Next Stop: CCOWE, Macau

In a few days I'm off to what brought me here in the first place...

But before I get started on that, let me do a quick update of what's been happening in the life of yours truly as of late.

I've experienced so much that has led to so many random thoughts left, right and center - I truly don't know where to start! I feel like I need to keep this thing more updated or each post will be ridiculously long. So in that case, bare with me, as this post will most likely be...well, ridiculously long.

As Mike and I came to HK we both prayed that God would lead us to the center of what He's doing here in HK. We prayed that He'd lead us to the right people and places and He'd blow our minds away with His work here.

Our God is a God that answers prayers, Amen? :)

Ever since we've landed in Asia we've met so many love-filled, humble, empowered and sold-out for Jesus followers. From my time in China to my continued time here in Hong Kong - it has become painfully obvious that God is up to something in East Asia.

We had dinner with another couple last week who are involved with a large English speaking church in Hong Kong. They showed incredible hospitality as they shared with us how the Church of HK has been experiencing an amazing time of revival and unprecedented unity. What really blew my mind was to see a congregation similar to many English congregations I know in terms of demographics and size yet struggled with the same things but is coming out differently.

What makes them so different is the fact that they get it. They just get it. They discovered the secret.

You want to see revival break out in your church? Repent! Pray without ceasing. Seek His Face.

It was truly like a breath of fresh air meeting a couple like the two of them who have been Christians for the past 20 years yet have been renewed and really 'learning to breathe' for the first time in the past year. They began trusting God to help start up a 24/7 prayer movement at their church and God provided beyond their imagination. From this grassroots ministry birthed several missions trips and other ministries to serve more prevalent needs revealed through their ferverent prayers.

They asked us where we attend church and we replied The Vine. Immediately, their faces lit up and said something we'll always remember,

You guys are at the epicenter of what God is doing in Hong Kong...

Wow. Thank You Lord!

This past Sunday, we met up with some guys from RHCCC (Caleb, Jon, Justin and Ricky) to attend their church. It is one of the fastest growing Chinese churches in Hong Kong. Just this past December 1000 people came to Christ through their boasting of the Gospel! We arrived there just on time to find a long line of people, wet from the rain, lining up to go in. This church has several services on Saturday's and Sunday's so it was pretty cool to see and hear that the turn-out is always full House. Personally, it was really encouraging to see a Chinese congregation so spirit filled and so grounded in the Word. They are one of many in Hong Kong that are being faithful witnesses to the people of HK.

I have recently just started reading Hudson Talyor's Spiritual Secrets and am so humbled and so thankful for a man from the Western world who had such an incredibly huge heart for the Eastern world, in particularly my motherland. He started CIM that sent hundreds of missionaries to a very closed and highly dangerous mission field. Yet it was through the men and women who died and took up their cross and followed Him to their prospective provinces, that people like me, can know the surpassing greatness of Christ today.

In a few days Mike and I will be heading to our motherland for a few days then to Macau for the Chinese Congress of World Evangelism (CCOWE) conference. Every five years, pastors, church leaders, lay persons, brothers and sisters serving in Chinese churches gather together for a week long of spurring on, encouragement, equipping and refueling.

CCOWE, birthed out of Billy Graham's influence and ministry, is all about bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth. This year their focus is on raising up the next generation of leaders in the Chinese church.

I have been asked to share about what the Lord has been doing through the young people in Toronto - more specifically, His story of Youth on a Hill. I will need your prayers as I boast only in what He has done because it is HIS fame that we remember when we think about the revival.

After I share there will be a Q&A session in where the audience is given an opportunity to ask me questions. Pray that I would be able to answer in a way that builds up the Church. I believe that God has given me a word of challenge and encouragement. Pray that He would find me humble and obedient - ready to be His mouthpiece.

Please also pray for the entire week as Mike and I are expecting to receive from the Lord through the sermons, workshops, meeting people and conversations. Pray for our protection, guarding of mind and heart and loving obedience to His call for us.
We are both eager to hear what God has to say to us. We believe so strongly that He has led the two of us to Asia this summer with a bigger picture & purpose in mind. We have been praying this past year that He would reveal His good plan to us during this week at CCOWE.

My hope is that this trip will make those who attend, myself included, better people, not better programs. E.M. Bounds puts it much more eloquently,

Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men...What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer...The training of the Twelve was the great, difficult and enduring work of Christ...It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God - men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, but holy lives out of it. These can mould a generation for God.

Amen, Amen.

Now, for your viewing pleasure - a few of my favorite pictures (and many more on Imagestation!)