By Linson Daniel
I have had the privilege of going overseas to partner with various churches and indigenous ministries – especially in India. Every time I interact with believers and leaders from the Global Church, I walk away feeling inspired, emboldened, and challenged. We have much to learn from the Global Church. I gained a refreshing lens on the apostolic. Below are five lessons:
By Linson Daniel
This was an interesting year for me. My leadership was really stretched.
I went from planting new chapters to planting new areas for InterVarsity/USA in North Texas and Oklahoma. Four years ago, my team started as one area with 390 students in 7 chapters. It has since grown to become 707 students in 16 chapters. Now, my area has multiplied into three new areas each with its own area director.
I’ve reflected back on the past four years to figure out which steps nurtured the apostolic impulse needed to generate this growth. As a leader, you can help foster apostolic impulse in every team member! I’ve distilled it down to these three steps:
By Linson Daniel
I had an awesome time last week on campus. Within the span of 60 minutes, I had the chance to talk about life, faith, and Jesus with an atheist, a Hindu, and an international student from Kenya. What a rush! None of them made a significant decision to follow Jesus, but I felt that the Kingdom had come nearer to them. That was pretty exciting.
You may believe that you could never be awesome at sharing your faith. Trust me, I was right there with you. In fact, I still doubt whether I really know what I am doing! However, I keep trying. Along the way, I’ve noticed 10 steps that have helped me become increasingly better at sharing my faith with others.
I believe you can be awesome at sharing your faith with these 10 simple steps:
The science of leading a movement can be reproduced anywhere, but the experience of leading a movement is unique. It leaves a lasting impression on you as you reflect upon it. I have learned more about myself and God in the past 4 years than ever before in my life. I want to share 6 lessons I learned about myself and God while leading a movement to reach South Asian-American college students in Texas and Oklahoma.
UT-Austin OneWay InterVarsity Founders in 2001
Photo Courtesy of Ben Heine (cc)
Technological breakthroughs coupled with the ever-connected global village have birthed a generation that sees the world differently. Millennials are a beautiful generation that is highly creative! Creatives are everywhere — especially in the university context. I believe there are more opportunities now for creatives to express themselves than ever before!
Linson’s Staff Team in North Texas and Oklahoma
I love planting new communities on university campuses all over my geographic area. It is a thrilling experience to meet students, empower them, and start missional communities that produce renewal. I often get labeled as an “apostolic” person, but my heart wants something more than being one apostolic person… I want to start movements that are apostolic!
But first, there has been much discussion about what it means to be apostolic. A few of my colleagues and I have landed on a phrase that encapsulates the idea of an apostle. “An apostolic person is sent by God’s Spirit to expand the Kingdom across boundaries into new places”. I like this definition for four reasons.
Photo Courtesy of Slack pics (creative commons)
By Linson Daniel
I was contemplating the impact of missionaries coming to India and sharing the Gospel with my ancestors. If it were not for their efforts, then I do not think I would be a Christian today. I am amazed at how God changed generations of countless families in India, including mine, because of the faithfulness of those few missionaries.
Consequently, evangelism is very important to me. I believe that evangelism should be the leading value for any church, para-church, and/or ministry. Out of a healthy culture of evangelism flow the values of growth, discipleship, community, worship, etc.
One of the first things I did as Area Director for North Texas and Oklahoma was to instill the importance of evangelism within my team. My area did not have a fruitful history in the area of evangelism, and this eventually created stagnation in all of the other values. Therefore, I initiated an evangelistic culture shift.
