Month: March 2021

“Padayon” – Keep Going

March 25, 2021 Shofar Missions Cebu

Read the latest news update from the mission field in the Philippines.

One of the joys (and challenges!) of the mission field is learning a new culture and language. One of my favorite phrases over the past year has been, “padayon” which means “keep going” or “carry on.” Another way to say it is “dasig lang” which is a much deeper Bisaya version of the phrase. “Laban lang” is the Tagalog version, which is also frequently used in the Visayas. All of them essentially translate to “keep fighting.” Whichever phrase you pick, it sums up much of the Christian life. We are to be faithful, consistent, and stubborn enough to keep going, knowing that Jesus is right there leading us through it all. As Elisabeth Elliot often reminded herself, “do the next thing.” Can you relate?

Here’s a brief summary of how we’ve put “padayon” into practice:

Exploring Creation Science Teaching Lessons Online

Laura has continued to expand this ministry in very creative ways despite being unable to meet with students physically. Interactive creation science lessons are taught online using props, experiments, videos, and more. During the month of March, a special lesson was taught via Google Meet to the Believers Church Homeschool students. There was also a special set of chemistry lessons taught via Facebook Live, along with the regularly schedule lessons every Thursday and Friday. As the school year wraps up, it’s time to dream, scheme, and coordinate schedules with churches / schools to prep for summer lessons and next school year.

Exploring Creation Science online lesson

Exploring Creation Science chemistry lessons

Street Level Ministries Reaching out to Universities

Universities still aren’t meeting in person, although most students have to go to campus to file paperwork, enroll, pay tuition, etc. Therefore, students are still spread throughout the region and doing their coursework remotely. This has made it challenging to meet new students and forced us to get pretty creative with reaching out. God allowed us to print 1,500 copies of the new issue of WOTS (the most we’ve ever printed!). We originally planned to include a copy in each student’s modules at UV, but the university’s plans changed, so we will be distributing at each of the 7 satellite campuses. God even provided a magazine rack for each campus (it’s not easy to find 7 of the same thing in this country).

WOTS Rack at the UV-Main Accounting Department

We have a small group of current students and recent graduates that join us on Google Meet each Friday for a Bible discussion. At the end of February, we hosted a virtual BINGO night which we also broadcasted live on Street Level Radio. Students continue to volunteer remotely for WOTS and SLR, and we’ve been able to see a couple of them in person at the office.

Street Level Ministries students at office

Street Level Ministries online BINGO night

Shofar Cable TV Broadcasting is Expanding!

We have some exciting news to share! At the end of the month, we will start broadcasting Shofar Cable TV on the west side of Cebu Island! Channel 46 on Toledo Cable TV will officially be “SHOFAR”! We thank God for answering our prayers to expand our broadcasting reach throughout the island. Now, the final frontiers are the deep south and far north. Please pray for a successful installation, for viewers, and kingdom fruit from this ministry!

Shofar Cable TV broadcasting on Cebu Island

Prayer Requests

To end the school year well and to have vision for the upcoming summer / school year.
For true discipleship and a heart to reach other students among the SLM students.
For churches throughout the island to be able to meet safely and be vigilant about safety protocols.
That God would open up the Philippines for a team (or two) to come to Cebu this year.
Gospel-centered relationships and conversations with the people in our home and office communities that we see everyday.

Children’s Ministry Spring News

March 22, 2021 The Children's Ministry

Spring is in the air! And with the coming of spring, we have a few new projects going on in the Children’s Ministry.

Cards for the Philippines

We heard from Brittany and Laura that the Christmas cards made by the Foundations Room kids were a big blessing. In fact, they were so well-received that we are working on another round of cards to send over this spring! Our goal with these notes is to provide encouragement to some of the churches, schools, & organizations that the girls have relationships with in the Philippines. It also gives the kids here a way to be personally involved with God’s work in the Philippines as they continue to pray for the organization that they made a card for.

Mother’s Room Makeover

In other news, we recently had a workday to spruce up the Mother’s Room (formerly known as the Cry Room). A new coat of paint and cleaning the furniture has the room looking refreshed. Now all we need is a new baby to arrive!

