A “bend in the road” on the way to Disney World

Part of my motivation for my self-imposed blogging exile has been developments after I left Indiana to come to Florida. I have shared privately with some of you and it is now time to share with the rest of you.

As I said earlier this summer, I came to Florida to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. Due to a number of reasons, I did not start my new position at Wycliffe in September as originally planned. This turn of events gave me an unexpected opportunity to think and to pray about God’s will for me to serve Him in missions.

I’ve spoken to other ministries here in central Florida. Most recently, I spoke to Chris Larson, Senior Vice-President at Ligonier Ministries, and I was encouraged to see how far Ligonier has come in a relatively short time! Neil Cox has told me how conservative Ligonier had been with "old media" so I was impressed to learn from Chris how Ligonier has managed to change its approach, e.g. social media and iPhone app, in the last year or so. I am intrigued by the potential of new media to encourage communication and collaboration among the reformed theology community. Until attending the Together for the Gospel conference last spring, I wasn't even aware of Ligonier or the reformed theology community and as I've learned more from R. C. Sproul from attending St. Andrew's Chapel as well as from Ligonier, I have been stunned to realize how much needs to (and CAN) be done to get the word out about historical, orthodox Christianity. As I've had the opportunity to be part of St. Andrew's faith community, I have been taken back (and Aback) to the Christian faith which I knew as a youngster and which has somehow eluded me during my adult life. As long as organizations such as Ligonier depended on old media to tell its story, I would have likely missed this opportunity altogether! Younger believers who don't necessarily have any previous experience with orthodox Christianity are even less likely to learn of it as they depend on old media even less!
I'd like to help to "fix" this so I've been praying and thinking about how God would like me to "finish well" by helping to tell the story of historical, orthodox Christianity by first organizing its adherents and then finding ways to broaden that community.

I have “storified” this story.

Equip – Day 1

Today was the first full day of Equip Onsite, a two-week training course for all new members of Wycliffe Bible Translators which follows Equip Online, a six-week online course which I recently completed. Equip Onsite is held at Wycliffe USA headquarters in Orlando, Florida where I will be working after completion of the course.

I’ll try to blog regularly (and often) during Equip Onsite to share what I’m learning. Today, we spent most of the day sharing our personal stories with the rest of the group about how we were called to missions and why we chose to join Wycliffe. Although the primary purpose is to get acquainted, I suspect that this is also our first opportunity to practice “partnership development” which constitutes a large part of the course. Since most Wycliffe members depend on voluntary gifts of family, friends, and churches for financial support, partnership development is necessary. By virtue of my retirement funds accumulated during my 35 years in academia, I am fortunate to be a “partially self-supporting member” but I intend to raise financial support for special pilot projects in social media and other parts of my portfolio.

Needless to say, the variety of stories exhibits God’s leading as well as his provision which has led each of us to begin our common journey as Wycliffe members. In addition to sharing my own story today, I was also further encouraged in one of my major motivations for joining Wycliffe in order to tell the story of Bible translation through the stories of those who devote their lives to this task. Their stories are indeed compelling as well as worthy to be distributed widely so I am convinced of the contribution which social media can make to this goal.