TNT at YWAM Seamill
See I am doing a new thing… now it springs up, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19)
One of the "new things" that is springing up in our community this season is a new team of people who have a growing heart and hunger for God coupled with a desire to reach out to those around us with the love that stems from our relationship with Christ and deeper understanding of His heart for the lost. If we were to describe this team to you and what God is saying to us about our roles in this community/ village/ nation and world… we would paint you a picture of a tree, with the trunk being the core word of the Lord that God has spoken into our team's identity and then a few main branches that define the shape of our mission and ministry and from there we trust God guide us into the more specific day to day opportunities and the fruit that will come from that…
The Trunk
We believe that God has called us to be an outreach team that seeks the Father and does what He says. As a team we feel that everything we do, in its essence, could be distilled down to this single and simple sentence. As we branch out into ministry we will be guided by this core word to keep us aligned to the word of the Lord for our team.
The Branches
Intimacy: As a team we believe that all ministry should flow
from loving God and having His heart. We want to stay passionate
about what we do and that means being passionate about God first.
So, we are committed to seek the heart of the Father, not because
we want to be able to tick our "Good Christian" prayer
box, but because we long to be lovers not workers. He is worth
it.
Community: Community can be a very broad term, whether
it refers to our team, the YWAM family we have here at the base,
people in the village, the nation of Scotland or the World at
large. Whatever the specific context is, we believe that we
are meant to live and thrive in community, intentionally loving
and serving those people that God has placed around us…
starting with our team members and working outwards from there.
Outreach: Christ told His disciples, "Freely you've
received, now freely give." God has given us so much, and
asked us to give it out! We believe Jesus was "on outreach"
24/7, and we want to live that same lifestyle. We desire God's
eyes to see the broken and hurting around us, and to respond
to them by pouring out all of the life we've been given!
Practical: If you look at the life of Jesus, He liked
to get His hands dirty. He didn't compartmentalize His life
into the practical and spiritual, but taught His disciples through
example what it means to serve. That's why we at TNT believe
that weeding flower beds or cleaning a toilet is just as valid
for the Kingdom as praying for the sick. We pray that practical
work would become more of an expression of worship in our lives.
Discipleship: We could pour every ounce of our time and
energy into "doing good things" and still miss the
mark if we didn't focus on discipleship as well. God is passionate
about all these things, but He will always be more concerned
with WHO we are than in WHAT we are doing. We believe that God
desires to shape our character more and more into His likeness
and we're committed to seeing "less" of ourselves
and "more" of Christ shining through our lives in
both the big and the small things.
It seems a bit pretentious to call what we are doing "THE
NEW THING" as if it were some new idea that we came up
with on our own, but here lies the irony… We firmly believe
that these values and principles are centuries old with a rich
and ancient history to explore in our world and lives today.
So if you sense the Lord moving your heart in a similar direction
and would like to learn more about our team life and ministry
we would love to hear from you at: thenewthing@ywamseamill.org
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