Life After Perspectives

Life After Perspectives

Introduction

1. Finding Your Niche

2. Mobilizing

3. Prayer

4. Sending

5. Welcoming

6. Going

7. Business As Mission

APPENDIX

Self Assessment for Aspiring Cross Cultural Workers

Growth Guide

Mission Mentoring

World Christian Fellowship Pilot Session

Standard Application for Mission Service

A Story about Prayer

Support Advocacy

Missionary Myths

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Post-Perspectives Study-Training Units

1. Find Your Next Step2. Mobilize3. Pray4. Send5. Welcome6. Go7. Do Business As Mission

IS THERE LIFE AFTER PERSPECTIVES?If Perspectives is about catching the vision,

life-after-Perspectives is about running with the vision:

Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message

is a witness pointing to what’s coming.—Habakkuk 2:2-3 The Message

We alumni of Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course have picked up a vision that will ruin us for the ordinary. And we want

to run with it. But what’s next?

Sometimes it’s as if we’re waiting for further instructions from our course coordinators—as if they can divine our next step after all this life-changing information.

Or we’ve been overwhelmed with the theme of reaching the remaining unreached peoples of the world—and get a creepy feeling that unless we go as churchplanters to the Hutsulis of the Carpathians, we’ve failed the course.

No worries. Let’s work together through a simple menu of post-Perspectives study/training units. Follow the progression below or start wherever you choose.

We’re in this together, and can help each other fi nd our places in the Kingdom...for now!

—Brian Barr Alumni Director, Perspectives Study Program

Run With the VisionHow to Find Your Niche•Further Resources •Links

A great starting point after your

Perspectives experience

Prayer:Rebelling Against the Status QuoPrayer is your

niche...for now.

Business as MissionYour ministry platform is business...for now.

Serving as a Sender

You’ve got a specifi c backup role...for now.

WelcomingYou’re a cross-cultural worker here at home...

for now.

Going All OutYou’re a cross-

cultural worker in a foreign setting...

for now.

Mobilization: Make a DifferenceHow to Mobilize Mission Vision

•Further Resources •Links

FINDING YOUR NICHECHAPTER 1

Finding Your Niche Page 7

For most of us, Perspectives was a like a grenade tossed into our predictable, normal Christian lives. We’ve been ruined for the

ordinary because, amazingly, our worldviews have changed.

Worldview Change Lifestyle Change Panic

Once that began happening—for some of us, in Lesson One!—we all sensed some lifestyle changes were also coming. Made us all a little edgy because the more drastic the possible changes, the more we’re desperate to know precisely our part in this biblical, historic, mega-cultural and strategic plan of God. What does He want? What’s next?

That query, of course, slides into the well-worn question of “What is God’s will for my life?” (Check the sidebox beginning on page 7.)

But before we fi gure out the niggly details of our next step in God’s unchangeable purpose, God wants us to clearly understand the general basics that He’s already revealed. In fact, He probably won’t get specifi c about where we fi t now until we position ourselves in what the Word teaches about the following steps.

We won’t even deal with the primero question of the Lordship of Christ in our lives, all right? If we’re not in that simple, radical, living-sacrifi ce posture, we can forget about trying to get some divine guidance on our next step. (Review the sidebar passages.)

With that basic Lordship stipulation settled, work through the following to help clarify your next step in the Kingdom.

RUN WITH THE VISIONFind your Niche

What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst.

I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.I’ll wait to see what God says,

how he’ll answer....

And then God answered: “Write this.Write what you see.

Write it out in big block lettersso that it can be read on the run.This vision-message is a witness

pointing to what’s coming.It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!

And it doesn’t lie.If it seems slow in coming, wait.

It’s on its way. It will come right on time. —Habakkuk 2:1-3 (The Message)

NELSON MALWITZ (pale guy on right), founder of The Finishers Project, is working on a book called Passages That Don’t Preach—about the “hard sayings” of Jesus.

Jesus didn’t pander to our self-seeking instincts:

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall fi nd it.”

—Matthew 10:37-39

And looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

—Mark 10:21

And another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but fi rst permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fi t for the kingdom of God.”

—Luke 9:61, 62 “So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”

—Luke 14:33

If these passages don’t describe your current stance before God, not to worry: Throw your hands up in the air, confess your lapse of self-control and sin, rend your clothes and toss ashes on your head if you need to repent the serious Old Testament way. (Just kidding.) And state once again, “Whatever whenever and wherever, Lord.”


FINDING YOUR NEW NICHEYOUR PRIESTHOOD

• Wear your priest-collar! Remember Perspectives’ eye-openers about the responsibilities—along with the well-known privileges—of the “priesthood of the believer”? As a priest, your overall job description will always be 1) worship, 2)

intercession and 3) service. Your next step ministry lies within the mandates of interceding for others—even for whole nations—and then serving them.

“But you are a royal priesthood” (Exodus 19:5-6 & 1 Peter 2:9).

YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCE• “Know Thyself.” Think through God’s design of your life. He uses everything—your heredity, environment, experiences, temperment, strengths, passions, weaknesses, the good, the bad and the ugly. This is almost a

useless exercise unless you write it down; so “freewrite,” not worrying about spelling, grammar or that anyone else will ever read this summary of your life! A helpful framework for thinking through this phase of fi nding your niche is the SHAPE acronym. (See sidebar page 3.) Seriously spend some time on this; it’s possibly the

most revealing exercise to clarify your role in the Kingdom! “In Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me” (Psalm 139:13-16);

“You are His handiwork...” (Ephesians 2:10).

YOUR GIFTING• Study the spiritual gifts and determine yours. The gifts—the original Greek wording is “spirituals”—

comprise people gifts, speaking gifts, serving gifts and sign gifts (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, 27-30; Ephesians 4:7-13; 1 Peter 4:7-11). Work through this helpful Spiritual Gifts

Inventory at www.buildingchurch.net/g2s-i.htm or, for the 23 gifts and DISC personality inventory, go to www.uniquelyyou.net

“There are varieties of gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:4).

YOUR MINISTERING• Practice your gifts in various types of service. Example: Your intercession-service as a priest + life experience of abuse and empathetic personality + an “encouragement-exhortation” gift (the paracletos gifting meaning “one called alongside to help”) could mean a ministry counseling abuse victims or presenting parent training seminars or .... You’ll recognize your area of service as you test out various ministries by volunteering,

interning, short-terming before committing yourself to one opportunity.“There are varieties of service” (1 Corinthians 12:5).

YOUR IMPACT• Explore various settings—including other cultures—for your ministering. This is where “the effects” (NASB) of your ministry might prove to be most powerful in another culture. Your affi nity for befriending and enjoying other cultures can be easily explored as you attend events or volunteer with local/regional groups ministering to international students and immigrants. (See Welcoming.) It’s at

this point you then begin contacting organizations and agencies about long-term opportunities in Welcoming or Going. Or you’ll fi nd your ministering is

more effective in your own culture, so you focus on world-Christian roles such as Mobilization, Sending or Prayer.

“There are varieties of effects” (1 Corinthians 12:6).

YOUR ASSIGNMENT...FOR NOW!• Grab the opportunity that God sets before you. It’s easier to steer a rolling car, and at this point you’ve been praying, studying, serving—and God will get specifi c. Be alert to recognize what He has already planned for you to do next. But don’t let your niche become a rut.* “...Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared

in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10)

Broad — to —

Specifi cThe m

ore carefully and honestly you work through these steps, the m

ore your thousands of options as a world Christian narrow

down

to a specifi c assignment....for now

!See INSTRUCTIONS below.

* Don’t let your niche become a rut! Philip was a deacon in Jerusalem, then an evangelist in near-culture Samaria, then a missionary to the Ethiopian in Gaza, then—apparently for the rest of his life—a godly family man at home in Caesarea (Acts 8:4-5, 26; 21:8-9). If you announce a divine “call” to a lifelong role and then choose or are forced to switch to God’s new assignment for a new season of your life, you’ll have to appear to disobey the fi rst “call” to move into the second! God can move His servants around as He chooses whenever He chooses. So when you fi nd your niche, add the qualifi er “...for now!”


The QuickStartSimply work through the above levels in one sitting! Perhaps you’ve already investigated some or most of these steps. (Although beware of jumping to conclusions about yourself: For example, if you studied spiritual gifts and took a gifts assessment years ago, don’t presume that a dormant area of gifting won’t now appear for a new phase of ministry.) For feedback, surround yourself with world Christians—perhaps by initiating a “Pilot” World Christian Fellowship among your mission-minded friends. Next, fi nd out the best ways and the bloopers of raising others’ mission vision in our mobilization unit: Make A Difference: How to Mobilize Mission Vision in Your Fellowship.

The Six-Month PlanWant to be amazingly confi dent about your next step? First, read over the steps above. Then begin working through our mobilization unit: Make A Difference: How to Mobilize Mission Vision in Your Fellowship. And consider launching a “Pilot” World Christian Fellowship. But come back to this “Finding Your New Niche” exercise and take literally a month to cover each of the six steps listed above. It might sound ridiculous for a one-page exercise, but taking six months to discern God’s leading for the next major season of your life is a wise investment of your time and energy. Here’s your schedule:

Month 1: Your Priesthood• Wear your priest collar! Fast at least twice this month—for as long as God suggests each time. Focus your fast on worship, not on getting answers. (If you have food issues, you can fast other recurring, favorite things—video games, TV, etc.) Also, spend the month seriously interceding—making a list—for your family, Christian and pre-Christian friends, your church, your nation, another reached nation and at least one unreached people. (See JoshuaProject.net if you need suggestions.)

Month 2: Your Life Experience• “Know thyself.” Free-writing your life story takes time, so let yourself take weeks to pray for insight and actually wade through and write out who you are. Once you’ve taken a self-assessment such as the SHAPE (See sidebar.) profi le, let a close friend see your responses and talk with you about what she/he sees differently about you. Consider doing the self-assessment in our Going All Out and Welcoming units, where you can then plunge ahead into a discipline that will change your life: asking a mentor to keep you accountable to work on weak areas.

Your SHAPE

Spiritual gifting Heart Abilities Personality Experience

The momentum of the Purpose-

Driven ministry’s PEACE Plan

(PurposeDriven.com) has

mandated that millions of

ordinary believers get good at

fi guring out who they are and,

therefore, where they fi t in the

advance of the Kingdom. Use

this local church’s Web outline

of SHAPE to help you pray and

think through—and write out—the

story of who you are as God’s

poema (the original Greek of

“masterpiece” or “workmanship”

in Ephesians 2:10).

(Thanks for posting this, North

Way Community!)

(Continued)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR “FINDING YOUR NEW NICHE”You’re a grownup and a wise Perspectives grad as well, so you can use this exercise any way you choose:


Month 3: Your Gifting• Study the spiritual gifts and determine yours. Use a full month to not only study and determine your areas of spiritual gifting but to also get feedback. Ask a friend to review your gifts inventory; sometimes others can sense capabilities we don’t see in ourselves. And, again, consider securing a mentor who will encourage you, pray for you and keep you accountable to be using your giftings. This is also a good point at which to pull in your pastor/church leader who needs to know what’s going on in your life.

Month 4: Your Ministering• Practice your gifts in various types of service. Choose four of the ministry roles you feel most drawn to, and then devise a week-long exposure in each. Your advising friend, mentor and church leaders can help you arrange to volunteer/help in each type of service. For example, as much as your own schedule allows:

Week 1: Help in as many of your church’s children’s programs as possible. Week 2: Shadow an international student ministry leader in her/his work. Week 3: Volunteer at an area homeless shelter. Week 4: Spend all your freetime assisting the mission/outreach leader

or helping your church leadership do anything that will further the mission awareness of your church—such as hosting the “Pilot” World Christian Fellowship.

Wherever you test out your ministry, let everyone you work with know what you’re doing and why, and keep a list of their names and contact numbers. At the end of the month, talk over with your friend, mentor and pastor which of the four seems to match you. Then begin planning an extended time to work in that area as a volunteer, an intern, a short-termer.

Month 5: Your Impact• Explore various settings—including other cultures—for your ministering. By now you know what energizes you in ministry, so personally or as part of a group, implement your service among international students, immigrants and—in short-term mission trips—in a setting that’s foreign to you. Even with limited skills such as in language and cultural knowledge, you’ll sense whether another culture is where you long to serve. Spend this month:

a) Intentionally interacting with internationals, b) Contacting organizations, agencies and mission-matching services (See

Resources, below.) about upcoming short-term mission opportunities—and long-term possibilities.

Month 6: Your Assignment...for now!• Grab the opportunity that God sets before you.

If God doesn’t give light

on His future role for you,

it’s dangerous to invent

your own light—your own

rationalization of what He

wants, pretending that a

twist of circumstances is

His “call.” Sometimes God

allows you to just step

ahead into the unknown by

faith. Don’t push ahead of

God in fi nding your route

in His plan. Those who

“fear the Lord and obey

the word” yet who “walk

in darkness, who have no

light, trust in the name of

the Lord and rely on God.

