• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

Reset 2025

Posted on December 11, 2024 by wtdavid

If we were to take a quick glance at what is happening in global missions, we would have to observe the growing presence of many more players, coming from everywhere and desiring to serve anywhere in the world.  

Rather than resources, initiatives, and missional ingenuity coming primarily from only one sector of the world, we can now identify numerous majority world and non-majority world agencies and organisations seeking to multiply disciples and communities of believers.

Lausanne 2024 organisers call this dynamic: a polycentric focus.

So, we would do well to push the ”reset’ button concerning our approach and engagement in what God is doing in the world.

Perhaps we might say that as a tangible demonstration of this polycentric focus, we (the WT community wherever we might be serving around the globe) pledge to serve as a “collective”.

In other words, we would commit ourselves to sharing more widely to learn of what God is doing in different places around the globe through multiple possible partners; to communicating more deeply the “we” of our community rather than the “me” so as to express the unity of Christ; to cooperating and collaborating more with one another and like-minded partners for greater expansion; and working together to provide all the resources needed around each initiative we would jointly hold as a collective.

That is our challenge for 2025! 

Filed under: Collaboration, Communication, Community, Polycentric focus | 4 Comments »

Team, team and teams

Posted on November 29, 2022 by wtdavid

The idea of working in teams is one of our guiding principles.  You could say it’s one of the reasons why we are called: World Team(s)

In our World Team Ministry Framework, we describe a team as: “A team is a group of individuals united in healthy relationships who work together toward a shared vision. They serve each other, listen to each other, rely on each other’s gifts and strengths, and bolster where each is weak. Our teams accomplish more together than the individuals can working alone.”

There are a good number of applications that we can draw from this principle, but let’s focus on one in particular: that the members of any team “pool” their resources, offer their gifts and talents to serve the group to accomplish something larger than their own personal mission or vision.

We say that no one has all the gifts and skills needed to establish a community of believers on their own, but we can often act as if we do.  It is in allowing different team members to exercise their gift(s) that the team finds forward traction in the Spirit.  It is one of those times when we clearly recognize how much we need one another.

Sometimes when we read this guiding principle, we can read ‘team’ instead of ‘teams’ (plural).  By doing that, we may miss an important insight.  No team is an island by itself.  As World Team, each team is part of a larger group of teams that need each other in order to gain traction towards accomplishing the vision God has laid on our hearts as a global community. As teams which make up World Team, we also need one another. There are resources and gifts in other teams within World Team that would be useful and helpful to other teams; gifts and capacities that could be shared for the growth of the entire group.

One small practical application might be how one or several World Team team(s) in another part of the world could find, mobilize, and coach new workers to join a team in another very different part of the world.  I know there are plenty of other applications, small and larger.

Filed under: Collaboration, One another, One another commands, Teams | Leave a comment »

Resources Refresh

Posted on March 12, 2020 by wtdavid

Sitting in discussions with our Asia leaders last week, I learned of the obstacles and challenges they each face in ministry to the unreached in that part of the world.  I was also amazed by the number of opportunities they have in front of them to launch new works to new unreached people groups.

Yet, there is a consistent problem these leaders run up against – the lack of resources, primarily people resources. 

If they just had the people, they could extend the reach of their team to a new people group, but they just can’t seem to find or mobilise the people that they need.

Sometimes, in discouragement, we might say that our lack of resources simply indicates that it is not God’s will for us to enter this new people group.  And that could be true.  Sometimes, we might say that the people resources we currently have are all the resources God has given us for the moment and we just have to work with what we have.  And that could be true. 

Sometimes though we might just need to look at the situation with ‘new eyes’.

For one, we might look at our prayer life with ‘new eyes’ and determine that it may need a “refresh”.  Jesus said in an oft quoted text: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  (Matthew 9:3). Two things catch our attention in this passage: that we are called to ‘earnest prayer’; and that the ministry we are seeking to resource is His ministry.  Rather than focusing on what we do not have (workers), we should put our focus back on the God of the harvest whose resources are unlimited.

For another, we might look at our ‘resource poor’ situation with ‘new eyes’ and recognize that we are not alone; we are part of a larger community.  Rather than feeling that we need to find these resources all on our own, we might begin to network with other like-minded WT workers who could come alongside of us in seeking the resources we need to minister to new unreached people groups that God lays on our hearts.

Finally, we might look at our current team situation with ‘new eyes’ and realize that we are actually ‘resource rich’ with current workers and colleagues within WT.  A survey done several years ago demonstrated that the average number of years of ministry on field among all our workers was: 18 years.  That’s a wealth of experience!  And maybe, we might begin to pray and challenge some of our colleagues to consider serving on other teams that are just starting, and bring that experience to this new team

May we earnestly pray the God of the harvest to supply the resources that we need!

