Archives for February 2011

In the summer of 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelism was held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Amazingly, the coordinators were able to divide 10,000 believers representing 156 countries, meeting over a period of nine days, into small groups in order to develop a strategy for evangelism. These divisions were concerned with four basic thrusts, which included:

1. National strategy groups where the participants from a particular country met every day to answer two basic questions: How can we best complete the evangelization of our own country? What unique contributions does our nation have to make to world evangelization at this point in history?
2. Demonstration of evangelistic activity groups.
3. Strategy of evangelization study groups.
4. Theology of evangelization study groups.

The facts derived from this convergence of believers were several. The church is growing proportionally faster than the population in many parts of the world, such as Brazil, East Africa, and India. There are now more than 200 non-Caucasian, non-European, non-Western foreign missionary societies. There are still 2.7 billion people who have not heard the Gospel.

The results of this convocation have been multiple. Certain individual countries have been galvanized into activity. Perhaps just as important, the Lausanne Congress has reminded many that the household of God holds global implications.

Since that first meeting in Switzerland, the convocation has held two additional gatherings. The second occurred in 1989 in Manila, the Philippines. The third took place in 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen Mains serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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We have also taken our assigned place beside a dedicated minority who for 20 years have applied patience, creative ability, and creativity to the problems of the traditional church, which are only now beginning to reap results. It has been amazing to struggle locally with some lesson the Lord is teaching us only to discover that He is calling other test-tube congregations on a national level, though scattered geographically, without prior mutual communication, to the identical tutelage.

We are convinced because of the direct input on a grass roots level, as well as a comprehension of God’s Spirit blowing on a broader worldwide community, that windows are being thrown open, rooms aired, fires lit on the stone hearths, dry fountains plumbed, food stocked in empty kitchens, the front doors flung wide, gardens tended, people welcomed.

Each renovation makes place for the Spirit of Life to build also into human efforts, to tabernacle in this once-locked room, in this formerly dusty attic. Christians are growing into an organic temple. They are not satisfied any longer with being an inn for transient wayfarers who are mainly concerned about the business of their other world.

Once “household” has been reestablished locally, we will be able to make room for long-lasting mass evangelism efforts. We may even be able to reassume that task, this midwifery of the spirit, as one of the primary functions of the church.

Life Response

1. Close your eyes and imagine that shining household described in this chapter.
2. Imagine those starving, freezing, defeated people waiting for an invitation.
3. Ask the Lord to open the eyes of your soul to help you see the real people of your community who are longing to come in.

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Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Our house stands. It is there for all to see. It has been crafted in perfect intent by the Master Builder, but all too often the spirit of those within is feeble. Those who abide in these nearly emptied edifices can scarcely hear the cries of strangers beyond the gates.

Unfortunately, the efficiency of those “arms of the church,” the almost technological efforts of mass evangelism, have progressed far beyond the development of the “house holding” of God. Often the results have been tragic.

Children brought into any world, whether it be of this earth or of the spirit, will die if they are not nurtured in a loving home. It matters not where the fault lies. Too many evangelism efforts have remained unconcerned about their offspring, and too many churches have not experienced family to the degree that they were able to take care of their own offspring, let alone assume the responsibility for someone else’s child. Evangelism without a functioning household of God will result in a high mortality rate.

Several years ago someone said to my husband, David, that if the church continued in the lifeless pattern it had established, it would be all but dead in ten years. This was obviously an overstatement, but the Lord used those words to jog David. He resolved if that was true, he would dedicate his life to bringing renewal, in some way, to the church.

All our friends at the time were involved in evangelistic efforts and most strongly advised that the church was not the place “where the action was.” Despite this negative encouragement, David determined to steer our little family to serve in the church, and the inner-city, from which many Evangelicals had fled.

It has been our privilege to share almost every breathing moment with an intense, eager brotherhood who are dedicated to experiencing life within the church. Truthfully, we have fluctuated between tasting the defeat of “paradise lost” and the excitement of “paradise regained.” I will not pretend that being a part of any household can be an easy or instant success.

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For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Remembering Evalyn All, the old man took her hand again and pushed her closer to the iron fence.

“Over there. Can you read?” and he pointed to the cornerstone. She shook her head; she had never learned. “Maybe it’s jest as well,” said the wizened guide. “Gots the founder’s name chiseled in the stone. Celebratin’ for him tonight.”

Evalyn All looked at the people standing in the dark shadows of the night. Their faces were turned toward the light. Their silence was overwhelming: She heard a baby cry.

“Abandoned,” mumbled the old man to himself. “Yup, ’t happens sometimes.”

Evalyn turned her back and walked away from the light and the music and the aroma of fresh, warm, yeasty bread. She turned from the crackling fireplaces and the bubbling fountain and the laughter and the scarlet garments and went back home, back home, back to the shack by the river.

It was many, many years before Evalyn All walked again past the gate of the great house, the most beautiful house in town. When she did, she didn’t even turn her head.

Why are our efforts at evangelism often abortive? Because the church has lost the awareness that it is a household of God into which we are to invite the weary and downtrodden, in spirit as well as in body.

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Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen Mains serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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The old man grabbed her arm again and they stumbled to another place in the fence.

“Them! Them! Them what’s sad!”

Evalyn All could see. Hanging on the fence were people with tears streaming down their cheeks. They pushed and shoved trying to get closer to hear the music which seemed to be clearer on this side of the house, like a bell. Oh, how it lifted the heart! If only she could hear it better, but the old man had again clutched at her.

“Them! Them!” he chortled, a shriek rising in his throat. “Look and laugh!”

Evalyn All looked. Every inch of the fence was crowded by people. She had never seen anything so mournful in all her life. Nearby a small boy pressed his face between the bars of the iron gate, his tiny fists gripping tightly.

