Thoughts Along The Journey

Trying to be better than you

Posted on March 7, 2013 by wtdavid

The music and chanting hasn’t stopped for several days. Though it seems the official cremation ceremony was last night, I was again awakened early by the chanting. Even though the ceremony may be over, it seems people still want to show how respectful they are of the deceased. However, they also want to show others how respectful they are. In a sense, they’re hoping to outdo others; to try and be better than others.

Pride and unbelief are at the heart of most of our failures. We are no more immune from being tripped up by these insidious motivations than the people chanting and singing down the street from here. Apart from holding firmly to Christ, my heart motivation will be to try and be better than you. What I need, what we need is gospel humility; a humility that comes from recognizing there is only one Rock on which I can stand and build my life and spiritual journey.

Psalm 62 speaks well to this need when David writes: “He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge to us.”

Do you notice who the focus is in this short text? It’s all about God. Everything should go back to him, not back to us and how we measure ourselves in relationship to others.

I know that the people singing and chanting down the street need Jesus, but do I know that I need Jesus again today as much as they do?

Filed under: Gospel, Humility | Leave a comment »

There is real life in the midst of dying

Posted on March 5, 2013 by wtdavid

As I sit here writing this post, there is a nonstop ritual chanting and singing in the background. It started this morning at 5h15. It’s now the late afternoon. Though the funeral where this entire activity is taking place is several blocks away, the huge speaker system “brings” everyone to the service. It has been the chanting and singing of hopelessness for hours.

James explained to those of us gathered here that this is part of the effort of the local people to carry the dead into the next part of the journey, hoping that their efforts and the merit achieved by the deceased will be accepted and help the deceased avoid too much pain. Is there no hope? Is there no assurance of comfort?

Even when the darkness seems at its greatest strength, real life shines in its midst and dispels its shadows.

James shared with us the story of another funeral, one of a local believer. At one point during the day of the funeral, the believers were carrying the body, rejoicing in the hope of 1 Thessalonians, while being followed by a chanting and singing crowd, seeking to add their merit to aid the deceased. What a contrast that picture must have been.

Here’s what James wrote to me about the outcome of that day: “The funeral ceremony yesterday was awesome! The flow of the service was a perfect mix of prayer, songs, testimonies, and the Word. The church leaders and our apostolic leader did a great job. Members from six house churches attended and showed their love for the family. I saw God’s love on display in each of the Christian’s face. It is not common for locals to cry……especially those outside of the immediate family but there was not a dry eye in the house. Everyone was feeling the loss of a dear friend and sister. This was the first Christian death within the house church movement so it was not only a time of mourning but a time for firming up the faith and modeling.

The two sons of this deceased believer shared that they would like to learn more about Jesus and the husband said he would come to Church. This is a big praise and we hope that their verbal commitments will not be hindered by the enemy. The daughter who is a believer stood at the end and said in tears that she missed her mom but was glad to know that she is in heaven with Jesus. Wow! God clearly worked mightily and all praise is due His name.”

That is a powerful image of real life proclaiming its reality in the midst of the darkness!

Some of us live in cultures where such demonstrations of grief and hopelessness are shown in such clear ways. Others of us live in places where those demonstrations are ‘masked’. Nevertheless, they are there and present.

I don’t want to be lulled to sleep, thinking that people around me are not experiencing this hopelessness at every moment of their life journey. I want to be awake to live out real life among others, so that Christ will work powerfully in their lives and bring the hope that will carry them into eternity.

Filed under: Godly living, Hope | Leave a comment »

A Different Stance

Posted on February 28, 2013 by wtdavid

Real trust is not something that we quickly give to another. Trust needs to be built. It takes time and experience for me to observe that you are worthy of my trust. Yet, one small misstep and trust can be broken; all that has been built can dissipate in the space of a couple of minutes or seconds.

At that moment, we enter into “mistrust”; a holding back of our hearts from others because we are just not sure that they will come through for us. Our natural stance towards others is often one of mistrust because we have been let down so many times. We now insist that others prove their trust before we will extend our trust to them.

Our relationships as workers are meant to be living demonstrations of God’s awesome Gospel power at work in us. I’m not calling for a naïve trust in everyone, but I am pleading for a different stance, a different approach towards trust.

What if we changed our stance to one of trust, that is, of trusting the best of another and believing they have our best interest in mind until the contrary is proven or demonstrated?
What if we extended forgiveness to those who have broken our trust? What if we chose not to bring that experience of mistrust up again as a means of accusation?
What if we measured others’ broken trust in light of the many times we have failed to trust our heavenly Father? What if we allowed that thought to drive our hearts to repentance and faith?
What if we decided to write out what real trust looks like in practice and then shared that with another for their help and insights.

