• 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!

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 »

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 »

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