Paul Stewart

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?

First Grade!

Can not believe my little girl is in first grade!

Solo Disciple No More

This weekend we took about thirty Gateway guys on our first-ever Men’s retreat at the Sunstream Retreat Center overlooking the beautiful Des Moines River Valley. Together we rode the zip-lines, talked around the campfire and built lasting relationships with some truly remarkable guys. It was incredible.

Our guest speaker was Nate Larkin, author of Samson and the Pirate Monks. Nate is a wonderful storyteller with a timely message. Nate was driven to isolation by a humiliating addiction. For years, he employed all the typical weapons against his besetting sin – personal devotions, Bible study and memorization, inspirational books, and prayers for deliverance – but nothing worked for long.

You can watch Nate's story below.

Nate said, “What I wanted was a private solution to my private problems. I was willing to trust Christ, but not the Body of Christ. I didn’t really believe that God’s Spirit inhabits all believers, and I didn’t think He could use broken people to help me. I considered the church a loose association of individual God-followers, not a single organism whose members are so interdependent that they can only move together.”

For Nate, the turning point came when he found a safe place to be honest with other guys. Unfortunately he didn’t find that place in a Sunday worship service or Bible study. Nate said, “I had seen what happened to guys who had in some moment of temporary insanity taken our offer of grace seriously.” They were labeled, judged and ignored.

It wasn’t until he reached rock bottom that he found a 12-step recovery group meeting in the basement of the church after everyone else had gone home that he finally found a route to freedom. “I had spent a lifetime in church and I had never been in a room that safe. I had never heard Jesus like I heard him in the room that night.”

Today Nate shares his life with a group of men known as the Samson Society. “Only our authentic selves, fragile but forgiven, can truly experience a spiritual life marked by love, joy, peace and self-control” Nate says, “And Christ intends us to enjoy that life together.”

This was an important moment in the life of our church.
Our guys opened up. Began to share their hopes and fears.
Began to dream together about another way.
A way of freedom, healing and trust. 

If you haven’t read Nate’s book... you need to. 
If you don’t have a group of friends to share your life with... you need them.
Nate said that he failed as a solo disciple of Christ for one reason...
Jesus doesn’t have any solo disciples.
We need one another.

John Ortberg on Amusing Worship

"To 'muse' means to reflect and ponder; put an 'a' in front of it and you have the absence of reflection. Amusement is a way of boredom-avoidance through external stimulation that fails to exercise our minds. It's mere diversion. It is a kind of performance-enhancing drug for an attention-deficit society. 'Amusement' is appealing because we don't have to think; it spares us the fear and anxiety that might otherwise prey on our thoughts. In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin... To arrest someone's attention, on the other hand, is to cause them to sit up and take notice."

- John Ortberg
HT: Out or Ur

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.

A Common Right

"God ordered all things to be produced so that there would be common food for all, and so that the earth would be the common inheritence of all. Thus, nature has produced a common right, but greed has made it the right of a few."

- Ambrose of Milan (337-397)

A New Kind of Pentecostal

This week the 54th General Council of the Assemblies of God was held down in Phoenix, Arizona. I was unable to attend, but have followed along from a distance. There were only a few issues on the docket that really seemed substantial but what I am most excited about is the tone coming out of Phoenix. 

There is no question that we are a different movement than we were only four years ago. We are a fellowship that is more gender, race and age inclusive; more compassionate and forgiving; more passionate and strategic; a people full of the Holy Spirit and yet more prepared than ever for Him to move in and through us in new and creative ways. A movement that I believe is both more true to its roots and more relevant for the future.

While the Assemblies of God never completely abandoned issues of justice and mercy - creating such incredible ministries as Teen Challenge, Latin American Childcare and more recently Convoy of Hope - we are now more intentional than ever about social action. In 2009, General Superintendent George Wood led the charge to add 'compassion' as the fourth element in our reason for being—in recognition that Jesus came to glorify God (worship), save the lost (evangelize), make disciples (disciple), but also serve human need (compassion).

I believe this small and seemingly obvious change to our bylaws has already helped our  movement become more true to the whole-gospel message; more aware of the needs of our Pentecostal brothers and sisters around the world (close to 600 million) and more relevant to a new generation of Pentecostal pastors and leaders. 

This week Christianity Today ran “A New Kind of Pentecostal” highlighting many of these changes. In it Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, points out that for decades American Pentecostalism has been predominantly white and rural but it will soon become primarily ethnic and urban. 

Rodriguez also notes that American Pentecostals have traditionally held a vertical worldview of their faith, focusing on personal beliefs and a salvation that prepares one's soul to make the Rapture.

Ethnic Pentecostals on the other hand say, 'I am saved by grace, but I also receive the power of God so my family can be transformed, and so we can overcome social ills and gangs in our neighborhood.' The priorities of this [ethnic Pentecostal] community are issues of life, biblical marriage, education, sex trafficking, immigration reform, poverty alleviation—all under the canopy of the Great Commission."

Rodriguez says that recently there has been a shift that has drawn younger Pentecostals to both the vertical and horizontal planes of the Cross.

The new Pentecostals "stand at the nexus of both dynamics—salvation and transformation, covenant and community, righteousness and justice, Billy Graham and Dr. Martin Luther King. 

The Spirit is always moving; always renewing. Our Pentecostal forefathers were able to perceive that and follow the Spirit in remarkable ways. The World Christian Encyclopedia states that in 1900, only seven-tenths of 1 percent of Christians were Pentecostal; today, approximately 25 percent are. 

But how do we maintain this momentum going forward? This is a problem for every institution, but unlike Lutherans or Methodists we can’t look back and find our identity from the writings of our founder. Rather the “identity” of our movement was a common experience of the Holy Spirit by a group of very common people.

This experience can never be passed down through a doctrine. In fact, the key to the Pentecostal movement was never about a doctrine but a passionate pursuit of God for an empowering work of the Spirit to carry forth the Great Commission of Jesus.

Pentecostalism, therefore, only works for one generation. After that it is Pentecostal in name only, unless there is another revival. But revival never looks the same twice. Every generation must experience the Spirit for themselves. The Spirit is always moving; always renewing. 

May we never confine the supernatural move of the Spirit into a simple formula, doctrine or institution. Rather may we continue to perceive the Spirit’s movement in our generation, adapt to Him and join in His renewal of all things. 

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43v19

Support A Creative Theology

One of our dreams for The Gateway Church has always been that it would become a place that would foster the arts, cultivate imagination and unleash the creativity inside the human spirit to change the world. 

That is why I am so excited about A Creative Theology - a new book written by my friend Sam Mahlstadt. This book wrestles with the concepts of faith and creativity. Foundational to the book is the belief that there is something theological about creativity. That if we explore the relational force of creativity, we will uncover something both fascinating and life-changing.

The book is filled with profound insights on the beauty of creation, the ravages of the fall and the promise of restoration. It is a passionate call to wake up the creative spirit that has been woven into all of us but lies dormant within so many of us and to join The Creator in His project of restoration and renewal.

Sam worked together with a few talented designers from Gateway on creating a book that is so much more than a book. They have turned a series of words and thoughts into beautiful art. You can view some samples here.

With our help, Sam will be publishing this as a full-color, hardcover book that you will return to not only for the concepts within the pages, but for the inspiring modern design. Click here to find out more and to help Sam get this incredible project off the ground!