• 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!

Why change is hard for us

Posted on January 29, 2013 by wtdavid

change standChange is difficult for most of us.  To move from one place to another, one culture to another means we will walk through an adaptation process that is unfamiliar to us.  We will walk through “territory” that is unknown and must explore for the first time.

Most people say they don’t like change.  However, it’s not the ‘change event’ that is troublesome, it’s the transition process.  It’s the thought of learning new habits, building new friends, and establishing a life in a new location or a new ministry that is unfamiliar to you.  Change is hard because of the emotions surrounding that journey of transition.

Living as “immigrants” (1 Peter 2:11-12) in this world is part of our calling.  It means that our immigrant lifestyle, both as individuals and as a community, will entail change.  It means that we will need to “build a transition raft” that will help navigate the changes that will be part and parcel of this calling.

One critical element of change transition is a strong and vital community.  When changes arise, a community will provide us with the stability needed to walk through the unknown.  A community will drive us back to our power base, Jesus Christ, reminding us of His sovereign care and presence in all things.  A community does not keep us from change.  It resources us by helping us see God in the change and builds anew a prayerful and dependent spirit.

World Team is changing, and will change even more as we move into the future.  For that very reason, we need to be in community and grow in community so togetherwe can navigate well those changes .

Filed under: Change & transition, Community | 1 Comment »

Based on trust

Posted on January 25, 2013 by wtdavid

trustNowhere in the Bible do we find an exhortation to: “trust one another”.  We are told to “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11), “exhort one another” (Hebrews 3:13) and “love one another” (1 John 4:7).  We are told to put our trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6).  However, “trust one another” does not make the list of ‘one another’ commands.

Why?

This is the question I asked myself.

Trust is placing confidence in another. It is giving another an open door into my life without having to order what that engagement should look like.  It is not an action like encouragement.  I encourage another when I tell them they did an excellent job in facilitating a gathering of the community, for example.  That’s a tangible outworking of that one another command; a very specific step that was taken.

Trusting another is difficult to describe in tangible steps because it requires relinquishing control, believing the other is “for me”. Trusting another is also a two-way street in that it moves us to desire to see another excel.

Now that’s the ideal, but it’s the ideal that we should be striving towards by the grace of God.  Sometimes, we determine our engagement with one another by a series of guidelines or by a “process”.  Though these are helpful at times, they may cause us to skirt around the issue of trust, and not push us to consider the level of trust that exists between us.

Trust is built over time, but trust is also granted.  Rather than always waiting to see if another merits our trust, maybe we should consider first what keeps us from trusting others.

 

 

 

Filed under: Community, Trust | 4 Comments »

Sharing stories

Posted on January 22, 2013 by wtdavid

If it is true that “one of the reasons why ‘working together’ is not a descriptor that currently characterizes us is because we don’t know others in our community as well as we should,” then we need to create opportunities where we can talk and engage one another.

In the past, during the World Team Institute of Church Planting, there was a time when people would “share their histories” or “share their stories”.  It was a moment where people talked about their spiritual journey.  It wasn’t necessarily a long drawn out event, but in several minutes you gained an appreciation for how God had worked in another person’s life.  I believe that time of sharing built trust among those present as you recognized the hand of God in another’s journey.Sharing_your_stories_623

Though we may not be able to regularly reproduce that history sharing time, our digitoral or virtual age allows us to engage in this kind of conversation, even from a distance.  Scott Peck, a writer who has written extensively on the issue of community, said that community can be developed over a long period of time or a very short period.  It’s the energy and intentionality that we put into the time shared that will move it more quickly to community.

Because “working together” is a value to us, and since this value is nurtured by time spent together, let’s seize the opportunities we have through Skype, e-mail, Twitter or phone to share our stories with another.  Certainly, when we are together, we can go deeper in that conversation, but why not begin building that trust relationship now virtually.

We can start down this conversation road by asking a simple question next time we’re “on-line”: what has the Lord been doing in your life this week?

Maybe you have another question to suggest.

