Sparks Ministry

Our first travel series for 2010 has finished with great results!  We are tired, but enjoyed renewing old acquaintances and making new ones.

We kicked things off in Tyler, Texas, at Fifth Street Presbyterian Church.

Many of the folks at 5th Street have been following my ministry in Ukraine since the beginning in 1998 and were delighted to hear about our plans to return and, of course, to meet baby Steven!

A couple of weeks later we had a chance to speak to Faith Presbyterian Church in San Antonio.

They had recently sent some boxes of clothing to a Ukrainian orphanage, so it was a nice connection for them to hear about our plans.

A fun benefit of this trip was getting to stay with a good friend of mine and meet her family.  Dawn and I were camp counselors and lifeguards together at Pine Cove and it was great to catch up with her and enjoy her hospitality.

We were glad to have a couple of weekends without travel and look forward to talking about our ministry to a sister church plant in Georgetown, Texas, this Sunday.

Thanks for your prayers for health and safety.  Other than colds, we’ve all stayed fairly healthy.  The baby has done very well with all the travel so far and we are very thankful for that!

Now that our little guy is the ripe old age of 2 months, we are beginning to travel to share our ministry plans with churches, individuals, and basically anyone who will listen!

Our travel this year kicks off this weekend (January 17) in Tyler, TX, at Dawn’s home church – Fifth Street Presbyterian.  We’ll be speaking during the Sunday School hour at 9:30 am and then for a few minutes in the service.

Our next trip will be during the weekend of January 29-31.  We’ll be at the South Texas Presbytery meeting in San Antonio.  On Sunday, we’ll be speaking at Faith Presbyterian Church.  Again, we’ll have time in the Sunday School hour and a few minutes during the worship service.

The following weekend, February 5-7, we’ll be at the North Texas Presbytery meeting in Dallas.  We’re still looking for a speaking opportunity in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, so let us know if you’re interested!

We would appreciate your prayers for safety and energy as we travel.  Steve is still working his full-time job during the week.  This will also be little Stevie’s first traveling, so we hope he’ll do well.

Please email us if you’d like to get together while we’re in your area.  We love talking about our Ukraine plans or just visiting with friends!

I think most of you who read this blog are also on our mailing list so you should have received an announcement of our son’s birth.  (If you aren’t on that emailing list but would like to be, just click on the box at the top right of this blog that says “Sparks Family Newsletters” and follow directions to be added to the mailing list.)  However, for those of you who are not, I want to joyfully announce the arrival of Steven Ronald into the Sparks family on November 16, 2009.  He weighed 8 lbs, 9 oz. and was 20-1/2 inches long at birth.  Even when he keeps us up at night, we are grateful to God for a healthy baby and safe delivery .  Thank you for your prayers for him and for us!

We’re biased, but we think he’s just adorable so here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

This past Sunday, our home church in Austin celebrated its 25th anniversary.   It was interesting to see the pictures from when the church was first planted and to hear the stories of God’s faithfulness throughout the past 25 years.  (It was also pretty amusing to see some of the people we know now in pictures that were 15-20 years old!)

One of the exciting things for both us and for our church is that we are the first “home grown” overseas missionaries to be sent out from CrossPointe.  So it was appropriate for us to be formally introduced to the church on the anniversary Sunday.  I think that sending out missionaries from the church body is definitely a wonderful sign of growth and health in any church!  We had the opportunity to talk a little bit about our new ministry assignment and look forward to more opportunities with various groups at CrossPointe.

Now we are “launched” into our new phase of ministry and the adventure begins (again!).

It was nice to be back at our home church today! We were in Atlanta 2 weeks ago and last Sunday we were recovering from our week away, so this week we finally made it back to worship! (It’s funny how much energy a growing baby can take out of you )
We enjoyed the chance to share news of our approval with folks who had been praying for us and are excited to be the first “home-grown” missionaries sent from CrossPointe. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be talking with the missions team and looking for creative ways to help our church support us as we go through the preparation process.

Dawn and I sure are excited to be working together as a team.

We both very much appreciate the continued support for the past many months. We look forward to sharing the upcoming updates about our progress as we build a team to help support our ministry in Ukraine. I tend to call it “our” ministry, but I want to make sure everyone knows “Our” means you are included in that ministry.  It’s a team, it is the body of Christ, that means you and us.

