Book Review: You Were Born For This by Bruce Wilkinson

Bruce Wilkinson is best known for his Book, The Prayer of Jabez. In this book, You Were Born For This, Wilkinson focuses on the idea that God is looking to partner with ordinary people in order to accomplish miracles works in the lives of others. The main idea to understand in this book is the thought of a partnership between God and His followers.

This book is broken down into 4 parts. Part 1: Miracles are waiting to be completed through God’s people. We need to be actively looking for opportunities to be His miracle agents. God desires to use come people in uncommon ways for His glory. Part 2: We must be willing to whatever God wants, whenever God wants, to whomever God wants, regardless of our fear and discomfort. Therefore, we must take risks for God! Part 3: God provides you with multiple cues to deliver His miracles to others – so pay attention and be intentional to respond. Being God’s “Miracle Delivery Agent” begins with you and ends with God; focus on your role and trust God to fulfill His role. Part 4: While there are more than just 3 areas where you can deliver miracles, the primary areas are financial (helping financially), dreams (helping people realize their God-given potential), and forgiveness (releasing people from the prison of unforgiveness).

This was a good book. It was definitely an eye-opener to the reality that Heaven is not just a destination, but a place where God is working on an agenda. “Everywhere around us God has urgent work to be done. At all times He is looking for volunteers who will partner with Him. And He isn’t just passively on the lookout; He is actively, constantly, and passionately sending out request” (p. 41). If you fail to realize that God wants to use you, how He wants to use you or how to be used by Him, you need to read this book.

Mexico Mission Trip (3 of 3)

Overall, we were impressed with the partnership the BGCO has established with the Guerrero Baptist Convention. To make this a true partnership, they are pairing local churches in Mexico and churches in Oklahoma to truly work together to plant churches. The leader in Guerrero is organized, smart, prayerful, and strategic. Pastors of the church plants were eager to be about the work of the Lord and reach their communities for Christ.

While the whole region of Guerrero is being adopted, we are looking in and around Acapulco for our church plant. It was a bit odd knowing that we were to pick which of the 18 churches we visited pastors/churches we wanted to work with – the pastors we visited knew this was happening too! Fortunately, we had our dates set for 2013 and are working with a church that had already planned a crusade that week. There were several other pastor/church plants more than worthy to work with as well.

I was amazed by some of the stories of sacrifice being made by the pastors we met. One man moved from Cuba to Mexico (without his family, because he felt called of God to Acapulco – his family is try to move to Mexico legally). Several of the pastors moved their families to the neighborhoods they were trying to reach, giving up comforts of their own home for their calling. Pastors were gladly sending members to plant new churches without regard for how big their own church was. The pastors we meet we true Kingdom minded men.

This partnership will not be without its challenges though. Mexico is infamous for the drug cartels and violence associated with them. Many people are scared to travel to Acapulco for this reason, and although it is not nearly as bad as the media portrays it to be, it is a true concern. Also, we will have to deal with people wondering if you can really do a “Real Mission Trip” in Acapulco.

It is my belief that once people visit the city, see the people we will be ministering to, and experience the work God is doing all of this will be resolved. Until, my challenge is to pray for the 15 new church plants, pray for God’s provision and protection, and pray asking God what your role in His work in Acapulco should be.

Mexico Mission Trip (2 of 3)

Day 2 – October 23: Sam arrived the night before. We met for breakfast around 8:30, ate with 3 local pastors, and then our church plant tour. Our first meeting was at a weekly pastor’s prayer meeting. Although we arrived late, most every pastor waited for us. The wife of that church’s pastor fixed us lunch (some sort of fish with rice), and we were off. 

We visited 13 different churches that day. It was really encouraging to see the work being done in Guerrero. We did not venture too far outside of Acapulco as the majority of the population is located within a few miles of the primary city. It was nice to meet some new friends. We returned to the hotel worn out a bit after 10:05PM.

Day 3 – October 24: Our day started with breakfast, then we got picked up again by the church planting strategy coordinator for the Mexico Baptist Convention, Calet (he was our host the whole trip). The agenda was to visit 5 more church plants and continue to decipher how God was leading. Much like the previous day, it was constant moving from one church to another, taking time to visit and pray with each planting pastor. The primary difference was that the churches were further spread out. 

