Jonny shares about the person and problem before solution and situation

Jonny needed thousands of dollars in only a few weeks. He had experience, passion, skill and the willingness to change the world, but needed to articulate the inspiration and information that would draw a tribe of prayer warriors to his cause.  I am often asked by people like Jonny to review a support letter they have written. Many times the majority of their letter focuses on a vague dream for some program or situation that will provide a possible solution to an undefined problem.  
    I told Jonny “Start with a clean slate. Start your story with a name of a real person, real time in your history, real emotions, real quotes, and real feelings. Verbally make me see a situation where God used you....through your eyes, ears and heart! Use your words to show me the tear in the eye of the orphan instead of simply stating that Asia has problems and showing me a generalistic and fuzzy image of the continent. Introduce me to the PERSON then the PROBLEM.... Only then will I care enough and take the time to read about the SOLUTION and SITUATION.  

People want to be INSPIRED and INFORMED but you must remember that what God has been doing in your life over the past 20 hours, 20 weeks, 20 months, or even 20 years must catch their interest on paper in less than 20 seconds. Otherwise many will put the page down in hopes of reading it later. If you can minster to the desire to find a BRIDGE connecting their LOCAL life to a GLOBAL solution many will gladly join your tribe and help be the SOLUTION to the PROBLEM you so clearly identified!”

I then challenged Jonny to do something counter-intuitive “Don’t ask for the money you need in this letter...don’t even make it a prayer point. Instead, in this letter you will only ask for their prayers. Imagine with me if each person that received this letter was so inspired and informed that they began to immediately pray for you and the solution to the problem you identified. Imagine if each of these people, while praying for you, had the chance to hear about your financial need first from God with out you mentioning or hinting about money. Imagine if when you ask for money it was not a new idea to them but instead only confirmation to what God had already been speaking to them. By only asking for prayer in your first letter you allow the God who knows your need to speak to His people first.”

Jonny sent me a draft of His letter and I hope you find it as inspirational and informative as I do. Please pray for Jonny.... not for His need but that he will continue to be a solution to the lack of worship in many nations, one of our wolds greatest problems!

“Mala is a young boy in the slums of Pattaya Thailand. While in his slum I helped teach English. After a few days of playing games with him I spoke the words "I Love you" through a translator.  He turned and gave me the biggest and strongest hug I have ever gotten from a child. Then I told him "Jesus loves you" and he squeezed me even harder. At that moment my heart broke for those children. When ever I think of missions I think of Mala and his smile… his great big smile! I wanted to be a roll model for him and wished I could show him a way to worship God with music but I didn't have the courage or ability to lead in a time of worship. I wish so badly that I can see him again. I don't want to miss another chance to lead others into a time of worshiping God. The next 3 months I will be at YWAM Orlando increasing my courage and ability to worship musically. By spending 12 weeks with experts with experience from across the globe, I will gain the confidence to lead people from many nations into a true form of worshiping God. Together with your prayers we can give many new friends, like Mala, a chance to know and worship their creator.

Thank you for your partnership, -Jonny”

P.S. Look for a followup post about how I recommend asking for the money you need with out making people hide around the isle next time you are in the grocery store.

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Crying in Louisville!

The YWAM Team in Louisville KY asked me to come teach in their staff training retreat about personal sponsorship team development. I am so glad for the opportunity. For the past two days I have been teaching and meeting with staff to discover their calling, vision and how to communicate that to sponsors. Each day someone has literally shed tears… I have come to believe wasn't because of me but simply because they were overwhelmed by the vision God has for their life and the need of those who they are called to. I feel funny saying it but I pray that I will get to see someone else cry today! I will return to Orlando Wednesday evening.

From Calcutta, India

Some of the students I taught and lived with last fall in our Discipleship Training School are on outreach and reported from Calcutta, India that:

Our team went to a street kids ministry where children who are 2-10 yrs old come to play, brush their teeth, have a shower, and wash their clothes. Our team decided to bless the children by washing their feet and praying over them. They shared the story of how Jesus washed Peter's feet. In Hindu India, feet are seen as the most spiritually unclean and untouchable part of the body. At first, the children were reluctant. But when our team began to touch their feet and played worship music in the background, the children and staff started to weep at the presence of God. The children were amazed to see white people (seen as the highest caste) washing their feet. Something is starting to happen in this city. We feel like a breakthrough is coming!" (Click for more photos)

Thank you for your prayers and sponsorship that make this possible!

Video: What is Forgiveness? Winter 2011 DTS

I spent some time asking the students I work with what they have learned about Forgiveness in a weeks time. I love the result!

