• 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!

Forgetting the essentials

Posted on May 24, 2016 by wtdavid

Each day when I wake up, I mentally go through the list of ‘things’ I need to do. Some of those activities may be important; some not so important.  In the rush of life though, the tyranny of the urgent can drastically change the order of that list of ‘things’ to do.  You can actually end up doing plenty of things that are urgent, but not necessarily the most important or essentialessential.

So what’s really ‘essential’? What’s really essential in our line of work or ministry?  For one, the Gospel. The Gospel speaks to us of the honor that Christ places upon us by calling us His brothers and sisters; that is a gift we could never have imagined receiving.  The Gospel brings freedom through casting all our sins, our worries and our cares upon Him. The Gospel brings hope that God will still use us, ‘wrecks that we are’, in His mission in the world.

What is also essential is sharing that great news with others. The Gospel truth cannot stay locked up in our own hearts. It must go somewhere.  An essential element of our calling as a believer is to share that Good News with others; to lead others to Christ, so that they might experience a personal relationship with Him.

Thinking through all this at the beginning of this week, I stumbled on this quote from Roland Allen in his seminal work: Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?: “St. Paul did not go about as a missionary preacher merely to convert individuals: he went to establish Churches from which the light might radiate throughout the whole country around.”  I realized that I might be ‘forgetting’ another element of those essentials I need to remember each day.  What is also essential in our line of work is to demonstrate and declare the necessity and need for community in order that every one of us might grow as a believer and might offer together our praise to our God.

I could summarize these thoughts in this way: Experience the Gospel, live the Gospel, share the Gospel, and call one another to live the Gospel in community!

Filed under: Church, Church planting, Discipleship, Gospel, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Ever feel lonely?

Posted on May 19, 2016 by wtdavid

Ever feel like you are standing in a crowd, but no one recognizes you and engages you in conversation? Ever feel like you are the unnecessary ‘extra’ in a group and wish someone could just ‘beam you up Scotty’?  Ever feel lonely?loneliness

Loneliness is that emotion where we deeply sense our loss of connection to others; where we know in our hearts that we are ‘unplugged’ relationally.

That loneliness can be the result of a number of factors. We may be a ‘foreigner’ in a culture where we have been called to live and minister, and we feel that loneliness because nothing is familiar.  We may be an ‘older person’ surrounded by the new younger generation of workers, and we sense that loneliness because we feel ‘old’ and misunderstood.  We may be a single on a team of married couples, and we feel that loneliness  because we are like that proverbial 5th wheel, not sure of our place and role.  We may be from one culture, working among a team with a majority of members from another culture, and ministering together among another culture.  In that situation, we feel that loneliness because we are always fighting to have ourselves heard, misunderstood and appreciated.

I am not trying to be simplistic by saying that community is one of the best ways to dispel loneliness in our lives. However, the Bible certainly leaves us with this distinct impression.  However, our communities often tend to accentuate rather than dispel loneliness. That happens because we, as individual members, look to the community to meet our needs, rather than offering acceptance and engagement to all members of the community.  When we move towards others in the community and relationally ‘plug back in’ with those who are part of our community, we begin to dispel the cloud of loneliness.

At a wedding that Rebecca & I attended a few weeks ago, the pastor made this comment: “Love is all about initiative: we taking initiative to move towards others, just as God took the initiative to move towards us.”

I’m not sure how all this works out, but calling us back to examining what gospel community should truly look like, is certainly a first step.

Filed under: Community, Crossing cultures, Gospel | 6 Comments »

Pray every day

Posted on May 13, 2016 by wtdavid

When I was in Cameroon a few weeks back, the team got together in two groups to pray. One hour had been allocated for our prayer time together.  As we gathered in a circle, the leader quickly explained that we prayer bis biswould be sharing for 10 minutes and praying for 50 minutes. Each person in the group was going to have to share a meaningful request in less than 1 minute, and then we would go to prayer.

To be honest, I was a bit ‘skeptical’ about how we (this small group) were going to spend one hour in prayer. Yet, the time was so quickly filled with conversational prayer between us as a group and our God that before we knew it, the closing prayer was being offered.  What a delight to pray together in that way.

This week during our global leader meetings, I set aside a time of prayer with the same parameters. However, each group leader varied even those parameters from our prayer time in Cameroon.  The short sharing time was still maintained, but done in other ways. Yet, once again we spent the bulk of our time praying.

When we were all done, one leader said: “Every day, we discuss a series of critical topics. We have a wealth of topics we could pray for each night.  We could spend this same time in prayer every night.”  You know what?  He’s right.  We could spend that time each night in prayer

Prayer is one of our guiding principles; it directs how we do ministry. We do ministry first and foremost in prayer.  We don’t do it because we ‘have to’; we engage in prayer because our Father delights in hearing our prayers and our praises, and because we want to come and be with Him.

Thanks for your prayers for us as leaders this week! Know that, during our time here, we were praying for many of you as well as the people group among whom you serve!  Let us not grow weary in prayer (Luke 18:1).

