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I just received a letter from one of our teams that is reaching out to
Muslims in the UK.  For the past year, they have been dogged by a
distraction that just won’t go away.  It seems that a large number of
the churches in their city have bundled the politics and policies of
Israel into the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

In Acts 15 the Apostles and other leaders of the Church gathered to
decide whether the law of Moses was part of the gospel package.  Thank
God, the decided it was not and thus set the message of Jesus free from
any one culture or nation. 

To me, it seems so obvious that the Kingdom of God does not marry
itself to the politics or culture of any one nation or people.  It does
offer redemption for all.  There is no doubt that Paul prophecies that
a time will come when the Jews recognize their redeemer and that
turning will be a great blessing to all.  May that miracle come soon! 
But that prophecy does not contain within it any obligation for the
followers of Jesus to bind themselves to any government or piece of
land anywhere in the world.

The Apostles preached “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”, as Paul put
it.  In Acts 15 they decided to put no further burden on the gentile
converts.  Why are so many reversing that decision today???

This is the audio version of Lynn’s letter to the mission - Repentance, Restoration and Realignment.
Subscribe to the YWAM ICT podcast or just
Download this Podcast.

Some years ago, we made a well-meaning, bad decision. Some of us in YWAM leadership began to get a little anxious about all the YWAM staff people who were getting older and had no retirement plan. People with professional financial expertise talked to us about the importance of making provision for our later years and the logic of it was compelling. So, we set about trying to organize a world-wide fund pension fund that YWAMers could pay into on a regular basis. We worked on that project for some years and we just couldn’t make it viable. We finally had to give up.
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One of my sons and his wife attend a very good local church, one that has provided a spiritual home for this former YWAMer, a place to grow and exercise their spiritual gifts and to find friendship with like-minded Christians.  I am delighted with the church they have found and recently attended, along with other members of my family, a very good Sunday meeting there.

 

But his loyalty was tested a bit by a recent article in the magazine that is produced by the network that his church belongs to.  In it, an author made an argument for all mission agencies and other “para-church organizations” to close down because they are a hindrance to the health of the Church.  That old argument gets re-cycled every few years and I will come back to it later in this article.

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By Scott Tompkins

The week of May 8-12 nearly 50 of YWAM’s top communicators and techies are planning, networking and problem-solving major issues for YWAM at the third annual Communications, Research and Information Technology (CRIT) Conference, in Harpenden, England.

The meetings were led by YWAM Chairman L,ynn Green, as well as Harpenden leaders Josie Plummer and Jeff Neely. Participants came from as far away as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Hawaii and South Africa.

“These meetings provide us a great opportunity for networking and for discussing our shared needs and values,” said Scott Tompkins, representing U of N Kona.

The participants held separate meetings on development of new YWAM brochures and DVDs, strategies for helping smaller bases with communications needs, and how to multiply communicators within the mission. Special meetings also discussed specific Information Technology needs and strategies.

The meetings were marked by a spirit of prayerfulness, worship and unity. With the advancement of websites and other technologies within the mission, there was a greater emphasis on building community and serving one another. Lynn pointed out in Tuesday’s worship time that communication is also a spiritual warfare issue. “We have to keep our spiritual guard up and not rely on our own strength.”

This is the audio version of Lynn’s letter to the mission - Financial Integrity.
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Download it here

The lyrics of a song, usually sung at Christmas, have been running through my head over the past several days:  “Isn’t this a strange way to save the world?”

The question applies as much, or more so to Easter.  It was one thing for God to become man and live amongst us.  It was an even greater shock that He would submit to unspeakable injustice, pain and humility and then die–AND THEN RISE AGAIN!

The strong inner drive in man to pursue violence and the aquistion of power through violence is the most dangerous force on the face of the earth.  It has killed hundreds of millions of people in the past century alone.  Yet we still think it is an force that can be tamed.  We somehow think that if “good men” exercise that power it can be harnessed to do good.

God doesn’t think so.  If he had, Jesus would have become a ruler–probably the Emperor of the Romans.  But imagine the consequences.  If he had used coercive force to achieve “good”, he would have added to the woes of the world. 

Virtually every ruler who comes to power does so under the cloak of the “good of the people”, and yet most of them perpetuate some sort of tyranny.  If Jesus had come as a ruler, the powers that energise tyranny would have been promoted to even greater cruelty. 

There was and is no way to strike at this most potent evil short of the sacrifice of a perfect life and then–the victorious power of resurrection. 

Those of us who claim to follow this savior must regularly remind ourselves that he blazed only one trail.  It did not lead to a righteous exercise of power, it led and still leads to the sacrifice of self and therein lies the power of resurrection life. 

So at Easter, remember that recurring theme of scripture,  “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will raise you up!”

I recently flew exactly halfway around the world to participate in six days of meetings with the Global Leadership Team
Executive and the President’s Gathering, then I flew back. I can assure you that changing twelve time zones and then going back is tough on the body.
So what was the point of travelling to the relatively remote island of Fiji for some global meetings? The simple explanation is that when we were meeting together as a GLT last summer, God spoke to us that we should have the Executive meetings in Fiji. But why should He say such a thing? I believe that the primary reason is that Fiji is a nation where God is at work laying new foundation stones. Fiji has become known throughout the Christian world as a laboratory for transformation. That is, it’s a place where God has been
doing a deep and foundational work to change the very nature of Fijian society.

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By Molly Petersen

On Tuesday, March 29, Lynn Green announced on behalf of the Leadership Team (LT) that the process will begin for adding two or three new members to the existing LT.

 

“We commit to steering this process with sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and to you, the Body of Christ in this place,” said Lynn in the Oval community meeting.

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