Ministries Today: May/June 1998

Mobilizing Your Church for the Unfinished Task
By: Dr. Howard Foltz

When my two sons were young, my wife and I worked as missionaries in Europe. She tells of a morning when she sat at a table, working and keeping an eye on the boys at the same time. They were hunkering down like sprinters, and the old boy would say, "Go!"

They would race around and around the table until he would say, "Fall down!" Then both boys would "hit the deck," panting and dizzy.

They repeated this endeavor until she finally asked, "What are you all doing?"

"It's a game we made up," they said. "We call it missionary."

The story always brings a chuckle, but the sad truth is my sons were offfering a pretty effective commentary on missions as we know it. Traditional missions endevours, while they have introduced many to the gospel, have also tended to cripple national churches and have failed to release almost half of the world's population from Satan's strongholds.

In a sense, those who insist on maintaining traditional missions are running in circles without much to show for their efforts. I call that "missions not-so-smart."

The body of Christ must accept a new focus if we truly intend to complete the Great Commission any time soon. We must learn to do missions SMART(er) - that means we must learn the concepts and practices of Strategic Mobilization, Advancement, Resources, and Training.

Strategy

Webster's dictionary defines "strategy" as "the art of devising or employing plans or statagems toward a goal." Strategy implies a three-step process:

Evaluating the present situation

Setting goals

Developing a plan

Evaluating the situation. The church has labored for almost 2,000 years to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We've successfully evangelized many parts of the world.

But still, about half the world's population has never heard of Christ. Most of these people live in unreached people groups, defined as ethnic and sociocultural groups with no indigenous church movement strong enough to evangelize and disciple their own people. They can be reached only through cross-cultural ministry.

The majority of unreached people groups live in the 10/40 Window, a geographic region roughly between the 10th and 40th parallels north, stretching through northern Africa, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and China. Many nations in this region are hostile to traditional Western missionaries.

The people who live here are among the poorest in the world, physically as well as spiritually. They are held in Satan's grasp through the domination of religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Animism.

To illustrate how their religion affects their lifestyle, several years ago a missions researcher named David Barrett began counting rats. People wondered why he would do such a crazy thing, until he documented that in India, where many live in abject poverty, rats eat more grain than people do.

Because of the stronghold of Hinduism, which considers rats to be sacred, no one will kill these rodents. Obviously, this Hindu belief is at least partially responsible for the hunger that overwhelms this nation.

Setting goals. That means we must rediscover God's plan for redeeming the world. We can do that by examining His commissions.

In Isaiah 60:1-3 we see that God commissioned Israel to be a light for all peoples. And in Matthew 28:18-20, we find that God planned for His followers to take the gospel to all nations.

That word nations in the original language is ethne - the basic for our word "ethnic." It implies that God doesn't care about the superficial political boundaries we establish.

Rather, He sees the world as a marvelous patchwork quilt, and each patch is a family or clan or a people group. We gain further evidence in Revelation 7:9, where John notes that he saw "a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" (NKJV).

If that's how God views the world, that's how we should view it as well. We don't aim just at geopolitical nations - we target people groups. The Southern Baptist International Mission Board estimates that 6,322 people groups remain unreached, and Joshua Project 2000 has identified 1,739 people groups considered to be the world's "least reached."

Estimates vary within the missions community because definitions of key terms vary, but all these people groups are still waiting to hear the gospel in a way they can grasp and understand. When we successfully evangelize the last people group in the world, we will have completed the Great Commission. In missions terminology, we call that closure.

Developing a plan. If we want to reach the goals on God's heart, we must align ourselves with His agenda. That understanding forms the foundation for the remaining factors that make up Missions SMART.

Mobilization

According to Webster, "mobilize" means "to assemble and make ready for war duty." That's an appropriate definition for our purposes, for the world of missions is a world of spiritual warfare.

Joshua 6 speaks of physical warfare against the city of Jericho, but the implications are crucial for spiritual warfare as well. Jericho was "tightly shut up" for fear of the Israelites. Thsi speaks of repression, for those who lived in this city were prisoners in their own homes.

Before mobilizing a congregation for missions, it will help to see how Joshua mobilized Israel to obey God's marching orders.

Joshua had a face-to-face encounter with the living Lord (see Joshua 5:13-6:5). From that meeting he gained two things: assurance of victory and a specific plan. We already have assurance of victory, for as noted previously, God has promised to include people of "every tribe, tongue and nation" around His throne.

But we need leaders who will seek God's clear revelation about His specific strategy for individual people groups. We cannot assume that the plan that worked one place will work equally well elsewhere. The Israelites didn't duplicate God's plan for Jericho in any other battle; it was only for Jericho.

Joshua possessed unquestioning and careful obedience to God's plan. Joshua didn't argue; he didn't tell God how ridiculous His plan was. After all, whoever heard of marching silently around a great city, finally blowing trumpets and screaming, and then standing still and watching the walls crumble?

Yet that's what God said to do. That's what Joshua ordered the Israelites to do. Obedience brought victory. When God gives a strategy, we must accept no option other than complete obedience.

The Israelites had been purified through circumcision (see Joshua 5). They were prepared for this venture into new territory. And they trusted their leader. When he told them God's seemingly impossible plan, they united behind him.

Israel has been effectively mobilized for war. They had a clear vision of the eventual goal - occupation of the land; they had a clear vision of the immediate goal - victory over Jericho; they had a clear strategy from God, spoken through a trusted leader; they obeyed God's direction - and as a result, they saw unparalleled success.

