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.
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…
This is a great article, Bill. Thanks for the reminder to focus on our strengths. Good job.
[…] var addthis_config = {“data_track_clickback”:true,”ui_language”:”en”};In my previous article about Using What You Know For Missions I talked about how important it is for us to use what we already know in missions. It’s my […]
[…] Using What You Know in Missions by Bill Hutchison […]
Using What You Know for Missions – Water Engineer – Yet another great example of someone using their skills and training for God’s Kingdom…
[…] Often my writing is about something I am passionate about, like my using what you know in missions series and personal finance in missions, or topics that have come up in my YWAM work […]