But now, all you who light

fi res and provide fl aming

torches...” —manufacturing

your own “light,” guessing

at your next step so you

don’t appear unspiritual

or stupid— “will lie down

in torment,” tossing and

turning, tormented by

regret. (See Isaiah 51:10-11)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR “FINDING YOUR NEW NICHE”(Continued)


Okay, let’s talk about...(drum roll with echo-reverb)

THE CALL TO MISSIONS!Often Christian organizations and churches talk of “a call” to certain ministries—almost always the “professional” ministries of the pastorate, the evangelist, the missionary. But nowhere in Scripture do we fi nd that a dramatic “call” is a doctrine or a requirement to move out in vocational ministry.

As Perspectives-savvy world Christians, it’s a good idea to be careful about conventions such as “the call to missions.” The place to begin evaluating traditions, of course, is the Word. If this elusive “call” is a hot-button issue for you, do an inductive concordance search of the term call in the New Testament. Here’s a start:

Matthew 4:21-22 Matthew 9:13 Luke 5:32 John 10:3 Acts 2:39 Acts 13:2 Acts 13:9 Acts 16:10 Romans 1:1 Romans 1:5 Romans 1:6 Romans 1:7 Romans 8:28

Romans 8:30 Romans 9:24 Romans 11:29 1 Corinthians 1:1 1 Corinthians 1:2 1 Corinthians 1:9 1 Corinthians 1:24 1 Corinthians 1:26 1 Corinthians 7:15 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 Galatians 1:6 Galatians 1:15 Galatians 5:8

Galatians 5:13 Ephesians 1:18 Ephesians 4:1 Ephesians 4:4 Philippians 3:14 Colossians 3:15 1 Thessalonians 2:12 1 Thessalonians 4:7 1 Thessalonians 5:24 2 Thessalonians 1:11 2 Thessalonians 2:14 1 Timothy 6:12 2 Timothy 1:9

Hebrews 3:1 Hebrews 5:4 Hebrews 9:15 1 Peter 1:15 1 Peter 2:9 1 Peter 2:21 1 Peter 3:9 1 Peter 5:10 2 Peter 1:3 2 Peter 1:10 Jude 1:1

In the Old Testament, Isaiah 6 has prompted thousands of great old missions sermons with the “Who will go for us? Whom shall I send? Here am I, send me” theme. But God was talking about sending a herald of judgment to Isaiah’s own people, not to the nations. Was that a call to missions?

If you did that New Testament search, you found a few passages that could be construed as calls to a particular ministry. But Bob Sjogren in Run With the Vision says in his research of all the cross-cultural workers mentioned in the book of Acts:

“It’s sobering to note that 99% of the people serving God cross-culturally were there for one reason: persecution.... How about the other 1%? In Acts about 74% of that 1% serving God cross-culturally were doing so because Paul asked them to go. Beyond that 74%, 18% were there because their church sent them.... Finally, 7% of the Acts believers involved in cross-cultural ministry [of the 1% not going because of persecution] were there because of their own zeal. There seems to be no other obvious reason.”

The typical proof-text that believers have to wait for a “missionary call” to explore cross-cultural ministry is Acts 13:2: “Set apart for Me Barnabus and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Yet Paul and Barnabus were already ministering cross-culturally in Antioch when this directive came. Philip was already ministering cross-culturally in Samaria when God told him specifi cally to go to Gaza (Acts 8:26). When His harvest workers are already moving out in ministry, God does often fi ne-tune their directions: “Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left” (Isaiah 30:21).

Some say that Peter’s vision to allow the Gentile house of Cornelius to hear the Good News was a call to missions. But Peter didn’t go, then, as a missionary to the Gentiles. Actually, Peter’s vision was simply God’s vivid reminder to bless all the nations (Acts 10).

(Continued)


Paul himself is the one New Testament believer who at the point of salvation was told he would go to the nations (Acts 26:15-19). Not a specifi c call (Remember, there were maybe 59,999 Gentile nations at that point!)—much like the Great Commission command that we all have about discipling all nations. But a supernatural “call” nonetheless. He later says that he was a “called apostle” (literally “sent one”). Yet Paul’s spectacular salvation experience with its mandate to take the Gospel to the Gentiles isn’t a biblical doctrine nor the way God leads every believer. Being struck with a glorious, literal vision, conversing audibly with the risen Christ about being a missionary and being blind for three days isn’t exactly the norm for everyone’s salvation experience. (If that’s your experience, follow Mary’s advice at the wedding in Cana: “Whatever He says to you, just do it!” —John 2:5)

Mission scholar Herbert Kane interviewed hundreds of missionaries and found that although most spoke of a defi nite “call,” upon careful evaluation most admitted that what they felt was a process of God’s leading. Very often, missionaries would say that, following a stirring message or a remarkable ministry experience, they “considered that my Call to Missions.” For most, God’s leading into missions took place over many years; for 80% of the interviewees, that leading began when they were between ten and twelve years old! Kane determined the process was:

Curiosity: What is this people group like? Interest: I want to keep learning more. Understanding: I’m beginning to get a heart for this

people. Assurance: I believe God could use me in this group. Conviction: I’m virtually designed to minister among this

people. Commitment: As God leads, I’m ready to engage in

ministering to this people. Action: I’m being confi rmed as one to minister among

this group.

Being led by God is biblically accurate; not moving till we get an experience-based “call” is suspect. Insisting on a specifi c, supernatural call before engaging in global-scope ministry—when God’s Word doesn’t insist on it—often brings comparison, confusion, frustration and guilt. We as God’s people have been very clearly commanded and commissioned. We are to align our lives with God’s objective of making follower-learners—disciples—of every people including our own. In Old Testament parlance, we’re to bless every nation, gracing them with the privilege of joining God’s family through redemption in Jesus Christ.

GLADYS AYLWARD said, ”I wasn’t God’s fi rst choice for what I’ve done for China. I don’t know who it was. It must have been a man—a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing. And God looked down… and saw Gladys Aylward. And God said, ‘Well, she’s willing.’” As the PreparingToGo.com site says, “Just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they can’t still mentor you!”


If God leads you into an assignment of ministering cross-culturally, super. If not, it’s still crucial to realize that a supernatural call isn’t required to align every facet of your life with God’s purpose—which happens to involve every culture on the planet!

If we’re training our children to expect that they will never do anything signifi cant in the Kingdom unless they receive some zap of a special professional call, maybe we’re misleading thousands or millions of potential goers, welcomers, senders, intercessors or mobilizers. This is not about special Christians getting called; it’s about all of us being led. It’s about fi nding our life-purpose in the biblical, historical, cultural and strategic plan of God.

But let’s pause and clarify: Listening for very specifi c guidance from God is defi nitely scriptural—once we’re already moving in obedience. The follower who isn’t following, the servant who isn’t serving probably won’t hear God’s voice. But those who are already on the fi eld of battle seem to be the ones biblically who receive specifi c fi ne-tuning direction from the throne room of God.

Don’t argue with believers who insist on these special calls to go into professional ministry roles. Don’t argue with agencies and organizations whose acceptance requirements list having a specifi c “call” to a ministry. Just open your ears for the very voice of God, constantly confi de to God that you’ll go anywhere and do anything at any time, grab the opportunities He sets before you...and don’t wait for a call!

See the Find your Niche Resources on the Next Steps section of the Perspectives website.

www.perspectives.org

The word leading is usually more

appropriate than the loaded word

calling when it comes to God’s specifi c

role for you in His grand purpose.

Hung up on “How to Know God’s Will for Your Life”?

Don’t feel alone: A Google search gives you 3,080,000 references on the Web that deal with that blockbuster question!

• Determine God’s will by “when things fall into place”? This is usually the exact opposite of what happens when you choose to obey God in the context of this world-system counter-kingdom. Obeying God’s will usually brings chaos, risk, stress, wounds...(yet incredible joy). “In this world-system,” Jesus promised, “you will have tribulation [literally “pressure”]” (John 16:33). “All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Doesn’t sound like everything’s supposed to “work out.” Jesus, in the very core of the will of God, got crucifi ed.

• Determine God’s will by what gives you “peace”? See above.

• Determine God’s will by whatever happens? (Hmmm: Is there any intelligent, biblical way of answering this method of “fi nding” God’s will for your life?)

It’s such a common question, you’d think the Bible itself used the phrase “God’s will for your life.” No, but it does refer often to “God’s will.” So:

1. Study all the passages in which God’s will is mentioned.2. Step into this revealed will of God for your life.3. Do what you want.

Bible expositor John MacArthur is often criticized for this unorthodox statement of “How to Know God’s Will for Your Life: “Obey God fully and then do what you want.” —Because what you want will be what He wants. This, amazingly, keeps all extremes of various systematic theologies happy: If what you do is then sovereignly pre-determined by God, great. If what you do is your own freewill choice that God foreknows and will use for His purpose, super.

Just give up on the guilt-ridden, confusing, vague school of “one Perfect Will and if you miss it you’re a loser living only His Permissive Will the rest of your life.” Yes, there are consequences for disobeying God; you then live with them till heaven. But that doesn’t mean you’re banished from a life of living out His will. It just means you need even more counsel from godly fellow saints, you visit 1 John 1:9 very often, consistently walk in your new nature under the control of the Holy Spirit, and then do what you want.


MOBILIZING: MAKE A DIFFERENCECHAPTER 2

Mobilizing Page 17

Face it: Every one of us world Christians have got to learn how to mobilize regardless of our specifi c role since we all want to help raise mission vision.

The point isn’t to get everyone to go as missionaries; it’s to be realistic and facilitate whole-church awareness, education, involvement and deployment—a process that in North America takes at least 3-5 years in a non-mission-minded fellowship!

MOBILIZATION: MAKE A DIFFERENCEHow to mobilize mission vision among your fellowship

The proven do’s and don’ts of sharing mission vision—mobilization skills that every World Christian must master.

What we’ve learned about mission mobilization over the past couple decades is: The old ways don’t work anymore.

For example, the next time you share about what you learned in Perspectives, you might avoid the dreaded “M” word. The word missions has lots of preconceived and usually inaccurate baggage in our culture. Instead of “missions,” consider tossing into your conversation phrases such as:

The worldwide move of GodExtending the Kingdom throughout the earth God’s call to this generationGod’s global plan for all peoplesThe global cause of ChristThe Kingdom move of GodGod’s plan through the ages

Joining God in what He’s doing in our worldGod’s unchangeable purposeFinding our place of signifi cant service Strategic global impactOur life-purpose & God’s big picture Cross-cultural effectivenessReaching all peoples locally & globally

• About 50% of that group will want to learn more.

• 100% of a group of mobilized believers—such as a church—can become aware of God’s heart for every people.

• About 10% of a mobilized group will get involved—most often in short-terms.

• Typically less than 1% of the group moves into cross-cultural ministry as a vocation.

Mobilizing Page 18

Don’t push.• Pair up with a friend. Place the palm of your right hand out in front of you against the palm of

her/his left hand. Begin to talk to the friend about your mission vision and push. Push harder as you continue. What does the friend naturally do in response?

If you keep pushing and your friend either backs off or falls over—you’ve just lost a friend. And some people think pushing others to Great Commission commitment is a powerful mobilization tactic. Hmmm....

Action-step: Relax. (You not going to make somebody catch a vision.)

Don’t blast.• You’ve gleaned so much exciting information from your Perspectives course that you simply

blast zeal and energy at your friends, your home group, your pastor, at anyone who’ll listen. Imagine a pale whiteskin getting severely sunburned; the last thing he’ll want is to run back out into the sunshine. Will your friends throw on dark glasses and dive for the shadows when they see you coming?

Action-step: Take it from mobilizer Amy Stearns who after her fi rst Perspectives course, blasted her pastor with, “John! We’re doing everything wrong!” In a word: Apologize.

Don’t plead.• Tugging at people’s heartstrings used to work marvelously in our North American culture. (Just

watch a few maudlin movies from the 30s or 40s—really—to accentuate how much our sense of sentimentality has changed.) But showing FOB (fl ies-on-babies) photos now only provokes a knee-jerk reaction to send money instead of sending ourselves—or a reaction of turning a blind eye to all the insurmountable suffering in the world. (Disturbing, pathetic situations are rampant in our real world; it’s just that exploiting them as motivational props is an ineffective mobilization tactic in our current culture.)

If your goal were to raise money, pleas for compassion still work in the short term. But they don’t work when your goal is to sustain a church’s long-term vision of God’s heart for every people.

Action-step: Go watch an old 40s movie! They worked during The Greatest Generation days; their sentimentality just doesn’t cut it today. We’ve changed as a culture, and we’ve got to be realistic about the sensibilities of those we want to mobilize.

DON’TS: HOW TO NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

(Continued)

You’ve caught a grand, scriptural, historic, global, strategic vision in your Perspectives studies. And you’re almost compelled to share it.

