Thoughts Along The Journey

This past week, one of our teams wrote the following: “Before the end of March, we must face the decision about the future of our Field, as we can no longer think about recruitment without a viable means of inviting our members to the area for longer than three months. On Tuesday, our Field will be joining together (across the globe) to fast and pray. Pray with us for any part of Tuesday that you can.”

Why are we raising this need again to the WT family?  Because the need for new workers is not a one-time issue that can be addressed by simply making a few tweaks to the system, with the result that new workers begin flowing towards ministries around the globe.  Over time, much prayer and innovation, coupled with making the sacrifice to step forward to mobilize, need to be our primary responses to this crisis.  We have detailed the growing loss of workers, outlined tangible steps in response, and have called together the World Team community to forty days of prayer and fasting to petition the One who alone sends workers into the harvest field of the nations.

We have been strongly encouraged in recent days by the number of WT people who have offered their time to assist in mobilizing new workers.  Our leaders are prayerfully considering those they will challenge to temporarily step out of their current ministries to assist in this mobilization initiative.  And people all over our WT community are interacting about how we can best respond to this mobilization opportunity.  These forty days of prayer and fasting, widely appreciated and followed by our community, remind us that prayer is an ongoing work.  We must continue to spur one another on to this integral part of ministry so that others will join God’s mission.

Imagine for a minute, that the Lord of the harvest responds to our pleas by sending a hundred (100) new workers to us over the next three years.  Now another issue arises, no less important than mobilization, and intimately tied to its achievement.  These new workers will need to be trained, mentored and released into ministry. 

Who will do that work?

Some have responded to the mobilization initiative by saying that they are willing to help in whatever way they can.  Others have answered that they already have too much to do and don’t know how they could possibly mobilize more than they currently are doing.  Still others will read the question above, sigh, and wonder: how much more are “they” going to ask me to do?

What if we saw this process of mobilization and training not as competing entities, but parts of an ongoing cycle of multiplication?  What if our community began to pray towards making “missional workers” and discovering our place in that process?

When Jesus announced the missional mandate to His disciples, He centered it around one key initiative or action: “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).  How were his followers to know what the process of “making disciples” should look like?  In part, they needed only consider how Jesus worked with them: he chose to invest in a few (MOBILIZE), spent time helping them work out his teaching, in practical ways and contexts (TRAIN), and pushed them out into ministry (RELEASE).

Could we not welcome new workers through this same grid?  That is, developing “missional workers” by committing ourselves to:

• Give of our precious time to develop and coach a certain number of new workers: MOBILIZE.
• Involve them in ministry with us, recognizing that things may take longer to do, so that in the course of daily life and ministry, these workers would have opportunity to work out the wisdom and experience we would be sharing with them: TRAIN.
• Freely let them go to start new WT church planting projects; and then, in turn, mobilize new workers towards the vision of seeing more disciples and more communities of believers: RELEASE.

Not everyone is gifted in evangelism, yet we are all called to share our faith with others.  Not everyone is capable of mobilizing new workers, yet we are all called to encourage and pray others into the harvest.  Each one of us CAN fully participate in the larger cause, so that we, the community, might grow and fulfill our mission.

World Team members have an incredible wealth of life and ministry experience.  The average number of years in ministry for a World Team worker is seventeen!  How can that wisdom and experience be transmitted to a new generation of fellow co-laborers, so that “His name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16)?

Your comments and responses are welcome.

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Our last Thoughts Along the Journey (TATJ) post elicited the largest number of responses from the World Team community since we began to journey together last year. Many of you feel and have owned the crisis opportunity that was described. Others, by your questions, probed further into the reasons behind our current situation. One member of our World Team community probably best captured the larger issue by saying: “I pray that WT will be able to spread this same burden to all of us so that we, as WT missionaries, will not rely merely on a Mobilization Team, but that every WT missionary will have a heart for recruitment. As missionaries go to churches to speak of “their” ministries in raising support, this would be a wonderful opportunity for all of us as a global missionary body to be involved in recruitment and speak of the larger ministry that is happening throughout the world.”

Yet, one question continues to come to the forefront of this discussion. It is a question flowing out of the two observations we shared in our last TATJ post. They are:

• A crisis is looming of which most of us are unaware: we are losing workers and resources at a faster rate than we realize.
• Most of us see our ministry as primary. The danger is we forget that every ministry fits into a much larger network of activity directed and orchestrated by God.

