Month: November 2019

Practical Mobilization | by Shane Bennett

In this issue:

1. Rubbing Shoulders with Visionaries
2. Making Thanksgiving Count for the Kingdom
3. Focusing on Goals for 2020
4. Subversive Mobilization: What’s on Your Christmas List?

You’ve heard the saying, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” In other words, if you’re going to get smarter, get around people who are smarter than you. Of course, for some of us, pretty much anyone will suffice!

Similarly, I’ve been sensing lately a need to be around people who have more vision than me. Surely, I’m not the only one whose vision for the nations is prone to flag from time to time. Am I?

Last night I was on the phone with a ministry partner who shared about a trip to North Africa. It had profoundly changed him, he said: “What I saw convinced me a whole Muslim people group, not just ones and twos, could be won to Christ.” That was straight dopamine for me. After a few minutes buddy-breathing on his vision, I hung up the phone happy!

I’m wondering how to get around big-vision people more consistently. As mission mobilizers, we’re often scattered about and maybe even prone to isolation. Without regular reinforcement, given the blows our faith will doubtless take, we may falter or plateau.

So how can I—I mean we—get in proximity to people of great vision? Here are some ideas. But I’m hoping you have some that are even better. Let me know!

1. Go to mission conferences.

We list many of these on the Missions Catalyst events calendar and will soon be adding a host of 2020 events.

• Upside: You can hang out and ask great people great questions while they eat breakfast.
• Downside: Pretty pricey.

2. Text visionary people.

I guess you could call, too, but that just scares me! Ask them how you can pray for them. Ask them to tell you about their vision or tell you about something they’ve found encouraging lately.

3. Crash a Perspectives class.

Offer to host the instructor or drive them to the airport.

4. Read visionary books.

Start with the Bible. Read fiction and non-fiction as well as magazines and blogs. Missions Catalyst Resource Reviews can give you some leads. Reading James Bryan Smith’s The Magnificent Story recently did wonders for my vision. It increased my hope and desire for God’s kingdom.

5. Borrow vision from related disciplines.

Get coffee with local pastors who are killing it. Take entrepreneurs and successful farmers to lunch.

What do you do when your vision dips low? Let us know.

Here in the US, our most American holiday is right around the corner. Thanksgiving presents a chance not only to re-calibrate our own gratitude meter, but also reach out to people we’ve considered connecting with but haven’t been able to trip the trigger.

Thanksgiving is innocuous, non-partisan, and safe. Even the most mild-mannered can break the social ice with, “What are we thankful for?” The more intrepid can follow up, “Who are we thankful to?” It’s a ready-made opportunity to get more comfortable talking about God. And should a sermon threaten to break out, there’s football, board games, and more pie.

If this idea is intriguing but intimidating, check out my super-short Five-Step Plan for a Killer International Thanksgiving Dinner. This will get you going in the right direction. Fill in the details by ransacking this beautiful and ridiculously helpful site with ideas for cross-cultural hospitality, The Serviette. These guys give the body of Christ a wonderful gift. Enjoy it.

What does the coming year look like for you? Will you be expecting great things from God and attempting great things for God? (Hat tip to William Carey!) Recently when people have asked how they can pray for me, I’ve been sharing a desire to know God’s plans, purposes, and dreams for me and through me in 2020. I’m feeling ready for fresh direction and big challenges.

Being prone to both delusion and sloth, I know I’d best get in league with like-minded buds or that vision could all be for naught. I need people to dream and scheme with, to push and be pushed by. Maybe many of us need people who’ll ask, “Are you doing what it takes to get done what you’ve determined to do?”

Toward that end, a good friend and I are beginning this morning to read through Goals! How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible. I hope reading this book together will culminate in some pretty serious goal setting next month.

If you want to set great goals but struggle with motivation to actually do so, check out this brief article on the brain science behind goals. Apparently setting your mind on challenging goals that also capture your heart actually rewires your brain to accomplish them!

And as mission mobilizers we need big, biblically sound, do-it-or-die-trying goals. The harvest is indeed plentiful, the laborers yet few. God is inviting the likes of you and me to rally, equip, and release laborers into his harvest.

If you’d benefit from sharing your goal journey but don’t have a pre-formed fellowship with which to do it, shoot me an email. I’d be happy to hear what you’re hearing from God, dream with you, and cheer you on to completion. And I wouldn’t hate having your input on my goals!

In past years the December edition of Practical Mobilization has consisted of Christmas lists “from” and “for” mobilizers. Basically: What might you get a person for Christmas to increase their passion for God’s purposes? What do you get someone whose life is devoted to mobilizing others?

Please weigh in on this year’s lists and thereby make them the best ever. Take a jolly minute to go to this Google doc and drop some good ideas in each column. Bonus points if you include links.

To encourage participation, your good buds at Missions Catalyst will buy one gift from each list for a lucky contributor. (Please include your email so we can tell you the good news!) To be clear: I’m hoping the list will have gifts with a wide range of value, but honestly, you’re more likely to get chosen if your gift tends toward this, rather than this!