• 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!

Community can happen in a weekend

Posted on March 6, 2017 by wtdavid

I just spent the past weekend with a dozen other cross cultural workers and leaders.  They came from all over the globe and are engaged in a variety of ministries.  We ‘thought’ the common denominator was that we all have the same executive coach.community Very quickly, we realized that the same common denominator was (and is) the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sounds obvious, you might say.   However, that common denominator allowed us to rather quickly build community between us.

Author Scott Peck in his book, A Different Drum, argues that community is built in a variety of ways, but that it is not always a function of time. This weekend brought that insight home.

There was nothing ‘fancy’ or complex about how we spent our time together. The first night, we shared with one another our background and family.  The next two days, we each presented our ministries, beginning with a Bible verse that has been meaningful to us.  No big Bible exposition.  The next person presenting prayed for the person who had just presented.  The last night, we shared what are ways to thrive (not survive) in ministry.  There was plenty of discussion around the meal tables as well as when we walked through the city.

The last night, one of the youngest among us said that she was amazed at how quickly she felt ‘at home’ to be able to share her heart; there was ‘safety’ in this community.  People understood the world she lived in and could spoke honestly to her.

We all need community.  One of the elements of our WT Ministry Framework is growing in community.  That community can take many forms and happen in different ‘time frames’.

Let us not shy away from community because it takes time, because it makes us vulnerable to others.  It took ‘time’ to participate in this retreat; not in terms of quantity, but in terms of choosing to spend my time differently than I might have this past weekend. Let us grow continually in community because the fruit will be evident in how we thrive in ministry, how we grow in resiliency.

Filed under: Community, Honesty, Sharing the Gospel story | 2 Comments »

Wrestling with pride

Posted on March 1, 2017 by wtdavid

When you ‘wrestle’ with the flesh, you are taking on an adversary that never stops his or her attack.  At the same time, you can seemingly never get your hands on or around this opponent.  It’s like trying to grab one of the many dishes at a Hong Kong Dim Sum restaurant with chopsticks.  You are a debutant at this and you just can’t get those two chopsticks around that dumpling without it slipping out.   chopsticks3

The ‘flesh’ is another way of talking about pride.  Pride is full out independence.  It is being convinced that you need to do something, and that only you can do it.

The trouble with pride is that it has blinded most of us to its systemic presence and power in our lives.  Sure, we all know we are prideful from time to time. However, we would never admit that the overwhelming majority of our actions are tainted by pride; by our wanting to be noticed, accepted or appreciated.

When you try to ‘address’ pride in your life, it’s like that dumpling slipping between those chopsticks. It gets away from you and pops up somewhere else.

So, is wrestling with pride a lost cause?  You would start to think so after the numerous ‘defeats’ we each have had at the mercy of this adversary.  However, the simple act of calling out for help can be a first step in grabbing hold of that pride and addressing it with the help of another.

Calling out to God (Psalm 139:23-24) provides us with the grace and ability we need to go after pride.  Calling out to a brother or sister in our community of believers gives us the hand that we need to prayerfully engage and overpower our pride (James 5:16).

Filed under: Community, Gospel, Pride | 2 Comments »

Pride runs deep

Posted on February 22, 2017 by wtdavid

How easy it is for us to forget that the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf is the reason why we are we part of the family of God.  Day by day, our works ‘shout out’ to others around us that we are part of the family because of all the ‘good’ that we do, because of the many hours of ministry in which we engage, and because we ‘gave up’ a better career to serve God cross culturally.

We’ve got it all wrong.  As one writer put: “It is painful to pride to discover that the Christian life is not rooted in what we can do, but in what we need done to us.”

proudPride.  It’s the belief that we can live and do ministry on our own.  Really.  We might not say that out loud.  We might use all the right spiritual phrases, but our pride will not let us go as far as to say: ‘we can do nothing apart from Him.”

It is the painful ‘tearing away’ from that self-centeredness in which we must engage each day.  However, even to do that, we need the working of Christ’s Spirit in our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24).

Pride runs deep. It will not be overcome in a day’s effort.  It is a marathon work that calls us to daily repentance and faith.  It is a journey where we need others to help us move away from self-centeredness towards other-centeredness.

Filed under: Accountability, Community, Gospel | Leave a comment »

Another take at unpacking the idea of ‘over-questioning’

Posted on February 17, 2017 by wtdavid

I find so much good in the ‘sharing of ideas’; in that part of community where we can help each other ‘grow up in Christ’ as we ‘sharpen one another’ through robust dialogue.  Carolynfun-moving raised a question which led to some further ‘unpacking’ of an idea.