So, how do we mobilize a congregation for missions? The same way Joshua did! We challenge them to purity; offer a clear vision of the eventual goal - God's glory expressed in and through every people group in the world; offer a clear vision of the immediate goal, as defined by your church; offer a clear strategy from God, spoken through a trusted leader; and encourage obedience.

Advancement

Webster notes that "advance" stresses " effective assisting in hastening a process or bringing about a desired end." I see two ways to effectively hasten the process of missions strategies.

Adopt unreached people groups. Churches can define and reach their immediate missions goal by adopting one or more unreached people groups.

In the secular sense, adoption means you choose someone you want to include in your family. In the spiritual sense, it means the same thing.

Your church prayerfully selects a people group you believe God wants you to include in your family. You intercede for that group and commit to help establish a church planting movement in its midst. You seek God for an effective strategy, and you obey His direction.

Develop like-minded partners. Churches can enhance their effectiveness by allying or partnering with others who share the same burden.

This may require reaching across barriers created by a difference in worship style or fine points of theology. It may even require reachign across cultural and ethnic barriers to unite with Christians from a different country. But the bottom line is that we will accomplish more by working together than by working separately.

Why? Because this strategy limits duplication of effort that occurs when several churches or agencies do the same thing at the same time in the same place. But partnership also introduces a dynamic for ministry revealed in Ecclesiastes 4:9: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor."

To illustrate how this works, suppose your church adopts the Tigre people of Ethiopia. You discover a way to obtain Bibles in their language. That's great, but what do you do with them?

Suppose you unite in an alliance with Agency X, which digs wells; a church that sponsors the translation and showing of the Jesus film; and Agency Y, which already has people there trained to minister in the native language.

Agency X digs the well, and it quickly becomes the center for social activity. Then the other church takes the Jesus film to this hub of activity and shows it to the people. Agency Y disciples and trains the new believers, using the Bibles you sent, and plants a church to sustain the effort.

Working together, the alliance has achieved more than if you all had worked separately. Unity always enhances success.

Resources

"Resource" is defined as "a source of supply or support; an available means." Interestingly, it literally means "to rise again." For every church in the world, Christ's resurrection is the ultimate resource, for it promises not only life eernal but also power for the here and now.

But beyond that, churches have a least four other primary resources that can be mobilized for missions:

Prayer. We know the folly of attempting anything of lasting consequence without accessing God's power. But I believe we need to move beyond the level of just praying for our specific ministry endeavors. We must bathe people groups in prayer and seek God's intervention on their behalf.

Intercession and spiritual warfare should be focused and systematic rather than haphazard. Items to undergird this effort include:

Operation World, a systematic prayer guid by Patrick Johnstone. This book leads the reader to pray for every country in the world in a year.

Bethany Prayer Profiles, which are also available for specific people groups.

Finances. AIMS has established a benchmark for missions giving. We believe a "Great Commission church" will give at least 10 percent of its total budget to cross-cultural ministry. And within that amount, we believe one-fourth should specifically target unreached people groups.

Many churches, of course, are able to do more than that, but we believe this should be the minimum "entry level" amount. I recommend that every church move on to promote faith promise giving and target at least one-third of its total revenue for cross-cultural missions. I know of a church in Ghana that gives 58 percent of its total budget to missions.

People. I recommend that every church strive to see at least 10 percent of its people engaged in some kind of cross-cultural endeavor. This may include short-term missions trips, ministry to international students, and more. And I recommend that every church strive to see at least 2 percent of its congregation commit to full-time Christian services through career missions.

God's suprises. These are difficult-to-list resources He has lovingly placed in your church or within its reach.

For instance, suppose your church has adopted the Kurdish people of Iraq. You are located in a large city with three or four universities, and you discover several Kurdish students right at your own back door.

That's a tremendous resource for evangelizing and discipling your adopted people group, especially since they live in a nation that is hostile to traditional Western missionaries. you may win them to Christ, train them, and send them home as missionaries to their own people.

God's plan is full of wonderful suprises, but discovering them requires that we strategically set our focus, prayerfully seek His plan, and research every possible avenue to guarantee success.

Training

To train, as Webster says, is "to form by instruction, discipline or drill; to teach so as to make fit, qualified or proficient." Training is the final key to success in cross-cultural ministry and especially as it is used both generally and specifically. It makes us fit into the cultural context of ministry and fir for strategically building God's kingdom.

General Missions Training. This is for the whole congregation. It concentrates on the theological framework for missions.

In a nutshell, it explains why we do what we do. It also educates the congregation about the cultural framework of specific adopted people groups. It teaches them to pray strategically, to give sacrificially, and to rejoice in each victory.

This training should encompass all the church's ministries, regardless of the participants' ages. No one is too young or too old to be involved.

I know of churches that have taken short-term missions trips with armies of children. I know also of churches that have discovered a wealth of wisdom and expertise in their senior population. General training should affect the entire congregation.

Specific missions training. Specific training, on the other hand, should be required for anyone participating in a specific cross-cultural ministry endeavor. This applies even to short-term trips and to international student ministry.

Specific training should address cultural expectation and theological considerations, as well as the attitudes of the participants. Anyone who ventures into cross-cultural ministry without a servant's attitude is a disaster waiting to happen.

Henry Martyn, a Bible translator in India and Persia in the 1800s, once noted, "The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary we must become." Truly, he was correct.

But as we race toward the end of the second millennium since our Lord issued His Great Commission, we must also rely on the Spirit of christ to teach us how to do missions SMART(er). We must put into practice the concepts of Strategy, Mobilization, Advancement, Resources, and Training.

For reprint information, please call the AIMS publication office at (757) 495-5850 or email the editor at aims@aims.org.

Return to Article Index