encouragement – Scotland Rising

Fear is a liar!

2 timothy 1.7

On Monday, I has the privilege of speaking to the Portknockie ladies guild. It was my first time to attend a ladies guild, but what a fun day it was. As it was my first time, and Portknockie is such a wee village, I will admit that I had fairly low expectations for attendance and engagement. Boy, was I ever wrong. These ladies take their guilds very seriously, and that was so refreshing.

I was invited to this event last fall, so I’ve had plenty of time to come up with my message and I didn’t really feel any sort of pressure or nerves as the date drew closer. I had intended to use my thoughts on the Lord’s Prayer (the podcast I did in January, for Radio Free Buckie) as it was a pretty easy message from a fairly well-known passage of scripture. Last week, as I was looking over my notes and praying about my time with the ladies I felt the Lord was leading me in a different direction than the one I’d planned to go in. In fact, I felt it was pretty clear he wanted me to scrap the Lord’s Prayer message entirely and talk about fear instead. What?!

As I was praying about the afternoon and looking over my notes, 2 Timothy 1:7 kept coming into my mind, “He has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but one of power, love, and self-discipline.”

Seriously?! Who was I to talk to anyone about not living in fear? I’m the kind of person who loves the adjectives, low-risk and secure. I don’t dislike change like many people do, but I don’t really fancy the idea of high-risk anything. Bungie jumping, parachuting, swimming with sharks, fear factor kinds of things that get your adrenaline pumping are absolutely, 100% not for me. I like certainty. I like organization. I like well-planned, well-thought out endeavors.

In the end, the Lord won, and I ended up talking about how fear is a liar. The kind of fear the Enemy whispers in our ear makes us focus on ourselves – on our intellect, gifts, skills, talents, as well as our shortcomings, anxiety, envy, pride, jealousy, fear, low-self esteem, and our past failures, and keeps us from fully relying on God to step in and shine through us. This kind of fear makes us plant our feet in the sand and say to the Lord, “I will go this far, and no further,” because we cannot control or manipulate the outcome. In our own strength and intellect, we cannot guarantee a win. And that’s the point.

Satan absolutely does not want you and I to be reliant on God to accomplish His purposes in this world. If I only allow myself to be used by God to the extent that I can accomplish the work on my own intellect, gifts, skills, and talents than I’m able to keep all of the glory for myself, and that’s not how God works. He works best through my weaknesses – in the times when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that without Him and his intervention, there is no way that I can do what it is He’s called me to do.

Without Him, I am not going to be able to talk to that person about Jesus. Without Him, I’m not going to be able to serve effectively in this ministry he’s given me. Without Him, I’m not going to be able to love people like he loves them. I’m not going to be able to be the kind of encouragement, or teacher, or prayer warrior, or life example He has called me to be. And that’s exactly what our Enemy wants from us – for us to be self-reliant, mediocre Christians who look only within ourselves for the ability to get things done for Jesus. Because he knows that when we act in our own power, on our own intellect, within our own gifts, skills, and talents we will be far less effective for Jesus than we would be if we’d just say, “Yes, Lord, whatever it is You want me to do, I’ll do. Where ever You want me to go, I’ll go. However You want me to serve, I’ll serve.” And then for us to fully trust in Jesus to show up and show out when He promised he will.

What about you? Has the Lord asked you to do something specific, and you’re pushing back because you know its way outside of your comfort zone?

~Brittan~

Revival? What’s that?

take heart

Missionary life is, in a word, difficult.

It’s not necessarily troublesome because we sold everything that offered us stability and a life in America. That’s scary, sure, especially when the time comes for us to move back. We’ll have to find a way to start over from scratch, but that’s a problem for another day, and one that can be solved fairly simply. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills, I have no doubt that when He calls us back to the States he’ll provide for our needs there.

Missionary life is not problematic because we moved thousands of miles away from everything and everyone we know and love. Ten years ago, that might have been a legit consideration, but thanks to technology and the Internet, we can talk to our family and friends every single day for free, if we like. And, we have made some beautifully dear friends here in Scotland, and leaving them now, or in the foreseeable future, would absolutely break our hearts.

