• 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!

The Gospel digs deeper

Posted on August 19, 2014 by wtdavid

Last week, we had a flood in our basement. It came from the aeration ducts on our patio.  Each duct has a pretty deep hole, but when there is more water than space in the hole it overflows through a vent into our basement.

That’s not a bad image for the Gospel being ‘poured out into our hearts’.  It fills the spaces in our hearts so much that it overflows and has to go somewhere.

However, ‘the Gospel’ can easily become a cliché in WT speak and lose its ‘capacity’ to disturb our regular habits or practices.  If it starts to dig deeper though; if we make way for it to overflow into and search our hearts to see what hurtful ways there might be (Psalm 139), we would be ‘flooded’ in good and godly ways, causing us to change displeasing ways.

Here’s one place that the Gospel should ‘flood’ and change.  It’s in our conversations about one another, sharing their “stories”. Sometimes the sentence starts out innocently, but ends with: “I can’t understand why they …” I’m sure most of us could fill in the rest of that sentence as someone immediately comes to mind.

Maybe we should call this for what it really is: gossip. women-gossiping

I’m sometimes amazed when I hear from someone a distorted version of something I shared in confidence with another and that has now been passed down through several parties.  I’m even more amazed that no one along the path questioned the further sharing of that story or thought to go back to the original source of the story to verify its authenticity.  I’m surprised when I hear someone sharing details about another person’s struggle in the form of a prayer request.

Obviously, I’m just scratching the surface of this whole issue.  However, the Gospel should ‘flood’ gossip out of our lives.  How that works, is another story.

Filed under: Community, Gospel | Leave a comment »

Learning to listen well in the midst of all the noise

Posted on August 12, 2014 by wtdavid

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to listen well to those around us.  Technology has increased our capacity to ‘communicate’ with one another, but not necessarily to listen well to each other.  The other day, I had my landline, cell phone and Skype all ringing at the same time.  How could I be available to listen well to each caller?  Noise pollution

We are all familiar with the text: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  I think a more truthful paraphrase in our context today would be: “Let every person be quick to speak, slow to hear, and careful about one’s anger.”  Our strong suit is to be able to share our ideas, not necessarily to hear, understand and consider the ideas of others.

World Team is entering a new phase in our ministries around the globe.  We sense that that God is calling us an agency to deep change.  However, if we are only committed to what I or you believe the future should look like, we will miss the dynamic that creates different and new attitudes and actions. Through listening well to others, ideas will be able to intersect and build off one another.

Yet the ‘noise’ around us can keep us from listening to others in such a deliberate way. Often, that ‘noise’ is nothing more than our own pride.

A simple step to push us towards listening well to one another would be to say: “Let me share what I think I just heard you say”, and try to summarize what you think the person just said.  That small reflex would begin to build the capacity to work together in seeking to further multiply disciples and communities of believers.

Filed under: Change & transition, Listening | Leave a comment »

No time to think

Posted on August 5, 2014 by wtdavid

One of the things I enjoy about spending time away from work is being able to physically ‘take a break’ from all the technology that characterizes our lives in one way or another: responding to the constant e-mail traffic, writing another blog post, or just keeping up with what’s happening on the pages of my Facebook friends.

time to thinkGoing ‘off the grid’ allows one the time to step back to think, to read, and to reflect.  Times like this remind me of the need to regularly make space to think and not be so taken up with all the information traffic going on around me.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Kate Murphy notes: “You can’t solve or let go of problems if you don’t allow yourself time to think about them. It’s an imperative ignored by our culture, which values doing more than thinking and believes answers are in the palm of your hand rather than in your own head.”

Let’s not make the mistake of saying that one (thinking or doing) is more important than the other.  Let’s not get caught up in setting one against the other because thinking and doing are interconnected; they each support and nourish the other.

Rather than telling ourselves to spend more time in introspection or to spend less time thinking and just do something, we ought to seek balance in our lives.

How often have I used the phrase: “I’m just super busy”?  How often have you used a similar phrase?  That should be a signal to us that we are ‘out of balance’ and in need of readjusting, realigning our lives so that thinking and doing work together to allow us to live our lives well for the Lord.

 

Filed under: Communication, Reflection, Thinking | 2 Comments »

Where do we go from here?

