• 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!

Ten reasons why World Team will change

Posted on September 10, 2013 by wtdavid

Reason number 6: WT workers recognize that our calling remains the same, but the means or mode for communicating the message of Christ is in constant flux.

 Reason number 7: The WT community recognizes that the global base of missions has shifted.top-ten-reasons-married

 

For many years, Western mission agencies have been sending workers cross culturally.  However, in recent times, workers have begun to be sent out from numerous non-Western nations.  They are currently called: “majority world” workers.  These majority world workers are an indication that the centre of gravity for global missions has shifted.

J.D. Payne, in his book: Twelve Pressure Points, summarizes the current world situation in this way: “The centres for much Christian activity are found in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It has been estimated that by 2025 the world will contain 2.6 billion Christians, with 633 million from Africa, 640 million from Latin America, 460 million from Asia, and 555 million from Europe.”

It is thought that more believers gather for worship in China on any given Sunday than in all of “Christian Europe.”

In light of this global shift, we, as a WT community, recognize that we are on a steep learning curve in terms of adapting to the reality of multicultural teams as well as going deeper in gospel humility.

We will need to understand more than just the Australian, Canadian and American cultures to work effectively together in the future.  We will be working on teams where at least one non-Western culture is represented. Those cultures will challenge some of our ways of thinking and ministry approaches, but we will experience, in those communities, what it means to be the Church, the universal gathering of God’s people.

Such partnerships will call forth greater gospel humility as we recognize the gifts of each team member to the larger community. Our identity will need to go even deeper into the truth of who we are in Christ, so that we may truly serve others, not looking to have our approach, our way of seeing things, always be the accepted one.

World Team will change because of the excitement of partnering in thrusting out new workers from everywhere to everywhere.

Filed under: Change & transition, Global realities | Leave a comment »

Is your world too small?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by wtdavid

All of us could give strong and valid reasons for an inner call we have sensed from God to the ministry and people where we serve. That call first to serve God and then to follow Him into cross cultural ministry resonates in each of our hearts. Many spend years learning a language and gaining an understanding of the dynamics and cultural cues that are necessary to bring the message of Christ to those from another culture.small world

However, I have noticed that because of that singular focus I can sometimes lose sight of the larger world around me where God is working. I can become oblivious to what is happening in the Church elsewhere in the world. I am concerned about God’s mission, but in my limited area. I am in danger of developing a ‘mono-world’ view. My world has become too small.

When my world becomes too small, I can keep my heart from opening to the needs of people in other places. I might thwart God from possibly moving me from my current world and ministry to another. Now I am not saying that we should all be thinking about moving to another place or country. I am calling us, though, to open our hearts to God’s larger missional activity in the world around us and asking questions about how He wants us to respond:

  • You might choose one worker from another region and ask to receive their prayer letter; ask them to point you to some links about the people group that they are working among.
  • Build a love for another people group through prayer or through a simple act of reaching out to those who are different from you right where you live.
  • Prayerfully consider opportunities in other places in WT where your gifts and experience might be used.

Filed under: Global realities, Worldview | Leave a comment »

Going Glocal

Posted on July 27, 2012 by wtdavid

The world is always becoming ‘smaller’ in terms of the connectedness potential between peoples.  Global trends impact not only large scale structures, but local frameworks and cultures.  However, what is different in today’s world is that the local cultures are choosing to contextualize global changes to their particular environment.  Thus, we are going “glocal”; where global shifts may have different applications or outworkings in different local contexts.

This is particularly important for us as cross cultural workers as it means we will need to listen more intently and exegete more carefully the contexts in which we live and work.  In order to facilitate others well in their local “theologizing”, we will need to recognize our deep need of God and dependence on the insights of those from the cultures and contexts we find ourselves in.  For this is their work. The work of local believers is to discern what “glocal” looks like in their world.  Humility will be needed in this process, but we can be thankful that God truly does “give grace to the humble”.

I will be away for next number of days, and I would like to leave us with this question:  what one step could I undertake in the coming month (September) that would lead me to facilitate others more in applying the Gospel in their context?  Hopefully, we can pick up with that question and your insights when I return.

 

Filed under: Global realities, Humility, Listening | 1 Comment »

Global QuickVIEW once again

Posted on July 25, 2012 by wtdavid

I was reading again in Globalizing Theology: Belief and practice in an era of World Christianity and I recognized a number of insights which confirmed much of what the WT working group on global trends had discovered.

