Few things in the blogosphere are more annoying than bloggers who blog about the fact that they haven’t been blogging. Such blog posts are a temptation a blogger should resist with all one’s willpower. Still, I have been known to give in to temptation from time to time … so here goes anyway.

I have not posted to the Joshua One blog in a little while. Surprisingly, the media have not been knocking down my door to inquire if everything is OK. I nevertheless want to assure the watching world that all is quite well, and I have just been extremely busy with several ministry projects.

* I have begun a new sermon series at First Christian Church, Jones, Okla., on the book of Philippians. What a marvelous Scripture — on joy and contentedness and ambition and priorities and ministry. I hope to post those sermons to this website as I preach them.

* In November, we hired a part-time youth minister at the Jones church. He is a grad student at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond. The Jones church is a small congregation, 40 to 50 people on a Sunday, with almost no young families with small children. So, we have truly given Neil an impossible assignment: not just to lead a ministry for kids, but to actually bring in the kids. Working with Neil on developing his program is another important thing on my plate.

* Beginning this week, I am teaching a class on Wednesday evenings at Edmond Christian Church on Bob Russell’s modern classic, When God Builds a Church. The book tells the amazing story of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, which has grown from less than 100 people in 1962 to more than 18,000 average weekend attenders now. The subtitle of the book is: “10 Principles for Growing a Dynamic Church.” Each chapter addresses one of those principles: Truth, Worship, Leadership, Excellence, Faith, Harmony, Participation, Fellowship, Stewardship, Evangelism.

When God Builds is a great tool for a church to use to conduct an honest self-assessment on how it is doing in each of those important areas. We had 16 people, most of them church leaders, in our first session. I have developed my own study guide for When God Builds. My goal this semester is to turn those materials into a weekend seminar I can offer to churches.

* The biggest project that has been keeping me busy these last few months is our upcoming missions trip to Costa Rica. Norma and I are leading 15 people to San José in 11 more days! We will be there seven days, during which we will facilitate a three-day preaching convention for several Costa Rican churches, and offer a medical clinic on two days. Primary purpose of the trip is to visit and encourage and strategize with Rodrigo Rojas, senior evangelist of Costa Rica For Christ, one of the ministries of Joshua One Ministries.

Our missions team includes 5 members of Edmond Christian Church, 2 members of Jones Christian Church, Norma and I (members of both churches), and 6 other believers from 4 other churches. One of the great things about this week will be the fellowship we 15 members of 6 different churches will enjoy among ourselves.

Norma and I led many missions trips when I was director of Spanish American Evangelism in El Paso, TX. But most of those trips were in Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso. That made planning and leading the trips so much easier than preparing for this venture to Costa Rica. For several weeks I have been swamped working out countless details: air travel, speaker for the convention, medicines and supplies, gospel tracts, lots of questions from our team, and raising the funds for all of this! It has been a huge project.

I’m sure not the only one who has been working very hard to make this trip a success. Missionary David Savage has put in countless hours planning this trip with me, and is in Costa Rica now making final preparations. Ralph Shead, coordinator of Spanish projects for LATM (Literature and Teaching Ministries in Joplin, MO), will be our convention speaker and is busy preparing his messages. One team member, Jodi, a registered nurse, has been a godsend in overseeing the medical clinic. Roger, our team treasurer, has put in several hours of hard work in that capacity.

Of course, Rodrigo has also been busy handling logistics and publicity for the convention and medical clinic. And at home, Norma has been wonderful about keeping the rest of our lives on track, while she has meanwhile been busy with her own ministry projects and does what she can to help me with mine. I can’t imagine what a single day would be like without her.

Norma will be shooting lots of photos in Costa Rica, and as soon as we get back, I will post a full report with plenty of pictures of our Costa Rican adventure.

So, yes, I’ve been busy lately. Costa Rica For Christ is just one of the ministries of Joshua One Ministries. Another goal is to post a lifetime of sermons and lessons on this website. In December I began posting two series of materials: “The Doctrines of Christmas” and “What Mormons Believe About…” I need to finish both of those. Two other series I want to get online as soon as possible are a year-long series of lessons on Daniel-Revelation that I preached at Jones Christian Church in 2006, and a “Tough Questions and Some Bible Answers” series I preached in 2007.

