Paul Stewart

The Sustantivo (Partnership) Trailer

In March a team of eleven people from Gateway traveled to Anemona, El Salvador to begin an unlikely partnership between two churches. The team worked with ENLACE to help this impoverished community build tilapia fish tanks and home gardens to help improve nutrition and the local economy, but from the very beginning the team was just as focused on building relationships and connecting with the local church and community.

The stories coming out of this trip have been nothing short of remarkable and it just so happens that the people on the team are some amazing storytellers! We are currently producing a 20 - 30 minute short-film documenting our work - you can view the trailer below. We plan on showing the full-length film on Sunday, June 3rd during our worship services.

We believe this trip is only the beginning of a long-term partnership between Gateway, ENLACE and Palabra de Poder and the kingdom of God advancing in Des Moines, El Salvador and around the world.

Eggs, Eggs Everywhere!

This Spring, in an effort to bring the downtown community together and share the good news of Easter we are putting on the second annual Eggs Eggs Everywhere! event! A unique Easter Egg Hunt located in the heart of our city and open to everyone in the neighborhood. We'll hide over 12,000 candy & prize-filled eggs throughout Western Gateway Park!

Beyond the hunt, family activities will include:

• Kids’ Art Station
• 6 Giant inflatables for jumping play
• Face Painting Station
• Free Family Photos
• Free coffee for the adults

At Gateway our vision is to become a part of the fabric of the city of Des Moines; to join God in the renewal of the city. We can do that through ministry to the homeless, the widow and the orphan, the refugee and the outcasts... and we can do that by organizing a massive, free Easter Egg Hunt in the heart of our city! 

If you are in Des Moines over Easter please join us! Find out more at http://eggseggseverywhere.com

Salt & Light

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5v13-16

On Sunday we continued our series on the Sermon on the Mount by exploring Jesus’ words about salt & light (you can listen to the entire message HERE). Jesus uses these metaphors to teach about the responsibility of Christians in the world. By saying we are to be salt and light, He is saying there is darkness in the world and we are to be the light; there is decay in the culture and we are to be a preservative. There are four characteristics about salt and light that help us understand what this means.

1. Salt & Light are distinct and influential

Jesus says the salt must retain its saltiness, it must not become contaminated. And the light must retain its brightness; it must not be smothered by the darkness. Christians are to be holy, set-apart and distinct from the world. But unfortunately too many Christians stop there. They are content to cloister themselves away from the world for fear of being contaminated. But at that point what good are they? 

Salt and light are not just different from their environment, they are to have a powerful influence on their environment. Salt must be rubbed into the meat in order to stop the rot and the light is to shine into the darkness. It is to be set upon a lamp stand, and it is to give light to the environment. 

2. Salt & Light expose decay and darkness

If you are light, that means that your life should be so beautiful, that when your life comes into contact with its surrounding environment it reveals it for what it really is.

So for example, if you are a Christian, then just by your very presence your life reveals the dishonesty in your business, the gossip in your office, the racism in your neighborhood, the corruption in your political caucus or the promiscuity at the party. 

Just simply by being a Christian, just by showing up, you reveal things for what they are. It makes the racism look like racism. It makes the gossip look like gossip. It makes the corruption look like corruption. 

If you live like Jesus Christ, the beauty of that is going to reveal the reality of the environment. If you are a Christian, living like Jesus Christ then the beauty of your life is going to expose the decay and darkness around you. It is going to reveal to people what is good and bad.

Is your life so remarkable that it shows the contrast between the beauty of Christ and the world around you... or do you just blend in?

3. Salt & Light bring joy

Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds.” There are two Greek words that can be used for “good” - agothos and kalos. Agothos means good in quality. Kalos means beautiful. Jesus uses Kalos. Your deeds ought to be beautiful.

Salt is, after all, not just a preservative. It’s a seasoning. It brings out the taste. It makes things taste better. And light shows the beauty of all things. In other words, salt and light bring joy to people.

Now, I just said that salt and light can expose racism, promiscuity and corruption. That of course that can get you some persecution. But at the same time you bring joy to your neighbors. You are the stability in your office. You bring beauty into your home.

Because a Christian never looks at a situation and asks, “What can I get out of it?” A Christian acts like salt and asks, "How can I bring the best out of this organization, out of this group, out of these people?"