Missionary life is not particularly arduous because we’ve had to learn and adapt to a new culture, new foods, new ways of doing things, a new language, new government structures, etc. To be honest with you, we positively love, love, love living here. A small town isn’t for everyone, but it is for us. A small church isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it is ours. A mature congregation isn’t often the target audience pastors and church planters set their sites on, but we serve here with gladness. We’re living out God’s purpose for our lives here, and you’re a part of that.

What makes missionary life so wearisome are unmet expectations in why we came here to begin with. As you know, we came here three years ago to help usher in revival. To reinvigorate the Church in Buckie – not just the Church of Christ, but the Church in general. We came to teach, preach, disciple, and proclaim who Jesus is and what he’s done for the human race. We’re here to help people understand the greater purpose for their lives, and to bring hope, help, and restoration to broken and hurting hearts and families. We came to see the Gospel transform a community in rapid decline. We came to help others who are on the same journey. We came to see Jesus move in mighty and undeniable ways…..and we’re still waiting.

We haven’t been resting on our laurels; hoping, praying, or believing that all we needed to do was show up and God would show out. We’ve been busy – praying, fasting, searching, working, and listening for the Lord to direct our path here, and He has.

We haven’t been frequently distracted by worries over money. When you live 100% on the generosity and faithfulness of others, money worries can easily overwhelm and terrify you. But the Lord has graciously given us absolutely amazing partners – that’s YOU! Because of your devotion to the work of the Gospel here in Scotland we have been able to share Jesus with more people than we can count.

When we moved here in 2017, I purchased a dozen NLT bibles to give away, and it took us two years to give all of them out. This past Christmas, we made an appeal for fund to purchase another dozen NLT bibles to be given out during our Christmas in Narnia events, and praise be to the Lord, y’all responded in a big way. In case you haven’t already heard, we gave out SIX of those bibles to new Believers in less than six weeks!! We’re planning to have a baptism service sometime in March to celebrate the decisions that have been made for Him because YOU helped us give away a Bible.

When we arrived at the Buckie Church of Christ in July, 2017, Sunday morning attendances fluctuated between 8 and 14 people, depending on what week of the month it was. On January 5, 2020 we had 30 people attending, with 10 folks out (traveling, working, or ill). In 2017, there were ZERO families with children coming to the church. Today, we have 6 kids who attend regularly with their families, and I can say with joy that their singing, laughing, and rustling sounds are breathing new life back into the dried out bones of the Church.

Yes, God is absolutely, positively, undeniably moving here! But it looks a whole lot different than revival does in America. And it certainly looks a whole lot different than what we imagined or expected. The Church here is decimated, numerically but also spiritually. The State Churches are so liberally minded and politically tied that they have become a roadblock to evangelical Christianity. State churches and many of the mainstream denominational churches hold the tenants of their denomination above the authority of Scripture; and where the two disagree these churches opt to uphold and proclaim their denominational creed over Biblical mandates.

There are pastors all over the country (including our wee village!) that openly deny the authority and inerrancy of the Scripture. They stand in their pulpits and preach a social gospel that feeds people’s egos and idols, but does not call for true repentance of sin, righteousness in living, or accountability to God’s authority as Lord and Saviour of their lives. These are good men and women, who love people and have a genuine desire to help others, but they are paving a path to hell that is being gladly followed by millions!

In this country, the Gospel is under direct attack from both that government and the State church. Traditional family values are under attack. The Bible has been disregarded and deliberately tossed in the rubbish bin in favor of political correctness, a false sense of tolerance, and whatever ‘gospel’ is being preached by the deepest wallet. Christians are being told by the government that we cannot call sin, sin. We cannot tell people their lives are a mess because they are living outside of God’s will for them. We cannot tell them that Jesus loves them and died for them. And that’s not just outside of our own walls….the government is now regulating what we say INSIDE our churches.

