What do you pack when you go on a short term trip?

Do you take your own food?

What medicines do you take?

Are you a light packer or do you take as many pieces of luggage as you are allowed?

Do you pack a new outfit for each day?

Would love to hear from you. I know I try to make sure I back three attitudes when I travel abroad.

1. Humility

2. A smile

3. Being a learner!

Be sure to follow along on my blog for trip updates and follow @theupstreamc and @larrymccrary on twitter. We will also be posting on www.theupstreamcollective.org

One thing that I hear too often are marketplace workers from North America who live and work abroad but their home church does not see this as an mission endeavor. They believe somehow that unless they are sent by an agency then they are not true missionaries. What an incredible opportunity for the church to extend it’s mission reach through their marketplace people.

We need more marketplace people living intentional abroad.  How can you as a church mobilize, equip and commission your members?

Look beyond people who sense a calling to vocational missionary service. We need these people as well.

But, look at the possibilities of your college study abroad students, artists, teachers, second career people to live abroad in a strategic way. These people need to be seen as missionaries without using that title. They may not be able to be put on the church’s website or on the church’s wall of fame but they can be prayed for, supported in a variety of ways. They can be involved in your church’s mission strategy. They can partner with on the ground workers as opportunities present themselves. I believe it is going to take a shift in thinking of many pastors to see this pathway develop. It is going to take a shift in mission agencies and their leadership to make clear avenues for marketplace ventures to develop.

Just last week I had a great phone conversation with a young man who works for a global company. He and his wife are talking with their church about overseas service. They are praying about where that could be. Their church is walking with them in this process of sending. They are not looking towards the traditional mission sending route. He is asking for a transfer. Awesome!

If your church has marketplace people living and working overseas and being the salt and light then please remember them also!

At Upstream we are often asked by churches to help them think through how they can be more globally involved. With a large number of churches moving into urban centers, a common concern we hear is that there are glaring needs in their community. They want to know how they can invest even more time, money and energy into something across the globe when there are so many problems at their door step. While we hope all churches are living on mission right where they are, we also believe that a church who sees it’s self as a missionary will always be engaged both locally and globally. Caleb Crider, one of the co-founders of Upstream has some good thoughts on this subject. I asked him to speak into this topic as we are all preparing for our Jet Sets to Tokyo and Europe this month and next. Our jet sets are a time where we help church leaders see just how important it is that their local church is engaged globally:

Being a church in the center of the city has nothing to do with the church’s responsibility to be on mission across cultures. Acts 1:8 (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Ends of the Earth) is not a chronological progression- churches need to be local, regional, national, and international at the same time.

The church that buries itself in the local context is like the consumer who buys “local” without regard to where the product comes from or how it’s made. Sure, you’re not mindlessly buying stuff from those mega-stores, but you’re still not taking the global perspective required to be a responsible consumer. We have a responsibility that extends beyond our own city. We live in an interconnected world and we have been commanded to be salt and light to the world and make disciples across cultures. Real Christians are global Christians.

The reality is that the best way to learn to think and act like a missionary in the city is to do it in a foreign context. That’s the reason we do our Jet Set Vision Trips- when you’re clearly an outsider, you approach mission, evangelism, discipleship, and church very differently than someone who sees himself as an insider. (We hope you will follow along on my twitter @larrymccrary or Upstream’s website at www.theupstreamcollective.org and like our Upstream Collective page.)

And that’s the key: as Christ-followers, we are necessarily outsiders. That’s why the Bible says so much about our citizenship being in another Kingdom. That’s why Paul and Peter both admonish the church “as strangers and pilgrims…” When you start as an outsider, you understand the need to adjust your language, appearances, and preferences for the sake of incarnating the gospel.

As long as missions is only one thing that a church does (as opposed to everything that a church does), it really doesn’t matter that you meet in the center of the city. The real value of being a city-centered church, is that the opportunities for international mission may be in your neighborhood. It could be that the ends-of-the-earth connection your church needs is right next door. This is one of the strategic advantages of being a church in the city.

Another aspect of their church is that they are involved in missions locally. Veritas has a ministry with an immigrant population group in Columbus and they are also involved with international students at Ohio State. Besides being involved in local chuch planting, Veritas is a member of the Sojourn Church Planting network which is a network based out of Sojourn Church in Louisville, KY. Veritas is also involved locally from a social standpoint. They started an initiative called “She Has a Name” that is a ministry dealing with human trafficking injustice.

So here is a church, in my opinion, that though they are young, they have decided to intentionally be about their community, their nation and the world. At Upstream we love helping other churches do this very thing. Our passion is to see all churches, both young and old, engaging their world with the Gospel on both the local and global level. If you know of another young church who does this well, please let me know. I would love to feature them.

