• 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!

A practical example

Posted on June 27, 2017 by wtdavid

Last week, I wrote a post titled: “Why I am not the centre“.

In that post, I made the following statement: “I’m not the centre because we (you and I in each of our ministries) want to ‘release people into ministry’.  So, at a given moment, the ‘spotlight’ has to go off of us and on to someone else.  Someone else has to be ‘equipped’ and ‘released’.

Pat & Jeannie sent me the video clip below.  When I viewed it, I realized it was a tangible example of why I, why we are not the centre.

Let’s take joy in the fact that we are part of an ever growing multicultural community of believers who long to share Christ with others.  Let’s take joy in how the Gospel can truly change the hearts of people.

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

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 »

People watching

Posted on February 21, 2017 by wtdavid

Have you ever caught yourself just ‘staring’ at people in a restaurant, on a flight, or at an open air market?  You know, engaging in ‘people watching’.  I can at times find myself looking at all the people around me and wondering how many of them know Christ.Crowded...

A sense of guilt can easily well up in our hearts as we think about the unfinished work of the Gospel and what we feel we ‘need’ to do.

Yes, our hearts need to be daily broken over the lost condition of those around us.  However, the ultimate work of the Gospel does not rest upon our efforts.  A friend used to say: “No one ever got saved by your testimony.”  His point was that God may use your testimony to bring another to Himself, but it is He that opens the hearts of men and women to Himself.

However, what if our initial response of brokenness gave way to a further response.  What if we chose to train another to pray along with us, to join with us in engaging lost people in spiritual conversation?  What if we saw the ‘mission’ God has given us to be a team effort rather than just an individual effort?

Last night, (let’s call him ‘P’) P was my waiter.  Each time, I come through this city, I usually run into P at this restaurant. P knows that I am a Christian. I met P through C, who is a local believer here.  P also knows M who is a worker in this city.  I haven’t necessarily ‘trained’ C and M, but my spiritual horizons expand when I realize that God is using many people to bring Christ’s hope to the one of those  among the lost.

I just wonder about the fruit that might come from training up others into this missional work of God, rather than ‘carrying’ it by ourselves.

Filed under: Gospel, Sharing the Gospel story, Teams | Leave a comment »

Who is your one (bis)?

Posted on January 24, 2017 by wtdavid

The word, ‘bis’, in French is a way of adding an additional thought.  It’s an ‘encore’ if you will.

Last week, I wrote a post about the ‘slogan’ shared by my brother’s pastor in regards to Ephesians 1:1-14:  “Then he shared this slogan via a question: “Who is your one?”  Who is the person God has put on your heart?  Are you close to anyone who is far from God?  Are you in touch with anyone who is wondering how they fit into God’s mission in the world?”

I wanted to cdiscipleship-potential-160526ome back again to that question.  As I thought more about that slogan, I remembered a good friend from seminary (a New Zealander) who used to ask me a similar question every time we met for coffee.  We would sit down at Friendly’s (an ancient version of Starbucks) over a cup of American ‘coffee’ and he would start out by asking: who is your man?  Or later on, the question morphed to: how is it going with your man?

In his language, he was asking about the person that I was reaching out to or discipling.  He was pushing me to get past just talking about people to actually moving towards people and investing in them.

His weekly reminder was the help, the accountability moment I needed.  His weekly question was the reminder that someone was thinking about and praying for me in this regard.  That weekly reminder over a cup of ‘coffee’ was one of the main ways God kept my eyes focused on the His larger mission.

Last week, I asked: “Who is your one?”  Maybe I could state that another way: who are you reminding regularly about God’s mission by asking: Who is your man?  Who is your woman?  Who is the one in whom you are investing?

Filed under: Discipleship, Sharing the Gospel story, WT Ministry Framework | 4 Comments »

In Other Worlds

Posted on March 30, 2015 by wtdavid

I hope you enjoy this interview with John (WT Canada).  I so thoroughly enjoyed John’s book and found deep encouragement in it for us as cross cultural workers that I would like to offer a free hard copy to every World Team worker.

If you would like a free copy of the paperback edition, please send a note to Cindy Nicholson at cindy.nicholson@worldteam.org before April 19, 2015.

Make sure you include the following information in your note:

  • Your first and last name
  • Your field
  • Your Sending Centre or partnering mission
  • Your postal address

Filed under: Core Values, History telling, Mission, Sharing the Gospel story | 2 Comments »

How are we doing?

Posted on April 22, 2013 by wtdavid

Awhile back, I launched this challenge to the World Team community:

That each worker in the World Team community would intentionally
disciple one person into a relationship with Christ and that each worker
would intentionally disciple one person into cross cultural ministry.

So, how are we doing?8842419_3104d8e9ae

Now I’m not asking for numbers or metrics in response to this question. Bringing others into a personal relationship with Christ or moving others towards a desire to serve in cross cultural ministry is a process. There are incremental steps or ‘spiritual thresholds’ as one person described it recently. There is work that we can do and there is work that only God can and that we need to be lifting up before Him.

So, maybe a better way to put it would be: where are you in that journey? What are you doing to help others get to that next step in the journey? What are you praying for that only God can do in another’s life as you encourage them to consider Christ or challenge them to move towards cross cultural ministry?

This past Sunday, I was sitting across the table from G. I have spent some time with G over the past few months. He and I actually are part of the same French association. The conversation got started by my friend Chris who asked G where he was in his spiritual journey. G says he believes in God, but he is not ready to become ‘evangelical’. Obviously, there is a fair amount of misunderstanding in his heart and mind. Chris and I encouraged him to consider the fact that faith without real practice or life change happening puts the reality of that faith in question. Chris simply challenged him as a fellow business owner to follow through fully with a decision to believe in Christ as he would in fulfilling any contract he had signed.

We can’t pull G across the threshold. We need people to pray for G that he would recognize his ‘half hearted’ commitment; that he is in many ways keeping God as one of many different masters in his life.

I loved Chris’ illustration in challenging G, but it is ultimately God who must open his heart. That’s where we are, that’s where I am.

Filed under: 1plus1, Sharing the Gospel story | 4 Comments »

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