Best book I have read re: financial sponsorship

Every time some one asks me where to start finding financial sponsorship I wish we had a common foundation to start the conversation on. I am at a loss where to begin and find myself visiting the same subjects, like: Biblical Foundation, Valuing the Relationship, and God is our Source. Scott Morton has put all of this and much more in one book. If I was to write a book it would be this: Funding Your Ministry: Whether You're Gifted or Not by Scott Morton

God wants to provide through His people!

I spent the morning teaching in the Winter 2010 DTS. I hope you enjoy the audio link.

  
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Christmas 2010 at School of Champions, Mexico

This year I was able to join some of the neediest families in Mexico for a Christmas party! Some sponsors have been very generous and made donations so that we could bring gifts of goodies for the kids and blankets for the mothers. I would never be able to experience this with out your help. Thank You so much and Merry Christmas!

Dar Cunningham Praying for the Next Generation of YWAMers at the 50th celebration

I took the below photo but the remaining 525 photos from the conference are by our staff photographer Kristen Anderson

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YWAM Orlando 50th Celebration Nov 10th

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Worship continues at YWAM Orlando's new campus

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Our new Ywam Orlando worship hall

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This week I discovered God is…

This week in the fall DTS Al McBryan taught about the nature and character of God. I asked our students: How would you complete the sentence "This week I discovered God is…" Sydney Carfi This week i discovered God is intimate. He wants to have an intimate relationship with me but not at an arms length. He wants all of me. And i can truly except that know, knowing the character of God. Jenny Elyse Netjes God is incomprehensible. He is such a mystery and His ways are so complex and intricate. But in the midst of that, He is in love with His creation and is passionate about the redemption of His people. Rachel Elizabeth Olson This week I discovered that God is a being I want to know very intimately. I desire to know His character better than I know myself. I get lost in the mystery of who He is, and how He works. God is better than Lost. That´s saying something. For more responses visit http://on.fb.me/AlMcBryan and click the "like" button at www.facebook.com/OrlandoYWAM to keep up with future posts!

Forgiveness is…?

As Michael Berg taught in our DTS this week about Biblical restoration I asked our students "How could you complete the sentence: Forgiveness is…?" Read all 40 comments at http://on.fb.me/Forgivenessis

Adam Snook Forgive is a lot of things... Forgiveness is freeing yourself from the bondage of holding onto the past. The bondage of self. Forgiveness is also very refreshing! God Forgives and so shall we!

Joy Engdahl Forgiveness is the way to healing. It´s removing spiritual infections so we can be healthy.

Benjamin Caswell Forgiveness is the choice I make to let go of the past, breathe easier, live healthier, and love more completely.

Hearing God´s Voice is…

John Bills taught in our fall DTS last week. I asked our students; How would you complete the sentence: "Hearing God´s Voice is…"

Javin Mitchell said: Hearing God´s voice is amazing I have heard his voice before but nothing like after this week it became more clear and took my relationship with God to a different level.

Meghan Elizabeth Durán said: Hearing God´s voice requires me to practice patience, which I´ve never been good at, but it´s completely rewarding!

Kacy-Lynn Sloat Hearing said: Gods voice is, surrendering completely to Him and praying in expectancy to hear the voice of God to be able to intercede for the unknown.

Jesse Matsen said: Hearing God´s voice is such an amazing and eye opening experience for me. It is like nothing else to know that the creator of this entire universe is speaking directly to me. It makes me want to have God be apart of everything in my life.

For to read over 60 more quotes from of fall schools visit our news feed at http://www.ywamorlando.com/facebook

New DTS working on our new Campus!

Wealth, poverty and compassion

The rich are different from you and me
They are more selfish

Jul 29th 2010

LIFE at the bottom is nasty, brutish and short. For this reason, heartless folk might assume that people in the lower social classes will be more self-interested and less inclined to consider the welfare of others than upper-class individuals, who can afford a certain noblesse oblige. A recent study, however, challenges this idea. Experiments by Paul Piff and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, reported this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggest precisely the opposite. It is the poor, not the rich, who are inclined to charity.

In their first experiment, Dr Piff and his team recruited 115 people. To start with, these volunteers were asked to engage in a series of bogus activities, in order to create a misleading impression of the purpose of the research. Eventually, each was told he had been paired with an anonymous partner seated in a different room. Participants were given ten credits and advised that their task was to decide how many of these credits they wanted to keep for themselves and how many (if any) they wished to transfer to their partner. They were also told that the credits they had at the end of the game would be worth real money and that their partners would have no ability to interfere with the outcome.