This is extremely difficult because we live in a consumer driven culture. What started out as just an economic system has radically affected every area of our lives. People go to work, go to school, go to church asking “What can I get out of it?” “What can I take from this job to help me move up the corporate ladder?” “How will this group or these people help enhance my position?”

But a Christian goes into a job or a school or a neighborhood and asks “How can I make this the best possible place?”John Stott says, “Like salt in putrefying meat, Christians help to prevent social decay. Like light in the prevailing darkness, Christians to illumine society and show it a better way.” A Christian brings joy.

4. Salt & Light work together

Salt has to work together - one grain isn’t going to season anything. We have to be a unit. A city is a corporate place - and we are to be a city on a hill. 

In fact, that is what this whole sermon is about. The Sermon on the Mount is not primarily addressed to individuals - because it is precisely as individuals that we are most likely to fail as Christians. These are words for the colonists.

This sermon is not about how to be better individual Christians - it is a picture of what the church should look like. It is an invitation to become citizens of a New Kingdom.

The church is not a club. It is supposed to be a colony. A city. A new humanity. A people who are faithful to their promises, love their enemies, tell the truth, honor the poor, suffer for righteousness, and visibly testify to the amazing community-creating power of God. A place where people can tangibly see what the Kingdom of God looks like.

We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. Together the local church is the most concrete expression we can give to the world of the reality of God’s kingdom.

The Work of Christmas

When the song of the angels is stilled;
When the kings and the princes are home;
When the shepherds are back with their flocks;
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost;
To feed the hungry;
To release the prisoner;
To rebuild the nations;
To bring peace among the family;
To make music in the heart.

- Howard Thurman

Evangelism is Just Temporary Work

"God made the created world by his Spirit (Gen. 1:1-3) and continues to care for and sustain it by his Spirit (Ps. 104:30), watering and enriching it (Ps. 65:9–13) and feeding and meeting the needs of every living thing (Pss. 145:15–16 and 147:15–20). Indeed, the very purpose of redemption is to massively and finally restore the material creation (Rev. 21–22). God loves this created world so much that he sent his Son to redeem it. This world is a good in and of itself; it is not just a temporary theater for individual salvation.

If the Holy Spirit is not only a preacher that convicts people of sin and grace (John 16:8–11; 1 Thess. 1:5) but also a gardener, an artist, and an investor in creation who renews the material world, it cannot be more spiritual and God-honoring to be a preacher than to be a farmer, artist, or banker.

Evangelism is temporary work, while musicianship is permanent work. In the new heavens and new earth, preachers will be out of a job! Ultimately the purpose of evangelism is to bring about a world in which musicians will be able to do their work perfectly."

- Tim Keller

Creating a Discipleship Culture

Mike Breen believes the missional movement will fail. Why? Because we don’t have a missional problem or a leadership problem in the Western church. We have a discipleship problem.

In his new book Building a Discipling Culture he argues that most American pastors have been educated and trained to build, serve and lead the organization of the church. But most have never actually been trained on how to make disciples. So we can grow our volunteer base, form systems and organizational structures and preach sermons on Sunday mornings but never actually create disciples.

Many of us serve in or lead churches where we have hundreds or even thousands of people showing up on Sunday. But we have to honestly answer this question: Do their lives look like the lives of the people we see in Scripture? Are we just good at getting people together once a week and maybe into a small group, or are we actually good at producing the types of people we read about in the New Testament? Have we shifted our criteria for a good disciple as someone who shows up to our stuff, gives money and occasionally feeds poor people? 

Here is the problem: You don’t build churches in order to make disciples; you make disciples and get the church.

In fact, Jesus never called us to build his church. Jesus said, “I will build my church.”  Our job, and the last instructions he gave us, was to make disciples. It is out of this we will get the church. If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples.

But no one accidentally creates disciples. Discipleship is an intentional pursuit. Dallas Willard says every church should be able to answer two questions: First, what is our plan for making disciples? Second, does our plan work? 

Disciples are people who learn to be like Jesus and learn to do what Jesus could do. Breen argues that this involves both Character and Competency. We need the character that Jesus has and we need to be able to do the things that Jesus could do. Discipleship is learning, over the course of our lives, to become people who have both. If we produce disciples who have one without the other they will either have limited impact or cause unlimited harm.