Here’s how not to mobilize new mission vision—tactics you’ve possibly already found to blow up in your face:

Mobilizing Page 19

Don’t shame.• North Americans are incredibly adroit at avoiding guilt. We all run—mentally,

emotionally or literally—when polyestered missionaries hint, “Shame on you. You probably have one of those new i-Phones and ate out last week and spent more on dog food than on missions while the whole world is going to hell!” Etc.

Our hair-trigger barricades against the long pointy fi nger of guilt mean that even simple comparisons backfi re. So in polite company where you want to raise mission vision, don’t bother trying to make people feel guilty. (Never mention, for instance, that we North Americans spend more on storage units to store our extra stuff than a total of 29 countries spend on everything. The mission world is full of this kind of shame-inducing trivia. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.)

Guilt is effective in shame-based cultures, but guilt as a motivational weapon is counterproductive in our North American culture.

Action-step: Activate 1 John 1:9—confession. (Since usually working to induce guilt in others = judgmentalism = arrogance. Ouch.)

Don’t think one-size-fi ts-all.• Dr. James Engle some years ago developed the Engle Scale of Evangelism. He simply

pointed out that different people are at different levels of readiness to accept the Gospel message. The same is true of Christians’ openness and understanding of the dynamics of the Great Commission.

Study the chart on the next page. Determine where your friends or whole fellowship is on this “scale of mobilization.” Then use the “Do” list below to customize your approach. Avoid one-size-fi ts-all, cookie-cutter mobilization.

DON’TS: HOW TO NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE(Continued)

Mobilizing Page 20Ca

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YOUR RECIPIENTS’ READINESS TO CATCH, BUILD AND ACT ON

THE VISION

YOUR ROLE AS A MISSION MOBILIZER

YOUR MESSAGE AS A MISSION MOBILIZER

Level 2: I’m starting to learn that God is

amazingly active in the world out there. I’m disturbed that I’ve never

noticed some clear Scriptures on God’s historic plan.

Level 1: I’m a believer, committed to Jesus

Christ.

Level 4: We’d like to be more active in

cross-cultural ministry.

Level 3: We’re getting a new perspective on Scripture, on creative ministries and

on the realities of our part in this world. We’re feeling burdened now

to pray for other peoples.

Level 6: We’ll go, stay, do anything for

His great global Cause.

Level 5: We’re working to integrate a vision of God’s heart for every people into

our lifestyles and our fellowship.

Key Question suggesting a group is moving to the next level: The prevalent question among our

congregation is: “What do we do now?”

Key Question suggesting a group is moving to the next level: My

question and a prevalent question among our congregation is:

“How can we fi nd out more about these things?”

Help others act on the vision by suggesting options for strategic involvement—short- and long-term, local and global.

Considerable commitment is required on their part since abandonment to discipleship always has a cost.

Help others build the vision by researching for them:1) educational tools and 2) exposure experiences— particularly short-term vision/outreach opportunities.

Some commitment is required—but not much beyond a typical church-going commitment to Christ, commitment to study, learn more and pray.

Help others catch the vision by dripping into the normal life of the church God’s breakthroughs and the reality-slaps of Scriptures that emphasize “It’s not all about me.”

No commitment is required. The response may be as passive as, “Huh.”

You’re ready to act on the vision of God’s heart for every people—your own people included. Here are several options for involvement that match your interests and resources.

You’re curious about exploring scriptural patterns you’ve never before noticed—surprisingly obvious themes of God’s unchangeable purpose in history. You’re eager to see more of what God is actively orchestrating in our world today. You’re intrigued that God’s strategy for today pointedly involves your personal destiny. Here is how you fi nd out more.

I know you feel that missions is just one of the hundreds of fi ne ministries a Christian can be involved in. Yet when you’re shocked to learn that God has a clear, overarching purpose for us and that He’s breaking through in miraculous ways all over the planet, you feel jealous to get in on it! Your heart cries for a compelling vision of the Kingdom of God and your signifi cance in it. Here’s what God is doing in His world today—and has been doing throughout history!

Mobilizing Page 21

Help Them Catch the VisionHow do you help believers catch a vision of God’s heart for every people?

Most raise-mission-vision advice doesn’t work because it presumes a congregation to be at the Build or Act On Levels:

• Put up missionary bulletin boards, maps, unreached peoples posters?

• Wheedle small groups into “adopting a missionary”? • Try to get them to read mission books? • Do whizbang mission conferences during which they hear

missionaries talking about missions and eat raw fi sh?• Send as many as possible on as many short-term trips as

possible?• Or—trickiest of all—try to get them to take the Perspectives

on the World Christian Movement course?

Those efforts work with believers and congregations who are at least at Levels Three/Four; they’re mostly about education and a bit of exposure. Even viewing a compelling unreached-people video or watching a missions skit leaves at least 90% of a congregation feeling, “I’m glad the missions people are doing their thing.” A few primed individuals here and there will catch the vision in these efforts. Yet even that outcome suggests that a few super-spirituals are supposed to be missionaries while the rest of us watch.

Actually catching the vision, as we all know, is the life-changing dynamite of Perspectives. So instead of jumping to education/involvement, you weekly, monthly, year after year drip into the normal life of these believers the Scriptures and current-event breakthroughs that lead to a change in worldview.

Shake up status-quo thinking by using the following elements at every opportunity:

• In casual conversations• During the typical “minute for missions” announcements• On-screen before services• In church service programs• In regular church newsletters• When prayer requests are asked for• In anecdotes offered to speakers• Yes, on bulletin boards, etc.

DO’S: HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Ninety percent of believers in North America are non-mission-minded. That means the majority of most congregations are at a Level One on the Mobilization Scale.

And that means most of your infl uence as a world Christian needs to be focused on helping others catch the vision. That’s where most of the following resources hit, since after helping people catch a vision, their natural questions (“How do I fi nd out more?”) pull you into the upper levels—where there are plenty of resources.

(Continued)

Mobilizing Page 22

Drip key Scriptures. For example:

• “Be still, and...” What’s the rest of Psalm 46:10?

• How would you summarize the Bible? Jesus’ summary is in Luke 24:44-47 (P.S. The word “nation” is literally “ethnic group.”)

• “God bless us, be gracious to us and make His face shine upon us....” But what’s the rest of the sentence? (Psalm 67:1-2)

Drip provocative exercises that suggest maybe our worldview is not letting us see what’s really out there. For example:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC

STUDIES COMBINED WITH THE EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS OF EXPERTS.

DO’S: HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE(Continued)

(Continued)

Be the encouraging resource to point out what God is doing in His world today—and has been doing all along!

• What Are You Looking At?

This is a famous photograph of melting snow—by a photographer who, when he saw the image in it, came to faith in Christ!

Add a prayer:

God help us to keep from so much distraction that we don’t see You in our world.

(Hint: By turning the graphic 90° counter-clockwise and blacking-in the distracting corner trivia, you’ll fi nally see an image.)

• Read this and count the number of F’s in 15 seconds, then look away. How many F’s? One, two, three, four, fi ve, six, seven, eight? If in a group, offer them even a second chance of 10-15 seconds to count the F’s. About 90% will have wrong answers. If we’re all looking at the same thing—such as Scripture—are we all seeing what’s really there?

(Especially effective in a large group as a PowerPoint slide or overhead transparency.)

Mobilizing Page 23

Drip breakthroughs of God’s “wonderful works among the children of men.” Use mostly positive breakthroughs. Don’t feel you’re peddling PR or trying to put a positive spin on current events. Instead, you’re obeying some very clear commandments:

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.

Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.—Isaiah 12:4-5

One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.

They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.—Psalm 145:4-5

Expect responses such as “Huh,” “Where’d you get this information?” and “I don’t believe that.” Habakkuk had the same responses:

Look among the nations. Be astonished, wonder, observe. For I am doing something in your day you would not believe if you were told!” —Habakkuk 1:5


• Nigeria has a church building that seats 50,000. At a Nigerian Christmas celebration last year in Lagos, two million fi ve hundred thousand believers showed up. —World Pulse, pielgrzym.org

• With 5,200 Nigerian missionaries already serving in 56 countries, the Nigerian Evangelical Mission Association network has committed to mobilize 50,000 more missionaries over the next 15 years to take the Gospel through the North African Islamic nations back to Jerusalem. —World Pulse, pielgrzym.org

• Since 1979, the JESUS fi lm has been translated into 932 languages and shown in 228 countries. More than 42 million video copies—mostly pirated!—are in circulation worldwide. Over these 27 years, more than 201 million viewers have indicated their commitment to Christ as a result of the fi lm. –The Jesus Film Project

• If they had to choose a religion, 37% of Japan’s youth say they would choose Christianity. 80% of Japan’s brides choose a Christian wedding. —REAP, Tokyo

• Christian researchers at Ethne ’06 in Indonesia report that 4,500 new churches open globally now every week. –Momentum

• Worldwide, the Gideons now hand out more than one million Scriptures every week. –Gideons

• Galcom globally distributes radios pre-tuned to Christian broadcasts. Last year in one Estonian prison, 200 prisoners with Galcom radios came to faith in Christ. .—Galcom, IBRA, World By Radio

• It is estimated that more than 55,000 Christians will be martyred this year for the cause of Christ. –COMIBAM

• Think nobody’s sharing their faith? Every day 166,000 people hear the good news of Jesus Christ for the fi rst time. —World Christian Database

• This Saturday, pray for the 700,000 believers gathering in worship in Nepal-since they meet on Saturdays, the national day off! The number of believers in Nepal has quadrupled in the past 10 years. –Assist News Service (Continued)

Here are some examples of the incredible things that God is doing around the world…

Mobilizing Page 24

• And you thought God was losing: Every year another 27 million people profess faith in Christ. -- Barrett & Johnson, World Christian Trends

• If Jesus doesn’t come back before 2025, the 81 million believers in China are expected to increase to 135 million. -- Barrett & Johnson, World Christian Trends

• In Romania, Norwegian missionary Andreas Nordli says, “Everywhere I go, I meet young Romanians who have on their heart to go to countries like Turkey, India and China.” Romania has already sent out 50 career missionaries. -- Andreas Nordli, Constanta, Romania

• A Bible school in Algeria trains leaders among the 50,000 Berbers who have come to Christ since 1984—a movement fueled by miracles, dreams of Jesus...and persecution. –Sources withheld

• In Pakistan in September 2006, 45 churches held open-air meetings in front of a mosque. About 10,000 attended the meetings. In the following six months, 14 new churches sprang up, and nearly all the churches doubled their memberships. -- Friedhelm Holthuis, [email protected]

Sources for BreakthroughsNeutral (from non-sending groups) breakthrough sources:• Mission Catalyst—news breaks:

missionscatalyst.org• Momentum—Strategic Network’s momentum-

mag.org• Joel News—A Europe-based anecdotal

newsletter: joelnews.org• Brigada—Updates on mission resources:

Brigada.org• Global Report—A quarterly compilation:

BillAndAmyStearns.info


NEXT: Help Them Build the VisionIn the huge Perspectives Reader, David Bryant calls this phase “Keeping” the vision—making it your own. But “keep” sounds as if you’re keeping it to yourself. So we’re bucking the party line and insisting that it’s Build the Vision.

How do you help believers build a vision of God’s heart for every people?

Here’s where great resources are available for you to use and suggest to your fellowship: If you are denominationally connected, check

with your denomination’s mission department for mission education resources.

Recommend Perspectives-based curriculum for your fellowship’s adult Sunday School classes and home groups from the Perspectives Family of Resources:

• Operation Worldview Video Series and Study Guide

• God’s Heart for the Nations Bible Study• The Condensed World Mission Course• Encountering the World of Islam

Browse more resources below and in our Resource Library.

Host a World Christian Fellowship using our sample session. See who is interested in gathering regularly—monthly or quarterly— to encourage and challenge each other as world Christians.

Okay, so if mobilizing your own church to new mission vision is only part of your mobilizing niche

for now, consider the deal we have for you:

Mobilize dozens of churches at the same time!

Join a Perspectives Task Force and/or take Perspectives Coordinator Training!

Learn more....

Mobilizing Page 25

FINALLY: Help Them Act On the VisionDavid Bryant in the Perspectives Reader uses the term “obey” the vision. Whether it’s actualizing or obeying, this is the easy phase of mobilization—since a congregation knows what’s it’s doing to join in God’s global program.

This is the stage during which a church strategically sends out its goers, networked with other churches and partnering with agencies—and with a support team in the church that every missionary longs for.

There are advanced levels of info and tools for a fellowship to actually move out and act on the vision: networks of agencies and churches, books, consultations and more. Browse the full resource lists in the Resource Library.

For more resources for Mobilizing go to the Next Steps section of the

Perspectives website.www.perspectives.org


Imagine: After a year, two years of weekly, constantly hearing of God’s wonderful works, more

and more believers in a group are getting jealous to be in on what God is doing. And they begin asking, “How do we fi nd out more about this?” (See Resources for the Mobilizer on the Perspectives website.)

