First things first

We were blessed to have Ajai Prakash, the semi-new pastor of Valley Church, and his wife Maureena over for dinner last night. It's always wonderful to get together with family you didn't even know you had! The beautiful thing is that even though we'd never met, we have fellowship through Jesus (we have the same Father). The Middle East house churches started this way too.

Ajai and Maureena accidentally planted more than ten house churches in the Middle East. I say "accidentally" because they didn't set out at first to be missionaries - they set out to make easier money than they would have in India and get enough to be able to afford a house. Both third generation Indian Christians, Ajai told me he started his missionary journey thinking that being a Christian meant sitting in the pews. His devotional life frequently resembled the two-minute drill that all-too-frequently characterizes ours. But God wasn't done with Ajai and Maureena.

Upon arriving in the Middle East, Maureena was distraught at the thought of not going to church. Asking around for directions, she was told, sorry, but she'd come to a place without churches. There were a few Christians that met together to pray, however, if she were interested. This koinonia in Jesus developed these Christians into friends, then into an underground house church. The church grew and grew until there were about sixty people in the Prakashes' living room on Sunday night (God had provided a house with an enormous living room - that the Prakashes did not much like at first - at half rent). Ajai would have to make trips to pick up the people who would come in his car (they would not risk a large herd of cars out front). They quietly sang in worship, but had to keep the volume down lest an Arab passerby hear them and call the police. Ajai, a teacher of English in a madrassah, was befriended by colleagues and his students' parents alike. Maureena was a trainer of nurses and became friends with the women with whom she worked. Along these relationships, the gospel moved. Underground churches began to grow and multiply.

Planting house churches would carry the Prakashes 4-6 hours each way out into the wilderness to serve in far-flung underground churches. As they had secular jobs, they did their ministry on their own time - which made their weekends a blur of dangerous travel along rocky roads deep into the countryside. They'd return home at 10pm on Sunday night just to get up and head to work in the morning. Yet they'd be the most refreshed people in the workplace Monday morning, by God's grace. And then they'd do it all over again the next week.

Anyone else amazed? They lived their entire lives for the advancement of the gospel. How much TV did I watch this week? Really?

It would take too long to tell you everything I learned from the Prakashes. Two things, however, I want to share with you.

1. The most important thing in all of life is your intimacy with God. Your marriage, family life, work life and ministry are all directly correlated with how good your relationship with your Father is. Yet we so frequently seek the aforementioned (and lesser things as well) before our Lord, the gift before the Giver. When we do so, we do it in our flesh and to our peril. We all know that building a relationship requires time and authenticity. Why are we so stingy with our time with God, as if scheduling a ten minute conversation with him once a day were sufficient to get to know him well? How would our spouses react if we treated them the same way? If we want to see change in our hearts, in our families, in our church, in our world, the first step is prayer and hearing from God through his Word.

2. Focus on internal growth in Christ. It's so easy to try to judge our fruitfulness by looking at the external. Man looks on the outward appearance, 1 Samuel 16:7 says, yet God looks at the heart. Work diligently to present every man mature in Christ and shepherd people into a deeper relationship with God, wherever they are starting from. If the internal is set right, the external will take care of itself. Mature disciples make more disciples. All we need to do is make mature disciples. And that starts with sharing the gospel with those we know well and helping believers grow in their faith.

I don't know about you, but I have a long way to go in growing to be dependent on Christ. The wonderful hope is that, if God can grow the Prakashes and use them despite themselves to share Jesus and plant churches, he can even fill and use a fragile, leaky clay jar like me too.

I challenge you to decide what you're going to do to grow closer in your relationship with God this week, and do it (I'm cutting the time I spend following the economy - and I'm going to trust God that if he wants me to know about something, he'll bring it to my attention). Post it here in the comments section. We'll hold you accountable!