In the Company of Travellers. Season 1, Episode 2: Christlikeness in Our Relationship with the Father

Here is the interview transcription of Season 1, Episode 2. Guests: Kelly Chesnut, Alan Webster. Interviewer: Jo Johnson.

Jo: Welcome. With me today to discuss becoming more Christlike in our relationship with the Father together with our teams, departments, and organisations are Kelly Chesnut, who leads Wycliffe USA’s spiritual development, and Alan Webster, who is currently serving as director of Wycliffe South Africa. Both have served in church ministry as well as the Bible translation movement. Welcome and thank you for joining me.

Kelly Chesnut: Thank you for having us.

Alan Webster: Yeah.

Jo: Kelly, ladies first maybe. Is there a phrase, scripture or wisdom from your culture that’s guided the leadership and decision making of your organisation?

Kelly Chesnut: Oh, I think we have really camped on Mark 12:30 to 31 where it talks about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbour as our self. We really want to seek to use that as a framework both personally and organisationally for all that we are and do. We long to have our conduct, our conversations, our interactions to be marked by love for God and love for people. So as we’re asking, making decisions, we’re asking does this demonstrate love for God and love for people. So Mark 12:30-31 really encapsulates the wisdom that we seek to have.

Host: That’s completely awesome. I love that. And Alan, what’s a recent experience or encounter that deepened your understanding of Christlikeness?

Alan Webster: Yeah, thanks Jo. One of the things that has really spoken to my heart about the way that Jesus relates to the Father comes from John 5:19. And Jesus says, “I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father do. For whatever the Father does that the son does likewise. In verse 20 it also says the Father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing.” So there’s this wonderful interplay between the Father and the son of complete openness revealing what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, what they’re saying and Jesus saying I only do what I see the Father doing. So we’ve tried to bring that into the situation of how we operate as a team. And we recently had a situation where we got news last year about some challenges with funding. And it was right at the point we were about to go on a staff retreat. And I was sitting with this news and the rest of the team didn’t know this news. And we got to a point where I wasn’t sure whether I should break the news to everybody. But I think based on this openness that Jesus has with the Father, there was a point where I kind of risked it with the team and said, “Okay, I need to tell you something. We’re talking about great things and fruitfulness and growth, but here’s the, here’s the spanner in the works.” And what was amazing was that we actually dealt with the issue. We chatted together and as a team, we came out to the decision that we’re actually going to trust God and not change anything that we felt God was calling us to. And that’s been such a helpful thing that the challenge of walking in faith is owned by the whole team, not just the leadership or the board, although everybody’s on board with this. And the Lord has really come through and blessed us to close some of the funding gaps in this current year, but it’s been such a wonderful thing just that it’s owned and known. There’s complete transparency, which means everybody’s in on it. We can encourage each other. We pray into the situation and the Lord has brought us through. It’s been great.

Jo: That’s absolutely extraordinary. Did you have any moments of doubt in that process or were you able to just, because you decided together, move forward more easily?

Alan Webster: Yeah, I mean it was such a strength because when they’ve been I mean it wasn’t things didn’t happen all at once and everything came right. It’s been a journey where even still we’re walking through that trusting God. But yeah, I think just the encouragement of the whole team there sometimes when some people may be questioning and wondering but then the others can actually just step in and say don’t don’t forget we trusting God in this don’t lose faith don’t lose your courage in this so we’ve been able to help each other I’ve been actually quite confident because it wasn’t my decision it was our decision so I haven’t really had personal doubts in the process but also knowing that God could do whatever he wants to do Wycliffe South Africa belongs to him so whatever journey he wants us to go down, that’s fine.

Jo: It’s interesting how we’re not really talking about community a lot today, but that idea that when we trust God together, there is a greater strength than just trying to do it on our own. I love that. One of the things I love about Jesus is he had a really close and intimate relationship with the Father. Can you share a time where your team or your organisation pursued intimacy with God like Jesus did with the Father. And I just wonder what helped deepen that connection.

