This morning, I had a meeting downtown with the Executive Board of the Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals. I serve as the Vice-Chair to the GMAE Board and we meet together regularly to help plan and direct the strategic ministry of this organization. I just love meeting with these men and women as we seek to serve the Body of Christ to be a catalyst for evangelical cooperation in the Twin Cities. I am rather selective about my commitments outside of Bethany Church – but the heartbeat of GMAE is so aligned with the vision that God has given us at Bethany Church that it is such a logical connection for me.
As we talked today and evaluated the opportunities before GMAE, I was reminded again of the things that the Lord has been speaking to me about the Kingdom principle of the Mustard Seed. So often, in seeking to extend the Kingdom, we are sucked into the allurement of the things that are big and flashy and gain a lot of attention. The huge events with the huge celebrities and the huge budgets and planning that go along with them. But I am convinced more and more that the most effective ways to build the Kingdom are often in the things that may not get as much attention or appear as flashy. And may be overlooked or seem insignificant. But that is the principle of the Mustard Seed. The mustard seed was small, insignificant, overlooked – and Jesus was saying that that was the way His Kingdom was. How it was beginning with Jesus, his disciples (from Galilee no less) may have seemed insignificant and easily overlooked – but Jesus was saying, “make no mistake – this is the Kingdom. It may not appear much to you. But this little thing that seems insignificant to you is the Kingdom – and in time, it will fill the entire earth!”
I am finding myself drawn more and more to the things that may not get a lot of attention but are the “mustard seed” things in the Kingdom – like prayer and fasting, loving and serving the poor, preaching a simple Gospel message of Jesus and a call to repentance, the demonstration of the power of God in healing and deliverance – believing that these simple and easily overlooked things are what are going to build the Kingdom of God!

Tonight, Noemi and I had Mark Nysewander over for dinner. Mark is our former pastor at Bethany Church and was my boss for about five years. He now serves as an associate pastor at Riverstone Church in Marietta, Georgia.

Those five years alongside Mark were powerful years in my life – and listening to him teach the students at Bethany College of Missions this morning reminded me of how much of an impact he had on the formation of my theological and ministry perspectives.

So I got to thinking tonight…

What were the most powerful things that I learned in my relationship with Mark?

1. The Priority of Prayer. Most days, Mark spent the early part of his morning personally connecting with the Lord in prayer and worship. It was this pattern that helped him align his heart with the Lord’s priorities for his leadership and helped sustain him in the midst of some difficult days.

2. The Power of Fasting. This is something that Mark not only taught but demonstrated in how he lived his life. But the truth is that he has some incredible teaching on the power of fasting in the life of the believer. He has written one of the most thorough and helpful books on fasting called “The Fasting Key.”

3. A Slow and Steady Approach to Ministry. There is such a tendency in the American Church to go after the latest fad and to read the latest book on how to build a big and “successful” church. While Mark was always open to learn from what others were doing, he was never the pastor who was constantly running after the latest thing – he believed that a slow and steady approach to building ministry was the healthiest.

4. The Pursuit of Both the Power and the Purity of the Holy Spirit. He often talked about the dichotomy that has been created between those in the Pentecostal movement who go after the power of the Holy Spirit and those in the Holiness movement who go after the purity of the Holy Spirit. But the desire of the Lord is for us to go after both – to seek for both the power and the purity of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

5. Letting Go of E-Go. Perhaps it was a bit of a product of his age – but Mark simply didn’t have much ego. He didn’t run after the approval of man and didn’t care much when he failed to receive the credit that he deserved. He just didn’t have a lot of ego that tainted his leadership. I am very grateful to have seen a man walk with such integrity in that area of his life.