Guiding Principles | Thoughts Along The Journey

Pray every day

Posted on May 13, 2016 by wtdavid

When I was in Cameroon a few weeks back, the team got together in two groups to pray. One hour had been allocated for our prayer time together. As we gathered in a circle, the leader quickly explained that we prayer bis bis would be sharing for 10 minutes and praying for 50 minutes. Each person in the group was going to have to share a meaningful request in less than 1 minute, and then we would go to prayer.

To be honest, I was a bit ‘skeptical’ about how we (this small group) were going to spend one hour in prayer. Yet, the time was so quickly filled with conversational prayer between us as a group and our God that before we knew it, the closing prayer was being offered. What a delight to pray together in that way.

This week during our global leader meetings, I set aside a time of prayer with the same parameters. However, each group leader varied even those parameters from our prayer time in Cameroon. The short sharing time was still maintained, but done in other ways. Yet, once again we spent the bulk of our time praying.

When we were all done, one leader said: “Every day, we discuss a series of critical topics. We have a wealth of topics we could pray for each night. We could spend this same time in prayer every night.” You know what? He’s right. We could spend that time each night in prayer

Prayer is one of our guiding principles; it directs how we do ministry. We do ministry first and foremost in prayer. We don’t do it because we ‘have to’; we engage in prayer because our Father delights in hearing our prayers and our praises, and because we want to come and be with Him.

Thanks for your prayers for us as leaders this week! Know that, during our time here, we were praying for many of you as well as the people group among whom you serve! Let us not grow weary in prayer (Luke 18:1).

Filed under: Guiding Principles, Prayer, Priorities, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Going all the way down

Posted on January 25, 2016 by wtdavid

In Saving Grace, a series of daily devotionals, C. John (Jack) Miller writes:

“Jesus emptied himself – made himself nothing. He took the form of a servant, and he was made in human likeness – a great step down from being equal with the Father. He took a second step down by humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death. Then he took a third step down by dying the death of the criminal and the sinner on the cross. He goes all the way down and down and down to redeem you and me.

God proves that he really loves you by the gift of his Son. He’s telling you this to melt your heart. He wants you to see that you don’t need to be ruled by fear because he controls everything. God’s great work of redemption is at the center of history, which is moving toward a great destination. That destination is the glory of the Father in Jesus Christ in which we’ll all be enjoying one another and enjoying God throughout eternity. If you’re a part of that plan, it can make you so excited that you might even forget to worry for awhile.”

This is one way of talking about the Gospel, our main guiding principle as a World Team community.

This is one way of talking about the Gospel and showing its practical impact on our day to day lives: “If you’re part of that plan, it can make you so excited that you might even forget to worry for awhile.” The Gospel displaces worry when our heart finds its joy and contentment in Christ rather than in all the things we do or accomplish.

“What? Me worry?” you might say. Yet, worry is often part of a cross cultural worker’s daily grind. The Gospel, speaking the Gospel again to oneself and to one another, pushes worry to the side.

Filed under: Gospel, Guiding Principles, Worry | Leave a comment »

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