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A Word from Steve Jones: "My TOP THREE Virtues in Life… see our Current Edition of Thrive Magazine"9/19/2016  Dear pastors, missionaries, chaplains and friends, Steve Jones here… I was traveling in my car chatting with my son about an issue. I was “waxing eloquently” and sharing my frustration about this problem that I was dealing with. Alec stopped me and reminded me of my “three virtues” in life. I knew I had done something right as a father when my son reminded me what I had been teaching him for years. Some time in my mid-twenties I decided I would live life guided by three prominent virtues. There are, of course, many other virtues and I certainly seek to be honest and kind and many other things, but these three virtues I especially value. My boy reminded me to “suck it up buttercup” and look at my problem through the filter of these three virtues. Thank you, Alec… that’s my boy! The big three are: 1. LOYALTY 2. GRATITUDE 3. COURAGE  Loyalty: I believe loyalty is crucial in life. Loyalty to my Saviour, my wife, my children, my family, friends, staff, colleagues, nation and the everyday commission. I have told my staff through the years that if they ever hear something that I reportedly said about them that is cruel in nature, either the messenger is dishonest or they got bad information. I’m loyal to them. One of the most crucial elements to nurture loyalty is being truthful and trustworthy. In Kouzes and Posner’s book The Truth about Leadership they write: “The truth is that trust rules. Trust rules your personal credibility. Trust rules your ability to get things done. Trust rules your team’s cohesiveness. Trust rules your organization’s innovativeness and performance… trust rules almost everything you do.” (pg. 79) “Building the structure of trust begins when one person takes a risk and opens up to another. If you’re the leader in the relationship, that person needs to be you. You need to ante up first.” (pg. 79) Gratitude: In a Christianity Today article, Dr. Michael Zigarelli, Dean of the School of Business at Regent College, wrote of an incredible discovery after studying 5,000 Christians. He found out that the one deciding characteristic that revealed whether or not a Christian would experience God’s love, joy, peace, patience (fruit of the Spirit) was GRATITUDE. The research was rock solid. Here’s what he wrote: “Gratitude does all this by setting a new thought context for processing our circumstances in life – a context of an abundant life. A context where everything we have is a gift. A context where we see clearly all that we really do have in life, and where we recognize that things could always be worse. Within this context, our view of the entire world is different and we are suddenly empowered to be the people God calls us to be – to more deeply love God, to love our neighbour, and to love our own lives.” Courage: I’ve been a “war buff” since I was a kid. I have a library of books and documentaries on war. My son and I have walked the beaches of Normandy and visited Vimy Ridge, Dieppe and other monuments in Europe. I heard stories of the bombings from my mom and dad who grew up in Britain during WWII. While pastoring, I loved visiting members who had experienced battle. I am fascinated by acts of courage and heroism. I have learned that courage is not the absence of fear, it’s acting despite that fear.  God told Joshua three times in the first chapter of the book of Joshua to “be strong and courageous”. That’s only the first chapter. God would tell Joshua again to be full of courage. Is courage important? God seems to think so.