Consider mobilization as your career ministry focus!

Why? Because you have...• The paraclete (“called alongside”) spiritual gift of encour-

agement/ exhortation. • Abilities in teaching.• A heart for place after place, people group after people

group (which worries you as if you’re fl ighty). Actually, you have a heart for the whole world.

• A love for networking. You’re energized by connecting people and opportunities, and are totally happy letting others have the credit for accomplishments.

• Persistence. Your world Christian zeal doesn’t need to see immediate results.

• A desire to minister to the church in your own culture. You’re most effective on the homefront among Christians.

Why not? Because...• It’s a largely unrecognized, non-traditional ministry. You

can’t get a degree or even certifi cation in mobilization; friends think if you’re interested in missions, you should just give in and go as a missionary.

• Unless you’re recruiting missionaries for a sending agency, there are few measurable results to “raising mission vi-sion.”

• It’s hard to belong: You can count on one hand all the neu-tral (non-sending) mobilization organizations in the world.

• It is challenging to raise support as a mobilizer. You live in your own culture, your work is vague to most Christians, and you belong to no renowned organization.

How?Excellent question. There are no Mobilizer Certifi cation programs, very very few neutral (non-sending) mobilization organizations and very little literature on this “new” ministry. But if this is your niche for now, get started anyway, yes?

• If you’re okay with a mobilization ministry that encourages goers to sign on with a specifi c sending agency, check with your denomination or favorite agency for their mobilizer training materials.

• If you want to stay “neutral” as a mobilizer, work through the resources listed below—particularly The Ten Modules: Equipping You To Mobilize by The Traveling Team. It’ll refer you to still more mobilization wisdom:

http://www.TheTravelingTeam.org

Mobilizing Page 26

PRAYER: REBELLING AGAINST THE STATUS QUO

CHAPTER 3

Prayer Page 29

PRAYER: REBELLING AGAINST THE STATUS QUOI have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;

they will never be silent day or night.You who call on the LORD,give yourselves no rest....

—Isaiah 62:6

Prayer Quotes

“The battle we face is a spiritual confl ict. It must be fought and won by men and women of God who are willing to intercede for missionary families as they invade enemy territory held uncontested for centuries. Satan does not meekly give up his prey. He counterattacks fi ercely in many unexpected ways. The missionary must have intercessors who stand alongside, praying on a regular and systematic basis.”

- David Wang

“History belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being.... These shapers of the future are the intercessors who call out of the future the longed-for present.”

- Walter Wink

“We will only advance in our evangelistic work as fast and as far as we advance on our knees. Prayer opens the channel between a soul and God; prayerlessness closes it. Prayer releases the grip of Satan’s power; prayerlessness increases it. That is why prayer is so exhausting and so vital. If we believed it, the prayer meeting would be as full as the church.”

- Alan Redpath

“The whole idea of the prayers of the saints is that God’s holiness, God’s purpose, God’s ways may be brought about irrespective of who comes or goes.”

– Oswald Chambers

“It is true that Bible prayers in word and print are short, but the praying men of the Bible were with God through many a sweet and holy wrestling hour. They won by few words but long waiting.”

- E. M. Bounds

“I believe it will only be known on the Last Day how much has been accomplished in missionary work by the prayers of earnest believers at home...I do earnestly covet a volume of prayer for my...work -- but oh! for a volume of faith too. Will you give this?

- James Fraser

Remember David Wells’ arresting essay in the Perspectives Reader about prayer as rebellion?

What is the nature of petitionary prayer? lt is, in essence, rebellion —rebellion against the world in its fallenness, the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is, in this its negative aspect, the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as originally established by God.

This is not the way life is supposed to be. It makes me angry, but I personally can do something about it: pray!

If your passion has focused on intercession—serving the Body of Christ as a watchman on the walls, you know there are a ton of very good prayer resources out there. We don’t need to run through yet another Bible review of all the reasons and keys to powerful prayer. (See the rudimentary resource list below.)

Whether it’s straight from the Book or in the thousands of great pamphlets, articles, messages or books on prayer, we know prayer isn’t so much about exhortation, information or technique.

It’s about the supernatural.

So settle back for a good global story about the power of intercession. A good, true story. Then we’ll suggest a few iron-sharpening exercises, mention some key resources and let you get on with your intercessory role in the Kingdom...for now.

A StorySomewhere in Western Sahara. Okay, so you feel a little vertigo: You have no idea where you are. You casually ask Robert, the Brit who organized this trip and is driving your big Toyota Land Cruiser. He sticks out his lip, looks at the fl at dirt—sand to the horizon—and says, “Haven’t a clue.” (Click here for the rest of the story....)

Prayer Page 30

(Continued)

“ Make time for the quiet moments as God whispers and the world is loud.”

- Anonymous

“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.”

- Corrie Ten Boom

“I have felt the impact of your prayer in these past weeks. I am certain now that nothing has had a more powerful infl uence on this life of mine than your prayers.”

- Jim Elliot

“Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unburden yourself wholly -every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt- to Him...He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate.”

- Horatius Bonar

“...to pray in the Spirit, to speak words that reach and touch God, that affect and infl uence the powers of the unseen world - such praying, such speaking, depends entirely upon our hearing of God’s voice.”

- Andrew Murray

“Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all pray.”

- R.A. Torrey

“The motive is this, ‘Oh! that God could be glorifi ed, that Jesus might see the reward of his sufferings! Oh! that sinners might be saved, so that God might have new tongues to praise him, new hearts to love him! Oh! that sin were put an end to, that the holiness, righteousness, mercy, and power of God might be magnifi ed!’ This is the way to pray; when thy prayers seek God’s glory, it is God’s glory to answer thy prayers.”

C. H. Spurgeon

Lord, Teach Us to PrayEven prayerless Christians know we should pray for our missionaries. Paul set an early example of missionaries pleading for prayer:

I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. —Romans 15:30

You can Google over three million references on the Web with the query “How to pray for a missionary/missionaries.” Many of the citations have surprisingly good and even creative ideas.

So the quandary in global intercession isn’t about how to pray for missionaries. It’s more complicated than that—as in: how to pray for the whole world. It’s praying for the nations and against the enemy Satan—whose hordes steal and kill and destroy these captives who are without God and without hope.

For your priestly, global intercession, you’ll need prayer friends and prayer fuel.

Find Friends to Pray for the Nations(Note: If you haven’t run through it already, work through our Make A Difference—How to Mobilize Mission Vision in Your Fellowship unit.)

Comrades in global prayer are sometimes tough to fi nd in the typical fellowship. Yet nurturing the prayer skills of the non-mission-minded—the non-Perspectives prayer warriors in your church—is wonderfully simple since we get to see history-changing results!

That is, much prayer rises like incense before our God, and we’ll never know till heaven how He has answered. But in praying for the unreached peoples of the world, we can virtually measure the effectiveness of our prayers. For example, if you began interceding for the exotic, legendary Halkh Mongolian people just two decades ago, you’d be praying for an unreached people group in which there were no known believers. Then there was one. Then eight. Today you’d be praising as well as pleading in your prayers since there are now more than 30,000 young Mongolian believers, with strong Mongolian-led churches sending more missionaries per Christian than any other country in the world!

Every prayer warrior longs to:1) see the results of prayer and

2) feel the power of prayer—both of which occur when

praying for the nations!

Prayer Page 31

(Continued)

Another compelling reason your praying friends will be intrigued to join you in interceding for the nations—even though they’re not Perspectives-savvy—is that praying for unreached peoples is totally unselfi sh and is therefore divinely powerful. We know that very often when we pray, we ask “amiss” or “with wrong motives” (James 4:3). When you pull down the strongholds over an unreached people, you have absolutely no personal stake in the outcome; any results are purely for the glory of God. So the global prayer weapons of our warfare have an effi cacy, a power that our “domestic” and personal prayers may not have.

Actually seeing in your lifetime the historic results of your prayers plus experiencing a new power in prayer is incredibly motivating to intercessors. You can use these remarkable factors to recruit friends who’ll be comrades-in-arms for the spiritual battles you’ll wage for the sake of His Name among the nations.

Exercise 1. Get praying friends addicted to intercession for the nations.

If your prayer list doesn’t already read like God’s Registry of the Peoples (Psalm 87:6), consider taking on this memorable unreached people in Mali among whom—at last report—there is one lone follower of Jesus Christ:

The Bozos.

Yes, with big red noses, wild orange hair, fl oppy shoes.

No, seriously, they are called the Bozos! Recruit a few comrades to intercede with you (Who can resist praying for the Bozos?) by emphasizing that there will be Bozos in heaven (Revelation 5:9). And we’re not talking about your brother-in-law or neighbor. You and your friends can pray and measure God’s response as, through the coming years, more Bozos come to faith in Christ!

Go beyond your local connections of intercessors and explore the various global prayer networks to fi nd new friends to pray with. A good starting point for networking is the Web site of Operation World. (See below.)

“I wonder what would happen to most churches and Christian work if we awakened tomorrow, and everything concerning the reality and work of the Holy Spirit, and everything concerning prayer were removed from the Bible. I don’t mean just ignored, but actually cut out— disappeared. I wonder how much difference it would make?”

- Francis Schaeffer

“We all have to wait until the astonishing discoveries will one day be made, and fi nd out whose faithful prayer in hospitals, prisons, jungles, wheelchairs, crowded city apartments, cabins in the woods, farms, factories, or concentration camps has been a part of a specifi c victory in snatching someone from a circle of death, or in breaking chains so that there seems to be an ease for that one in stepping into new life. I feel sure that we’ll be surprised beyond measure to discover who or how many will receive the rewards for their part in taking literally and with simple faith and trust the responsibility to intercede, to pray, to make requests day in and day out.”

-Edith Schaeffer

“Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!”

- Leonard Ravenhill

“Almost everyone believes that prayer is important. But there is a difference between believing that prayer is important and believing it is essential. ‘Essential’ means there are things that will not happen without prayer.”

- Dee Duke

Find praying friends particularly among

the elderly—in your fellowship, in nearby

elder-care facilities, in your extended

family. Empower them with purpose; they

have the time and wisdom to pray for the

nations. Perhaps God is giving them these

extended years on earth precisely to

change history. You supply the prayer fuel

and updates; they will pray!

Prayer Page 32

Find “Fuel” to Pray for the NationsHow do you get specifi c in your prayers for the nations? How can you tell when your prayers are taking effect? Both questions are answered by gathering the people group information already researched by the Body of Christ.

More than 300 Christian research organizations around the world are now sharing their fi ndings. This rare information fi ne-tunes your intercession, and it gives you benchmarks to measure the results. For example, among the Bozos there is no church whatsoever according to The Joshua Project information. Noting that benchmark of zero churches will make it obvious when your prayers are kicking in as one church fellowship, then two, then a church movement erupts among the Bozos.

Get an idea of how to fi nd prayer fuel on a people group by glimpsing some Web information on that one-of-a-kind ethnic group—the Bozos. Of course, you can follow this process to fi nd out more about nearly any unreached people on the planet!

Exercise 2. Gather prayer fuel for intelligent intercession.a. Ask God for wisdom in praying what He wants among

the Bozos.b. Go to JoshuaProject.orgc. Insert in the Search box “Bozos.”d. Jot down everything you feel is signifi cant about the

Bozos.e. Follow the links to fi nd out more.f. Duplicate your fi ndings for your fellow intercessors.g. Pray.

Free-Falling in PrayerIs a world Christian supposed to only pray for the unreached ethne of the world? We might get so focused on our “favorite” people group that our times of intercession slide back into “our own desires” to see results.

Feel free to regularly pray through your own fellowship’s prayer requests—even if it only seems to be a repetitious rundown of all the ailments of church members. Check with your church’s denominational or network affi liations for prayer items. Visit the Mission America Coalition site <MissionAmerica.org>—particularly the “Lighthouse” section—for prayer points and national prayer networking. Remember that, in our

Perspectives emphasis on the world’s unreached peoples, your own nation is also one which God is longing to bless.

Further, here’s an exercise to keep you open-minded about who and what to pray for regardless of your own interests: Intercede for the individuals and pray against satanic attacks in a “random” string of Web searches regardless of where you land:

Exercise 3. Pray through the Web.a. Ask God for insight.b. Use your usual Web search engine (Yahoo.com, Google.com, etc.) to enter the following, and then pray about what catches your eye and heart:

American church. Remember that without a vision, the people “lose focus” (Proverbs 29:18). World political leaders. Praying for these fi gures is a

command (1 Timothy 2:1-2)! Disaster. Often when the god of this world ravages

a city or people, it’s an indicator that God is moving behind the scenes. Poorest of the poor. “Remember the poor”

(Galatians 2:10). Street kids. Look after the orphans and widows in

their distress. (James 1:26-27).

