Thoughts Along The Journey

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.

Were You Moved? A Follow Up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by wtdavid

There have been a lot of great comments shared about the post: “Were You Moved?”, but I just had to share this one because it shows the impact that can come from an individual and a team responding to the needs of workers wanting to enter into ministry. It’s also an example of how the 1+1 challenge is being met.

This is from one of the newest WT Spain members:

“Hi Spain Team! I wanted to send some encouragement along to you as a representative of the mobilization team.

I just met up with a college age girl from my church. She has been passionate for missions in Japan for as long as I can remember. But currently, she is at a point where she just doesn’t know what to do next. She is in contact with missionaries in Japan but does not hear back from them much. I know she can (and will) do amazing things for God’s glory, but right now she doesn’t know where to start!

It made me think of how I was in a very similar spot a few years back until I got in contact with the Spain Team. From then on, I always had someone to contact and someone with whom I could discuss my next steps. It is great and SO IMPORTANT!

So, first of all, thanks to you all who were/are a part of this continuing journey, and second, be encouraged to reach out to someone you know who may be questioning their next steps. They could very potentially become our newest member of World Team Spain!”

Following up can mean engaging in others’ lives by contacting them, answering their questions or just praying for them.

Filed under: 1plus1, Mobilization, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Were You Moved?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by wtdavid

We all know the verse which says: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9.37-38). However, we can easily pray that verse without being moved emotionally and spiritually by it.

Last week, we as a World Team community set aside time to rejoice in what God has done in our midst and to pray that God would raise up more disciples and establish more communities of believers. Prayer moves our hearts and in some mysterious way it “moves” the heart of God.

As I read through the list of appointees, that is, the people who desire to serve with our teams around the world, I was moved.

I was moved by the sheer number of people in the pipeline. If you count the names on the last two pages of the WT Prayer Day guide (Feb 2013) and add those from other Support Centres, there are over seventy (70) workers waiting to go out.

I was moved by the diversity of locations to which these workers have been assigned.

I was struck by the simple fact that many of these workers cannot head to their ministry assignment because they lack the necessary funds.

God’s desire is that more workers enter His harvest. I, like you, am moved by this desire and in light of what I read this past week as I prayed through the WT Day of Prayer Guide, I want to discover how I can best respond.

I might commit to pray for several people on this list; to pray that God would provide all their needs and to pray until God does so.
I might share a potential contact for support with one or more of these people. Time and again, it has been shown that when your supporters choose to support other works or workers, they commit more funds to you.
I might visit with one or more of these people to encourage them in partnership development.

I’m just scratching the surface here and you may have better ideas. However, when I see that list of appointees and know that there are others waiting to go out, my heart is moved to want to do something to help.

Filed under: Mobilization, Prayer | 6 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Thoughts Along The Journey

A Different Stance

It Never Ends

Mentoring 101

Transition turbulence

Were You Moved? A Follow Up

Were You Moved?

Email Subscription

Categories

Recent Comments

Archives

Goodreads