By Enoch Haven, Frontline Arlington

It is hard to believe that I have been working at Frontline Arlington for 7 Months. Time, and nearly everything else, moves quicker than normal in Washington DC. I continue to work with the Connect Team at my congregation in Arlington, and I am excited about how this ministry is progressing. I have also started regularly meeting with several volunteer leaders at my church for support and discipleship. In addition to praying for them and hearing their ministry concerns I am also walking through the book The Master Plan of Evangelism with a couple of these men.

On February 17-19th my church will be going on a Winter Retreat at Massanutten Resort, and we are currently preparing for this event as a staff. In addition to working with the Church body at Frontline Arlington, I have also been spending a good deal of time doing ministry with the students at Georgetown University in Washington DC. MBC hosts a weekly service at Georgetown, and is very involved on the campus.

On January 14th I was able to attend a retreat with the student ministry leaders at Georgetown where we planned out events for the upcoming semester. Just before Christmas, Pastor Edward asked me to consider leading a team of Georgetown students on a mission trip to Haiti. I excitedly said yes, and on March 3rd I will be flying to Haiti for a week with a group of about 10 students. I have already had two meetings with the team, and we will be meeting weekly for the next month and a half in preparation for our departure in early March. As you may recall, in early 2010 an earthquake caused a huge amount of damage to this already impoverished nation, and two years later, the effects of the quake on this tiny nation can still be strongly felt. During our time in the country we will be working with an organization called Mission of Hope. This is a large ministry which seeks to serve the country by working in disaster relief, providing food, and educating children. MOH also has a medical clinic, and recently opened a facility that creates prosthetic limbs for those in the community. I encourage you to check out the MOH website for more information about the work they do in Haiti. www.mohhaiti.org

Tonight I am heading to another meeting with my Haiti team. Please pray for us as we prepare for this adventure!

Me at the leadership retreat with Cody, a Foreign Service Major at Georgetown University. I will be traveling to Haiti with Cody.

Submission is a troublesome word, isn’t it? There are few other words that provoke as much consternation in our culture today. For Americans who pride themselves in self-determination and independence, submitting to the will of another doesn’t exactly come naturally. While submission to supervisors may be temporarily tolerated because we want to get paid, we often take the first opportunity to escape such authority. Advertisers seek to exploit this fact. I couldn’t even count how many “home based businesses” I have heard marketed with the tagline “Be your own boss!” This cultural aversion to authority exists just as strongly within the Church as it does outside the Church today. None of us want to submit to someone else.

Most of the discussion in the church about submission has focused on Paul’s command for wives to submit to their husbands in Ephesians 5:22. While it is certainly important for us to correctly comprehend and apply this passage, I fear that our overall understanding of submission has been somehow distorted by our inordinate focus on this one context. Wives are by no means the only people called to submission in Scripture, and men are certainly not exempted.

There are numerous places in Scripture where followers of God are commanded to submit. For example, in James 4:7 we are told to submit ourselves to God. The command to submit to governing authority occurs in 1 Peter 2:13 and in Romans 13:1-2. The apostle Peter also encourages submission to those who are older in 1 Peter 5:5. Paul calls all believers to submit to each other in Ephesians 5:21. The author of Hebrews also orders submission to church leaders in 13:17. Submission may not look the same in each of these situations, and a call for general submission does not cancel out a command for specific submission. The issue of submission transcends the gender debate, however, and we do an injustice to fellow believers when we only talk about submission in marriage.

These passages and others make it clear that submission is a key part of God’s plan for every believer today. Most of us don’t like that fact. Our American desire for independence runs deep within us. After all, our nation was founded through rebellion against a foreign power. Postmodernism also brought with it, a strong distrust of those in authority.  It is culturally understandable that we do not get excited about submission, but whenever our cultural instincts outweigh our spiritual obligations, something is wrong. The thread of submission has been divinely woven into the fabric of the Christian life, and those who attempt to remove it do more damage than they realize.