Character: Are their lives characterized by grace? Peace? Love? Transformation? Patience? Humility? A deep relationship with the Father? A love of the scriptures? Can they submit?  Do they see the world through the eyes of the Kingdom and not the prevailing culture? 

Competency: Can they disciple people well who can then disciple others? Can they do mission well? Can they hear the voice of their Father and respond with action, with His authority and power? When they pray, do things happen as they did for Jesus? Can they read and teach scripture well? 

But here is the deal: In order for this kind of learning to take place discipleship must be more than just a plan or a strategy or a system. Disciple making must become a part of the church’s culture. People who are not only learning about the reality of the Kingdom of God (competency) but who are being shown how to live in that new reality (character) by immersing themselves in the culture of the church.

The sermons might be great.
The music could be incredible.
The website is beautiful.
The newcomer assimilation system is second-to-none.
But if the culture, language and rhythms of the church do not reflect the life and ministry of Jesus, the church will fail to produce disciples.

Discipleship is creating a new culture.

A week in El Salvador

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to travel to El Salvador with some leaders from Gateway to explore some potential partnerships there. We spent the week with Ron Bueno who is the executive director and founder of ENLACE. 

ENLACE is a truly remarkable organization. Since 1993, ENLACE has been strategically equipping churches in El Salvador to alleviate poverty by becoming servant-leaders in their communities. Churches are given the tools they need to identify, design and manage sustainable initiatives in their communities - including clean water systems, micro-loans, community gardens, health clinics, improved roads and sanitization.

ENLACE believes that the local church is the key to solving poverty in El Salvador - but it wasn’t always that way. Ron group up as a missionary-kid in El Salvador and when he returned to the country in 1993 he had little interest in working with the church. At first, ENLACE focused all of their training and coaching on community leaders. But very early on they realized that the church would be the best agent of change for their community. Ron writes...

“In the first few years, we worked hard to include the community in the design and management of projects so that they would have ownership and participation; however, we realized that no matter how well we helped the community design their projects to be just and efficient we could not change people’s relationships to each other. For example, people would work together to build a water system they all needed, but as soon as there was a problem with someone’s spigot, they would not necessarily work together to help that person resolve their problem. 

The project could not restore relationships, which is the first and most important step in community transformation; only an ongoing, dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ can truly change someone’s heart to think of others before themselves.

Community leaders and associations with whom we first worked, ultimately had their own interests in mind and so were influenced by quick solutions or political forces. In contrast, the church’s leadership, seen as body and not as individuals, was a continuous and steady presence in the community which did not act, at least when done well, upon political or personal interest. Rather, the church body committed to a long-term process because it believed in a biblical mandate that led them to commit to their communities.”

Ron came to see that the local church - no matter what it’s size or budget - is a continuous reservoir of resources.  

“ENLACE has worked primarily with churches of less than 100 members located in impoverished, rural areas of El Salvador. Many of the church leaders believed they did not have the financial or human resources to become effective agents of change in their community. As soon as they looked at their church more closely and began to partner with their community, they discovered a wealth of skills and resources within their congregations. Churches already had, or could develop quickly, great fundraising skills and could pool resources together effectively. They also had a deep commitment to stewardship and compassion which made them an endless reservoir of resources to transform their communities.”

During our time there we met Pastor Miguel - who has worked for over 20 years to get clean water to the thousands living in his community. 

In 2005, they successfully drilled three wells hitting enough water for the next 30 to 50 years. Today the work continues to get the water from its source to the people who need it.

We met Pastor Santiago who worked for over three years with his community to construct a road suitable for vehicles and sanitation. 

ENLACE’s micro-finance office down the street from Santiago’s church has helped to provide over 300 micro-loans for small business. 

We met Pastor Walter who is working to provide revenue streams and improve nutrition through community gardens.

Finally, we met Pastor Santos, whose church has helped build 25 homes, repair and rebuild roads, planted dozens of community and home-based gardens and provided programs and aid for the mentally handicapped of their community.

