come in contact with. And yes it is cold and freezing but it’s so worth it if someone, even one person goes to bed that night knowing about Jesus that didn’t know about Him before.

So I challenge you guys, when you go to work, school or just at the grocery store; think of ways you can use it to reach the kingdom of God. Constantly be thinking of ways to help the kingdom of God grow and do everything you do for the glory of God, not for yourselves or anyone else! God will begin to use you in ways you never thought you could be used, to save ONE soul! :) be ready!

-Ariel Siufua

This past year has been a year of firsts...at least, the past couple months have been a couple months of firsts: my first time in Oregon, the first time I saw the ocean, my first trip to California, first fundraiser - it sounds like I’m a baby all over again, except that instead of first word, first tooth, it’s first time running carnival rides and first time this long and far away from home by myself. Anyway, all that to say this: last weekend Crossfire MC took our first ministry trip of the year to Washington. It was also my first ministry/missions trip ever. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I’d never been on a missions trip or anything, and what happened, though within my expectations, was outside them as well.

What did I expect, then? I’m not even sure myself. In my head I had a picture of a huge church filled to overflowing with excited people, and, at the end of the service, a flooded altar. Instead, we arrived at a smaller church, where we were greeted by several people from the church and youth group. Though I’d overestimated the size of the physical building of the church, the people within it exceeded my expectations with their generosity and caring.

Many times our expectations are misleading. Have you ever looked through a cup or bottle of water? The world you see through the water is hazy and skewed. Our expectations are like the water. The expectations I had when I came to Crossfire MC were radically off; in my mind I’d formed pictures of Crossfire MC that were distorted and not based on fact; they were skewed.

Jesus didn’t come like the Jews expected. The Jews of Jesus’ time expected the Messiah to come as a conqueror and deliverer and set up his kingdom. They expected a restoration of David’s kingdom, where Israel would be at peace with the nations around her. What they didn’t expect was for Jesus to come to die, which is what he did.

People, even Christians, can have misguided and incorrect expectations of who Jesus is. Many people today see Him as simply a good teacher or a good man, a religious scholar, or even a prophet. Within the church, God is often portrayed as a Father, which He is, or an older, kindly gentleman sitting up in the sky, which He most definitely is not. Any of these ideas of God create the wrong expectations about Him. Yes, God is our Father, but He is also our Judge. Our Friend, but also the one who sees into our hearts and weighs our motives. He’s the God of deliverance, but also the God of wrath. Job 36:26 says, “How great is our God - beyond our understanding! The number of His years is past finding out.” Just as God is beyond our understanding, He is above and beyond our expectations; we will never be able to expect anything big enough of Him.

~ Kaitlin Pederson~

Recently I’ve been reading the Psalms. God is so good and is so faithful. He is our rescuer and we can trust Him. Psalm 18:1-19 says this of Him:

“1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
7 The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
8 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
9 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
10 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.
12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning.
13 The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.
14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies ,
great bolts of lightning and routed them.
15 The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, O LORD,
at the blast of breath from your nostrils.
16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

Our God loves us. Most of us know and believe this, but somehow in the chaos of our lives we don’t cry out to him when we need Him most. Reading this Psalm made me think of God like a good daddy rescuing his kids from danger. Injustice against us angers Him. When we cry out to Him, he hears us…and he acts accordingly. He is our hope, our rescuer, and our support. He is all of these things for us because He delights in us…His children. I encourage you; PRAY. Do not give up crying out to God through the difficulties of life. God hears you when you cry out to Him. Run to Him in times of need. He is our only hope.

