• 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!

He is sovereign!

Posted on April 14, 2023 by wtdavid

Probably one of the more neglected teachings of Scripture in our current day is that of the sovereignty of God.  It is a truth that even we who are engaged in cross cultural ministry can tend to neglect.  To put it in its most simple form, sovereignty means that God has “absolute authority and rule over his creation[1].”  God is God and we are His creatures. 

However, we can certainly state that God is sovereign all the while living and working as if we, as His creation, are self-governing and independent.

So, what benefits might we gain from a deep dive into the notion of God’s sovereignty?  At least three come quickly to mind.

First, God’s sovereignty provides us with a profound sense of security amid all the troubles, struggles and difficulties of the work to which He has called us.  Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  That is how the apostle Paul expressed it (Romans 8). No matter what wall or obstacle we may come up against, we know that God is fully aware and works to use everything in our lives for our growth and the furtherance of His missional project for this world.

Next, a trust in God’s sovereignty will lead us to worship Him.  Knowing that He rules over all creation frees us from having to carry that responsibility ourselves. It will cause us to rejoice in knowing that nothing escapes His view (Hebrews 4:13); that He is always at work for the good of His creation; and that one day He will be recognized as Lord over all by all (Philippians 2:10-11). How can our heart not sing in response to this truth?

Finally, God’s sovereignty is a reminder and call to prayer. To whom else can we turn?  In whom else can we put our trust and hope if not the sovereign God?  We can know, through prayer, that He will answer in His way and in His time.  The famous British preacher, Charles Spurgeon, once said: “Prayer assumes the sovereignty of God.” 

There are many ‘walls’ that we as individuals and as a World Team community are facing these days.  To name a few.  We lack 50% of the funds needed to cover the costs of the Global 3C Conference.  The numbers of cross-cultural workers serving with our teams is diminishing.  We are not seeing the fruit, the multiplication we long for in disciples of Jesus and communities of believers among the people we serve.

God’s sovereignty reminds us that this work is not our own.  It is His work. And because it is His work, we can rest in His grace, freed from worry, and inspired to go to Him for each of these ‘walls’; using the strength and grace He provides to give ourselves to work toward seeing these needs, these ‘walls’ addressed.

[1] Our Sovereign God, James M. Boice, page 149

Filed under: Grace, Sovereignty | 6 Comments »

Not a mixture

Posted on January 24, 2023 by wtdavid

We are a movement.  Those who participate in this movement seek to live out the truth that every member is important. In fact, we believe that we need one another to accomplish the task.

As a movement, we are committed to the same mission, vision, and guiding principles (WT Ministry Framework).  Our framework for ministry is not a mixture or conglomeration of each individual’s mission, vision and what one may believe is important. 

This is another reason why we need one another: to ensure that we are all pulling and working together to go in the same direction.  When one rower begins rowing against the work of the others, the boat pulls to the left or to the right.  The other rowers must help this rower to bring his/her work (rowing) back into alignment with the overall direction.

This is where difficulties often arise.  When someone begins pulling a team in a direction that is counter to the overall direction of the movement, several responses can happen:

  • None of the other team members say anything.  Team members are afraid of hurting the lone team member if they say something; or believe that the “pull” in a counter direction will simply go away over time.
  • One (or more) of the team members take the person to task in an overly critical way, lacking grace and empathy.  This is the offensive approach and often is at the start of larger team conflict.
  • Team members ignore and stop listening to this person.  We might call this the ‘silent’ treatment where the member who seems to be pulling the team in another direction is paid no attention.  The team misses an opportunity to learn together from such a crucial conversation.

None of these responses are helpful to the growth and re-alignment of the team; nor do they help the team pull back around the larger mission and vision of the movement.

Perhaps Galatians 6:1-2, though not speaking specifically to this situation, might give us some help and principles to guide our efforts to keep rowing together in the same direction: “Brothers & sisters, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him/her in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

How can we best, with much wisdom, keep one another aligned with the larger mission and vision to which God has called us?

Filed under: Alignment, Mission, Movement, Vision | 2 Comments »

An old word, but a vitally important one

Posted on January 10, 2023 by wtdavid

We are a movement. 

We are a group of committed believers who focus on advancing and facilitating a multiplying expression of disciples and communities of believers.

Being part of a movement implies that the work (the ministry) of the movement is done collaboratively, collectively, and not individually. Resources (people, prayer, finances, gifts, etc.) are leveraged together for the growth and development of the movement. Its energy and activity is focused on the ministry that the group has been called of God to accomplish.

We who participate in this movement seek to live out the truth that every member is important. In fact, we believe that we need one another in order to accomplish the task; that every member brings knowledge and experience to the community, to the movement.

However, the key is that ownership by all movement members, of this way of working, is based on trust and understanding.

It’s an old word, but a vitally important one in the current context in which we live and work.  Spread out across several continents, with meetings often held via Zoom, it’s easy for trust to be undermined or simply not granted to others within the network.

Core behaviours need to be fueling and nurturing trust on a regular basis.

I often fail in this task. As I’m sure many others do as well.  However, here are a few ways we can seek to fuel and nurture trust among us in this New Year 2023:

  • Seek to over-communicate with others in the movement.  Think about what would be helpful for you to know about what is going on, and then work to share what is happening in your part of the world with others for their input and help (a tangible way of demonstrating that we need one another in order to accomplish the task).
  • Ask more questions rather than answer questions.  This means putting others first in any given conversation, to better understand their perspective and ideas.
  • Reflect with others on the text in 1 Corinthians 13:7. How might this biblical text work out in practical ways in our relationships with others in the movement?