Filed under: Guiding Principles, Prayer, Priorities, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Robust dialogue

Posted on May 12, 2016 by wtdavid

Meeting with leaders this week, I have been struck by the capacity of our leaders to engage in ‘robust dialogue’. Robust dialogue is where people discuss or debate a topic in a very open and honest way that allows for better decisions to be made.  Robust dialogue though can be uncomfortable at times because pushback may be strong and ideas or supporting arguments are not readily accepted.  However, it is rich, wild, tense and exhilarating.robust dialogue

Robust dialogue is not yelling at one another.  One writer described robust dialogue this way: “It is the ability to address any issue in the team or organization as long as there are not hidden agendas or personal attacks.” So a team has to have an ethos or a ministry framework that allows this kind of dialogue, conversation and hearty discussion to occur.

Robust dialogue will only happen, though, when two elements are in place.  First, a strong hold on one’s personal value in Christ. The deep assurance of Christ’s love and righteousness drive out our natural tendency ‘to seek to be right’ in all our conversations and discussions.  It’s the ‘expulsive power of a new affection’ that restructures the way we talk to and discuss with others. Second, a willingness to listen well.  James exhorts us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19).  Most of us are more ‘quick to speak and slow to listen’.  Our hearts need to be re-trained to count it as more important to hear a person out, seeking to understand their point and argument first.  We can learn so much from others and engage them well when our hearts are settled in Christ and our ears are open to listening to others well.

Pray for us as we continue in robust dialogue this week!

Filed under: Communication, Gospel, Listening, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Why is it so hard?

Posted on April 29, 2016 by wtdavid

Have you ever said that to yourself?  I’m guessing that at some point, most of us have. worth

Work life, in general, has its ups and downs.  There are relational issues, company policy miscommunication, and work scheduling struggles.  However, cross cultural ministry adds a whole other element.  We are called to navigate work life, ministry life in another context and culture than our own home context and culture.  It’s not that we just double the difficulties.  We exponentially increase the struggles we face in trying to make ourselves (heart and mind) understood among another people group that holds a different worldview than we do.

Along with that exponential increase of struggles comes the strong temptation to question one’s calling.  Statements pop into our mind like: “What am I really doing here?  Am I actually having any impact?  Is it all worth it?”  Sometimes that questioning comes in the form of anger, frustration, or simple criticism of all that we see and experience around us.  It can even issue in the strong desire to just ‘go home’.

These are the times when my heart (our hearts) needs to here two truths, and probably my heart needs to hear them numerous times.

First truth: We love because He first loved us.  The verse in 1 John 4:7 which talks about loving one another begins with that simple word: “Beloved”.  We cannot love others if we don’t first know and daily appropriate for ourselves that we are loved, that I am loved by God.  That truth has to go ‘downtown’ to my heart and displace those feelings of inadequacy and self-pride.

Second truth: This is not my final home, nor is my home culture my final home.  It’s not a ‘way up there in the sky’ kind of philosophy, but God has reserved a ‘home’ for me, for each of His children, with Him.  My heart, our hearts will not find their ultimate rest until we find it in Him.

It is hard!  So, let’s drive those truths into our hearts; let’s drive those truths into one another’s hearts when we are with one another.

Filed under: Crossing cultures, Gospel | 2 Comments »

More than the strict minimum

Posted on April 26, 2016 by wtdavid

Tim Keller in a recent message, “The Centrality of the Gospel”, made the statement that the Gospel is not just the strict minimum we need to believe in order to be saved; that it is not “simply the minimum Christian doctrine required to believe in order to go to heaven when you die.”

The Gospel changes your life now: thoroughly, radically, and completely.  And it does so now. It becomes the all that directs our lives as believers.

This statement once again caught me off guard. We are so used to talking about the Gospel,self-confidence summarizing it in a few short declaratory truths, that we can forget it has far reaching power and influence in our lives.  Our capacity to forget the message of the Gospel provides fertile soil for the ‘weeds’ of selfishness and pride whose roots run deep.

“That’s not me!” you might say.  You could think this kind of selfishness and pride is not running rampant in your life.  Take a step back for a moment and do a quick check:

Does my anger and frustration come more quickly to the surface these days?

Am I overly concerned with what other people think about me?

Am I pushy about my agenda and what I think we should be doing?

Am I quick to criticize rather than build up others?

Do I complain constantly about what I don’t have?

Now I’m not saying these are key indicators, but the answers to these questions would certainly be a starting point to assess how deep pride is running in one’s life.

The Gospel is not simply the minimum Christian doctrine required to believe in order to go to heaven when you die.  The Gospel is the power (Romans 1) to radically and thoroughly change our lives now; to address the deep rooted pride in our hearts and draw us back to Jesus.

Our daily prayer should simply be: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!”  (Psalm 139:23-24)

Filed under: Godly living, Gospel, Repentance & faith | Leave a comment »

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