Add your own free-form search terms. And be jolted into specifi c prayer on topics you never thought you’d be praying about!

For more Prayer resources check out the Next Steps section of the Perspectives website.

www.Perspectives.org

“Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den...Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for: Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission.”

- John Piper

(Read through John Robb’s stunning article “Prayer as a Strategic Weapon in Frontier Missions” —“Are unreached peoples resistant to the gospel or has so little prayer gone up for them that they are effectively held in check by the enemy?”)

SERVING AS SENDERCHAPTER 4

Sending Page 35

SERVE AS A SENDER

It’s pretty much the “duh” verse of the New Testament: “And how shall they proclaim unless they are sent?” —Romans 10:15

Maybe your niche...for now...is sending!

God seems to be raising up a whole new army of homefront believers whose lives are saturated with a passion for His global cause. With nearly 80,000 graduates of the Perspectives course mobilizing others in their fellowships, North American-based world Christians are increasingly catching a vision of their part in sending—much as in today’s military, where every frontline combat soldier is backed up by nearly 100 support personnel.

Some senders focus on a personal missionary. Others’ sending ministries are more general, serving the larger Body of Christ. Still other senders have taken on vocational roles in mission organizations, and as professional administrators, trainers, researchers and care-givers to send hundreds and thousands of missionaries.

Finding your niche in the sending teams of global missions might be as simple as reviewing your spiritual giftings and your SHAPE—spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality and experience. If you didn’t work through those exercises in the Find Your Niche unit, consider taking now a quick Spiritual Gifts Inventory (www.buildingchurch.net/g2s-i.htm).

Is your sending ministry to be—for now—personal, more general or vocational?

A PERSONAL SENDING TEAMSenders team up to form the support base for a specifi c missionary with “behind-the-lines” backup in at least 10 areas of specialization:

Financial Supporter• Moral Supporter• Logistics Specialist• Prayer Coordinator• Communications Specialist• Financial Advocate• Short-Term Teams Coordinator• Seasonal Assistant• Researcher• Re-Entry Coordinator•

Let’s think through the practicalities of these roles:

Many of the roles of a missionary’s sending team are carefully described in Neal Pirolo’s excellent study Serving As Senders (see Resources). The point of the Serving As Senders study is simply that these sender-specialists are involved in crucial mission work as is a frontline missionary--although the homefront senders most often are involved on a part-time, volunteer basis.

Sending Page 36

WHAT DO SENDERS DO? A Financial Supporter:

Over 70% of North American missionaries are faith based, which means they must develop a • team of fi nancial supporters to partner with them in prayer and fi nances for the work that they do. This is the easiest way to get involved in a sending ministry BUT DON’T STOP HERE! There are may more ways to get involved than just through fi nancial gifts. Keep reading about other ways to serve in the vital role of sending.

A Moral Supporter can:Send random messages of encouragement to a missionary via snail mail, email, in a video, • during a phone call, with a cake....Learn all the tiny details of the missionary/missionary family—birthdays, other special days, • favorite foods, movies, books, hobbies, areas of interest, likes and dislikes. Then communicate these details to the rest of the sending team to surprise the missionary with exactly those special things on exactly those special days.Serve as an empathetic listener, a confi dante, the one who sincerely and regularly asks, “How • are you today?”

A Logistics Specialist facilitates practical arrangements. He or she (or a team) can:Pack a missionary’s goods as she or he heads for the fi eld.• Arrange a missionary’s travel to, from, and within the target area, including planning and • handling contingency plans for emergencies.Locate, get specs and costs of needed equipment and supplies, and then pack and ship the • items.Arrange travel for visitors or short-term groups to the target area.• Research communication options for the missionary—phone connections, Internet capabilities, • etc.Train other churches’ sending teams to handle logistics.•

A Prayer Coordinator can:Pinpoint spiritual targets for intercession from information provided by the team researchers, • mission agencies, and the missionary.Inform prayer groups of these prayer points regarding the people group.• Enlist specifi c prayer warriors to intercede for the personal needs of the missionary. • Offer training in how to pray on a global scale.• Promote regular prayer for the missionary and the people group through announcements, take-• home items, family devotional reminders.Set an example of consistent prayer for the missionaries.• Promote periodic prayer events on behalf of the people group and the missionary.• Train other churches’ sending teams to coordinate prayer.•

The sending team Communication Specialist(s) can:Establish lines of communication with the missionary on the fi eld—via letter, fax, phone, • amateur radio, e-mail, Internet audio/video, courier.Work with the prayer coordinator to communicate to prayer groups and the entire fellowship • the essentials of prayer requests, praise and the missionary’s concerns.Regularly produce or edit and distribute a news-prayer letter on behalf of the missionary.• Promote regular and special opportunities for various ages of church members to communicate • with their missionaries.Communicate with other churches, mission societies, and missionaries who are working among •

(Continued)

Sending Page 37

that same people group.Submit articles, news releases, and prayer publicity to local, regional, or widespread • Christian media to promote awareness of the targeted people group.Train other churches’ sending teams to communicate.•

The sending team’s Financial Advocate(s) can:Help plan the details of support raising, help present a fi nancial plan to the church, • organize advocates to network for the missionary’s support. See the article Support Advocacy for an eye opener on how sending advocates can help missionaries beat the challenges of support raising.If the missionary’s agency doesn’t provide these fi nancial services, the advocate can • monitor or initiate plans for appropriate insurances— medical, life, property, etc.—and taxes as well as retirement or re-entry fi nances.Handle any of the missionary’s fi nancial matters while he, she or they are on the fi eld.• Evaluate personal and ministry expense patterns, and advise on wise fi nancial action.• Raise funds for the mission effort—pursuing grant funding, exploring secular fi nancial • sources, mounting an ongoing support appeal to the church.Train other churches’ sending teams to help with missionaries’ fi nances.•

A sending team’s Short-Term Teams Coordinator can:Communicate with the missionary as to the need of any short-term teams—the number of • individuals needed, the types of skills needed, the timing, etc.Promote the recruitment of short-termers to assist the missionary.• Orient and arrange training for the short-termers. This ministry is especially vital when • short-termers come from different churches.Work with the other sending team members to effi ciently equip and send short-term • teams who will enhance the missionary’s long-term ministry objectives.With the re-entry coordinator, guide the short-termers as they return—to not only process • their own experiences but to mobilize others to pray, give, go, and/or join the sending team!Train other churches’ sending teams to coordinate their missionaries’ short-term teams.•

A sending team’s Seasonal Assistants can join the missionary periodically.Many world Christians’ health, family situations, fi nances, job requirements, etc. mandate that they stay in their home culture. Yet they long to be ministering in a missionary role. These are not simply short-termers who contribute as they can to the work; these are people who regularly travel to assist the missionary in specifi c tasks. Perhaps a recurring training program needs extra hands. Or a camping ministry needs trained workers only for a few months. Or annual bookkeeping must be done. Or missionary children must have additional supervision during school holidays.

Whatever the task, these seasonal workers spend weeks or months as part of the actual missionary team—and bring back full reports regularly to the homefront sending team as well as the home church. Of course, one extra job description for the seasonal assistant is to train others to assist in a similar way, and to help train other churches to consider sending seasonal assistants to amplify their missionaries’ ministries.

WHAT DO SENDERS DO?(Continued)

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Sending Page 38

A sending team’s Researcher can “look to the fi elds.”If a fellowship or the Church at large knows nothing about a particular corner of the harvest fi eld, there won’t be much prayer to thrust forth laborers into that area and its people group. Knowing little or nothing is the starting point for one of the most crucial and yet unnoticed roles in mission work: research.

Often the missionary on the fi eld is immersed in the language, local customs, and personalities of local contacts in a people group. But he or she may have diffi culty gaining accurate information about demographics, about the actual history of a people (sometimes contrasted with the local legendary versions), about the overall culture itself, as well as current news. A home-front researcher can often glean this valuable information and provide it to the missionary, to the rest of the sending team, to sending churches and, if appropriate, to mission agencies and networks. A researcher trains new researchers for the sending team, of course—to assist and/or serve as substitutes. Researchers also train other churches’ sending teams to recruit and train their own researchers.

A sending team’s Re-Entry Coordinator(s) can Discuss with missionaries before they go the expected dates and events of the • missionaries’ return--for visits, rests, and/or a permanent return.Regularly update the missionaries on the fi eld as to developments in the homefront’s • popular culture—including what teenagers are wearing, what issues are in vogue, what’s happening in Christian circles.Work with the missionary to carefully plan the personal aspects of any homecomings, • and implementing and/or coordinating the work of such homecomings.Plan and arrange events at which returning missionaries can, in a reasonable schedule, • share what God has been doing in and through them.Arrange for furlough housing and transportation.• Keep updated, and inform the missionary of schooling, employment, and ministry • opportunities that are possible when the missionary returns to his or her passport culture.Plan and arrange for the ongoing roles of returned missionaries within the fellowship.• Arrange for any necessary counseling for returning missionaries and family members.• Train a substitute to take on these jobs whenever necessary.• Train other churches’ sending teams to handle missionaries’ re-entry challenges.•

Every missionary moving into cross-cultural ministry should have such a team on the homefront. After all, how shall they proclaim unless they are sent?

SENDERS FOR THE BODY OF CHRIST AT-LARGESome senders move into a ministry that goes beyond partnering with one missionary. They simply use their SHAPE (Did you work through this exercise in the Find Your Niche unit?) to support The Cause of Christ generally—by:

Offering hospitality—meals, lodging, retreats—for missionaries• Giving discounts on equipment or services to mission workers• Tithing their business profi ts to missions (See • Business As Mission.)Using their creativity to further the Kingdom of God in fresh ways•

WHAT DO SENDERS DO?(Continued)

Sending Page 39

One businessman in Seattle, Washington, developed the www.MinistryHome.org web site to help hundreds of missionaries connect with new supporters. A mom organized a ministry of nannies to serve missionary families. The creative approaches to serve the mission cause are as individual as the individual sender.

Here’s a great story of a newspaperman who’s launching into a unique ministry serving as a sender:

“GET INVOLVED WHERE YOU ARE”

The newsletter from a local children’s ministry brought a smile to my face, although it had nothing to do with what the newsletter actually said. I smiled before reading a word of it; indeed, I never read the entire letter. I smiled, in fact, because it was so diffi cult to read that I gave up on it.

One of my daughters, produced the letter. And in her attempt to be creative, she’d chosen a combination of colored paper and colored type that, frankly, made my eyes spin. As a writer and editor with several years of experience with newspapers, magazines and newsletters, I felt I could offer professional, as well as fatherly, advice. So we had a discussion about the challenge of staying creative without losing your readers.

Later, it dawned on me how I wished I could have a similar discussion with some of the missionaries who sent us newsletters. Many of them, I realized, were ineffective because they were poorly written or poorly designed or both. The implications: Less prayer, less fi nancial support, less fruit for the Kingdom of God; more frustrations for God-hearted, well-intentioned missionaries.

Fast-forward a few years to 2005. I’m taking “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.” As I began to examine and pray about my role in the Great Commission, I kept coming back to some basic beliefs. Yes, I might “go” from time to time. And, yes, our family will “send” by fi nancially and prayerfully supporting specifi c missionaries. But what about this new phrase I’m hearing – equipping?

Perspectives gave me a deeper understanding of the role some believers play in the Great Commission —middle-of-the-road moneymakers like me who don’t feel called to leave the country but still feel called to participate.

It took two years for me to fi gure out a specifi c and intentional plan for putting my skills as a writer and editor to use equipping others who are involved in Great Commission work. But earlier this year, in partnership with The Body Builders, we launched WordBuilders Communications Services.

The idea is to help as many missionaries and missions-related groups as I can with their communications. Right now, it’s a “spare time” ministry; I still work full-time as an editor for a statewide newspaper. And clients pay nothing for the service. God has provided all the spare time I’ve needed for all the clients He’s sent my way. And if it grows, I know He’ll provide the resources, either more time for me or more writer/editor types who want to do the same thing.

In a few short months, God has proven Himself. Things I believed are now things I’ve seen in action: God provides for those who step into His work.

Note: For more information on WordBuilders, go to www.thebodybuilders.net/wordbuilder

“The implications of poorly written or poorly designed newsletters: Less prayer,

less fi nancial support, less fruit for the Kingdom of God; more frustrations for God-hearted,

well-intentioned missionaries.”

Sending Page 40

VOCATIONAL SENDERSSending specialists may serve the whole Body of Christ as, for example:

Mission organization workers• Researchers• Missiologists, mission teachers• Missionary trainers• Missionary pastors/counselors• Administrative personnel•

The crucial signifi cance of these roles is, frankly, tough to communicate to typical churches. That is, the typical thinking is that if you’re devoted to a missions career, you ought to live in some “overseas” location and minister cross-culturally. Support in prayer and fi nances is often a challenge. And so, contrary to what we learned in Perspectives, these workers often have to call themselves “missionaries” in their church relationships. The blurring of this term—sometimes stretched into suggesting “We are all missionaries”—actually does a disservice to mission understanding and particularly to these unsung heroes who keep global mission efforts running smoothly.