In their book, A Leader’s Legacy, Kouzes and Posner write, based on their survey research of many people around the world, that courage is essential. Their seminal thought about personal courage is: “It takes courage to realize your dreams and give meaning to your values. If you are going to leave a legacy of lasting significance, it’ll be the result of acting courageously. You can’t plan to be courageous, but you can choose to act that way. Courage is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible.” (A Leader’s Legacy, p. 132) Thrive Magazine’s “VALUES that Revolutionize Keep your eye open for the Fall edition of Thrive magazine which looks at VALUES. In this edition, we look at the seven values found in the Fellowship’s statement of mission (“We are the Fellowship” Direction Document). Discover how our movement of churches is demonstrating how we operate to fulfill the mission and vision God has called us to accomplish. I hope the stories will both encourage and inspire you. Have a blessed week, Steve Jones  Dear pastors, missionaries, chaplains and friends, Steve Jones here… One of my daughters spent the summer working in Parksville, BC, on an organic farm. My city-girl working as a farmer – and loving it... never saw that one coming. I had a chance to visit her and during one conversation she told me she had found a copy of C. S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity. What I enjoyed was her body language, which indicated she had found a treasure in some used book store. She was loving this book. A new generation introduced to a Christian classic. Few Christian books have influenced more people in the 20th century. Lewis sought to explain and defend those doctrines common to all Christians no matter their church affiliation. He called them the “highest common factor”, or “mere Christianity”. The book is logical yet emotional, assaulting the mind while massaging the heart. It provides an explanation for most of life’s questions and resolution for many of life’s problems.  Lewis was raised an Anglican in North Ireland. He was wounded as an artillery officer in the First World War. He became an atheist and logician at Oxford University, but in the 1920s he discovered that reason was leading him back, step by reluctant step, to the Christian faith. He was not excited about becoming a Christian, but was, as he said, “dragged kicking and screaming” into the Kingdom of God. He wrote at the time of rich apologetic writing by other British notables. Before him was G. K. Chesterton who became a Catholic. Contemporaries such as poet T. S. Elliot, detective story writer Dorothy Sayers, and fantasy novelist Charles Williams were all espousing Christian beliefs and values in apologetic ways in their literary works. I’ve read them all, and people are still reading them. Interesting that not one of them was a theologian.  C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity continues to influence. It was reading Lewis’ work (Great Divorce) in prison that pointed Charles Colson to the Christian faith, and he became a very articulate apologist for evangelical Christianity. Reading Mere Christianity was monumental for Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers Baseball Club. It influenced him to sell everything… the helicopter, mansion on Lake Huron, yacht, Frank Lloyd Wright collectables, and vintage vehicles. He sold Domino’s Pizza in the 1990s for an estimated $1 billion and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to charities. It’s amazing the influence one book can have. The power of the word. The impact an idea or vision can make. I’m looking forward to chatting with my daughter after she finishes Mere Christianity. Her enthusiasm stirs my heart. I’m certain she will teach me something important. Have a blessed week, Steve Jones   Dear pastors, missionaries, chaplains and friends, Steve here… Imagine baptizing the first convert to Christ EVER in one city. Yes, the first in 2000 years — since Jesus walked the dusty roads of Judea. I witnessed that event a few weeks ago. In the past couple years our Fellowship International ministry has supported our churches in sending two couples to an extremely difficult part of the world to begin pioneer church planting in the region of Extremadura (literally means “extremely hard” in English) in southern Spain. I’m pleased to share that the Yingers and Castros have recently reported their first conversions and baptisms. We are very excited and praise God for this fruit! Thank you for praying. Ken Yinger had met Salva this past year, soon after his conversion to Christ — an amazing story. Salva (Salvadore) has been a professional psychologist for many years, but was diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune inflammatory disease that has ended his career and severely limited his health and mobility in recent years.  It was through the reading of God’s Word that Salva recognized his need of Christ for salvation. He was saved and has become an effective evangelist in his town. Ken has been meeting with and discipling Salva. It was during one of their meetings that Salva realized his need to be baptized. They agreed that his baptism would occur when all of Ken and Cathy’s missionary colleagues were present to witness this momentous event. It would occur in the public community pool (beside our hotel) so that the community might also witness something very foreign to these religious Roman Catholics. I asked Ken if this might be the first believer’s baptism ever to occur in this town, to which Ken responded that there was no reason to doubt that this was the first baptism to occur in Encinesola in 2000 years. This area of Spain is very underevanglized, with only 0.1% of the population identifying as evangelical Christians. I encourage you to CLICK HERE to watch a one-minute video of Salva’s baptism with Ken Yinger and Ricardo Castro officiating… it is wonderful! Keep praying for Ken and Cathy Yinger and Ricardo and Ingrid Castro as they share Christ and, Lord willing, establish many local churches in the years to come. They work with hard ground and need our prayer support.  An example of this happened recently while Ricardo was seeking to befriend a man in the town of Bienvenido. The man was interested in the Gospel and asked to be discipled, but his family became aware of Ricardo’s conversations with him. One of the man’s brothers visited Ricardo and said he was one of seven siblings, all of which would protect their brother from Ricardo’s influence. He mentioned he was a journalist and would write negatively of the Castro’s small church if Ricardo did not leave his brother alone. By the way, “Bienvenido” literally means “welcome” in English. The town of Bienvenido is a tough place to share the Gospel. Please keep praying for the Castros and Yingers!  Have a blessed week!
Steve Jones |