All of these churches have 150 members or less and the majority of the congregation lives on less than $5/ day. Needless to say, as an American pastor this is incredibly inspiring, humbling and convicting all at the same time. How is our church doing at restoring relationships within our community? Have we really embraced the biblical mandate to commit to our neighborhood? Are we directing the wealth of skills and resources within our congregation towards the deepest needs in our city? 

ENLACE understands the integral relationship between the local church and the development of the community better than any organization I have ever seen. I am so excited about this partnership between Gateway and ENLACE and I know that this is going to have as much of an impact on our church as it does in El Salvador.

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“When a church, as a group of people who love and serve God, begin to lift up their eyes to see each other and their neighbors as God does, they become the salt and light to their community; they become the leaven with spiritual authority to become effective agents of change in their community. It is as a mysterious, amazing, dynamic process where the body is formed and strengthened as its serves effectively its community.” - Ron Bueno

Machine Gun Preacher

“Narrative is our culture’s currency; he who tells the best story wins.” - Bobette Buster

Rev. Sam Childers is a former drug dealing, outlaw biker who now risks his life to rescue children in Southern Sudan from one of the world’s most vicious terrorists.

After giving his life to Christ, Sam went on a missions trip to help repair damaged huts in Sudan. During this trip Sam stumbled across the body of a child torn apart by a landmine. He fell to his knees and made a pledge to God to do whatever it took to help the people of Southern Sudan.

For the last 13 years Sam has been battling to rescue children from horrific violence in Southern Sudan where Joseph Kony and his rebel army known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been relentlessly terrorizing thousands of innocent people. Over 100,000 children have been captured and enslaved into Kony’s rebel army. These children are often forced to kill their parents or be killed themselves. 

Sam is on a mission to rescue as many children as he can and put an end to Kony’s reign of terror. He fights on the front line of the war zone, at times sleeping in the bush with an AK-47 on one side and a bible on the other. The people of Sudan call him the “Machine Gun Preacher”

To date he’s rescued over 1000 children and reunited 700 of them with their families. The other 300 children live in an orphanage that Sam built, where they are protected and rehabilitated to reclaim some semblance of their childhood.

This is a truly remarkable story and Sam’s biography, Another Man’s War, is currently being made into a Hollywood feature film starring Gerard Butler. The film is due for release in September 2011.

Interdependent

"All people are interdependent... Whether we realize it or not, each of us lives eternally 'in the red.' We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women. When we arise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge which is provided for us by a Pacific Islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a European. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half of the world... All of life is interrelated... Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

A Good Story Will Always Stand Out

In order for a story to resonate it must, on one hand, relate to the culture in which it is told. The audience must be able to comprehend the language and form, believe the characters, and follow the plot. On the other hand a good story will always stand out. The characters will be unique in the way they handle conflict, overcome disappointment and triumph over adversity.

As Christians living in the midst of a dark and broken world we have a different story to tell. We are invited to participate God's unfolding story of love, redemption, and renewal. Yet our story must always relate to it's context. Karl Barth said that the Christian story must contradict the world in a way which is full of promise.

The world is telling a story of jealousy, bitterness and unforgiveness...
We are telling a story of humility, service and grace.

The world is telling a story of intolerance, racism, and hate...
We are telling a story of reconciliation & unconditional love.

The world is telling a story of unbridled consumerism, spending and debt...
We are telling a story of simplicity, frugality and contentment.

The world is telling a story of worry, fear and anxiety...
We are telling a story of faith and hope and rest in the love of Jesus Christ.

Jesus told this story better than anyone who ever lived. Although he was God - he became man - he entered into our story. Spoke our language. Understood the human struggle. And yet his life stood out in radical ways. He touched lepers, welcomed outcasts, rose above the empty ritual and religion of His day and offered a new life full of freedom and grace. 

Although he wanted all to be saved - he was never interested in simply drawing a crowd. In fact, when the crowd was the biggest he called upon them to “eat his flesh and drink his blood”

What was he saying?

He was saying come and die.
Die to the story you’ve been trying to tell.
Die to the ways of this world.
Confess of the sin in your heart.
Turn away from the shallow, predictable character you’ve become.

Instead take my life within you.
Let my story penetrate your heart and soul.
Begin to live in me. In my rhythm. In my pattern. In my beat.
And I will set you free to write incredible stories with your life.