Abiding in Jesus is enough

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5

Abiding in Jesus is not only a necessary condition for bearing fruit; abiding in Jesus is all that’s required of us. When we are walking with Jesus, when we are listening to the Holy Spirit, fruit is born in us. Abiding in Him is enough.

A besetting error (sin?) of ministry leaders is our focus on results. It’s not that results are a bad thing, but that we so easily wander away from Jesus when we focus on the fruit.

When my wife opened God’s Word with someone beginning to understand their spiritual need, the Spirit of God was working in the teacher as well as the one taught. When I listened to a troubled person who came knocking on the church door, my relationship with Jesus was the one truly necessary gift I had to offer – not my theological knowledge grounded in the Biblical languages, my fluency in Japanese, my wisdom, or my ability to listen.

So is it important for us to learn ministry skills? Can reading Greek make a Bible teacher more effective? Does learning how to care for emotionally traumatized people make a difference? Does learning a language different than the one we grew up with matter?

Of course it does. It’s good to learn skills, to develop gifts, to gain experience. It’s good to pursue a vision, set goals and work hard. But none of it will make a difference if we don’t keep ourselves in harmony with Jesus.

When I think about how I’ve kept myself in harmony with Jesus through my years as a minister of the gospel, the reality that confronts me is that I often don’t do it so well. I know this because I have can remember times like these:

  • When I knew the words I should speak, but didn’t do it out of fear of how others will react.
  • When I saw an injustice, but didn’t confront it out of desire to minimize stress.
  • When I was disappointed in an outcome, then eased myself into a pool of self pity.

That’s just a small sample of how I’ve not born fruit after not abiding in Jesus. But there has never been a single day when I didn’t have the option to return to Him. He is the God who sees us, hears us, who stays with us. Every hour of every day contains an opportunity to turn our eyes back to Him.

What if Jesus were inviting you to step back into His presence, just now?

Abiding in Jesus as a condition for fruit

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. – John 15:4

We do not bear good fruit without Jesus. We are incapable of doing so. So stay with Him!

Can we get things done without Jesus? Of course. But genuinely valuable outcomes, meaningful and lasting results? These come only through the Spirit who lives in us.

My wife and I worked with great energy, diligence and perseverance for 11 years to plant a church in Okayama. But Crossroad Church is alive and thriving today not because of our effort, but because of the grace of Jesus. He worked not only through us but many times in spite of us. He led others to us that brought gifts that I did not have.

The most important thing I did during my 11 years in Okayama was to keep going back to Jesus. Over and over again. When I realized that I was once again walking away from him rather than towards him, I needed to reverse my direction.

The moments when I needed to reverse my course were so numerous that I often felt inadequate. I had imposter syndrome before I knew that was a thing. I never felt strong enough, faithful enough, bold or courageous enough. But I kept going back to Jesus, who accepted me anyway.

And when I realized that I wasn’t listening to the Father, or depending upon Jesus, or acting in the Spirit, I knew I had a choice. I could keep listening to other voices, or I could start listening to the Good Shepherd. I could ignore my sin, or acknowledge it. I could keep trying to solve my problems in my own way, or I could seek the One who is able to do more than anything I could imagine.
God was gracious to us and to the people we served in Okayama.

There was no constant flood of people confessing Christ or joining the church. But there was a continuous outpouring of the Spirit on precious people.
I was unaware of most of the fruit that God was bringing forth through us, and through our church. I went back to Okayama last year and discovered some of the ways His grace filled up people’s lives without my knowing about it. But I’m still unaware of most of what God has done in that community.

I know that no good, lasting fruit that came during our 11 years of sweat equity would have come to be if we were not deeply connected with Jesus. Because we do not bear good fruit without Jesus. We are incapable of doing so. So stay with Him!

The Fruit of the Spirit

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control – Galatians 5:22-23

Can a leader succeed without the fruit of the Spirit?

I know many leaders who are successful at influencing people. I’ve experienced inspiring, gifted communicators who motivate people to accomplish stupendous goals. I’ve worked with bold, decisive individuals who get groups to overcome obstacles and capitalize on strategic opportunities. I’ve seen creative leaders get people unstuck from their current situation to step into an exciting new future.

