Defining the "3" legs of the Stool.

	LISTEN HERE SHOW SUMMARY Hans FInzel, Jonathan Finley, WorldVenture Missionary and Dave Wilson, Missions Pastor to Trinity Church in Redlands, CA. Talk about Missions and defining the "3" legs of ministry. SHOW NOTES MOF_2010_06_23_DWilson-web_nvr.mp3
SHOW TRANSCRIPT

HANS FINZEL: Hi, this is Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture based in Littleton, Colorado. Welcome to Missions on the Frontline. Our website is WorldVenture.com. This radio program is part of our initiative to make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions. WorldVenture supports over 1,000 mission projects and missionaries in over 65 countries. We’ve been sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. And I’m happy to have two folks in my studio today: Jonathan Finley who is a missionary with WorldVenture in France. Welcome, Jonathan.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Thank you, Hans.

HANS FINZEL: Good to have you back on the program again.

JONATHAN FINLEY: It’s good to be here.

HANS FINZEL: You’ve been on a number of times. And Dave Wilson. Dave, welcome to you.

DAVE WILSON: Hey, thank you, Hans. It’s great to be here.

HANS FINZEL: Dave is from Redlands, California and is the missions pastor of Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redlands. So you folks out in California who are listening, we give a shout out to you. Dave, you have a … What is your current position at the church?

DAVE WILSON: I’m the mission pastor in charge of outreach based locally as well as internationally.

HANS FINZEL: So you’re in charge of evangelism from the back yard all the way overseas.

DAVE WILSON: We do Acts 1: 8 – Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.

HANS FINZEL: That’s awesome. And how long have you been at the church?

DAVE WILSON: I’ve been there for a little over two years now.

HANS FINZEL: So we’re going to talk today on the program about short-term missions, about long-term missions, and especially we’re excited to talk about how a local church can really be engaged actively in missions; beyond the old paradigm what we would call “paying and praying”. You know we appreciate the fact that churches pay for missions and pray for missionaries but there’s more, isn’t there?

DAVE WILSON: That’s right. It’s so easy to write a check and I don’t think the Lord called us to an easy life. You know, we’re called to be uncomfortable sometimes and so sometimes my job is to afflict the comfortable.

HANS FINZEL: Oh yeah? To afflict the comfortable. And Jonathan, why… You have sort have brokered the relationship here between Dave Wilson and WORLDVENTURE. What excites you about Trinity as you look at this church? Because you’re a missionary, so you are supported by churches. What are some ways, perhaps, you see this church being different?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, over the last 15 years that I’ve been a missionary I’ve developed a lot of different partnerships with local churches in the United States and meeting Dave has really interested me in what he’s doing. They do excellent missionary care. They engage the entire congregation in the projects that they are involved in around the world. We don’t yet have a formal relationship and so it’s kind of interesting to put that on the air. How do you develop a partnership between a local church somewhere in the United States and, in my case, mission work going on in France and in West Africa. So…

HANS FINZEL: You know, actually, I think it’s kind of cool. The three of us in this studio today represent the three legs of the stool to me of effective missions.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Exactly.

HANS FINZEL: You have the local church, which is really the sender. You have the missionary who is the goer and you have the agency which I think we add a lot of value to the equation. Because I think it’s hard for a local church to take care of people who live 6,000 miles away. Everything from the liability to the danger of a hostility to medical care to, you know, all kinds of pasturing, mentoring, holding people accountable. Dave, you have an unusual background. Well, we all do. I think everybody’s story is a great story but you were redeemed… Probably the last thing you thought you were going to do when you were in your 20’s was what you are doing today, right?

DAVE WILSON: Yeah, as a teen-ager I grew up in the southwest part of Atlanta and in that area there’s a lot of gang activity; a lot of drugs. A lot of activity that was not pleasing to the Lord and I was involved in all of those things. And you know, by the time I was 17-years old I was a convicted felon. I was in the court with a judge standing over me about to give a verdict and he said, “You know, I see something in you and,” he said, “I want to give you an opportunity.” He said, “My sentence is two years in prison but I’ll give you the opportunity of serving that two year sentence in the military.” So he said, “Two years in prison or four years in the military.” And I saluted him and signed up.