Once I felt God leading me to pursue a teaching job, I learned I needed a masters in education in order to qualify for the job and I had my eye on one specific school. I began working on my masters online before my term ended and knew I would have to go back to the states for 6 months for classes. I had the idea of asking if I could do my required student teaching in the targeted school in Milan. This would be a benefit to both them and me and would also allow me to get my foot in the door for a position next year. Three days before my term ended and I got on a plane to go back to the states the school accepted me as a student teacher and prepared everything for my visa to come back. During my 6 months in the states I took intensive classes and raised support for the first year as an unpaid student teacher. I came back to Milan in August of 2011 absolutely stunned by the faithfulness of the Lord and the ways he provided for my every need. After a very difficult first year of teaching, I found myself not only facing the challenges of the first year and learning a completely different system but also being thrown into an entirely Italian environment in which I had to operate all day long as a professional in another language. I can say I have seen yet another depth of the Lord’s sustaining faithfulness. I was told several months ago that they are happy with my work and want me to stay. They are giving me a work contract with a sustaining salary and are taking care of all of the requirements for the work visa!

Because of all of this, I have loved my life as a “normal person.” It has changed everything both for me personally and in my ministry. For me personally, being legitimately and authentically on the same “rhythm” as everyone else has completely changed my view of “contextualization.” Contextualization is no longer something that I have to be intentional in doing I AM part of the context. I feel their pain and joy. I am one of them — not just pretending to be or trying to be.

I feel like it has been an answer to prayer for me spiritually as well. Though I do see a place for vocational ministry and know that God calls us to different things, I noticed in my personal walk with Christ as a missionary that the gospel became my job. It tragically became something I “sold.” If I were a banana salesmen who focused all day on selling bananas, the last thing I would want to do at night would be to sit down and eat a plate of bananas. Though I knew it should not be like this for a missionary — and with many I know it is not — I found that the lines between my categories of work and the truth that changed everything in me often got blurred. Now I live in Milan, Italy as a person who has been radically changed and transformed by the gospel of Christ, placed in community with others, and has the privilege of being part of God’s mission to glorify himself on the earth. I cannot help but testify, NOT because it is my job, but because it is my life.

My work is a means in which I can pursue excellence and glorify my creator who does all things well. It is a place where I have both influence and connection with many people on a daily basis. I cannot express how much easier building relationships has been. The first question someone asks you after “what is your name” is almost always “where do you work.” When I say I teach high school history and philosophy at a Collegio they immediately understand, identify, and connect with me. My relationships have easily doubled both in number and in depth since becoming a tentmaker. God is also moving inside my school as I have two colleagues specifically that I am having intense conversations with on a daily basis and in whom I see a deep hunger. One of them is very close to coming to the Lord!

With my free summer this year I will be taking a group of 5 young people from my Church back to the states to do an internship in my Church. We are going to use the time to glean, be encouraged, and grow both individually and as a group. We will also be discussing how we want to implement what we learn for the project of a daughter plant that will come out of our Church here in Milan.

By his grace and not my own merit, abilities, or strength, God has given me the blessing of living a transformed life that is daily dependent on the cross amongst the Milanese.

If you are like Amber and want to be in community with people in the global marketplace, consider joining the Skybridge Community. It’s a great place to talk about common issues one faces as they work abroad and live for the Kingdom.

I really like what I read about  Aquila and Priscila in scripture. God used these marketplace workers in some special ways.  They were tentmakers. Paul writes about them several times. Luke also mentions them in the book of Acts.  The key for me in how these marketplace workers lived their lives was that they lived with intentionality.

As marketplace workers, their intentionality was crucial. No matter where they lived, they were engaged in the work of the gospel.
They were coworkers with Paul in Christ Jesus. (Romans 16:3)
They risked their lives for Paul. (Romans 16:4)
The church was extremely grateful for  them. (Romans 16:3)
They assisted Paul in Ephesus.  (Acts 18:18-28)
They hosted a church in their own home.(1 Cor. 16:19, Romans 16:3-5)
They instructed Apollos privately to help him to learn more about Jesus. (Acts 18:26)

John Polhill writes in the The American Commentary of Acts “Here is a perfect example before us – by Christians like Aquila and Priscilla traveling the routes of trade and commerce and carrying their faith wherever they went,” (p. 283, The New American Commentary, Acts)

When you get a chance today say a prayer for these men and women who work internationally. They have awesome opportunities to share their faith as where they work, live and play.

Thinking of going into missions? Why not pray that God will open the doors for a transfer with your company to live abroad.

Recently I was having a conversation with a Skybridge Community member (www.skybridgecommunity.net) who served effectively with a mission organization in Europe. This person transitioned from being a full time Christian ministry worker to a marketplace worker. Here is what they said that really stuck with me.