This week alone, the Scottish and English parliament’s have revoked Franklin Graham’s speaking tour of the UK; siting his views on traditional family values and same sex marriage as hate speech, which flies in the face of the political and social agenda of the UK. The Destiny Church movement in Scotland, offered their buildings as open venues for Franklin Graham to come and speak in, and the town councils where those churches are located have (at the behest of Parliament) issued immediate eviction notices to the Destiny Churches who are meeting in rented buildings within those communities. You see, Jesus and the Gospel are under direct attack here in Scotland and the UK. Christians are being openly persecuted for holding Biblical views and morals.

Recently, we announced on Facebook that Chick-fil-A had opened a restaurant in Aviemore, Scotland, despite having to close their location in England because of the LGBTQ uproar. The owner of the resort where the restaurant was opened has claimed to be a Christian and was prepared to take the heat because his customers had been so pleased with the service and quality to that point. I am sad to report, that restaurant has now closed down after being open less than 6 months because the political pressure the Scottish Parliament and their affiliates put on that business owner; simply because Chick-fil-A stands for traditional family values and support Christian based programs and initiatives. Satan is hard at work in the UK, using whatever means necessary to thwart the message and hope that is brought through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christians feel they no longer have a voice as these types of attacks build in momentum and frequency. The Church is discouraged. Evangelical pastors are tired and disillusioned. Satan believes he can smell the stench of defeat in the air and is gathering his forces for a mighty ambush, set to inflict a fatal blow.

What can we do if its this bad already? We wait. We watch. We pray. And we stay focused on the certainty of the task the Lord has set before us – to go into all the world, teaching and proclaiming the Gospel, making disciples, and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because only He can bring the gift of new life.

Because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross and the resurrection power that raised him triumphantly from the grave, Satan is an eternally defeated foe, and he knows it. But that fact does not stop me (and you) from conceeding defeat in our personal lives to the Enemy. When we become so focused on our own discouragments, unmet expectations, disappointments, and the skirmishes around us we deny the Lord’s power and provision that, “greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.” As Christ followers, the Lord did not call us to wallow in the hard, but he, through Jesus Christ, has given us the authority and power to boldly proclaim the Gospel until he returns again, despite the hard.

So yeah, revival is coming. Will it be easy? Definitely not. Will I see it in my lifetime? Maybe…maybe not. Am I allowed to get discouraged? Sure, for a minute or two. But then, I embrace the difficulties that come with being a Christ follower and I put my armour back on and join the battle again. What about you?

~ Brittan ~

Shepherd’s Pie anyone?

As many of you know, in January we kicked off our Sunday night services with a first century church approach. We begin each week with a common meal, usually something simple and hearty, like a bowl of soup and a dessert. Occasionally, I’ll switch things up and make a regional favorite like mac-n-cheese, stovies, or this week’s menu of shepherd’s pie for those who don’t love soup (aka. Sam!). After we’ve eaten we move into the worship center and engage in about 20 minutes of video driven praise and worship, and then Sam spends about 35-50 minutes teaching from the Bible. Our attendance has been running consistently in the low 20’s each week, which seems really tiny compared to most of our church partners in the States, but for winter time in Buckie it’s great.

This week was a bit unusual in attendance, we have a lot of people out ill with the flu and late winter colds. To be honest, the day could have been really discouraging had the Lord not provided encouragement for us in some unexpected guests in our evening service.

shepherds pie

Last night at 5:55 p.m. Sam, myself, and two of our faithful ladies were staring at each other over a massive pan of shepherd’s pie, feeling a bit disappointed that we were the only four who had come out for church. We knew in advance that a couple of folks would be out of town or at another church for a baptism service, but where was everyone else??? We could only assume the worst as I silently contemplated how many freezer containers I would have to come up with to ensure the 10 pounds of shepherd’s pie I’d fixed wouldn’t go in the bin later this week. As the four of us sat in silence the door opened and an unfamiliar face popped in – “Are you having a night service?”

Suddenly the room felt like it had been jump-started. “Yes! We’re just getting ready to have dinner. Please join us!”

