WISE INTENTIONAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
TITUS EMAIL
Volume 11, Number 7 – JULY, 2017
Greetings. In a month WILD will host its fourth Summit, where a few representatives from countries where WILD has a formal WILD national team gather together to pray, fellowship, vision cast, wrestle through issues, learn and enjoy one another for several days. We will be meeting in Kampala, Uganda, from July 27-31. I ask that you pray for us in the areas of spiritual wisdom and discernment, submission to the Holy Spirit and as spiritual leaders, an attitude of humility. Those prayers will be sincerely appreciated. Mike
MORAL COURAGE ENCOURAGES CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Doing the right thing is often not easy to do. This is very true when it comes to dealing with conflict between people. There is a heightened level of responsibility when conflict needs to be resolved between believers. Perhaps one of the two most defining aspects of a spiritual leader who has moral courage or authority is the willingness to confront with the goal to maintain a relationship at peace with one another. The other defining aspect is living out a moral, God-honoring life especially in the area of your sexuality.
Having done some extensive traveling and experiencing custom norms, I sense that dealing with conflict is a difficult area to attain resolution. The vast majority of people in all parts of the world do not like or enjoy conflict with others as we want to shy away or just hope issues and problems go away. The other thing is so often when we say, “conflict”, we are assuming everything is bad. When handled well, conflict resolution can end with very positive results, especially when Christians are seeking the principles of Colossian 3:12-17. As much as possible, we are exhorted to live in peace with one another (Romans 12:18, Ephesians 4:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:13).
When our desire is to resolve the problem AND restore the relationship, this shows clear aspects of moral courage in a Christian. If my goal when dealing with a conflict is simply to tell the other person off or tear down and even slander a person, then I am not pursuing biblical resolution. We all know of times in our lives when we were hurt by someone. It is not natural to be willing to forgive. In fact, we want to get even or at least tear down that person that caused the hurt.
Anger and bitterness can quickly cloud our correct thinking process. Vengeance is on our minds. Oh to be controlled by the Holy Spirit at that time. Colossians 3:13-14 has to reverberate in my mind, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love.” Doing the right thing is not easy! Moral courage has to kick in then. God help me!
Conflict resolution is not an optional activity. Jesus made it clear that, “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24). Performing and doing spiritual works does not impress Jesus. Having peace in our relationships is more important. Ouch! You and I both would say that performing work for Jesus is much easier and more fun than resolving conflicts with others.
Personally I would do almost anything else in the world than to go seek forgiveness from someone I wronged or point out something that another person did to either myself or a group of people to whom I am associated. But that is not an option. To develop and deepen my relationship with Jesus and become a more godly spiritual leader, God clearly mandates to me to resolve conflict in my life. The relationships I have with others is more important than my pedigree, title and status among others.
Moral courage urges me to do the right thing. Jesus’ words compel me to be obedient to His calling in my life to love others so that the world knows that I am His disciple (John 13:34-35).
YOUTH MINISTRY – ARE YOU A GRUMBLER?
You are having a good day, enjoying what has come your way. Then suddenly a friend walks up to you who simply has a very crummy, grumbling attitude. What does that do to you? Does their attitude rub off on you? Perhaps you walk away so that the grumbling does not become infectious.
Grumblers impact others. No one really wants to be around someone who is a constant grumbler. Paul gave some quite clear instructions on dealing with the attitude of grumbling. “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. – Philippians 2:14-15 (NLT). He told the Philippians to make sure that the tag of grumbler and arguer would not be found among them.
It is very true that there will be days when things do not go well, when no matter what we try to do or has entered into our lives, that those things are negative. It is easy to grumble. We just do not grumble with our words. Grumbling can be the looks we give, body posture, the sighing, rolling of our eyes, or avoidance. No one likes to be around the grumbler. Grumblers are downers.
A chameleon is a lizard that can vary the color of their skin depending on its environment. They are fascinating to watch as their skin turns color as it passes by leaves turning green, and then out in the open on sand, turn brownish. People can be chameleons, too, as they allow themselves to easily or frequently change their attitudes depending on their friend’s attitude. If the friend is grumbling, then the person begins to grumble. If the friend is happy, suddenly the person is happy.
Though you may not think you have much influence on others, you do, especially with family and friends. When something negative happens in your life, is it natural to have sadness, discouragement, disappointment and even anger? Yes. It is how you handle such situations which can lead to either being a grumbler, a very negative person or someone who rises about the circumstances, a person who is willing to deal with the issues at hand and work to have a positive attitude in negative situations.
When you turn on a flashlight or torch in a dark room, or a star shines brightly up in the dark sky, what does that single light do to the darkness? It makes the dark disappear. Paul exhorted the Philippians to live clean lives, not being grumblers and complainers in order to shine brightly among the people they could influence. Paul did not want the Philippians to be chameleons but rather influencers in their world, being realistic with life but expressing the hope they had inside of them because of what Jesus did for them.
We do need to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance when facing negative and difficult situations to gain the right attitude. It is vitally important to be reading the Bible, spending time praying and being around growing Christians who are positive themselves. To understand that God is in control of all things and that He knows what you are going through, that He is never going to literally leave you because you are His child, allow those truths of the nature of God to penetrate your mind. That helps with gaining perspective on life issues that are negative and also positive.
Be a star that shines brightly in the dark sky. You will make a difference!
INSIGHTS FROM REV. HENRY MUKONDA
WHAT IS WILD? PART 2
WILD has realized fact that to change a culture of people you not change the adults but change the mind sets of young people and give it 20 to 25 years the whole culture will have changed completely. Look at how small the families have become in Africa now. Some 20 years ago most families had at least 7 and above kids, the young people were taught family planning and the need to have a smaller family. Today it is almost standard to have 3 or less kids. The culture has changed. May be that is why the adults died in the wilderness so that the younger generation would inherit the land during the Exodus.
This realization by WILD has led to the introduction of the “WILD- YOUTH” which focuses on the youths or young people. This wing is growing like wild-fire. The Christian organizations that used to do anything with young people have all diverted their efforts to other needs. When the young people who were developed by those organizations became adults, they became Pastors or leaders of churches they, gave up on the very organizations or arms of the church that developed them. WILD has revived the idea of the youth again. The young people love it and are being developed.
Almost all the countries where WILD has a presence the Youth are running with the idea. To my knowledge, WILD is the only Christian organization that is running camps for young people with the purpose of developing them into spiritual leaders. The challenges for the Youth wing is that the youth need more; time and activities and that calls for more funding. This is the need of the hour and an awakening call for Christian organizations and churches that if we need the church tomorrow we must invest in the youth today.
It is important for me to mention that fact that WILD has a Board. There is an International Director, An African Coordinator, Regional Directors, National Directors and National Teams who run the affairs of WILD in the various countries. This increases our levels of accountability and develops the Team work spirit.
In nut-shell this is what WILD is.