In each of the above examples, I can think of at least one leader who did it while acting in ways contrary to the fruit of the Spirit. If you take a moment to think about leadership you’ve witnessed, you may find similar examples of non-Spirit filled but nevertheless successful leaders.

Whether or not you know any leaders like this, you don’t have to know much history, or current-day news, to identify leaders who have incredible influence without Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control. The usual historical list includes Hitler, Napoleon and Stalin. But there are plenty of less notorious examples, including leaders who have accomplished things we believe are good, who led in a away that didn’t reveal the fruit of the Spirit.

I don’t believe leading is about getting people to do things that you want them to do. Leadership is helping people to achieve what God is calling the people to do. I don’t use the word “them” in that sentence, because one of the worst errors in leadership is to begin thinking in terms of “me” and “them.”

Leadership is helping people to do what God is calling us to do.

Leadership of the kind I think is worth doing keeps our relational awareness at “us”. And love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are a solid list of characteristics that are needful in this kind of leadership.

A leader who doesn’t look to the interests of others (love, kindness) is not able to understand a collective purpose. A leader whose heart is filled with anxiety or fear instead of peace is not able to hear others’ needs. A leader who lacks patience or faithfulness gives up or changes course prematurely. One who lacks self-control may lack the discipline to grow.

Healthy, effective leaders are people who lead while being led by the Spirit. People who empower others while living in the power of the Spirit. People who confess their sins and correct their hearts and their ways.

Learning Cohorts

In April 2019, we held our first Learning Cohort for cross-cultural workers. The topic was Cross-cultural Leadership. We managed to do this cohort two more time before pandemic arrived, for a total of 45 cross-cultural workers from three organizations. In February 2020, just as COVID-19 began to enter global consciousness, we held our first cohort on Multicultural Teamwork.

Our Learning Cohorts follow a hybrid approach – both in-person and virtual components are integral to the cohort. We are happy to announce that we are going “live” again, with a new Multicultural Teamwork cohort beginning with a gathering on February 27-28, 2023 in Prague, Czech Republic.

These two cohorts were developed side-by-side, to complement each other. The goal in both is to equip people to grow their awareness, skills, and character as they work in partnership with people of cultures different than their own. Most people would benefit from both cohorts, and either is a good starting point. Please read the pages on each cohort to learn more about them, and let us know if you are interested!

Cross-cultural Leadership

Multicultural Teamwork

the rage over church planting

Once upon a time, “church planting” was all the rage in missions.  As a prospective missionary and young seminary student in the early 90’s, I was caught up in all the excitement. We fervently embraced C. Peter Wagner’s provocation, “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”(Church Planting for a Greater Harvest).  Rare was the mission agency that didn’t highlight its commitment to establishing the body of Christ among the unchurched.

My secret fear was that I could never become a church planter.  I didn’t have the gifts one of my professors and other church planting experts said were the pre-requisites of an effective church planter. But two things gave me hope.  First, a missions recruiter (today we would call him a missions coach) visited campus and told us that his organization was looking for people who loved to teach the Bible. Why? Because teachers make great church planters.  Still, I was doubtful: I recognized this was a shrewd appeal tailored to students of a seminary known for turning out Bible teachers, and I guessed that teaching wasn’t the only gift needed to plant a church.

Second, a missionary couple in Japan invited my wife and I to join them for a year to help them plant churches.  One year seemed like a good investment of our time.  By the end of that year, I learned that my guess was correct: teaching was not the only gift needed to plant a church.  But it is one of the gifts, and my experience taught me that God had given me other gifts that could contribute to this ministry. My commitment and calling to church planting became a settled reality.

Four years later, my wife and I re-embarked for Japan with a long-term vision: to plant churches in unchurched areas of Japan.  Japan didn’t have many churches, so there was a plentiful supply of unchurched areas to choose from.  There were compelling arguments made to go to the smaller towns of Japan that had not even one church.  There were equally compelling arguments to go to the larger cities where you could find a handful of small churches, but in which unchurched communities abounded.  