Family Easter Ideas

Lastly, as Easter is just around the corner, you may be looking for some simple activities to help you kids to better grasp the meaning of Easter. If you click on the image below, you can download the “Walking Through Holy Week” PDF by Focus on the Family to give you some inspiration.

River Falls Ministry News / March 2021

March 19, 2021 River Falls Ministry

Get the latest news from Believers Church plant and College Ministry in River Falls, WI.

The Coffeehouse

Hello From River Falls,

During this last month, a lot has been happening in the coffeehouse. First, the February plant sale and dollar-off student drink discount finished. We had more people stop in the coffeehouse, and it gave us the opportunity for conversations with people from campus as well as the local community. Also, we added some new seating: A nook has been set up in place of some cabinets that still remained from when the location was a bank. This has lead us to more dreaming and scheming for what the coffeehouse could be in the future.

Missions Season

This month is also spring mission season, and some of us have geared up to travel with the rest of our greater Street Level family to a church in western Tennessee. We are looking to spend a week at the church tearing off a roof and replacing it. A few of us are also planning to go to Louisiana with other church members from Menomonie and Duluth. Thank you to everyone that is filling in in River Falls to allow for us to go.

Sunday Evenings

The Believers Church plant community outreach continues to meet Sundays and Wednesdays in the coffeehouse. On Sundays, we have been doing a verse-by-verse study starting with the book of Galatians. As the weather gets nice, there is talk of grilling season once again!

College Bible Study

The college group continues to meet on Tuesday evenings. Lately, we have been going through the gospel of Mark as well as a 4 part series called “Raised”. We are looking forward to getting outside more as the weather warms up as well as trying to schedule more outreach events on campus.

We are excited that Burning Dog Radio is now streaming online. This is being advertised throughout the coffeehouse, and on our social media. Also, we are looking into installing a wifi hub at the coffeehouse. Some of the students have begun lending their voices to commercials for the Bible study, and we are opening up opportunities to be involved in the ministry.

Prayer Requests…

Opportunities to minister to the community through the coffeehouse
Street Level outreach on campus as well as continued growth and commitment in the main group
Future planning for the summer

Further Information

Brothers and Sisters

March 18, 2021 Kindred Adults Ministry

The Kindred Singles are brothers and sisters in the big family of Believers Church. We support, pray for, and encourage one another in walking the daily Christian life.

We also have a lot of fun together! The past few months, we hosted a movie night with the Homeschool Group, a phygital game night in the Blind Munchies Coffeehouse, and ice-skating and sledding fellowship.

Movie, Popcorn, and White Witches Brew

Kindred rang in the new year with the Homeschool Group watching “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” All you can eat popcorn and White Witches Brew (peppermint hot chocolate with whip) were on the menu. The Homeschool kids were each asked a movie trivia question after the big show, and scored 10/10!

Chronicles of Narnia
Chronicles of Narnia
Chronicles of Narnia
Chronicles of Narnia

That was Drawful!

In January, Ashley led Kindred in a drawful night! It’s an online game where 8 contestants compete against each other, drawing a phrase using their phone or tablet. Others decide what the phrase is on the big screen. The phrase with the most votes wins! We welcomed Matt from Duluth into our game night, took turns competing, and ate our fill of Little Caesar’s pizza pizza.

Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!
Drawful!

Ice Skating, Sledding, and Whuh Oh…

In February, Kindred hit Menomonie’s Winter Wonderland for some ice skating, sledding, and a few mishaps! We welcomed Seth from Duluth, drank our fill of hot chocolate and coffee, and hit the slopes.

Skating and Sledding
Skating and Sledding
Skating and Sledding
Skating and Sledding
Skating and Sledding

Whuh Oh!

Nice Landing!

Not so nice landing….

Prayer Requests

That we never lose the joy of fellowship, being able to step back from all we are doing, to laugh, to pray for each other, to support each other, and to sincerely enjoy each other’s company as brothers and sisters.
That we put on a good show for the Homeschool Group this week, showing “Prince Caspian”, serving all-you-can-eat popcorn, sodas, and caramel steamers… We are blessed to host this event!
That we find ways this spring to meet our neighbors, make Jesus known in our neighborhoods, and draw them into the Kingdom of God… and to church.