HANS FINZEL: Really? I didn’t know judges could do that.

DAVE WILSON: It was, uh… That’s the quick and easy version but there’s a lot of plea bargaining; a lot of things behind the scenes but that was kind of the final result.

HANS FINZEL: So instead of going to prison you went into the military. What branch of the military did you serve in?

DAVE WILSON: I was in the Navy for four years. I got to travel all over the world. I went to 28 countries and just broadened my perspective of the world and you know at the time I still wasn’t a Christian but I was on the track.

HANS FINZEL: But you were on the road to getting away from that terrible life you were on in Atlanta?

DAVE WILSON: Getting out of the neighborhood was the key and just being able to see the world from a larger perspective.

JONATHAN FINLEY: And before he knew anything about short-term missions at 19-years old, he was crossing the border from Tunisia into Libya.

HANS FINZEL: Wow.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Which is some pretty tremendous geographic training for somebody who, later, would become a mission pastor.

HANS FINZEL: Is that where you… God really… Even though you weren’t even a follower of Christ yet, that you got the vision for the world, you think?

DAVE WILSON: I think it was. There was so much poverty and things that I saw that needed to be fixed. There’s justice issues and before we even starting using the word “justice issues” in the Christian world, I was seeing them firsthand and, boy, I just really needed to get into something that would help. I knew that my life was changing at that point.

HANS FINZEL: Now how did you come to Jesus?

DAVE WILSON: After the military, I spent some time with a Southern Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia and this one associate pastor took an interest in me. And he was actually a former cop turned pastor and so this former and me, a former criminal, struck up a relationship and he just loved on me and shared the Gospel in tangible ways; got me involved in serving. He was a youth pastor at that church and he got me just doing chaperoning and working with the kids in various ways and had me share my testimony with the kids. At one point I discovered, “Well, you know, there’s something missing in my life here.” I couldn’t go any further in my testimony with those kids until I got that settled.

JONATHAN FINLEY: It’s really interesting how the way Dave came to Christ has also shaped the nature of ministry afterwards in bringing even unbelievers into service opportunities. I don’t know if you want to share that part of your story.

DAVE WILSON: Yeah, that’s uh… Just having him ask me to be a part of something, it was almost as if it was evangelism – inviting me to church in the backdoor in a way, so serving brought me into a place where I was needed; I was wanted; I was expected sometimes. And so that was helpful for me to process. Even since then I have been really intentional about engaging people who are none believers in mission activity; in service opportunities; things around the country as well as around the world.

HANS FINZEL: I see a lot of that going on, where people want to belong before they believe.

DAVE WILSON: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: I think that’s so cool.

DAVE WILSON: Small groups are doing that now; a lot of people inviting their friends to a small group which meets outside of the church. It’s non-evasive, it’s comfortable, it’s easy for them to come and to be a part of a group before they become a part of the church.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah. Hey you know what? I think that’s what Jesus did. Who did he hang out with? He hung out with publicans and sinners and that’s what we’re talking about. Well, uh, how did you get… Boy, there’s so much we could talk about but in the limited time we have I’d like to fast forward after you came to Christ how you got really involved in the cause of missions.

DAVE WILSON: The first experience that I’ve ever had with any kind of mission experience was serving as a short-term missionary in New York City – the lower east side of Manhattan. It was a church plant there but also a ministry center called Graffiti Baptist. It was a really neat ministry with lots of activity with the homeless in that area.

HANS FINZEL: That’s awesome. And then you went on into the ministry? Eventually? After college?

DAVE WILSON: I graduated with my degree in Sociology on a Sunday. Monday morning I started seminary at New Orleans Baptist Seminary…

HANS FINZEL: Oh, fantastic!

DAVE WILSON: …and really had just a wonderful time studying, getting my Master of Divinity.

