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.

In Budapest our team chatted with a couple of Hungarian church planters.

Take a look at this video about some ways they see American churches helping.

Upstream interview with Hungarian Pastors, Budapest from Upstream on Vimeo.

Interested in partnering in Prague or Budapest send me an email at info@theupstreamcollective.org

I recall in my church planting days in the states that a big discussion amongst the launch team was finding that perfect meeting space.

After all most of the “pre-launch” experts would say.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

So we would look at such things like the demographics, traffic patterns,  access to parking, child care facilities, worship center capacity, media possibilities, etc… In some cases you could argue that those were important to our target audience and our model of church plant which was geared to the gathering.

When we moved overseas and I was personally challenged to process the role of reproducibility and recognized that often the model we choose can prevent us from reproducing it. For example, I once heard a person say here in Europe that it takes 500,000 euros to start a church. Does it? Then we could be in trouble. The speaker was pushed a little on this and it came down to 150,000.

On the other hand I remember being in a place where we looked at meeting in our home.

It is a much cheaper solution. However, is it a good idea for a house church to meet in a cross cultural worker’s home?  Does that answer the reproducible question? What I do remember is a conversation with a national who told me it was fine if I wanted to invite him and his family to my house but he could never invite his friends to my house because after all it was my house. It was my place to invite others not his. Ummm.

That is when we decided trying to find ways to meet in third places could be the best route for our strategy. The first place is a person’s home and the second place is the marketplace and the third place is a neutral place. It is the place where the people whom you are being sent can meet.

Just some thoughts on meeting spaces.  And yours?

I pulled this one off of twitter.

“Part of our problem is that we go into worlds in which we’re sent with prefab ideas of what church should look like there”. Michael Frost from Jet Set Prague and Budapest.

This past week I participated in some meetings in Lima, Peru.  It was my first trip to that city. What energy they have there. Good coffee. Good restaurants. I ate mostly local though I was surprised to see Chili’s, Papa Johns, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, etc. there.

As usual I found a little time to explore. Admittedly it was a bit easier since I do okay in Spanish and can get around. I walked or took the bus the entire time. I noticed they do put “PARE” instead of “STOP” on those octagon signs at intersections. I am thinking there were a lot of people who did not read Spanish very well. I rarely saw anyone completely stop. Those letters must mean something else. smile

One day I went into several old churches. Peru was a colony of  Spain some years back and you definitely can tell it in their architecture and in their churches. On several occasions I could not tell if I were in Spain or in Peru. The church buildings were similar.

What can we learn from this?

I think Frost makes a good point. We do have a tendency to take our pre-fab ideas into another culture and transport them there.

We must be careful on this. We need to look at what the gospel looks like in our new context and what the church looks like in that new culture.

It even goes beyond the architectural design of buildings.

Michael Frost said – “You will not change a post-Christian world with more missionaries & ch leaders. It requires artists, teachers, doctors,etc…”

We have lived in Europe for almost 10 years now. I have seen this over and over again. One of the most effective ways to plant the gospel here is as we work, live and play.

I have talked with many national church planters and pastors and almost all will  agree.They would love to have engaged in their ministry and church plants  people who work in the marketplace but live out thier lives here as salt and light.

We do several of these trips each year. We invite pastors and planters of churches who are interested in getting directly involved in missions by actively engaging unreached people.

Our goal with these trips is to help church leaders get an idea of how God might use them internationally. We then hope to continue in relationship with the churches to help with training, strategy development, partnership connections, church planting, and cultural translation of the gospel. We’re working to stop the “outsourcing of the Great Commission.”

Anyway, we’re looking for ways to involve as many churches as possible on these trips. We’ve got a good group for this trip, but we’re looking for ways to include those who, for whatever reason, may not be able to join us in Europe this time around.

Here’s our idea:

We’re going to live Twitter/blog/podcast as much of the trip as possible. We’ll post everything on the Upstream Blog <http://blog.theupstreamcollective.org/>  and Twitter feed <http://twitter.com/theupstreamc> .

We hope you can come along on this trip virtually. If you do please join the conversation. Read the posts. Watch the videos. Read the twitter feeds at #JS2011.

Ask questions.

Make comments about what they are talking about or how these conversations affect you.

Upstream also has an opportunity for you to attend a live webinar led by Michael Frost on April 19th at 10 am EST from Budapest. We have a limited number of spots for this live webinar. You need to sign up here to attend.