Happy Spring from Believers’ Church – Duluth

March 13, 2021 Believers Church Duluth

Up here in the Twin Ports, our February flew by. It came in like a lion with a mean spell of finger-freezing, face-numbing, below-zero temperatures. We’re talking more than -20 degrees below zero, for multiple days in a row (yikes!). We bundled up, muddled through and reminded each other that suffering builds character. Then, just like the sisters sang in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, “You’re about to forget the whole thing, but one day, all at once, it’s Spring!”

Sorry to start a blog post jabbering on about the weather, but it’s what we Midwesterners do best. On top of that, springtime in the North has got to be the most hopeful time of the entire year — it’s hard not to talk about! Our snow is finally melting, the birds are singing and after enduring a year of COVID-19 safety precautions, we’ve been able to be together as a church more than ever (still six feet apart, of course). Here’s what we’ve been up to.

What we’re learning

On Sundays, we’re deep into our Anatomy of a Christian series. Here’s a fun trailer we made to promote it. Throughout this month, we covered the Tongue, the Heart, the Stomach and the Lungs. They’ve all been really helpful, but my personal favorite was the sermon on the Lungs.

In the Lungs sermon, Justin talked about how the Bible describes Christians as being athletes. We’re running on a race course that we didn’t design, like an Ironman race. It’s crucial that we accept what God sends our way as a spiritual workout and let it develop the endurance in us that He intends it to. How else are we going to get the spiritual equivalent of rock-hard abs? It was a great reminder and seemed to be exactly what a lot of us needed to hear that week. I recommend giving it a listen.

On Wednesdays, we rotate between three different topics: Tony Evans’ Horizontal Jesus series, men’s and women’s groups, and the book of Jeremiah. When we split into gender-specific groups, the women are going through a series by Lauren Chandler called Steadfast Love, and the guys are going through a series that draws on the Navy Seal experience to further explore the Christian life.

How we’re getting to serve

With the start of the new year, we were able to start up a few new ways to serve on Sunday afternoons. Throughout February, we continued this and are getting more comfortable with the new schedule.

Some of us are in Community Group. These folks go out into the community, talk to people, give away treats, pass out flyers and more. Others are in Media Ministry. This group produces print materials, hones in our social media game, updates the website, makes videos and works on Burning Dog Radio. Last, but certainly not least, is our Maintenance Crew. These gentlemen fix anything that needs fixing and make sure our church building stays ship shape.

Fun and fellowshipping

Members have been able to reserve RavenFed for hangouts, which has been really helpful. This means we get to do things together indoors (remember, -20 degrees below zero outside!), knowing that everything is disinfected, safe and COVID-free. Recently, we took advantage of this perk and I learned how to play pandemic-friendly rummy with three separate decks. I did very well for a first-timer, thanks for asking.

We’ve continued serving lunch on Sundays after church. It has been nice to have the time to talk to each other without getting hangry. (That’s when you get angry because you’re so hungry, for those of you who don’t know.) We were even able to pick a sunny Sunday and go on a hike together as a church.

On the Street Level front, Monday meetings in the garage continue on. We’ve even been able to meet a few new faces. We hosted a retro video game night, and I found out that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is definitively not as fun as it was in the 7th grade. Also, we’ve started having Friday Movie Nights complete with pizza and popcorn in hopes that we can reach more students. Even when nobody shows up besides us, they are a great way to end a week.

Please keep praying for us

If you feel so inclined, we’d love it if you’d pray for us. Particularly for help with staying connected with each other, meeting new people in our community and enduring to the end of this pandemic well. It’s easy to get crabby and ungrateful because things aren’t ‘normal’ yet. But God is still doing very cool things and I don’t want us to miss them.

Thanks for spending the time to catch up on what we’ve been doing!

