Just a quick update on our year-end match campaign. I’m happy to report that we exceeded our goal and raised $57,159 which when combined with the $50,000 match totaled $107,159. This gives us a great nudge into the new year of ministry in which the Lord has already provided some exciting opportunities and developments even in the past week.

So thank you once again for your continued prayer and financial support. This is our 10th year of ministry and I’m continually amazed at God’s provision through generous financial partners.

George Muller once said, “God has many ways of moving the hearts of men all over the world to help us. While I am praying, He speaks to one and another on this continent and on that, to send us help.” 

And for that, we too are eternally grateful.

Over the years, on early morning New Years Day runs, I’ve contemplated the dawn of a new year amidst the solitude and serenity.

Proverbs 4:18 states, “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.”

The desire for God’s will in the days to come is my perpetual prayer on such occasions.

Haddon Robinson explains that the existence of the three wills of God often confuses even the most earnest Christ-follower:

• God’s Sovereign Will – God’s purpose from eternity past to eternity future whereby He determines all that shall occur (Eph. 1:11).
• God’s Moral Will – The Scriptures tell us what God wants us to believe and how God wants us to behave (Ps. 119:97-104).
• God’s Individual Will – While God works out His sovereign will through all men and has revealed to us His moral will, He doesn’t necessarily reveal His specific, individual will to us.

Robinson provides a good exhortation as we approach 2022, emphasizing the importance of repeatedly dedicating ourselves to the glory of God:

In God’s sovereignty, He can work in our choices, through our choices, and in spite of our choices, to accomplish His will.

The Bible is clear that glorifying God is our ultimate goal. But it doesn’t leave us with vague generalities—in achieving that goal, we are given intermediate goals.

God’s direction is clear and unambiguous. We are to act in love and kindness. We are not to be self-serving. We are to have integrity. We are to be faithful and generous. And we are to act out of proper motives. If we apply the characteristics of God’s sovereign and moral will to every decision we make, we will be well on the road to glorifying Him and living a fuller, happier life.

As we begin another year of ministry, our prayer for our program participants is the same for you, our faithful supporters:

1. Strength in the Word of God, which is essential to make good decisions;
2. Conviction to make Christ-honoring decisions, which often entail hardship and frustration;
3. Inspiration in Christ Jesus, who demonstrated that peace and pain-free living can not be proof that we’re in God’s will (Lk 22:41–44).

Paul warned Timothy, “in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (2 Timothy 3:1). Savage seasons have, in fact, battered Christ’s Church through its history by means of waves of worldly ideologies:

• Sacramentalism – in which ordinances and rituals were falsely elevated and undermined salvation by grace
• Rationalism – where scholarship and human reason attempted to dethrone God
• Orthodoxism – with its dead, cold, indifferent spirituality 
• Politicism – which led to a preoccupation with political power and social causes
• Ecumenism – where a lack of discernment resulted from an obsession with unity at any doctrinal cost
• Experientialism – that viewed truth as originating in feelings, intuition, and special revelations, relegating Scripture to secondary importance
• Subjectivism – where psychology captured the church, resulting in a man-centered, needs-based theology 
• Mysticism – as people began to seek individual, subjective spiritual experiences apart from the objective truth of God’s Word
• Pragmatism – where appropriate means of ministry were defined by the “customer-parishioner,” and truth was the servant of what worked 
• Syncretism – in which evangelicals, intimidated by cultural agendas and eager to find favor with the unsaved world, capitulated to blending Biblical truth with all forms of theological error

There is a cumulative effect as these movements increase in frequency and intensity (2 Tim. 3:13). In response to Paul’s exhortation that we have the divinely-empowered weapons to destroy such strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3-5), Guzik explained that wrong thoughts and perceptions, which contradict the true knowledge and nature of God, stubbornly set deep roots in human hearts and minds, influencing adversely an individual’s beliefs and behaviors. 

Christ’s church currently finds itself besieged by the ideological tidal wave of the Social Justice Movement, having been described as the greatest threat to the church in the last hundred years. Likened to a three-headed dragon, its peril lies in emulating secular culture while undermining Scripture in the areas of race, gender, and sexuality. The comprehensiveness of the movement presents unique challenges to church leadership, as it functions as a worldview, complete with its own soteriology, epistemology, sacred texts, and prophets. 

Almost a century ago, Machen cautioned regarding the powerful force of modern culture, which is either “subservient to the gospel or the deadliest enemy of the gospel.” He declared that subjugating culture necessitates not mere religious emotion but neglected intellectual labor, stating, “The Church has turned to easier tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now she must battle for her life.”

Back in December 2012, Empowering Action was formally launched. As we head into our 10th year of ministry, we are excited to announce that a generous EA supporter has agreed to match all donations through the end of the year up to a total of $50,000.

Below is one of the earliest pictures of the EA team as well as a photo of our current staff that your year-end contributions will help to support.