A week before the game was run, participants were asked their ethnic backgrounds, sex, age, frequency of attendance at religious services and socioeconomic status. During this part of the study, they were presented with a drawing of a ladder with ten rungs on it. Each rung represented people of different levels of education, income and occupational status. They were asked to place an “X” on the rung they felt corresponded to where they stood relative to others in their own community.

The average number of credits people gave away was 4.1. However, an analysis of the results showed that generosity increased as participants’ assessment of their own social status fell. Those who rated themselves at the bottom of the ladder gave away 44% more of their credits than those who put their crosses at the top, even when the effects of age, sex, ethnicity and religiousness had been accounted for.

The prince and the pauper

In follow-up experiments, the researchers asked participants to imagine and write about a hypothetical interaction with someone who was extremely wealthy or extremely poor. This sort of storytelling is used routinely by psychologists when they wish to induce a temporary change in someone’s point of view.

In this case the change intended was to that of a higher or lower social class than the individual perceived he normally belonged to. The researchers then asked participants to indicate what percentage of a person’s income should be spent on charitable donations. They found that both real lower-class participants and those temporarily induced to rank themselves as lower class felt that a greater share of a person’s salary should be used to support charity.

Upper-class participants said 2.1% of incomes should be donated. Lower-class individuals felt that 5.6% was the appropriate slice. Upper-class participants who were induced to believe they were lower class suggested 3.1%. And lower-class individuals who had been “psychologically promoted” thought 3.3% was about right.

A final experiment attempted to test how helpful people of different classes are when actually exposed to a person in need. This time participants were “primed” with video clips, rather than by storytelling, into more or less compassionate states. The researchers then measured their reaction to another participant (actually a research associate) who turned up late and thus needed help with the experimental procedure.

In this case priming made no difference to the lower classes. They always showed compassion to the latecomer. The upper classes, though, could be influenced. Those shown a compassion-inducing video behaved in a more sympathetic way than those shown emotionally neutral footage. That suggests the rich are capable of compassion, if somebody reminds them, but do not show it spontaneously.

One interpretation of all this might be that selfish people find it easier to become rich. Some of the experiments Dr Piff conducted, however, sorted people by the income of the family in which the participant grew up. This revealed that whether high status was inherited or earned made no difference—so the idea that it is the self-made who are especially selfish does not work. Dr Piff himself suggests that the increased compassion which seems to exist among the poor increases generosity and helpfulness, and promotes a level of trust and co-operation that can prove essential for survival during hard times.

Science and Technology

via economist.com

I am continually humbled by amazing generosity from those who have relatively little yet disappointed by those who are very wealthy. Now it looks like science proves this to be a trend beyond my personal experience. How do you feel when "widows" give you their last

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Worship at YWAM Orlando's new campus!

Teaching about God's provision At. YWAM Kona

How has God provided for your need?

  
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Teaching in the School of Strategic Communication this week

Mon-Fri this week I will be teaching from 9-Noon (3-6pm EST) at YWAM's University of the Nations Kona Campus in Hawaii- All prayers welcome!

School of Strategic Communication
This school is designed to raise up Spirit-led activists whose words, like Peter’s, cut to the heart and provoke the question, “What shall we do then?" (Acts 2:37). Students will discover what their audience truly believes, and will develop the skills to reach them with relevant, transformational communication. Whether you want to promote a new business or turn the tide on AIDS infections, this school will equip you with the skills to be effective.

The school consists of eight lecture weeks with morning sessions taught by visiting experts in marketing, research, and creative communication. Workshops every afternoon provide immediate, practical application throughout the school. In the final four weeks, the students will work in groups to create comprehensive communication campaigns that will influence their selected audience’s views on a social justice issue.

Multiplication over 8 years!

I reconnected with one of the students that we took on a missions trip almost 8 years ago.
He sent this message and I hope his story of multiplication blesses you as much as it does me.

"Since my time at YWAM, I have graduated high school and have been studying at University of South Florida as a Computer Engineer. Life has been really good and God even better.

I've taken up the challenge of leading the congregation's youth. It's been a really big challenge, but I really love doing it. God is doing even greater things to reach His kingdom and I'm glad to be a part of it.

I would love to take our young people on a missions trip. I know when I went with YWAM, my life was forever changed. It was the first time I was bold enough to go out and spread the gospel. I was moved by the hunger the locals had to hear and receive of God's Word. I made strong friendships with people I still know today and who keep me accountable to Jesus. We still talk about all the memories and moments we shared.

It was such a big impact on my life and I would love for others to have a similar or even greater experience than I did with YWAM.

Thanks for everything!
Daniel Ajo"