Please pray...

For our support!   

The leadership board of a church in Denver will be meeting Monday night, June 20, to consider supporting us in a significant way. Our support has been down lately (like that of most missionaries and Christian organizations!) due to a variety of factors, and this church is in a position to help. Please pray that this church and others whom God wants on our support team respond to his leading!        

For July travel

We'll be on the road July 8 - 27 for a ministry/family road trip with stops in Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Those of you in Montgomery, please mark your calendars for July 12. We'll send out more detail very soon. In the middle of it, I fly back to Colorado for a Navigator Regional Leaders Meeting, July 14 - 16.

For effective ministry in churches

We're continuing to have productive meetings at Church in the City-Beth Abraham in Denver. Please pray for the senior pastor and the rest of the leadership team as they begin to integrate into the church's DNA the disciple-making principles we've been studying in Ways of the Alongsider and maturity profiles from Real Life Discipleship. 

I presented How to Have and Teach Daily Time with God in a relational disciple-making context to the staff of Rocky Mountain Calvary in Colorado Springs, June 15. Pray that the concepts will take root and bear fruit as the senior pastor reinforces the practice of listening to God among the staff and the ministry leaders present these ideas to others.

June is meeting with the Director of Women's Ministry at Tri-Lakes Chapel in Monument on June 21. Pray that they can work together to create an environment for relational, intentional, generational disciple-making!    

Thanks for praying!

Navigator Team Meeting June 1, 2: A success! 

The Rocky Mountain Church Discipleship Ministry (CDM) Navigators had such a wonderful two days of meetings and the team members were so encouraged that we've scheduled monthly follow-on meetings for prayer, encouragement and training beginning July 1. 

June's Music Theory Exam, June 9: She passed!! 

June worked really hard preparing, and it was a challenging exam. She didn't feel good about it; however, she got the word that she passed! She is still taking some time off before beginning to study for her exam on music history and literature! (These exams are steps toward becoming a nationally certified teacher of music.)   

June's Mother: Some improvement. 

June's mother is improving. She's walking with a walker and assistance and living in a nursing home. The dementia continues. Please continue to pray for peace for her mother and wisdom for June, her sister, and two brothers as they work together to manage her care. 

I am coming to understand that the process of helping people follow Jesus and grow to maturity must be:

Generational (One generation tells another, Psalm 78.5,  6) 

Relational (With him, Mark 3.14) 

Intentional (Follow me, and I will make you..., Matthew 4.19) 

Transformational (Be transformed..., Romans 12.2)    

GRIT helps us remember the characteristics and is itself a characteristic of the kind of effort required. Daniel Pink makes the following statement about "mastery" in his book Drive, and I think it applies well to relational disciple-making:

Mastery is a Pain. Mastery takes effort over a long period of time, is often not much fun, requires lots of mundane practice, and takes grit...The determination to work over a long period of time without seeing much short-term improvement is required.(Emphasis mine)

Paul has all the elements of GRIT in 2 Timothy 2.1, 2. Please see the sidebar item, Relational Disciple-making.