• 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!

Were You Moved? A Follow Up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by wtdavid

follow up bisThere have been a lot of great comments shared about the post: “Were You Moved?”, but I just had to share this one because it shows the impact that can come from an individual and a team responding to the needs of workers wanting to enter into ministry. It’s also an example of how the 1+1 challenge is being met.

This is from one of the newest WT Spain members:

“Hi Spain Team! I wanted to send some encouragement along to you as a representative of the mobilization team.

I just met up with a college age girl from my church. She has been passionate for missions in Japan for as long as I can remember. But currently, she is at a point where she just doesn’t know what to do next. She is in contact with missionaries in Japan but does not hear back from them much. I know she can (and will) do amazing things for God’s glory, but right now she doesn’t know where to start!

It made me think of how I was in a very similar spot a few years back until I got in contact with the Spain Team. From then on, I always had someone to contact and someone with whom I could discuss my next steps. It is great and SO IMPORTANT!

So, first of all, thanks to you all who were/are a part of this continuing journey, and second, be encouraged to reach out to someone you know who may be questioning their next steps. They could very potentially become our newest member of World Team Spain!”

Following up can mean engaging in others’ lives by contacting them, answering their questions or just praying for them.

Filed under: 1plus1, Mobilization, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Were You Moved?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by wtdavid

We all know the verse which says: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9.37-38). However, we can easily pray that verse without being moved emotionally and spiritually by it.moved

Last week, we as a World Team community set aside time to rejoice in what God has done in our midst and to pray that God would raise up more disciples and establish more communities of believers.  Prayer moves our hearts and in some mysterious way it “moves” the heart of God.

As I read through the list of appointees, that is, the people who desire to serve with our teams around the world, I was moved.

I was moved by the sheer number of people in the pipeline.  If you count the names on the last two pages of the WT Prayer Day guide (Feb 2013) and add those from other Support Centres, there are over seventy (70) workers waiting to go out.

I was moved by the diversity of locations to which these workers have been assigned.

I was struck by the simple fact that many of these workers cannot head to their ministry assignment because they lack the necessary funds.

God’s desire is that more workers enter His harvest.  I, like you, am moved by this desire and in light of what I read this past week as I prayed through the WT Day of Prayer Guide, I want to discover how I can best respond.

  • I might commit to pray for several people on this list; to pray that God would provide all their needs and to pray until God does so.
  • I might share a potential contact for support with one or more of these people.  Time and again, it has been shown that when your supporters choose to support other works or workers, they commit more funds to you.
  • I might visit with one or more of these people to encourage them in partnership development.

I’m just scratching the surface here and you may have better ideas.  However, when I see that list of appointees and know that there are others waiting to go out, my heart is moved to want to do something to help.

Filed under: Mobilization, Prayer | 6 Comments »

Mobilization discipleship

Posted on November 8, 2012 by wtdavid

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with Simon here in Australia.  We were talking about mobilizing new workers when he ‘rephrased’ the task by saying: “People don’t want you to tell them what to do in the discovery process. They want you to journey with them as they discover, with you, what God is leading them into.”

It’s not necessarily about recruiting or convincing someone to join with us.  It’s about journeying with a person and discipling them on the journey as they discover more and more God’s passion for the world.  Call it: mobilization discipleship. 

Looking at the need for new workers in this light should change the way we go about the process.  First, our effort to mobilize new workers must be highly relational.  You cannot journey with a person if there is not regular, ongoing contact.  Second, the process can be messy as people journey in different ways and at different speeds.  And finally, we’ll need to take a more facilitative approach in the journey; listening more and asking questions that cause the other to reflect more deeply on how he/she wants to engage in God’s mission.

God calls us to pray more workers into His work force.  God also calls us to journey with those potential workers as they discern God’s call on their lives.

 

 

 

Filed under: Discipleship, Mobilization | 10 Comments »

Collaboration or what?

Posted on May 2, 2012 by wtdavid

A little over two years ago, we as a World Team community launched a mobilization effort to increase the number of workers in cross cultural ministry by five to seven percent.  This is a laudable goal; an objective that requires we work together and respond corporately to this challenge.

