Engelsen AdVentures: 16 Months of Experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

16 Months of Experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

Leslie/Todd: So much for keeping this blog current! It's been a remarkable 16 months - super typhoons, new partners, new office, and around the world in 80 days a few times over. Our 2014 theme was "Go. Extend the Kingdom." and that we have tried to do by remaining sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading. As we have tried to extend the kingdom, we have experienced a lot of it as well.

The word "kingdom" is used a lot by followers of Christ. We've worked with our volunteers and partners and friends to try to come up with a decent definition, and here's where we currently are...

The kingdom is a time and place where Jesus reigns, and as a result...

We honor and worship Him.
We live with sufficiency and dignity and in right relationship with each other and creation.
We have access to power to overcome forces of evil.
We experience the truly abundant life.
We joyfully extend this kingdom to others.

Perhaps when Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven coming to earth, He had in mind something like this.

These are unsettling days in our world. Children are being used as suicide bombers, new undetectable bombs pose a risk to airplane travel, and the person you stand next to on the subway could have just returned from training for some special mission. Yet in the midst of these days, I can honestly say we have been experiencing aspects of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

There are at least three dimensions to experiencing the kingdom of heaven on earth - the material, social, and spiritual.

For virtually all of us in North America, we experience the material aspects of the kingdom of heaven on earth every day. We read about heavenly mansions - if Jesus were to walk in to our apartments or homes, He would likely see them as such. We read about heavenly banquets - if Jesus were to open our refrigerators, He would likely see them as such. We have access to healthcare that allows us to recover from ailments that have killed people for centuries. We have much to thank God for in allowing us to experience the material aspect of the kingdom of heaven and to so easily be able to extend it to others.

Our material wealth sometimes leads to social and spiritual poverty - we don't think we need each other or God. It doesn't have to be that way. We have a wonderful global discipling community of PEER Servants volunteers and we are so blessed by the fellowship we have with each other across many lines - socioeconomic, racial, national, ethnic, denominational, age, and much, much more. We also have God's Word, His Spirit, and constant reminders from God's provision and watching God's people of what an amazing God we have, and we cannot help but worship Him.

So these have been 16 months of tremendous blessing amidst huge challenges and at times difficult circumstances. One of the many lessons we have learned from our brothers and sisters around the world is that one can still experience the kingdom of heaven on earth despite difficult circumstances. The much bigger threat to experiencing such a blessed life is when we put our will and our interests first, before God's will and interests.

May God enable each of us to seek His kingdom first and as a result to experience life as He envisioned it for us and for others to whom we can extend that kingdom.

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Meet the Engelsens!

We (Todd and Leslie Engelsen) lead PEER Servants — an organization of committed and gifted volunteers and staff dedicated to serving indigenous, autonomous microfinance institutions in the materially poor world. Todd is the President of PEER Servants while Leslie assumes many key responsibilities within the organization.

We met in Nigeria in 1998. Leslie had been in Nigeria for over 12 years at the time working in urban ministry — especially in helping materially poor women caught up in prostitution find new life in Jesus Christ. Todd had been working for almost 15 years at John Hancock as an actuary and senior officer and used his vacation time to come to Nigeria as a microfinance consultant to Rescue Fellowship Nigeria, PEER Servants’ new Nigerian microfinance partner. It was a match made in heaven — we married in 2002. Todd left John Hancock in 2004 to focus full-time in his responsibilities as PEER Servants President.

Living Simply

"Labor hard, consume little, give much to others and all to Christ." William Okoye, Pastor in Abuja, Nigeria

"Poverty is freedom. It is a freedom so that what I possess doesn’t own me, so that what I possess doesn’t hold me down, so that my possessions don’t keep me from sharing or giving of myself." Mother Teresa, No Greater Love, p.96

"The Lord owns the world and everything in it—the heavens, even the highest heavens are his." Moses, Deuteronomy 10:14 (NLT)

"To live a simple lifestyle means to live intentionally beneath your potential standard of living for the purpose of sharing your excess with others." Jeff and Judy Heath, Wycliffe missionaries in Chad (quoted in Simplify by P. Borthwick, p.148)

"We are not accustomed to denying ourselves in order to serve others. But Jesus insisted that discipleship is impossible without self denial. Instant gratification is at the core of modern life. Costly self-denial is at the center of Jesus’ way. We must choose." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.34

"If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it." Jesus, Mark 8:34-35 (NLT)

"The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. In 1960, the richest 20 percent of the world’s countries had thirty times more income than the poorest 20 percent. By 1990 the richest 20 percent had 60 times more! Since Christians own two-thirds of the world’s wealth, the majority of that top 20 percent were “Christians.” While we get richer, one billion desperately poor people live at the edge of survival. Millions starve every year. Tens of millions of these desperate people are brothers and sisters in Christ. That we tolerate their anguish is a sinful rending of Christ’s one body." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.79

"Nothing that you have not given away will ever really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, p.180

"But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you gave us first." David, 1 Chronicles 29:14 (NLT)

"My parents and their colleagues were caught up in the kingdom where God was the center. . . . This released them from self centered preoccupation with their own survival. Personal fulfillment and safety was a by product, not a goal in their vision. . . . They had a fierce joy in knowing that they were doing the right thing and that God was pleased. . . . Suffering was taking for granted and not something to avoid at all cost. . . . Simpler lifestyle was not something God had inflicted on us but something they had chosen for the sake of the kingdom." Kari Torjesen Malcolm, We Signed Away Our Lives, writing about missionaries in China in the early part of the 20th century

"Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength." Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-13

"With forgiveness, and the justice that flows from Christ’s compassion, the economic divisions that condemn some to deadly starvation and others to suffocating affluence can give way to wholeness for all." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.27

"Give me eagerness for your laws rather than love for money! Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word." Psalm 119:36-37

Suggestions for Simple Living
* Cultivate contentment, desire less.
* Resist covetousness and consumerism.
* Buy things for their usefulness, not their status.
* Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Benefit from places of “common ownership” (parks, museums, libraries, rivers).
* De-accumulate. Develop the habit of giving things away.
* Offer others the use of your possessions.
* Develop a network of exchange.
* Avoid impulse buying.
* Don’t buy now pay later.
* Avoid credit cards if they are a problem.
* De-emphasize respectability.
* Simplify your wardrobe–give away excess.
* Learn how to make do with a lower income instead of needing a higher one.
* Be grateful for things large and small.
* Emphasize a joyful life.
Scott Bessenecker, The New Friars, p.182

"Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." Jesus, Matt.6:19-21

"We must learn to give until it hurts and not hold on to our earthly possessions too tightly because we will always meet people who need our clothes, furniture, food & money more than we do. . . . We must make decisions every day about our lives and priorities, decisions not for ourselves but for others, decisions in agreement with God’s heart for the needy." Dave Andrews, Can You Hear the Heartbeat?

Engelsen AdVentures

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

16 Months of Experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

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