In This Issue: Four Reasons Mobilizers Avoid Social Media
- FEATURE: Overlooking the Tools Right in Front of Our Face(book)
- SUBVERSIVE MOBILIZATION: A Meeting of the Mobilizers
- EVENTS: New on the Missions Catalyst Calendar
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FEATURE: Overlooking the Tools Right in Front of our Face(book) – Four Reasons Mobilizers Avoid Social Media
Full Disclosure: These ideas are drawn largely from Gary Vaynerchuk’s March 2011 book, The Thank You Economy. The thoughts about how Gary’s points work out in the world of mobilization, well, I’ve stolen them from a variety of people.
You’ve got a cause, right? A belief. A sense from God that there is huge work to do and too few of us doing it. So you pray (a decidedly biblical response). But then God seems to nudge you to take further action: to enlighten, encourage, console, cajole, facilitate, and activate other potential pray-ers and workers. This is mobilization. Mobilization, throughout history, has been done both well and poorly, but usually with great vigor and often using the best tools available to the mobilizer.
Over the past few years we’ve watched as a really cool new toolbox (or toybox) has been moved from the shadows into everyday life: social media.
Internet-based tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allow users (most of us now) the kind of interactions with one another and with businesses that were once limited to a more “local” lifestyle and economy.
In The Thank You Economy, Vaynerchuk scolds businesses that don’t engage the power of social media to care for their customers. If they don’t, he asserts, someone else will.
Now I don’t want to encourage trying to snatch potential workers from other agencies, projects, churches, or ministries. “Our new Facebook page for the Cemetery Auxiliary Committee snagged eight new members right from the Ladies’ Aid. We destroyed them. Bwah hah hah hah!!” Rather, we’re competing against a more formidable opponent. We’re going head to head with our human tendency to want to sit on the couch and watch TV in comfort, in proximity to people very much like us and our favorite flavor of potato chips. That and a few other cultural, social, ecclesiological, and spiritual factors.
Given that the challenge is so large, I say we use every tool available to the best of our ability. That includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others. The thing that most of us do have is something Vaynerchuk hammers on mercilessly: We really care about what we’re doing. You read Missions Catalyst because you care about missions. You put your neck out to invite someone to love people they don’t know because you love those people. You also love the person you’re inviting. And you love the God who will end up with the glory.
That care has a new avenue of expression. Social media streams open huge doors for us. You may disagree. Or maybe you agree but your supervisor doesn’t. You may just be kind of hesitant. But check out these reasons that businesses have given Vaynerchuk for avoiding engaging in social media. See how he responds. Consider the implications for people like you and me.
1. We think the trend will pass.
The talk today is all about how fast the world is changing. Will social media even be an issue in a few years? If you invest money, time, and energy into building online relationships and systems, will you lose that investment? Facebook ate MySpace. What if you invest in a Facebook presence and something else comes along?
Vaynerchuk says, “. . . it wouldn’t matter. If users one day abandon Facebook in favor of something better, they won’t be jumping off the train, they’ll simply be moving to a new car. Move with them. The relationships you’ve worked to build won’t evaporate so long as you follow your customers and keep up the caring.”
2. We need to control our message.
Some businesses avoid social media for reasons rooted in a fear that if opportunity allows it, someone will say something bad about their company. Maybe their employees will be the ones who blow it. Vaynerchuk says: great. You want to hear what people are complaining about. Hearing your employees speak out helps you know if you’ve made good hiring decisions!
For us, the issue here might be protecting friends who don’t want their work widely discussed. This is an area in which we in the missions community need to grow. How can we do what we feel like God wants us to do in a world where identity and information is increasingly instant, global, and permanent? If you’ve seen great examples of how ministries sensitively manage online information, please tell us about them in the comments section of our website. If you’ve seen bad examples, please let the perpetrator know!
3. We don’t have time for one more thing.
Maybe you feel like you just don’t have time to launch into social media, start conversations, maintain online relationships, and respond to comments – and you don’t want to or can’t afford to pay someone else to do it for you.
You may be right. But if your audience is moving this way, don’t let them leave the station without you. Maybe some of us need to stop doing some stuff we’re doing and start doing new things. This could also be an opportunity to enlist and empower someone who has the skills and time you lack.