“Oh, you’re having dinner? What time is the service, we can come back later?”

“No need to come back, we have plenty of food, and we’d love for you to eat with us.”

“Okay, let me go get my husband…”

A few minutes later we were joined by this lovely couple who live near Inverness. They happened to be in our area for a mini holiday and were on their way home when they passed by our building and saw our lights on. As we ate dinner together we learned that he is an ordained minister in the Free Presbyterian church in Scotland and he is not currently assigned a church but travels and preaches in a few churches ranging from Dingwall to Oban (on the West coast); and his wife is an American expat from Illinois who came to Aberdeen with the Rotary Clubs of America in 1990 to study for two years at the University. She met and married her husband and has been in Scotland ever since. It was fun to hear her accent, which is definitely not Illinois any longer but certainly not Scottish either.

Even though it was just the six of us we had a great time of fellowship, worship, and teaching. As I flopped in my chair last night at 9:00, having managed to get the remaining pan of shepherd’s pie into the fridge, exhausted and a bit despondent about the low attendance, Sam remarked that the couple told him they were blessed by our service and that they hadn’t eaten all day so the meal was an unexpected treat. Instantly, my heart broke for them and at the same time my feelings of self-pity and discouragement evaporated. We may never see this couple again, but I know that the Lord placed them in our path to encourage us, and us in their path to feed them.

Friends, we’ve been in Scotland for six months now, and while I would not say the honeymoon phase is over a lot of the glitz of a new ministry has worn off. Traditionally, February and March are the most difficult months here, and this February is proving to be a bad one for our community. Last week 5 people passed away from various illnesses. The previous two weeks before saw nearly that same number each week. Yes, the days are beginning to get longer by a few minutes each day but illness and seasonal affected depression are at their peak in our community just now. Morale is very low and it’s easy to make excuses to stay home and do as little as possible. The enemy is working overtime to keep people distracted, grief-stricken, and ill so they can’t or won’t come out and hear the Word taught.

Sam’s Sunday night teaching series is appropriately named – Game of Thrones. There is indeed a battle raging in our world for who will be King on the throne of our heart, and currently it looks like the enemy is making his move. What he doesn’t know is that we don’t give up that easily. We know who wins this battle, and the Devil’s time here in Buckie, Scotland is running out!

Oh, look…it’s time to get lunch sorted…shepherd’s pie, anyone?

He did it for us

the lords supper 1

**This was a Lord’s Supper meditation I wrote and shared with our church in October, and the words of it have stuck with me all month long. I wanted to share it with you guys in the hope that it will encourage and inspire you to be bold for HIM this Christmas season.**

I don’t think anyone would disagree with me if I said, the difficulty with death is the finality of it. Once a person is gone it’s too late to say that last goodbye, to take back angry words, to share family secrets, to impart words of wisdom, or to say, “I forgive you,” “I’m sorry,” “I love you.” Often the words we’ve left unsaid singe our soul with a regret that is carried throughout the rest of our life. I’ve heard many people at funerals wish for just one more hour with the deceased to make amends, say the words that were left unsaid, and purge their soul of regret. If only they’d only known their time was up…

As I was thinking about the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples I was wondering if he may have felt like many of us do about saying goodbye…if there was anything he wanted to tell his disciples before he would be taken from them?

So I looked through Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s accounts of the Last Supper, which are the model we use for our own Lord’s Supper time, and they all are pretty similar. Jesus and his disciples are in the upper room, Jesus offers a blessing for the bread and a prayer of thanksgiving for the juice, and he tells his disciples to remember Him in the same way every time they’re together. Pretty simple and straight-forward, and yeah, I’ve heard that version about two-thousand times in my life. Surely there has to be more to that last night than just dinner and a quick demonstration?