-Claire

THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD

March 10, 2021 Pastor Justin Thomson - Duluth

The devil is a busy one. He doesn’t have a lot of time to spend on any particular individual. If a quick conversation with a naïve woman (Gen. 3:1-5) or an evening spent inside of a betrayer (Luke 22:3) isn’t enough to get the job done, he’ll move along to more fruitful fields. He didn’t even give Jesus (of all people) more than 40 days of his time. He’s got heaps of work to do. That’s why he’s got a reputation for fleeing those who resist him.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be any harmful ‘side-effects’ to deal with after he leaves. His interactions, as brief as they might be, have long lasting side-effects (as was the case with Eve and with Judas both). Even if you survive the attack, he’ll always do what he can to get the most “bang for his buck”. No one targeted by the spiritual forces of evil in this dark world should expect to recover immediately.

YOU’VE HEARD OF JOB…

Take, for example, Job. Blameless & upright indeed. A man who feared God, shunned evil, and experienced his fair share of spiritual conflict. And, as is often the case with us, the spiritual part of his warfare was momentary in comparison to what came next. His memoir is a lengthy 42 chapters, yet, the devil appears only as a brief cameo in the first two.

The devil wants you to curse God and die. And since he doesn’t have much time, he aims for efficiency

What follows is chapter upon chapter upon chapter of tense dialogue between a righteous man (desperately holding fast to his integrity) and the “voices” of those closest to him. Friendly voices which, by that point in his life, Job had grown to trust. If anyone could get his attention in a situation like that, it’d be them. Those men were nearer to him than anybody else; even his own wife.

Yet, his greatest challenge was in realizing that those familiar voices were WRONG! As much as he’d trusted them in the past, he’d better be careful now, for they were no longer speaking the complete truth. These “voices” had as much potential to destroy Job as the devil himself did. Should he listen to them, he would ultimately lose the battle, even after having survived the initial assaults of Satan.

It isn’t the devil himself that defeats most people, it’s usually the “voices” they listen to after he’s done with the attack.

YOU’VE HEARD THESE VOICES…

We all have voices in our head. It’s a psychological phenomenon called “internal dialogue”. Not to be confused with auditory hallucinations, our “inner voice” is a normal part of our brain function. Most everybody experiences this to some degree. And like Job’s buddies, the voices in our head talk whether you invite them to or not. They’re always quick with accusations and opinions when things take an ugly turn. And they’re never as loyal as you might believe. They’ll let you think they’re always your allies, but if you listen carefully to what they say, you’ll discern that they sometimes sound like the enemy.

It’s unlikely that you’ve got any friends named Bildad, Eliphaz, or Zophar, but we all have “inner voices” which are nearly impossible to ignore. When something sends you into a spiritual tizzy, these guys will come out of nowhere with all kinds of ungodly opinions & half-accurate counsel. They always speak the loudest when we’re at our lowest, and it’s hard to know whether we should believe them or not. They’re so articulate, so believable, and so very dear to us.

It isn’t the devil himself that defeats most people… it’s usually the “voices” they listen to after he’s done with the attack

We need to be careful. Some of us allow our “inner dialogue” too much of a “voice”. They don’t always know what they’re talking about, and the longer we let them speak, the more convincing they become. Like Job, we need to know how and when to answer them. We need to put an end to their ranting. Had he not done that, Job would not have survived his ordeal. Neither will you.

YOU’VE HEARD THE WARNING…

You may never find yourself covered in boils, and you probably won’t lose your camels to the Chaldeans, but one thing is certain: The devil wants you to curse God and die. And since he doesn’t have much time, he he aims for efficiency. He’ll do just enough to unleash the voices in your head. If a slight offense is enough to trigger that conversation, he’ll leave it at that. If it takes a little more, he’ll probably give it a shot. But if he can’t remove you from God’s service with an all-out spiritual attack, he’s always happy to watch you do it yourself after you’ve talked it over with your so-called “friends”.

Job has much to teach us, not only about how to remain blameless & upright when the devil intrudes, but how to make sense of the voices in your head after he flees. His biography is a prototype for the spiritual warfare you and I are in for.

Hold fast to your integrity.