• 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!

Gifting the challenge – HOW?

Posted on April 26, 2018 by wtdavid

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? how bis

It’s a great question.

In the first series of online forums, we asked two questions:

  • Which one or two UPGs (that WT is working with) would you suggest we focus on and the reasons why?
  • What 5 markers would demonstrate concretely the impact of our efforts among those one or two people groups?

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 »

Gifting a challenge — Why?

Posted on April 24, 2018 by wtdavid

Earlier this year, I gifted this challenge to you, to us as a World Team Global community: “To concretely see, observe and identify the impact of our efforts among two people groups.”  After holding two online forums earlier this month, I realized that the ‘why’ behind this challenge may not have been clearly communicated. the-challenge

So, why did I ‘gift this challenge’ to you, to us?  Three reasons come quickly to mind.

First, God calls us to declare His glory to the nations as a community.  When the apostle Paul reminds us of the fact that we are the recipients of the ‘mystery hidden for ages’, he calls us to join him in teaching, proclaiming, declaring that mystery to the nations which is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Colossians 1:24-29).  The ‘you’ in this text refers to us as a community; a community called to take up this ‘challenge’ to declare Him to the nations.

Second, such a challenge binds us together in new ways as a global community; uniting our strengths and resources towards accomplishing together something that we could not accomplish alone. By nature, we are focused on the ministry to which God has called us.  However, when we lift our eyes off that local ministry for just a moment, we gain a greater perspective of what God is doing in our part of the world as well as many other parts of the world.

Finally, other ministry initiatives would be the natural fruit of taking on such a challenge.  As our hearts are ‘warmed’ by seeing the impact of the Gospel in concrete ways among two unreached people groups, many in the WT Global community will naturally propose other projects to other unreached peoples.  As we see God work, we are spurred on to trust Him to see the Gospel impact other peoples and nations.

No challenge is by nature ‘easy’.  Having each other to ‘spur one another on’ is our best next step for addressing any challenge.

Join us for another series of online forums where we will further discuss this challenge.  Information on times and the link will be sent soon.

Filed under: Challenge, Community, Unreached people groups | Leave a comment »

Going ‘national’

Posted on March 27, 2018 by wtdavid

Our World Team Ministry Framework highlights the ‘guiding principles’ by which we WT Ministry Framework Jan 2016live and minister as a global community.  One of the ‘guiding principles’ that is a new addition from our previous list of ‘values’ is: incarnational.

The descriptor for this guiding principle is as follows: “As cross-cultural workers, we intentionally surrender our rights to our home culture, language, and ways and embrace those of the host culture. By this, we seek to model Christ, who emptied Himself of the privileges and powers of divinity, taking on human form, in order to carry out His mission.”

Many voices were raised in favor of adding this guiding principle to our list.  The more I have mulled over it, the more I have come to understand why Ray and others kept putting it in front of us as so important.

Living incarnationally pushes us back to the example of Christ (Philippians 2).  Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, chose to take on cultural forms, language and habits.  He expressed himself with words that others could understand, in cultural forms that made sense to the people he was addressing.  He made the effort to ‘be like us’ and to accept this world as his ‘home’.  Yes, his ultimate ‘home’ was not here. Yet, he did not make others around him feel that he was keeping himself a stranger to the world in which he found himself.

The word that I find the hardest in this descriptor is: surrender. Not many of us like the sound of that word because it strikes at our feeling of entitlement.  We have seemingly ‘sacrificed’ a lot to go cross culturally, and believe there should be some small return as a result.  However, God asks us to lay it all down.  In the process of that surrender, we will experience blessings and benedictions we would not have shared otherwise.

One blessing that surely stands out is the experience of deep friendship in Christ across cultural boundaries; discovering that God has truly broken down the barriers that separate us from one another.

Filed under: Crossing cultures, Guiding Principles, Incarnational living | Leave a comment »

Praying ‘online’

Posted on February 16, 2018 by wtdavid

onlineprayergroupsI was part of an ‘online prayer’ meeting this past Wednesday.  Sounds kind of strange and impersonal.  However, seeing everyone’s face around the virtual table and being able to mobilise people from three different regions of the world to pray was a definite encouragement and certainly a plus to spend this time praying ‘virtually’ together.

Our prayer facilitator shared a brief word from the Scriptures, emphasizing how prayer is not something we should do out of duty, but out of a sense of opportunity to meet together around the possibilities that our great God has for His work and people in this world.  Now the first part of that insight is something we all know, but it was that second piece about ‘opportunity’ that stood out to me in a new way.

