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)
  ]]> http://nakedicame.com/2008/08/prayerday_aug08_cmc/feed/ 0 http://nakedicame.com/2008/02/ywam-february-prayer-day/ http://nakedicame.com/2008/02/ywam-february-prayer-day/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:31:44 +0000 Mikael http://nakedicame.com/?p=30 Starting last month in January, YWAM locations across the globe are joining each other in prayer on the first Thursday of each month. For each prayer day, half of the time will have a reflective focus that all participating YWAMers will explore in prayer, and the second half, at least for YWAM in these parts, will concern our vision and our focus in our nation or locale.

  For the February prayer day, the prayer focus was “Practicing Forgiveness.” A few days before, we all received an email with various reflections, testimonies, and challenges from different YWAM leaders sent out by the YWAM Prayer Day mailing list. The day itself has shown itself quite special for us, as it’s a time when all of us from YWAM Northern Ireland (Belfast and Closkelt bases) as well as our colleagues from YWAM Ireland (currently totaling three families) gather to worship, pray, and fellowship together. After a time of worship, we joined YWAMers around the globe in asking God to challenge us to forgive as He forgives and then respond accordingly.

  Following some reflection, we then really prayed into our future as YWAM in the North and South of the island of Ireland. Over the past few months, our communities have been under the impression that we need to move towards greater unity and that our efforts in our ministry need come together to work with greater synergy. This was a time when we continued to explore that in prayer. In the 90’s, YWAM had a greater presence in the Republic of Ireland with various ministries, including a steady flow of Discipleship Training Schools. We’re looking at the possibilities in re-pioneering (and just plain pioneering) YWAM in the South with the help of fresh staff and fresh vision. But in order to do all that, we’re trying hard to work together –Belfast, Closkelt, and Dublin– in joint vision.

  Although we’re still sitting with a lot of questions, these prayer times are vital in moving forward with God’s plan for this island. Perhaps we will work to run a DTS in the Republic in 2009; perhaps we’ll have teams trained to plant ministries there; perhaps something entirely different. In any case, we want to be meeting an actual spiritual need, not just expanding YWAM. I got a strong sense of that while we were praying.

  Good stuff!

  Check out the YWAM Prayer Day website and sign up for the monthly newsletter.

  Also: “The Power of Forgiveness: a testimony” by Steve Goode, Director, YWAM Mercy Ministries Int’l. An excerpt from the February newsletter.

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