In This Issue: Stayin’ Alive to Mission, Mobilization Approaches, and More
- ARTICLE: Approaches to Mobilization, Revisited
- WEBSITES: Six Mission Sites for Kids
- ARTICLE: 30 Ways to Stay Alive to Missions
- CURRICULUM: Social Justice and Transformation
- EVENTS: Retreats for Missionaries, Prospective Missionaries
Missions Catalyst is a free, weekly electronic digest of mission news and resources designed to inspire and equip Christians worldwide for global ministry. Use it to fuel your prayers, find tips and opportunities, and stay in touch with how God is building his kingdom all over the world. Please forward it freely!
Resource Reviews, edited by Marti Smith, are published once a month.
ARTICLE: Approaches to Mobilization, Revisited
By Marti Smith
I pulled the document out of the vault, blew off the dust, and read the title: “Moving God’s People to Strategic Involvement in World Evangelization.” Coworkers of mine had composed it around 1989 as the basis for our ministry’s strategic vision for the next decade. (I joined up halfway through.) Taking another look at what they wrote, I smile at how seriously we sometimes took ourselves. But I also remember how helpful some of those ideas had been and wondered which ones might be just as valid for you and me today, 20+ years later. Will you peer with me into the past and see?
“Our goal is not and cannot be merely to inform people of the world’s needs, to instill in them a biblical awareness of God’s purpose for the nations, or even to get them to make some vague commitment to do whatever they can to see the Great Commission fulfilled … our goal is and must be to help God’s people become strategically involved in completing the Great Commission.”
Are you in, so far? While we didn’t want to assume that our understanding of world mission was the only thing God was doing on the planet, we knew it mattered. Sure looked like the Great Commission (John 20:21, Luke 24:44-49, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8) had not been completed. Few of the resources of the Church worldwide were focused on world evangelization. So how do we mobilize more people? We observed that most seem to go through a process something like this:
Steps to Strategic Involvement
1. Initial exposure to the world’s situation
2. Growing biblical and global awareness
3. A vision of what can be done
4. A general commitment to do something
5. Waiting and guidance
6. Specific commitment to a particular ministry
7. Strategic involvement / active engagement
The problem we were grappling with back then was that no matter how much investment we made in helping people and groups of people through those initial steps, relatively few would make it all the way through the pipeline – especially to the more narrowly defined priority of supporting church-planting efforts among the unreached. They might make a serious commitment to give their lives to God’s global mission “wherever and however he leads” (a big step), but never become strategically involved in an ongoing way. We could name many of the obstacles. We also had a hunch that there were things that we, as mobilizers, might be able to do differently to help address them.
Approaches to Mobilization
| Type of Challenge | General (Christians need to reach the world) | Invitational (I’m doing this; will you come with me?) |
| Form of Contact | Impersonal, broadcast to the masses | Direct, appealing to small groups and individuals |
| Basis of Appeal | Information and statistics | Involvement and experience |
| Focus of Appeal | Global | Specific |
| Relational Context | Laissez-faire (You respond as God leads you) | Facilitative (I’ll walk with you) |
Looking at our own ministry we realized that we tended to invest in efforts that were information-based, using broadcast means, and issuing general challenges with a global focus and minimal relationship. Turns out that the further along people were in their steps to active engagement, the less effective these approaches tended to be. So we increased our investment in the right-hand-column approaches.
As years went by we also discovered that the ways an international or national mobilization ministry (or even a regional representative) could really help people get to a place of active engagement paled in comparison to what a pastor, mentor, or Bible study leader in a local church could do. So we started focusing more on equipping grass-roots mission leaders in local churches. Missions Catalyst was – is – part of that strategy.
So now I ask:
1. Is any of this still helpful? What would you add? What other principles and models have you picked up along the way?
2. What approaches do you and your church or ministry use to mobilize people for world mission? How are these approaches working? Is there anything you’d like to try doing differently?
>> Write to me or share your insights on our website.
We Love Because God First Loved Us
“The mission of God flows from the love of God. The mission of God’s people flows from our love for God and for all that God loves. World evangelization is the outflow of God’s love to us and through us. We affirm the primacy of God’s grace and we then respond to that grace by faith, demonstrated through the obedience of love. We love because God first loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Source: The Cape Town Commitment (newly released)
WEBSITES: Six Mission Sites for Kids
Source: Karen Hardin, Stand4Kids
“My church just finished our annual mission emphasis events,” writes Karen. “This year’s theme was how missionaries use technology to advance the gospel. Because kids are so computer savvy (and because our large-group teaching space was finally wired for the internet!), we chose to focus [the kids’ program] on mission websites for children. We introduced them to six websites that help them learn about other cultures and provide ways for them to pray for their peers who have not heard about Jesus.”