Submission, when correctly applied, is an essentially Christian value. Salvation itself depends on our submission to Christ as our Savior and Lord. One cannot become a Christian without first admitting guilt and submitting to God for salvation. As followers of Christ grow to love Him more deeply, they will see greater and greater portions of their life come under His authority. When we personally experience this, we will realize that some of God’s greatest blessings come through submission.

How, you may ask, is this issue of submission playing out in my life right now? There are two specific situations that come to mind. Firstly, each intern is required to submit to the guidelines of the Future Leader program. Among other things, we must read assigned books, turn in time consuming journals, avoid taking college classes, and resist dating anyone else in the program. While not all of these things may seem objectionable, I can say with certainly that each of us in the program have at times been frustrated by the structure placed on us by those in leadership.

I have personally experienced submission in the relationship I have with my manager. Since Pastor Edward is in authority over me, he has the ability to choose my work priorities. Even when I would rather be doing other things, it is my responsibility to submit to his requests. Pastor Edward is neither domineering nor unreasonable, but the truth remains that I don’t always want to do what he asks me to do. Specifically, I was not excited when he first asked me to create the bulletin and update the website each week. I was also not thrilled about leading the Connect Team when he asked me to take the reins. Even though I was internally resistant in these areas, my responsibility was to submit to his leadership, and I have continued to do so.

After being in my position for six months I still don’t get excited about some of the things I am required to do. I can say, however, that some of the biggest blessings I have experienced in DC have come through my submission to those in leadership over me. While submission to human leadership can be frustrating because those in leadership are sinful and broken, I am convinced that God uses these situations to cause growth in us that would not occur otherwise. This has certainly been the case in my life. Although I will always struggle with it, I am learning to find joy in submission.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
Revelation 21:4

I am the first one to admit that I do not truly understand hardship or suffering. I am also the first to admit that my life thus far has been one characterized by comfort, shelter and abundant provision. While I am deeply thankful for the ways the Lord has provided for me thus far, my eyes have drifted to those around me that suffer in ways I cannot pretend to understand. We spent some time in Future Leaders discussing suffering in the lives of missionaries Hudson Taylor and Adoniram Judson. My life has not been the same since.

The biographies of Taylor and Judson were such riveting and eye-opening accounts of two men who truly understood what it meant to live in reckless abandon for Christ. They were two men, who faced suffering, obstacles and hardship, but continued running the race because of their unshakable faith in Christ. They were two men who died to their own desires and surrendered their lives to be vessels of the Lord to live worthy of the callings they have received. Both men blazed the trail for international missions work. However, the man that truly rocked my understanding of blessed suffering and patient endurance was Judson.

Judson was the first American missionary and he spent his time in Rangoon, Burma. After a childhood of questioning Christianity and turning away from God, a host of experiences deranged his world and he could no longer ignore the truth of the Gospel, weight and power of the Almighty God and mercy of Christ. He realized his calling to be a missionary as the Lord ignited his heart to share the Gospel with a group of people in South East Asia that had never heard the name of Jesus. Judson met hardship and suffering every step of the way. His trips across the oceans were characterized by storms and sickness. He had to wait six years to see the fruit of his service and teaching in Burma. He was jailed in cruel conditions and treated brutally for months during the Anglo-Burmese War. He watched so many loved ones die to sickness and in weakness. He lost his first and second wives. He lost so many children. He watched as so many of his fellow missionaries died. There were so many seasons of darkness, depression and utter desperation in his life, and the ones previously listed do not even scratch the surface.

Yet, he pressed on to finish the race. This man was courageous. He pressed on to translate the Bible from Hebrew to Burmese. He continued to share the gospel with his Burmese community, even if though it took years to see his first convert. He also tediously worked to write an English-Burmese Dictionary for those that were to follow him. But what is most remarkable about Judson is that his courage was not founded in his accomplishments, in his goals or even in himself. Rather, his courage was founded in an understanding of who Christ really is and the unrelenting hope of the Gospel.