 

 

Filed under: Community, Listening | 8 Comments »

Working together

Posted on January 18, 2013 by wtdavid

It’s right there in our purpose statement: “To glorify God by working together to establish reproducing churches focusing on the unreached peoples of the world.” Working together, being interdependent, is the foundation or platform on which we do our work.  Working together is not a strategy we use to carry out our purpose and mission.  It’s the way we choose to interact with one another in order to fulfill God’s calling.Working%20Together%20(Small)

We need one another.  This is not a solo effort.  The Bible affirms this value time and again when it talks about the teams or groups of workers that went out together to share the story of Jesus and establish His church.  We must intentionally seek others’ help, input and participation in order to multiply disciples and communities of believers.

Now I can say that I need others, and yet live and work without allowing any community to enter my world and lend a helping hand.  I could come up with a host of action steps to ensure that interdependence characterizes who I am as a member of the WT community. But, interdependence is first a relational stance towards another.  It’s not about a series of boxes that I can check off my To Do list, indicating that I got feedback from ‘x’ number of people or asked a specific number of people for their help.  It’s about who I’m talking with.  It’s about those whom I would go to because I know them and their heart.

One of the reasons why ‘working together’ is not a descriptor that currently characterizes us is because we don’t know others in our community as well as we should.  Trust is built by time and conversation.  Understanding and a desire to work together flows out of shared time that allows us to see the strengths and gifts of one another.

So, pick up the phone, “reach out to someone”, and take the time to talk with another.  ‘Working together’ would take on a whole different look.

Filed under: Community, Trust, Vision | 3 Comments »

“Independent Subcontractors”

Posted on September 11, 2012 by wtdavid

So have we really drifted into becoming more like “independent contractors” than a “bonded fellowship”?   Why would this be case?  How did this come about?

One reason would be that certain concerns take precedence over others.  For the most part, those concerns are right in front of us: just to live and to work.  Those concerns, though certainly legitimate, can push us away from others who are not right here with us.  A common definition of an independent subcontractor is “a person or business which has a contract to provide some portion of the work or services on a project agreed to by a contractor.”  A subcontractor sets his/her own hours and work schedule.  A subcontractor has his/her own small team and doesn’t necessarily work in tandem with other workers outside of his/her local context.  Their chief concern is to make sure they get paid for the work they do.

Another reason would be that we only apply the value at a local level.  WT has a strong aspirational value for community, though its application can be limited.  We have done a good job building local communities, but struggle to have any sense of connection to the larger WT community

A final reason would be the lack of trust that quickly sets in between people.  I have heard one writer say that it takes ten positive comments to offset one critical one.  Could it be that we too quickly find ourselves thinking less of a member within the WT community because of one misplaced comment?  The longer that comment is not dealt with, the harder it is to maintain a bonded fellowship.

The WT community is a unique group of cross cultural workers, passionate about one thing: the multiplication of disciples and communities of believers around the globe.  Many communities of workers work towards this end.  Maybe I’m not seeing things correctly, but it seems like we act more like a group of “independent subcontractors” sometimes than a community pulling together with and for one another.

 

Filed under: Community, Partnership | 4 Comments »

One little phrase

Posted on September 5, 2012 by wtdavid

Sometimes when you’re reading an article, one little phrase seems to jump off the page at you. Such was the case when I read this little phrase recently in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (Vol. 28, No. 3):  “I realized how few “traditional missionaries” are sent there by mission “agencies” (a horrible word, representing the disastrous shift from a closely bonded fellowship of fund-sharing teams to groups of independently-funded individuals for whom “agencies” are merely temporary flags of convenience.””  I felt the ‘sting’ of that comment and that criticism.

However, every criticism has elements of truth in it; otherwise it wouldn’t hurt so much.  That’s when I began to wonder how we as workers may have drifted from that ‘closely bonded fellowship’ to ‘independent subcontractors’, if you will.  In other words, have we become less of a ‘network of like-minded individuals’ and more of ‘convenient groups’ of workers who enjoy being with each other from time to time?

Kind of sobering to think that we may drifted more than we realize.  Let’s talk more in the coming days about why this might be the case, how it may have come about, and what we might do to restore an attitude of ‘bonded fellowship’.

 

Filed under: Collaboration, Community | 8 Comments »

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