Working together to envision tomorrow.  That’s our objective for the Global 3C Conference this coming July.  To get there, we will need to fuel and nurture trust and understanding over the coming seven (7) months.

Filed under: 3C Global Conference, Movement, Trust | Leave a comment »

Moving mountains

Posted on December 6, 2022 by wtdavid

We as a global community of cross-cultural workers are committed to facilitating movements of disciples and churches among those who are lost.  As many writers have observed, church planting or church multiplication movements do not come about as a result of our efforts. They are first and foremost the work of God’s Spirit among a people group.

So, one of the primary means by which CP movements arise is by prayer – fervent, perseverant, and informed prayer on behalf of a people group where the number of believers is extremely minimal. 

It is prayer that is at the top of everyone’s list of CP movement characteristics.  However, two obstacles may keep us from this kind of movement prayer. 

The first obstacle is our desire to “do something”.  Prayer seems like such a passive activity in our minds. We want to be able to engage in some tangible work that would, in our minds, lead to a demonstration of God’s work among a people group.  And yet God calls us again and again to pray.

The second obstacle is a misplaced faith.  Jesus in Mark 11:22-24 says: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  Alistair Begg comments on this verse this way: “In this bold command, Jesus reminded His followers to trust God, because it is actually faith’s foundation in God that gives that faith significance.  We should not have faith in faith or faith in ourselves, but faith in God alone.”

Once again, we can be tripped up by our own desire to “do something” first, rather than putting our faith in God alone and letting Him direct our actions as He builds a movement among people groups.

Begg goes on to write: “When God is the object of our faith, we can have an audacious faith – a faith that believes the impossible to be possible with Him.  We can know that we are speaking to someone who is able to do far more than we can even imagine (Ephesians 3:20-210. Jesus essentially says to us, I want you to pray in a way that says you actually believe in a God who is too wise to make mistakes, who is too kind to be cruel, and who is too powerful to be subdued by the normal forces of the universe.”

As we look forward to 2023, let us ask God to give us this kind of audacious faith as we pray for CP movements among people groups across this world.

Filed under: Movement, Multiplication, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Team, team and teams

Posted on November 29, 2022 by wtdavid

The idea of working in teams is one of our guiding principles.  You could say it’s one of the reasons why we are called: World Team(s)

In our World Team Ministry Framework, we describe a team as: “A team is a group of individuals united in healthy relationships who work together toward a shared vision. They serve each other, listen to each other, rely on each other’s gifts and strengths, and bolster where each is weak. Our teams accomplish more together than the individuals can working alone.”

There are a good number of applications that we can draw from this principle, but let’s focus on one in particular: that the members of any team “pool” their resources, offer their gifts and talents to serve the group to accomplish something larger than their own personal mission or vision.

We say that no one has all the gifts and skills needed to establish a community of believers on their own, but we can often act as if we do.  It is in allowing different team members to exercise their gift(s) that the team finds forward traction in the Spirit.  It is one of those times when we clearly recognize how much we need one another.

Sometimes when we read this guiding principle, we can read ‘team’ instead of ‘teams’ (plural).  By doing that, we may miss an important insight.  No team is an island by itself.  As World Team, each team is part of a larger group of teams that need each other in order to gain traction towards accomplishing the vision God has laid on our hearts as a global community. As teams which make up World Team, we also need one another. There are resources and gifts in other teams within World Team that would be useful and helpful to other teams; gifts and capacities that could be shared for the growth of the entire group.

One small practical application might be how one or several World Team team(s) in another part of the world could find, mobilize, and coach new workers to join a team in another very different part of the world.  I know there are plenty of other applications, small and larger.

Filed under: Collaboration, One another, One another commands, Teams | Leave a comment »

Raw authenticity

Posted on November 15, 2022 by wtdavid

Two stories or events came to mind when I think about raw authenticity.  What I mean by raw authenticity is simply the clear, honest, and straightforward expression of one’s character or that of a group.

The first story.  Talking with a friend recently, I noticed that the organization he worked for had processed 35+ new workers during the pandemic. “How were you able to bring in so many new people in the midst of one of the most difficult times?” I asked.  His answer was enlightening. He told me that they had no idea as to why they drew in so many new workers.  They hired a consultant to help them figure out “what they were doing right”. 

Basically, the consultant said that the organization my friend worked for had not varied from their guiding principles over many years.  In other words, their strategy may have changed, but who they were and how they lived together as an organization had not altered. 

The second story or event.  I once worked for the administrator of a long-term health care facility.  He often ‘preached’ about the value and dignity we were to give or show to the residents of this facility.  They were our focus. We were there to serve them.  The way he personally demonstrated his commitment to this guiding principle was that his office door was directly accessible from the main hallway of the facility.  No need to go through someone else to get to his office.  And that door was almost always open.  Any resident could simply walk right in if they wanted to talk to the director of the facility.

In both cases, what was said to drive their relationships, drove their relationships.  And people were drawn to that authenticity of life and openness.  Yes, there was an organizational culture and work strategy that people adhered to and believed in. But what seems to keep them or have kept them onboard was the outworking of the principles to which they held.

We talk a lot about the Gospel as the driving guiding principle of our mission (see the WT Ministry Framework). Perhaps we need to reclaim that principle as the driving force behind our actions and the way in which we work and will work together.  And we would do well to look for daily expressions of that Gospel expressing itself in love, in and through our lives (Galatians 5:6).

What that might look like is fodder for ongoing discussions … and certainly a next blog post.

Filed under: Authenticity, Character, Gospel, WT Ministry Framework | Leave a comment »

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