So back to Scripture I went, turning to John’s account of the Last Supper. I’ll admit, I was skimming through, glancing at the section titles for reference. I flipped clear through the book of John and was a bit confused that there wasn’t a section titled “The Last Supper”, so I flipped back through again, thinking I’d missed it somehow. But nope, nothing labeled “the Last Supper.” How odd…the other three Gospels have it, so why not John? I must investigate this further, so I started reading in John 12 and that’s when it hit me…there was so much more to that last night with Jesus than a few verses describing the Last Supper as we practice it, and Jesus’ final words and teachings to his disciples wasn’t just for their benefit, but also for ours. So let’s take a quick look at it.

So the first thing that Jesus does in that final week of his life is found in John 12 – Jesus spends some time with his dear friend Lazarus and his two sisters. Of course, he first has to raise Lazarus from the dead, but hey, he knew this would be the last time he would see his friend for a while, and his heart was breaking for his two sisters who he loved very much as well. So he raises Lazarus from the dead, they hang out and have a meal together, Lazarus’ sister Mary anoints his head with some expensive perfume, and the next day Jesus and the Twelve head down the road toward Jerusalem.

Bethany is only about 1.5 miles from Jerusalem, and raising Lazarus from the dead wasn’t something people saw everyday. John says that the news of that particular miracle had definitely spread up the road ahead of them. The already crowded road into Jerusalem was especially packed that afternoon with spectators hoping for a big show as Jesus and his disciples walked into town.

We know from the rest of Chapter 12 that Jesus makes his famous “Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” and then quickly tanks his popularity by telling these massive crowds that the cost of following Him would be much too high for them. He goes on to tell them in that same sermon that the time of ignorance about the truth of God had passed, there was no longer any valid excuse for man to not follow God’s plan, and those who wanted to truly be His followers would have to give up their life for the sake of His message. He states clearly to this massive crowd of people that he has been sent from God, that he is in fact the Son of God, and that judgment for the world had come because of His message.

Woah! If Jesus had been a politician the Twitter feeds and party polls would have gone absolutely bonkers, reporting a major downward shift in his popularity because of that statement. John says in 12:37 that in spite of all the miraculous signs Jesus had done – like raising Lazarus from the dead the day before, most of the people still didn’t believe he was the Messiah, which is exactly what Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before. I guess not a lot has changed in 2,000 years.

The next event John records is the night of the Passover feast, beginning in chapter 13 and this is where we start to see Jesus’ urgency in saying everything he wanted to say to his followers.

Jesus and the (120) disciples are all crammed into the upper room of house, preparing to celebrate the Passover. Jesus feels this first last command is crucial in the life of a Christ-follower, and knowing us as he does, he understands that he can’t impress the sheer importance of it and what it looks like in practice by simply talking about what it means to serve others; but actions speak volumes over words so he straps on a towel and goes around the room washing the feet of his disciples.

The entire point of Jesus’ teaching exercise, which is that in order to be a true disciple of Christ we must always humble ourselves and follow the example of Jesus by serving others first. No form of service is beneath us, and no anointing is so sacred or grand that it excuses us from any form of service to the Kingdom.

It’s at this point in the evening that the Passover meal would have been served. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about Jesus blessing the meal, breaking the bread and lifting up the wine, which is the same model we use in our Lord’s Supper each week.

Getting back to John’s gospel account though, at this point in the night Judas is revealed as the betrayer and in shame and embarrassment he leaves the upper room. After a quick discussion between the disciples regarding Judas’ behavior including some of the disciples promising they would never sell out, Jesus tells Peter not to be so pious in his devotion – that he’s going to betray the Lord three times before the night is up.

As the room settles into a stunned silence, Jesus, feeling pressed for time, takes the opportunity to impart a few more final thoughts with the disciples at large (the 120) – these are the things he absolutely wants them to grasp and remember.

He tells them to truly love each other, and that by doing so they will show God to a world who doesn’t know Him.
He tells them to trust Him, and also to trust that God sent him.
He gives them assurance about life after death by telling them he’s going to prepare a place where they can be together for eternity.
He tells them that God isn’t a mystery as some religions want you to believe – that anyone who loves Jesus and lives their life by the teachings and commands he gave, can absolutely know God because Jesus and the Father are one in the same.
Jesus encourages them with a promise that anyone, at any time in history, who believes in Him, loves Him, and follows His teachings will be able to obey the Lord and accomplish a life’s work for the Kingdom, just like Jesus did.
He promises the gift of the Holy Spirit who would continue to reveal the deeper Truths and mysteries of God to them so they (and we) would not lose faith in His message.

