David and Ulrike Byle & Family in Istanbul

Don't stop spreading the good news about Jesus!

2011-12-18T15:49:00.001+02:00

Why should we keep on making Jesus known, even when we don't see lots of fruit? If you still don't know, listen to this message and just try to remain unmoved...

Prayer facts for Turkey from Operation World

2011-12-05T17:27:00.000+02:00

Great summary of situation in Turkey for those who pray for this nation...

Turkey | Operation World

New song from a church planter in Turkey: Your love drives me

2011-11-24T11:53:00.000+02:00

Great, great words...

119 - waw: Your love drives me

Useful links about us

2011-11-18T15:22:00.001+02:00

Evangelism Is Not Just Relationship | ChurchPlanting.com

2011-11-18T15:18:00.000+02:00

I tried to find a part of it to quote but it's all just too good and isn't that long after all. Have a read yourself:

Evangelism Is Not Just Relationship | ChurchPlanting.com

Is evangelism bait and switch?

2011-11-17T11:32:00.000+02:00

Here's a quote from a book I'm reading (What is the mission of the church?) answering the question, "Why do good?... (highlighting and bits in square brackets from me)

We do good works to win a hearing for the gospel.

Sometimes the argument is made that when Christians do good things for other people and then share the gospel with them, they’ve pulled a bad bait-and-switch trick. I suppose that could be the case, especially if the Christian is thinking of his evangelism as a way to put notches in his religious belt. Then neither his good works nor his evangelism would be founded on care for the other person. His good works would be grounded on a desire to get to the evangelism, and the evangelism would be grounded in a desire to make himself look good. Love doesn’t figure in there at all.

But that’s really a terrible way to think about evangelism. Evangelism is the act of telling other people about the plight they are in and how they can be saved from it. It’s an act of deep love and compassion for that person. So the argument that that act of love and compassion can’t legitimately be accompanied by other acts of love and compassion doesn’t hold water. Christians, as we’ve seen, are to love the whole person, and therefore it makes perfect sense to love someone by giving them food and at the same time to love them in a different, eternally consequential way by giving them the gospel. There’s no bait-and-switch there; that’s simply holistic compassion—compassion for the whole person, not just part of him.

Understanding that, we can also see an opposite danger for those who buy the bait-and-switch argument. It’s that they will compassionately meet physical and even emotional needs, but out of fear of falling into a bait-and-switch scenario, they’ll neglect to compassionately meet the other person’s spiritual needs by sharing the gospel with them. In other words, they’ll show compassion to people only at the basest levels—and one could legitimately question whether that is real compassion at all. The reality is that people who make that mistake see evangelism as no more an act of compassion than the person who sees it as a way to put a notch in his belt; it’s just that they see the gospel as something they are trying to sell, and therefore they don’t want to “corrupt” their compassion by moving into the sales pitch.

If we understand evangelism itself, though, as a deep and profound act of love for another person, we will do it more often (because we won’t have the awkward feeling that we’re just giving a sales pitch), and we’ll do it with the right motives, too (love for people, instead of regard for ourselves). In fact, if we are Christians whose love and compassion is aroused not just by physical and emotional [temporal] needs, but also by spiritual [eternal] needs, then sharing the gospel will always be in the forefronts of our minds. We will naturally and readily move toward it as we are loving other people.

Source: eJournal : Book Excerpt: Why Do Good? | 9Marks

Should we in the Western Church continue to send out evangelists and church planters?

2011-11-13T15:08:00.000+02:00

ChristianityToday.com article: A fresh call for Christian workers from the West: Americans should focus less on 'Western guilt' and more on sharing the gospel.

Here's just two of many good quotes you'll find in it:
My point is perhaps best summarized in a 2008 article in The Times (UK) by Matthew Parris, a journalist and former British Conservative MP. He reflects on a visit to Malawi, where he grew up as a missionary kid. He confesses that the visit challenged his present ideological beliefs and "has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God." He came to see Christianity as necessary to effect changes in the mindset and culture. He wrote:

"Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular ngos, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good… . Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted. And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone, and the machete."

Lamin Sanneh, a Muslim convert to Christianity, made a counterintuitive argument. Formerly at Harvard and now at Yale, Sanneh explored whether the history of Christian missions justifies the Western guilt complex. Did Western missionaries actually help destroy indigenous cultures? He examined the vast Bible translation enterprise and concluded that through the translation of the Bible into vernacular languages, Christian missions actually helped preserve cultures and languages.
As he put it, "Christian missions are better seen as a translation movement, with consequences for vernacular revitalization, religion change and social transformation, than as a vehicle for Western cultural domination." I don't know of any serious scholar refuting Sanneh's thesis.

