One of the the fun things that we have started with Caleb this summer is a blog for him to tell his story. We figure that a blog is the perfect platform to help him share his thoughts and experiences, while also helping him learn how to communicate and write.
As I wrote about in my article Tell Me Your Story I think that it is important for us to tell our story, and that goes for our children as well.
Caleb’s pretty good at spinning a yarn (much to Tamara and my chagrin sometimes) and it’s fun to see what he’s coming up with already on his site. He’s written one work of fiction so far, a number of journal type entries and I have also posted a video of him sharing at church.
One of my favourite posts that he’s written so far was about his Cecostomy Surgery. I think that it does a good job talking about some of the thoughts, feelings and fears that went through his mind during this time.
He’s really enjoyed writing the blog and especially loves getting comments on it. Unfortunately he’s starting to get a bit of a big head about all his comments and likes to rub in the fact that he usually gets more comments on his blog than I do.
I guess that humility is something we still need to work on … 
One of the saddest things that I see in missions is people abandoning what they know so that that they can fit in as the stereotypical young missionary. It doesn’t matter if they have trained to be a teacher, an engineer, a scientist, etc. Instead they stand in front of kids, sing songs and dance because that’s what they think they are “supposed to do”.
Let’s face it, many of our short term missions programs don’t to much to dissuade this mentality either.
When I started in YWAM on my YWAM Discipleship Training School I did dance, singing, sports and drama. I also had the chance to speak in front of churches, youth groups, schools, prisons and a village in Vanuatu. It was an amazing opportunity, don’t get me wrong, but it certainly didn’t use any of my strengths.
What was interesting, and something that I usually don’t admit to, was that after my DTS I was asked to teach dance and drama! It was, shall we say, entertaining. I’m sure many of my former students still cringe in memory of my teaching in these areas…
It wasn’t until I had served for quite a few years until I was able to actually use some of the skills and knowledge that I had gained before going into missions. Then it wasn’t until I actually left the local YWAM Centre I was working at and worked with the GENESIS Centre, and eventually joined the International Chairman’s Team, that I was able to work full-time in missions using more of that knowledge.
Limitless Potential
I enjoy talking with my eight-year old son about what he wants to do when he grows up. One minute it’s a scientist, then a pilot, a police officer, an astronaut, a missionary, a professional football (soccer) player, doctor, etc. At the age of eight the world is open to anything he can think of wanting to do, and my job as a parent is to help him find what God has created him to do (no big task right!).
We’ve been talking a lot about what “gifts” God has given him and what areas he is already good at. Tamara and I can already see things that he excels at and want to encouraging him in those areas, while still helping him grow in the areas he doesn’t excel at.
I would hate to see Caleb put into a position where he would not be using his God given gifts. I don’t believe that God gives any of us these gifts for us to not use them. To not use them is certainly not being good stewards of what God has given us.
Responsible for our Worker’s Gifts
As missions leaders we are responsible for the gifts that our people bring to the mission. We need to make sure not to take them for granted, but rather to realise that they have God given gifts that we need to be good stewards of.
Like the parable of the talents states in Matthew 25:14-30, if we don’t prove faithful to God with the few that he firsts gives us, He will not trust us with more…
Twitter has proven to be a great place to share interesting links and stories that I find online. I find the ability to share what I know with a group of people who are interested in similar topics to me to be very beneficial with my role as a missions communicator.
Buffer is a great application that I have been using lately that allows me to spread out the updates that I send on Twitter. I find that I usually find what I want to put on Twitter all at once, but I don’t want to sent it all out at the same time. With Buffer I am able to put the updates and links into a queue that are spread out and sent at pre-determined times. This helps to eliminate Twitter fatigue, with me sending a dozen updates almost all at once.
Buffer isn’t something I use for any of my real time updates about what I am doing right then and there, but for sharing links and stories it’s great.
In addition to an on-line interface Buffer has add ons for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and more. You are also able to send them an e-mail with a link and it will be automatically added to your twitter queue. This is especially useful if you are on a mobile device.
Personally I think that Buffer is a great addition to anyone using Twitter to share information.
As a bonus, Buffer can also give the impression that you are working more often that you may actually be working, but you didn’t hear that from me, and please don’t tell my boss I said it…
One area that I am increasingly challenged in with regards to what we are teaching in our schools in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is the area of personal finance, or financial stewardship. Debt is something that is crippling to missionaries and missions agencies when it comes to being released into what God has for them.
