• 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 “Our Father”

Posted on June 24, 2013 by wtdavid

I grew up calling it: “The Lord’s Prayer”.  However, in French it is more often referred to as “The Our Father”.   I like that title because it puts the focus on where it should be in prayer, on God.our-father-in-heaven-matt-6

It seems only natural that out of the overflow of the Gospel would surge the desire to spend time with God our Father who has redeemed us by the work of Christ and applies forgiveness and righteousness to our hearts by the work of His Spirit.  It seems only natural that we would long to talk with Him, think about Him, and seek to discover how to make everything revolve around Him.

The reality is that often we are very weak when it comes to engaging God our Father in prayer.  A.W. Tozer wrote: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  The trouble is that what often comes into our minds when we think about God is us, and what we need from Him.  Maybe that is not your problem, but the largest segment of my prayer time often seems to be my prayer requests, what it is I am asking for from God.

Prayer is about centring ourselves anew on God.  It’s about basking in what it means to know God as “our Father” (Matthew 6) in its “breadth and length and height and depth”.

I’m trying to figure out more and more what that looks like as I talk with Him.  If nothing else, I certainly need to slow down and consider what it means that God is my Father and what expression of praise, of worship should spring from my heart as a result.

 

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Experiencing the gospel virus

Posted on June 21, 2013 by wtdavid

All of us enjoy chatting about our core values.  The real struggle, however, comes as we try to work them out daily in our lives and ministries.  I mentioned this thought when I began posting on our core values.

Listening to one another’s stories is one way we can find help to discern practical ways to make these core values the bedrock of all our ministry and life.

Chuck shared these thoughts in response to one of my posts on the Gospel and they’re worth mulling over:

“When we went to Costa Rica, I found myself sharply critical of their work ethic.  They mixed work and play far too much.  Over time, my own values began to change.  I had drawn a sharp distinction: work hard, play hard, but don’t mix the two.  Slowly I grew in my awareness of my own compartmentalization of life.  I was focused on ‘getting the job done.’  The task is everything.  We can talk after work.  But I was odd man out among my Latin brothers and sisters.  Relationships drove both work and play; it was the ‘glue’ that permeated and enriched all of life.  The issue of work ethic, while important, was not the issue.  I needed a healthier, holistic view of life, viewed through the lens of community.  I needed, as it were, the gospel virus.

Sherwood Lingenfelter’s insightful little book, Ministering Cross-Culturally, speaks to the balance between task and relationship.  Jesus was constantly with people, interfacing with the Twelve, consistently stopping to minister to the afflicted, but all with an underlying purpose: he set his face resolutely to go to Jerusalem and the cross (Luke 9:51; cf. Isa. 50:7).  I am going to read the gospels again with this perspective.  He was committed to doing his Father’s will and constantly serving others, which seems to capture both his availability and his sense of purpose.  It flowed out of him because of who he is.internet_virus_la_clau

As David said earlier this week, I need to spend more time experiencing the Gospel “virus” in my own life, so that what I share with others will be “life to life,” flowing out of abiding in Him.  It seems to me that Jesus’ approach to ‘work’ was quite different from how we view it in the west; rather, it was a part of his daily walk, doing the will of God in tune with the Spirit.  And that included both work and play.  It was all of life lived before the audience of One.”

 

 

 

 

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Not my first choice

Posted on June 20, 2013 by wtdavid

“Christian discipleship may be summed up in one phrase: “dying daily.””  This is not what most people, including myself, are expecting from the Gospel.  Yet, each day, the Gospel invites us to lay self down in order to choose Christ.Dying-to-Self-logo

Honestly, I don’t do real well at this part.

My friends at World Harvest Mission are good at helping to rehearse what the Gospel means, and particularly what it means to lay self down:  “Faith is a kind of dying, because it means we must choose to believe things that are contrary to what we naturally think.  Repentance is dying, for it requires giving up our cherished desires.  Love means dying, for it means giving up our lives for the sake of others.”

“Giving up our lives for others” works itself out in our lives as we choose to move towards others in love when they are judging, accusing or criticizing us.  This can feel like death, but deeper relationship with others in the Gospel cannot take place without this kind of dying to self.

So, here’s the question I probably need to ask myself more: how will dying daily work itself out, practically, in my life?  Maybe considering how this worked out in Jesus’ life would be helpful (1 Peter 2.20-24)?

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What does it look like for you?

Posted on June 19, 2013 by wtdavid

Recently, I asked a number of WT workers if they could share in less than three minutes how our core values are being worked out in their personal, team and ministry lives.

Caressa is one of our appointees and this is what she shared.

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Vaccinated, not infected

Posted on June 18, 2013 by wtdavid

I subscribe to qideas.org and receive regular notes about articles or talks posted to their website. One the other day caught my attention: “The Gospel as a Virus”.  I, like you, have often heard it said that many have been “vaccinated against the Gospel, against the real thing”.  It’s a way we use to describe the difficulty of the cultural context in which we work in some places in the world.Pupil receiving vaccination from school nurse

However, I had not really thought about making the application to me or us as a Christian community.  Richard makes a number of powerful statements in this talk, but one that kind of stuck with me was the fact that the Gospel is: “a call to show the world a different way to live as forgiven people; reconciled to God and reconciled to one another.”

The Gospel is first of all about teaching me how to live a different life.  The Gospel focuses on having me experience forgiveness and reconciliation in my relationship with God and with others.  How can I share this message, this virus, with others if it has not first “infected” my life?

There’s the interesting piece.  Living out of the Gospel, “preaching the Gospel” to myself on a daily basis is first of all not a series of tasks or steps.  It’s about living.  It’s about praying [and asking others for help] to see God work the Gospel deeper into my life through the experiences and conversations I have throughout the day.

Many times, the faith I show to others communicates the message that Christianity straightens out the mess of one’s life and gives one a system to better live by.  I probably need to spend more time on experiencing the Gospel “virus” in my own life, so that what I share with others will be “life to life”

 

 

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I’m accepted, I value

Posted on June 17, 2013 by wtdavid

Valued_Partner_Program_ND_SatComThe Gospel is front and center in our core values.  It is in many ways, the core value from which all the other values stem.  The Gospel means that our lives are not directed by needing to do something in order to be accepted, but that everything has been done for us already in the Cross so that we might be fully accepted.  Because I am accepted, I cherish and live out the values that characterize us as believers and as a community.

One writer talks about core values in this way: “The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves.  Core values are not the descriptions of the work we do or the strategies we employ to accomplish our mission.”  It is a kind of internal compass or GPS in that provides the drive to our work and activities.

The world in which we serve is changing at an amazing speed.  Our values are the bedrock from which we serve as an organization.  WT core values, our ethos, should direct our hearts and actions and guide our life and ministry in this changing world.

Here’s the thing I’m discovering though with core values: many people enjoy discussing them, trying to put just the right words to express them well, but struggle to work them out.  The real test of our commitment to core values is how they are actually worked out in our lives and ministries.  Aspirational values are not the same as actualized values.

So here’s a quick test that Karry suggested recently: without looking, can you name our core values as a WT global community?  I’ve already helped you with one.

Filed under: Core Values | 2 Comments »

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