LEAD. June 2020 | Page 40

How do we live on mission? We continue to find our identity in Jesus, we embrace commonality with those we seek to serve, we admit our own neediness and dependence, and we look for opportunities to wash others’ feet. Only then will we find strength and joy in missional living and have a powerful witness. After washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus told them, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). you in love. Confess ways you look for success or a good reputation to reassure you of your standing with God or with others. Ask God to grow in you a new confidence in your identity in Christ and to give you Excerpted from The Mission-Centered Life: Following Jesus into the Broken Places © 2019 by Bethany Ferguson. Used by permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. To purchase this and other helpful resources, please visit newgrowthpress.com. Splashed across television screens, I have seen the great neediness of Africa: pictures of starving children and dying babies and families ravaged by HIV. Yet, living in Africa, I have seen families and communities working together. I have seen people laughing and entrepreneurs successfully building businesses. Even in suffering and poverty and in humble tasks of service, people are God’s image bearers, full of beauty and light. PRAYER Spend time together praying for God’s Spirit to show you the beauty of humility. Praise God for the ways he has pursued you and still pursues BUY NOW Bethany Ferguson, MA, has spent most of the last fifteen years serving with Serge in Uganda, South Sudan, and Kenya. After completing her master’s, she has continued her professional training through Biblical Seminary’s professional counseling program. Her cross-cultural work focuses on promoting education and mental health care for children and adolescents in under-resourced areas. She is currently pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology from Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. 40