HANS FINZEL: That’s awesome! And today you are the missions pastor. In case you are just joining us, this is Hans Finzel and you are listening to Missions on the Frontline. A program sponsored by our mission agency, WORLDVENTURE. Our website is WORLDVENTURE.com. And I have in the studio today with me Jonathan Finley who is a WORLDVENTURE missionary in Paris, France - he’s been there for 15 years – and Dave Wilson who is the missions pastor at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redlands, California. If you are out there in Redlands listening, or out in California looking for a good church, check out Trinity Evangelical Free Church. So now as the missions pastor there, I want to unpack how you guys do missions at your church and what you’ve learned about missions. And let’s speak more globally. I know missions is in your own back yard but what kind of things is your church doing globally, overseas?

DAVE WILSON: A lot of the work that we do is through our missionaries that are placed as career missionaries in different places. And short-term missions is sometimes a way of placing those missionaries. Uh, my philosophy of short-term mission is building partnerships, engaging everyday, ordinary Christians in short-term mission opportunities all around the world. They have a story to tell; they do things that are extraordinary on their vacation time. They get back to their office place the next day after a trip and, “Where have you been?” is the question that’s asked. “Well, I was in Haiti working on an orphanage.” And some of those things are very timely. Right now, after an earthquake in Haiti, there’s a lot of activity going on there and for people to take off vacation time to go to a place that’s suffering and hurting and struggling, that can provide excellent opportunities for people to share the Gospel and why they went on a mission trip to Haiti. So the mission trip doesn’t end when the flight arrives back at LAX.

HANS FINZEL: Hmm, that’s awesome; that’s so true. I have had so many people in the studio here that have said that the short-term mission trip absolutely changed their lives. You probably see a lot of that, don’t you?

DAVE WILSON: I do see a lot of that. Actually, part of my research was on the actual changes that take place in people and I remember this one question on our questionnaire. It asked about their spiritual growth as a result of the mission trip. So there was a pre- questionnaire and a post-questionnaire. The question was – “How do you study the Bible?” and “Tell us about your prayer life”. And as a result of that the first part – now maybe they on a scale of one to five they judged their Bible reading time or their prayer time on a scale of one to five out of four but then afterwards they saw that they actually decreased and so they would put maybe a two or a three in their prayer and study life. And the funny thing about it was, I thought to myself, “This would say prayer and Bible study decreases as a result of a short-term mission,” but basically it gave them a greater perspective on how much they really do grow in their spiritual life as a result of being in the country with people who are suffering and hurting but their faith is very strong. So North Americans sometimes are a little bit too generous in their evaluation of themselves.

HANS FINZEL: Hmm, okay, that’s interesting. Now there’s a lot of talk about short-term missions kind of being a waste of money and a waste of time. You know, some people are kind of down on it and feel like a lot of young people do a little vacation at the expense of the church, you know, after they finish college or whatever. But what’s your spin on the value of short-term missions? I mean I think we all want to feed short-termers into a longer involvement, don’t we?

DAVE WILSON: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: But so how… What’s your read on the value, other than what we’ve just talked about, the fact that it really does help people become more godly and more serious about their faith and share their faith. What are some of the other values for short-term missions maybe overseas?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Actually I have a story that can contribute to that. I was just visiting Trinity – was it two weeks ago for the missions week – and just a really encouraging experience for me, a woman I was sitting at a table with for the dinner said, “Are you Jonathan Finley?” And I said, “Well, yes, I am.” And she says, “Look at this. I’ve got your picture in my Bible.” It was my rookie card with WorldVenture. Apparently I had spoken at a church in San Bernardino. Didn’t even remember the experience and she had spoken to me in the parking lot afterwards asking me what I thought about her son going on a short-term mission trip for what she thought were poor motivations; he just wanted to visit the world. And I apparently told her to encourage him to go; whatever his motivations were the Lord could use them. Well, now it’s 14-years later. He graduated from Fuller Seminary with his M.Div. and he’s pastoring in California. So apparently the Lord did get a hold of those motivations and she traces it all the way back to that conversation in a parking lot in San Bernardino that I can’t even remember.

HANS FINZEL: That is so cool.

