One of the things I appreciate about the T4T (Training for Trainers) approach is how every meeting begins in the first section with reporting on what you have done the past week to apply what you learned before. Likewise, every meeting ends with the setting of new goals. How are you going to obey and …
Long-term, pioneer, frontier missionaries can get a bit cynical. We’ve seen lots of problems. Many things have gone wrong over years of service. It is easy to start to see the negative, rather than the positive in both people and situations. When God sends young people your way on short-term mission teams, seeing them as …
Kids are easily distracted. When my children were young they’d start crying. Maybe they were angry about not getting a piece of candy they craved. I’d point out the window. “Look! See the birds?” Suddenly, their attention shifted. Now I do this with my grandkids. We can be like kids too – easily distracted from …
We moved around the room silently. One person was given a watch. Graciously receiving it, he silently prayed. Should he keep it or pass it on to someone else? Another person turned to his neighbor, he gave him a newly purchased jacket. The power of generosity was being released in the room as we did …
They stood in front of my gate, a group of angry men. Impatiently, they rang the gatebell again and again. They came with demands. Emotions ran strong. Who were they? Angry Hindu fundamentalists? No. Surprisingly (or not), they were a group of Christian pastors from our city. A sometimes unexpected obstacle we frequently face in …
“You are like a bulldozer,” he said. That was an unusual thing for someone to say! I wasn’t sure I liked that classification. What did it mean? As time has passed, I’ve come to understand what this prophetically gifted man was referring to. To release Disciple Making Movements (DMMs), you need to bulldoze your way …
“Here is water! Can you baptize me?” Philip was asked this question by the Ethiopian (Acts 8:36). Without hesitation, he immediately took action to help this new believer obey Jesus’ command. I wonder if we would have done the same. We may have said, “I’m not sure I am allowed to do that. I need …
“My children’s school is far from my ministry field,” a trainee said. “I need to live where my children can go to a good school.” How important is it that we live among the people we’re trying to reach? If we can’t live on-site how much will that affect our fruitfulness? It is important to …
Our beliefs about who we are dramatically impact our behavior. In a recent blog, I wrote about the reality that we are people God has chosen to bear much fruit. We are God’s chosen instruments. It is a beautiful thing to be chosen by Him to do His work. In this article, I will focus …
Imagine someone running in a baton race carrying a large, heavy piece of wood. It would be hard to pass on to the next runner, right? One person may be large and strong and able to run with it. But the next runner may not. Discipleship groups are very similar to this. The baton …