4. We’re doing fine without it.
Yes, and you once did fine without copy machines, cell phones, and computers. My wife and I recently entertained the kids with our tale of how we produced prayer letters long ago. We’d shoot a photo on film. Get it developed. Have the printer half-tone it! Affix it to the typewritten page, into which we’d X-Acto-knifed a tidy window, with rolled-on molten wax! Then the printer would reproduce it. We’d put it in an envelope onto which we’d affix licked stamps. And we would have no idea if people read those letters. As I wrapped up the story, I realized how grateful I am for MailChimp.
So maybe you’re fine without social media. But unless you’re up to your ears in people you’re sending to the ends of the earth, it may be time to try some new tools. Let’s give this a go. There are still peoples waiting for their first workers.
Tune in next month for tips on how to effectively harness social media to extend God’s blessing to Abraham to all peoples. In the meantime, you can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and my occasionally updated blog.
SUBVERSIVE MOBILIZATION: A Meeting of the Mobilizers
Here’s one of my favorite pithy, snarky comebacks. Of course I didn’t think it up in the white-hot moment of greatest need and potential impact. I read it online three days later while eating a bowl of cereal.
“Your opinion is really none of my business.”
I love that. I think it occasionally when someone is telling me what they think and I honestly don’t really care what they think. In just a moment, though, I’m going to ask what you think, and I really do care!
A day after this column hits the ether I’ll be attending a meeting of full-time mission mobilizers in lovely Indianapolis. The following questions will be chewed on relentlessly. Can you take a couple of minutes to scan the list and respond to the two or three questions that most capture your imagination? If so, three things will happen:
1. The meeting will be helped by your wisdom and input.
2. When I report the answers, I’ll look really smart. (I promise that after a few minutes I’ll tell where the answers came from. Really, I promise.)
3. The Miss Cat Crew, that’s me and you, will get a voice at this meeting without paying for the registration, booking a flight and hotel room, or having to eat at Chili’s. That’s what makes this subversive mobilization!
Here are the questions. Thank you for your valuable time to answer one, two, or a few of them in the comments.
1. How would you define mobilization?
2. How would you describe your organization’s philosophy of mobilization?
3. In your experience, what mobilization practices seem to best serve potential candidates?
4. What mobilization practices seem to best serve your agency or denomination?
5. What mobilization practices seem to best serve the receiving teams where candidates might serve?
6. What mobilization practices most honor other agencies or denominations?
7. What mobilization practices most honor the Lord?
>> Share your brilliance in the comments on our website.. (Don’t forget to tell us which question you’re answering.) Thanks!
EVENTS: New on the Missions Catalyst Calendar
June 02 to 04 – ACMI Annual Conference (Columbia, SC, USA). Sponsored by the Association of Christians Ministering to Internationals. Featuring foreign affairs journalist David Aikman and many helpful seminars.
>> Take a look at the Missions Catalyst Events Calendar and help us populate it! Surely there are more upcoming mission events we haven’t heard about. Let us know and we’ll put them in our May 25 email. Thanks.
Shane Bennett has served in missions mobilization since 1987, much of his energy going to recruiting, training, and sending short-term teams. He’s been on research teams in Bangkok, Bombay, and Turkey. He coauthored Exploring the Land, a guide to researching unreached peoples, and has written numerous articles.
Shane now works as a public speaker for Frontiers and is part-time missions pastor at Union Chapel. He and his wife, Ann, have five school-aged children. They live and work in Indiana.
Hey Shane, I’m looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. I’ll be at the Ideation as well. So what is our Twitter hashtag going to be??? Last year I used #mobidea10. Shall we go with #mobidea11?
I really liked your 4 reasons mobilizers avoid social media. I’ve been leading webinars and workshops on social media for mobilizers and I think you’ve really hit on some of the biggest objections. I think the need to control the message is also huge within mission organization structures. We tend to be pretty old-school that way and I’ve found it extremely difficult to break out of that without being downright subversive. 🙂 What a great word!
I haven’t sent my responses back to your unnamed source yet, but I would answer ? the third with “servanthood”. I’ve found that the most powerful and effective way I can mobilize is by first being a servant to those I am mobilizing, getting to know them and their gifts and passions, and then helping plug them in to whatever ministry fits them best, whether that is mine or someone else’s. Steve Moore talks about it as a development model of mobilizing. I”m willing to spend a significant amount of time with people, encouraging, training and building them up regardless of where they might eventually serve.