JONATHAN FINLEY: But, yeah, it’s encouraging to see the way the Lord does use short-term mission. He certainly used it in my life as well.

HANS FINZEL: Well WorldVenture has about 550 to 600 mid-term and long-term missionaries but every one of our people that serve on a long-term engagement with another culture overseas started with a short-term mission trip. What are some of the values you see of short-term missions?

DAVE WILSON: Well short-term missions can be done wrong. I mean there are times when short-term missions on ineffective. But one of the things that I started my research was to find out how it affects the individual participants. One of the concerns in the mission world is that short-term mission is more about people development than it is for helping the people in the world. There is a resource, a book I’ve recommended many times is WHEN HELPING HURTS. It’s a book that really tries to help people do missions well – do short-term missions well. But my part of the research was to find out how it affects the individual participant and how it grows that person and use it as a discipleship method. And I thought, there were a couple of mission trips that we had where people would come back and part of their report back to the church was, “I went on this mission trip thinking I was going to help people and then I come back and while on the field, I discovered Christ and I accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and now I’m a Christian and ready to serve.” And I started thinking to myself, “Wow! We didn’t really screen people very well for that trip…”

HANS FINZEL: Yeah.

DAVE WILSON: There were some mistakes. But then I started thinking, “Maybe God’s doing something here,” and instead of doing this accidentally with people discovering Christ accidentally on the mission field, maybe we should study how to do it intentionally. And so we sent lots of mission teams out intentionally inviting our spiritual seekers to go to El Salvador to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, to go into Haiti to build an orphanage, or to do various things like that and it works. You know a lot of people will come back and they have this faith. As they are really working with their hands they discover that Christ is the One that sent them there. And, um, one of the words I like to use is “cause hunger”. If you go to Starbucks there’s this whole thing about corporate responsibility and fair trade; giving fair wages to the farmers and also if you go to Whole Foods they’ve got this thing where at the checkout you can donate a dollar for helping someone in some other part of the world with their trade. So the church is missing an opportunity sometimes of doing these things that the church was called to do originally; corporations are starting to step up and do these things that we are missing. So my value is to engage people who are already interested in causes. “Cause hunger” is affecting people. Maybe we can take that ““cause hunger”” and apply it for the Gospel sake.

JONATHAN FINLEY: We experienced some of that “cause hunger” at the mission conference as we presented some of the Trading Hope articles for members from your church to buy. Apparently there’s been some partnership that’s been developed with several members of your church who are now marketing and selling the Trading Hope articles in their network of people. I think it’s possible to get involved with Trading Hope through the Transformational Ventures website. What is that address, Hans?

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, I think you can go find that on TransformationalVentures.com. Uh, speaking of websites you’ve developed some sort of a training program for short-term missionaries, is that correct?

DAVE WILSON: Yeah, you know there are a lot of churches out there that can’t afford a mission pastor and I like to give them tools and resources for short-term mission trips. They want to be engaged; they want to be involved. You can go to my website which is TransformingMissionaries.org and you can download free applications, liability waivers and make them for your own church’s purposes. I’ve also developed a short-term mission training manual and it’s for any church, any where, going any where.

HANS FINZEL: Wow, that’s fantastic. And that’s at TransformingMissionaries.org.

DAVE WILSON: That’s correct.

HANS FINZEL: TransofrmingMissionaries.org. What a great ministry you have. But what are – in the few minutes we have left, Dave, it’s great to have you on the program – what are you kind of most excited about in terms of your role, at your church, as you are doing mission? What’s really getting you excited these days? Where do you see God really showing up?

DAVE WILSON: Right now we are in the process of really highly developing our missionary care and one of the teams I’ve developed at Trinity is our missionary care team. It’s made up of professionals from the counseling world, from the business world, from the medical world so there is a great synergy that’s happening with missionary care. We have 23 career missionaries that we support on the field right now and so this team of people are getting together and they’re not just taking missionary care seriously, they’re really developing it and helping it become something that’s greater than just Trinity Church. And they’ve got the whole church involved. Our small groups are involved in caring and loving for missionaries and we are starting to develop some resources to develop with other churches as well for that.