One on-line author [http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2011/05/when-teams-only-think-they-col.html] describes three possible ways for teams to respond in such a situation.

One approach is compliance. This is where each individual independently responds to the challenge.   Now there is nothing wrong with this approach as it works to spread the burden across a large number of people.  However, working together is not a natural outcome of compliance.  In fact, people could comply without even talking with others.

A second approach is cooperation.  This is where individuals work on a response to the need, but share their ideas with others.  In spite of the sharing, though, the ultimate focus is still on individual efforts and not on a collective response.

A third approach is collaboration.  This is where the effort from the start is focused on the larger group rather than the individual.  How the group can discuss and work together towards a collective response becomes the objective.  There may be a sharing of resources across groups or areas in order to better respond to the challenge.

The on-line author (see link above) summarizes this way: “What’s interesting is that teams do not consciously decide not to collaborate.  Instead they do what comes naturally; which is to work either completely or partially on their own.  The reality is that true collaboration is difficult and time consuming.  It requires subordinating individual goals to collective achievement.”

To achieve our mobilization challenge, it is collaboration that we need.

 

 

Filed under: Collaboration, Community, Mobilization | 4 Comments »

Urgent Need for Church Planters Revisited

Posted on July 20, 2011 by wtdavid

I think it is worth sharing a rather lengthy quote from the book, Global Church Planting, to underscore again what we were talking about in Tuesday’s post.  This comes from a section titled: “New Coworkers Recruited from the Church Plants Expand the Missionary Force”:

“One of the most noteworthy features of Paul’s mission was his recruitment of coworkers from the various churches he planted.  He recruits from the harvest for the next harvest.  “The majority of Paul’s coworkers came from the new churches that he had established .… The ‘home churches’ of these workers acknowledge that they share in the responsibility for the expansion of the kingdom of God by providing missionary workers who help Paul” (Schnabel 2008, 255).  Though Paul’s initial church-planting teams were sent out from Syrian Antioch and were composed of Jewish background believers, he did not look to Antioch alone for new missionary recruits.  Rather he recruited them from the churches he had planted, and the coworkers were increasingly of Gentile, not Jewish, origin (Ollrog 1979, 62).  For example, about three years after the estimated time of Timothy’s conversion in Lystra on the first missionary journey (Acts 14) Paul took him on as a missionary apprentice (Acts 16:1-3).  Soon after that Timothy began working semi-independently of Paul in Thessalonica (Acts 17:14; 1 Thess. 3:1-5), Macedonia (Acts 19:22), Corinth (1 Cor 4:17), Philippi (Phil. 2:19), and Ephesus (1 Time. 3:14-15)”

What made this quote ‘come alive’ for me was when one of the leaders from the French church we attend approached me last week and said that the church should consider ways to send ‘workers’ to work with us.  This is a church that WT had a major part in establishing.

We need to be recruiting from the harvest for the next harvest.

Filed under: Church planting, Mobilization | 2 Comments »

Urgent Need for Church Planters

Posted on July 19, 2011 by wtdavid

For the past year, we have been talking about the “crisis opportunity” we are facing in terms of our need for new workers.  We all recognize that there is an urgent need for more workers to multiply disciples and communities of believers.  Ask anyone of our teams and they will tell you that their number one need is for more people to participate in ministry.

Normally, we look to see this need fulfilled by workers coming from one of our Sending Countries: Australia, Canada or the US.  However, while recently reading through the book, Global Church Planting, I was reminded of a mobilization hub that I had been overlooking, that is, the very community of believers we are involved in establishing.  We often hear that “the resources are in the harvest”, but I don’t think I had ever fully made the connection between our need and the possibility of that need being fulfilled by some in our actual church plants.

If discipling is at the heart of what we do, it must include seeking to develop a heart for the world in those we are discipling.  These disciples would then in turn train
others to have this same attitude, this same heart for the world.

So praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers means seeing workers mobilized from Australia, Canada and the US as well as from the very communities of believers we are establishing.

Filed under: Church planting, Mobilization | 10 Comments »

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