Belief Tree – Darlene Cunningham

From an early age Darlene Cunningham was aware of a distinct calling from God on her life. Loren and Darlene Cunningham co-founded Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and have been ministering around the world for over 50-years.

Darlene is a “prime mover” in YWAM in the areas of facilitation of vision and leadership development. One of her greatest heart motivations is to discover leadership gifts in young men and women, and to help them reach their full potential in God.

Darlene is eagerly sought as a speaker worldwide because she is recognized as a woman of faith and wisdom who hears from God. She is uniquely qualified and experienced to give leadership to those within Youth With A Mission because she understands the lifestyle, pressures and joys of the Mission from an inside perspective. Whatever the context, she constantly points the hearer to God’s faithfulness in every situation, and His great grace

The Belief Tree is one of our most requested teachings from Darlene Cunningham. You can read the teaching on the web-site, www.ywampodcast.net, as well as watch a YouTube video, or listen on this podcast.

The Belief Tree

by Darlene Cunningham with David Joel Hamilton and Dawn Gauslin

Jesus’ strategy to evangelize the world was to multiply Himself into His disciples, who would reproduce men and women of like vision and values, who would multiply disciples, and so on (2 Tim 2:2). The goal was and is to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), to disciple all the nations (Matthew 28:19) and to produce fruit that will remain (John 15:16). This is the call of Youth With A Mission and University of the Nations, and should be the goal of every disciple.

How is good and lasting fruit produced? How do we reproduce in others the vision and values God has given to YWAM? It is not enough to be well organized and pass on information: we need to have ingested the foundational beliefs of the faith and the values of the Mission in order to pass them on to successive waves of learners. If this is not done, we will only copy a model and we will never be able to answer the “why” questions.

We need to know what we do believe and why, and we need to know what we do not believe and why.

The Bible uses many illustrations of trees, soil, vines, pruning, fruit, leaves and seeds to speak to us about our lives, ministry and fruitfulness. I first heard the analogy of the “Belief Tree” from Darrow Miller, of Disciple Nations Alliance, who speaks on biblical Christian worldview. He teaches that “ideas have consequences,” that there is a direct link between roots and fruit, what we believe and how we behave. I have since developed the illustration and use it as a foundation for nearly everything I teach. This simple illustration can provide a reference point, a measuring rod, for making decisions and evaluating the fruit of your ministry both individually and corporately. I trust that God will use it to bring insight and impart life to you in such a deep way that it becomes a part of your “toolbox” as well.

As you consider a tree, the soil represents our worldview. The roots represent our foundational beliefs; the trunk represents our values. The branches represent our principle-based decisions and policies. The fruit represents our actions/programs. The seeds represent the genetic code for reproducing life. And of course, the DNA of that First Seed was/is Jesus Himself, living in us! In order for there to be cycles of healthy life, the DNA must flow from the roots, through the trunk, along the branches and into the fruit. The seeds in the fruit start the process all over again.

SOIL = WORLDVIEW

One of the first things it is important to identify about ourselves and/or others is, “What is the environmental worldview that I was raised in, and what is the worldview of those I’m relating to?” Even though you may have come to Christ through the work of the cross, what is the background that has influenced your family, your culture and your thinking, even in subtle ways? This is the soil in which your “tree” grows. Is it Animistic? Hindu? Muslim? Secular humanism? This will affect the glasses through which you see everything. Much of the western world has a Judeo-Christian background, but it has declined into a worldview of secular humanism: “It’s all about me. If it feels good, do it. Truth is relative–it’s whatever I think is right for me.” Even in the way we present the gospel, it is important that we do not feed this lie. We value the individual, but we don’t worship the individual! It’s all about Jesus!

Often the errors in the worldview in which we have been raised need to be transformed to align with a biblical Christian worldview, which then forms the tap root of our beliefs. Four foundational truths of Christianity, identified by Dr. Francis Schaeffer, which must be included in our beliefs are:
1) God is infinite and p...