• 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!

Living in Your Father’s Story

Posted on February 14, 2011 by wtdavid

Thanks to Albert for today’s post:

“I love the title, Living in your Father’s Story, of Part 4 of this book.  When I try to live out my own story, I tend to use prayer as a way of getting God to fulfill my dreams.  The diagram in chapter 19, page 170, gives good insight on living in my Father’s story.

When I am God-centered, I focus on His power and rest in knowing that He is in control.  When I slip into me-centeredness, I either become demanding, telling God what to do to accomplish my goals or I sink in despair and conclude that prayer doesn’t work because things are out of my control and life doesn’t seem to be working for me.

When I am weary and burdened, Jesus invites me to come to Him for rest.  He tells me to submit to His yoke and learn humility.  He wants me to surrender my desires to be in control.  When I accept Jesus’ invitation and humbly give control to Him the weight of my burdens shift to Him and I experience release and joyous freedom.  I enter His story and discover the wonder and delight of Him living His life in and through me.

My power struggles and discouragements are transformed by a delightful awareness that God is always in control with full power to even use evil to work out His good purposes.  Prayer becomes a delight because it releases me from me—my biggest burden.  I find God praying through me, aligning me with His story, which I know will result in my being part of history—His story.  Wow!  I like it.  I want more of it.”

Filed under: Gospel, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Watching a Story Unfold

Posted on February 7, 2011 by wtdavid

Paul Miller makes this comment in the next section of A Praying Life: “The act of praying draws God into my life and begins to shape me, the pray-er, in subtle ways.”  I love the way he puts it.  Prayer is ultimately not about us getting what we want, but about God working what He wants into our lives and through our lives into this world.

Our (Rebecca and I) recent participation in two of the Vision Forward conferences (Americas and Central Asia) has reminded us of the truth of this thought.  One way that it was expressed in Central Asia was that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit is a convicting witness, calling us to turn and return to Him.  In prayer, God is “drawn into our lives”, turning the spotlight of His Spirit on those areas of our lives which are hurtful (Psalm 139) and “drawing” us back to Himself where there is overwhelming forgiveness and love.

But we need to be listening to His voice, “hearing” what He wants to say to us.

A good question to ask would be: what is God saying to my heart today?

Filed under: Prayer, Reflection | Leave a comment »

Living in Your Father’s Story

Posted on January 31, 2011 by wtdavid

I would encourage you to read chapters 19-25 in A Praying Life as we continue on in our discussion of this book this month.

I am struck more and more by our need for prayer.  Consider these two quotes from Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, by Ruth Haley Barton:

“When we keep pushing forward without taking adequate time for rest and replenishment, our way of life may seem heroic, but there is a frenetic quality to our work that lacks true effectiveness because we have lost the ability to be present to God, to be present to other people and to discern what is really needed in our situation.”

“Without the regular experience of being received and loved by God in solitude and silence, we are vulnerable to a kind of leadership that is driven by profound emptiness that we are seeking to fill through performance and achievement.”

It is in prayer and through prayer that this transformation begins to take place; where we experience God’s love for us and learn to be present to God and to others.

In preparation for the World Team Americas conference, participants were encouraged to read and pray through the Gospel of John following daily posts.  These posts are worthy of your prayerful reflection: http://worldteamamericas.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=2

Filed under: Prayer, Reflection | Leave a comment »

Getting In Touch With My Inner Brat

Posted on January 24, 2011 by wtdavid

Thanks to Laura for today’s post on A Praying Life:

It did me good to re-read (for the third time, ha) chapter 18.  Mr. Miller ends this section, “Learning to Ask Your Father”, with this lovely line at the bottom of page 161:

“We can’t pray effectively until we get in touch with our inner brat.  When we see our own self-will, it opens the door to doing things through God.”

 And earlier on page 157, he states;

 “The great struggle in my life is not trying to discern God’s will: it is trying to discern and then disown my own.”

 Thanks Mr. Miller, you’ve done it again, you’ve managed to nail me to the wall with your honesty about the role of self-honesty in abiding.