As a final comment, our social media team here at Lutheran Bible Translators is currently reading through a few social media books. The Thank You Economy is one of them. I’ve heard lots of good things about it and look forward to reading it. Right now, my social media reading includes Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne and Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard.
The Lord instituted the family, and while He doesn’t hold it above His call to reach the world with the gospel, He is honored when mobilizing agencies and churches (and even colleges) remember that recruits have sending families. Then they would:
1) consider those sending families their allies and not view the very real grief of parents as a crisis of faith (it seldom is);
2) train recruits in how to relate to their families as they prepare and depart;
3) have a system for connecting sending parents with one another, including a way for parents to meet one another in person as well as by e-mail or a secure social-media-type website.
Our church did a good job when our daughter and son-in-law were preparing to go. The missions minister came to our home for a Q&A session, we were invited to a dinner with the couple’s shepherding group (unfortunately someone there compared our experience to dropping his daughter off at college–NOT!), and we participated in the commissioning service. Our daughter and her husband were encouraged to spend plenty of time with both families during the year before they left. They came to dinner at our house once a week and we took a vacation together. All of this built a sense of inclusion but more importantly an emotional connection that helped us bridge the geographic and cultural miles to their new home.
Most parents support their missionaries, or they want to but need some help. So many recruits are quite young, and the relationships between parents and their twenty-somethings are already in transition or in difficulty. Go-ers honor the Lord when they honor their parents as they go. The book I co-wrote with Cheryl Savageau, PARENTS OF MISSIONARIES (Biblica, 2008) has lots of insight for sending organizations willing to focus on the primary senders, the families of origin.
Thanks for the listen! Blessings on your meeting,
Diane Stortz
National Network of Parents of Missionaries
http://www.pomnet.org
To the last question:
Go-ers honor the Lord when they honor their parents as they go, and mobilizers honor the Lord when they help go-ers do that.
I just wrote you a long comment that I somehow deleted….grrr. The gist: Parents want to be supportive. They experience very real grief, especially when there are grandchildren involved. This is normal and not a crisis of faith.
1) Teach recruits how to say goodbye well (include parents in plans; resolve relationship issues; spend time with families before leaving).
2) Provide means for POMs to connect with one another (preferably face to face, or on a secure social-media-type site).
3) Consider POMs your allies (don’t ignore them, and definitely don’t consider them obstacles).
The book I co-wrote with Cheryl Savageau, PARENTS OF MISSIONARIES (Biblica, 2008) has lots of insight for mobilizers willing to consider this issue (which extends to siblings too, not just parents).
Thanks for the listen. Blessings on your meeting.
Diane Stortz
National Network of Parents of Missionaries
http://www.pomnet.org
Answers to mobilization questions:
1. Mobilization is the act of inciting interest in missions and facilitating the involvement of individual Christians in cross-cultural ministry (missions).
2. not sure how to answer this question. We don’t really have a philosophy, we just do missions as an expression of love and gratitude to our savior.
3.
4. We don’t work with agencies or denominations. We are a non-denominational independent church partnering directly with nationals.
5. Realizing that the indigenous workers with whom we are partnering are the real heroes, the real visionaries, the real leaders. We are little more than servants (the Western church) and our job is to facilitate theirs, and to love them in practical ways. We frequently ask the field workers, “What are the best ways we can love you?” In most cases we can only learn that by being there with them as often as possible. We frequently bring small, strategic short-term teams to the field or bring field workers to us, so we can get to know each other. I can’t know what’s in your toolbox until I have worked with you in your shop (and vice-versa). God has gifted us with certain things. He has gifted them with certain things. And the only way of really knowing what those things are is to know each other. Then we can see how our gifts compliment each other’s needs. There is so much more, but I have to go to work now… (sorry).
6.
7. Servant-hood, ministering to the ministers, deference to the wisdom of locals who live on the field, and asking them (those directly ministering on the field) what they need from us (instead of telling them what they need). In the end it’s all about love.
Readers, let me take a stab at questions 1-3:
1. How would you define mobilization?
2. How would you describe your organization’s philosophy of mobilization?
3. In your experience, what mobilization practices seem to best serve potential candidates?
Our January 26 article “Question: What’s a Mobilizer to Do? https://missionscatalyst.net/?p=2060 asked “What is the task of a mission mobilizer?” Is it mobilizing people to join mission agencies and be missionaries? Some of us define it more broadly; our mandate includes stirring up senders, intercessors, etc. as well.