Even though personal and organisational debt is something that limits so many people in fulfilling God’s plan in their lives, it is not something that I have seen talked about much in teaching or schools in YWAM. Sure, there is a lot of talk and content about support raising for missions, but I have not seen nearly as much content created about personal financial stewardship.
Personal Finance and Financial Stewardship Training
There are many programs out there that can be implemented personally, or in our schools in YWAM. Two that I have been looking at are the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover, and more recently Lazarus at the Gate, an Economic Discipleship Guide.
Both of these programs are things that could be very easily implemented on our schools in YWAM, whether it be on the YWAM Discipleship Training School, or a school like YWAM Denver’s Phase II / School of Ministry Development (which does offer a section on Stewardship in their curriculum). They are also programs that could be implemented with regular staff training and equipping that should be constantly happening are all YWAM Centres.
Dave Ramsey, Total Money Makeover
This is a program that I am very familiar with and one that my wife and I are trying to implement in our own life. The centre of the plan is the seven baby steps:
- $1000 Emergency Fund
- Pay off all debt with the Debt Snowball
- 3 – 6 Months of expenses saved.
- 15% Retirement Savings
- College / Education Fund for Children
- Pay off home early
- Build wealth and give
In addition to teaching these seven steps in his book The Total Money Makeover, there are other teaching packages and programs that could fit very well within a missions setting.
Some of the different programs are Financial Peace University and Generation Change. Here is a video explaining Dave Ramsey’s Generation Change, which I think could fit very well into a program like the YWAM Discipleship Training School:
Generation change is geared towards youth groups, which could suit the discipleship training school audience.
The other, and possibly better option for missions training schools like those offered in YWAM, is Financial Peace University. Financial Peace University has been used successfully by churches, companies, communities and non-profits to help people learn how to control their money.
I find Financial Peace University for Non-Profit Organisations to be especially interesting for missions organisations. Below is the video specific to non-profits and how Financial Peace University has helped them with their students, staff and clients:
Certainly looks to me like something that could be part of a missionary training course…
Lazarus at the Gate, an Economic Discipleship Guide
Lazarus at the Gate is a small group discipleship experience designed to impact global poverty.
While the Dave Ramsey program is a commercial operation, Lazarus at the Gate is an open source curriculum designed to be used by small groups to explore what the Bible has to say about personal finance. There are numerous resources available from their web-site, Simple Living for Just Giving – Resources, including curriculum for adults, curriculum for students and a series of devotionals.
During the 12-sessions of the adult curriculum the participants are encouraged to make four different individual commitments:
- Spend joyfully
- Spend justly
- Spend less
- Give more
With the curriculum being open source there is nothing to stop the curriculum being rewritten from a missions perspective.
Lazarus at the Gate has the advantage over the Dave Ramsey material in that it is free and open source, but would require more work on the part of the facilitator to implement. The Dave Ramsey material has the huge advantage in the quality and breadth of material and resources provided with their different courses, including full training DVDs, CDs and more.
I think that either one could be a good option to implement in a missions training program.
What do we do now?
As missionaries personal finance is not something that we should take lightly. It is an area that the enemy can use to rob us of God’s desires for our lives. How we handle our personal finances shows a lot about our character and what we place value in.
- What tools are you using to help with your personal finances?
- Are there some tools that you can recommend to others?
- Is your ministry centre helping to disciple your people in this area?
Let us know in the comments below…
Top photo courtesy epSos.de
One of the challenges that we have communicating about missions, ministry and the work going on in the field is bringing the message home. It’s one thing to watch or read stories from “distant lands”, but it’s quite another to see the stories lived out in our own back-yard.
War School is a short film about Child Soldiers. It takes the traumatic plight of children forced to be child soldiers and brings it back into an an environment that we in the developed world know, elementary or middle school.
Warning, this video contains disturbing content and strong language. If you are watching in public I would recommend using headphones…
Seeing a story that is happening every day around the world, but in an environment that is not foreign to us, and one that we can relate to, allows us to understand the story in a much different and more powerful way. The challenge that we are presented with is how can we portray the ministry that we are doing in missions in a way that impacts the life of people viewing it and develops empathy in the lives of people who can make a difference…