Thankfully, this type of courage did not die with Judson. I see courage every week. I see courage in the eyes of the families I work with, that have a child with disabilities. Yes, I see courage in the eyes of the child, but I see it even more in the eyes of the parents. I see it in the eyes of those entrusted with these precious lives, the parents that had to learn very quickly that life was no longer about them. I see it when parents joyfully squeal when they finally get the care provider they have been praying for. I see it when a dad reaches down, tells his daughter he loves her, though she cannot verbally reciprocate. I see it when a mom explains to me that the girl he has been praying for every Sunday for months is a girl they have empowered him to sponsor in Guatemala. I see it when dad physically restrains his son to prevent another violent outburst, and immediately after the melt down, showers his son with gentleness and unconditional love.

Their courage and joy is out of this world—literally. Their focus, like Judson’s, is not on their present hardships, but on a hope that can only be found in Christ and in what is to come because we are saved by grace. There is hope in a perfect Savior, who redeems us and makes us righteous before our Father. There is hope in keeping our eyes fixed on things above, to a place and time when death and mourning shall be no more. There is hope in knowing that the former things of this world, the pain, suffering, loss, tears, heart ache, separation, desperation, hunger, and sickness will all be made right when we are in perfect union with our Maker. That is hope. And while that hope does not eliminate present suffering, it unshackles its grueling and excruciating grip, and by God’s grace, we can press on to finish the race set before us, knowing that this present suffering does not compare to the glory that will be revealed in us. Until then, by the grace of God, I hope to strive to follow these examples and live in reckless abandon for Christ. And I will wait expectantly and in anticipation for the day my Lord calls me home, and on that day, the former things will pass away and there will be perfect reconciliation and union with my Father.

We are now accepting applications for the Future Leaders Class of 2013. Please see the “APPLICATION PROCESS” tab and download the application. The deadline is February 25, 2012.

We cannot wait to see how the Lord leads those to apply and what He teaches them through the process. Pray for us!

The weekend of September 16-18th Frontline had its annual fall retreat. This was something that was mentioned here and there in July when I first started working with Frontline and became more familiar to me as September drew closer. Each week since my first month here seemed to bring the fall retreat planning more and more into action until it was the only thing we were working on just a few weeks prior.

When it came to talking about what the theme would be and what the speakers would be sharing on, there was much excitement in my heart. It was decided that we would be talking about biblical change and how it is not only possible for the believer but promised. Since it was decided, and from the moment we had been planning, I was just so thrilled to know that Frontliners would be encouraged by what it means to have a life transformed by God and changed to bring him more glory and at the end of the weekend we were all one step closer.

We had the privilege of hearing Mike Kelsey (Frontline Silver Springs) and Will Pavone (Frontline Tysons) talk about biblical change- that we need to believe that God can change us and will and how and why he ultimately does so. This is something I need to remember everyday just as much as a new believer in Christ or the one who has believed since youth. We need to acknowledge the power of God in our lives everyday through what he has done for us and what he is doing. The gospel has given me all hope and purpose to live my life for Jesus and he is constantly, so graciously, allowing that to transform my life to be more like him. Ephesians 4:23-25 “To be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image– in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.” As I live each day I need to realize who it is I am serving and remember that the life I have is not meant to bring myself any fulfillment or satisfaction but to live completely for the Lord and I cannot do that without his transforming power. He has revealed that truth to us and is constantly revealing himself to us, based on that truth. We understand this by looking into his word and knowing who he his and by that, through the gospel, he changes us. During one of the sessions, Will Pavone talked about how beholding the glory of the Lord is becoming more like Christ through a process. 2 Corinthians 3: 8 “We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the lord are being changed into one degree of glory to another this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

It is such a simple yet magnificent truth and if we truly believe it, God can change us. May we look to Christ everyday and know the gospel is the glory of God that changes us and gives us purpose, and praise him that it is not in our own power that we can do anything of ourselves!