• 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!

Preparing for the Resurrection

Posted on April 8, 2022 by wtdavid

Easter is the celebration of the amazing news that: “He is risen!” 

In the history of the Church, Easter was an event for which one prepared weeks in advance.  Unfortunately, this time of Lent (the 40 days prior to Easter) has become known primarily as a time to ‘give up something’.  So, my encouragement to you is to use this next week as a time to prepare well to hear again the good news that “He is risen!”

We know that the Gospel is not a series of statements to which we adhere but is the power of salvation (Romans 1) that transforms a hope-less life into one with the firm assurance that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of Christ.

And Easter is the culminating event in the year of all those daily reminders of the price He paid to redeem us and the natural outpouring of our life in service to Him for His gift of grace in saving us. 

So how might we prepare to hear again those incredible words: “He is risen”? There are many helpful Lenten devotionals (see the recent Wellness Wednesday) which would guide you in your preparation.  However, I want to emphasize an element which is sometimes lost in our preparation: community.  Preparing for Easter is both an individual and community activity.  However, when we forget the community aspect, we deprive ourselves of the depth of insight and support that comes from sharing in this preparation for Easter together. This could be in one’s, small group, team, family or local community of believers.

One of the Church Fathers, in his Lenten devotional, wrote: “The Christian, I say, sees all that, and confessing to himself his impossibility to free himself in his own strength from the venom of sin, and to acquire by his own means a virtue so pure and so perfect, he falls in lowliness of heart before the throne of God’s grace and exclaims: Lord and Master of my life, keep from me a spirit of idleness, of listlessness, of ambition, and of idle talking. But grant me, Thy servant, a spirit of temperance, of humility, of patience and of love!”  It is interesting to note that each of the elements he mentions for confession or growth is community related.  In other words, the activity becomes an area of struggle or growth because it involves his/her engagement with others. 

Practically, what might this look like?  Here are a few recommendations.  Feel free to share others by sending a note to me and I’ll post those ideas as a blog post.

  • Share an insight you gained in your recent Lenten devotional or Bible reading with another.  Tell him/her how that insight is helping prepare your heart for the celebration of Easter.
  • Read out loud with others one of the many texts surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection (Matthew 27:32-56; 28:1-10).
  • Take the time to reflect with another on one of the many works of art which depict the resurrection or the events following.  Talk to one another about what this particular work of art tells you about Christ and His resurrection.

Filed under: Community, Remembrance, Resurrection | Leave a comment »

Lots of lessons to learn

Posted on March 30, 2022 by wtdavid

All of us are deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.  Several of our teams are actively involved in serving the many who have had to leave their homes and cross borders into other countries.  I would encourage all of us to continue “mightily” (as some saints would put it) in prayer for all those involved in or bearing the repercussions of this conflict. Our God is mighty to save and is able to redeem every situation for His glory.

My thought in this blog post is to reflect on the simple question: what can we learn at this point from all that has happened?

Two answers come quickly to mind, but you should feel free to add others.

One of the first lessons learned from my perspective is the incredible solidarity of the global Church.  The reports I have heard from several of our teams tells us of the amazing financial generosity of believers, but also the willingness to engage in serving others in very practical ways: housing, food, transportation, clothing, logistical and administrative help … to name just a few examples. This is a time when the global Church can stand together and tangibly demonstrate what it means to “love others as oneself”.

A second lesson learned is a bit more difficult.  The human heart is basically ruled by evil and selfishness, not by good.  This is not news to us as the prophets spoke of this at many points (Jeremiah 17:9). From our perspective, we can easily see how the evil heart of men & women is being lived out in this conflict.  However, the problem comes when we see that evil in others, but fail to see the depth of that same deceitfulness in our own hearts.  It’s probably why repentance is not a daily exercise of our hearts.

Yes, there are evil forces in this world; people and leaders who use their authority and influence for their own purposes.  Yet, those same roots of selfishness find root in our hearts and lives.  And that is why the psalmist cries out to God to search his heart and drive him back to the cross which stands his and our only sure hope and assurance of His forgiveness and grace (Psalm 139:23-24).

Filed under: Prayer, Repentance & faith | Leave a comment »

A must read for the heart

Posted on March 23, 2022 by wtdavid

We all have trusted friends who serve as references for good books to read.  Two of those friends for me recommended the same book within a week of each other.  The book is entitled: Gentle & Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners & Sufferers.  

Some of you have already read or are in the processing of reading this book.  However, with this blog post, I want to strongly encourage you to pick up a copy and join us in reading through this book.  If you need a copy, just contact me directly and we will figure out a way to get you a hard copy or a Kindle copy.

I happened to mention the book at one of the recent Ministry Support Centre board meetings, and a board member followed up with a call to ask me more about the book.  He asked this insightful question: How did the book actually impact your walk with Christ?  

Here is what I said: One of our guiding principles (perhaps THE guiding principle) within World Team is the Gospel.  We often talk about it, write on it and even preach on it.  However, this book will push each one of us to reflect on how that Gospel practically addresses and changes our own heart and actions.  We need this constant rehearsal of Gospel for ourselves.  The book will also cause each of us to stop and to reflect on truths that we know, but consider them from a different perspective or angle.  It’s like holding up a gem and turning it in a variety of directions to notice every aspect of the gem.

