In 2005, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) received a desperate request by a young Ugandan from the Acholi Tribe for help as his community had suffered frequent attacks by the Lord’s Resistant Army (LRA).

My mother’s family is Danish, so I grew up with Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and play figurines.

The thing I love most about New Wineskins is the relationships. The New Wineskins Triennial Conference is often described as a “great family reunion” and the same is true for our yearly board meetings. I look forward to them all year long and always learn so much from my fellow board members. It is great to get out of my normal routine and see what the Lord is doing across all cultures and contexts.

“Passion for the Americas” was the theme of the Caminemos Juntos 2017 conference, a conference with more than 200 Anglican representatives from North, Central and South America held in Recife, Brazil, with the goal of catalyzing mission and church planting throughout the continent. This second annual gathering of Caminemos Juntos in South America brought clergy and a diversity of lay leaders from more than 9 countries together.

A few years ago, I was talking with a in sister in the Lord. We were discussing our work. I was in seminary. She was working at the movie theater. I’ll never forget when she said, “Well, I’m not like you, Lilly. I just work in the mall.” My heart broke a little. For Christians when we describe our vocations the words “I just…” should never enter the equation. Every Christian, a priest of God’s kingdom, His royalty on heaven and earth, is never just anything. We are all in service to the king. All of us, through our lives, relationships, and vocation are a critical part of his plan to save humanity and redeem the earth.

In just a few short decades, the global landscape has dramatically changed. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, an academic research center that monitors worldwide demographic trends in Christianity, estimates that between the years 2005 and 2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred - an average of 90,000 Christians each year.

It was a blazing hot day, our second clinic day in the village of Ntooma. The Gospel tent was buzzing with activity as our Ugandan evangelism and prayer teams were ministering to the clinic patients. Dr. Chris Keenan, the team dentist, led a ninety-year-old man over to our area. Chris explained that the man had a terminal tumor in his throat and that even back in the US there was nothing that could be done medically to save him. Chris, himself a strong Christian, knew that the best we could do was offer him the Gospel and prayer ministry. Chris also told me that the aged man had been candidly told the seriousness of his condition.

I confess that I struggle with perfectionism. It seems that even despite my best intentions to the contrary, I so often set up this image in my mind of what excellence looks like, and then I beat myself up as I struggle to attain it…or descend into shame as I inevitably fall short.

Bishop Leslie Newbigin argued that there are two world religions: the Christian faith and everything else. These two world religions can be summed up best as, “One in which we laboriously ascend to God and the other, in which God descends to us” (The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society). To laboriously ascend is to spend your life climbing a spiritual mountain. Picture God at the top imperiously looking down on his creation, while we climb to meet him, suitcases in hand. Backpacks strapped on.

We call it the 'Oh-No!' principle... that moment just after the Spirit stirs you with a genuine call of God... that moment when your flesh kicks in and pulls back on the reins. Moses had an 'Oh-No!' moment at the burning bush. Gideon had one when God called him into battle for his people. Most of the prophets initially responded to their own calls with an 'Oh-No!'. Peter had an 'Oh-No!' reaction when he heard Jesus describe the suffering that awaited him in Jerusalem. Maybe it's one way to see Jesus' own agony in Gethsemane.

Group 21. Jakarta, Indonesia. August 2016. The Lausanne Movements’ Younger Leaders Gathering was finally getting underway, and I was excited to meet my mentoring group of six up-and-coming Christian leaders from all over the world.

Last April I attended the New Wineskins for Global Mission Conference in Ridgecrest, NC. As I was passing through the lobby one day, I happened to see a small group of photographs on a table. Among the photos was one entitled, "God is Calling Artists To...", listing ways in which an artist can serve God. This one photograph by artist Beverley Roehr touched my heart and led me over the next ten months to paint a series of paintings on the journeys of refugees.

I’d heard testimonies and stories, but after experiencing firsthand what must be one of the most dynamic groups of Anglican churches, I’m more excited than ever to gather together in Brazil later this year.

These days you often hear about mission strategies, development, objectives, and programs. Effective ways of evangelism, business plans, mission statements, vision casting, and church growth. A few months ago, my husband, Bo and I had the opportunity to look at several different Anglican church profiles and mission statements. They had one thing in common: all of them had church growth at the top of their priority list.

We recently returned from a one month mission to Australia in which we saw God’s faithfulness abundantly. There were four of us on the team; Fr. John & Patti Sosnowski, Tina and me. The invitation to Australia came from our daughters and their husbands, Stacey & Simon Fua (missionaries with YWAM) and Kerry & Daniel Berris (who lead an Anglican Church plant).…

One cool Virginia morning when my daughter Kelly was about 12, I was driving her to a dentist appointment in an unfamiliar part of town. The road we were on was a divided highway with two lanes going in either direction lined by cement curbs. I wasn’t speeding, but I was looking at the buildings to find a street number so I could determine if we were getting close to our turn. These were the days before GPS.

Applause broke out the Sunday morning when it was announced that Ajay* had become a Christian. Ajay is just one of over one million foreign students that study in the U.S., and one of over 50 students who visited St. Matthew’s Parish, Ft. Motte, SC as part of our International Student Weekends. He opened his heart to Jesus after our church family opened their hearts, lives, homes, and church doors to him. BUT, what were students from China, India, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan, and Russia doing in the “mythical village” of Ft. Motte? How did a church in the middle of a cotton field launch a ministry that is having a global impact?

The flight home from a conference is always a mixed bag. A number of years ago, I returned from Plano, Texas, where we held our Anglican 1000 gathering affirming our commitment to new churches. I was full of vision and energy. Scribbling in a notepad on my seat-back tray, I wrote notes of new friends and old, ideas and vision, challenges and goals. Could there be a more exciting time for a minister of the gospel? We were planting churches!

What does it mean to be devoted to the Apostle’s teaching and why is that important for our spiritual lives?

It’s easy to compare the Old and New Testaments and think of missionary activity – the outward-focused spreading of faith in the God of the universe – as something new and unprecedented until Jesus’ time. After all, there is little evidence that Israelites traveled very far outside the Promised Land except as prisoners of war. However, a closer look at the Hebrew Bible shows that God had threaded mission as a constant theme throughout his word, and even into the very fabric of Creation.