Genghis Khan was a ruthless, bloodthirsty, world conqueror. He often went on hunts with his pet hawk. On one particular hunt, his party was very successful and had left early in the day. Even the pet hawk had left to fly home as it was trained to do. Genghis Khan took a different path home then the other men in his party. Along the way he became very thirsty, he took a detour to find a fresh spring, but when he got there it had dried up. He looked around and saw water trickling down over a rock. He grabbed a cup out of his hunting bag and collected the water that was barely dripping. Just as he brought the cup to his lips, his hawk swooped down from the sky knocking the cup out of his hand and spilling the water that had taken so long to collect. Angry, he took his cup and again began to fill it, this time he only waited until the cup was half full. Again as he lifted the cup to his lips the hawk swooped down and knocked the cup out of his hands. Genghis Khan was furious; in anger he grabbed the cup with one hand and his sword with the other. He decided that this time when the hawk flew down, he would kill it. He went to once again fill the cup. As he lifted the cup he saw the hawk fly down, he threw his cup and with one swing of the sword he killed his pet hawk. He looked for his cup but he had dropped it in-between two rocks where his hand couldn't reach. He was still determined to get a drink. He started to climb the rock, hoping to find the source of the trickle of water. When he reached the top he found a pool of water, he was immediately sorrowful. In the pool of water was a huge dead snake, the most poisonous of its kind. It had contaminated all the water. He no longer thought of his thirst, just the poor bird lying below him. "The hawk saved my life" he cried "and how did I repay him? He was my best friend and I have killed him." He clamored down the bank, took the bird gently in his hands and returned home.

I see a problem in the American church today that is very similar to this story. Genghis Khan, out of anger, struck down his hawk. Killed it! Bye, Bye Birdie. But was the hawk his enemy? The hawk was trying to protect his master from death. Today the church has gotten it's eyes off of it's enemy. We as Christians have an enemy. Peter warns us to be alert, "Your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8-9). God has given us weapons to use in battle, in fact Paul says in his letter to the Corinthian church that our weapons are not the weapons of the world, but they have divine power (2 Cor. 10:3-5). Our problem is we use our weapons on our brothers and sisters, the very people that are on our side. We should be fighting together to defeat the enemy. We are on the same team, why do we fight each other? We fight out of hurt. People that are hurt tend to hurt other people.

A situation happened in my church years ago that caused a split. The situation was dealt with in a biblical and accountable manner, but some felt that they could no longer serve in our ministry. Nothing is wrong with this reaction at all; you should follow your convictions whole-heartedly. So as a result of the split, there were a lot of positions in ministry that needed to be filled. Those of us that stayed were swamped with extra responsibilities. We were overworked and stressed because people had bailed out and left us high and dry (so we thought). To make things worse, those who had left began to talk bad about us (which happens a lot when someone leaves a church or fellowship for whatever reason). It hurt to have people you loved and cared about say horrible things about you. We began lashing back in the name of defending ourselves. It got very ugly very fast. It was like this for a long time and still remains today with some people.

I see this all over the country. My job allows me to travel the United States and see how all different types of churches and ministries operate. Fighting with each other is something that I see almost everywhere I go. Sometimes it is in the form of cliques in a youth ministry; sometimes it is people that rub each other the wrong way; sometimes it is for "righteous" reasons of defense from other churches' gossip and slander. Whatever the reason, when we allow the enemy to get our eyes off of fighting him, he wins. He knows that if he can divide us then he can conquer us. We have got to take our weapons off of each other and put them back where they belong, on the enemy.

There are hurting people in churches all over this country. There are hurting people that have decided that they will never go to church again, because Christians are the reason for their hurt. These stupid popularity contests or a tiny doctrinal issue that we allow to divide our fellowship affects our evangelism. Jesus said that the world will know us by our love (John 13:35). Today America Christianity is a joke. We are not known by our love for each other, or anyone else for that matter. We are known as always thinking we are right. We are known as hypocrites and liars. We are known as backbiters and gossips. Where is our testimony? Where is our love?

We have got to change our thinking. We have got to change our actions. In my situation with my church, God had to change the way I thought about these people that were constantly challenged my integrity were. I began to pray for them, not in a self-righteous "I'm better then them" way. I began to pray for blessings in their life. I began to see them differently. They still loved God. They still followed the Spirit. They were still going to heaven. They were still my brothers and sisters and I still love them and care about them just as much as when I served with them on a weekly basis. They were not the enemy that I had once looked at them as. They were my best friends and I had cut them and hurt them out of my emotion, out of my anger, and out of my hurt.