Filed under: Collaboration, Community, Mobilization | 4 Comments »

I’m not giving way

Posted on July 6, 2017 by wtdavid

Driving to the World Team Global workplace, I have to cross a bridge that takes one over the Oise River.  It’s quite a lovely view in both directions.  Normally, it takes about three minutes to cross. Tuesday of this week, it took forty nine minutes!  Since we are in the summer months here, towns and ‘state’ governments take the opportunity to do a lot of roadwork.  Such was the case on the bridge this past Tuesday, moving a four lane road down to just two lanes.

What caught my attention wasn’t the roadwork, but the attitude of various drivers. Many had their own ‘method’ for dealing with the traffic tie-up and trying to get one more car ahead, by whatever means. One driver in particular caught my attention.

give wayThis driver was in the passing lane, next to a huge ‘earth mover’ type truck.  The truck was obviously ahead, but neither driver was going to ‘give way’.  With every meter, both drivers tried to ‘assert their authority’.  At one point, I thought the truck was literally going to scrape the side of the smaller car, and take the side view mirror in its path. I kept thinking to myself: “Just give way!  What’s the big deal?  So you’re behind the truck or behind the car, you’re eventually going to get over the bridge either three seconds sooner or later.”

Then it hit me that in my relationships with others at work, at home or in the neighborhood, I can be just the same.  Worse even.  I can be as stubborn as that car driver or truck driver, not wanting to ‘give way’ because my rightness is being challenged.  However, I don’t think it’s just me. In a given situation, all of us are capable of going ‘head to head’ with that ‘earth mover’ truck and pushing to get to the front of the line.

There’s why collaboration (one of the elements of our WT Ministry Framework organisational culture) is so hard.  It means we have to ‘give way’ sometimes.  It means we have to follow the consensus of the larger team at times.  All the while keeping in mind that we are going to get to the same end point.

There’s why delegation is difficult.  It means saying to another: “Go ahead, you work on this. I’ll support you, but you take the lead.”  It’s platforming or pushing another in front of you when we would prefer to be first or up front.

Next time, you are side by side with an ‘earth mover’ truck, merging into one lane, will you ‘give way’ or will you ‘hold your ground’?

Filed under: Collaboration, Delegation, Pride, Teams | 4 Comments »

Collaboration?

Posted on July 12, 2016 by wtdavid

Collaboration is often a ‘buzz word’ in mission and nonprofit circles. It is another term to describe working together or joining forces to see a project launched and accomplished.  However, we can certainly talk a lot about collaboration without any real collaboration occurring. meusyou

In their insightful article, “What Leadership Shadow Do You Cast?” Larry Senn and Jim Hart describe how many agencies long to live by their guiding principles and ministry framework, and yet consciously give a counter message. They sum up their findings by saying: “The central finding is that, over time, organizations tend to take on the characteristics of their leaders.”

To put it another way, there needs to be a close alignment between what we say we value and what we actually do; how we work and minister. The World Team Ministry Framework has a great graphic attached to it for explanation. However, if the Framework simply stays as a graphic and doesn’t cause some ‘realignment’ in the way we currently work together, then the ‘shadow’ we are casting is one that communicates: “Do as we say, not as we do.”

Working together, joining forces together begins by reaching out to other team members in other parts of the agency to ask for their help and input. We have several good examples of this kind of collaboration recently.  Let’s work towards a whole lot more examples.

Filed under: Collaboration, Community | Leave a comment »

Influencing one another

Posted on June 7, 2016 by wtdavid

I really do like the World Team Ministry Framework. It captures the essentials of who we are and what we do.  However, at times, I can look at the World Team Ministry Framework as a collection of individual elements or pieces to which I need to give attention.  I do not always look at it as an ‘interactive highway’ of fundamentals that are constantly influencing each other.interactive highway

For example, how does the Gospel influence our call to ‘reach’ and ‘invest’ in people each day? Or how does our growth in collaboration influence our call to act more ‘holistically’ in our ministries?  Or how do facilitation and our work in teams impact releasing others into ministry?

There are obviously a host of combinations to consider, but all that to say that we have so much more to learn from each other about how the World Team Ministry Framework works itself out in our lives and ministries.

So, this is my invitation to you to explore together how some of these ‘combinations’ work themselves out and influence our lives and ministries.

Let’s ‘talk’ about the first combination I suggested: How does the Gospel influence our call to ‘reach’ and ‘invest’ in people each day? 

Post your comments to this post and I’ll try to summarize what we ‘discover’ together in a future post.

Filed under: Collaboration, Gospel, Uncategorized, WT Ministry Framework | 3 Comments »

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