The question we must face is: What then should be our response to these two observations? Or more specifically, what actions shall we undertake in the next few months to specifically address this mobilization crisis opportunity?

Some might suggest we take more time to further probe the systemic problem(s) causing us to lose so many workers. Such an approach is not without merit. We must regularly, by prayer, study and directed discussion, question and challenge our conclusions.

However, there also comes a time to act … and it is now. The statistics shared in our last TATJ post, were shared with our World Team leaders at least five years ago. Already at that point, we could sense a crisis looming, but our response was limited and partial. We encouraged our mobilization team to work harder. We looked at attrition and how we could stem some of the losses. And most of us simply continued with our ministry unaffected by what was happening in the larger World Team community. Since that time, the negative loss of workers has only increased at a faster rate. Even as Hebrews 10:24 exhorts us to: “consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” so also we need to challenge ourselves together to respond to this crisis. If the ship is sinking, we don’t gather the crew around and call a focus group to consider the root causes of the crisis. We must prayerfully and deliberately act in concert together. The data we perceive should be quickly assimilated and processed. We cannot wait any longer.

What three actions need to be undertaken in the next few months in response to our current situation?

First, beginning January 18th through February 26th, we will call the WT community (Australia, Canada, US and partners) to an initial forty (40) days of prayer and fasting, specifically interceding for more workers. We will provide you with specific ministry needs throughout the WT community and share with you any answers God gives to those prayers.

Second, we will share the strategy paper which was drafted following a mobilization summit held in May 2009. This paper will be discussed at Area Lead meetings, Field Conferences and Sending Country staff meetings during the first quarter of 2010. For each team and field, the result of those discussions must be their own concrete action steps towards implementing, for their context, three key elements of the mobilization strategy paper:

1. Fostering greater synergy between fields/teams and Sending Countries;
2. Proposing innovative ideas for mobilizing new workers; and
3. Providing significant ministry opportunities for workers coming for six (6) weeks, three (3) months, one (1) or two (2) years, that is, providing bridge opportunities into cross-cultural ministry.

Third, each Area Director (with field leaders) will be asked to invite two workers from their region to serve as global mobilizers, working in conjunction with our WT Sending Countries, for three to twelve months. One of the main pieces of the mobilization strategy paper is the need to increase our mobilization team from five to thirteen workers. The only way this can happen, within our current constraints, is for five full-time cross-cultural workers to choose to temporarily step out of their field ministries in order to serve the larger community in this way.

These are hard and difficult steps, but we must act now for the good of our community in order that we might fulfill the mission He has given to us. I welcome your response. Please share your thoughts and comments with me at: international.director@worldteam.org.

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As Rebecca and I have traveled to a number of regions where we as World Team work, we have been encouraged by our conversations with many of you. It has been our privilege to share with you the vision God has laid on our hearts for World Team and pray together towards that end.

In burgeoning and tangible ways God is using World Team workers to nurture, support and encourage the multiplication of disciples and communities of believers among lost people. We give thanks to our Father and cry out together that He will fulfill His promise that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14).

At the same time during our travels, we have felt somewhat like Nehemiah ‘visiting and inspecting’ the situation of the work and ministry in our “Jerusalem”. We have taken stock of our spiritual foundations and resources through our time with you. We have kept our ‘eyes’ open to search out those sections perhaps ‘in need of repair’ (Nehemiah 2). We have prayerfully observed two things which stand out to us.

First, a crisis is looming of which most of us are unaware. The crisis is that we are losing workers and resources at a faster rate than we realize. Coupled with our current aging workforce, our ‘foundation’ is weak or fragile. Over the past six years, World Team has had an average negative growth rate of five less missionaries per year. However, if we look at just the past two years, that average negative growth rate jumps to ten less missionaries per year. We have lost more people than we have brought in to World Team. Whereas the number of WT members topped 430 in 2002, we currently have approximately 380 members. Simply put, we have fewer and fewer cross-cultural workers to carry out the vision that He has stirred in our hearts.

But it’s not just about numbers, which brings us to our second observation. Most of us see our ministry as primary. We have often heard the words, “my ministry” or “my work” or “our people group” as if to imply that this work belonged to us and no one else. While our words reflect healthy ownership, the danger is we forget that every ministry fits into a much larger network of activity directed and orchestrated by God. We must never forget that we belong to a larger community that extends beyond WT. That community needs us to participate in its life at various times and levels. Some of our WT workers on one of our fields presently partner with several other agencies in an innovative approach to church planting. Their personal ministries are enhanced and multiplied by serving together with others in a larger project.

