It Feels Good to Get Something Done

Three years ago I was invited to speak at a conference on the Holy Spirit in Turkey. Being invited to speak anywhere is exciting. Being invited to speak on the Holy Spirit is really exciting. But being asked to do it for the Christians in Turkey, which is 99.7% Muslim, is downright cool.

A year later I was invited back to lead conferences for Turkish pastors and church leaders in two cities. I will be going back to do the same again in September.

There are fewer than 100 churches in Turkey, a country of over 70 million people. About half of the churches are in Istanbul. Few of them have been in existence longer than about ten years. As a result, there are very few experienced pastors in Turkey. There are also very few Christian books available in Turkish, and none that I know of on the practical aspects of administering a church. That may explain why my talks on that subject were so well received.

In the last year I have been working intermittently on expanding my notes into a book that can be translated and made available to Turkish pastors and church leaders. It will be in three sections, on the pastor, the local church, and the wider church. This morning I hit a milestone. I finished the first draft of the first section!

I know what you're thinking. "You've been working a year, and you just finished the first draft of the first third of the book?" In a word, yes. And it feels good. If you've ever worked a long time of a big project, you can identify.

Please pray that it is useful, and that I finish the rest of it more quickly. (As many of you know, the biggest problem is setting aside time to work on it regularly.)
And please pray for God's work in Turkey.

St. Patrick’s Day Turkey

Our St. Patrick’s Day Turkey diner was an unqualified success!

March 17 was the only day Ali Pektash and Josh Wentz, pastors of our sister church in Ankara, Turkey, could make it to Annapolis to give us an update on what God is doing there. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and our ladies went all out: corned beef and cabbage, Irish potatoes, Irish soda bread, and green tablecloths and shamrocks everywhere you looked.

They don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s day in Turkey, but Pastor Ali really got into it. He asked for something green to wear, and somehow nothing was right for him until my wife Paula offered him her big round lapel pin that said, “It’s Great to be Irish!” Josh translated it for him, and sure enough, that was what he wanted. Needless to say, this Kurdish ex-Muslim shepherd from Turkey doesn’t have a drop of Irish blood in his body, but he wore that pin with a twinkle, and he didn’t give it back!

Somebody counted 138 people there for dinner (that’s a lot for us). They came from Trinity and at least three other local churches. Then there was David Hunter, who drove five hours from Pennsylvania. He had worked 17 years for the Lord in Turkey. He brought with him three other people, including a Turk and a Turkmen.

Pastor Ali later told me it was the best meeting he had ever been to. He said the people didn’t seem like they were at a church meeting; they seemed like they were at a family reunion. He was especially touched by the way everyone seemed to take a personal ownership in the Turkish church.

Ali and Josh explained that the greatest need their church has is to own a building, or at least a piece of land. Turkey is officially committed to religious freedom, but the few churches there face a good deal of petty harassment, especially from local government officials. Owning property indicates to the Turkish mind a degree of legitimacy and official status that would make much of that harassment go away. It would also save tens of thousands of dollars each year in rent.

When asked, Josh said that they could buy a good piece of property for about $80,000. If they had that, he said they would meet in a tent if necessary until they could erect a building. The first step is to acquire the land.

So that’s the prayer right now. The missions chair of another church was in attendance, and she was so moved that afterward she suggested that the eight or nine churches across the country that are involved with Josh’s ministry might work together to raise the money to buy that land.

In this economy, that sounds like a lot of money to me. But God can do it. And I expect him to. I just hope my spiritual ears are open enough to hear how he wants me to be involved. I’ve already had the chance to do some exciting things with the Turkish church, but I don’t want to miss any opportunity to be in on the ground floor of what God is beginning to do in Turkey, the Middle East, and the entire Muslim world.

Josh and Ali Are Coming!

I’m so excited! My son Josh and Pastor Ali Pektash, from the Batikent Protestant Church in Ankara, Turkey, should be arriving tonight. They will be joining us tomorrow for a special St. Patrick’s Day dinner at church. After that Josh will lead us in some Turkish worship music on his guitar – besides being co-pastor, he is often the worship leader at their church. I will get to join in on my flute, as I did when I visited Turkey last month for the leaders’ conferences. Then Josh and Ali will give us a presentation about the miraculous ways God is working in Turkey. I’m sure Ali will break into preaching (with Josh translating) – it just seems to bubble out of him.

Ali is an amazing story. Ten years ago he was an alcoholic Muslim construction worker. He often worked in cities far distant from his home village, not because work wasn’t available closer to home, but because he knew that when he was home, he would get drunk and beat his wife, and he didn’t seem to have any control over it.
Finally, in an effort to break free from the alcoholism, Ali joined some friends on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the most holy city in Islam. This pilgrimage, called the haj, is something every faithful Muslim is expected to do at least once in their life. Ali was not exactly a faithful Muslim, in the sense of dutifully practicing the religion, but he was desperate. He hoped that if we went on the haj, Allah would deliver him from alcohol.

Instead, Jesus appeared to him in a night vision. Jesus told him, “You belong to me now.” He told Ali to return home without completing the pilgrimage. Ali obeyed, and Jesus miraculously delivered him from alcohol. Now Ali is one of the very few native Turkish pastors in the nation.

Josh and his family (wife Julie and children Lucy and Moses) are back in the U.S. for three months, their first time home since moving to Turkey over two years ago. Ali came with them for the first few weeks. They are spending March in Indiana with Julie’s family, but Josh and Ali are driving to Annapolis today so Ali can meet with us here before he has to fly back to Ankara.