Most organizations who hire you on as a vocational sender, however, are very good at clearly communicating to churches and supporters the importance of your role. Thinking through the Find Your Niche exercise might let you consider that, with your compelling interest in missions, God is leading you to a vocation in sending!

WORLD CHRISTIAN SENDERSMeanwhile, whatever sending role you explore, serious sending means living a lifestyle with world Christian characteristics such as

Noting how culturized my Christianity may be.• Seeking to understand how we’ve been blessed and how we can use that to bless other nations.• Maintaining personal purity for the sake of His name and for the sake of demonstrating His grace to • the principalities in the heavenlies (Ephesians 3:10-11). Going out of my way to learn about and meet people of other cultures.• Affi rming all the God-given ministries of the church as part of what He is doing in the big picture.• Diligently mounting my part in the spiritual battles in the heavenlies as I intercede in disciplined • prayer.Fellowshipping with believers to encourage and be encouraged.• Sharing the great news of what God is doing.• Constantly submitting to the supervision of God as to where I go and what I do in ministry--with no • reservations.Serving the church.• Becoming more and more of a student of the Word.• Passing on a world vision to those around us we are allowed to infl uence.• Developing all the qualities of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.•

You don’t have to minister cross-culturally to live a holy, focused, streamlined, effective life that impacts whole people groups for Jesus Christ. You can rejoice as a sender.

WELCOMINGCHAPTER 5

Welcoming Page 43

WELCOMING!You, missionary to the nations on our doorstep

In Christ there is not East or West,In Him no North or South;

But one great fellowship of loveThroughout the whole wide Earth.

“Welcomers” are cross-cultural missionaries in their home countries who welcome international students, refugees,

immigrants, tourists and diplomats in the name of Christ. If welcoming is your post-Perspectives volunteer role or if you’re exploring a vocation in welcoming, browse through:

“Each year over 120,000 new international students and scholars begin a four year sojourn in American universities and other institutions of higher learning. While these students often come to America with specifi c goals and plans, most of them are unaware of a personal divine plan from God. As caring committed Christians come across their paths and offer friendship in Him, they learn about the greatest friend of all Jesus Christ.”

Tom Phillips and Bob NorsworthyThe World at your Door

Perspectives Reader1. Your Pop Quiz2. This Is Not Easy!3. Get Missiological4. Volunteer or Vocation?5. Self Assessment

1. YOUR POP QUIZHow well do you know the world of welcoming ministry?

Read through the good news and bad news below, the answers might suprise you.

The Good News: Advantages of a Welcoming Ministry

1. Your Role: You can serve cross-culturally as a missionary without the added expense, risk, travel and foreign-culture stress of missionary life in another country.

So what’s the downside of this role? Think through your own ideas of the disadvantages of this role; see how it compares with our response below under THE BAD NEWS.

2. Your Ministry: A fruitful ministry among internationals is relational. Events and information are helpful, but it’s genuinely befriending and responding to the needs of internationals that guides them to Christ.

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Welcoming Page 44

So what’s the downside of this ministry? Think through your ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

3. Your Ministry Environment: You get to stay in your home culture.

So what’s the downside? Think through your own ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

4. Your Sending Team: You’re living among your sending team—including potential fi nancial supporters, so you can consistently keep in touch.

So what’s the downside of this advantage that “overseas” missionaries don’t have? Think through your own ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

5. Your New Student Believers: Internationals—especially students—are more open to new ideas, new behavior, and are more open to the Gospel than they would be on their home turf. New believers realize the signifi cance of their coming to Christ, and often speak of getting training and serving Christ full-time.

So what’s the downside of this chance to minister unhindered to international students? Think through your own ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

6. Your New Immigrant Believers: It’s legal to openly share your faith here. Extended families and whole neighborhoods can be introduced to Jesus Christ! You can see a people movement—a church-planting movement among an unreached people right here in North America!

So what’s the downside of seeing churches of immigrants or refugees form in North America? Think through your own ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

7. Your Impact: Students return to their home countries—often in positions of leadership and infl uence. Immigrants have extended family ties that reach back into the relational networks of their people group in their homeland. A changed life here as you welcome these foreigners can impact the nations!

So what’s the big challenge in seeing foreigners come to Christ in North America? Think through your own ideas and then consider ours under THE BAD NEWS (below).

Welcomers are realizing the

impact of their ministries

among unreached peoples.

One Canadian welcomer

meets refugee families

from Kosovo as they arrive

in Canada. He helps them

fi nd jobs and furniture for

their apartments. Then he

invites them to a meal and

tells them, “I am your pastor,

like your imam.” “How can

that be?” they respond.

“We’re Muslim and you’re a

Christian.” “I just am,” he

says without explanation,

and begins to lead them

through the Messianic Psalms.

Over the two years of this

“welcoming” ministry, two

extended family groups of

Kosovar Albanians have come

to faith in Christ!

YOUR POP QUIZContinued

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Welcoming Page 45

The *Bad News: Disadvantages of a Welcoming Ministry

*(Well, not really bad news. Just...challenging news. Nothing’s actually “bad” about following God’s commands to honor the foreigner in our midst!)

Your Role1. : You are serving cross-culturally as a missionary, but most church people don’t think you’re a “real” missionary because you’re not on a “foreign fi eld” or “overseas.”

Your Ministry2. : Because it’s a relational ministry of befriending internationals, it’s a time-intensive work. (Putting on an event—a North American ministry standard—is time-specifi c. Sitting and talking, eating together, talking on the phone, enjoying recreation and talking, intentionally building a friendship is open-ended and takes time—a rare commodity in our culture.) Other cultures’ views of friendship, and of possessions and wealth further complicate ministry to internationals as they expect deep attachments, and can depend too much on your efforts to respond to their needs.

Your Ministry Environment3. : You constantly have to apologize for much of your home culture and resist its bad infl uences on your international friends.

Your Sending Team4. : You’ve living among potential fi nancial supporters, so they sense no urgency in committing to your support team since you don’t have some impending date to “go”!

Your New Student Believers5. : Seeing students come to Christ apart from their oikos—extended families—and away from their home culture proves diffi cult and sometimes dangerous for the individual, her/his family and any church movement among their people when the student returns home. Thus many new student believers immediately begin trying to stay in North America permanently rather than risk being salt and light in their own culture.

Your New Immigrant Believers6. : Immigrants and refugees are sometimes uneducated, limited in English and typically are low-income earners. And so the strategy of a church-planting movement among this group is almost as much a challenge as a movement in their homeland would be. These challenges require that a welcoming ministry is fully prepared to go way beyond befriending and helping out these foreigners as it moves into the missiological realm of fostering a church-planting movement.

Your Impact7. : The new Christian international student returning home usually faces a loss of the spiritual support he or she has enjoyed in a campus ministry—plus the resistance of family, culture and Satan himself. Among an immigrant people in North America, nearly every family will resist going back to their homeland with the Gospel. They made it to North America, and nearly two more generations will need to grow up before some will return to their people as missionaries with Good News. Again, an effective welcoming ministry needs a solid missiological core in order to overcome these what-happens-after-salvation challenges.

YOUR POP QUIZContinued

Welcoming Page 46

2. THIS IS NOT EASY

Sometimes those in welcoming ministries, as they mobilize churches to participate in reaching the internationals in our midst, tend to minimize the effort required. It’s true that any believer can invite a foreigner over for a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. Anyone can help set up an international dinner

to welcome new foreign students. But as noted in our BAD NEWS—no, the CHALLENGING NEWS about a solid welcoming ministry, this is not easy.

The alien living with you must be

treated as one of your native-

born. Love him as yourself....

God loves the alien, giving him

food and clothing. And you are to

love those who are aliens.

—Leviticus 19:34

—Deuteronomy 10:18-20

Caring for the AlienGod’s rag-tag Christian army is made up of ordinary, everyday people. We live all over the world and have been given two great commands. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

But who is our neighbor?

When a lawyer asked that question in Luke 10:25-37, Jesus told a story about the man who was mugged by robbers along the road. As a priest passed by, he did nothing to help the man. A Levite likewise did nothing. It was only a Samaritan (half Jew/half Gentile) who showed kindness to the man and ministered to him.

In Jesus’ days on earth, the Samaritans were despised half-breeds in the minds of the average Jew. The animosity was so great that Jews avoided Samaritans at all cost when traveling between Galilee and Judea. Tensions ran high (Luke 9:52-54; 10:25-37; 17:11-19; John 8:48). But Jesus broke through those hostilities with a double-barreled response to the lawyer’s question.

After telling His story, Jesus asked, “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor...?”

A knee-jerk reaction to this familiar tale is: “Love my neighbor? Well, my neighbor is even a stranger beaten on the roadside. I should love anyone and care for him or her.” But Jesus asked which of the three—the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan—“proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” (Luke 10:36). Then He nodded at the lawyer’s correct answer: “The one who showed mercy” (10:37). The neighbor was the Samaritan!

As usual with Jesus, He was layering His simple stories with disturbing meaning: Yes, the Samaritan was a neighbor to the beaten man, who then was a neighbor of the Samaritan. And the Samaritan demonstrated a love for that beaten neighbor. But the wilder meaning for His Jewish audience was this: Which of the three is the neighbor? The Samaritan is your neighbor! You are to cross-culturally love the half-breed as you love yourself!

It’s complicated by:• The number of cultures involved• The clashes among cultures and between other cultures and the North

American culture• The diffi culty of long term follow-through• North Americans’ avoidance of highly relational and therefore time-

and energy-intensive ministry.

Why is something so obvious and seemingly simple—welcoming the foreigner— actually such a challenging ministry? Because it’s important! In fact, it’s crucial in the grand, unchangeable purpose of God.

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Welcoming Page 47

Our neighbors are people from other cultures, many of whom we don’t naturally like, those who are different, who don’t dress like we do, who don’t speak the same language. We’re to love these as we love ourselves. Jesus wasn’t simply suggesting a kind stance; He was summarizing in this “Love your neighbor” a series of Old Testament laws about our treatment of the foreigner—the neighbor—in our midst.

The Heart of GodGod defends foreigners and tells us to do likewise:

• The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. —Leviticus 19:34

• He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. —Deuteronomy 10:18-20

• Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow. Then all the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deuteronomy 27:19).

Not only are we to love them and give them food and clothing, but God ordered His Old Testament people to tithe to them:

• When you have fi nished setting aside a tenth of all your product in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfi ed. —Deuteronomy 26:12

In fact, there are more than 40 references in the Old Testament alone to looking out for the foreigners among us. Why is God so concerned about them? Because He loves them just as much as He loves us. God’s radical love extends to all peoples on the face of the earth equally.

In His love, He often shifts peoples around the globe to locations where they are primed to meet Him. He moves thousands of Kurds to Berlin to form the fi rst Kurdish churches. He moves Bawean Island workers from Indonesia to Singapore to meet Christians for the fi rst time. He allows the government of the People’s Republic of China to forcibly relocate Tibetan Buddhists to cities where Han Chinese Christians introduce them to Jesus Christ. He moves Mongolian students to Moscow to meet Tanzanian believers who welcome them into the Kingdom.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and fi nd him, though he is not far from each one of us. —Acts 17:26-27

Through the evil propagated by Satan, his emissaries, and even human beings, and through curiosity, illness, famine, business opportunities, tourism, family relationships and hundreds of other means, God moves people who need Him to your doorstep.

Unfortunately, much of the Church hasn’t learned that lesson. Around 80% of all international students who study in North America never make it into a North American home.

THIS IS NOT EASYContinued

Welcoming Page 48

3. GET MISSIOLOGICAL!Remember “The Power of an Integrated Vision” essay in our Perspectives Reader? It presented a “rocket” illustration of the four dynamics of what God is doing in blessing His people to bless every people.

Nothing profoundly missiological here, but isn’t it obvious that “Reached Peoples” and “Unreached Peoples” occupy very different positions in the overall mission of the Church? So they require different approaches as to how we can bless them with the blessing of God.

Sometimes welcoming ministries treat every foreigner as simply another foreigner from a geopolitical country—without taking into account whether the person is from a reached or an unreached people group. If a welcoming ministry is only about befriending, evangelizing and personal discipling, then it’s missing the Perspectives kind of long-term missiological strategies of people-group thinking.

Your challenge as a welcomer: Get good at missiology. (See Resources below.)