The final church we visited was on top the point of Acapulco. Community members do not consider themselves part of Acapulco. There were 120 homes in this neighborhood and it was also the latest target area for a church plant. One widow donated two plots of land to build a church, and a sponsor church is arranging to purchase two more plots of land. The hope is to create a retreat center for churches to use to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Day 4 – October 25: We woke up early and flew home.

Mexico Mission Trip (1 of 3)

The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma has entered into a partnership with the Baptist Regional Convention of Guerrero, Mexico with the hope of planting 15 churches by 2015.   October 22-25, Rick and I traveled with the Volunteer and Partnership Missions Director of the BGCO to tour the Guerrero Mexican state and meet some local pastors. First Baptist Jenks is considering a partnership to work with church plants in Guerrero, Mexico. The following will be a series of post detailing our trip and explaining what we are hoping to accomplish in our partnership:

Day 1 – October 22: We traveled from Tulsa to Acapulco. Our plan was to meet up with Sam Porter in Houston, and meet some Mexican pastors when we landed. Sam’s initial flight was delayed and he did not make it to Houston in time to catch the flight to ACA, then he missed his connecting flight in Mexico City, and ended up arriving over 8 hours late. Therefore, when Rick and I arrived at the airport, we simply went to the hotel and took it easy that afternoon. We got there around 3:45 and waited for Sam to arrive for dinner at 8:00, then found out he would not get in until after 10. Unfortunately, Sam's had a terrible day missing flights in OKC, HOU, and MEX, for us though it led to a pretty easy day since our tour guide was MIA... sorry Sam!

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 7

Today we started off in Monastiraki, which is the major tourist spot in Athens, to grab a quick lunch and a couple of things for our family. After a short period there, we hiked up to Mars Hills to a time of Bible study, prayer, and reflection. It was fantastic to have such great reason to praise God and to talk through our trip. For me personally, I also enjoyed working on my sermon for Sunday from that key place in Greek Christian history… hopefully, the message will be as inspiring as Paul’s unknown God message!


Anyway, once we finished our time at Mars Hill, we made our way to Holargos. Today was different at our main campus because the students were receiving their marks or grades. Due to “report card day” they did not have the usual sports programs, but we were able to talk to the kids and say our goodbyes for now.


At 5:00, Sophia (the primary basketball director) drove us to a school we had never been at before to allow us to lead basketball with those children. The kids in this program were in 2nd and 3rd grade (7-8 years old – younger than our normal group). Unlike the other school, all of the parents came with them and we had a brief time to meet all of them. It was fun playing with the younger kids, and being able to lead the entirety of the session. We were not expecting to be given the reigns in this school, but we were elated to do so – we will definitely have to think through some age appropriate drills for next time!


Another cool thing about today was that our friend from America that has recently moved here joined us today; his name is Ryan. He has a very good heart and great mind for how to Shine in this country. We are excited to see how God uses him here and what will come of our newfound friendship. Fortunately, we were able to introduce him to Sophia, and he might even be able to enroll his own children in the sports academy of Holargos! It would be incredible for them to have an ongoing relationship with the workers and municipality – please pray this works out!

Ryan was also able to meet Bill. We stopped by Bill’s restaurant and introduced them to one another. Bill has a very busy schedule, but we are hoping he makes time to study the Word with Ryan and develop a friendship with him as well – please pray for this too! Our time with Ryan today, playing with children, introducing him to our friends, and dialoging about our work here encouraged our hearts greatly. It is our hope to continue this partnership and watch what happens!

Whenever I return home, I will do a summary of our trip. As a final prayer request, please pray that God would bless us with a safe and uneventful trip home. God is good, and He is definitely moving here!

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 6

Today we started by going to my favorite place in Holargos, the local tennis club. For whatever reason, I find it to be extremely relaxing and enjoyable. The main worker there, Helen, remembered me when I came in and even asked if Christy was with me – pretty cool that she remembers her too! We visited for a little bit, but had limited conversation as the club was extremely busy. (Whenever we walk from one place to another in town, we have been trained to constantly pray for those we come in contact with, Raymond taught us that!)


Next we went to visit another friend over lunch, someone we had the opportunity to share with last May. As we came in, he was excited to see us (he knew we were coming). We spoke briefly before we ate, but spoke for a good amount of time afterwards. Long story short, he not only remembered our previous conversation, he had been thinking about it and reading his Bible. After going through the plan of salvation and what it means for Jesus to be Lord of your life, he thought about it and asked Jesus to be his Savior and Lord! This was so exciting!!!