Musical artist KJ52 says in a spoken word interlude on his 2002 album Collaborations, "If I won't have beef with you then (speaking of in heaven) then tell me friend why should I have beef with you now?" Ask yourself this question, if I won't fight against you in heaven, why should I fight now?

To dig into this subject deeper, read Colossians 3:11-17, 1 Corinthians 12 & 13, 1 John 4:13-21.

- Danny

On the wall in the Masters Commission Office is a map that charts the global status of Christianity today. It has different sized dots for different cities throughout the world, the bigger the dot, the more people live there and they range in color from black (no known christians), through red and yellow, to dark green (greater than 10% Christian). Across the bottom of this lager map are three smaller maps that display different statistics the same way.

Now the middle of those bottom maps charts the historical response to the Gospel Message (Using statistics from the Jesus Film from the past 25 years). On this map the green ones represent a low level of response and the red ones represent a high level of response (so you want to see red on this one). The crazy thing you see when you compare the two maps is this: The colors on the maps aren't very different from each other!

How crazy is it that when non-christians in these countries where the christian population is smaller than the U.S. or Australia, for example, are so responsive to the Gospel, but in places where Christianity is more common the response is so small. I think I know why.

You see, looking at these maps (they hang directly over my desk) I can see that typically the places that have higher levels of response are typically in countries that have historically persecuted Christians or that have historically had governments that tried to eliminate religion. It seems to me that this can't be just a coincidence, so what is it that makes the difference?

The difference is that we take the Gospel message for granted. In our country we have such easy access to the Word of God, whether we want it or not. Sitting in this office right now I can count 22 bibles, I have over 400 sermons recorded on my computer and countless more available for download online, looking through local radio there are currently four stations playing christian programming, then our office has so many books about the bible I can't afford to take the time to count them. What's my point? The opportunities to hear God's word are limitless for us, so we become used to it, and insensitive to it. I'm not just talking about christians or non-christians, but everyone who enjoys (and takes for granted) the privilege of having the Gospel available to us.

These countries where the response is so high are countries where the Gospel is suppressed. In these countries if you want to share the Gospel you have to fight for it (or you had to for a long time past). The persecution faced by Christians in these countries forces christians to either put up or shut up. Either they have to be willing to endure the consequences of claiming Christ or they have to deny Him. Lukewarmness is not an option.

This is a severity of faith that the western church has, for the most part, abandoned. We don't want to offend people so we just be quiet. Those of us that can't contain their passion are often laughed down by their own brothers and sisters who don't want to be associated with those 'crazies'. We need to understand that the call to follow Christ is a call to forsake everything and follow Him. Our situation my not require us to be martyred, or to be imprisoned and have all our earthly possessions taken from us, but it does require us to kill our pride, humble ourselves and surrender our lives to Christ to establish His Kingdom on this earth.

Romans 10:1-2 tells us to "give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." We need to get ahold of this idea once again, the idea of being a living sacrifice. Contrary to what this scripture tells us to do, we have allowed the world to squeeze us into it's mold. We have been deceived into thinking that as long as we live right we won't have to say anything people will just know and be saved, but Romans tells us different, "'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

The saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words." but the fact of the matter is that words still speak, and some actions have no message without words to assist them in delivering it. So I leave you with this; live a life of sacrifice. Sacrifice your selfishness to show love through your actions, and sacrifice your pride to share with your words the love of Jesus. Live life with a severity of faith that doesn't need to be persecuted to be moved into action.