We know that God was already present and at work in hearts among the people to whom He called each of us. He uses us and others to build His church among those we serve. So, part of our ministry is to ‘open doors’ for others to get involved, to experience ministry. That is part of our larger calling as members of World Team. Steve Addison, Australia director for CRM Ministries states it in even stronger words: “Leaders grow leaders. They reject the arrogant notion that their ministry is primary. Like Jesus, leaders create opportunities that equip and mobilize others.” If then, it’s not just about numbers, our heart approach to ministry together needs to shift and change.

When we talk about ‘innovation’, we think about bringing to life creative ideas that we currently are not using. Perhaps the most innovative step that we could take in coming months, in light of these two observations, is to begin to think, talk and act as “we”. In other words, we need to think and act more interdependently. That could mean a corporate acknowledgement that “our walls” are badly in need of repair and that together we must begin to rebuild them. This will not be an easy task because it will require that we look beyond ourselves for the good of the larger community and ask how we could participate in a way that would make a significant difference. Sydney Missionary & Bible College (Australia) graduates almost half of their student body into cross-cultural missions. A weekly missionary-in-residence program allows cross-cultural missionaries to engage in discussions with interested students. Giving up a week of our time to participate in this program is one example of how we might look beyond ourselves to mobilize more workers into the harvest. There are schools both in Canada and the U.S. which have such programs as well.

What then should be our response to these two observations? Above all, we need to pray and seek God’s wisdom. As one writer put it, “it is not that we should pray about the work, prayer is the work.” That is and remains our primary work. Pray that God would confirm this vision in our hearts, so that we would become passionate about what He longs to do in us and through us. Pray that He would show us how to ‘rebuild the walls’ of World Team through thinking, talking and acting as “we”. Perhaps we would do well to commit to a monthly day of prayer and fasting over the coming twelve months as an expression of our total dependence upon God to meet us in this crisis. I would also suggest another response: prayerfully consider and implement innovative and sacrificial ways that “we” can come alongside each other to recruit, send and provide the needed ‘hands on’ training for a host of new workers. Why? So that “Innovative teams multiplying disciples and communities of believers, bringing the gospel within reach of lost people everywhere we go,” becomes a growing expression of who we are.

I plan to share more with you. That will include asking more of all of us as a mission family later this year. Please share your thoughts and comments with me through this blog.

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Vision. Each one of us could come up with a different way to express what vision means to us. For the sake of our conversation, let’s agree that it is about gazing across the horizon of time and believing that greater things lie ahead. Let’s agree that it is an “ideal and unique image of the future,” that is, a declaration of what we pray will be when the future becomes reality. We as the World Team community need to answer the question for ourselves in these days: “Where are we going in the future?” “What is our renewed vision?”

This past September 2008, I brought together a group of people from across our WT community to prayerfully consider what fresh direction God might have for WT. We heard from several historical as well as strategic thinkers both inside and outside the WT community. We immersed ourselves in prayer, talked through our history, our people resources, and discussed ideas shared by many of you. The outcome of this time was a newly crafted expression of the hope-filled future that we believe God envisions for WT. It is what we long to see become our experience several years down the road by His gracious activity in our midst.

Now I know that when many hear this emphasis on change in our vision, they might be skeptical. “We’re regularly changing our vision, but it doesn’t really make any difference,” is how some might state it. But would our vision change the way we do things if we used it as a GPS rather than as a slogan or plaque we put on a wall? What about if our vision, the “destination” to which God is leading us, served to guide, direct, reorient and correct our ministry activities within the WT community? What if we allowed the vision (and those engaging that vision) to regularly assess whether we are still heading towards the destination God has laid on our hearts? This is how I want us as a community to see and engage our new vision.

Over the past few months, I have shared some of the key concepts of this vision statement with many of you in the World Team community. Now I want to call you to journey with me and your leaders towards where I believe God is leading us in the coming years.

We envision…

“Innovative teams multiplying disciples & communities of believers, bringing the Gospel within reach of lost people everywhere we go.”