At this time during the evening, Jesus knows that Judas has betrayed him to the religious leaders and the Temple guard would be dispatched to arrest him forthwith. He knew the first place they’d come was to the room where they were now, and he wasn’t quite ready to leave his Disciples just yet, there was more he wanted to tell them privately, so he says to the eleven left, “Come on, lets walk for a while.”

As they’re making their way through the dark and crowded streets of Jerusalem, heading toward the Kidron valley and the Mount of Olives where Judas and the Temple guard finally catch up to them, Jesus continues to share with them his final thoughts.

(maybe they passed a vineyard and he uses it as an appropriate illustration – chapter 15) He teaches them the deep truth that apart from His Gospel message and a daily relationship with Him we cannot bear any fruit that is useful to the Kingdom. He warns them that those who do not love him and remain faithful to his teachings will be removed from his protection by God and will be thrown away to wither and die. He encourages them to remember that God carefully prunes those who are producing fruit so that they will be even more productive in the future, but not to lose heart during the pruning process – that the pain of pruning is meant to bolster the harvest, not destroy the vineyard.
He reminds them again that his deepest desire is for them to love each other, and that that is going to be the most effective evangelism tool they will posess.
He tells them plainly to get ready; the world is going to hate them. He says they’re going to be punished unfairly, they’re going to be criticized as false teachers, thrown out of the synagogues, beaten, imprisoned, starved, mocked, and even killed because of Jesus’ message, but not to lose heart because Jesus will be with them in the form of the Holy Spirit, and they will be able to testify to the truth of His message because they had been with Him from the beginning of his ministry.
He encourages them to remember that in a few hours-time they will feel like their world has ended, that the last 3 years was all for nothing, but not to lose heart, that joy will come in the morning!
And then he blesses them with his own gift – the gift of peace – and we know that’s a peace the world cannot understand, nor can it take that peace away from us. Because while His disciples will suffer in this world, and some will even be killed for his name, we can all will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus has overcome the power of this world and He is waiting for all his disciples beyond the temporary pain we endure for Him in this world today.

Now, these guys were a wreck at this point. John 16:6 says they were “grieving over what he’d told them.” So right there, in the middle of the road, Jesus just decides to have an impromptu prayer meeting for the benefit of the eleven men who were walking with him. And he prays this incredible prayer of empowerment over them.

And as I read through His prayer this week it brought me to tears because I know that Jesus wasn’t just praying for the eleven men standing with him on the street, but when he was praying that prayer he was thinking of me, and you, and every other person who would follow him one day.

And in this prayer he prays for our boldness and certainty – because he’s trusted us with this amazing message of hope, and he knows that we will be able to accomplish incredible things for the Kingdom, but we don’t always believe that.

He prays for unity of heart and mind among all those who would ever follow Him – that we wouldn’t be divided by legalism, church doctrines, and cliques, but that we’d all cling tightly to the original message that he taught.

He prays for his Father to teach us his word, to make us holy, to adopt us as sons and daughters, give us His name, and cover us with the same familial protection that he covered Jesus with while he was in this world.

He prays that his Father would protect us from the evil of this world, and that when we suffer we will not lose hope, and we will not turn from our faith in Jesus’ message.

He prays that we will not keep the amazing message of love, hope, peace, and eternal life to ourselves – that it is a message for all the world and that as His followers we will be quick to share his message boldly, wherever we go and with everyone we meet in order to bring glory to God the Father, and to Jesus his Son.

As we prepare to take the Lord’s Supper today, I pray that we will hear and understand Jesus’ last words to us. I pray that like these eleven men, we will not only remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, but we will think of these final words Jesus spoke to all of us. Words that have the power to change hearts, restore lives, and bring healing to a lost and broken world.