4. VOLUNTEER OR VOCATION?Will welcoming be a volunteer role for now? Envision yourself...

Meeting a Malaysian at the airport and taking her to her apartment.• Teaching a Tajik the difference between a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a quarter.• Helping an Azeri from Iran set up a bank account.• Driving a Cambodian Khmer woman to the store and showing her how to grocery shop.• Listening to a Jordanian Arab share about his poor grade in a basic engineering course.• Hurting with a Mapeche girl from Chile as she tells you about her mother back home who has cancer.• Having a Hausa couple from Nigeria over for tea and playing a board game with them.• Sitting at a table and hearing all about the brothers and sisters of a Kazakh student.• Taking an Aceh from Indonesia to see the tourist sights of your area.• Having three Zhuang Chinese students over for Thanksgiving dinner.• Listening to a Japanese student share about roommate problems.•

Is welcoming a potential area of vocational ministry for you? If so, you need to line yourself up for almost all the knowledge-skills-character prep any missionary serving outside her/his own culture must consider.

(Continued)

Welcoming Page 49

“If you have unshakeable

confi dence that you are

qualifi ed to serve cross-

culturally, you might not be

dependent enough on God to

be used. If you’re fearful and

feel inadequate, God may be

declaring, ‘You’re ready!’

(See Exodus 3:7-10 where God

refers to Himself 9 times and to

insecure Moses just once. This

is 90% about God and maybe

just 10% about you! Relax.)

And a good place to start in preparing for vocational cross-cultural ministry is a good old intimidating Self-Assessment Profi le.

If you haven’t already, be sure to review the Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit. Take the time to actually study through the Scriptures and discussion under “Different Settings” and “Knowing God’s Will.”

The primary areas of competence in serving cross-culturally include character, skills and knowledge. Character demands spiritual formation. Skills call for instruction and practice. And knowledge means we’ve got a lifetime of learning ahead of us.

The following self-assessment hinges on these three emphases of competence as a missionary.

The assessment is not scientifi cally constructed; it’s only for your own use. Take your time praying through these factors to assess your readiness to serve cross-culturally as a learner, trader, storyteller to foreigners in your own culture.

You can simply print off a copy of this profi le and work through this assessment on your own. Or you can accentuate its effectiveness by printing extra copies for:

1. A very close friend—anyone who knows you well. This person is to fi ll out as much as she/he can on the assessment form and then hand it back to you. You compare what this friend perceives about you—as contrasted or confi rming what you perceive about yourself. (We’re all very good at fooling ourselves.) By comparing the two versions, you’ll have a more accurate appraisal of your character, skills and knowledge.

2. A mentor. If you want to develop a serious personal preparation plan, you’ll follow the suggestions under Plot Your Preparation, where it’s explained that a mentor can simply be a friend who helps keep you accountable to your preparation plan.

If you plan on following a personal preparation plan, take the assessment now—and then about six months from now to trace your development in each area. For now, relax your personal defenses, pray for clarity and assess your readiness for a cross-cultural career.

For more Welcoming resources, check out the Next Steps section of the Perspectives website. www.perspectives.org

VOLUNTEER OR VOCATION?Continued

(Continued)

Welcoming Page 50

SELF-ASSESSMENT PROFILEFOR PROSPECTIVE CROSS-CULTURAL WORKERS

Spiritual Formation

Character

Lifelong learning

Knowledge of God’s Word & His work in His world

Instruction & Practice

Skills in ministry and in the practicalities of life in another culture.

The key ingredients in your ongoing immersion in God’s Word, His work and His world.

The purpose of the assessment is to help you identify your strengths and areas in which you may need improvement.

This in no way suggests you need to be perfect in every area in order to move into missionary service as a welcomer. Self-evaluation can be unsettling; we’re always our own worst critic. But don’t give in to the enemy’s ploys of discouragement and depression about not right now measuring up to an imaginary missionary ideal.

Click here for the Self-Assessment Profi le.

PLOT YOUR PREPARATIONPREP 101

Develop a solid sending base: • Serve and build relationships with leaders in your home church. • Begin now developing a list of people who trust you, are interested in your ministry aspirations and

will pray for you. Explore ways to minister to them now—providing big-picture news, listening, praying specifi cally for them, etc. (See the unit on Serve As a Sender to begin developing your core team.)

Sharpen skills in resolving interpersonal confl icts. (North American Christians are famous for avoiding the people we don’t get along with and for simply switching churches when the relational going gets tough.) Ministry is dealing with people. Working with a team is dealing with people. There will be interpersonal confl icts!

Get good at cross-cultural friendships. Hone your cross-cultural skills now—skills that comprise sitting down and eating and talking with international students and immigrants.

Adjust to the world Christian “wartime lifestyle” we studied in Perspectives. Live as frugally as possible with few frills—while generously budgeting funds for Kingdom priorities. Avoid or get out of debt.

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PLOT YOUR PREPARATIONContinued

Go on short-term vision or ministry trips to the cultures most common to the internationals you’ll work with. (Among international students, for example, detailed data is available from universities as to which countries their students come from—although, unfortunately, not which people group.)

Get informal training. (See Resources.) Consider formal training. Your local Christian college will offer cross-cultural courses. But unless you commit to a welcoming ministry that requires a degree in Bible or missions, don’t presume you need to pursue a full degree. Every reputable organization will have its own suggestions for pre-candidate training and, after your appointment, will provide training and orientation.

Take time to study all the mission agencies working among ethnics in North America or, if your interest is campus ministry, all the international student ministries. Just because one is familiar to you or it’s one of three you know about doesn’t mean that’s who you’re destined to work with.

It’s one thing to take action—study and call an organization, sign up for a short-term, send out an email to friends about your aspirations. It’s another thing to, well, grow.

Again, cross-cultural preparation is knowledge, skills and character. And the greatest of these is character. Anybody can learn skills and acquire knowledge. Not everybody does a good job of impersonating Jesus.

Q. How do you “work on your character”?

A. Make yourself accountable to a mentor.

CROSS-CULTURAL WORKER

MENTORING Welcoming preparation is about God’s Word, His work in His real world. Readiness is a process of growing in knowledge about each of these areas, a process of practicing skills in each of these three areas. And it’s about character: No international wants the Good News of God’s Kingdom to be communicated by a jerk.

The Real DealThis Cross-Cultural Worker Mentoring Program guides you into your own customized Welcomer Prep Plan that emphasizes knowledge, skills and character.

So this isn’t just an elementary step in cross-cultural readiness. It’s the real deal: the beginning (or acceleration) of the process of fi ne-tuning your role in the Great Commission—a lifelong exploration. Which always brings up questions like:

Is there a “call to missions” involved in • welcoming?How do you know where to serve?• Where do you get training?• What organization do you go with?• If you commit to welcoming, do you • have to make it a lifelong commitment?What’s the deal with raising support?• What about resistance from family?• How do I know I’m qualifi ed?• What about debt? Etc.•

Big questions with lots of answers. So don’t presume too much, don’t play to your own or other people’s conventional expectations. Don’t pretend to know all the answers in the process of getting from here to there. Just take it one step at a time.

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CROSS-CULTURAL WORKER MENTORINGContinued

COMMENTS FROM CROSS-CULTURAL WORKERS ABOUT MISSION MENTORING

In a recent survey of missionaries, DualReach (DualReach.org) found that every respondent who had received mentoring or counseling during missionary preparation listed it as “highly benefi cial.”

Missionaries made these specifi c comments:

• Make sure individuals have someone discipling them to have a deeper walk with God—a walk which doesn’t rely on outside spiritual nurturing.

• Pastoral encouragement was very signifi cant in affi rming my giftedness for ministry.

• Encourage local churches to show an interest in future missionaries by holding them accountable. Sending a person through a preparation process shows the church’s interest.

• I would like to have had several ministry options and counsel on how my gifts matched up with those options.

• Help prospective missionaries be involved in a small group of people who care about each other’s spiritual well-being and the direction each one is going in life. Ideally they will continue to care even when someone departs to train or to serve the Lord somewhere else.

• I wish the pastor and missions committee had taken an interest in me. I would have liked the pastor to have taken more of a role in meeting with me and for the missions committee to have provided direction and been more proactive.

• It is extremely benefi cial to feel like you are supported and encouraged by your church at home. Nurture relationships between missionary and missions leaders in the church prior to departure.

The ProgramThe process is:

Complete the • Self-Assessment Profi le.Ask a close friend or relative (not a • spouse) to evaluate you in a “second-opinion” Profi le.Meet once with a person from your • church’s mission team/committee or church staff.Find someone who’ll serve this year as • your mentor-encourager. (Relax. It’s easier than you think.)Meet a second time with the mission • team or staff person and your mentor.Embark on your personalized • Welcomer Prep Plan.

If you opt-in for this process, you’ll use:A • Growth Guide for aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers to follow up the Self-Assessment Profi le. The Guide gives you directions for growth in each area where you want to develop—whether in knowledge, skills or character. A • Welcomer Prep Plan—one of the authors of which is you—to plot an individualized action plan that will guide you through systematic steps to develop the character, skills and knowledge to succeed in any area of mission work including welcoming. Accountability to meet every other • month (or more often) with your mentor, who prays for you and keeps you accountable to actually work on the growth steps you’ve chosen.Accountability to meet twice a year • with the team, committee or person responsible for missions in your church.A free trip to Paris, Rio de Janeiro or the • South Pacifi c island of your choice.

(Just kidding on that last one. We wanted to make sure you were tracking.)

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Welcoming Page 53

CROSS-CULTURAL WORKER MENTORINGContinued

Immediate Steps to a Mentoring Experience1. Ask God to guide you as you complete the Self-Assessment Profi le. This self-check is not “turned in” to anybody offi cial to be fi led in any way; you keep a copy and your mentor keeps a copy. It is seen only by you, your mentor and the church mission or staff person you consult with.

• Make an extra copy of the Profi le.• As objectively and honestly as possible, grade yourself in each area.• In the last section, indicate three areas where you want to focus your initial efforts for

growth. You can work on more areas later, but it is important to concentrate on a few at a time in order not to be overwhelmed.

• Ask someone who knows you well—a friend or relative—to evaluate your character and skills by completing a second copy of the Assessment without having seen your version of it. If married, ask someone other than your spouse to complete this second-opinion assessment.

• Compare your answers. If you don’t understand his/her assessment of certain areas, talk it over. This in itself could be a huge growth-step for you. (How often do we give good friends/relatives permission to critique us?) Ask God to help you not to be defensive or discouraged!

2. Establish a time to meet with someone from your church staff/mission team to discuss how she/he can help you grow. If married, you should meet as a couple with this person after both of you have completed the Assessment.

• Give this person a copy of both your own and the second-opinion assessments to review prior to your appointment.

• Talk with this person about several people who might be a mentor for you. (Each person in a married couple will connect with her/his own mentor.) A mentor doesn’t need to have vocational ministry or mission experience, doesn’t need to be older than you, doesn’t need to generate the content of your preparation process. She or he simply needs to care about you and agree to keep you accountable as you work through a plan to explore the possibility of a missions career.

• Set a tentative appointment when this church staff/mission team person will meet with you and your mentor to talk over objectives, roles and expectations. If married, you, your mentor and the mission team person will meet separately from your spouse.

• Ask the church staff/mission team person to check with you and your mentor at least every six months to evaluate your progress.

3. Pray for a mentor. Ask believers of your own gender if they would consider a one-year commitment to:

Meet with you at least once every two months.• To Regularly by email or phone ask you how you’re doing in your welcomer ministry • exploration plan.To Pray for you.•

Your mentor must be a believer you know to be spiritually healthy, must be of your own gender, must be local enough to meet with you in-person at least every other month. This person does not have to be a member of your own church, does not have to have any vocational ministry or missions experience and does not have to be older than you.

4. Give your mentor a copy of Directions for Cross-Cultural Workers’ Mentor-Encouragers.

Welcoming Page 54

GOINGCHAPTER 6

Going Page 57

GOING ALL-OUT!You, Missionary to the Nations

“Shall we stand by and allow these millions to continue under the curse and snare of a false religion, with no knowledge of the saving love and power of Christ? Of course it will cost life.

It is not an expedition of ease nor a picnic excursion to which we are called....It is going to cost many a life, and not lives only, but prayers

and tears and blood.”—Samuel Zwemer

(See the Welcoming unit if your niche is cross-cultural ministry within your own culture. If your interest in cross-cultural ministry is only in short-term involvement, note the “Different Settings” discussion in Find Your Niche and then just go! —Since the following pertains to those considering at least a 2-year commitment to a missionary role.)

FIRST, THE DISCLAIMERWe Perspectives alumni are all grownups here, so we don’t need to coddle each other with platitudes and noble inspiration about going beyond your own culture as a missionary. There are too many topics, too much urban-legend lore (See the irreverent sidebox list of Missionary Myths.) to cover on this huge topic in this format.

Yet there are also too many disturbing facts about becoming a missionary from North America to take it all lightly:• It’s usually 7-10 years from a point of commitment to missions until

deployment.• The threat of terrorism against American missionaries is very real in

most regions of the spiritually destitute 10/40 Window. Many family members and friends ask, “But is it safe out there?” and the answer is “No.”

• 70% of North American missionaries must raise their own support. It now takes an average of 2-3 years for missionaries to raise support to go. (Although with proper training, the time frame can be drastically reduced.)