Never enough time. Never enough time. Never enough time. Here’s what I say about that:

There is never enough time to do everything one wants, and rarely enough time to do anything as well as one wants. Fortunately, nothing we do or want to do is half as important as we imagine it to be. Just do what you can. What you can’t get done God will assign to someone else, if it really needs doing.

I also say this:

What can it possibly mean to say we don’t enough time, when we have eternal life? We have the rest of eternity! But most things worth doing will have to wait until we are on the other side of the eternal veil.

The Native Evangelist Missions Strategy is the belief that one of the best ways for U.S. Christians and churches to participate in global evangelism is by providing support and encouragement to the native Christians who are already present in a country.

“Native Evangelist Missions Strategy” is my phrase, but it certainly is not my idea. In the last several decades, many missions ministries have recognized that one of their best Great Commission strategies is to direct more resources to native evangelists, church leaders and churches. K.P. Yohannan of Gospel For Asia, perhaps the most vocal advocate of this thinking, uses the phrase “native missionary movement” to describe this approach to world missions.

To send a U.S. missionary to the foreign field is an enormous undertaking:

• The time expense is huge: It takes years to identify his field, raise support, learn the language, etc. Once on the field, it takes additional years to learn the culture, establish relationships, etc. Most missionaries also return home for an extended furlough once every few years, to maintain family ties and financial support.

• The dollar expense is huge: including income, benefits, transportation, and ministry expenses. The expense of a single U.S. missionary and his family on the field is usually equivalent to the full-time salaries of several native evangelists.

• The challenge is enormous: Achieving fluency in the language, mastering nuances of culture, overcoming nationalistic and racial barriers, etc. Some cross-cultural missionaries have experienced phenomenal success for the Kingdom, praise the Lord. Sadly, many well-intentioned missionaries are less successful, for reasons including inability to master the language, inability to adapt to the culture, and family members unable to accept being so far from home.

What if there was a missionary candidate who was actually born and raised in the target country? He already knows the language. He looks like, dresses like, acts like, and thinks like those he is trying to reach. He does not need to be sent; he is already there. He does not need to make periodic trips home on furlough; he is already home. No need to break through sociological barriers to form relationships; he already has a network of family members and friends with which to start. He does not have the financial needs and expectations of someone raised in the U.S.; he just needs sufficient support to live at the economic level of his fellow citizens.

That is the Native Evangelist Missions Strategy. In the 21st century, in many parts of the world, God has already raised up Christians and churches who are working to reach their fellow citizens with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our role, as their U.S. brothers and sisters, is to become their strategic partners. To provide support, which can include finances, books and materials, education and training, and leading short-term teams to provide assistance and encouragement.

The underlying philosophy of this strategy is: Nationals are doing the ministry. Native evangelists and church leaders are on the frontlines, leading the way for the gospel, and our U.S. role is to be their supporting partners. They can do it far better than we can, but we get the privilege of humbly helping them.

During the 18th-20th centuries, the Western evangelical church sent out many great missionary pioneers: David Brainerd (missionary to Native Americans in the 18th century), Adoniram Judson (first U.S.-sent foreign missionary; to Burma), David Livingstone (Africa), William Carey (India, often called the “father of the modern missionary movement”), Hudson Taylor (founded China Inland Mission, 1865), William Cameron Townsend (founded Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1942), Jim Elliot and Nate Saint (and their team, martyred in Ecuador, 1956). Those are just a few of the thousands of great missionary heroes of the faith.

Those mighty evangelists went to mission fields where the gospel had never been preached, where no churches existed to preach the Word and train disciples, where no Bibles existed in the native language. There are still mission fields like that today, and courageous missionary pioneers continue to take the gospel to such places.

However, thanks to the successful efforts of the missionaries of previous centuries, Christians and churches now exist in many parts of the world. In those places, the best strategy for furtherance of the Great Commission is to get behind them, letting the native Christians lead the way, while we provide whatever support and encouragement they ask of us.

This strategy is especially being employed to great success in India, where organizations such as Gospel For Asia and White Fields Evangelism support thousands of native evangelists. Joshua One Ministries believes the time is now for independent Christian churches to get enthusiastically behind this strategy in Mexico and Latin America, as well.

Costa Rica For Christ, through which we support Rodrigo Rojas and his team of evangelists, is Joshua One’s first strategic partnership with native evangelists. It is our plan and prayer, as the Lord provides, to establish similar relationships in coming years with native evangelists in Mexico and throughout Latin America.