Thoughts Along The Journey

Becoming aware

Posted on February 7, 2014 by wtdavid

“Being aware of your own business, your competition, and the environment is critical to the success of any organization.” Read past the business language and you will see how relevant this statement is to the mission in which we are engaged. A lack of awareness as to our ultimate vision and purpose could lead to fruitlessness. Being unaware of those forces that work against us and the changing context in which we live and minister could slow down a movement of disciples and communities of believers.

A natural question that follows from this insight is: how does one become more aware?

The Gospel Leader Profile (GLP) is a tool used by World Team leaders and workers to challenge to further growth in God’s grace. One of the areas that this profile focuses on is: self awareness. The GLP puts it this way:

Self-awareness of one’s own need for the Gospel and personal development in relation to God, self and other team members. A leader/worker reflects a proper estimate of their own strengths and weakness and also seeks insights from others around them. They keep a close check on their physical and emotional health in the varying seasons of life. They seek to maintain healthy boundaries in relationships and on the use of their time.”

A natural question that follows from this insight is: how does one become more aware, more self aware?

This is worth chewing on over a few more posts. I would welcome your insights. One step to start with might be to ask others how they are “receiving” us as an agency; and how we as individuals make others feel when we are with them? Not easy questions.

Filed under: Self awareness | 7 Comments »

I read it in a book

Posted on February 4, 2014 by wtdavid

A lot of you are readers, like me. We enjoying “swapping” or sharing insights that we have gleaned from the latest book (or article) we have read or been reading. Usually the conversation starts off something like this: “Interesting that you should say that. I was just reading something along those lines in ….” It is great to hear about what others are reading and profit from one another as we share what we are learning.

However, reading a book or hearing someone’s summary or insights does not mean that you have actually appropriated those insights for yourself or “taken them downtown to your heart” as one writer puts it.

I have read a number of books on the Gospel over the past number of months: The Prodigal God, The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness, and Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary. Each of these books has great insights and I could easily delineate some of those truths. Real change, though, comes as I interact with others and we ask one another the hard questions of what will be the outcomes of such insights in our lives and ministries. What will transformation really look like for each of us? How does the Spirit apply such insights and work change in our hearts?

If I’m just a ‘talking head’ of insights, I would be better helped by someone coming alongside and ‘talking me through’ my learning to be able to move it from my head to my heart.

Filed under: Gospel, Lifelong learning | 6 Comments »

community: part 1 of 3

Posted on January 31, 2014 by wtdavid

Today’s post comes from Bill (WT Canada):

“I’ve just returned from being in Cameroon, Africa for the past several weeks. As part of my teaching on Authentic Biblical Community I gave the participants this assignment: Draw a picture of COMMUNITY that explains itself, or using very few words if you have to. In small groups of around five they went to work. During the next session I held up each drawing and tried to explain community from the drawings. When I held up the picture above someone yelled out that it was not one of the submissions. Rather, it was the effort of two little two and a half year olds occupying themselves while their parents thought through the assignment.

However, this was one of the best efforts to explain community. Community is messy at times. Community can look disorganized. Community can seem like never connecting and different lines that somehow interact and have relationship, sort of, in some way. Yet with all of this “beautiful mess” community is necessary. Did you notice the flower in the picture? As the Body of Christ we are part of a community that seeks to encourage and uplift one another while at the same time live as living witnesses inviting others to join with us in this community.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians believers: “but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. . . Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” (Ephesians 2:13, 19) You belong! What a wonderful illustration of what the Gospel does, it allows us to belong. Community may be messy, but it is a beautiful mess!

Wherever your place of service is I want to challenge you to see through the confusion and messiness of community and see the necessity of community; the hope it gives to others – You can belong. The call of Christ is to accept his gift of forgiveness and invitation into a new and better community.”

Filed under: Community | 3 Comments »

How to not let the Gospel change our hearts

Posted on January 30, 2014 by wtdavid

Complacency can easily blur our vision, rob us of the joy we have in Christ and make us weary and tired saints. The search for power over our world runs deep in our hearts so much so that we can enjoy feeding more on ‘self’ than on Christ.

However, there is still another way that inhibits the impact of the Gospel in our lives; that causes us to be unconsciously learning day by day how not to let the Gospel change our lives. It’s when we allow something else to become more important in our hearts than Jesus.

For many of us, that ‘more important something else’ is our ministry.

A disciple walks away from Christ; a Bible study or house church turns sour; or someone raises a question about the long term fruit of our ministry. When any one of these events happens, we find ourselves immediately in the red zone. You know, that area where our responses and reactions to any further comments or questions are out of proportion to the actual situation.

“What kind of church planter am I?” “What was that disciple’s problem?” “No one really understands my ministry.” These statements or questions we often say to ourselves are self directed, not other directed. In other words, they don’t push us to ask some harder questions of ourselves.

Stepping back from our ministries, we should be asking ourselves if in our ministry we rely more on our own capacities than the Holy Spirit. Or we might ask if our avoidance of a plan and priorities might actually hinder the growth and development of disciples.

Our ministry is a possible “savior” we might turn to other than Jesus. There are many more. We identify other “saviors” when overreaction occurs as someone gets in between us and that idol. The Gospel displaces all other saviors when one affection, one passion overwhelms our heart and takes full possession of it. May we be passionate about Christ alone.

Filed under: Gospel | 2 Comments »

Think, reflect, act

Posted on January 24, 2014 by wtdavid

In a recent article in The Economist, a journalist drew a distinction between “casual dining” and “fast casual dining”. One of the differences between the two is that fast casual dining implies a quicker, more rapid dining experience without all the trappings and expense of a casual dining experience. Now who isn’t for reducing costs and time spent on meals? However, what one loses in “fast casual dining” is the slower pace which promotes conversation, engagement and enjoyment.

Translate that idea into our context? Many of us are running at full throttle in our ministry. We’re definitely into a “fast casual ministry activity”. What we are missing, though, is time to slow down, think and reflect on what we are doing. Pulling back in this way might actually give us new ideas, other approaches, or a fresh perspective on all that we are doing.

Here’s the catch: just as a ‘fast casual’ approach takes away reflection time, a ‘casual’ approach can keep us from doing something with what we discover in our reflection time. We need more time to think and reflect. We also need time to apply or implement what we learn in those moments apart.

The Vision Forward 2014 conferences are meant to be times where we step away from our current ministries to think, reflect and pray in community on the implications of our global vision. Once we leave those conferences, the work is only half done. The challenge once we leave is to prayerfully work to put into practice what God has shown us through our time together in community.

Think, reflect and act.

Filed under: Reflection, Thinking | Leave a comment »

Americas Vision Forward 2014 Conference

Posted on January 22, 2014 by wtdavid

So what happened last week as workers from the Americas gathered for their Vision Forward 2014 Conference? Sean (WT Haiti) shares his impressions and his takeaways in this short clip.