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By Julie Stoll, former Director of MBC Missions
Yes, cake! A baker takes strikingly different ingredients, mixes them in a certain order, and when heat is applied over time, you get a chemical change. A new entity exists. Not just a bunch of ingredients thrown together to make a mixed salad where all the individual characteristics of the vegetables can be separated again. No. A cake is an organically changed, new composition. One can’t recognize the original ingredients anymore, yet each ingredient is absolutely essential to the new creation. Unity is like cake! This new thing is beautiful to behold, tastes heavenly, and actually will draw people to the table. Few are not attracted to a fresh cake. That, my…
At a Bible study in my home for English learners, I once asked the group to turn back to the first book of the Bible, intending to make a point about Adam. I said, “Let’s go to the beginning, back to the story of the time when God created the earth.” A mainland Chinese woman looked up at me and said with utter astonishment, “He did?” She had no concept of a creator God, much less of a Savior named Jesus. Months later, she came to Christ and was discipled by an Indonesian believer here at MBC Tysons. Now years later, she is a disciple-maker back in China.
That experience has helped me recognize that discipling the nations is about…