It is often said that “the resources are in the harvest”. By that we mean that the resources to promote and further the work and ministry of disciples and communities of believers in a given people group are present in that very people group. Funding and resources from the outside should not be the first recourse.
The video below is one example of how this very principle worked itself out in a given situation in one African nation.
Filed under: Generosity, Multiplication | 5 Comments »
Every June, a number of our teams around the world welcome interns who come to explore cross cultural ministry and serve alongside us. Several weeks with interns are a microcosm of the struggle we often have with ‘letting go’, that is, with releasing people into ministry.
Our tendency is to want to do everything for those interns. They’re interns, and so in our minds they do not really know what they need to do or how to do it. So, we often graciously step in to ‘guide them through’ each step of the internship.
Effective training includes content and opportunity for testing applications. In other words, we give people input and then “release” them to look for ways to apply what they have learned. The best applications are the ones discovered by the training participants themselves.
I remember one group of interns that helped me begin to learn what it means to ‘let go’, to release people to discover ministry application for themselves.
We had just spent an afternoon explaining the metro system here. We gave the interns several destinations to visit for themselves, figuring out the best way to get back and forth between these destination points and their apartments. We all left together and headed for the nearest metro station. As Rebecca and I stood on one side of the platform, we saw all of our interns on the other side. We were headed home. They were headed off to their first destination. They were on the wrong side of the platform! I was ready to yell over to them, when my wife simply encouraged me to let them discover their mistake themselves.
The lesson wasn’t over. A week later, we all met at a local church in Paris for meetings. I asked the interns what metro line they took to get to the church. The line they took was not the line I would have taken. I was just about to say that very thing when I realized they had nonetheless gotten to the church. Their route was a good as mine … maybe even better.
‘Letting go’ does not mean we diminish the quality of our training. It does mean we allow for more individual discovery rather than always making the discovery for others.
Filed under: Core Values, Development | 4 Comments »
I recently finished reading, Paul’s Missionary Methods, edited by Plummer & Terry. It’s a centennial celebration of Roland Allen’s work and its ongoing impact to missional thinking today.
Let me quote a lengthy section from a chapter on the apostle Paul and leadership development:
“The missionary wrongly believes that the time to turn over the church to indigenous leaders – that is, after they have been sufficiently trained – will be obvious to all, but “those who are seeking to gain authority never agree to wait until those who hold it think they are sufficiently prepared.” Filled with the Holy Spirit, the new believers are thus “not so incapable as we [missionaries] suppose.”
Toward this end, Allen argues that the apostle Paul generally “preached in a place for five or six months and then left behind him a church, not indeed free from the need of guidance, but capable of growth and expansion.” Paul accomplished this task by “teaching the simplest elements in the simplest form to the many,” thereby fostering a reproducible process that facilitated rather than hindered planting new churches. The apostle planted and taught the young church, moved on quickly to his next ministry destination and made himself available to minister as needed to the planted church via his writings or his emissaries. The leaders he left behind were not necessarily highly educated; they were simply Holy Spirit-filled men.”
Two things immediately stood out to me in this section, and which called for further reflection. First, Allen contends that Paul’s focus was not on efforts to ‘highly train’ others, but to ‘train so that others could train others who could train others’. The apostle was looking to foster a reproducible process; training in such a way that it was more easily transferable. Second, I recognized how often I can underestimate the capabilities of others because I forget that they, like me, have the Spirit living and working in them.
To apply both of those insights would mean working to ‘release’ people more quickly into ministry and leadership, entrusting their ongoing growth to the Father.
Filed under: Leadership, Multiplication | 8 Comments »
In response to my last post, many responded about the difficulty of actually choosing to focus on one or two core priorities. I never said it would be easy. The tyranny of the urgent is one of the main obstacles we face. Such pressure can rob us from giving ourselves to what ought to be prioritized most.
Jesus called His disciples to an unwavering attention on what is most important: “But seek first [or ‘continually seek’] His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” To have such a focus requires a courage that we do not have within ourselves. We need to look outside of ourselves for help in this journey. I never said it would be easy.
Even the task of setting priorities is another step in the journey from independence to dependence. What does ‘seeking His kingdom and righteousness’ look like today in my life? In what tasks, what actions does God want me to engage? Where does He want me to say ‘no’ in order to say ‘yes’ to His will, His priorities for my life this week?
Listening to God forms a major part of the answer to that question. However, we are ‘trained’ to more quickly listen to our own wisdom than to be silent before Him in order to know the wisdom that comes down from above.
Community, fellow co-laborers are also a part of the answer to that question. We can easily be blinded by our own reasoning and need others to bring godly perspective; to help us see more clearly where the focus of our energies should go.
I never said it would be easy. However, focusing on one or two core priorities is a work worthy of our efforts.
Filed under: Community, Priorities | Leave a comment »
Andy sat across from me at a café and then placed a simple deck of cards in front of me. Each card represented a critical element that a leader might choose to prioritize in his/her work. The task was straightforward: make three piles by arranging the cards according to high importance, medium importance, and low importance.
When I was finished, my “high importance” pile was clearly the pile with the most cards. Then Andy created a fourth category: medium/high importance. After shifting a number of cards into this pile, I now stood with a “high importance” pile of 6 or 7 cards.
Andy pushed further, “Now take away one more card from the high importance pile.” I couldn’t. Everything that was in that pile was of vital importance for my work, or so I thought. I don’t think I will ever forget Andy’s response: “I didn’t ask you if you could or couldn’t, I told you must take one more card way from that pile.” He put me face to face with the struggle of prioritization.
Most of us as workers have more priorities than we can actually accomplish in a day, in a month or in a lifetime. Yes, God wants us to dream BIG, but He tells us to ‘sit down and count the cost’ before we head off into a project, to see if we have the capacity and resources to complete the project.
Setting priorities means not only choosing to focus on one or two key pieces, but it also means learning to say ‘no’ to one thing in order to be able to do another.
Not an easy task. Maybe you would like to share some ways that God has led you to navigate priorities in a healthy way.
Filed under: Priorities | 6 Comments »
‘Saint’ is an interesting word. We often throw it around in conversation to describe those who rise above the crowd; who have a stellar life and character. “They’re a real saint,” we might say.
Sitting in a meeting with leaders from WT Cameroon, Dan led us through a short study of 1 Peter 1:1-2. He put the emphasis on how we as believers, how we as ‘saints’, are described in this short opening section. One of the very first descriptors we settled on was: chosen ones; those who had been set apart by God. In other words, ‘saints’ are those in whose hearts God has first worked, not because of any strength of merit they may bring to the table, but wholly because of His love and grace.
‘Saints’ are those who are in process; those who are learning to grow in grace and be sanctified by grace. They are not perfect by any means, but their hearts have been changed by grace “so that they might obey Jesus Christ.”
Jessie (WT Irian Jaya/Papua alum) went to her homecoming with Jesus earlier this month. Jessie was a ‘saint’. She seemed to always be quick to share her ongoing needs for greater growth in Jesus, but her heart had been transformed by Christ and it led her to life of service to her Lord and others. She was one who was still in process, she was a ‘saint’ because she knew, above all, that she had been first claimed by Christ.
May we stake our claim on the One who bought us back, so that our lives as ‘saints’ would be a natural outworking of that truth taking root deeply in our hearts.
Filed under: Character, Gospel | Leave a comment »
Thoughts Along The Journey 