Today is Day Three of the Church Planting Movements Seminar being hosted here in Amsterdam by our church.  There's been a lot of great dialogue, and it seems like everyone has been stimulated by the experience.  But we've still got a day and a half left... and I'm interested to see what will come of it all.

Out of all the material that we've covered so far, honestly, I've gotten the most out of a simple Bible study on Luke chapter 10, which we did together yesterday (Thursday) morning.  During the session yesterday morning, we were given 20 minutes to study the chapter on our own, and then we had about 40 minutes of sharing our findings with each other.  In particular, we were supposed to look for principles about who is recruited for the task of "gathering the harvest," how these harvest workers are to be supplied and sustained, and what kind of implications might there be for spiritual battle in the midst of gathering this harvest.

And for me, as I read, I was struck by the "qualifications" (or lack thereof) for God's work.  As you read through Luke 10, it's amazing to see that it's not the responsible, grown-up, "qualified," properly-trained, officially-appointed people who seem most ideally suited for God's harvest work.  On the contrary, it's the young, inexperienced, ill-equipped outsiders who Jesus uses.  If you read at the beginning of Luke 10, you can see that the workers are drawn from a rather extensive (and not at all selective) sampling of Jesus's followers:  namely 72 people (not including the 12 disciples) who had been following Jesus for a maximum of three years.  And in fact, throughout the chapter (including not just the story of Jesus sending out the 72 but also the story of the Good Neighbor and the story of Mary and Martha), the terms used to describe the admirable ones -- the ones Jesus praises and selects for his service -- are things like lambs... dependents... little children... Samaritans (the modern equivalent in the West might be "illegal immigrants")... and slackers.  God can -- and wants to -- use the most ordinary people to accomplish the most extraordinary things.

Ultimately, I simply felt challenged that I need to expect more of -- and entrust more to -- those who are fresh in the faith and young.  Or another way of thinking about this is to realize that these workers may be lambs -- but incredibly, they have power and authority over the wolves in their midst... They're something like Ninja Lambs (at least, this was the joke yesterday morning).  And while it's intimidating and illogical for me to think in these ways, it's also incredibly encouraging, and it brings me great joy to think about the implications for life and ministry here in Amsterdam.