Something else of note today happened on our way to the municipality, we saw a group of teenagers reading and passing around a Bible. We had no clue what they were saying, but we do know it was a Bible and we also know they were reading and talking about it. In the same way that God worked in the man’s heart in the restaurant, he can work in these teenagers lives as well! He is so faithful and so able to break through anywhere at any time through anyone for anyone! God is so much better and capable than we can imagine. The Holy Spirit is always at work in the hearts and lives of people, we just need to instrument who declare His glory and exalt Jesus.

After our incredible experience, we went to the school we work at and played basketball with the kids. Usually we will run drills or participate with them, but due to cold weather they typically cancel… However, today there were about 14 or so kids who showed up, “because they knew we would be there.” HOW AWESOME IS THAT!


Anyway, we played with them for a little over 2 hours and then had to leave… because Jamie got his lip all busted up! One of the kids accidently hit Jamie’s lip with his head going to a ball. Fortunately, we were able to get some ice from a local music café and stop the bleeding. The poor kid who messed Jamie’s face up felt terrible and profusely apologized. Jamie kept trying to reassure him it was not big deal and not to worry about it, but the guy still felt bad.


For dinner, we returned to the restaurant we ate at the other day with our friends Kostas & Catalina. Believe it or not, we order the goat again, with some pork as well. It was a good dinner and a fantastic day. God is good!!!


There are 3 other things you need to know about this day that are quite funny:
1. Jamie wore shorts today. He has been bound and determined to do so since we first decided to come, and today he did. Never mind that it was below 50* all day (except for 15 minutes, maybe). It was so cold, the sports academy in our municipality cancelled the programs… but Jamie wore his shorts. To his credit though, we did see 2 other people in shorts, in a city that has more that 5 million people! (Notice the heavy coats and scarves the people are wearing next to Jamie... who is in his shorts)


2. We saw a dude with a man purse or as Jerry Seinfeld calls it, a European carry-all!



3. Jamie got his tail whopped by a 10 year old… (ahem, suffering for Jesus) then proceeded to eat an orange in a quite humorous way.


(Goat, it's what's for dinner)
(A health club with an interesting name, Gym N' Tonic)
(The tennic club)

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 5

Our time in Athens keeps getting better and better. Monday we had an opportunity to spend the entire day in our neighborhood. We started off with prayer walking. Going through the municipality, and asking God for opportunities for His light to shine and for favor in developing relationships. We even had the opportunity to hike up a small mountain that overlooks Holargos for pray for the entire community.


We were surprised to find that a market was going on, and had the opportunity to walk through that as well. Since it is in the end of the winter season here, I was not expecting it, but it is always interesting to see the various people selling fruit, flowers, fish, clothing, and random supplies. By the way, non-brand name sweat pants will cost you 5 Euros, but knock Puma sweat pants will cost you 8, which really amused me for some reason.


The funniest part of the day was visiting Kostas’ office to mess with a lady named Effi. She is the person in the office who said she thought we were some sort of s-p-i-e-s. Kostas had given me some personal information about her to mess with her a little, and it was quite effective. We went into the office and I sat down at her desk. Immediately I asked her specific questions about her family and told her I had been watching her. She and her coworker (our friend Nikki) looked completely stunned!


I went on and told her, “I don’t think we have officially met, I am Jason Bourne and this is my friend Bond, James Bond” (referring to Jamie). Immediately they knew Kostas had let us in on her conspiracy theory and we all had a good laugh. This might seem like a small thing, but to me, it is huge in deepening our friendship and relationship with the people in Holargos.


Later on, we made it to the schools where we played basketball and participated in the drills with the kids. Sophia, the basketball instructor, was happy to see us and had us play games that would involve us with the children. It was really cool to see some of them who recognized us and were happy we made it over again. Not only did we interact during the scheduled academy time (5:00-6:00), we played for about 45 minutes before and 90 minutes afterwards. We had a great time and are ready to return tomorrow!

Dallas Mission Trip 09

Our church took a mission trip to Dallas in order to work with our partner church, Abundant Grace Community Church. It was an awesome trip where we saw over a dozen kids accepted Christ through a VBS. We were also able to update a great deal of their facilities, which was more fun than it sounds. During one of the nights, we also got to go a Ranger game. The best part of the mission trip however, was that kids were able to serve others in Jesus’ name. Those children, young and old, will always have the ability to remember how their parents not only talked about missions and loving God, they demonstrated it for them! Here are some pictures of the experience: