Gilson Family News

Jonathan is on mission to Orlando this summer, and loving it. He’s part of a creative arts ministry team, reaching out to youth and children in local churches, and at least once a week also doing performances and sharing their faith at one of the popular Orlando tourist attractions.

Sara and Lisa are once again taking part in the local mission trip to Lackey. In teamwork with a friend from the African-American church we partner with, Sara was able to help lead a 14 year-old boy to the Lord just a couple of days ago. This is the third annual mission to Lackey (map), and members of the team say they are sensing an increasing openness to the Lord there each year.

Thank you for praying for our recent (and continuing) work with the Christian Embassy to the United Nations. My colleague Clark Hollingsworth and I were able to gain a good overview of their ministry, including areas of potential growth and challenges they face. One of their most interesting challenges is how to tell their story, for purposes of fund-raising and recruiting staff members. The staff there shared several stories with us of significant ministry in the lives of diplomats from all parts of the world. These men and women are world leaders being influenced for Chris. In many cases they are actually becoming followers of Jesus Christ.

We’re working with them on ways to communicate their message, along with other ways to help them obtain resources they need for ministry. They have plenty of opportunities for ministry, but they could use more help in the form of staff members and funding.

Josh McDowell, Basketball, pneumonia…

Josh McDowell is in town for the weekend to share with parents and youth in Williamsburg. Our office team arranged for his coming, and we’ve been excited about this for months. His ministry is to help people understand what God says to us, and that it is trustworthy and true, as we live in a culture with an opposite message. That understanding is not only mental but relational, as Josh continually emphasizes, and the way it is passed along is not only academic, but it too is relational.

But it’s a busy weekend in many ways. Lisa Ann’s last Upward basketball game ever is tonight at 7:30. Both of our kids have been doing Upward every year the last ten years, and it’s hard to believe either of them has grown too old to play next year–but in fact now both of them are there now! So we don’t want to miss this final game, a kind of passage through time for our family. Which means we’ll miss Josh’s talk this evening.

He’ll be speaking at the Williamsburg Community Chapel tomorrow morning, and the family plans to be there then. I (Tom) have worked with Josh and his team extensively, and I would be finding ways to spend some time with him in between family events today, except that the pneumonia I’ve had since mid-January is still with me. It has me running at about half speed, or sometime less. I’m scheduled to see a specialist about it first thing Monday morning. Please pray that he will get it figured out, or that God would heal me even before that time.

Please keep praying for Jonathan, too, as he is studying Spanish at the community college while also taking his normal high school load of classes; and pray for Sara who has to manage all of us while I’m not at my best. Thanks!

Many thanks to all of you who have prayed for me with my pneumonia, and who have sent congratulations to Jonathan for his Student Service Award. We both appreciate it a lot.

When somebody at church asked me last week whether I was back to 50% strength yet, I answered, “I’m at about 100% strength, 50% of the time.” That’s still the case–I’m doing well enough, between frequent rests. It’s a slow process to get to full recovery, apparently.

In one of those “100%” periods today I had the privilege of spending a couple of hours with the leaders of International Cooperating Ministries, helping them think through improved strategies for their online ministry, including delivery of their Mini Bible College. ICM is a partner agency in the sense that its goals are closely aligned with Campus Crusade for Christ, and our leaders have had close fellowship.

I want you to know especially of thoughts I have had on Christian strategy on another level altogether: what seem to me to be four priorities for the church in America for effecting the kind of change we pray for. This week Breakpoint Online published my article on this, called Deep Social Change: Four Essential Priorities for 2009. These priorities are not the only ones that could be named, of course. They are specifically focused on positioning the church for deeper spiritual impact and greater credibility with our message. I hope it will be encouraging to you. If so, please pass it along to others.

We all appreciate your prayers and partnership so much!

This was a news and prayer email we just sent to members of our ministry partner team, including prayer partners. We have some exciting news to thank God for, and a prayer request.

The great news is that last night Jonathan was honored at a School Board meeting with a Student Service Award, based on excellent leadership he has taken at his high school. Mom and Dad are extremely proud of him, and Lisa told the board members during a break, “He’s the best big brother in the whole world!” Jonathan’s web design accomplishments were read during the presentation. As we were leaving, another county resident who happened to be there gave Jonathan his card and said, “Please call us, we’re looking for people like you to work with us.”

