American Missionary Fellowship

As I think about 2010 and what it will mean to me as a person, to the Burns family, and to American Missionary Fellowship, I would like to suggest five things we need to be open to:

First, we need to be open to God’s Spirit. As I read through the New Testament, particularly the book of Acts, where God was forming the church and establishing a new work through the Holy Spirit, it just seems that there was a freshness and an openness to what God was doing, a response that sometimes I think is missing from my relationship with Christ. As missions and organizations get older, they institutionalize. They forget that the pioneers of the mission were responsive to the Holy Spirit, were almost renegades as they felt the Spirit leading and directing them to new and different towns to plant Sunday schools (in our case). I pray that we will have an openness to God’s Spirit.

Second, we need to have an openness to communication. We need to be open to communicating honestly and authentically with each other. We need to be open to having conversations that may be difficult and that may create some dissonance. My prayer is that we don’t run away from those conversations, but that we run to them, that we work through them, and that we provide places of conversation so that communication is open.

Third, we need to have an openness to time-tested traditions within our mission. We will have to endure a significant amount of change this year. All of these changes were initiated by our financial condition, which we now, I believe, have under control, but which led to some philosophical and sociological changes. Yet, there are some time-tested things that cannot change. We can change our methodology, but not our statement of faith, our stand on God’s Word, our commitment to our country, and our commitment to relevant and practical ways of taking the Gospel to our country. We cannot change our commitment as staff in Villanova to listen carefully to those who are on the field so that the decisions we have to make will produce the least amount of disruption to the missionaries, nor can the people on the field change their commitment to trust that we in Villanova are doing our very best to make sure that we are sensitive in the way we provide the services and support necessary for the missionaries to do their work. We need to be open to time-tested traditions, our statement of faith, and our commitment to God’s Word.

Fourth, we need to be open to change. We need to understand that if we continue to do things the way we’ve always done them, the culture will pass us by. While we need to be open to time-tested traditions, we also need to be open to methodologies that are different and relevant today. The generation that will form our mission in the future thinks differently, speaks differently, and has a different vocabulary from what we’re used to. Meanwhile, the older missionaries who are on the verge of retirement have much to teach us, as they have a lifetime of seeing the mission morph and change. They have been through change before and can give us wisdom, guidance, direction, and security. We need to be open to change. If we don’t change voluntarily, we will be forced to change in the future.

Fifth, we need to be open with each other. More than just having open communication, we need to share our lives together. That’s why we go to area fellowships, have time in God’s Word as a Home Office staff, and have conversations in small groups. It’s my prayer that we get beyond the superficial level and are willing to say to each other, “This is what’s going on in my life.”

I’m reminded of a person who was frustrated with writing a God Story because his ministry is not going very well. He’s in the desert; it’s dry. He can’t see immediate results and therefore feels like he’s a failure. But the opposite is true – God brings us all through deserts. What’s wrong is that we don’t believe we have permission to say we’re in the desert, and so we pretend, or we make up the kinds of things we think are important for others to hear, but deep down we know we’re not being authentic in the kinds of things we’re saying. Being open with each other means being willing to allow people to fail and willing to allow people to be in the desert – and then to encourage them and help them by bringing them water in their dry times.

I’m looking forward to 2010, the year of openness.