Kelly Chesnut: You know, if you look in scripture and you see Jesus’s time with the Father, he was very intentional about it. He’s doing ministry, but in the midst of ministry, he steps away to reconnect. I mean, not reconnect necessarily because he was in constant connection with the Father, right? But to be away from the crowds, so to speak, and all the things that were pulling for his attention that he was so graciously giving attention to, but his attention needed to be with his Father. And so with us, we want to be intentional about rhythms of time with the Father. So it’s not necessarily one event, but because we are so sold out to seeing individuals and families and communities transformed by the translated word. We want to remind each other that we too need to engage with the Father so that we can continue to be transformed by his presence. So one of the things that we do to regularly pursue intimacy with the Father is what we call God sightings. It is a time where we are deliberately looking for how we see the Father at work. Sometimes we’ll share them in an email series. Sometimes we’ll have a global town meeting and we’ll ask for stories and people share them in the chat or in other ways. We want to be able to have our staff see how God is at work in their contexts and we want to develop eyes that see the Father’s presence and work in every way. So we also do this through weekly chapels. Every week we gather together on Zoom no matter where our staff are and we share those God stories there. We do a devotional series. We called it deeply rooted because it is based on Colossians 2:7 which talks about let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him so that our faith grows in the truth that we were taught. And so we’ll with our deeply rooted we are very intentional about connecting with the Father and we’ll choose a theme or a topic a scripture passage that we just spend a series of weeks engaging in devotional with scriptural truths to connect us to different themes that we’re seeing God at work in. And then with that, each department or team comes together every week and they have group discussion questions. And then there’s personal reflection questions so that people can really engage in it together. And it’s not a solo event, but it’s how we grow together and engage as a community with the Father to apply his word to our daily lives. And I really think this has helped shape our culture, our organisational culture as we do grow in that Mark 12 learning to love God and love people more.

Alan Webster: Okay. I just was wondering, that sounds like it’s part of your portfolio. Do you have a team around you and how do you spend time alone in developing some of those intentionalities?

Kelly Chesnut: Yes, I will meet with the executive leadership team to see what they’re seeing if they have a theme that they want to… Right now we are actually doing a series called “eyes to see”. And in this case, I have interviewed people from all over the world in a variety of roles to hear their story of how they’re seeing God at work. And then I will write the devotional for them. They will approve it based upon the interview that they have given me and we add the Scripture readings and the group discussion questions. So that is very much a part of and my joy to do. I love being able to have these conversations. And writing these devotionals is a little bit like breathing for me. It gives me life. So I have to be able to spend time with the Father myself in order to be the vessel that he wants to be for these people to share their stories.

Alan Webster: I mean it’s wonderful that you have yourself that’s able to focus on that aspect and bring that through to the team. Do you find people if they’re coming out of say more of a business background, not a missionary background that they find it unusual that time is spent on a work day or a work week in these sort of spiritual formation times.

Kelly Chesnut: Yes. Because many times for a business person that’s their separate time and then they go and do their job. But we find that because our work is spiritual work, this has to be part of our regular rhythms. This is not just a job or a task. What we do is spiritual work. And if we are not engaging our hearts and minds with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then we’re missing out. I think God has blessed us culturally within our organisational culture because it’s just a fun place to work and be with this group of people because I think we’re all pursuing the Father together.

Alan Webster: We had a meeting this morning, actually, there’s an IT cohort that is being trained nearby from various places around Africa. They, in their devotion this morning they were looking about committing your ways to the Lord, and how we can commit our work to God. It reminded me of a lesson that I had some years ago where they looked at the root Hebrew word for worship is the same root word for work. And we’ve sometimes separated our work from our worship that actually it’s integrated.

Kelly Chesnut: Yes, very much so. Even as a young mom, I remember reading something that I can change a baby’s diaper and that is an act of worship if my heart is postured as an act of worship before the Lord rather than yeah… So, it doesn’t matter what kind of work you’re doing, sometimes toiling away and grueling, sometimes the mental load that comes with it, it can still be an act of worship if our heart posture is directed toward the Lord.