Posted on July 18, 2014 by wtdavid

Just one more thought before I take a break from writing for two weeks: if we are agreed that the term ‘church planting’ needs to be expanded and restated, what do we do now?  Where do we go from here to communicate well the passion of investing our lives in such an adventure? where do we go from here

Here are a few ideas to mull over:

First, soak ourselves in the Scriptures, and particularly in the history of the expansion of the Church.  As I have been reading the book of Acts in recent days, I’m constantly amazed at the multifaceted outworking of discipling and bringing others into community.  It feels like discipleship and community are always in flux; shifting and adapting to new contexts (see Acts 11).  All the while, holding to the one firm objective of seeing everyone grow up together in Christ.

Second, listen to practitioners.  Oftentimes, in just listening to those engaged in ‘church planting’ on a day to day basis, we discover new ways of describing or painting the work.  Taking the time to just hear one another out might actually produce a host of new expressions as to a fuller picture of ‘church planting’

Finally, try out several new terms, concepts and images on one another.  The way that new expressions make it into our language and vocabulary is because people start using a term and it suddenly takes root in the mindset and heart of others.  We would benefit from trying out new ideas in community with one another; being willing to accept honest feedback and drop terms or images that don’t do justice to the passionate journey we are on.  However, some images or concepts might take hold and open up new ways to talk about our passion.

Whether you’re out in the garden, walking the streets of Hong Kong or sitting at the beach, why not give some time to ruminating on these ideas and see what God brings to your heart and mind.

 

 

 

Filed under: Church planting, Community | Tagged: | 5 Comments »

Is Church Planting Too Narrow a Focus?

Posted on July 15, 2014 by wtdavid

Sometimes in conversation with people from around the globe, I will hear a comment which goes something like the following: “So, your mission is only focused on church planting?  I’m not sure that really plays well to potential workers today.”  What I think people are trying to say is that ‘church planting’ is somewhat out of date, too restrictive, or that the term doesn’t really communicate passion and vision to potential workers.churchplanting

Agreed. The term church planting (CP) might not communicate well in our media saturated context and it could convey the idea that we’re just concerned with building a building and moving on.  However, I think church planting is oftentimes undersold.

Building communities is not only a wild ride of spiritual passion, it is varied in its activities and outcomes.

For one, building communities pushes a person to their limit because you always ‘work from a blank page’.  Jerry (WT France) used this expression recently to describe the work in Western Europe and I think there is a lot of truth in what he said.  It’s about starting something from scratch by looking around to see what God is already doing, how you can join in partnership with others, and what ways you can facilitate the work of seeing people commit to Christ and live out their spiritual journey in a different cultural context.

For another, building communities involves addressing the total needs of people, and in particular their spiritual needs.  Everyone we meet has a host of needs that range from physical to emotional to spiritual.  The Bible is pretty clear that we cannot just address spiritual needs when the physical needs of a person are staring us in the face.  It is a multifaceted task to which we are called.

And finally, building communities means admitting daily you don’t have the capacity or ability to do ALL the work.  It calls for distributing, delegating and sharing the work across a large number of people.  It means learning, really learning to work collaboratively with others, where sometimes their ideas are chosen over ours.

Church planting may not be the best term to communicate what we are about.  Perhaps it’s building communities. Perhaps it’s something else.  Whatever the term, the elements which make up that work get my heart, and the hearts of many others, pumping.

Filed under: Church planting, Collaboration | 8 Comments »

Where are the resources?

Posted on July 3, 2014 by wtdavid

cheerful giverAll of us are motivated by the generous spirit of God the Father, demonstrated in His love towards us in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.  Verses such as 2 Corinthians 9:7 ring true with us where the apostle Paul encourages us to give from a generous and cheerful heart, not one under compulsion. When we see needs, when we see lack of resources, we desire to intervene.

Often we want to provide the needed resources for others because we have access to those resources – from our own personal resources or from resource rich contexts (churches, agencies, foundations or other individuals).  There is nothing inherently wrong with this heart direction.  However, it would be good to ask a process question before accessing those resources for others.

Here’s the question: what is the best way to create a heart of generosity in those I am seeking to serve?

It could be that one’s gracious offer of help will stimulate a heart of gratitude among others so that they themselves will do likewise for others.  Or, it could be that our generosity might create a dependency that stunts the growth of such a gracious heart.

I’m also not talking just about financial resources. It could be people resources or tangible resources such as building supplies.  If we deprive people of the opportunity to discover for themselves how God will provide for their needs, we may train up a disciple who looks more to be served than to serve. Rather than training up one who serves others out of a generous and cheerful spirit, seeking to create that same heart in others

Filed under: Generosity, Resources | 5 Comments »

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