Then another person wrote back with what I felt were very insightful comments. In fact, I responded to this person by saying: “I think you did a way better job of expressing what I was trying to say in my original post.”

Here’s what that person in the World Team Global community wrote: “I appreciated Carolyn’s question, because it reminded me of my experiences as a critical/analytical thinker. Many people took my questions or critical comments, when all I felt I was doing was examining the issue. This happened more when I wrote than in face to face exchanges.  For me, there was no motivation to go after someone, no hidden agenda. The motivation was a questioning mind which wants see all possibilities, hindrances, watch for missing information etc. But this sometimes came across to those with other thinking styles as plain critical, or too perfectionist.

On the other hand, some people would realize what I was doing, and encourage others to listen, to hear me out. But when it comes to asking questions, there are ways to phrase and ask questions in an appropriate way. How we talk can sound like a know it all, arrogant and disrespectful.

One thing I know from myself, is that critical thinkers can come across as having all the questions and no solutions. I have had to learn to know the difference between tearing down and building up. Paul says knowledge puffs up; love builds up. That is the bottom line.”

What stood out to me, what ‘sharpened’ my thinking were three things.  First, the good reminder, said in another way, that asking lots of questions is not wrong.  Second, other people need to get involved in helping a group to receive well the input via questions of one member of the group. It’s a community project.  Finally, growth in self-awareness led this writer to ‘adapt’, to contextualize his questioning mind, in light of biblical principles to the need, growth and development of others.  Did he stop asking questions?  I don’t think so, but he obviously grew in knowing how to exercise
his ‘gift’ for the benefit of the group.

Filed under: Community, Development | 2 Comments »

Community prayer snapshot

Posted on February 9, 2017 by wtdavid

I don’t know what you did today, but I spent the morning praying for Asia with the France team.

The room was divided into seven (7) stations.  At each station, we prayed for 15-20 minutes, in small groups, for the prayer points at that station.  We ‘moved around’ the room throughout the morning and prayed with different groups of different people.  At two stations, the group watched a short video from two of our teams in Asia.  Prayers were offered in French. Prayers were offered in English.  Prayers may have been offered in other languages.20170209_105127

One person commented as we were leaving, “I’m really glad I came this morning. It was so encouraging.”  Another said how good it was to be praying for and learning about another area of the world which he had never visited.

We would love h20170209_105153ear about your ‘community prayer snapshot’. Feel free to post those in the comment section.

Prayer leads us to “see the world as God does, to recognize more and more the depth of His grace towards us, and allow our hearts to ‘overflow’ with joy, with passion, with the unstoppable desire to grab that rope cord and join together in a movement.”

Filed under: Community, Movement, Prayer | 4 Comments »

Raise the sails!

Posted on February 8, 2017 by wtdavid

This past Monday, I met with two young leaders from a small mission that is “re-building” itself.  I say ‘young’ because the two guys could have been my sons.  They asked me questions, almost nonstop, for 90 minutes.  Good questions; the kind that make you sit back and hesitate before you try to answer.  They were eager to learn from another.  They were passionate.  They were focused.

When I say that their mission is ‘small’, it does not do them justice.  Their numbers may be small, but their dream is huge and draws you in to want to know more abpelicanpnewall4out how they believe God will accomplish it.  Their vision caused me to want to help them, not criticize their efforts and strategies.

As I thought about all this later, I realized the dream was compelling, but it was their passion, their hunger to engage in the accomplishment of this vision that spoke to me.  It was as if, we were all on a sailboat together and these guys were screaming: “Raise the sails!  Get ready to ‘rock and roll’ because the wind is up!”  What would you do?  You would run to grab hold of one of those rope cords and start heaving to raise those sails.

God has laid on our hearts a dream, a vision of multiplying disciples and communities of believers among the unreached.  However, we ‘lack’ the passion at times to give our all for this missional endeavor.  When the call is heard to ‘raise the sails’, some of us prefer criticism and push back, rather than heart-y engagement.

As we begin to see the world as God does, as we recognize more and more the depth of His grace towards us, our hearts will ‘overflow’ with joy, with passion, with the unstoppable desire to grab that rope cord and join together in a movement.

Filed under: Community, Passion, Vision | 4 Comments »

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