I believe we need to acknowledge both the differences between those two “missions,” and how they are connected, then choose to honor one another and work together. I think of the recent cooperative effort between the “agency-neutral” Perspectives program with the sending-agency OMF to create the “6 Ways to Reach God’s World” mobilization videos which we mentioned in that edition.
Our February 9 article “Approaches to Mobilization, Revisited” https://missionscatalyst.net/?p=2085 dug up Caleb Project’s old “funnel” diagram (the steps to strategic involvement) and four aspects of how we approach mobilization. Combined, the two models suggest that how far people are along the spectrum from general awareness to strategic engagement effects what type of input is going to be most appropriate. Similarly, what it is we’re trying to accomplish and the “stage” of the people we’re connecting with should suggest that certain tools and practices are going to be more effective for us than others. Or to look at it from another angle, we can look at what a specific mobilizer or team of mobilizers has to offer, and what their passions and limitations are, and say, what’s the best contribution we can seek to make given the skills and opportunities we have?
blessings,
Marti Smith
1) To inspire, to mentor, and to deploy godly men and women of all professions to the nations.
2) In one word: mentorship We seek to disciple, future cross-cultural disciple makers to move them along on their journey to the nations.
3) One on one investment, listening, and asking good questions, speaking truth to them in love. Giving them access to those who have field experience.
4) Knowing our candidate really well, prior to their application. We have less surprises during assessment time.
5) Knowing our niche; and referring people to other organizations early on.
6) The discipleship of candidates in all areas of life as they prepare to go. Helping them understand it is not about them getting to the field but about God being glorified in their life along the way. Going that is birth out of Worship of God. Being an advocate for them before the Lord.
One more thing. In a recent project for my mission agency I was able to interview some long-time staff members about how they see the “candidate pool” changing over the last couple of decades. One thing that came up several times was this. Our organization is built around a handful of core values. It used to be that many of the folks that came to us were most keen on “unreached peoples” and “church planting.” It was, “I want to go to the people who have never heard!” Often these folks were quite flexible about things like entry platform; they were willing to do anything, whatever was needed. At least that’s the perspective looking back somewhat through the lenses of nostalgia. There was probably some naivety or lack of personal awareness there, I’m not sure.
Today, though, it’s harder to find people who really resonate with the “church planting among the unreached” priorities. They will assent to them, sure. But “Innovation” and “Flexibility” are the more popular values on our value list, the ones that attract people to our agency.
What the potential candidates may not realize is that asking the field and the agency to give them lots of flexibility and opportunity to innovate may not be how those values work out. Often it’s more that God asks them to be flexible (lay down their ideas about how things are supposed to be) and innovate (look for his fingerprints on the surprising twists and turns that may come on the field). I have a Missions Catalyst article in process that goes into that more and hope to publish it soon.
These days, it sounds like an increasing number of those in our pipeline are more interested in finding a place they can use their gifts, skills, interests, backgrounds. And I’m not talking just “Finishers,” but recent college grads as well. They still want to turn the world upside down, but they are looking for a job as a graphic designer or opportunity to serve orphans, perhaps more than they are looking for an unreached people group or a great team. To the extent this is true, it makes candidate placement a very different task: we’re combing the database looking for someone in one of our fields who needs a graphic artist… or who see a place for one.
To the extent this trend is more widespread than our agency, it may have strong implications for mission mobilizers. Maybe we need to make extra efforts to help people see that there’s a place for them, not just say, “no, we don’t do orphans; we plant churches,” if in fact we do have church-planters significantly involved in something connected to orphans. And maybe, if the “draw” to missions has shifted, there’s a job for some of us to play a greater part in keeping the other motivations alive: casting the vision that is larger than “helping you find your fit.”
Marti Smith
1. How would you define mobilization?
Stirring others to active concern for those Jesus misses most.
2. How would you describe your organization’s philosophy of mobilization?
Global Outreach Director & GO Team interraction with other on campus ministries to incorporate “mission vision.”
3. In your experience, what mobilization practices seem to best serve potential candidates?
College campus-sponsored STMs.
4. What mobilization practices seem to best serve your agency or denomination?
When our Global Partners have the opportunity to share for 5 minutes in Sunday morning services.