HANS FINZEL: Can you give me a few specifics of how that works? How that’s delivered; how that practically… How does that team help a missionary?

DAVE WILSON: You know, uh, missionary care was organic at Trinity in the beginning. I mean I didn’t really have to develop the thought or the theory of care. They were already doing it but just didn’t know that it was labeled missionary care and so I’ve labeled it. I’ve described it and I’ve told them, “This is what you are doing; this is what you are helping with.” And so basically this missionary care team, they are responsibility is for engaging the entire church in care so everything from the evaluation process, the application process for new missionaries, to when missionaries are in crisis and we engage. We actively engage our agencies that the missionaries are a part of and we want to find out what the gaps are because we see that there are agencies who are providing missionary care but they can’t do what the church can do as a body of believers, as the gifted ones that Christ has given that responsibility to. And so we are trying to fill in those gaps. What are the gaps? And that’s the question that is big on our plate right now, what are those gaps?

HANS FINZEL: That’s awesome. That is fantastic. Uh, we care a lot about member care here at WorldVenture and that’s kind of one thing we are known for, uh, being a mission that takes good care of our missionaries but you’re right, we can’t do it all. I’m excited when a local church gets that vision and we’ve seen so many missionaries blessed. It’s hard to be a missionary long-term, isn’t it?

DAVE WILSON: It is. I wouldn’t know personally. I’ve never lived overseas…

HANS FINZEL: You haven’t lived overseas. Are you a family man? Do you have a wife and children?

DAVE WILSON: I have a wife but no kids.

HANS FINZEL: Well I lived overseas for 10 years. Jonathan you’ve been overseas for 15 years; you married a French woman. Ah, it takes its toll doesn’t it? Moving this… And you have your three boys and you’re moving all over the world.

JONATHAN FINLEY: We’re living overseas in Denver, Colorado right now so we’ve gotten pretty use to our life in Paris, France but the moving back and forth between cultures definitely has its stressors.

HANS FINZEL: I remember when our kids were little. We had four little kids in tow and you know we had 12 supporting churches and maybe 30 individual donors all over America. You know some people think that, uh, furlough or home assignment is a vacation for missionaries but I found it the hardest part of missionary life and I always appreciated the few churches we had that had a big investment in us that really just loved all over us when we were home and helped us kind of get replenished. I’ve always thought that home assignment should be a time of recharging, replenishing, and restocking. You know, getting refreshed spiritually.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Raising support can be stressful and what I found really interesting with Trinity is that their missionary care starts even before the official relationship. I mean, Dave has been coaching me through the application process for missionary support and there’s a very clear path. We’re required to have champions - in this case my brother who’s an elder in the church will certainly be one of my champions through the process but you feel the care even before you are a part of the official family and it makes you definitely want to be adopted by the church. So I hope that happens, eh? I’ll put that out there for our 30 million listeners.

HANS FINZEL: Well thank you both for being in the studio today. Jonathan, I appreciate having you here.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Thank you, Hans.

HANS FINZEL: And Dave, it’s great to meet you and have you around.

DAVE WILSON: Hey, thanks.

HANS FINZEL: And that again is Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redlands, California. It’s so exciting whenever I run into churches that really understand that missions is a lot more than just paying the bill and praying for missionaries; that there’s just a lot of participation – active involvement – and you guys look like you’re doing a fabulous job. Thank you.

DAVE WILSON: Thank you, Hans.

HANS FINZEL: And I’m so glad that God pulled you out of the world of gangs and sin into a redeemed life of tremendous purpose. And again, Dave’s website – all of you local churches listening out there and you need some resources; you don’t have the luxury of a missions pastor – Dave has created a website just for you. It’s called TransformingMissionaries.org. So be sure and go to that website. Well thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions around the world and we need your help. We can do it if everybody gets involved. Please be sure and visit our website, WorldVenture.com, for more information. And don’t forget to drop me a note. I’d love to hear from you; if you want to write me at Frontline@WorldVenture.com. This has been Hans Finzel, see you next week on Missions on the Frontline.