. . . especially with a tub of popcorn, sipping a mega-sized Coke and reclining theater seating. Sometimes you are glad not to be on the other side of the screen.
If the choice is between playing it safe or taking a risk . . . We want to take the risk, if it is calculated for a reward that matters. We would just as soon be on the other side of the screen.
Risk has its rewards whether it is Nancy training trainers for International Women’s Ministry or David recently embarking on an adventurous tour of foundations in search of support for African training. We love what God is doing as we embark on His adventure.
David writes: Accompanying me on my recent trip was Johan Boekhout, who never shied away from a challenge himself. Hailing from Amsterdam, Johan was the mastermind behind our African “More than a Mile Deep” project. We visited four foundations in five days.
Sometimes I am asked if I hate visiting foundations and asking for money. The short answer is absolutely not! Foundations exist to make a difference by resourcing ministry and are always searching for a solid kingdom investment. I know I have exactly what they are looking for. My job is to try to help them understand that.
The challenge is that there are plenty of people like me visiting these same foundations. Some foundations receive thousands of requests each month.
Let me describe the adventure.
On the last Sunday in March I met up with my trusty sidekick, “the Dutchman,” AKA Johan Boekhout. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call me his sidekick, because he is the “Dr. Livingstone” of our organization having explored all corners of Africa to hear from distinguished Africans how they felt African church leaders needed to be equipped. Then he recruited a blue ribbon group of African scholar/practitioners to write a truly innovative accredited church leadership-training program.So, whoever the sidekick is, we grabbed some sleep and had a couple of hours together to prepare for our morning appointment at a foundation who turned us down several years before. At this point, you may be asking, if “I have just what they are looking for,” why then are we ever turned down?
Ah well . . . herein is the risk, the challenge, the adventure that gets the “fight or flight” juices flowing. Some missions represent things everyone can identify with . . . clean water, education for children, food for the hungry. Almost everyone has a frame of reference for those things.
Yet, God called us to a mission that addresses what we believe is the greatest bottleneck in reaching the world for Christ—equipping leaders who can equip other leaders to win and nurture people in Christ. Few people in the US think any more about the training and equipping of pastors than they do about where table salt comes from. You just buy it in the store, right? A church in the US will have thousands of resumes to sift through when they are searching for a new pastor. However, in other cultures where the church is growing rapidly, untrained church leaders are pressed into service as unpaid pastors desperately in need of on the job training. Without adequate training, the new believers they lead will not be grounded in their faith as Jesus commanded us “teaching them to obey all I commanded you” and the Great Commission is far from finished.
“So what makes you different?” Foundations want to know. So many solutions to this dilemma are already knocking on their doors.
I have found the easiest people to explain the differences to are pastors who have been trained in the US. Why? Because they understand how much of a pastor's most practical knowledge and equipping for effective ministry came from sources outside of seminary. Many overseas training programs are only variations on a US seminary theme (without the essential continuing education and abundant resources available in the US). It is sometimes difficult for a foundation representative to conceive of why simply exporting out “tried and true” seminary training into other languages and cultures often misses the mark.
When I buy a car, I know it will be 20 years till I buy the next one, so I look at Consumer’s Reports to figure out its expected rate of repairs. These foundation heads are not leadership training mechanics and do not have any Consumer Reports handy, so they listen to all the competing claims and then make their decision. I feel for them and work hard to try to make the complex issues for equipping church leaders in very foreign cultures clear and accessible to them in the half hour I have to make my case.
So that’s why I love doing this with Johan. It would be hard to find anyone who has spent more time listening to what Africans describe as the leadership challenges (often uniquely African) that church leaders face. That research shaped MMD training, taking essential biblical knowledge, applying it to African challenges by sending students out into the community to develop hands on ministry skills as part of their coursework.
That is where this missionary’s kid becomes the Dutchman’s sidekick.
Please pray for us in this adventure! During this year we will continue to meet with foundations and a few individuals, seeking God partnerships in what I believe will become one of the most significant steps.