7. What mobilization practices most honor the Lord?
I dream that everyone in our congregation would communicate regularly with at least one of our Global Partners (via FB, email, voice-over-internet) so as to put a face on cross-cultural evangelism.
Folks, WordPress looks out for us by being very suspicious about comments that include links. I’ll keep an eye on the “spam” folder in the next day or two and rescue your comment if it’s legit and ends up there. But feel free to contact me if you have any trouble.
Marti, for Missions Catalyst
What is mobilization? It’s not “recruiting” as the world defines it–convincing someone else to take a job, offering them something valuable in return. Mobilization is giving people the information they need in order to seek God and ask whether He has prepared this good work in advance for them to walk in it. Mobilization is encouragement. It is prayer. It’s reminding people about what they once said was most important to them when something else seizes their attention. I don’t think a true mobilizer should ever really take credit for someone starting work on the field, but it’s great for them to rejoice over it and give glory to God–because, in my experience, He’s the only One powerful enough to draw comfortable Americans to move themselves and their kids into places where suffering is guaranteed and life insurance premiums go through the roof. If I could cause everyone to go to the Muslim world, I would botch it up, but He’s the One who both mobilizes and causes people to pause, too.
“How would you define mobilization?”–
As a retired missions pastor, I would say that “mobilization” is definately a continuing process. One starts where the person is and, hopefully, leads them on to where both you and they want to be–better informed and more involved. They might wind up praying for a missionary every day, or supporting a particular work, or becoming a part or full-time missionary themselves.
1. How would you define mobilization? Mobilization is preparing for action.
2. How would you describe your organization’s philosophy of mobilization? My church missions team does the following: Educate, short-term trips to ignite, “5-minute missions highlight” first Sunday of each month, support college students & young adult’s missions efforts, teach missions to kids at Kids Church, attend conferences as a team, gallery exhibits, lectures.
3. In your experience, what mobilization practices seem to best serve potential candidates? Young adults get pretty jazzed when they find out the missions team is willing to give them a fair chunk of change for their missions education/trips!
4. What mobilization practices seem to best serve your agency or denomination? Offering the congregation short-term missions trip opportunity. People get fired up when they realize everyone has something to contribute-being part of a team is fun!
5. What mobilization practices seem to best serve the receiving teams where candidates might serve? couldn’t say.
6. What mobilization practices most honor other agencies or denominations? couldn’t say
7. What mobilization practices most honor the Lord? I took the advice of a Perspectives Class speaker who told us to take care of any unresolved pain/issues from our past before going to the missions field. I have taken that advice and spent 6 years getting through painful things. It’s paid off in that I now have so much more to give to others than I ever had in my life. The other piece of advice: serve others in humility, just like Jesus did.
Shane,
First of all, I want to let you know that I always like your thought-provoking messages.
I don’t have any earth-shattering answers to your questions, but as I was reading through them I kept coming back to one very simple thought: BEING who I am, with a heart for the unreached, and interacting with people wherever I am, will have the greatest impact (in my experience). Person-to-person, face-to-face contact is still the most powerful (not trying to discount the new social media). I can usually mobilize for a project just about anybody I talk to personally, whereas there’s not much response to a question/plea in the cyberspace.
The group I work with relies heavily on personal contact, because of the nature of our ministry. The above seems to be true within our group. Trying to mobilize a group usually produces little fruit. But when we talk to them individually we get a response.
So, I would say, referring to your article about social media, that whatever means we use to pass on the information and make the needs known, we’d better follow up with a personal contact and build a relationship that carries credibility with the people we are trying to mobilize=get people involved.
Thank you all for the keen responses. You are very kind. I’m off to the meeting the article spoke of right now, so I’ll write more later. Thanks for your offering of wisdom and insight. It will be a help today.
Grateful,
Shane
Shane,
Hope your meeting is off to a great start. Just a couple of thoughts. (Maybe just one.)
1. Define mobilization – I think of mobilization as developing the resources for deployment into the world for Christ. I usually think of it in the context of the local church and “resources” includes a very large range of possibilities including not only prayer, finances, and people but also skills, vocations, influence, relationships, contacts, and leverage, etc.
David, Thanks for weighing in to the discussion out of your deep well of experience. I appreciate it.
Great review of Gary Vee’s book and the application to missions & social media. Totally agree.