One box can’t contain them all!

Last week I began pondering a jigsaw puzzle of billions of pieces. Cool, huh? No box can contain all those, so we don’t know the picture on the front… Revelation 7:9 is our only hint. If you can spare another 3 minutes, here’s a glimpse into my pondering…

click to watch the video

Some Tucson pieces assembling…

Last December 11, we gathered together all the known pieces (ie, leaders) to the relational unity under J17 Ministries, and it was a much bigger puzzle than I even realized! A wee bit embarrassing to admit that I wasn’t even aware of all we were doing…

On December 12, I realized that there were far too many pieces for one person to juggle, and ever since then, we’ve been at work seeing how all the pieces fit, determining what teams yet need to be developed, considering who’s best equipped to steward each of those teams, and so forth. Super exciting work, super challenging work – a big both/and! Five of us have been in a year-long leadership development training course (with cohorts in Africa, Europe, and North America), and speaking only for myself, the moment I begin learning a concept, I find myself applying it within hours.

A moving puzzle target…

What makes the project even more exciting is that God keeps tossing new pieces into our Tucson box! We’re preparing for our second quarterly Tucson team leaders’ meeting later this week, and I’ve spent a good chunk of my day just trying to count the pieces. Not because there are thousands – it’s still under twenty – but simply because God’s timeline and mine rarely match up. And for the first time I can remember, mine is the slower of the two.

What’s even more beautiful is that the J17 Ministries corner of the John 17 puzzle in Tucson is just that… one little corner. God has many other pieces answering Jesus’ prayer right here in the Old Pueblo. Networking networks is a central part of our mission, asking the question: how can our pieces fit together even more tightly so that we don’t accidentally compete with one another?

Some 2033 pieces assembling…

If I elaborated here at any depth at all, God would have to stop the earth’s rotation for a bit. (If that sounds overly dramatic, He did it once before in Joshua 10:12-14.) I’m not counting on that, so suffice it to say that we’re adding pieces to the JC2033 tab on our website as quickly as we’re able. The first North American gathering preparing for 2033 is this June in Montreal, and the pieces coming together are so astounding you couldn't make it up if you tried. Fifteen years ago when I first entered into John 17 work fulltime, my favorite saying was, “I just follow God around town and take notes.” Now I’m adjusting it to “I just follow God wherever He tells me to go. Too many notes to record.”

The back side of the puzzle pieces…

Lest this jigsaw puzzle imagery sound like a lighthearted, low-stakes hobby, the Lord just reminded me what’s on the flip side of this puzzle. It isn’t pretty. The world apart from Jesus is running as fast as we are, except in the opposite direction. For Jesus to assemble this Revelation 7:9 puzzle as He intends, the first step is flipping the pieces over. He calls it The Great Commission, and He’s enlisted us to play our part in the transformation process. Our part is small… pointing to the Light. The Light is what chases the darkness away.

Before the end of the week, our JC2033 USA web page (a temporary placeholder while the robust one gets built) will add some resources that can empower each and every one of us to engage in turning each precious piece right side up. No puzzle piece is ever dispensable. Watch for it!

Puzzling together,
Dave Drum, Founder J17 Ministries