The very fact of Western guilt may be one of the supreme evidences for the enduring validity of the gospel in the post-Christian West. For it shows that the gospel has the power to shape the conscience of a culture, even when its propositional claims have been forgotten or largely rejected by that culture. Seemingly, despite being abandoned by many Westerners, the gospel continues to simmer in an unquenchable manner in a society that once acknowledged Christ.

Read the whole article here:
ChristianityToday: A fresh call for U.S. Missionaries

Deckchairs on the Titanic? Evangelism and social action

2011-07-14T22:40:00.000+03:00

The Briefing Library: Deckchairs on the Titanic? Evangelism and social action

2011-07-04T11:29:00.000+03:00

Recent family pictures...

"Risk-averse Christianity is a lifestyle-affirming civil religion"

2011-05-17T14:28:00.000+03:00

"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." - Jesus Christ

Alan Hirsch - Are You Stuck In A Rut? from Verge Network on Vimeo.

Pray for Istanbul video

2011-04-13T17:02:00.002+03:00

Turkish churches packed for Christmas services

2011-01-01T12:17:00.002+02:00

I've talked with various friends around Istanbul and other parts of Turkey and all of them said the same thing about their Christmas services this year: "Our church was packed with people!"

Our church, for example, was so full (over 200 people) that I'm told some left because there was no room, and many church members stayed downstairs to make room for the newcomers. Our church leaders said they have never seen our sanctuary so full of people, ever.

For the first time ever we tried having our own church choir, and although many were expecting it to flop, it actually turned out amazingly well, and I'm told they are now getting requests to perform at other churches in Istanbul ;-)

What made it especially amazing was Yusuf (Turkish for Joseph), a young guy in our church who is learning to play the saz (a traditional turkish instrument). Most of us had never heard him perform before (his dad, however, is a saz player and has written several worship songs that are in the Turkish songbook that all the churches use), but were amazed at how well he played for his age.

They lit candles while singing Silent Night (in Turkish of course).

Our kids made up half the children's play. Daniel (he played the part of the little manger!) was the big hit, getting lots of applause when he tried to say his part.

Carlos, one of our church's leaders, gave a wonderful message with a clear gospel invitation, and we hope and pray that the seeds sown will produce eternal fruit.

119 - alef: Blessed are those whose ways are blameless

2010-12-21T09:11:00.000+02:00

119 - alef: Blessed are those whose ways are blameless Here's a new song from a friend of mine who works with a church in a nearby city here in Turkey. His site has lots of other great songs--all of them free! :-)

"You aren't one of those secret Christians, are you?"

2010-11-08T15:08:00.001+02:00

Last week while preaching the gospel in the open air in one of the crowded downtown sections of Istanbul, a man stayed to listen and then later told us his story. He had had an interest in our faith ever since he learned that, as a baby, he had been cared for in a orphanage by a Christian lady (in Turkey). He began visiting a traditional church in Istanbul once in a while to light candles and pray, when one day a neighbor of his saw him entering the church. "You aren't one of those secret Christians, are you?" he asked condescendingly, which only made him want to become a Christian even more. Pray for this man, that he'll come to know personally the Savior that he's looking for, turn from his wrong ways, and by believing in Christ find eternal life. Like so many like him, he is fed up with things here, and wants to move to a different country. Pray God will give him a new love for his own people.

Jesus loves Istanbul

2010-10-29T16:28:00.001+03:00

Jesus loves Istanbul

A video I made several months ago but still worth seeing if you haven't already.

Puppet evangelism on Istanbul's busiest pedestrian street

2010-10-29T13:46:00.001+03:00

Talk about a contrast...

Praise God for the gospel going out with power to so many!

Family picture

2010-10-29T12:52:00.001+03:00

David, Ulrike & (l to r) Johannes, Amy, Daniel, Esther and Rebecca.

Why we're starting a blog

2010-10-29T12:43:00.003+03:00

We used to be using sites.google.com as our family's web presence, but since the authorities here have blocked access to that domain, we can't update our pages there from Turkey. If you're a follower of Jesus living outside Turkey, friend us in Facebook so we can add you to our "newsletter" group of friends in Facebook, or request to join our Facebook prayer team, through which you'll have access to many more stories and prayer requests.

We thank God for the amazing privilege of being his ambassadors here, and the joy and peace that Jesus gives us is something we continue to wish upon all we meet.