“I  am part of Skybridge because I  am completely sold on encouraging and empowering this kind of “non-missionary missionary.” Marketplace professionals who are fulfilling their call to missions through their careers and choose to live in Europe, on purpose.”

I believe there are thousands of marketplace workers like this. People whom God has strategically placed in this world.

In her book, Tentmakers, author Ruth Siemens writes this about life on the mission field:

”The secular job is not an inconvenience, but the God-given context in which tentmakers live out the gospel in a winsome, wholesome, nonjudgmental way, demonstrating personal integrity, doing quality work and developing caring relationships.” (Siemens, Tentmakers, D-247)

Turks moving to Germany
Algerians to France
Moroccans to Spain
Chinese students to the USA
Iranians to Sweden

The list could go on and on and on.

This year one of my blog themes will be to discover people like this and tell their story. I hope my readers will do a few things with these post.

- Share these stories with their pastors. Pastors need to hear stories like this so they can empower and release their congregation to the marketplace here and abroad. They need to see how these marketplace workers are a strategic part of proclaiming the gospel to the nations.

- Most importantly I hope these will be an encouragement and challenge to you as the reader that as a follower of Christ you can be salt and light as this worker is, and you can do it in a any where in the world.  As we process a call to missions, we often think that we have to quit our day jobs. What if we first thought about how we can keep our jobs and get a transfer?

As I watched this one transpire I had a thought.

The pastor was talking about their future. He was talking about how these kids could just be the next Billy Graham or Lottie Moon. Okay, it was a Southern Baptist Church. Lottie Moon was a famous missionary to China, The pastor told how “how we need people like that in the generations to come.”

I hope some of those kids do just that.

But we also need godly, Christ following, Holy Spirit obedient business people, teachers, athletes, artists, engineers, scientists, etc.. We need to raise our kids to be salt and light in whatever they do and wherever they happen to live. Both are vitally important. We need to be sure in the church that we empower our students to think about mission in this way as well.

I do not think you need to be a fully funded Christian worker to live overseas. God can use you in a variety of ways vocationally in a global way.

We will be releasing some blog posts and videos today on www.edstetzer.com and www.theupstreamcollective.org. I hope you will take a look at these short clips to get a sense of our trip.

I wanted to write a short thought this morning about something from scripture that hit me. I am reading a lot these days from the epistles of Paul and the book of Acts since we were traveling where the action was happening.

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples. Acts 19:1

I think I have always admired Paul’s missionary efforts. We read about Paul preaching the gospel. We read about him discipling the disciples. We think about his travels. Believe me that in itself takes effort in that part of the world. It was hard enough in a bus. I could not imagine what it would be like in his day. We read his letters challenging the congregations. We see him interact with his sending church at Antioch. We watch him as he starts new churches.

Another aspect that I think is important about his work was the way he encouraged workers and believers in those churches.

He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people, and finally arrived in Greece. Acts 20:2

This is so vital for the worker and the new believer.  I have heard there could be as few as 3000 Christ followers in Turkey. If that number is correct it is staggering.

Do you think workers  could feel isolated?  Do you think that praying with them and speaking words of encouragement can lift their spirits and help them in their journey? I would say definitely.

I believe we need to encourage workers no matter whether it is where we call home or 5000 miles away when we have opportunities. I know it can make a difference.

I want to propose another thought on this.

What if instead of coming to teach something or put on a seminar to help nationals be better leaders that they simply come and be present in the culture? Be intentional travelers.

They move about from place to place. They work for multi -national companies. They often have to travel to the same cities several times a year with their jobs. What if they sought to be  intentional as they travel and do business abroad?

One businessperson that I know stays at the same bed and breakfast each time he visits this large European city. He plans ahead to be sure the owners of the hotel can spend one evening with him. He frequents the same restaurants. Goes to the same news stand each morning to get his paper. Goes to the same coffee shops. He makes sure to spend time with people from his company. He goes out to eat with his co-workers. He gets to know them as well as possible. He is trying to learn the language in order to communicate better in that country. He is meeting other Christians and Christian workers to develop his network there. He tries to make the most of his opportunities and if the Lord opens the doors for deeper conversations then he is ready. Over time he has indeed had opportunities to share his faith and even disciple a few business people.

Live out your life as salt and light no matter where you wake up in the morning.

You do not have to lead something to serve abroad. You can simply be yourself.

Follow Jesus. Talk to people whom the Lord puts in your path. It can be quite natural.

Are you an intentional traveler?

One of the initiatives that I work with is called Skybridge Community which focuses on helping expats live intentionally in Europe.  You may want to check them out.