Category: Current Events

 

**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

 

We were pioneering a new YWAM base and it was growing fast.  My wife, Marti, had served as Loren’s secretary and had managed the YWAM office in California for a couple of years.  As I leaned into her administrative expertise, I thought we were a complete team.

After just two or three years, our staff numbers had grown to more than 50 and we were quickly outgrowing every property we could rent.  Then Ken Wright, a prophetic teacher from New Zealand came along with a message that mystified me.  He taught on the importance of team leadership.  He pointed out that Jesus left a team in place, not just one person.  When he ascended into heaven, there was no Director, no CEO, no Pope, no Archbishop.  So, what was there?

The First Council of Jerusalem

I looked at Acts 15, one of the passages he was teaching from, and saw how the apostles worked together.  That chapter arrested me then and continues to amaze me.  Here’s the story.

The fledgling Church was facing a crisis that threatened to tear it apart.  There were very influential Jewish leaders who had become part of the early Church in Jerusalem. They insisted that Jesus had come to create converts to Judaism.  But Paul and some others were deeply committed to oppose those leaders and their arguments.  They believed that, in Jesus, the good news was for everyone and did not require obedience to the Jewish law.  This was a very deep, difficult and emotional division.  Could salvation be independent of Jewishness?

In the face of this crisis, they somehow knew that they had to get the whole team of leaders together and sort it out.  Paul and Barnabas made the long journey from Antioch to Jerusalem so they could meet with the team that Jesus had put together along with others, like themselves, whom the Holy Spirit had added since Jesus had ascended into heaven.

How did they know who was on the team?  It must have been by noting the fruit of their ministry, the extent of their influence, and the quality of their lives.  So, though Jesus had not personally discipled Barnabas and Paul during his three years of ministry, they were given a place at the table when the team met together.

How to Run a Leadership Meeting

As the debate and drama unfolded, James chaired the meeting, rather than Peter, even though he had a prominent role as the public voice of the apostles in Jerusalem.  Peter’s opinion carried a lot of weight but he had gained wisdom when compared to his earlier years.  He did not use his influence early in the meeting but stayed silent while both sides of the argument were thoroughly aired. He must have known that it was important that no one should go away thinking the issue was not fairly presented.  When he did speak, he reminded them of the history of how God had used him to first bring the gospel to non-Jews.  His clear opinion moved the group towards consensus, and then the stories from Paul and Barnabas underscored Peter’s opinion and brought the meeting to a decision. 

Finally, James summed up what they all felt the Holy Spirit was saying. They had made a very difficult and historic decision—the Good News about Jesus is for the redemption of all peoples and is not about initiating converts into Jewish customs and law.  What an outstanding example of wise leadership!  And, as you read on, you can see how well they communicated and implemented their decision. 

Can One Leader Grow Others?

This was team leadership working well.  As I read it, those many years ago, I couldn’t miss the message.  But, at the time, I couldn’t see any other leaders in our growing community.  I began to pray that God would send me some leaders, rather than the “immature” people who were already with us.

Eventually, I realized that God was sending me leaders—but they had grow and learn.  I had to give them responsibilities, make room for them and support them.  Some years later I understood that I had lost a lot of very good people because I had so little pastoral ability and failed to support people when they needed it.  It was also because hesitant to give away any real authority.

As the work of YWAM in England grew, I became aware of my many other weaknesses.  I was not very good at managing our base.  I couldn’t run the training base and pioneer other teams at the same time.  Others were better at evangelism than I was and I still was not very pastoral.  It became very obvious that our leadership was much stronger when we added people with strengths and gifts that were different than mine.

Teams Are Better

Now I know that God has given me the ability to lead a good team, if I do so in humility and lean into the strengths of others.  I am still convinced that every team needs a person to “take point” in each situation, but like in Acts 15, a really mature team might have different leaders for different situations. 

The tenth value of YWAM says, “YWAM is called to function in teams in all aspects of ministry and leadership. We believe that a combination of complementary gifts, callings, perspectives, ministries and generations working together in unity at all levels of our mission provides wisdom and safety. Seeking God’s will and making decisions in a team context allows accountability and contributes to greater relationship, motivation, responsibility and ownership of the vision.”   In the pioneering stages of a team or ministry, it might not be possible to have a leadership team, but any leader should pray and work to form a team as soon as possible.

So, I used to think I was a good leader.  But no-one can lead well alone.  God made us so that we need others, so that we are incomplete without others to work alongside us.  We are a body.

Happy team building!

Lynn Green.

