Jason Locke's Blog

My wife Julie posted some great pics from our church trip to Chapultepec, Mexico. Check out her blog at post at http://julkalocke.blogspot.com/2011/04/mexico.html .

Picture from a Navigators short-term mission trip Changes in our world have dramatically altered the landscape of international missions. Those who embarked on missionary trips used to be people who packed up their entire lives and moved across the world. Their contact with their home cultures was limited by the slow pace of ships carrying the mail. The world is not the same anymore. The ease and speed of travel coupled with the relative wealth of Western Christians have allowed many more individuals to experience cross-cultural church work. Most of these are short-term workers who spend mere days or weeks on the mission field. The reality of short-term mission trips affects the way we think of the global missionary enterprise. I believe that short-term trips are here to stay. So given this reality, why should we embark on short-term trips? What theological pillars should support short-term missions? And what should be their realistic goals? In the next couple posts, ...

A large group from the College Church has been going to Ensenada, Mexico for years. Decades, actually. I'm not sure when the first group went or when. I know that our folks worked with the City of Children in many of those early trips. Our people built, painted, cooked, and did all sorts of various jobs to help that work. City of Children grew increasingly crowded as church groups from across the US showed up to serve and learn. In the process of looking for new ways to serve, some of our folks came across YUGO ministries . They have outreach centers in several communities including Ensenada. Their primary mission is to work with local evangelical churches & pastors to strengthen their ministries. One of their primary tools is house-building. For 8 or 9 years, the College Church has sent teams to build houses for families. The houses are incredibly modest by our standards. The YUGO folks at the Ensenada Outreach Center have this down to a science. They assign a local ...

If you thought they were joking on the TV show "Outsourced" about how people ride on the outside of Indian trains, check out this photo from India. By the way, India's population has now passed 1.2 billion. India's population will be the largest on the planet within the next two decades.

Word has it that work will soon start on a movie version of the 1970s TV show "The Professionals." This BBC hit show starred Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins. The producers of this new film are Callum McDougall, producer of 007 films Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Richard Whelan, producer of Captain America. Click here for a story on this from London's Daily Mail . I've seen many episodes of the series. As long as this film doesn't go the direction of Starsky & Hutch or Miami Vice remakes, it might be okay. The production team is certainly a promising sign.

Our nearby mountains are currently covered with snow. Some areas got nearly 2 feet just in the past couple days! This is beautiful to behold from the Valley floor where we get no snow but can see the snowy peaks on clear days. Here are a few pics of the family & friends back in late summer up at gorgeous Huntington Lake. The lake is around 7,000 ft in elevation and sits at the base of our closest ski resort, China Peak. The last picture was actually taken at Shaver Lake, elevation 5,000.

In a recent post, I referenced a seminar with Larry Osborne. Several of us from the College Church spent most a of day with 250 of our closest "friends" at a workshop. This was on the campus of Fresno's major Christian university, Fresno Pacific. If you want to dig into what Osborne really thinks and believes, you should read a couple of his books. He's a great communicator and organizer. I wouldn't describe him as revolutionary or avant garde . He seems pragmatic, intelligent and a stickler for details. One interesting thought was his comparison of Advocate versus Attendee . He described an Attendee as someone who attends your church. This may be a person who is deeply involved and really feels that this is their church. On the surface, most churches try to make people into Attendees . We as church leaders usually view ourselves as successful if we get a new person to commit and become an Attendee . Osborne encouraged us to set a different target. He sugg...