This past weekend our staff had the privilege of facilitating a leadership retreat in the mountains of Jarabacoa for 90 youth and volunteers from across our partnering churches. This next generation of church leadership studied the book of Daniel using the Inductive Study Method. Join us in praying for the same faithful resolve amid opposition in these young people today demonstrated by Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Scripture.

D.L. Moody writes in The Overcoming Life regarding the impact of Daniel’s unwavering commitment to the Lord:

Many are mentioned in Scripture of whom we read that they lived so many years and then they died. The cradle and the grave are brought close together. They lived and they died, and that is all we know about them.

In these days, you could write on the tombstone of many professing Christians the date they were born and the date they died. There is nothing in between. However, you can’t bury a good man’s influence. It lives on. They have not buried Daniel. His influence is as great today as it ever was.

Our prayer for these young people, as well as young believers around the globe, echoes the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy,

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:12)

Ecclesiology matters.

If everything is the mission, nothing is the mission.

We mustn’t mistake a potential byproduct for the immediate objective, when it comes to the mission of Christ’s Church.

The great theologian J. Gresham Machen wrote,

“For Christians to influence the world with the truth of God’s Word requires the recovery of the great Reformation doctrine of vocation. Christians are called to God’s service not only in church professions but also in every secular calling. The task of restoring truth to the culture depends largely on our laypeople.

 To bring back truth, on a practical level, the church must encourage Christians to be not merely consumers of culture but makers of culture. The church needs to cultivate Christian artists, musicians, novelists, filmmakers, journalists, attorneys, teachers, scientists, business executives, and the like, teaching its laypeople the sense in which every secular vocation-including, above all, the callings of husband, wife, and parent is a sphere of Christian ministry, a way of serving God and neighbor that is grounded in God’s truth. Christian laypeople must be encouraged to be leaders in their fields, rather than eager-to-please followers, working from the assumptions of their biblical worldview, not the vapid clichés of pop culture.”

Commenting on Ephesians 4, John MacArthur states,

“God not only gave gifts, but in order to see those gifts fully realized He had to do something else. He had to give men, ‘And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastor-teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.’

 Even with those spiritual gifts, which we all receive at our salvation, the body of Christ is not going to be what it should be, demonstrating Christ in the world, unless there are some preachers who perfect the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. That word ‘perfecting’ – it may in your translation say ‘equipping’ – is the role of those men mentioned in verse 11, the perfecting of the saints, the equipping of the saints, katartizō is the Greek verb. It basically means to be restored, to be complete, to be full, to be mature, full-grown, perfect. Not sinless perfection, but a kind of maturity, a kind of grown-up spiritual character.”

The purpose of the Church is to evangelize the lost and sanctify the saints, to maturity where Christlikeness will permeate all facets of their individual lives. Not to corporately weaponize and reorganize/prioritize the Church to address the societal ills of the moment, and thereby deviate from the Church’s primary calling.

We must not make a potential long-term outcome (collective cultural transformation) the immediate objective (individual justification/sanctification and Divine glorification.)

By all means, leverage teachable moments to bring the timeless truths of Scripture to bear on surrounding societal events, but beware succumbing to Satan’s scheme of chasing cultural relevancy at the expense of sound ecclesiology.

As we close the books on the year 2020, the phrase “But God…” came to my mind. Amidst ever-changing circumstances of this past year, the one constant remained the character of God, in which believers find their ultimate trust (Mal. 3:6).

Corrie ten Boom, who courageously harbored Jews from the Nazis in Holland during World War II, wisely stated, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

Just a sampling of these words in Scripture speaks to God’s sovereignty and provision:

“But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.” (Gen. 8:1)

 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Gen. 50:20)

 “My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps. 73:26)

 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” (Acts 2:24)

 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)

 “So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.” (1 Cor. 3:7)

 As we reflected, as an EA team, upon ministry amidst the unique circumstances of the past year, God’s faithfulness shone brightly:

“In spite of the pandemic, the Lord proved Himself faithful by:

• Protecting our families and love ones, as well as strengthening our faith through the trials and providing opportunities to serve the needy in His name;
• Opening doors for the K2:42 Church Network Development Program, by providing new technological means of training, highlighting God’s providential character;
• Utilizing Abundant Life Program participating and alumni churches to serve the most vulnerable throughout the pandemic;
• Serving families through the Genesis Ministry’s Biblical Counseling, regarding how to respond to emotional and spiritual effects of the lockdowns.
• Enabling us to launch our Church-facilitated Savings Program, which provided instruction on how to deal with the financial challenges of unemployment and economic hardship, particularly among the Haitian and immigrant population most affected.”
  – Carlos Pimentel, Director of Operations

As we head into 2021 and our 9^th year of ministry, we are anticipating ongoing spiritual and financial challenges, yet, trusting fully in God’s constant character amidst changing times.

End-of-year contributions have historically been a means by which God the Father has supplied Empowering Action’s yearly financial needs “according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). So, to the extent that you are able to support EA in that fashion, please know that we covet your prayer and financial partnership.

Watch the below video to get a sampling of the approximately 2,600 individuals being discipled through our K2:42 Church Network Development efforts.