August 2005...
From Julie...
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
I don’t know about you, but the longer I seek to follow our Lord Jesus, the more and more I am called to be in prayer. Not that this is easy. Nor do I have the spiritual gift of intercession. Yet this is a choice of obedience.
There is time that many of us set aside in our daily routine to read a passage of Scripture, think about it and then pray about its application in our lives. Then we usually pray about those people important to us, our own concerns, and perhaps national and world issues. I pray mostly when I am driving by myself around Albuquerque, doing mindless daily tasks at home, and when I am exercising.
How about you? What extraneous noise can you shut off or shut out to make a difference in your own life and the lives of others?
It’s Hayes Huskies time again!
Hayes Middle School began at 8:20 a.m. on Monday, August 15th. Open House is Tuesday evening, August 23rd. The Principal, Jimmie Lueder, and I are still in dialogue as to how the Center for Success can best meet our students’ needs this year. To refresh your memory, I began as a parent volunteer at Hayes when Stephen was an eighth grader. I became the director of this alternative classroom the following year, raising my own salary through the community to work a three-day week. The following year I became so sick that the Center was closed.
This past year I worked exclusively with our regular education students in mathematics. This was at our principal’s request because of the “No Child Left Behind” mandate. It worked quite well even though my degrees are in history, education, with a minor in Spanish! Many of Hayes students know that my LOVES are literature, geography, world history, and having fun.
I appreciate your prayers as Mrs. Lueder and I meet to discuss the Center’s direction on Wednesday, August 29.
Long-time Mission Friends...
For the past ten years, I have had the great opportunity to serve a mission called OMS. In fact, outside of our own Church Resource Ministries (CRM) mission, there is no group in the world in which I have invested more training hours. They have given me access to train national leaders in their work in many countries.
In July, I was able to do some teambuilding with their Missionary Council, made up of the leaders from every country in which OMS works. While you cannot see faces well in this picture, know that the group represents at least 25 countries where God is at work through this group of godly men and women. God is extending His Kingdom through real people, both through you folks reading this at home and such groups as OMS.
Thailand Re-Visited in July...
While I cannot be specific for security reasons, God continues to give favor with a 
large mission that works in many closed parts of the world. Having spent time with leaders from different regions of this group in Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Kazakhstan recently, and soon in western Europe, I took a second fast trip to Thailand in July to finish the “official” mentoring process with two people who are now trainers in the Grip/Birkman Blueprint resource. L & S (pictured) are already training 80 others within their group, soon to impact hundreds of others throughout Asia.
Dr. Ford, tell me again why this Grip/Birkman Blueprint thing is such a big deal. God has given us a way to help Christian leaders and teams to be more intentional in using the power of their spiritual gifts to build and to extend the Kingdom. By training coaches, and now trainers of coaches within specific ministries, we are multiplying the ministry so that it is no longer dependent upon me. Because of the multiplication of coaches in the first two years of this process, close to 500 people have been directly affected, and that number will continue to multiple exponentially from this point forward. L & S are the fifth and sixth “trainer of coaches” to be certified. Look at their impact already! Greater stewardship of Kingdom gifts means more power released in sharing the Gospel....
I get really scared...
...when people start talking about how God told them to do this or do that. Well, fasten your seatbelts, friends.
On the way home from Istanbul, Turkey in late April of this year, the Lord deeply imprinted Isaiah 50:4 on my heart and mind: "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary."
I said, "Lord, who are the weary?" At that point I was overwhelmed with the sense that the weary are Christian leaders, those to whom I am called worldwide. What am I to do about this, Lord? The clear sense that came is that I am to write a prophetic word to those leaders specifically in the U.S., to share what He has taught me in working with leaders from around the world. It is time... Suddenly I started writing an outline. The last eleven years of the main content of my work appeared in that outline form in ten minutes. I was dumbfounded.
I believe the Lord has asked me to write a book to lift up, sustain, and to call out those weary evangelical leaders in the United States. They are living under a yoke of drivenness created by what I call the ladder mentality that dominates the American management-style, vision-driven culture. This ladder has taken many leaders away from God’s primary calling in their work – to equip and release the saints for the work of ministry. I am to sustain the weary, and the Lord will give me an “instructed tongue” to do this (see passage).
Please pray for me as I grab windows of time to write this treatise. Those of you who know me well understand that I am not a typical “research and write” author. This is hard work for me, and I covet your prayers. The full text will be written by Christmas, alongside my normal workload of ministry. I have six people who will help to edit the book and another 16 who have offered to be readers for content. Please pray.
Where would we be without them?
Thank you David Singh, Michael Mangum, Gordon Adams and Tal Mangum (Michael’s wife, not pictured), you who make up our present Board of Encouragement.
