The other day a colleague told me that years ago a friend of his always encouraged him to take someone with him. Any time he traveled to do ministry, to teach or attend a seminar, he should always take a companion.On reflection I realized that I have intuitively been practicing the buddy system in my work for most of ministry. Whether it was working in the bush of Kenya or teaching in different parts of the world, I usually ask someone to go with me. Ten years ago I invited my brother, Bill, to go with me to Senegal. It changed his life and now he travels around the world more than I do working with missionary teams. (As I write this he is in Greece and the week before he was in Ukraine.) My first training session in India I took a group of 15 adults and the following two years I took over 20 people to Russia. I instituted a three-year training project in India in the late ‘90’s and I not only recruited a US church to help in the training but also a team from Russia, Romania and Tanzania. Recently I taught a three-day seminar in Punjab and asked a colleague of mine to tag along. What’s the importance of taking someone with you when doing ministry? Two reasons.
First, it’s Scriptural. Barnabas, the great encourager, was the person, who asked Paul to join him in Antioch. When no one in the first congregation in Jerusalem would touch Paul because of his reputation of persecuting the church, Barnabas took a chance on Paul because he believed in the transformation of his conversion. Believing Paul could indeed be used in Christ’s Great Commission, Barnabas encouraged Paul to join in him in the work. The church at Antioch subsequently sent Barnabas and Paul (notice it was Barnabas who led the team) to Asia. Paul followed that principle of taking one by recruiting, Silas, Timothy, Luke and many others. Barnabas, seeing the potential of a young man named James, took him to Cyprus after he and Paul separated.
Secondly, when one takes another person for cross-cultural work it provides the learner with hands-on experience that cannot duplicate in a classroom or by reading a book. Of course Jesus always took people with Him as He did ministry. He sent His disciples throughout Judea, two-by-two. Jesus understood that a person learns best when engaged in the work. Life is better caught than taught, when people are actively involved in the work.
Knowing the importance of this teaching tool, in 2008 I am actively opening the opportunity to take one (or two or ten) with me as I teach overseas. All of these trips will be between two and three weeks in length. The training will be done in India and Kenya. The subject will be training in how to serve cross-culturally (whether it is in church planting, youth ministries, social work, administration, the subject matter will be relevant in each context). I will give more details later, but here is the tentative schedule.
January 24 – February 14 – Chennai, India
April 4 –16 – Bangalore, India
August (dates yet to be determined) Kenya
September 19 – October – Hyderabad, India
I will give more details in the next post, but basically those going with me will be part of our training program, interacting with national pastors and workers. In two weeks you will learn more about missions than a lifetime of reading about the subject. It’s possible you can even earn college credit in the process.
Take one. Write to me and learn more.
