Friday, June 25, 2010

Missions & Discernment

Our holistic ministry center in Puebla is up and running and we have discerned with the help of Palm Missionary Ministries that it is time for Angelica and I to leave it in the hands of our capable young family members to carry on the vision. Palm's focus is to support national ministries without creating dependency. We will of course still be in contact with them and support them by sending artisanry from Chiapas for sale in Puebla. Meanwhile, we will be helping Pedro, a Presbyterian pastor, continue his vision for a Bible school among indigenous churches in Chiapas. He had been working over the past couple years when I first met him and we have developed a good friendship. The vision also involves Angelica who will return to her first love of taking medicine to indigenous communities where Pedro and I will be offering courses in Bible and missions.
Our move to Chiapas is the continuation of Dan's ministry over the past decade of leading groups through Jubilee Economics Ministries to indigenous communities there. He has developed numerous relationships of trust with these communities as well as groups who also are based in San Cristobal. Though there are many churches and non-governmental organizations there are no Bible schools with the commitment to bring serious Bible training and contextual mission classes to the area. We have already received our first shipment of books through the Langham foundation and anticipate a close relationship with them in the future.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support for our ever expanding ministry in the southern states of Mexico. You can send donations to our ECFA approved sending agency at:
Palm Missionary Ministries, Inc.
1315 Camp Sano Ave.
Coral Gables, FL 33146-1165
Sincerely in Christ,
Dan & Angelica Swanson

Monday, June 14, 2010

June update

Anniversary celebration of our little church in San Mateo... complete with a Christian mariachi... embroidery classes at the Center...





and of course our growing boy, Jacob Daniel...













Mission vision, strategy & practice

2010 is a year of remembering great events of the past and reflecting on how they have influenced us today. In Mexican history we are celebrating the bicentennial of Independence from Spain and the centennial of the Mexican revolution with Pancho Villa and Zapata. In missions history this month the modern Ecumenical movement remembered their beginnings in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. Later this year the Evangelical missions movement will celebrate their movement in South Africa. Each of these movements provided a vision, strategy and practice for missions during the XX century. If I could be so bold as to try to summarize these two movements it might go something like this:
Ecumenical movement: 1.) building the Kingdom of God on Earth 2.) supporting national liberation movements for political freedom 3.) nation building for the health, education and welfare of society
Evangelical movement: 1.) making the name of Jesus known among all peoples of the Earth 2.) supporting the growth of para-church mission agencies to accomplish this task 3.) amassing a huge global network of Christians, churches and agencies second only to the military-industrial complex of the US.
Then of course the Pentecostal movement started in 1906 in a small multi-cultural church on Azusa St. in Los Angeles with its impact being: 1.) preaching and doing works of the Kingdom of God 2.) planting churches as a result of evangelistic and healing campaigns 3.) a worldwide explosion of small grassroots churches and Christians who can testify to having been “touched” by the Holy Spirit with tangible results.
Each of these movements have had their dissidents from within aside from the often open hostility between them. As we begin the second decade of this new century each movement has begun to recognize the limited focus of each and how each could benefit from the others. Largely due to the dissidents within each movement conversation has happened between movements forming a new vision that could benefit from the work done last century. The summary of this new vision is also what is driving our ministry here in southern Mexico.
1.) Making the Kingdom of God visible on earth in imitation of Jesus
2.) Connecting Christians and Churches from across these three movements
3.) Doing mission in a holistic manner that includes the spiritual, physical and social
We invite your continued partnership and participation in the vision we have begun here with our holistic mission center in Puebla, Bible school in Chiapas and medical work in Oaxaca. It is a privilege to be living in such a time as this of movement and change but also a great responsibility to maintain close contact with those who are partnering with us. We pledge to you our commitment to being your faithful partners in southern Mexico accountable through our sending agency at:
Palm Missionary Ministries, Inc.
1315 Campo Sano Ave.
Coral Gables, FL 33146-1165

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Prophecy today...

Judgment in the Gulf
Woes and blessings of the oil spill.
Mark Galli posted 6/01/2010 10:25AM
Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, upon the fruit of the ground and the life of the sea, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. - Jeremiah 7:20 (paraphrase)
Many have destroyed my ocean, they have trodden my portion, they have made my pleasant portion a black desolation. They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole gulf is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. - Jeremiah 12:10-11 (paraphrase)
And the word of the Lord came to America, and said,
Woe to you, O consumers, who drive when you could walk, who lust for goods that must be flown and shipped from far away in oil-consuming ships of land and sea and air, whose way of life must be preserved no matter the cost to my planet or to those whose lives depend on its health.
Woe to you, O producers, who pile greed upon greed, who drill and pump and ship and refine black gold with little thought of tomorrow, and sometimes not even today.
Woe to you, O presidents and politicians, who have one hand in the pocket of big oil and another tied by self-preservation, who fear to question the American way of life, that addiction to comfort fueled by fuel.
Woe to you, O environmentalists, who lose sleep over shrimp that will vanish and do not remember the eleven created in my image who died in the explosion, who wax eloquent about the suffering salamander and are blind to the plight of those who suffer most when my earth suffers.
Woe to you, O activists, who write articles that cry out "Earth care!", who fly on 747s to conferences and taxi to fine restaurants to network for the environment, who put up online petitions that millions can sign, on gadgets shipped in gas guzzling transport from overseas, gadgets that depend on coal to boot up.
Woe to you, O churches of the land, who tithe and fast, who preach and pray, who grow megachurches in the twinkling of an eye, who care about souls but not the land on which they live, which I too have made and called good. Woe to you who trust me not for their daily bread, but look anxiously to smoke billowing diesel to deliver them from their hunger. Woe to all who lift up their eyes to call upon my name, but who do not look down at that which they destroy by sucking up energy in their spacious megabuildings and at international gatherings to glorify my name.
Woe to all who feel pulled between fate and necessity, unsure of their needs and wants, confused about facts and propaganda, whose left hand knows the pollution created by their right hand but still have to feed their families, who have eyes to see and ears to hear but who are powerless to change the world economy.
Blessed are those who repent not out of fear but because they believe the Good News.
Blessed are those who know that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," that they cannot ultimately destroy anything good I have created and over which I rule, who know that I am almighty and they are not, that I am the Lord still!
Blessed are those who know that I am a jealous God, who visits the environmental iniquity on their children and their children's children, even to the third and fourth generation, but also know that I am a God whose punishment does not last forever, that my wrath is only for a season, like that of a loving father toward his children.
Blessed are those who know that soon this earth will indeed be burned up, that the sea will be no more, and that the environment will pass away, not because of the folly of man but only in my gracious providence.
Blessed are those who know that they cannot save the planet any more than they can save themselves, no matter the extent of their good works, that I will create a new heaven and a new earth, just as I will clothe my beloved in imperishable bodies.
Blessed are those who have these truths written on their hearts, who know the promised future as a blessed present, who live with their God and their neighbor on the Garden called Earth as if the future were already so.
And the oil spewed forth for some forty days and forty nights, for the wickedness of the people was great, and the judgment of the Lord was upon the face of the earth.