Finally–an update! Many people have been asking me what I’m doing in Peru lately, or just plain what direction am I going in. I’ve not released a newsletter in nearly 6 months and, and have been meaning to get on top of that…once I knew what there was to actually update about. Now, I’m finally able to say more publicly about it.
First Thing’s First
I’m aware that many–if not most people don’t realize that my life and ministry is in a completely different direction than it was this time one year ago. Radically different, in fact. Although I’m about to mention where I’m going, it doesn’t necessarily mean I need to share where I’ve been, but I’ve come to the prayerful conclusion there are a few details that will need to be mentioned for my journey to make sense to the reader.
It’s worth mentioning quickly–and briefly–that I left the American organization, FIRE International that I was “covered” by. After much prayer, and five days of fasting, as well as counsel from friends and older wiser mature men in the Lord who speak into my life such as my pastor, I came to the peaceful conclusion in my heart that it was appropriate to move on in relation to my American covering, relative to having been dismissed from Fire Peru the week before. For the entire five year period I was with F.I. up until last April, most of my financial support has been coming through Calvary International Canada, and the dual ‘back office’ and oversight situation had proven extremely unnecessary, and particularly inefficient in my particular circumstances. It had also long been obvious that my personal journey in Christ was leading me in a direction that was very incompatible with FIRE’s vision, structure and way of interacting with its missionaries.
That being said, for the months since, I’ve wrestled with if it was even necessary to ever bother publicly addressing my resignation from them almost 8 months ago. As I mentioned, my decision was not reactionary, but the result of prayer, fasting, advice from mentors in my life, and of course, it had also been something I’d been thinking about for over two years, and in the midst of such drastic changes in my life, it just seemed like the most obviously appropriate time to bow out and move on.
The reason I’ve decided I needed to put something out publicly, is because I’ve come to realize many people have had closely associated me with ‘FIRE’ the organization based on the fact my podcast title (Fire On Your Head) and blog (Fire Press)’s themes resonate deeply with the themes and vision they (the organization) burn with. More than a few people have entered into what wound up becoming awkward conversation exchanges requiring me to inform them that I’m no longer with FIRE in any organizational capacity. But in particular, with my online ministry, I also noticed I constantly have people subscribe to the podcast or ‘like’ the Facebook fan page mistaking it as the radio show of Dr. Michael L. Brown, president of FIRE School of Ministry. His radio show is called The Line of Fire, and though I’d assume people can tell, other than the word “fire”, it’s obviously different from “Fire On Your Head“, but yet it’s still the number one reason people unsubscribe from the Fire Press newsletter–having subscribed thinking it was Dr Brown’s radio show’s newsletter, then realizing that it wasn’t.
Simply put, it has not been easy to separate in peoples’ minds that I am not a “FIRE” person anymore, at least in the structural-sense.
What’s Next?
In early December 2011, I moved to the area of Chorillos, just outside of Lima, Peru which is enabling me to work more closely with Mark & Anna Burgess (click here for previous podcast episodes with Mark), and Shaun and Amanda Wissmann (recent podcasts with Shaun) making disciples and building missional communities, and with whom I’ve been in regular accountability and relationship for the last several months. I have been integrating into their Oikos community as we determine my role and how my gifts and calling fit in the work and possibly help it expand. For the coming season I will be in charge of the men’s ministry and developing and building relationships with the men in our communities, and determine how to proceed further in terms of how to build them up and disciple them, release them in their giftings, and so forth. It also seems that after a month or two I will be taking over an inductive Bible study with some of the indigenous leaders of the ministry, as well. For more about the team, check out Nancy Pants’ blog post about it here.
Currently, I’ve been working alongside another ministry, Serving In Mission (SIM), and their local Peruvian branch. On Monday nights we lead an English class Bible study, going through one chapter of the particular book we’re in (right now it’s Exodus), and on Tuesday nights, do conversation nights. Up to 30 people attend these Tuesday night sessions and many of them are not Christians, but enjoy learning English. This has expanded into leading an English class/Bible study at my home on Saturday afternoons with some of the individuals who live closer to me in Los Cedros (my district in Chorrillos).
My new apartment/house is perfect for the office space as well, since half of my sustenance is currently through freelancing online through writing, including being a part of a new start-up called PulseMobi, where I research the industry and blog about it for them. Most of what I’ve done so far is not online, but in the months to come I’ll show you the corporate site. I’m still doing some website building, and I also have a few other logs in the oven that will take months before they’re anything to brag about.
Needless to say, I believe God’s given me a strategy for;
- Effective disciple making
- Tentmaking to supplement my support.
Mark and Anna Burgess are very successfully making disciples and launching missional communities in Peru, and I believe this is more what I was “made” for than I had previously been doing in “on the ground” ministry, here in this culture.
And, of course, last but not least, I will continue to podcast, obviously, since that’s one of my best tools in terms of quantitative reach, along with blogging, for spreading my ideas and insights into God’s word, and making an impact for the kingdom of God. At the time of writing this, I just viewed the statistics and in the last 7 days, my podcast had received over 1500 hits, 600 of which were in just one day–and, I’ve just recently recorded a new one for the first time in over three months. This statistic is based on what’s already just sitting online. This number is a lot more than how many people I have access to individually when doing Bible studies or any preaching I’ve done combining everybody present for each meeting. Online ministry, in my personal opinion is not the same thing as making disciples, and for my thoughts on that I encourage you to read more at a previous post about that matter.
At any rate, this post is fairly long and I’d like to end here since it was covering a few different things.
Thank you for reading and following this blog, and especially thanks to those who write me to encourage me and let me know you’re praying for me or just reading and enjoying the posts.
Blessings and fire on your head,
Steve Bremner