Alan Webster: Yeah. I think we also are, we value the rhythms. One of the things that we’ve brought in in the last couple of years is to have a day that is set aside once a month for prayer and fasting and we don’t say to everybody this is how you’ve got to do it. It’s up to each person how they want to but we then spend a couple of hours in that day where we also invite the team from other areas that are not only in the office. Somebody prepares some worship songs and a devotion and we just commit to pray for our team, for our workers, for the work that we’re doing in the field and we get some updates on how people are doing and it’s just really wonderful to take that time out as it were sacrifice some work time if you know that’s not really what we see it as part of the work it’s a bit of a mind shift for some people when they start like how could you be we’ve got work to do this is the work and I found those times really really rich they also help to build community and friendship with one another because we are relating to each other on a deeper spiritual level. So that’s been really helpful.

Kelly Chesnut: I was thinking with that, that so much of who we are, we bring to our work and that includes the challenges that we face in our personal lives. And so if we don’t have a place where we can share those with one another and pray for one another in those things, it makes for a less rich environment to serve in. And so what you’re doing with your team is, that’s a beautiful thing.

Alan Webster: Yeah. And Kelly, you know, it’s kind of seeping into now the rest of the time so that it’s more than just set aside times which are important but that in our kind of regular relating to each other we starting to find that people when they share something because often people share things and you go oh that’s so terrible I’ll be thinking about you but actually then people say let’s pray now and we just grab people out the office this person needs prayer and we’re still growing in that but it’s just so amazing to see that the team is taking this into the just a regular relating to each other.

Kelly Chesnut: We did several years ago where we called it on the spot prayer to train people to do that because often our response is to say I’ll pray for you and then the day continues on and we’ve forgotten. So to stop on the spot and pray right then and there is a beautiful practice.

Host: Thank you both. Gosh, we could keep going on that I think all day. Moving direction just a little. Alan already mentioned a time when the team has had to completely trust God for direction or provision. I would just love to hear from Kelly and again from Alan if he has more to add. What did that journey of dependence look like? How can we rely better on the Father?

Kelly Chesnut: Well, we are right in the middle of a very intense “trusting the Father” and walking closely with him as we see Vision 2025 coming closer and closer and being achieved, our leadership has really sensed God calling us to a deeper surrender to his mission. Not that we weren’t before, but we knew that to see Vision 2025 achieved means even more funds would be needed to close the gap of what we’re already investing. And so God was inviting us to take a deeper look and consider what that might mean. So in prayerfully asking what it meant to be all-in. We as leadership felt God calling us to take a bold step of faith that none of us saw coming except maybe our president because he’s the one who kind of found himself receiving a word from the Lord on this. But since the pandemic, the way we work has shifted dramatically and a lot of our staff are now working remotely or distributed across the country. And so as a result, our building has sat mostly empty. So after a lot of prayerful discernment, as a team and with our board and in prayer with our staff, we made the decision to put our property up for sale. And it was not easy. Many of us, including me, deeply love this place. It’s home. It’s a symbol of belonging for many of us for years. So, letting go has been a real loss for many of us. But our journey of dependence has truly been a step-by-step journey. All the way from asking God to send the right broker to help us, to discern various buying offers. And when our first intended buyer fell through, it would have been easy for doubts to set in, but we knew that God wasn’t caught by surprise. And we’ve seen him continue to move in ways that have really confirmed each step of his leading. So, currently, we are under contract for the sale of the main building, and that’s that closing is anticipated for early next year. But, you know, there’s a lot of hoops to jump through with the state and the county and then we have a potential buyer for the remaining property because we also own some land around us. But regardless of how the selling process takes place, we know that the timing is all in the Father’s hands. That also includes trusting him for our next location because we do need to find another place that is going to fit our needs not just now but also looking into the future. So our staff have been patiently and rather peacefully and prayerfully waiting for the Father to show us those next steps. But what’s exciting for us is knowing that the proceeds from the sales of our property will be reinvested directly into Bible translation and it’s going to advance the very mission that we believe God has called us to. So while this journey has involved sacrifice, it has also been filled with clear signs of God’s faithfulness.

Alan Webster: Amazing.

Jo: It really is. I mean, that’s courageous to take that step.

Kelly Chesnut: Yeah. Something that some people would say “crazy”, but those who know our ELT, our executive leadership team, and particularly our president knows that courage is something that they want. They want to live with bold and courageous faith.

