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I'm pleased to introduce you to my friends, Greg and Bethany Glidden. They were my team leaders the first year I lived and worked in China. It was their third year in China and they were great at helping us newcomers understand how to successfully minister in a new culture.
Now, they have three beautiful daughters and are working with Priority 1 Ministries, leading and supporting ministry teams. Soon, they'll transition from Pennsylvania to New York, and begin inner-city work in the Bronx. I think you'll gain a lot from their perspective on grace, and be challenged by their faith as they live out the gospel in our homeland.
*What are you learning about God or from God in this season of your life?
The incessant patience of God never fails to amaze me. While I sulk, whine, pout, and wallow in my own shortsightedness, He’s always there, gently reminding me that He is who He says He is, and that He’s got it all under control. I’m reading through the gospels right now, and in Luke 17 the disciples plead with Jesus, “Show us how to increase our faith!” (They had just had yet another realization that the simple, wonderful things He was teaching them were simply and wonderfully impossible for them to do without God’s help.) Jesus tells them, basically, that the “amount” of faith they have isn’t important; having any faith at all is a very powerful thing. Great! But He doesn’t stop there: He then tells a story about obedience, about servants and masters and how they interact. Does the master serve the servant dinner? Of course not! Does the master thank the servant? Of course not! It’s simply the servant’s duty.
Here’s what I see, both in the passage and in my life: When your faith feels small, focus on obedience. Focus on doing what you know is right, even if your mood isn’t in the mood.
I found myself praying that God would show me where, specifically, He wants me to be obedient. I asked that He make it blatantly obvious, because I’m pretty dense sometimes.
And He did. God answers prayer, and He is there when we call.
*What does grace mean to you and how has it shown up in your life over the years or in your marriage?
I (Bethany) once had a professor who said that God does not have grace. Grace isn’t in little packets that God distributes throughout the world. Instead, God is gracious. Period. That idea changed the way I thought and prayed. I realized that we could ask for more grace, but instead we should ask to be more like God – among other things, gracious.
In terms of marriage, grace is being deeply committed, loving someone despite his/her weaknesses and faults and admiring and respecting their strengths. Grace makes that commitment work. A marriage is just a little peek at the deep commitment (covenant) that God has with us. He is gracious, and His graciousness inspires us to be gracious.
And let me (Greg) say a word about grace and being a parent. When you have kids you come to understand grace – or at least, you get to experiment with it – when your kids look you in the eye and do the exact thing you just told them not to do. You have an immediate decision to make: justice or grace? Or both, somehow? That God can be gracious to us when we don’t deserve it at all is mind-boggling in itself, but when you are in the position to offer undeserved grace to someone else, you realize just how huge a thing it is.
*How can people pray for the people you are ministering to right now? Priority 1 work, or praying for the people you'll serve in the Bronx?
The groups we train and send primarily work with children, running open-air Bible Clubs for as many kids as can fit in the space. We’ll be based in the Bronx, New York, and we’ll work directly with the youth and adults who come to serve in the city, with our partner ministries and organizations, and with the kids who come to the Bible Clubs. Please pray that everyone, whether resident of or visitor to New York City, will know Jesus better and be closer to Him.
Please pray for us as an organization. We are in a time of transition, with new staff and new opportunities for existing staff. We are a small organization, so fund-raising can be difficult. We know what God has laid out before us, though, and we desire to follow His guidance even though some odds seem against us. And hey, if God is for us, who can be against us, right?
We desire to see people of every color come to know Jesus, and we hope that we can be a bridge between those who need the gospel and those who need to share it. We pray that churches will see not only the needs of the people around them, but that they will see that they are able to help. We pray that we can follow hard after Jesus, and help others to do the same.
