• 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!

Remember the promise, pray the promise

Posted on April 25, 2016 by wtdavid

Some of us push our trucks through mud to reach our ministry location.  Some of us battle urban traffic to be able to attend a national church planter meeting. Some of us spend large portions of our day trying to master the language of our people group.  Some of us spend large portions of our day just talking with people from our people group, looking for openings for spiritual conversation.

All of us, though, have one and the same objective: to lead people into relationship with Christ, to grow them  in discipleship, and bring them into a community of believers.  That is our ‘central ministry focus’, if you will: reaching, investing, equipping and releasing.

God does not promise us that each one of neighbors or friends will come to Christ.  We pray, we share, and we work to that end.  However, we don’t know whose heart will be opened to message of Jesus’s death and resurrection.  We pray in faith that God will lead to Himself some of those to whom we minister.

Last Friday, Dave (WT Africa) shared at a field gathering that there is a promise that God will fulfill and to which He calls us to pray.  The Apostle John put it this way: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!”” God promises that there will be someone from every people group standing and worshiping before the promisethrone of grace.  God will fulfill that promise and we can pray that promise to its fulfillment.

That assurance will get us up out of bed every day; remembering that God delights in the worship of His people, and that He is calling people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to that worshiping assembly.  We can pray that promise together as we work towards its fulfillment … to see some from among the Chom people, Italian urban dwellers, and the displaced Chinese of South America praising the Lamb before God’s throne.

Filed under: Mission, Prayer | 2 Comments »

A community of shared hearts

Posted on April 22, 2016 by wtdavid

A colleague of mine sent this quote to me yesterday. It’s taken from the book, Connecting:

“The crisis of care in modern culture, especially in the Western church, will not be resolved by training more therapists….It will be worsened by moralists who never reach deeply into the hearts of people in their efforts to impose their standards of behavior on others, even when those standards are biblical.   The greatest need in modern civilization is the development of communities – true communities where the heart of God is home, where the humble and wise learn to shepherd those on the path behind them, where trusting strugglers lock arms with others as together they journey on.”

The daily care we need for our souls, for our hearts will be found in community. However, servletthat is where the rub comes in.

Most of us assume that community will be found in our ministry team, and it just may be. However, teams are built to accomplish ministry tasks and are not by nature communities; that is, places where we can share our hearts with others and be shaped by the engagement of others with us.

Most of us assume that community is easily established, and it just could be the case. However, community often requires time spent together, trust, and an atmosphere that is framed by God’s Word. It doesn’t have to be a Bible study, but what happens in our community time together must flow out of God’s principles and God’s ‘one another’ commands.

Most of assume, in our hearts, that we really don’t need community. Warning signs should immediately come up on our life’s dashboard.  Community is essential to growth in the Christian life. As ‘iron sharpens iron’, so we participate in the long-term spiritual growth of one another when we enter into community with a small group of other believers.

Community is about shared hearts; opening up to others so that they may walk with us in our journey; a journey where “trusting strugglers lock arms with others as together they journey on.”

Filed under: Accountability, Community, Lifelong learning | 5 Comments »

Collaboration: take two

Posted on April 20, 2016 by wtdavid

‘Organizational culture’ refers to what should define our relationships with one another. Organizational culture tells us in what kind of atmosphere we will work.collaborative-meeting-clipart-1

Collaboration among members and teams within the World Team global community should be a natural reflex. That heart stance of serving together should then lead us to collaborate well with brothers and sisters outside of the World Team context.

I saw a good example of this recently among one of our teams in Africa. Wanting to further process where God might be leading them to minister next in Africa, they invited a national director of the church association that they serve under to share in their discussions. In the course of these discussions, it became evident that the Lord was laying on everyone’s hearts the same locations to consider.

Over lunch, one of our leaders said to the national director: “Would you be interested in joining together to do initial research on one of these locations that God has laid on our hearts?”

Collaboration is not about you joining ‘our’ project or us joining ‘your’ project, but putting our collective resources at the disposal of one another to work together on our (all parties included) project.

I think it took a lot of humility to ask that question of the national director as it was an admission that we need each other and that we can’t go it alone.

I also think it took some guts to ask that question because it changed our ministry work context to one that would be multicultural with all the inherent difficulties and potential misunderstandings. Yet the ultimate outcome will be a much better representation of what missions will be like in the future.

Filed under: Collaboration, Mission | Leave a comment »

Collaborate, cooperate, work together, and act as a team

Posted on April 15, 2016 by wtdavid

Collaboration is a ‘misunderstood’ word in our culture. I have heard many people give different definitions to it.  At times, it serves as a buzz word that many of us enjoy using, but the actual working out of it can elude us.collaborate

The World Team Ministry Framework gives the following descriptor for this element:

“To accomplish our vision, we partner with like-minded ministries. These partnerships can involve sharing resources, strengths, expertise, and responsibility for overseeing ministry projects and programs.” 

‘Ministries’ could easily be interpreted as only agencies or entities outside of World Team.  However, we are talking about ‘organizational culture’ here and what should define our relationships with one another.  Organizational culture tells us what kind of atmosphere we will work in.  So, ‘ministries’ refers to other teams, other branches of World Team as well as partners outside of World Team.