It’s easy to say we trust someone. It’s another thing to actually live from a different stance, one of real trust.

Filed under: Communication, Community, Trust | 2 Comments »

It Never Ends

Posted on February 26, 2013 by wtdavid

It’s about that time of the year when I start thinking about our community garden plot. There are a number of standard plants that we will plant, but every year I look for something new to plant. That new idea, though, will cause me to go looking for information on what I need to do in order to help this new plant grow. Just planting something without knowing how to prepare the soil or care for it, will potentially lead to no harvest.

Our life as workers is all about constantly learning. At the end of almost 360 pages dealing with the life and work of a cross cultural worker, one author wrote: “Workers ministering in the twenty-first century can expect to serve in an atmosphere of constant change. Missions will be conducted everywhere, in every way, by everyone. This will demand lifelong learning and lifelong humility.”

Life long learning. Life long humility. Where does one begin? I think the answer lies in taking one area of growth, learning or development, and focusing on that one area over several months. Check out what materials are available or what online training is being offered. Ask a colleague to check back with you each week to see how you are progressing. Most of all, be perseverant in prayer and effort to grow.

Yes filling out feedback forms can be helpful, but setting a short goal, achieving it, and setting your sights on a new goal motivates us further. On our own, we may have great plans, but we easily let ourselves come up with excuses for why we can’t give time to a lifelong learning project. Once again, the community needs to come alongside and help us.

Are you ready to join in the journey?

Filed under: Lifelong learning, Setting goals | 2 Comments »

Mentoring 101

Posted on February 21, 2013 by wtdavid

Mentoring is “the process where a person with a serving, giving, encouraging attitude, the mentor, sees potential in a still-to-be developed person, the mentoree, and is able to promote or otherwise significantly influence the mentoree along in the realization of potential.” In other words, mentoring is about helping or facilitating another in their lifelong development in character and competency.

However, mentoring another doesn’t just happen because we think the idea is “cool”. Getting involved in mentoring relationships begins with three critical steps.

The first critical step is to pray for and learn how to have “developmental eyes”. When a new worker joins our ministry team, how do we “see” them? Do we see them just as additional labor and hands for the work? Or do we see someone with potential to grow in certain areas, to potentially move into certain roles of responsibility? Do we assess the person as to what they can’t do or what they have the potential to do? There are vast differences in the ways we “see” people.

The second critical step is to develop your ability to mentor by asking more questions than you answer. This may be something that requires some new skill training as most of us are trained to answer questions more than we are to ask them. The aim in mentoring is to develop the other. Most often that occurs through their discovering truth and its application.

The final critical step is making known that you are available and willing to mentor others. I’m not talking about “tooting your horn”. I believe that workers truly do want to be mentored, but they often assume others don’t want to mentor them or don’t have the time to mentor. Making known your willingness to mentor offers the invitation to other workers to seek you out.

If one of our core values is training and developing leaders, I believe this means we should be characterized as a community that mentors others well.

Filed under: Development, Lifelong learning, Mentoring | 2 Comments »

Transition turbulence

Posted on February 18, 2013 by wtdavid

Normally, you hear a bell ding over your head and right away the steward or stewardess comes on to tell you that you are entering a turbulence area and you need to return to your seat and buckle your seat belt. It’s a great image to help us understand what I’m calling: “transition turbulence”.

The past few posts, we have been talking about the number of appointees who are waiting to enter into ministry. In this post, I’d like to focus on another part of the spectrum: our current workers.

Several years ago, a survey of all of our workers found that the average age of a WT worker was fifty (50), but with eighteen (18) years of experience. Our current group of workers may be getting older, but there is a wealth of experience that needs to be tapped for the future. However, a number of our workers are reaching a stage in ministry where they feel or recognize the need to transition to another ministry. However, they don’t know what that new ministry might or should look like. This is where “transition turbulence” sets in. Not knowing what to do, the worker floats, unsure of what his/her next step might be.

This is where we need to ‘return to our seats’ or go back to the larger community and ask how we might be used. I always get annoyed at people who pay no attention to the ‘fasten seat belt’ or the announcement to return to one’s seat. They try to ‘go it on their own’ and one air bump later they fall into someone’s lap. If we go back to our community, it will serve as a safe and sure base from which to venture out again into something new.

That something new, in light of all the appointees we have, might be to mentor new workers into ministry. Mentoring isn’t something we do by osmosis. We may need some skill training to work at this level, but if our community encourages us in this direction, we will experience less and less turbulence on the journey.

Thoughts Along The Journey

Trying to be better than you

There is real life in the midst of dying

A Different Stance

It Never Ends

Mentoring 101

Transition turbulence

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