“Innovative teams …”
Change is constant and exponential. We must not allow ourselves to “micro sleep”, that is, overlooking the dramatic changes around us, assuming we can continue thinking and doing ministry the way we always have. Was this thought not behind the admonition of Jesus to His disciples in John 4: “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?’ Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest”? We must begin to pursue innovation in tangible ways, to ‘lift up our eyes and look’. Innovation is not just creativity, but the “bringing of [those] ideas to life”. The question we must ask ourselves in community is: What aspects of how we do mission most need a stimulus of innovation?

We envision:
“Innovative teams …”

“Multiplying disciples and communities of believers …”
The reason that we exist is to see lost people come to Jesus Christ and participate in communities of believers. Our mandate is ‘make disciples of all nations’ and to ‘disciple’ those believers to be fully devoted followers serving in a community with an outward focus to establish other communities of believers. Discipleship is our calling, but with a clear focus: that those disciples will make disciples who will multiply themselves (2 Timothy 2:2); and that, in turn, these disciples will establish multiplying communities of believers (Acts 11). How does our current experience relate to our mandate and calling?

We envision:
“Innovative teams multiplying disciples and communities of believers …”

“Bringing the Gospel within reach of lost people everywhere we go.”
It’s about expansion. The Gospel, by its very nature thrusts us out. It moves our hearts to reach out to others over and over again right where we currently minister, overflowing to places beyond us. We need to ‘lift up our eyes and look’ and recognize the promptings of God’s Spirit leading us to open up new works, in new cities, among lost people.

Our calling is to serve as apostolic workers who are “catalytic, temporary and always ready to move on.” (Scottish church historian Andrew Walls) We need to graciously challenge one another to new endeavors, to new opportunities.

We envision:

“Innovative teams multiplying disciples and communities of believers, bringing the Gospel within reach of lost people everywhere we go.”

So, what am I asking you to do? First and foremost, pray. Pray that God would confirm this vision in your heart, in our collective hearts as a community, so that we would become passionate about what He longs for in us. Pray that He would show us how this vision would be expressed in love where we presently serve and everywhere we go. Then, share your willingness to join in this journey by using the comment feature on this blog.

Over the next few months, Rebecca and I will be traveling to various regions and sharing in more detail this expression of our WT hope-filled future. We look forward to meeting with many of you, listening to your journeys and grace-fully calling you to envision, Innovative teams multiplying disciples and communities of believers, bringing the Gospel within reach of lost people everywhere we go.

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“Which comes first?  BEing or DOing?”

Our need for community is one of the essential elements we share on our journey together.  Biblical community, by its very nature, gives rise to witness.  The fruit of such witness is the establishment of visible, local communities of believers (“churches”). It is fascinating to watch how Luke describes this process in the book of Acts:

• “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” (6:7)
• “But the word of God increased and multiplied.” (12:24)
• “So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” (19.20)

Pause for a minute and reflect on how these narratives impact our journey together.  First, we must constantly remind ourselves that the growth and multiplication of the church is primarily a work of God through His Word.  Our efforts to creatively strategize are certainly important, but calling upon God and sharing about His work in our lives with others become the priority.1 Second, we must ‘speak the Word.’  Time and again, it is the “word of God” that increases.  In other words, when the word of God is boldly spoken, heard and lived out, the result is multiplication.  Third, the “mission” of God goes way beyond our own individual agendas.  It is a “corporate” or community affair.  We cannot hope to fully participate in what God is doing in the world unless we join with other believers.  Finally, God’s desire is not just to save lost people, but to create a people for Himself: to establish the Church. Our work is fulfilled and accomplished when churches, visible and local communities of believers are birthed and established.2

If we think about it, there is a natural link between each one of these elements: community, witness, the Church.  In the past, we have sometimes argued as to the priority of one element over another.  Is it “BEing” before “DOing”?  Or is “doing” more important than issues of the heart?  Are we an organization that puts too much emphasis on “doing”, overly concerned with numbers rather than people’s hearts?   Or are we an organization that spends so much time and energy in “being” that the work is not accomplished?   The dichotomy is one that we unfortunately have created ourselves.  Perhaps we maintain this dichotomy so that we can keep away from that which feels uncomfortable to us – whether it is doing or being.

Real transformation, however, occurs when all three elements are “moving” in our lives.  What if we looked at these elements as a set of interlocking gears?  As one gear “turns”, it inevitably affects and moves the others.  So no matter where we begin (“being” or “doing”), the impact will be felt in the other areas.