**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlRkLtKqSrY

Some times I wonder if I am misdirecting my time by writing about current political and social issues. I do enjoy writing about becoming better followers of Jesus, but if we buy into His message about the Kingdom of God, then we conclude that we cannot opt out of the issues that are shaping our future. We must be advocates of God’s ways in the public square, so I will continue to record my thoughts about current issues.

I am not writing because I think I am fully informed and right about all the issues I address, but I write because I want to provoke others to think–especially in a Biblical and Spirit-led framework and I hope more and more Christians will engage with current issues in a godly and thoughtful manner.

Do you wonder why the trans-sexual issue has become so prominent in the past couple of years? Is this some sort of conspiracy? Most of the research on sexual/gender issues confirm that only one in about 5000 people are born with uncertain sexual identity. I readily accept that, if I were one of those with “intersex” identity, it would be very important to me. But in the wider social context, why has this become so prominent?

I really don’t think there is some dark conspiracy behind this phenomenon, but I do think that there are some commonly held ideas which bind a very active, vocal and aggressive group of people together. The ideas seem to center around economic and political systems. The original Marxist assumption is that society and economies are evolving and that Capitalism will create such inequality that working people will rise up in rebellion against the middle and upper classes and overthrow the system.

But that has not happened and looks like it won’t. Most working people continued to work and prosper and were not that interested in violent revolution. My Dad was one of those working people. He grew up on a very small farm, only 27 acres, that had to yield a living for a family of 11. It was very tough, but Dad was highly motivated and bright and so were his many siblings. He got jobs at a very young age, studied and worked hard and, though university was well out of his reach, he qualified as an electrician and then as a gas-fitter, worked as a chemist, a watch-maker and a foreman in a munitions factory and graduated from a Bible school. He started his own business and then branched out into other businesses. He was not interested in revolution but was deeply committed to raising a family with all the benefits he could provide. He did well so that I and my siblings were enabled to get college educations.

With most of the working class of that era (the 1930s through 1970s) focusing on making the most of opportunities, the Marxist ideas were no longer credible, and yet some academics held on doggedly. After all, Marxism provided the only clear, non-religious alternate to Christian beliefs. Academia provided a sufficiently insulated environment that a few thinkers could cling to Marxist philosophy, even after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. They managed to hold onto the idea that capitalism would produce social conflict that would lead to its death.

In the original Marxist way of thinking, the proletariat were oppressed by the bourgeoisie oppressors. In the new way of thinking, any and all minorities were/are oppressed by those with more social and economic power. Most of our universities teach this version of history so students become adept at identifying the oppressed and the oppressors.

This way of thinking is very appealing because it equips the individual with the logic that is necessary if they wish to blame their hardships on others. So we see how often students demonstrate against governments and businesses. They have been convinced that their lives could be much better if the current system were to be toppled.

So that brings us back to gender dysphoria and our current policy of encouraging young people to self-diagnose if they would like to be the other sex and then to embark upon a path that leads to surgical mutilation.

I am well aware that the Walt Heyer, the speaker in the video clip above, has strong views that are disputed by others who have transitioned to the opposite sex–or, in some cases, a sexually ambiguous state. Nevertheless, his views provoke us to think and to question the assumptions of the activists who would want us to think that our sex and gender are relative and are a matter of personal opinion.

Let us be clear. This is not firstly about sexual identity. It’s yet another arena where social unrest can be fomented and where the historical norms of our society can be attacked with a view to replacing them. With what? A greatly empowered government overseeing all aspects of society and attempting to enforce absolute equality.

So how has that worked so far? I have had the opportunity to travel and meet people in several nations with centralized governmental control–the USSR, Bulgaria, Romania, Cuba and other Eastern Bloc nations in the 1970s and 80s. Every citizen I met just wanted freedom and they were universally poor. Yes, they were proud of some aspects of their societies, such as the medical services in Cuba, but they all wanted a better life and they wanted to be free from oppressive central government. It doesn’t work!

Finally, I am certainly not advocating that we should be dismissive or insensitive to those with sexual identity issues. Rather, let’s be alert and resist those who wish to promote more sexual dysphoria by teaching our children, at a younger and younger age, that they can choose their sex and that they might be happier as the opposite sex–or some other sexual identity.

There is no coordinated conspiracy behind the sudden rise of this issue, but there is a set of contagious and toxic ideas that will lead to nothing good. We must protect our children. But we must also keep “tweaking” our economic and governmental systems. They are not as good as they could be, but they are not nearly as bad as they might be.