Last week I was able to help out with a ministry called Field of Dreams. It’s a homeless feeding ministry from our church where we can provide a good meal and share the gospel. When all of us MC students got there, I noticed we were under a bridge, and there was a play ground and I saw just a lot of homeless people.
I got kind of freaked out because I've never seen so many homeless people, but as I start cooking and preparing the meal there are homeless people helping cook and they're serving other homeless people. When mealtime came I started going around trying to find someone to talk to because it was the time the workers could eat, but as I was walking around I saw the other MC students talking to other people no problem and I was like, "Ok Josh, You can do this." So I just go sit down with a guy and starts talking to him. Turns out his name is Chris and he really speaks to me. We just start talking about life and our travels and God and he told something that I’ll never forget.
He told me that even though the world tells him that he is homeless, he believes that he isn’t. He believes that because he says that we are all homeless until we get to our home which is in heaven and I’ve never really thought about it that way. I just opened up to those people and now I really have a heart for the., I'm glad to know that they could teach me something about life and something that could increase my faith and make me grow.

- Josh

When I was about 17 years old I started seeing a lung doctor (finally, probably should have been referred lllllooooong before then). Her name was Dr. Keenan. This lady was amazing! She listened to all that I had been through and immediately knew how to treat me, and what she thought I had. She thought I had CF (Cystic Fibrosis) and immediately introduced me to Kari Beasly, one of her CF patients who was just a couple years older than me. Turned out that I didn't have CF but I kept in touch with Kari. At this point in my life I knew God but I just wasn't really walking the walk.... People with CF usually die very young, at least they don't make it through their twenties. I knew that God had put her in my life and I was supposed to talk to her about God. I did, but not like I should have, and I knew it.

Those few years I knew Kari were very rocky for me and my relationship with God. Finally I made the decision to go to Master's Commission in Decatur Alabama. A couple weeks before I left for Master's Commission Kari passed away. I was devastated because I didn't do what I was supposed to and I knew it. I didn't know if I would see her in heaven. For the next almost 10 years I lived with guilt in the back of my mind that there was a good chance someone I loved was not in heaven and I could have done something about it.

This last year I was in the Emergency Room because I was very sick. I had a respiratory therapist come in and give me a breathing treatment. She was someone who used to come to my house and do at home treatments for me. She also saw Kari during that time. We started talking about church, and God, and I found out that her son is in the ministry. And then somehow we started talking about Kari. She said that she was there when Kari passed away. She also told me that at one point Kari's mom and family had left the room and Kari asked her about God. She asked her if it was too late for her since she was obviously on her last minutes. If she could still receive Jesus even though she hadn't lived for him. And this respiratory therapist ministered to about her the grace God. She prayed the sinner's prayer with her!

I am so thankful that God can fill gaps! The sin in my life had left a huge gap where I should have ministered to my friend. I am sure there were other people planting seeds in her life but I know I was supposed to as well. But the sin in my life made me feel inadequate to do what I knew I should leaving what I thought was a huge gap! But God is faithful and the seeds that were planted were, in the right moment, harvested! Maybe I wasn't a planter, but a water er. Maybe I just added a little water here and there to a seed someone else and planted. And then someone else entirely got to reap such a wonderful harvest.

- Kori Cheek

As of September 27th I officially became a second year. I have always heard stories of being a second year, I have received a large amount of advice about being a second year but all of that does not add up to my personal experience. I am so excited to go through this year and see and be a part of all that God has in store for our small but mighty team! Class of 2010!

My goal this year is to draw closer to God on a deeper level than last year. To develop a friendship with my our team the new and the old. Especially miss Kaitlin. To try my hardest to be the best example I can be in situations and to stick to my covenant this year. A phrase that I repeat to myself daily almost is "I won't settle for anything less than God's best!" God has been dealing with me so much already about giving him my leftovers ...in my time, my effort, my priorities, basically in everything. And I plan to change that this year. No longer will God be something I fill in my time with but God will be what I surround my life with!

This years theme is about the kingdom and I pray that becomes the cry of my heart... God's children. I want to see through God's eyes, to touch with His hands, to listen with His ears and to love with His heart. Every morning I want to wake up and be used as His vessel any way He wants to use me. This is just a taste of the things that God has been dealing with me. My second year is going to be challenging but life changing and we’re only a few weeks in. I cannot wait for the what’s to come. It is going to be fantastic!

- Ariel "REL" Siufua