Today, in observing the monthly YWAM International Prayer Day, the few of us currently in Closkelt met to pray through this month’s prayer focus, which is something called the Christian Magna Carta, and how that relates to us and our ministry.

First of all, the Christian Magna Carta (CMC) says this:

“We affirm the Christian Magna Carta which describes the following basic rights as implicit in the gospel. Everyone on earth has the right to:
• Hear and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• Have a Bible available in their own language.
• Have a Christian fellowship available nearby, to be able to meet for fellowship regularly each week, and to have Biblical teaching and worship with others in the Body of Christ.
• Have a Christian education available for their children.
• Have the basic necessities of life: food, water, clothing, shelter and health care.
• Lead a productive life of fulfillment spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically.

We commit ourselves, by God’s grace, to fulfill this covenant and to live for His glory.” [1]

So the focus for this month was to reexamine what this means for YWAM. Nearly three decades since its formation, can another look at the Christian Magna Carta help YWAM have unified goals internationally and be more strategic locally?

Kevin Sutter had this to say:

(More on all of that at the Prayer Day website).

With prayer and discussion, we noted a few things for ourselves, for YWAM, for missions, and for our ministry in Ireland:

• To hold the goals of the CMC lightly as starting points and basic principles, so we’re careful not to implement localized or familiar expressions in inappropriate contexts. For example, we all agreed that children have a right to spiritual nourishment, but we would be concerned if our goal then became to build Christian schools all over the world or Western-style multi-million dollar Children’s Ministry complexes. In other words, don’t look to our own culture or experience for expressions of these goals, but be creative in building relevant expressions in the contexts in which we’re serving.
• The CMC is a picture of God’s heart, and we’re not expected individually to be able to work fully in all six areas or feel equally passionate for them. That’s why we’re part of teams. We are to be obedient in the areas the Lord has given us. Furthermore, we need to pray that we have a diversity of gifts and skills and personalities amongst us. For YWAM in Ireland, let’s pray the right staff come.
• Often we’re not building towards these goals from scratch. We are to restore and renew. One of the most damaging ways of ministering can be to neglect what’s already there. We’ve seen church planting teams do this sometimes, completely ignoring other church communities because they deem them “broken” or “dead,” or they’re just ignorant of their presence. I reluctantly suppose that there may be a time and place for this, but Northern Ireland is especially a country with too many religious and social divides, and the last thing we need are more groups of Christians, especially foreign Christian workers, just doing their own thing. We felt a confirmation that YWAMers should be helping to renew and restore the church, not countermand it.
• …and quite a lot of other things, actually, that I won’t write for sake of length, mostly.

  References:

  1. Official YWAM statements: Christian Magna Carta from the YWAM Int’l website (http://www.ywam.org/contents/abo_doc_christian.htm)