Jo: …and it goes hand-in-hand with obedience actually, I think God often asks us to obey and we know maybe the beginning of the journey, but we certainly don’t know the end.

Kelly Chesnut: Absolutely.

Jo: And it’s, you know, you have to take your courage in your hands and say, “Okay, Lord, whatever it turns out to look like we’re going down this route together with you”. So, that’s really exciting.

Kelly Chesnut: Well, and when you think of the Psalms where it says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Sometimes all we have is enough light to take that next step. He doesn’t necessarily illuminate the entire path. And so, it’s, sometimes it’s a step by step, but he’s been so faithful and we have no doubt that this is what he’s called us to and he’s providing and again it’s his timing and his way may not look the way we thought but we trust him. He’s so trustworthy.

Jo:.. and one of the things I love is that principle of his trustworthiness and him guiding us and directing us. That’s true whether you’re a very large organisation or a relatively small one, whether you’re in the Americas or Africa or Asia or Europe. None of those things change the truths about the Father for us.

Kelly Chesnut: Absolutely.

Alan Webster: I think just for me in this last year as we’ve been journeying in this place, the lesson that I have learned or starting to learn is in terms of trusting God in that place. If you are trying to consolidate. If you’re trying to pull things back into an affordability, something that you can handle, then dreaming is counterproductive because dreams will cost money. But if you are sure that God is with you and he’s leading you in this process and if you have built I mean we’re not building a trust on something that is untrustworthy. God has proven himself to be trustworthy. Then dreaming is actually helpful because it’s inspiring. And we’ve had times in the last year where we took the team through a dream session and we said kind of take the boundaries off and just dream obviously based on who we are and where the trajectory we’re going. And what we found is actually some of those dream things that we didn’t really necessarily take hugely seriously. We weren’t going to now move in that direction, but they were just fun things to have. Some of those things have actually kicked in. One of those just to share was that we were saying in the world with the least and the last and the last of the nations that are still coming in and being reached and having Bible translations available, they will be the first and the greatest in terms of the speaking about or the testimony of God’s glory in the earth. If the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth one day, then how do people know about these stories that are coming from the least and the last. So we were saying obviously with media that we have to tell a compelling story but what about if we had to bring people to those communities and so we came up with this concept is not our concept but we said what about mission tourism that we could have people that could come and visit and we could facilitate tours and then we got a call from Wycliffe Canada to say could you facilitate a tour in South Africa. We’ve just recently had eight people from Canada that came and all of them either exploring their call into Bible translation or into missions. And it was life-changing for them and wonderful for us to facilitate that. After the Global Gathering last year, we had three Wycliffe organisations from Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Denmark that we facilitated a tour. We didn’t try and make it happen. It was just a request that’s also happening. Wycliffe UK is going to have a team that’s going to come in a couple of months or weeks to join us. So, this mission tourism thing was a dream, kind of a funny idea that’s actually now happening and we’re now saying, “Okay, Lord, we we want to take this seriously because it seems you’re taking it seriously. You’re bringing this our way.” And what a wonderful.. the effects of that have been amazing. Not just positive in seeing what God is doing, but actually in terms of building partnerships with other organisations has been exceptional.

Jo: Goodness, that is amazing. And I love that idea that we can dream almost to let our ideas out of a box that maybe we limit God by not believing he wants to do so much or we see our limitations and we say, “Well, he’s going to have to work within those parameters.” But you’re just saying that in fact the opposite is true that when we start allowing ourselves to dream with God, he opens up all sorts of possibilities.

Alan Webster: You know, I was just looking at this passage, we were looking at the times when the Father spoke audibly so that people could hear him saying things about his son. And the third time that we have that happening is right as he’s about to enter Jerusalem close to the crucifixion. And it’s when Gentiles are coming. And seems that that was a critical moment that when the Gentiles came recognising Jesus and then Jesus could finally say now the hour has come and then this voice comes from heaven about glorifying him and you know it’s like at this moment where we kind of sometimes see the crucifixion as a dark period from God’s perspective this is the salvation of the world there’s like there’s almost this accelerate now the hour is here I will glorify your name it’s like this amazing amazing thing. And I think if we can have that heart to see even the challenges that we walk through are actually great opportunities for God to be glorified, I think it can change our perspective.

