Many of our friends and family have been asking why we have chosen to attend Global Frontier Missions (GFM) training school and why now? We officially turned in our application to the training school this morning and I copied the response that Tim wrote on the application to this exact question. I added a couple of explanations in parenthesis for clarification on a few things. Hopefully, it will give you a good understanding of how all this came about and what we are doing. . .
"A series of fortunate and ordained events really. I have always felt called to do more for the body of Christ then I was currently. In some sense the blessings in my life have conspired to put a burden on me:
1. I have always been pretty well aware of the state of the rest of the world. Just being an American felt like such a blessing that it became a burden,
2. I have a job situation that is somewhat unique in that my dad owns a very successful business and wants me to eventually run it. This is also an amazing blessing so much so that it has become a burden.
3. I have an upbringing that was, while fraught with imperfections and its own unique taint of sin was so overwhelmingly Christian and filled with correct instruction that to hoard it and keep only for my own successful management of family and business would be an insult to God.
My wife has shared my desire, but she is a little more practical then I and also a little more fearful. This is fortunate because I may have gotten us into several things that God had not called us into simply from impatience.
I had decided that my path was to work hard in my dad’s business as a career because I have seen how he has been able to bless people both financially and through his influence as a successful Christian in the community. Since then, Sarah and I have been very involved in discipleship at WFC both in leading small groups and leading small group leaders. My plan up to the point that I went to GFM in Mexico was to keep going to Mexico on short-term mission trips until I hit upon something that could be a more permanent ministry for us. This never happened and in a way I was continually discouraged by the very nature of the short-term mission trip. My vision letter that I wrote from GFM in Mexico to myself states that I was:
1. Done with short term mission trips for the time being.
2. That I needed to talk my wife into moving down into Kansas City closer to Hispanic populations so we could serve in ministries that were not available to those of us who live in the suburbs.
3. That I wanted to focus our energies more on discipleship within organic church ministries and less on traditional church ministries, but I was still planning on working full-time.
On the missions trip I got several gentle but fairly bold nudges from Grant, David Wyndam, and Jordan among others to go to MTS (Mission Training School) which I considered but not really seriously. When I got back from Mexico, Schaun (our Missions Pastor at Westside Family Church) had the idea about opening a MTS in Kansas City, Kansas to the area that I felt like I should move our family. The final piece fell into place when my father told me that he was not retiring for another ten years, that he was fully supportive of me leaving for awhile and that he would like me to work part time when we got back. At this point it felt like God was conspiring with the universe to send us to the MTS and we should probably pay attention. "
There you have it in Tim's words :) We will be in Atlanta, GA at the school from January to end of May and then are planning to move to Houston for the summer to help open another MTS there. Houston will give us the practical experience of starting a school from the ground up. We will return to Kansas City in late August/early September and work on setting up the school here with hopes of opening it in January 2011. If you are interested in finding out more information on GFM, the link is posted on the right side of our blog.
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