Fire On Your Head

This week we finally have James-Michael Smith on the podcast. James is the author of the blog Disciple Dojo and the book, You WANT To Be Left Behind: Essays On The Bible and Popular End Times Teachings, which is the specific reason I invited him on the show.

We had fun, and we covered:

• Matthew 24 and whether a third temple needs to be built or not in order to fulfill Bible prophecy.
• What are the strengthes and weaknesses of the different end times views
• And most importantly, why you WANT to be left behind and how those "taken" in the Bible were never raptured or spared terror.

I thoroughly enjoyed today's discussion and it's my prayer you will too.

Visit James-Michael's blog at http://jmsmith.org/.

This week I continue with my flow of thoughts from last week concerning making disciples. We hold discipleship as one of our main core values in our ministry Oikos, and seek to reproduce reproducers. Which is why we have a balance of informal and formal discipling. We spend time hanging out and goofing around with our disciples and those we're mentoring through things like movies, games, and eating meals together.

Likewise there's also formal stuff like teaching and Bible study, one on one times of mentoring, and so forth.

To properly disciple, I don't believe you have one without the other. For example, pastoring a large mega church can result in you having 5000 tithing members who attend your event every Sunday morning but that does not mean they're your disciples.

They're attendees. So let's unpack the image inside the seed of the Word of God and how discipleship goes from just passing on information, to imitation and innovation.

Related Articles:

Broken Views on Discipleship

The original Information, Imitation and Innovation blog post

Innovation in Discipleship

There’s really ONE specific thing Jesus commanded us to do: MAKE DISCIPLES of the Nations. Yet, depending on who you talk to, this is viewed as optional, or something only special people like pastors or missionaries do.

Today I share from my heart a personal 'kairos' moment that changed everything for me: my ministry focus, how I use my time on a weekly basis, who and what I focus my energy towards.

I personally don't want to wait until I've gone a few decades in life and say "you know, I wish I did this instead". I feel like I'm on the cusp of being able to make that my focus and learning from those who've gone before me, and take heed as to what they say is the most important thing to be doing with the short life we have to make an impact for the Kingdom of God. Whether that's on the mission field in Peru, closed places in Asia, or as a millennial in the workforce in North America.

Take the initiative and make disciples of those whom God has put in your path right now in your life. Not much else will last.

This week we finally release an interview I've been sitting on for a couple of months with Brian Guerin, itinerant minister with Bridal Glory International, and author of the new book God of Wonders: Experiencing God's Voice Through Signs, Wonders, and Miracles.

This episode flows nicely with what we've been talking about concerning the collective Bride of Christ and we get back to "the upper room" again.

We started off today with learning a little bit about Brian and his testimony, and specifically his experiences cultivating an intimacy with God and experiencing signs and wonders on a regular basis and we discuss God's supernatural provision.

Make sure you stick around for the prophetic word Brian has for his nation toward the end of the show.

When we look at family on mission, we see we are meant to function as an extended family on a mission together, to seek and save that which is lost. When the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost, the believers were in one accord praying daily and apparently sharing meals together. They were in the upper room...in someone's home. Not in the religious temple!

What if the emphasis is not and was not that God showed up in power that day to inaugurate his ekklesia (church, extended family) because they were praying, but because they were living and functioning together as an extended family, together in purpose and singleness of vision, and prayer was a natural fruit of that?

After looking at the Day of Pentecost through a different lens than you might have viewed it through before, we then segue into discipleship through something found in Song of Solomon 1:16-17:

"Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar; our rafters are pine."

When we are intimate with God in the secret place, we produce fruit, and in turn reproduce and multiply. When we abide in Him, out of necessity we will be helping Him build HIS house and not our own.

This week we finally have Dave Edwards back on the podcast and talk about some of the latest going on in theological internet land.

We recorded this episode a few weeks ago and the Left Behind reboot had just tanked at the box office, so naturally we get talking about it a bit and how much our eschatology shapes our worldview. Are our assumptions of end times correct?

Then we segue into first century church life and Dave's thoughts on organic church and recent revelations on revival.

Recommended Reading:

The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence (Kindle, Audible)

Supernatural: The Life of William Branham (Paperback)

From Eternity To Here by Frank Viola (Kindle, Audible)

This week I share directly from my heart something I feel the Lord had me put into this podcast. It's a challenge and hopefully an encouragement, asking you if you're obeying God's call on your life, or avoiding the conviction of the Holy Spirit in order to do your own thing. But not until after I share an exciting testimony that has happened in the last few weeks in Peru.

Blessings and fire on your head!

Today we chatted with a long-time fan of the show, and well-researched pastor and author Dr. Shane Wall. We start off sharing a bit about how today's discussion came to be and the interesting details that led to us being introduced to one another.

Dr Wall shares his heart for discipleship and seeing believers empowered to do the work of the Gospel themselves and not just follow a man. Then we segue into discussing is the newly-released book, Understanding: All Success Is Attained By It.

If you'd like to get a copy of the audio version, head over to audibletrial.com/fireonyourhead and get a copy free with your 30-day free trial.

Today I was privileged to have an interview with a friend and former teacher of mine in my days at FIRE School of Ministry named Bert Farias. He and his son Daniel recently co-wrote a book called My Son, My Son: Fathering and Training a Holy Generation.

Did you know over 95% of prison inmates never had any meaningful relationship with their fathers? If you've been in Christian circles for very long, you've probably already heard that this generation is a fatherless generation. Talking to Brother Bert and hearing his insights further underscored the importance of godly parenting, starting at a young age.

As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and Brother Bert shares a lot of powerful insights, especially geared at new parents such as myself. When you listen to today's show, you'll be listening to an older wiser experienced father share personally with a newbie and publicly with today's audience.

We also get Bert's thoughts on the controversial and divisive topic of spanking. Is it Biblical or is it abusive?

Check out today's episode, share it and check out Bert's book on Amazon or get a limited-time discounted if you order a copy from his site http://holy-fire.org/

Recently I was approached by Bryan Entzminger about being a guest on his podcast, Engaging Missions. As we talked, he let me share some exciting things about how mine and Lili's ministry has shifted over time on the mission field, and some of the amazing things God has been doing in the past few months. I think you'll be encouraged and inspired as you listen.

Apparently Bryan first found me through the Fire On Your Head podcast and really enjoyed it. He says he loved hearing how God was using our ministry to bring people to know Christ and to advance the Kingdom. His words also reinforce for me why, besides just interviewing other authors, it's a good idea to share testimonies and stuff that's going on in our life and ministry here in Peru.

Challenge, Revelation, and Current Ministry

Like everybody, I've had a number false starts and failures. These are the things that missionaries don't often share when they're visiting churches and seeking support. They don't always want to talk about the disciple who walked away from Christ or the ministry outreach that they had to shut down because it wasn't bearing fruit. In my journey, it took nearly five years for me get to where I THOUGHT I was headed when I started out – involved in a ministry school, teaching the Word and making disciples. I may not have articulated it or had the same vision coming here in 2009 as I do now looking forward, but along the way there have been a number of things that have changed and some false starts that I share in this interview. In fact, it's been just recently that we've started to see significant fruit in Chorrillos, Peru as I've been blogging about.

Check out Engaging Missions if you'd like to hear more discussions with the various missionaries Bryan has interviewed.