I recently shared these thoughts with someone on my team who is entering a season of focused MPD.
MPD :: Ministry Partner Development. It’s the process God has used for 34 years to provide salary and cover ministry expenses for Kay and me. It has provided for 3 children. Helped provide college education. Helped with two weddings and four grandchildren. It has shaped my soul. It has empowered my ministry.
MPD is the process of God leading us to partners who engage in ministry through helping with funding and covering us with prayer.
We cannot do it without God but he has decided to not do it without us. [From an article by Rick Warren that covers a similar thought in the area of church growth.]
MPD is deep leadership development. It is a process that works deeply to grow faith, develop soul skills, develop interpersonal skills, develop spiritual skills.
I don’t know of any action in the Christian life that more exemplifies the God/human divine plan for engaging in changing the world than MPD. I have to work like it all depends on me (calls, letters, emails, appointments, using every “marketing” and “psychology” strategy that has biblical integrity) but I also know that unless God moves peoples’ hearts, my work will have very limited results. I think that a major part of CCCI’s continued service in God’s plan is that the MPD process forces us to regularly remember how God accomplishes his plan on earth.
These are thoughts I review regularly as I work on MPD.
Philippians 2:12, 13. … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Colossians 1:29. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
- I toil
- in His energy
1 Corinthians 15:10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
- I worked hard
- Though it was God, not me
Ephesians 2:9-10. … not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
- We are his workmanship
- Created for good works
- God prepared them beforehand
- We should walk in them
Proverbs 16:9. In his heart a man plans his course,but the LORD determines his steps
What about you? How has MPD shaped who you are?