One of the chapters in this book cites three areas where globalization will continue to have an impact and the opportunities and challenges these present to the church:

  • “Because of globalization there is a reason for Christian mission to focus more on promoting holistic transformation.  Local theologizing must address issues of physical poverty along with spiritual poverty.”
  • “As urbanization and globalization come together in the megacities of the world, they present incredible opportunities but also tough challenges for the church.”
  • “In a globalizing world, we must chart a course through postmodernism with epistemological humility and confidence in the gospel, recognizing the social construction of our own worldviews in a world filled with enormous diversity.”

Granted that third impact is a “mouth full”, but the author seems to be stressing the necessity of having a holistic approach to mission, open eyes to the opportunities and challenges of urban migration, and a firm hold on the truth of Gospel all the while recognizing how our own cultural worldview influences how we ‘work out’ our Christian life.

There are no easy solutions or approaches to the cultural and global shifts occurring around us, but we must prayerfully continue to seek to discern how we will change and respond.  The Global QuickVIEW and Solution Snapshots documents serve as our first stepping stone towards such a change in our approach and work.

Filed under: Global realities, Humility, Planning | Leave a comment »

Telling Stories

Posted on July 20, 2012 by wtdavid

Joi wrote in response to my last post: “It seems that these principles enforce a certain ethos.  They describe a unique environment.  Could we find some stories that illustrate this?”  This is an excellent question.  Let me try to give an example or two, and hopefully this will encourage others to share.

Our first principle is to over communicate widely.  In launching the global mobilization project several years ago, we framed the plan from a ‘global’ perspective, thinking that all the resources could come from ‘global.’  What we quickly realized was that each ‘epicenter of mission’ needed to own the growing need for more workers and create the best processes for identifying, assessing, training and sending those workers to WT Global.  It was going to look different in each place, but each process could ultimately benefit everyone else and influence their process.  The breakthrough came when we launched the project through a month long prayer initiative with weekly biblical meditations written by workers from all over our WT community.

Our second principle is to have an open learning stance.  It may seem like an overly simplistic example, but we have for years talked about “strategic & tactical plans”, and then added in the idea of “project plans”.  These are terms that come from a US based approach to planning and there is nothing wrong with that.  When a worker joined my team from another cultural context, he found the terms confusing as they meant something completely different in his context.  He suggested that we start talking about three year plans (formerly ‘project plans’) and one year plans (formerly ‘strategic and tactical plans’).  It has been hard to change the vocabulary, but his suggestion has proved to be extremely helpful in approaching the planning process.

Our final principle is to seek to demonstrate humility.  It is always difficult to give an example of humility because the moment you do, it no longer is an example because you have now spotlighted the ‘humble’ person.  You know the person that comes to mind when you hear this principle.  Our desire is not to exalt this person, but to grasp anew how the Lord has worked out humility in their lives, and for us to then ask for the grace to live such a humble life.

 

Maybe you have some examples to share?  This would help all of us in this journey.

Filed under: Collaboration, Global realities, Reflection | 1 Comment »

Central Office Calling (II)

Posted on July 18, 2012 by wtdavid

Howard Brant writes: “God alone knows the exact numbers of workers coming out of the new initiatives.  What we can identify, however, is the epicenters of the largest movements.”  He then goes on to talk about Korea, China, Nigeria and other non Western countries that are sending out significant numbers of new workers to “participate in the Mission of God.”

One of the questions we raised in a previous post is how would new workers from such non Western countries join with the existing missions force?  What would common training look like across this multicultural work force?

A couple of principles come quickly to mind that should direct us in our mobilization and training.  A first principle would be to over communicate widely.  In the process of over communicating widely, we make people from many ‘epicenters of mission’ [other Support Centers, partners, other mission sending initiatives] aware of our own cultural expectations and assumptions as well as allow opportunity for these people to help us better frame our efforts in a more global manner.  A second principle would be to have an open learning stance.  An open learning stance means you see benefit in ideas and experiences shared from a variety of perspectives, different from your own, and that these ideas and experiences actually influence your own plans and strategies.  A final principle would be to seek to demonstrate humility.  The shift of the base of world Christianity to the southern hemisphere places many of us in a decreasing ‘power’ position.  We can no longer act as if we are the center, as if we are the ‘central office’ alone.  The Gospel drives us towards humility by the simple understanding of grace.  It should drive us to humility in  our relationships with this ever growing multicultural work force as we become one of many workers sent out into ‘the Mission of God’.

Navigating this shift can seem daunting. However, it is also thrilling to be part of God’s larger mission not only to gather people from all tribes, tongues and nations to His worshipping community , but also to send people from all tribes, tongues and nations out to reach others and invite them into His  worshipping community.

 

Filed under: Collaboration, Global realities, Partnership | 2 Comments »

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