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.

Filed under: Thoughts Along The Journey | 4 Comments »

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.

Filed under: Thoughts Along The Journey | Leave a comment »

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.

Filed under: Thoughts Along The Journey | Leave a comment »