We were given the opportunity to have our awareness raised as to what God was doing in one part of this world and raise our voices to pray for that part of the world, joining others around the world in that work.

The World Team Day of Prayer is one such ‘opportunity’ for us.  Maybe we should re-name that time to something like: Join the WT Prayer Opportunity?  No matter what we might name it, there is plenty of room for innovation and taking our global prayer points and praying them with our teammates, our larger team, or even virtually with people from different parts of WT.

However, it’s done, it’s our opportunity to ask God will to fulfill His mission through His Church and His people in the world.

Filed under: Community, Prayer | 4 Comments »

A word for the year

Posted on January 18, 2018 by wtdavid

My word for this year would be: “Fear not”. fear not

Now, I’m not one to try and come up with a catchy phrase for each year, but this one has been laid on my heart since re-visiting the story of the shepherds and the announcement of the angel to them in Luke 2.

It’s amazing how many times this statement, “fear not“, appears in the Scriptures.  Here, in this text, it has the sense of ‘don’t be afraid, trust Me’.  The appearance of an angel of the Lord was often associated with judgment, but here it is an announcement of redemption, of joy, of life.  You could translate it: ‘don’t be afraid, come and see what the Lord has done.’

I question whether I have what it takes to run 42 km again (see: “Gifting a Challenge”).  I’m ‘fearing‘ about running that distance again.  However, I’m going to take on the challenge because I want to make a memory with our kids.

You may be questioning why you should give any more effort to the task.  I’m inviting you to make a memory with me; a memory of two people groups significantly impacted, indigenous leaders raised up and working with us and teaching one another.

It’s going to be a lot of work, but when we cross that line together, we will say that it was all worth the effort.  “Fear not!  Trust God!”

Save the date.  Tuesday, November 27th (#givethanksTuesday).  On that day, come and see not just what the Lord has done, but what the Lord will do through us and in us.

Filed under: Challenge, Trust | Leave a comment »

Gifting a challenge

Posted on January 17, 2018 by wtdavid

Last Friday night for the first session of the Alpha Course sponsored by our local church, we were introducing ourselves around the table.  L–, a guest and friend of Jean-Claude, looked at me several times saying, “I feel like I’ve seen this man before.”  “Are you local?” he asked.  Jean Claude jokingly said that he might have seen me running around Cergy.  “David runs several times a week.  He runs marathons.”

Yes, I do run.  Or at least I try to run three times a week.  However, I haven’t run a marathon in over 10 years.  I didn’t correct Jean Claude’s statement, I let it ride (read, I let it ‘run’).  The challenge is gone. I’ve been running for my own stress relief and health, which is a very good objective according to my doctor.  The challenge, the vision of something greater is not part of what gets me up in the morning anymore to go out running. It’s become a routine.

In our family, we do what is called ‘Secret Santas’.  Each member of the family is given the name of another family member through an online program.  My oldest daughter drew my name this year and her gift to me was: the entry fee for the Florence marathon on November 25th of this year.  Another marathon?! The challenge is certainly not the same as it was a number of years ago – to run three marathons before I turned 50 years old.  However, it’s a challenge nonetheless; a challenge to run a marathon with two of my children.

The people we are most concerned about; the people for whom we work are the lost.  Our desire, our central ministry focus is to see all our work contribute to raising up disciples and communities of believers and praying for exponential growth (read, multiplication) of those disciples and communities across a people group.  Whether you are ‘on the ground’ in ministry or processing support gifts or mobilising new workers or keeping our finances healthy or fixing our IT issues, all of it has the same ultimate objective in mind.

Today, I am ‘gifting’ you a challenge. 

run with me 3Run with me.  Run together with me.  Not just to do your work better, not just to see a number come to Christ through our work and efforts, but to concretely see, observe and identify the impact of our efforts among two people groups.  Our tendency will be to want to ‘go it alone’ – just as I told my kids that I would run on my own and they could run ahead of me.  However, the joint chant should become: “I, we want to run with you.”

How will we know?  How will we know what that concrete impact upon two people groups will look like?  We will discover it together as we talk, pray, dialogue, plan and pray again together. All of us.

I’m sending you a ‘save the date’ note by this post.

Save Tuesday, November 27th as the date when we will stand back to see what God has done as we ‘run together’ this year (#givethanksTuesday).

Filed under: Challenge, Unreached people groups | Leave a comment »

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