As we reflect on the state of our heart, the community comes alongside to remind us of the love of God displayed in spite of our sins.  That freedom gives rise to a desire to witness, to share our journey with others.  As we share our story, we quickly come to realize our constant need for Jesus. So we go back to the community to be reminded again and again of the gospel and to be sent out again to “speak the Word” to others.

Let me share a short example.  Part of the training that our Europe team gives each year to our summer interns is a rehearsal of the gospel and its implications for our lives.  I do not think the interns realize that we do this as much for ourselves as we do for them.  Since May, as I heard different members of the France team share about an aspect of the gospel, my heart has been convicted and inspired.  Convicted as I realize how deep sin runs in my life.  Inspired as a desire welled up within my heart to share this good news with others, realizing again that all my sins are forgiven and I stand before God as one of His children.  After each talk, I felt “thrust out” to share my journey with others.  Not all my efforts bear fruit and I must come back again to community to be reminded of the central motivation for my witness.

These two powerful dynamics (community & witness) are used by God to create a people for Himself: local, visible communities of believers who begin to “move” in the same way.  Is it “being” or “doing”?  It’s both because God’s long-term “mission” is a Church that radiates His love in and through our lives!

In September, I hope to explore together with you some of the heart transformations & ministry changes that God may use to cause ‘movement’ in our worlds.

1 See John Wilson’s July, 2008, Link article for further thoughts on this idea.
2 I am indebted to Alain Nisus and his message: “Croissance par la parole” (given at Eglise de Cergy St Christophe, 06.15.2008) for these thoughts.  The message is available on the WT intranet for those interested: https://wtglobal.net:18104/InternationalDirector/TATJ/Attachments/

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“To journey together” implies the participation of at least three people: God, you, and me.  Our first calling is to turn to Him and ask for His wisdom, His grace and the courage to step out into this hopeful future that He, our King, has designed for us.  I believe that our next calling is to turn towards one another and explore collectively what some of those ‘next steps’ might be as we “journey together.”  When we make this turn towards one another, we discover one of the first elements on our journey together: our need for community.

Community is one way to describe “koinonia” which is frequently found in the Scriptures.  At its heart, koinonia is the joint participation or fellowship that we share with another: “in the life of God in Christ, and … in the whole sweep of his redemptive mission.”1 The value we attribute to community indicates the depth and ongoing growth of our own relationship with Jesus Christ.2 In one of the most striking prayers of the New Testament, the church planter Paul calls out to the Father on behalf of fellow believers that [they], being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [they] may be filled with all the fullness of God.3 This prayer expresses the fact that without others, without shared participation, we cannot wholly understand and experience the love of Christ.

So, how do we find our way along the journey? Take a moment to observe some of the markers on this significant path to community. One marker is our acknowledgement of need. We need community to Another marker is that of self surrender.  C.S. Lewis put it well: “From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that abdication, becomes more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever.” Self surrender prioritizes giving and receiving; that we share what we have with others as well as joyfully receiving what others have to share with us.  It means being “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger”, and I believe we should add, “quick to forgive.”  A third marker is Trinitarian modeling.  The original “community of oneness” serves as a clear pattern for the relationships we share in community with one another.4 Was this not the significance of Christ’s prayer in John 17 that His disciples would reflect the unity and the community that exists between the Father and the Son?

In the past, we have talked a lot about “teams”: working as a team, working on a team and discovering your team.  And rightly so, but perhaps we should also talk more about “community”.  What community are you a part of?  How is your community helping you to grow deeper in your life in God and discover your part in His larger redemptive mission?  Becky and I have been part of some strong communities during the past number of years. As we move into new responsibilities, we are looking to discover new communities where we can minister and be ministered to.  We would covet your prayers for this search and will pray that each of you will find the experience of community that God has for you at this time.

Some might be tempted to make community the “end all” of what we do, but gospel community must give rise to ministry. We will explore more of this and ‘next steps’ in another edition of “Thoughts along the journey.”

1 Milne, Bruce, We Belong Together, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978, p. 30

2 “The quality of Christians’ relationship with fellow believers, particularly in the local church, is therefore one of the primary indicators of the quality of their relationship to the Lord.” Milne, Bruce, We Belong Together, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978, p. 7

3 Ephesians 3:17-18 (ESV)

4 An excellent treatise on this idea is found in the book, Ministry in the Image of God, by Stephen Seamands, Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005.

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