Jo: And I really love as well that the stories that you’re telling me, they start with depending on God, but it’s through the whole process there’s discerning God’s will together and living in submission to what he’s saying to us. And it’s kind of like this entire package that it’s not just well, we’ll hang on and we’ll depend on him but as he shows us the way forward he brings so much blessing. Okay. So what’s a story of your organisation expressing love for God in a tangible or memorable way? It’s a bit of a change in tack.

Kelly Chesnut: I think because we are such a large organisation scattered across the nation we have more stories of departments or teams rather than as a whole. But several of our departments have joined together to express God’s love by serving meals at a homeless shelter or participating in a team service project with local communities. Others have engaged in what I call an encouragement campaign where they do an onslaught of writing notes of encouragement to staff or donors thanking them for their service. I think one of the ways we love God communally again is our gathering together for our weekly chapel. We call it “entermission”. It’s like an intermission where you’re halfway through the week, but we’re entering into mission together. So, there’s a little word play there, but we also do quarterly worship and of course our World Day of Prayer. But I think another example of practically showing the love of Christ occurred. We live in Florida. Our headquarters are in Florida. We have hurricane season. And so when we have a series of strong hurricanes that sweep through Florida. Even last year, many of our staff and their families experienced flooding and damage in their homes. And so, our staff came together and assisted co-workers and others in the neighborhoods by cleaning up yards and offering rooms in our homes. We had someone come stay with us while their house was in 3 feet of water. Providing funds to replace household items. Those types of tangible ways are just beautiful moments to demonstrate the love of God that we sometimes don’t even realise the impact it has on the individual that we’re serving. It impacts us tremendously. But sometimes we think you know, we are doing it to serve the other person, but in turn, God does it to change us.

Alan Webster: That idea of more blessed to give than to receive. You really feel it in those times. 

Jo: Well, thank you both very much. I wonder if there is a question on this topic that you would like to hear about from or hear answers from our global community on? Is there something that you would like to ask the Alliance community?

Alan Webster: Yeah, just thinking about the way that you know Jesus who has all authority in heaven and in earth. He entrusts the authority of his Kingdom to the disciples. And so my question is how are we entrusting the authority of Bible translation work to the local communities where we work?

Kelly Chesnut: I think for me one of the questions I have and in fact our sermon this last week at church encouraged us to take just five minutes of silence before the Lord and five minutes is a lot of time for your mind to go in a lot of different directions. So my question is when was the last time you just sat with God not asking for anything but just to be with the Father like Jesus did and what might be preventing you from spending intentional time with God like this?

Host: Beautiful. Thank you both so much. Is there anything else that you would like to contribute on this subject that we’ve not had time to cover so far or that I’ve not asked the right question?

Kelly Chesnut: I would say one thing to consider is so much of our view of the Father, God the Father, is many times rooted in our own relationships with our earthly fathers. I had a great dad, but I grew up with an understanding of God the Father being disappointed in me when I blew it, when I didn’t obey. Because all it took was my dad giving me a look and I would crumble under that look because I’m a recovering people pleaser. And so, I think sometimes our perspective of our heavenly Father can be rooted in our relationship with our earthly father. And like I said, I had a great relationship with mine. Still do. He’s 90 years old. But I viewed for a lot of years God the Father as being disappointed in me when I didn’t do what I should do or I did what I shouldn’t do. And he has changed that perspective drastically as he’s grown me in my own faith. Do some study of who the Father is and who he is to Jesus and who he is to his people Israel and see what scripture has to say about it. and then realign your experience with your own earthly father with the truth of who our heavenly Father is.

Host: That’s really beautiful. Thank you. Alan, was there anything else that you wanted to add on this subject?

Alan Webster: Just I think what strikes me is that even in the passage in John 5 says the Father’s always working. He’s doing things and sometimes we kind of feel that it’s up to us and we’ve been given instruction and God kind of sits back and says, “Well, let’s see how they’re going to do.” That he’s actually calling us into partnership with what he’s doing. He’s active. And if God is active, then what do we have to fear? The process might not necessarily be comfortable. The process might not necessarily be easy, but it’s always going to be worth it. And he’s a good, good Father.