August 15, 2012

Loving, Loved, and Love, 
Therefore vulnerable. 

GUIDANCE

The Loving One suffering quietly.
An open wound nobody sees. 
Naked, exposed, and bleeding. 
A forsaken Father agonizes
While His beloved Son is rejected and murdered by His family.

PERSPECTIVE

The Loved One suffering publically.  
An open wound for all to see. 
Naked, exposed, and bleeding. 
A forsaken Son agonizes
While His tortured Father allows the murder
In order to save His family.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Love broken in two. 
A shared wound that rips us apart. 
Naked, exposed, and bleeding. 
Suffering so deep that everything goes dark. 
A heart-wide-open Spirit being beaten to death.
Such vulnerability is the high price we must pay
To be part of this King’s family. 
But if this seems too expensive,
He grants us freedom to “have no king but Caesar.”

Tony

August 1, 2012

We live on a spinning planet traveling through space.  We traverse through time every moment of our lives.  We go onward, backward, around, through, under, and over in our working, playing, living, helping, doing, and becoming.  We cannot not be going.

GUIDANCE

Jesus knew this.  He put it all into motion.  That is why He does not command us “to go” in His Great Commission to us.  Going is assumed!   The first Greek word in Matthew 28:19 is properly translated “going,” or “as you are going,” not “Go!” 

PERSPECTIVE

I believe we ignore Jesus at our peril.   He is the brightest person ever to walk the planet.  Einstein had some knowledge.  Solomon had some wisdom.  But in Him are hidden “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

So the words used by the One who spoke the universe into motion tell us much.  If we will listen.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Here is what’s amazing.  International Disciple Makers can effectively make an eternal Kingdom difference by working in a different way.  Not bound by time and space.  Not rushing around, going helter-skelter, or making stuff happen.  We can choose to become fully alive.  Led and not driven. 

It requires a change of focus.  To delight that we are eternal, made in the image of a loving Trinity who values relationship more than either time or space.  He loves His children more than the schedule or house.

What matters most to our Father is that His children are fully His.  Wherever we live or go.

Tony

July 18, 2012

The greatest transfer of wealth.  EVER.  But why?

The King had accumulated His wealth through trillions of years of creativity, ingenuity, integrity, good leadership, and management.  He owned everything that exists because everything came from Him.

GUIDANCE

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”  (Matthew 28:18 NIV).  But… Why would God give everything away?

PERSPECTIVE

In the rebellion, Satan the Accuser influenced us to turn against God.  “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1 NIV). 

He actually wants us to accuse God for holding out on us!  To say that we know better or that God has messed up in some way.  To believe that God is somehow unjust.  If I’m sinful, it is because God made me do something wrong.  Therefore God is to blame.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Satan points an accusing finger at God, saying that now he deserves to be the prince of this world because we stewards prefer his leadership to that of God the Father.  So God no longer has the right to own it.

To keep our family name sacred, God does the unthinkable.  He gives everything away to Jesus.  Jesus certainly is righteous.  No sin can be found in Him. 

Therefore Satan no longer has a case that God cannot own everything.  Because He doesn’t! The Father has given it all to the Son.  Something that evil would never do.  Our family honor is preserved completely from even the most flimsy accusations of wrongdoing. 

And some day there will be a wedding feast in which the Son gives all back into the hands of the Father.  With our family complete in every way.  And to God the Father, His family means more than everything.

-Tony

July 4, 2012

September 10-12, 2012.

This will be MUCH BIGGER than we had thought.  Please PRAY for a GREAT result!

The bottom line is that it could solve lots of problems:

1. Developing 1,600 TCMII students from even more countries faster and less expensively.
2. Making some geographical barriers “go away.”
3. Saving lots of resources by offering training more flexibly than currently offered.
4. Drawing less attention to students from restricted-access countries.
5. Utilizing more international faculty for much less cost.
6. Utilizing more student-support personnel for much less cost.
7. Saving SIGNIFICANTLY on travel costs for students, faculty, and translators.

Achieving some of our 2016 Great Commission Initiative goals more quickly.

In my twenty-two years with TCMII, I have noticed a pattern in God’s leading.  We prayerfully research and envision the direction we believe He is leading us.  After deliberation and discussion, we commit ourselves to a plan. Then He often moves us forward more quickly and creatively than we had envisioned.  Usually with significant savings!!

After setting out the Great Commission Initiative earlier this year, God again put something on our radar screen that could be a “game changer.”

In April 2012 at the North Central Accrediting Association annual meeting in Chicago, we officially decided to move forward with an idea that came from our new accreditation liaison.  Submit a substantive change request to be approved for distance delivery programs.  With the help of several consultants, staff, and friends we have worked hard to write and officially submit this request as part of our self-study documents for the HLC September re-accreditation visit in Austria.

If approved as part of our re-accreditation process, it will be a “game changer.”  It will mean that many TCMII required courses could be offered completely online.  These tend to be the more “information intensive” courses.  The more practical, ministry-focused courses could continue to have a discipleship “face-to-face” component.  But by using better delivery methods, these could be more creatively delivered to maximize the mentoring.

Our goal for the Great Commission Initiative remains – 2,000 students and graduates actively discipling 4,000 more, and together serving at least 100,000 others to reach their churches, countries, and cultures for Christ.  This new opportunity can move that goal forward more efficiently than a more traditional delivery model will be able to do.

So PLEASE PRAY with us for this upcoming visit.  The documents are done.  The team is assigned.  The distance proposal has been submitted.  If approved, God will have again moved us forward faster and much more cost effectively than we could have imagined.  STAY TUNED!!!
 

                                         Grateful again to Him and to you,

                                         Tony Twist, President

June 20, 2012

Jesus handled change well.  He didn’t seem off balance, disoriented, or lacking peace even in the midst of cosmic change!

GUIDANCE

But how?  How did He handle constant interruptions, enemies trying to destroy Him, persecution by the spiteful, petty, and jealous, having to out-think the schemes of evil, and much more?  Making it all seem so natural and effortless!

PERSPECTIVE

Even small change can throw us into anger, confusion, or self-pity. Maybe bringing us to a complete stop.  How can we follow His example?

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Recently I was thinking about this.  How to handle change more as He did?  And a scripture came to mind that I had never really connected to change.  Jesus was being actively persecuted by the Pharisees.  In fact, they were trying to kill him!  And this is what He told them:

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does” (John 5:19, 20a, NIV).

So this is my (our) challenge for handling change.  To make sure I’m continually monitoring myself to determine that I’m following His lead.  Asking Him throughout the day:  “Father, is this what you are doing?”  And thanking Him for loving me (us) through it.

I can’t wait for it to become more normal!