We are working on more updates and will be sending out more information. Thanks for the support, thanks for being part of our team!

This past week has been very encouraging and very tiring. Dawn and I are so happy that we have been received approval and the initial training for our Ministry in Ukraine. We thank everyone who has been praying for us and ask for continued prayers and we continue to work on this ministry.

Please continue to pray for us as we move to the next phase of raising support and in the midst of everything begin our new family. Dawn is due in just a few weeks. We are very excited about the new baby and ask for continued prayers for him and for Dawn.
We thank everyone in Atlanta and everyone in the I&O training during this past week. It is exciting to see how God is involved with so many people and how he is directing them to their specific ministries.

We look forward to working with our many current and new partners in the upcoming months to help grow Gods kingdom.

We are busy visiting with all the people at MTW HQ. It has been a lot of fun getting to put faces with names and jobs. I have to admit that even though I am here for training and evaluation, I did spend time in the computer room looking at the ‘setup’.

Please continue to pray for us as we have more interviews and training until the middle of the day on Friday. We are feeling very encouraged with the process.

Please keep the people of Atlanta in your prayers concerning all the rain and flooding…

So our next step in the MTW application process is “Interview and Orientation”, or “I&O” as it’s affectionately called.  We’ll be traveling to Atlanta for a week of I&O September 21-25 and we’d appreciate your prayers for that week.

We asked for prayers about this in the last e-update, but I realized that many of you might be wondering what I&O is and why we would need prayer for this.

I&O is the final step in the process of becoming an approved missionary with MTW.  Before you can attend I&O, you need an invitation from a team and you must have submitted an application with references from your pastor, session, and a few others.  If you are applying for long-term service, there is also a week long assessment that you must complete before I&O.

Now that we have everything that we need to go to I&O, we have a few psychological tests to complete before the end of August.  There is a Bible test, the Meyers-Briggs Inventory, the MMPI, and a marriage inventory.  Whew!

As you can probably guess, I&O has two main components.  There is the final interview portion, which includes reviewing our psychological tests with a psychologist as well as an interview with MTW staff.  The other part is an orientation.  This includes an orientation to MTW policies and procedures as well as training in developing a support team.  Once we are approved at the end of the week, we will begin raising the additional support we need to return to Ukraine.

Although I&O has some enjoyable aspects, it can also be pretty intense with all that evaluation.  Please pray that we would be relaxed and authentic in all of our interviews and assessments.  Please pray as well that we would get good rest during the week.

While this does not fall in the category of news about Dawn and me, I think it might be something that we can all think about, especially in the mission field.

I recently read an analysis of Apple, and how the iPhone is not the cause of Apple’s success but the iPhone is successful because Apple is a success. Why is Apple successful? They provide a product that is an experience and of high quality. They do not always provide a product that has everything for everyone. They more often provide a product that meets the needs of a specific target group and make sure that what they do provide meets a high standard of quality. They do not define quality as making sure the product is so diverse or flexible that it could partially meet the needs of everyone.

There will at times be people who do not think the worship style of the presentation is exactly for them, however if it is of quality, and biblically supported then it is the truth.

I once passed a church on the highway that had a sign displaying “30 Minute Worship Service”.

While I have no idea of the details for that specific church, and personally think a corporate service is more detailed than something that can be done in 30 minutes, should I discount the style or the length if it meets the standards of high quality, biblically sound and is obviously targeted at a specific seeker audience?

So while there is much that can be discussed in this area, the intent of this note it not to resolve the issue, but rather open the door for the discussion.  I would leave you with these ideas for your personal ministry.

How can this approach help you with your personal ministry?

Let’s consider our personal testimony:

• Do you have a personal testimony of how you found Christ?

• When you give that testimony can you speak it in 1 to 3 minutes?

• Can you vary the testimony enough to meet a specific context of the situation where you will be sharing?

• Even though it is 1 to 3 minutes, does it contain the truth of the Gospel and would the testimony be of high quality to the person for who you are sharing or did you try to meet the needs of everyone?

When we do provide quality and truth with our limited resources (Money, Time, etc) , I believe the result will be what Paul speaks to in

2 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 12 to 13.

12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.