• 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!

How Much Do You Know?

Posted on October 4, 2010 by wtdavid

I read the following piece in The Economist this week, and it caused me to reflect about an aspect of lifelong learning:

“A survey from the Pew Research Centre that tested Americans’ knowledge of world religions found that atheists and agnostics were better informed about religious teachings and religious leaders than were Protestants and Catholics.  Evangelicals scored better on questions solely related to Christianity and the Bible.”

I realize that this study was limited to the American population, and that I don’t have statistics for Canadians, Australians or people from other countries.  Nevertheless, the research does seem to beg the question as to whether Evangelicals in general have a rather limited understanding of what others believe. 

Our calling as cross cultural workers necessitates that we have a deep understanding of what others believe, what is their worldview, in order to “contextualize” the message of the Gospel and “know how we should respond to each person.” (Colossians 4:6)  However, that is not a one off event, but requires a lifelong learning stance to continue to grow in our knowledge of what others believe, how they think and what they value.

With our world becoming more and more globalized, the above article caused me to wonder if my familiarity with other religions might be similarly limited.  And that maybe I needed to set a new learning outcome.

Engaging people from other faiths is one of the issues that will be raised at Cape Town 2010.  You might want to read one of the Advance papers entitled: “Bearing Witness to the Love of Christ with People of Other Faiths.”  You can find this and other papers at: http://conversation.lausanne.org/en.

Filed under: Lifelong learning, Sharing the Gospel story | 1 Comment »

A Praying Life … Cape Town

Posted on September 24, 2010 by wtdavid

I’ve been in the US for meetings the past two weeks.  Last night, the US Ministry Support Center hosted a Lausanne Prayer night, a time of prayer for the upcoming “Lausanne” conference to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.  Each one of our Area Directors shared glimpses of ministry in their part of the world in light of the themes of Cape Town 2010.  I wish you could have participated with us as those stories really did stir my heart and others’ hearts to pray. 

But you can participate. The Cape Town 2010 website provides you with many resources not only for prayer, but for study and interaction (http://conversation.lausanne.org/en).  Each delegate is encouraged to do the Ephesians Study, read the study guide of the Lausanne Covenant, and read & reflect on one paper in each of the topics to be discussed.  All of this material is online for you to participate as well.

Would you join with me in praying together for this critical event in the life of the global church?  It is another opportunity for us to encourage a life of prayer together for God’s mission and work in this world.

Filed under: Mission, Prayer | Leave a comment »

A Praying Life … Together

Posted on September 7, 2010 by wtdavid

I would like to invite each member of the WT community to join with me in reading over the coming months, A Praying Life, by Paul Miller (NavPress).  Prayer & worship are some of the core values of our WT community. Personally, I found many insights in Miller’s work that pushed me to pray in new and more deeply relational ways. 

By reading this book together as a community, I hope we can reflect on its contents, discuss insights we glean with one another, and pray more with each other and in concert together. 

 

I would encourage you to order a copy using the hyperlink above. However, if you’re in a place where it’s difficult to get a book in any reasonable amount of time, let me know and I will send you a scanned version of the first few chapters until you are able to get a personal copy.

If you’ve already read the book, re-reading it certainly wouldn’t hurt. However, I can recommend another work that would complement Miller’s work, and would allow you to further enhance our discussion.

There may be some who will not see this invitation in this blog post because of limited internet access or other reasons.  Would you invite them to join with us in reading and learning together?

Look for future posts about this book as well as reflection questions to guide our conversations together.

Filed under: Gospel, Prayer | 11 Comments »

Feedback needed

Posted on September 2, 2010 by wtdavid

Somehow that matrix didn’t copy real well to Tuesday’s post, so I’ve re-printed it below in a better format.

Comments by both Ed and David D got me thinking about another matrix which might help us in “re-ordering” our priorities.  This matrix is found in James Lawrence’s work, Growing Leaders, and underlines, for one, the need for feedback from others.

“Feedback,” as Lawrence writes, “helps open up the blind self.  In every context, inviting feedback from those who know us, love us and want the best for us helps combat delusion and develop character, but we’ll often need to invite it.”  Such feedback would be valuable in honestly assessing how to better “use” or prioritize our time.

Filed under: Community, Reflection | 5 Comments »

Finding the “time”

Posted on August 31, 2010 by wtdavid

It’s pretty easy to say that we need to take more time to think and reflect.  The struggle, however, is to find the “time” in our rather hectic schedules. If it’s more about “giving time” than the “amount of time”, then we are really asking the question of priorities. 

One author diagrammed our “time” priority situation as the following:

  Urgent Not Urgent
Important I

Activities:

Crises

Pressing problems

Deadline-driven projects

 II

Activities:

Relationship building

Recognizing  new opportunities

Planning
Not Important III

Activities:

Interruptions, some calls

Some e-mail, some meetings

Pressing matters

 IV

Activities:

Trivia, busy work

Some e-mail, some calls

Time wasters

 

Two key factors that drive our time priorities are “urgent” and “important”. Something that is urgent requires attention now.  Something that is important contributes to our mission, our values, our objectives.  Most people (myself included) do not work in quadrant II thinking, and yet it is by taking time to engage in quadrant II thinking that we actually reflect more deeply about questions/issues that we know we should take time to consider (important).  Yet, we don’t because those questions/issues do not appear to need immediate attention (urgent).

The question we might want to ask is: “What one thing could I do in my personal and ministry life that, if I did it on a regular basis, would make a significant difference in my life and ministry?”  This reflection question is not “urgent”, but it is “important”, and would ultimately impact who I am and what I do.  We just need to figure out how to “give time” to this kind of thinking.

Filed under: Reflection | 6 Comments »

Am I Really Thinking?

Posted on August 30, 2010 by wtdavid

We’ve asked the question in some recent posts: “Am I really listening?”  However, I think it’s also worth asking the question about our capacity to really think, and to think theologically about a host of issues.

It’s a standard line to say that things move at a much faster pace these days. And yet it is true.  We used to get upset standing in line for more than 15 minutes. Now we wonder where the problem is when the webpage we’re trying to access doesn’t open up within 2 seconds.  In that context, we may be tempted to settle for expediency rather than depth of thought; to immediately download and try a new concept or idea without asking some harder questions.

The biblical model that comes quickly to mind of those who thought well, who thought deeply is that of the Bereans (Acts 17:10-15).  They are described as those who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.”  Now here’s the thing that struck me.  Nowhere in the text does it give us a time frame for that process of “thinking”.  Rather, the emphasis is on a “grid” or a “framework” through which the Bereans ran all new ideas or concepts daily.  And that framework was the Scriptures.

Could we say that it’s not the amount of time that is to key, but giving time to think more deeply more theologically about ideas, issues and concepts?

Filed under: Community, Reflection | 4 Comments »

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