{"id":2043,"date":"2011-01-12T00:15:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T06:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2011-01-12T08:40:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T14:40:42","slug":"missions-catalyst-01-11-12-practical-mobilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=2043","title":{"rendered":"Missions Catalyst 01.12.11 &#8211; Practical Mobilization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In This Issue: Four Ways We Motivate People to Engage the World<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ARTICLE: Why Do We What We Do and Expect Others to, Too?<\/li>\n<li>EVENTS: New on the Missions Catalyst Calendar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.missionscatalyst.org\/\"><!--more-->Missions Catalyst<\/a> 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!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"..\/?cat=9\" target=\"_self\">Practical Mobilization<\/a> by <a href=\"..\/?page_id=610\" target=\"_self\">Shane Bennett<\/a> is published once a month.<\/p>\n<h3>Why Do We What We Do and Expect Others to, Too?<\/h3>\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?page_id=610\">Shane Bennett<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was recently sitting in a board meeting for a small mission agency, feeling slightly distracted, when I began to wonder how everyone else ended up at the table. (I was there because I know how to pick good donuts. Really, I do.) I began to realize that nearly everyone there had been living a fine life, loving God, and doing their work with gusto, when something changed dramatically for them. Burrow 5-10 years into their pasts and you&#8217;d find little or no interest in God&#8217;s global purposes &#8211; certainly not interest as specific as serving the Central Asian people we were now praying and planning for.<\/p>\n<p>I wondered what made the change. What had caused these bright women and men to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and maybe even <a href=\"link: http:\/\/www.constitution.org\/usdeclar.htm\">their sacred honor<\/a> to this winsome, God-loved people group?<\/p>\n<p>And then I thought, &#8220;Whoa, whatever happened to these people could happen to others!&#8221; How many dozens of people warm our pews each Sunday, people prepared by God and waiting for the word, the challenge, the invitation that will open up a whole new passion for them? Mentally I began to paint targets on the foreheads of several relatively innocent churchgoers. Maybe that is going too far. But honestly, I was deeply encouraged to find ways to appropriately invite people to take the next step &#8211; maybe their first step &#8211; into cross-cultural involvement.<\/p>\n<p>The next couple skips in my mental hopscotch game led me to the square labeled &#8220;motivation.&#8221; I knew I was motivated to mobilize, but I wondered what might motivate people to respond to my invitations. How might I &#8211; how might we &#8211; motivate people to get involved in what God is doing? Which of those strategies would sound good to Jesus? Do we appeal to godly motives, or are we pragmatic enough to use whatever works? Have we borrowed too much from late-night infomercials?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my swing at four main ways we motivate people to engage the world. I&#8217;d love to have you weigh in on this .<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Duty<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We should share our faith with people who don&#8217;t follow Jesus because the Bible says we should. It is our duty. This motivation scores high on the &#8220;true&#8221; scale in my mind. If we believe the Bible, we should do what it says. It does, however, tend to score dismally on the &#8220;it works&#8221; scale. I&#8217;m not sure duty inspires as much deep vision and costly commitment as it did in the good old days. Having not lived through them, I&#8217;m not sure if it worked well then either.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this isn&#8217;t such a good motivator, particularly for Americans. Maybe Americans have so sold out to a season of self-actualization that someone asking us to &#8220;do our duty&#8221; might as well be speaking in dog language. It just doesn&#8217;t connect. On the other hand, your culture (or subculture) may respond to a call to duty.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Fear<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though wildly popular these days, this is definitely my least-favorite mobilization motivator. In fact, I take a bit of pride in the fact that I don&#8217;t sell a lot of books by resorting to fear mongering. (Or maybe I don&#8217;t sell a lot of books because I don&#8217;t write them!) While I delight that so many Christians are thinking, talking, and writing about Muslims these days, I&#8217;m troubled that much of that discourse is fear-based. Do we ever see Jesus motivating obedience based on fear? I don&#8217;t think so. Do I regret motivating my children with fear? Yep.