For Kathy & I, the compelling invitation came from a Japanese church with a vision for planting churches in partnership with missionaries in unreached communities. We moved to a city in southwestern Japan to start one of these churches, and planted ourselves in a neighborhood of 30,000 people with no known Christians and no church. 

11 years later, in our little corner of the world, a church had been born and our work as “church planters” in that community was complete. But now it was the late 2000’s, and the words “church planting” had lost their magic. Wagner’s 1990 book was no longer the cutting edge of missiology.  My organization began to emphasize making disciples, because it is possible to gather people together in something called a “church” without introducing people to a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Our fundamental calling as disciples of Jesus is to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).  We make disciples by proclaiming Jesus and showing people how to follow Him within a community of other disciples – the church.  Where churches exist, churches need to practice the calling to disciple-making.  When we make disciples in a place where there is no church, there is also need for church planting.

The term may not be all the rage anymore, but church planting is still a critical element of doing mission. There are still hundreds of communities in Japan, and in countless other regions around the world, where there is no church.

I’m thankful for the missions recruiter on my seminary campus who told me that teaching God’s Word was vital to planting a church, and for the missionary couple who invited us to get a taste of church planting with them in Japan. Both were members of members of the same organization, and it was an easy choice for us to follow in their footsteps.

Shift into Focus

I’m having a seriously hard time keeping my focus. I start to write a few paragraphs about something important to me, but I get distracted two sentences in . . .

In order to stay focused, I’m making effort to re-focus. Thankfully, TEAM has a mission statement to help me: Our mission is to partner with the global Church in sending disciples who make disciples and establish missional churches to the glory of God.

TEAM’s mission statement captures our commitment to disciple-making and church planting. Each member of TEAM spends our time and energy in different ways, but we all contribute toward this common goal. As a Senior Director, I spend the bulk of my time and energy to encourage and equip other leaders in TEAM. I do this so that they can encourage and equip others, so that we can together see more people following Jesus and growing together in community with other believers. That’s why we’re here.

I’ll never forget seeing “Schindler’s List” when it came out in the early 1990’s. There was a movie, too, but I’m talking about a brief magazine article about a young church planter in Germany. God gave this church planter a list of people in his community to pray for and pursue for the sake of the gospel.

As an aspiring church planter, this little article reminded me that ministry is about people: people with faces, people with names, people with families, people with joys and sorrows, people who know Christ and people who don’t yet know Christ. The focus of what we do is the people to whom we have been sent.

“Schindler’s List” helped me to focus during many years of preparation (seminary, support-raising, language study) and throughout my subsequent years of ministry in Japan, and the Czech Republic. Over these years, my list has included names such as Marcus, Naomi, Chie, Hiroko, Oki, Yasu, Kazu, Non, Masa, Shoji, Jan, Richard, Mira, Jana, Michael, Jirka. Who is on your list?

This little article that left a lasting imprint on me was in a magazine published by TEAM, and the church planter was Diet Schindler.

30 years later: Diet is still with TEAM, still serving Christ in Germany, and still inspiring and equipping others to make disciples. He’s written a new book, Shift: The Road to Level 5 Church Multiplication. I bought it here today, and I encourage you to check it out. You can also find it and other great resources for disciplemaking ministry at exponential.org. May Diet’s book and exponential’s resources help us keep our focus!

Keep listening,

David

Leading God’s Way?

leading the way God leads vs. leading the way God calls us to lead

I will lead blind Israel down a new path,
guiding them along an unfamiliar way.
I will brighten the darkness before them
and smooth out the road ahead of them.
Yes, I will indeed do these things;
I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 42:16


I don’t believe we are called to lead in the same way as God. How could we do that? He is all-powerful. Omniscient. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus.

Not I. My role is to be a servant. Mine is a humble role. And yet I am also called to have courage, because I follow this God who leads his people down unfamiliar ways, towards the darkness. He gives us light for the path as we walk, but doesn’t often illuminate the path ahead of us. He will smooth out the road, but we will still encounter bumps. He is trustworthy. My role is to trust Him.