“What’s your name?” asked Evalyn All. But, there was no reply. The boy turned his face to her and, in the glow from the house, she could see that he was blind.

“Got no tongue neither,” came the grave voice of her guide. “Been mistreated. Happens all the time.”

“Fools!” the old man spat out. His voice narrowed and he whined, “Waiting for an invitation, they are. Never gonna get one.” The narrowness of his voice flattened, widening into indisputable hatred. “Not supposed to be this way. Supposed to invite us in. Supposed to come find us.”

“Who?” asked Evalyn All, numbed by her revelation of misery.

“Those what’s in the house, but they don’t even know we’re here.”

Evalyn shuddered. How could they not see—how could SHE not see.

“Jest too busy in their own house to look. WHYDONCHA LOOK?” he screamed. “Whydoncha look? Whydoncha?”

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Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

They sat in silence, the melody from the house floating around them, creating longing for dancing, for joy.

“Yup, useta come here every day when I’se a little guy. Ustah watch and wait and hope somebody’d say, ‘Whydoncha come in.’ But it never happened. Don’t come anymore. Don’t even wanna see the place ’cept once in a while, like tonight, for the celebration. But them, the wretches, they haven’t lost hope.”

“Them?” said Evalyn All. “Who do you mean?”

“Why, them!” shouted the old man. “Them, them, them!” He threw his hand toward the shadows and shades of the darkness.

Evalyn peered, her eyes squinting, but she could see nothing in the night.

“Come on! I’ll show them to ya,” he cried and impatiently grabbed her arm, dragging her after him.

Evalyn All stumbled in the blackness. The old man was  rough, not careful to protect her, as they rushed to the back of the house. The smell of baking bread began to reach her. Her knees buckled, but her companion was relentless in his pursuit.

“Them! Them!” he screamed and pointed. “Them’s the ones that’s hungry!”

Suddenly, Evalyn All could see. Standing by the iron fence was a group of people, emaciated, starving skin barely stretching over bone. They drooled at the mouth and sniffed at the air as though smelling enough would fill their hollows inside.

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For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Evidently, the house had been prepared for a great celebration. Evalyn could see garlands festooning the receiving rooms, and bright flags lining the driveway where highly polished carriages traversed, unloading their elegantly attired owners.

Suddenly light-headed, she sank down on a stone and rested her forehead in her hands. The lights in the house blurred and she felt weak.

“You’ll be all right,” said a voice. Startled, Evalyn All looked into the face of an old man, gnarled and misshapen. “Felt the same way myself, lotsa times. Cold and hungry and too tired to feel a blasted…” He stopped angrily in mid- sentence.

“Do you live…” Evalyn All started, but before the question was finished she knew it was impossible. The man wore clothes like hers, old and dirty.

“0’ nuh,” came the answer before she could finish. “Nuh, nuh, nuh. There was a time when I hoped, too,” and he sighed. “But I’m past hoping. Got ustah and like the way I live. Y’gotta have an invitation, y’know.”

Evalyn’s heart sank, because she’d been hoping too.

“Yessir. gotta getcha an in-vi-ta-tion. Them’s the rules.”

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Karen Mains has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

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The kitchen was in the rear, and if Evalyn All stood by the fence there, she could smell bread baking, its yeasty aroma saturating the air. It filled her nose and lungs and triggered a hungry ache in her empty stomach.

A marvelous fountain bubbled beside the back porch, and she was to discover that even in the coldest of winter it flowed, and frost scarcely iced its edges. Evalyn imagined how wonderful such clear and sparkling water would taste on the tongue, how it would roll over the palate, how its freshness might linger even after being swallowed.

As the days grew colder, the people in the great house exchanged their summer whites for garments of scarlet, warm flowing robes that protected them from winter chills. Evalyn All shivered through her daily pilgrimages. If she could just have one small taste of that fresh bread.

For days Evalyn All was ill. She burned with fever and often cried out something her brothers and sisters couldn’t under stand, “Please, please let me come in! I’ll be so careful. Please let me come in.” It was several weeks before she was strong enough to return to the gate by the great house, the finest one in town. She slipped out at night, while her sister was sleeping.

She had never seen the house so beautiful. A fresh snow frosted the cornices and eaves and spread a blanketed shimmer over the garden.

The lights of the house shone and glistened in reflection on the winter white. Fires crackled in the fireplaces. The massive front doors were flung wide and men and women walked to and fro, their warm scarlet cloaks protecting them from the cold air.

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Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen Mains serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Evalyn All was not from such a fine house. She lived in one of the shanties which crowded upon the backwaters. A small wood-burning stove heated the hut in winter—if there was wood—and water was drawn from the brackish stream outside, the conduit for the disposals of the towns and factories up river. Evalyn lived with her older sister and three younger brothers and a mother who disappeared for days, then reappeared without warning.

In her yearning for a better life, Evalyn All would go and watch the fabric of life woven daily around the great house. She would hide behind a bush near the gate and watch and watch, her big eyes observing even the tiniest details.

She noted that the clothes of the people were always clean. In summer they dressed in white. The piques and dotted Swisses and organdies of the little girls shone brightly in the sunshine and Evalyn wondered—How do they keep their things so clean?

One day a small boy fell on the gravel way. From her hiding place, Evalyn saw the gardener turn, gently wipe away tears, prepare a herbal salve, then bind the bloodied knee. She turned her back to the fence. The longing beating in her soul was too much to bear.

As the seasons changed, the foliage on the hiding bush fell to the ground. Suddenly Evalyn All discovered that she could be seen by the occupants of the great house and that none of them seemed to mind her presence. When one man smiled cordially and nodded his head in greeting, she took heart and walked to the very gate itself. Since there was no necessity to hide, she mustered enough boldness to walk completely around the iron fence.

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Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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