<\/p>\n<p>Fear works as a motivator (at least temporarily) because it touches such a deep part of us. To varying degrees we fear death. We fear failure. We fear looking stupid or being marginalized. It also works because it has to do with a disastrous, though improvable, potential future. And sadly, that may indicate a deep down lack of belief in a good God. Is there a part of our hearts that says, &#8220;Maybe God is getting beaten. Maybe this whole thing doesn&#8217;t have a good outcome. Maybe the Muslim will win&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Fun<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Moving from the motivation I like the least to the one that, by objective assessment, I realize I use the most. True confession time here, though: I&#8217;m not at all sure that this is the most biblical motivator for missions.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the way it works out for me: I tell people that following Jesus to unreached peoples will be the coolest, scariest, most challenging, painful adventure you could have. Who would want to miss that fun?<\/p>\n<p>Or as my friend and mentor Steve Hawthorne says, &#8220;You&#8217;ve heard this haven&#8217;t you: &#8216;If not you, who? If not now, when?&#8217; Well, I say, &#8216;If not me, somebody else. If not now, then later. But if God is doing this, I don&#8217;t want to miss out.'&#8221; Well said, Steve. I don&#8217;t want to miss it either. Nor do I want my friends to miss it.<\/p>\n<p>Now put it to the Jesus test. I don&#8217;t know if I see him motivating the disciples to follow for the fun of it, though they certainly did get a head-spinning adventure. And maybe the less thoughtful among us might say, &#8220;Yeah, it&#8217;d be fun to follow Jesus around Palestine for three years. I could go for that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Appealing to a sense of hope scores high on both the &#8220;true&#8221; scale and the &#8220;it works&#8221; scale. So perhaps it is the best way to motivate people to join God&#8217;s purposes for the nations. God is going to do this great thing. God is gathering the nations to himself. This is both the history and future of our planet. It is the destiny of the cosmos because God is true. He keeps the audacious promises he&#8217;s made to his people and to himself.<\/p>\n<p>The first part of this hope motivation is the character, the greatness, the intentionality of God. Now add the second element of hope: God uses people like us to partner with him in the completion of his purposes. Talk about honor, about treasure in jars of clay. What amazing hope, that God is doing something huge and that we matter hugely in the doing of it. Stunning. Put the two together and it&#8217;s like pouring vinegar on baking soda! I know my heart and hands rise up to the motivation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What about you? What motivators do you find yourself using? What do you see Jesus using? Any appeals and approaches that really rankle you? Join the conversation in the comments on <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=2043\">our website<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/#!\/pages\/Missions-Catalyst\/160075710689461\">Facebook page<\/a> and <a href=\"mailto:shanebennett@takeitglobal.org\">email any personal rebukes<\/a> directly to me!<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, may you motivate God&#8217;s people with truth and honor, and may God grant you great success in your efforts for his kingdom.<\/p>\n<h3>EVENTS: New on the Missions Catalyst Calendar<\/h3>\n<p>Come to a webinar! Our friends at The Mission Exchange are offering several interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themissionexchange.org\/get_involvedME_learning.php\">web-based learning initiatives<\/a> in weeks to come:<\/p>\n<p>January 20 &#8211; Trends in the Global Missions Movement, featuring Michael Jaffarian (World Venture).<\/p>\n<p>January 27 &#8211; Eight Full-Funding Essentials (that We Too Easily Neglect), featuring Scott Morton (Navigators) and Ellis Goldstein (Campus Crusade).<\/p>\n<p>February 3 &#8211; Engaging Boomers for Missions: Overcoming the Obstacles, featuring Don Parrott (Finishers Project).<\/p>\n<p>February 10 &#8211; Building Ministry Teams, featuring Paul Ford (Church Resource Ministries).<\/p>\n<p>February 17 &#8211; Health Care Reform: Implications for Missionary Sending Organizations, featuring John Butler (Capin Crouse).<\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themissionexchange.org\/get_involvedME_learning.php\">Learn more or sign up<\/a>. See more listings on the <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?page_id=596\">Missions Catalyst events calendar<\/a>.<br \/>\n<!-- AddToAny BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"a2a_dd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmissionscatalyst.net%2F%3Fp%3D2043&amp;linkname=\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.addtoany.com\/buttons\/share_save_171_16.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Share\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\nvar a2a_config = a2a_config || {};\na2a_config.linkurl = \"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=2043\";\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/static.addtoany.com\/menu\/page.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddToAny END --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In This Issue: Four Ways We Motivate People to Engage the World ARTICLE: Why Do We What We Do and Expect Others to, Too? EVENTS: New on the Missions Catalyst Calendar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practical-mobilization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3883,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}