On my first read through the book, I came across this statement: “Christ died to confound our intuitive assumptions that divine love has an expiration date.  He died to prove that God’s love is, as Jonathan Edwards put it, “an ocean without shores or bottom.”  God’s love is as boundless as God himself.”  When I read that bolded phrase, I couldn’t help but pause to reflect on the “boundlessness” of His love. How often I have limited it and fallen back into a “I need to do more for God” approach in order to earn His favor and love.

I hope that I have whetted your appetite a bit for reading this book.  And here’s hoping you will join me!

Filed under: Gospel, Heart of Christ, Jesus Christ | 4 Comments »

18 months

Posted on February 7, 2022 by wtdavid

This month, we launch the 18-month challenge.

The challenge? To ask God, and work with all our strength and wisdom, to put workers on the ground in our two (2) global priority projects within 18 months.

These two global priority projects are each focused on an unreached people group with limited access to the Gospel.  One is in South Asia, the other in Chad.

In South Asia, over 150 million people have very limited access to the message of Christ.

In Chad, almost 60,000 people, in the specific people group on whom we are focusing, have no access to the Gospel with only one known Christian family among them.

When I read these figures, my thoughts turn to that passage in Luke 24:32 where the travellers on the way to Emmaus talk about their encounter with the resurrected Christ: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

I pray that we as a World Team Global community will be stirred to join in participating in this 18-month challenge.  It will only be by God’s grace and intervention that we will finally see workers on the ground in 18 months. However, God is calling us to participate in what He longs to do: to bring to Himself people from all nations, language groups and peoples.

Maybe your part to play will be prayer.  Maybe it will be sharing your networks of potential candidates.  Maybe it will be navigating interested people through the process.  

At the very least, I pray that your hearts will burn with the passion and vision to see these two people groups touched with the Gospel in the very near future!

Filed under: Faith in God, Prayer, Unreached people groups | Leave a comment »

Finding a good friend

Posted on January 28, 2022 by wtdavid

The Bible tells us that “a friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17).

For most of us, we read that text as meaning a friend will always be kind to us, never critical.  However, a quick survey of other passages in the book of Proverbs, for example, shows us that a friend is someone who with grace can bring us up short for our own good and growth in Christ.

“Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.”

“Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge.”

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

Finding a good friend involves building a friendship with someone you can trust to remind you of the love of God for you demonstrated at the cross.  But it also involves finding someone you can trust to honestly confront or challenge you when your words and your actions are not aligned.   

Most of us don’t like that element of friendship. I don’t like it.  And yet, it is one of the essential components of how God seeks to sanctify our hearts and deepen us in our communion with Him and others.

We can add another twist to this search for a good friend.  Most of us live in a culture which is not our home passport culture.  Many of us will build friendships in this second culture with those from our home passport culture who happen to live there as well, and there is nothing wrong with that.  However, building a good friendship with someone from the new culture where you live and serve adds another dynamic.

It teaches us dependency upon God (we could call it: humility) in a different way.  It reminds us of the immensity and depth of the body of Christ.  And it offers us a friend who may be able to point out areas of our life that we were able to hide from others in our own home passport culture.

If you haven’t found such a friend in the culture where you serve, I would challenge you to pray that God would lead you to such a friend for His glory, your growth, and the ongoing demonstration of the power of the Gospel to change hearts, beginning with our own.

Filed under: Friendship, Grace, Honesty | 2 Comments »

Surprising nature of God’s love

Posted on January 19, 2022 by wtdavid

I read this quote in the book, Deeper, and thought I would share it for our reflection and to “drive our hearts” deeper into His love:

“They that find Christ [discover that] though he be so glorious and excellent a person, yet they find him ready to receive such poor, worthless, hateful creatures as they are, which was unexpected to them. They are surprised with it.

They did not imagine that Christ was such a kind of person, a person of such grace. They heard he was a holy Savior and hated sin, and they did not imagine he would be so ready to receive such vile, wicked creatures as they. They thought he surely would never be willing to accept such provoking sinners, such guilty wretches, those that had such abominable hearts.

But behold, he is not a whit the more backward to receive them for that.  They unexpectedly find him with open arms to embrace them, ready forever to forget all their sins as though they had never been. They find that he as it were runs to meet them, and makes them most welcome, and admits them not only to be his servants but his friends.  He lifts them out of the dust and sets them on his throne; he makes them children of God; he speaks peace to them; he cheers and refreshes their hearts; he admits them unto strict union with himself, and gives the most joyful entertainment, and binds himself to them to be their friend forever.

So are they surprised with their entertainment. They never imagined to find Christ a person of such kind of love and grace as this.  ‘Tis beyond all imagination or conception.”

The quote is taken from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards: “Seeking after Christ”.

As the author of the book, Deeper, writes in response: “Let him love you all over again.  Pick yourself up off the ground, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and allow his heart to plunge you into his oceanic love more deeply than he ever has before.”

May that be our prayer and our active response to His heart for us!

Filed under: Love of God, Spiritual Life | Leave a comment »

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