>> See what Karen recommended.
ARTICLE: 30 Ways to Stay Alive to Missions
Source: Desiring God
Desiring God put together a list of 30 practical steps church leaders can take to see that their congregations stay alive and true to the global mission of God. Here are the first five:
1. Place a large laminated map in your church’s lobby and ask every person to sign their name or initials on the nation for which they are burdened to pray regularly.
2. Host a visiting national pastor for a week or two of ministry and interaction with your church.
3. Budget for your pastors to make at least one cross-cultural ministry trip each year.
4. Identify a good book and study guide on global missions and lead your small groups through a church-wide study.
5. When your church sends out a short-term or long-term cross-cultural team, hang a national flag representing that country in your church lobby or sanctuary as a reminder to pray each week for the team or missionary.
CURRICULUM: Social Justice and Transformation
Source: Seek Social Justice, The Heritage Foundation
A woman in her 30s, mired in drug addiction and prostitution, is pregnant and alone. A middle-aged alcoholic lost his job, his wife, his home. A once-hardened convict struggles to find a job after release from prison. These problems are complex. Passion alone won’t solve them. Those who desire to make a difference must have effective strategies for overcoming human need.
Seek Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need is a six-lesson DVD and study guide for small groups developed by The Heritage Foundation, a leading Washington think tank. Chuck Colson, Albert Mohler Jr., Marvin Olasky, Star Parker, and Robert L. Woodson Sr. are among church and community leaders who provide insights.
Each lesson digs into roles and responsibilities of family, church, business, government, and individuals in promoting social justice by profiling real-world examples.
>> Learn more and download materials from the publisher or order a DVD and guide for the cost of shipping and handling.
Editor’s note: This resource is focused on local ministry, and all data and examples come from an American context.
EVENTS: Retreats for Missionaries, Prospective Missionaries
Source: Missions Catalyst Calendar
Women of the Harvest is organizing two more retreats for North American women who live and minister cross-culturally. This time they’re going to South America. These events fill up fast, so sign up soon.
October 16 to 19 (Foz do Iguacu, Brazil)
October 20 to 23 (Foz do Iguacu, Brazil)
The Journey Deepens weekend retreats help prospective missionaries explore what it is like to be a missionary, discover whether a missionary or sender role is God’s fit, and connect with mission agencies. Each retreat of about 50 participants and 10 missionaries from multiple agencies is highly relational with extended worship, small group discussions, personal reflection, and much prayer.
April 01 to 03 (Siloam Springs, AR, USA)
April 15 to 17 (Portland area, OR, USA)
May 27 to 29 (Bellevue, WA, USA)
June 03 to 05 (Dayton, IA, USA)
>> See our complete calendar for mission conferences, training opportunities, and other events.
Marti Smith is a writer, speaker, and project manager for Pioneers. Since the mid-90′s she has helped prepare cultural research teams and sent them out to explore unreached communities and mobilize efforts to serve these groups. Marti manages and publishes Missions Catalyst and is the author of Through Her Eyes, a book about the lives of missionary women in the Muslim world.
1. Is any of this still helpful? What would you add? What other principles and models have you picked up along the way?
Yes. This is helpful.
2. What approaches do you and your church or ministry use to mobilize people for world mission? How are these approaches working? Is there anything you’d like to try doing differently?
I’m promoting an inductive study (in Spanish http://www.misionmundial1.com.ar) under the theory that people in local churches need to “create understanding” together and on the basis of that understanding, create “common commitment.” This requires that people engage with each other in their own local church structure, not so much with us. But they need a process that leads them to concrete initiatives like adopting a people group, the missions conference, short-term mission, and/or faith promise or other “means” of personal and congregational engagement. I’m working primarily in Latin America but I’m wondering if there isn’t room for inductive studies (small groups working through self-instructional materials) that allows for creative and practical engagement at the end of the course. Maybe this already exists.
Hi Jonathan! Thanks for writing in.
I like the looks of your mission mundial…
There’s a power, isn’t there, in inductive study: discovering for yourself, what it is that God is saying (through prayer and the scriptures). Along with that community aspect and some practical handles, that can really change lives. If people do it. I think there’s still a need for proactive, encouraging leadership to keep fanning the flame. Most people don’t tend to mobilize themselves. God usually uses other people in their lives to take them to the next step.
I’m aware of a number of “mission Bible studies” and various small-group-based strategies. Good tools exist. But it’s that relational aspect that makes them effective, right? These tools in the hands of someone who is investing in and serving the people around them.
Marti