If you haven’t watched this video, I would like to encourage you to do so.
Just imagine you are on a prayer walk in Mississauga and join in pray with Keith and others for the needs of WT Canada.
Thanks Keith for doing this. Pray as well for each one of our Ministry Support Centres and global partners!
Filed under: Interdependence, Prayer | 4 Comments »
One of the other questions that has come up when talking about the ‘Gifting a Challenge’ project is: how are we going to identify the two people groups on which to focus and the indicators for determining impact? 
It’s a great question.
In the first series of online forums, we asked two questions:
What I found interesting was that there a fair amount of convergence in the answers given to these questions. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised since it’s something many have been praying about for some time.
The HOW, I believe, is discovered by gathering people from the WT Global community to enter into conversation with one another and asking the Lord to lead us as we talk.
We need you to work this process further. I hope you’ll join us on one of the next online forums.
Information on times and the link will be sent soon.
Filed under: Challenge, Interdependence, Prayer, Unreached people groups | Leave a comment »
Like most workers, I feel like I have a good read on life and ministry. The reality is that I can easily be blinded to faults that bring pain and conflict into conversations, relationships and teams. We each see the ‘evident’ needs of others, but lack a larger perspective that shows us our own spiritual growth needs. I, we, for the most part lack self awareness.
Being interdependent, being mutually supportive of one another is also a call to get involved in one another’s lives.
The TC4u document (found on the Hub under the Gospel Conversation Café) is one attempt to grapple with how such mutual dependence works itself out in our communities as workers in World Team. I can talk about community and tell others of the importance of being part of one, but do I personally feel the need and model the need for such mutual support through community?
If you don’t see the need for community, for this need of open and honest sharing, you won’t go seeking it out.
However, if like me, you recognize your lack of self awareness and need of Christ, you will go looking for a group of like minded believers with whom to gather and offer that mutual support to one another; to work at living out community as described in the Scriptures:
Filed under: Community, Core Values, Interdependence | 2 Comments »
One of the core values we hold as World Team global workers is interdependence. On our website, we describe interdependence in this way: “Interdependence is evident in our conscious desire to embrace partnerships with others who share our passion for the unreached. It is lived out in our teams, networks of national church associations, and sending churches and individuals who make up the broader World Team family.”
That may be good missiological speak, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what interdependence might look like in our lives and ministries. I kind of like thinking about interdependence as being mutually supportive of one another. It’s about being intentional in working together across team and agency lines. In some respects, “it’s about all believers everywhere being united together and needing each other.”
Maybe a practical example would help.
The office where I currently work came about through just such mutual support or dependency. During our first few years in France, I met Pierre (a European sent worker) who was 
involved in a church plant near the city. From our first conversation, I knew we were driven by the same passion. We met a number of times and had deep conversations about reaching the community here with the Gospel. One day, Pierre called. He said that he had heard I was in need of an administrator. He had someone to send my way. It was someone from his church who had greatly helped him with the organization and structure of their church plant as it got off the ground. That is how I met Olivier. Olivier worked for me for about five years. During that time, he introduced me to Jean Marc who owns his own business. We had lunch with Jean Marc numerous times over the past number of years. Last May, Jean Marc called and said that he had heard I was looking for an office. He had one to rent to me.
A few things stand out as I look back over this timeline of mutual support:
Filed under: Core Values, Interdependence | 2 Comments »
Many of us are familiar with Martin Luther King’s famous speech, “I have a dream” where Dr. King cast a vision for what freedom and justice might look like in one country of the world. By using a series of word pictures, he built a desire in people’s hearts for such an internal and societal change.
I have a dream for World Team.
I have a dream that one day all workers, all staff serving with World Team will speak of others with respect, honesty and appreciation; that people from World Team will choose to video Skype rather than send an e-mail to say things that may be hard or difficult to say. I have a dream that World Team workers, World Team staff will send more tangible gifts of appreciation than just an occasional ‘thank you’ at the end of a note.
I have a dream that speaks to cultural issues; organizational culture issues.
I have a dream for World Team.
I have a dream that World Team workers and staff will value both leaders and followers. I have a dream that each of us will choose to hear and follow leaders so that they ‘may do it with joy’ (Hebrews 13). I have a dream that leaders will listen well to followers (James 1), reflecting deeply on and integrating the insights they share.
I have a dream for World Team. I hope and pray that you share that dream with me.
Filed under: Interdependence, Leadership, Vision | 2 Comments »
Com-mu-ni-ty. My old college English dictionary defines the word as: “a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests.” Such a definition doesn’t really do much for me. It certainly doesn’t stir anything in my heart.
Biblical community is fellowship, partnership in the Gospel. We are made to be in community because the triune God lives in and expresses itself through community. However, as with the dictionary definition of community above, we struggle to see its actual importance to our day to day life. Certainly, we can speak on biblical community and lead Bible studies in the value of community, but our practical experience of community may be somewhat limited or incomplete.
Bruce Milne, in his insightful work, We Belong Together, makes this statement in a section on the power of a loving community: “To love means to be vulnerable; it means accepting responsibility; it means giving ourselves away.” Three short statements packed with meaning which demonstrate that biblical community calls for time, vulnerability and ‘one another-ing’ each other.
Starting in January 2014, we will begin a ‘global conversation’ about biblical community using a version of a white paper entitled: TC4u. You’ll be hearing more about this working paper in the weeks ahead.
To start us thinking on the subject, consider this question: what elements are essential to a biblical transformational community?
Filed under: Community, Interdependence | 4 Comments »
Thoughts Along The Journey 