This week, I realize that I am touch irritated with my husband (gasp). I am sure no one can relate, but there I am.  I spoke about this with a friend trying to put a good spiritual face on it by making it clear I knew my husband was not the problem and that I didn’t want to pull away from him emotionally.  She wisely suggested that I speak to him directly about it and get it out in the open so we could pray through it.  “Great idea”, I responded, “I’ll do that before it becomes a big deal”.  But later that day and the next I find that I don’t actually want to talk to him about it for the very reason this author mentions—I haven’t disowned my own will.  I see my own will (there are certain things I want) and I know it is wrong, and I am NOT so quick at disowning my self-will as I thought.

The women I disciple/coach tend to have difficulties discerning their own will as being over and above God’s.  They say, “Of course I want God’s will here,” when they really don’t.  Much of this is an issue of time, maturing and spiritual breaking (for these particular women).  We can’t disown what we don’t own up to in the first place. 

Then there is the actual letting go once we own up to our “brat”.  This is my battle. This is where God becomes God in my head and heart and I say, “Ok Lord, I give this up to you and I won’t demand it from someplace else”.

Reread chapter 18.  What is harder for you, to own up to your self-willed brat or to disown it?

Filed under: Gospel, Humility, Prayer | Leave a comment »

What Do We Mean When We Say “Church”?

Posted on January 20, 2011 by wtdavid

The following short story is another way to open a discussion among us about what we mean when we say “church”:

Jared & Jenna were able to attend one of the last WIN conferences (World Team Institute of Church Planting) that was held.  They learned a great deal about (and experienced) WT values such as community and the gospel.  However, they left WIN with a feeling that something was missing. No one had taught them what it meant to do the job that they were being asked to do (i.e., establish communities of believers).  To their surprise when they arrived on the field, they experienced some dissonance between what they heard at WIN and the values that were actually being lived out.  Again and again, Joel & Jenna probed the team to help them understand what it was they were supposed to be doing with their time.  The answers they received were nebulous and confusing at best. They struggled to get a handle on the definition of the “church” and the elements that constituted a “community of believers”.  They began to realize that there was no common definition of the church among their co-workers, let alone in WT.  As the years past, Joel & Jenna made decisions about what was a church for them.  To their surprise, their field director expressed disagreement with their conclusions.

This story is for the most part fictional, but represents some of the struggle I have heard from different members of our WT community around the globe.  

How do we begin to describe what we mean by “church” so that it provides a common base for all from which to work and which allows the functions of the church to take appropriate cultural forms where the church is being established?

Filed under: Church, Community, Training | 2 Comments »

“The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way”

Posted on January 19, 2011 by wtdavid

This title is taken from one of Francis Schaeffer’s sermons contained in the wonderful collection: No Little People.  In that message, Schaeffer makes the following comment:

“As I see it, the Christian life must be comprised of three concentric circles, each of which must be kept in its proper place. In the outer circle must be the correct theological position, true biblical orthodoxy and the purity of the visible church.  This is first, but if that is all there is, it is just one more seedbed for spiritual pride. In the second circle must be good intellectual training and comprehension of our own generation.  But having only this leads to intellectualism and again provides a seedbed for pride.  In the inner circle must be the humble heart – the love of God, the devotional attitude toward God.  There must be the daily practice of the reality of God whom we know is there.  These three circles must be properly established, emphasized and related to each other.”

His words got me thinking about the church.  If I were to diagram what he was trying to say, I would present it this way:

The outer circle concerns the church and our theological/experiential understanding of it. The next circle in concerns our grasp of what God would have us do in His world, in other words, His vision for us.  The most inner circle concerns our total dependence upon Him, expressed through prayer & worship. 

Sketching it in this way, the diagram left me with a probing question:  We, as World Team, say that our main priority is to establish the church, the local church.  Yet, do we as a World Team community know what we mean when we say: “church”? 

That’s the conversation I would like us to begin to have over the coming days.

Filed under: Church, Community | 1 Comment »

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