Projects, programs and ministries in our World Team global community benefit in greater ways when teams and branches of World Team share “their resources, strengths, expertise and responsibility” with others; when we ‘work together with one another’ and act as a World Team team.

Once again, this is where the difficulty lies. Most of us are quick to offer help, but slow to ask for and accept help.  The result?  Many projects, programs and ministries roll out or launch as a ‘one man’ or ‘one woman’ effort.  Some of those projects, programs and ministries will gain traction by the simple perseverant attitude of the creator behind the project, program or ministry. Imagine though the synergy that would be released if that one person solicited help from others within World Team.

One of my first experiences in collaboration occurred in our early days here in Europe. We wanted to do some home repairs, and being the non-handyman that I am, the only option I could see was to ‘grit my teeth’ and try to figure out how to do those repairs on my own.  However, I quickly realized that if I asked others for help, my neighbors were more than eager to come to my aid.  I didn’t enjoy the asking part because, in part, it was an admission that I didn’t really know how to do the work. I needed the help, the expertise, the time of others in order to do the job.  Sure, I could have watched YouTube videos and figured out  how to do most things, but asking for help provided a resource base that I would not have had otherwise.

Collaboration begins by asking two questions. First, what are the critical action steps in this project, program or ministry?  Second, who has expertise, insight, wisdom and ability to help with any of those critical action steps?

Once we answer these two questions, the next step is to go and ask someone to collaborate with us.

Filed under: Collaboration, Working together | 4 Comments »

Are you kidding?

Posted on April 13, 2016 by wtdavid

We are a discussion oriented mission ‘culture’. In other words, we enjoy talking, discussing, and debating topics that relate to our global ministries. Sometimes our discussions can keep us from actually implementing outcomes of the topic under discussion.

The World Team Ministry Framework is a tool to help us review who we are and what we do. Our mission, guiding principles, central ministry focus and organizational culture provide talking points which should give way to concrete applications (and changes) in our work and ministry.

Take for example the element of ‘facilitation’ under our guiding principles.  The descriptor for this element reads:

“Facilitative ministry is a mindset regarding one’s role, function, and end result.  It means to support and assist others so that they are able to do the ministry. Facilitation includes drawing out the gifts, talents, experiences and desires of others, and encouraging them to do ministry.  Multiplication is inherent in facilitation because the end result is that others perform the work of disciple making and church planting as well.”

We can certainly talk about the benefits of facilitation; the relationship between facilitation and pioneer work; or the picture of a facilitative approach to ministry. Nevertheless, the struggle will be to answer and apply our answers to this question: what will a facilitative approach look like for me in ministry today?

It could mean at least two things today. For one that I learn to deliberately say ‘no’ to a ministry are you kiddingopportunity in order to allow another to take up that opportunity, and be ready to provide feedback and support.  For another that I regularly ask the question: who could do this ministry task?  What training would they need?

You might be saying at this moment: “Are you kidding? I have enough trouble just trying to do ministry, let alone giving time to training another.”  Here’s where the real work of the WT Ministry Framework begins.  It’s more than just a means for good discussion. It’s meant to be an assessment tool which causes us to better align our work, and change, if needed, our current ways of doing ministry.

Filed under: Facilitation, WT Ministry Framework | Leave a comment »

Is accountability biblical?

Posted on March 31, 2016 by wtdavid

I remember Ray (WT Africa) asking that question during a gathering of workers. The ‘right’ answer was probably on everyone’s lips.  However, it is a whole lot harder to own that answer than to just answer ‘yes’ to such a question

What can we learn about accountability from several biblical texts?accountable

For one, we learn that it involves an act of the will: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Accountability flows out of a commitment to open one’s life to another; to give another the right to ask one hard questions.

For another, we learn that it involves the giving of an account, the giving of a progress status on our inner life and work: “Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them” (Matthew 25:19) As in the parable, we know that one day God will ask for an accounting of our lives (Matthew 12:36-37) and that He encourages us to practice that accountability with one another in our lives now (Galatians 6:1-2).

Finally, we learn that it is for our good: “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs27:17) Accountability is not a ‘bad’ word.  Accountability causes us to grow in our Christian walk as others come alongside us and speak into our lives.

So where is the problem? Where is the blockage that keeps many of us from owning accountability as well as believing that it is essential to our Christian walk?

It could be that some of us feel we are above accountability.  In other words, we believe that accountability is important, but it is something to which we need only to call others.  We believe, somehow, we no longer need accountability, because of our years of ministry experience.

It could be that covenant accountability is just plain hard. Being accountable to someone in a work (business) context appears easier as our very job and salary depend on it. However, covenant accountability requires an act of the will to open ourselves to others; something many of us don’t like to do.

It could be that many of us don’t realize the benefits that come from being accountable to another. For most of our life, accountability has been the major element towards growth. As we recognize that truth, we will develop a healthier attitude and respect for accountability.

Accountability is biblical … and really is for our good.

Filed under: Accountability, Lifelong learning | 4 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 205 other subscribers

  • Categories

  • Recent Comments

  • Archives

  • Goodreads