Ali is one of the most amazing people I have met. For that matter, so is Josh. I can’t wait to see them! I pray that many other people will respond to the advertisements and come out for the 6:30 dinner and 7:00 program. I know we will all be blessed.

It’s Hard Being a Single Christian in Turkey

One of the most moving conversations I had during my two weeks in Turkey was with four young men in a discipleship training program. Two of them are Turkish, and two are Iranian refugees.

As part of the conferences I was conducting for Turkish pastors and church leaders, I had been asked to address the pastor’s family relationships. I made that a panel discussion and opened it to questions from the listeners.

One of these four young men said earnestly that he was sure that what we were saying about the pastor’s wife and children was all very good. Unfortunately, he and his fellow students were all single. In Turkey it is hard enough to find any Christians at all, let alone young single Christian women. Did we have any advice?

One of my colleagues offered to send over some American girls – at which a single American girl who was visiting suddenly disappeared out the door.

Everyone laughed, but it was clear that these young men were very serious.

Another of the students added more information. They didn’t just need wives for personal reasons. Especially in the rural villages, it is very difficult for an unmarried person of any gender to be taken seriously as an adult with anything worthwhile to say. How could they get a hearing for the gospel without a wife and family to legitimize them as someone to be listened to?

I answered as best I could, encouraging them that God knows their plight and will provide for them if they pray. (You might pray for them as well, if you think of it.) But as I thought about it, I realized that for these young men, the decision to follow Jesus Christ instead of Allah meant more than just potential misunderstanding or even persecution. It meant cutting themselves off from 99.9% of marriageable females, and facing the very real possibility of years, even a lifetime, of singleness. Some people are called to that, but (I believe) very few. For the rest, which obviously included these young men, that’s a very high price to pay for one’s faith.

First Fruits

This is the first in a planned series of reflections on my recent two weeks in Turkey, leading conferences for Turkish pastors and church leaders.

In this land of 75 million people, estimates are that only about 3,000 are Protestant Christians. 99.8% of the population are Muslim.

I was privileged to lead conferences in the capital city of Ankara, and in the Mediterranean city of Adana. I also preached in churches in each of those cities. Each time I told them this:

I believe, and many others believe as well, that God is preparing a great harvest of souls for Turkey and the Middle East. In any harvest, a few fruits (or vegetables or grains or nuts) ripen first. These are called the first fruits. Then all the rest come ripe very quickly.

Those Turkish people who have come to Christianity in the past few years are the first fruits of the coming great harvest. Some time, probably not too far in the future, many thousands of people are going to come to faith in Jesus very quickly. Then they will say, “OK, now I’ve believed in Jesus, now I’m a Christian. Now what do I do?”

They will look around and see you (one of the Turkish believers I was talking to), and they’ll say, “You’ve been a Christian for a year, or two years, or five years. I just became a Christian. Tell me what to do!”

My purpose in leading these conferences was to help equip Turkish pastors and church leaders to prepare their people for that time.

My advice to them was, I think, also a good exercise for every Christian, in America as well as in Turkey. Here is what I told them. Next time you say a prayer, or read the Bible, or go to church, or try to do what Jesus would do, think about what you are doing. If a brand-new Christian asked you why you were doing that, what would you say? If they asked you to show them how to do it, how would you explain it?

You don’t have to be in Turkey for people to ask you about Jesus, and the practice of Christianity. It could happen to you tomorrow. Are you ready?

Two Miracles

Two great miracles are going on in my life right now.

At least, they seem like great miracles to me.

On Wednesday, January 21, my fourth grandchild was born. Malachi Jacob Wentz was born to my son Jeremiah and his lovely wife Becky in Belington, West Virginia. (It was also my father’s 80th birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!)

Sunday after church Paula and I drove to Belington to spend four wonderful days with Malachi and his big brother, Isaiah, who turned two on January 19.

I don’t need to tell you how special a newborn is. And I don’t need to tell you how much fun a two-year-old can be. We had a great time holding the baby, playing with blocks (custom-made by his grandpa – me), reading books, throwing snowballs, and generally enjoying being grandparents.

In one respect it’s all quite normal and natural. But I don’t care. You can’t convince me it’s not a miracle.

I’m about to embark on the second miracle. I have been asked to travel to Turkey to lead training. conferences in two cities for Turkish pastors. (You can read more about it by going to trinityannapolis.org and clicking on “February 2009 Newsletter.”)

For some people, flying across the ocean to be in on the ground floor of what God is doing in a country that is 99.8% Muslim may seem perfectly natural. Again, to me, it’s a miracle.

Not so much that it’s happening, maybe, but that it’s happening to me. How come I’m one of the lucky ones, out of all the thousands of pastors in America and around the world? Why am I so blessed to be a part of this amazing thing?

The only explanation I have, if you consider it an explanation, is that it’s just another example of God’s amazing grace.

Some people think you can only call something a miracle if you can’t find any other explanation for it. I disagree. I can explain how babies are born, but I still think they are miracles. I can explain how a seed grows into a flower, but I still think that’s a miracle. And I can see a logical progression of events working in my life to bring me to this place, but I choose to see God’s miraculous hand in it anyway.

I think miracles are a matter of perspective. Not that the real, supernatural, non-scientifically-explainable kind of miracles don’t happen. They do, and I’ve experienced them more than once. But I think, if you can see God in something, you can legitimately call it a miracle, at least in the wide sense.

And that’s how I like to see things. It lets me experience a whole lot more miracles. And that just makes the world seem brighter, somehow.