Actually he’s a busy young man right now. His high school is a small one that does not offer languages. He took the first semester of Spanish through home schooling and tutoring, and passed the test to enter the second semester at the local community college. One of our goals for him in this was that he would get a preview of what college is like. He is certainly getting that–he’s studying longer hours than he ever has. So please pray for him to stay caught up.

The other prayer request is for my health. I was one of many around here who caught bronchitis this winter. In my case it turned into pneumonia. The main symptom I’m having is being tired, and being tired of being tired (cabin fever, you might say). I should have asked you to pray for this sooner, since it’s been going on over 10 days now. Please pray it will pass quickly. Sara and the kids have been great during this period when I’ve had to lay low.

Thank you for your prayers and partnership–we’re praying for you, too.

Tom

I am scheduled to speak at two churches in the local area next week, on Monday and Wednesday evening, November 10 and 12. Please pray that God would be glorified and the listeners would be challenged in their faith. These are also for the purpose of finding new ministry partners to help support us financially, so please pray that God would bring that about as well.

Tom’s article on leaving legalistic religion behind has just been published in the November-December issue of Discipleship Journal. Unfortunately it’s not available online, but the magazine is sold at most major bookstores.

Here’s Life Inner City

• Tom just completed a strategic planning session with leaders of this nationwide ministry. HLIC is partnered with over 1,400 urban churches in America providing compassionate aid, after-school mentoring programs, leadership and character development programs for adults, and training in ministry for church leaders. All of this comes in the name of Jesus Christ and with an explanation of who He is.
• Our strategic planning work focused on developing a younger generation of leadership, on recruiting, on making HLIC’s expertise more broadly available and widely known, and more.
• In the process, Tom also brought a potential part-time team member along to orient him in ministry strategic planning and explore the possibility of him helping in the future. This proved very positive, and is likely to expand our own team’s effectiveness over the years to come.

Bright Media Foundation

• Brad Bright’s newly revised God Is the Issue: Recapturing the Cultural Initiative has just been mailed to 10,000 pastors in the U.S. now. (Our team was closely involved in strategizing for this and other Bright Media Foundation initiatives.)
• This book is not yet available for sale to the public, though soon it will be.
• Tom has spoken and written on this topic recently, and has submitted an article on it to a nationally known outlet. (A link to the talk will be added by Tuesday.)

Ministry Partner Development

• We are concentrating for several weeks on strengthening our team of ministry partners and our financial support for ministry.
• At this time we are in need of approximately $900 in new monthly support.
• The President’s Office matching grant is still available for new ministry partners, or for increased pledges from current partners.
• We are very encouraged by the progress we’re making, but we have considerably more distance to go with this.
• Our prayer is to see the full $900/month pledged by the middle of November.
• Please contact us if you have questions regarding the matching grant.

Community Ministry

• Sara is leading a women’s Bible study, helping them to understand basic and not-so-basic truths about faith and about God’s work in us through the Holy Spirit.
• She continues to be involved with youth through a local Christian club in Lisa’s school.

Family News

• Jonathan is learning Spanish through an independent study/tutoring program; he’s doing well in school.
• Lisa is having a great year, enjoying being in band and in stage band. She just submitted a homemade video to the PTA’s “Reflections” contest. She shot and edited it. The subjects of the video were Jonathan and a friend, both of whom have become rather accomplished jugglers.
• Michigan State (we’re all fans) is having a great football season!

We’ve just reached the halfway point on our $12,000 matching contribution opportunity! Thank you to you who have helped get us this far.

For clarity’s sake: we’re not yet halfway to our current goals for new support development this year. The total need was greater than what will be matched.

Nevertheless we are celebrating a milestone, and thanking God for his provision.

Tom is preparing again for strategic planning with Here’s Life Inner City, only this time with a larger scope than before. Last February he met with the Youth Development sector of Here’s Life Inner City; this time it is the entire national planning team for the ministry. These meetings will be in Baltimore, Sept. 22-25. He’ll be bringing along a long-time friend, Dave Fackler, to help with planning and possibly become an occasional future partner in more projects like these. Dave already has plenty to do as an assistant director of Keynote, but he has graciously agreed to come, participate, and see how God leads.

Meanwhile Sara is helping to start up the First Priority club at Lisa’s middle school again. We’re devoting extra time this month, and probably through most of November, to developing financial support for our ministry. The matching funds opportunity is still there for new support, and we want to take full advantage of it. Thank you for praying with us.