Leaders have power. They may have authority by virtue of their position. They may have power because of their experience or expertise. They may have influence because they produce results. Whatever the source of power may be, leaders have it. What will we do with it?

I believe God calls leaders use their power to give power to others. I think that’s His way for me.

Making Teams Work in Missions

We just finished a webinar for Missio Nexus on “Making Teams Work in Missions.” If you missed it, a recording will be posted on the Missio Nexus website here within the next week.  I spoke about the challenges teams face, and what we can do to help teams succeed:

  1. Deploy real teams.
  2. Get the right people on our teams.
  3. Build healthy teams.

These are topics that I covered on our old website, Building Healthy Teams, which no longer exists. We are gradually bringing some of the old content, including many resources for team building, into this new site.

Leading Change

David has enjoyed teaching a DMin course, “Leading Change,” for Asian Christian leaders in the Doctor of Ministry in Leadership Effectiveness program at IGSL.

Class participants include experienced church planting leaders, pastors, a retired military officer, an entrepreneur, and educators from four Southeast Asian countries.

The International Graduate School of Leadership (IGSL) is an accredited, graduate-level school in Manila, Philippines with a mission to develop servant-steward leaders for key sectors of society.  Learn more at: www.igsl.asia
 

 

 

Proceed to Highlighted Route

-Guest post by Sue Querfeld 

I needed a way to figure out how to get onto that route and start making the correct turns to make my way home.

A few years ago I had to take my daughter to get some immunizations.  We managed to find the doctor easily enough, but coming home was another story. 

Somehow I got turned around and was not sure where I was or how to get home.  One thing I WAS sure of, though, was that we did NOT want to cross the bridge into Philadelphia, so I got off the highway at the last exit before doing that and ended up in Camden, New Jersey.  Camden is NOT a nice place to be lost. 

I pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and wondered what to do.  Then I remembered the GPS on my phone.  We had been out of the country for several years, so the phone and all its bells and whistles were new to me.

I managed to find the GPS and even type in the address where we wanted to go.  It did its thing and a route was mapped out.  The voice said, “Proceed northeast on Maple Street.”  Umm, sure.  First of all, I could not PROCEED anywhere, as I was at a standstill, facing the wall of a building. 

Secondly, which way was northeast?  I’m a left-right kind of person.  Unless I’m on the coast and know which ocean it is, I am NOT going to know which way is north, south, east, or west.  And lastly, I could only presume that the street in front of the store was Maple, but there was no sign to indicate that.  Sooo…. 

That GPS had all the information I needed to get home, but I did not know how to get started.  I needed a way to figure out how to get onto that route and start making the correct turns to make my way home.

That happens in other areas of our lives as well.  We have a goal, and even know a lot of the steps to reach it, but we don’t know how to get started.  Coaching is the piece that is missing.  A coach can help us access the information that we already have so we can find the route and get started.  And sometimes, just like on a GPS, there are several possible routes to take.  A coach asks questions that open our minds to new ideas, revealing more possible routes to reach that same goal.  

Just as we sometimes run into unexpected obstacles when we are driving—construction, heavy traffic, debris in the road—that cause us to have to make a detour, we often encounter unexpected circumstances in our daily lives that make us have to adjust on the fly, changing our plans to accommodate a new situation.  Through an ongoing relationship, a coach can help us find the best way to navigate those unexpected detours and still reach our goal.

GPS is only a tool; the driver is ultimately responsible for choosing the route and for getting the vehicle safely to its destination.  The same is true with coaching.  A coach asks questions, points out things that perhaps we have not thought of, and helps us to think in new and broader ways, but in the end we make the decisions about what steps to take to move toward out goal. 

It could be, though, that those questions and the new insights that arise from them are just the thing we need to get us started on the route toward achieving our goals.

–Sue has served over 20 years in church planting, discipleship, and coaching in Peru.  She coaches in both English and in Spanish; certified ACC.