• Supporting missionaries is such a rare discipline in our churches today that even among those exploring mission service, only about 5% personally support a missionary!

• Each year, one of every 20 North American missionaries quit. (For several years, the Korean annual attrition rate was one of every two missionaries quit.) So a typical mission agency loses almost half its people every decade.

• Nearly 3/4 of the reasons for quitting are preventable—which accentuates the importance of training-preparation and missionary care.

• In the past few years, it is estimated that 40,000 North Americans have made a commitment to go. Yet, says Perspectives developer Dr. Ralph Winter, “They will never make it to the fi eld due to ignorance, indifference..., detachment, school debts, etc.”

MISSIONARY MYTHS

Besides the many eye-opening insights about cross-cultural ministry we gained in our Perspectives courses, going as a missionary also has quite a few urban legends.

And, yes, it sometimes takes some rather irreverent debunking to get real about a missions career—instead of continuing to parrot conventional myths.

Instructions: 1. Scan the bold-faced headings

and check those that, honestly (No one’s watching except Jesus.), you tend to believe.

2. Go back to each and read the “irreverent debunking.”

3. Argue, comment or just talk about these topics with your fellow Perspectives classmates or missionaries that you know.

MISSIONARIES ARE SUPER-SPIRITUAL. In reality, lots of dysfunctional people are attracted to missions because it grants them instant importance and admiration. Insecure believers need to feel signifi cant, and there’s not a more sure-fi re way to exude signifi cance than to become a missionary. If a missionary actually believes this myth, he/she is one of those famous holier-than-thou’s, the kind that should never go around the world representing Jesus. But, then, sometimes the myth is true: Many missionaries are incredibly, deeply spiritual people.

(Continued)

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Sobering facts. Why be so negative as we launch into our post-Perspectives look at the wonderful adventure of becoming a missionary? Because in most circles, it’s impolite to remind each other that such a career, like all radical discipleship, carries a cost:

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not fi rst sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to fi nish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to fi nish.”

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not fi rst sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. —Luke 14:28-32

Frankly, the last thing the Kingdom needs are missionaries who are naive about the cost—who will quit or in some way surrender to the enemy when the going gets tough.

So that’s our upfront disclaimer: This is going to be tough. But eternally worth it.

The next consideration, of course, is how do I get there from here?

GETTING THEREYes, there are lots of missionary resources available (See basic list below.), so let’s focus here on the stuff that’s hard to pull together on-your-own. Work through the following sections one after the other, or simply click on a highlighted item to jump to it in any order you wish:

• Assessing My Readiness to Go All-Out!1. Do a Self Assessment: Strengths? Weaknesses?2. Scan What do they want? A comprehensive, standardized

version of agency applications.

• Planning My Preparation3. Determine Your Framework: Suited more to a reached or an

unreached setting?4. Plot Your Preparation: Knowledge, skills and character. And

the trickiest of these is character. So get a mentor.

We’ll then highlight key Resources for Going and turn you loose to pursue your “whatever wherever” of serving cross-culturally in God’s global, unchangeable purpose.

OUTTA SIGHT OUTTA MIND?

That’s the way going used to be: You’d see your family and friends maybe once every fi ve years. Now, they come to you on short-terms.

You’d have to communicate via slow-boat snail mail. No longer. We’ve even got satellite hookups in the uttermost parts of the earth.

A new missionary landing into a very remote spot on the other side of the planet emails: “So, I have DSL, which means I should have my phone hooked up tomorrow and we can talk on it for free! Just try to use wise words when you talk (mainly avoiding the ‘M’ and ‘CH’ words).”

We can keep connected with family and friends like never before!

MISSIONARIES GET “THE CALL TO MISSIONS.” Why not the “Mobilization Call”? The “Intercessor Call”? The “Call to Provide IT”? Apparently only professional clergy (with the traditional “Call to the Pastorate”) and missionaries get these supernatural Calls? Surveys tell us that missionaries who say they defi nitely have been “called to missions” stay on the fi eld longer than others; so agencies often insist on your having this mysterious Call. Lots of fi ne aspiring missionaries sort of “make up” their Call so they can check the right box on an application. If you haven’t already, review the “Call” discussion in our Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit. Sometimes, however, the myth is true: A person literally hears God’s call to mission ministry.

For more Missionary Myths visit the Next Steps section of the Perspectives

website. www.perspectives.org

MORE MISSIONARY MYTHS

THE DISCLAIMERContinued

Going Page 59

1. A SELF-ASSESSMENTIf you haven’t already, be sure to review the Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit. Take the time to actually study through the Scriptures and discussion under “Different Settings” and “Knowing God’s Will.”


The following Self Assessment hinges on these three emphases of competence as a missionary.

The Assessment is not scientifi cally constructed; it’s only for your own use. Take your time (Remember, you might have 7-10 years before actually stepping into career missionary work.) praying through these factors to assess your readiness to serve cross-culturally as a learner, trader, storyteller.

If you have unshakeable confi dence that you are

qualifi ed to go, you might not be dependent enough

on God to be used. If you’re fearful and feel

inadequate, God may be declaring, ‘You’re ready!’(See Exodus 3:7-10 where

God refers to Himself 9 times and to insecure Moses just once. This is

90% about God and maybe just 10% about you! Relax.)

SELF-ASSESSMENT PROFILEFOR ASPIRING CROSS-CULTURAL WORKERS

The purpose of the assessment is to help you identify your strengths and areas in which you think you need improvement. This in no way suggests you need to be perfect in every area in order to move into missionary service.

Self-evaluation can be unsettling; we’re always our own worst critic. But do not give in to the enemy’s ploys of discouragement and depression about not right now measuring up to what you think is “the missionary ideal.” (And remember, this isn’t some defi nitive, scientifi c evaluation; it’s what you think about each of these areas of growth.)

Click here for the Self-Assessment Profi le

You can simply print off a copy of this profi le and work through this assessment on your own. Or you can accentuate its effectiveness by printing extra copies for:

1. A very close friend—anyone who knows you well. This person is to fi ll out as much as she/he can on the assessment form and then hand it back to you. You compare what this friend perceives about you—as contrasted or confi rming what you perceive about yourself. (We’re all very good at fooling ourselves.) By comparing the two versions, you’ll have a more accurate appraisal of your character, skills and knowledge.

2. A mentor. If you want to develop a serious personal preparation plan, you’ll follow the suggestions under Plot Your Preparation, where it’s explained that a mentor can simply be a friend who helps keep you accountable to your preparation plan.

If you plan on following a personal preparation plan, take the Assessment now—and then about six months from now to trace your development in each area. For now, relax your personal defenses, pray for clarity and see if you think you’re ready for a cross-cultural career.

The key ingredients in your ongoing immersion in God’s Word, His work and His world.

Spiritual Formation

Character

Lifelong learning




Going Page 60

2. FIND OUT WHAT THEY EXPECTWhat if I:

Have school debts? • Am divorced? • Don’t have an actual home church anymore? • Don’t have a Bible education? • Have worked through some issues with counseling? • Am a fairly new Christian? • Have a spouse who isn’t sure about living in a foreign setting?• Can go only part of each year?•

Every denomination and independent mission agency has a sort of preliminary get-to-know-you questionnaire. Most you can access online at their Web sites. That’s usually the easy part.

Then, if both you and the agency are interested in each other, you get to fi ll out a stunner—an application form that’s often 10+ pages. Plus references. That’s when the questions start feeling, well, intrusive. Seriously, no sending agency wants to spend time and energy recruiting someone who can’t or won’t answer some very personal questions about her/his history, character, fi nances, reputation, spiritual vibrancy, medical conditions, family issues, etc. Actually, the older you are, the more questions arise: School debts and credit reports? Divorce, remarriage, singleness? Kids? Elderly parents? Health concerns? An encyclopediac job history? In and out of vocational ministry?

So it’s quite a chore to pray, think and work through these massive applications—especially if you apply to several agencies.

The Finishers Project/MissionNext (See under Resources, below.) recently began proposing a standardized application form. (Each agency would of course add its own detailed questions in followup queries.) This form is a comprehensive document of what you will be asked as you apply to a typical sending agency. Praying and thinking through the questions will give you a very clear idea of what an agency expects of you in the application process.

Browse the Application Form and jot notes on topics you realize you’ll need to research or add to your “Plot Your Preparation” checklist. Or actually fi ll out the Proposal to see if you’re ready to apply to an agency; many will accept this standardized form by adding their own particular questions. Either way, this gives you an accurate picture of what an aspiring missionary fi lls out when it comes to formally signing on with an agency.

Click here for the Standardized Agency Application Form.

3. DETERMINE YOUR FRAMEWORKAre you planning to serve in a reached people or unreached?

Your answer is one of the clearest signposts for the direction of your missionary preparation plan.

A reached people has a church movement that is solid enough to evangelize its own people, right? An unreached group, of course, has no church movement at all—although it may already have many churches.

Going Page 61

Who you are, how you’re gifted, what energizes you in ministry (If necessary, review the Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit.) all suggest where you might be most effective in the cross-cultural dynamics of God’s unchangeable purpose.

Remember the “rocket” illustration from “The Power of Integrated Vision” in the Perspectives Reader?

As God blesses His people to bless every people, there are two cross-cultural settings or frameworks for your personal ministry:

• You can be part of God’s blessing a reached people.• You can be part of God’s blessing an unreached people.

Discerning this macro-framework for your ministry can tell you tons about the preparation you’ll need as a goer.

Serving Reached PeoplesDo you have a sense of being led toward a reached people? Even though our Perspectives course emphasized mission to the unreached peoples, still nearly 95% of North American mission work is among reached peoples. So we ought to be good at serving other cultures’ established church movements, right? (Sigh.)

If you sense God is leading you to a reached culture, your roles will be those of a servant and partner. Your very personality must be one which enjoys working under the leadership of others from that culture—others who often won’t even have the training or expertise you do. You’re not the up-front point person, the competent leader who tends to run everything.

You’ll be part of a team from your sending agency or church. (Not even Paul the Apostle ever went out by himself. Regardless of the adventures of Bruchko.) And your entire team must have that servant-partnering mentality to effectively minister in a reached people group.

If you: Enjoy a relatively established church setting Appreciate knowing there’s a set role for you to fi t into Are comfortable taking a supportive position Aren’t the “strong personality” pioneering type

You might prepare yourself to be one of the reached peoples missionaries who excel in:• *Bible teaching• Caregiving to those in ministry• Assistant roles• Professional skills (publishing, computing, fi nance, medicine, media, engineering, literacy, Bible

translation, etc.)

DETERMINE YOUR FRAMEWORKContinued

Going Page 62

• *Training in entrepreneurship• *Training missionaries• Practical supportive roles (logistics, construction, etc.)

*Lots of Western mission efforts list “training” and particularly “leadership training” as their missionaries’ roles in reached cultures. The danger is that modeling Western styles of ministry, methods and concepts of leadership shape a non-indigenous, foreign church culture in a non-Western people. Bible teaching, yes. Ministry training? Be very careful that what’s modeled is Jesus, not Western church culture. On the other hand, when it comes to facilitating business startups to produce revenue for the developing church, real-world business training is invaluable. Likewise missionary training, stripped of all culture, is vital!

How about evangelism and discipling, preaching and caring for the poor/oppressed? Aren’t those crucial ministries needed among the reached? Defi nitely. But those are the responsibilities of that culture’s church. If you do it for them (and they usually want you to), you’re demonstrating your superiority, you’re virtually ensuring things will mimic your foreign Western ways, and you’re frankly stealing their blessing. Selah.

Pioneering Among the UnreachedThe remaining unreached peoples of the world were, of course, the emphasis in our Perspectives studies. Part of the reason for that emphasis is that the unreached map out the direction of God’s historic purpose: Each will be offered the blessing of redemption in Christ, and it’s only a matter of time. The other reason we emphasized unreached peoples was noted above: More than 90% of the personnel and resources of North American missions goes to ministry among reached peoples. North American missions still evidences a great imbalance.

—Which is why so many of us Perspectives fanatics are going to the unreached. Teams of Perspectives fanatics. (Remember, not even the Apostle Paul went solo.)If you and/or your team has:

A strong personality A pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit Giftings particularly in evangelism and discipling Willingness to live in probably diffi cult circumstances—chiefl y in

the 10/40 Window Patience to see the fruit of your ministry

You might prepare yourself to be one of the unreached peoples missionaries who excel in:

• Pre-evangelism roles of every sort—from business entrepreneurship to medical service to teaching English as a Foreign Language to community development projects to fi ghting injustice to youth work to anything that answers a local need with blessing and which demonstrates the character of God. These pre-evangelism roles usually evolve into the long-term platform for your ministry.

• Evangelism• Discipling• Ethnomusicology• Bible teaching• Facilitating church-planting movements

DETERMINE YOUR FRAMEWORKServing Reached Peoples

Continued

Going Page 63

Your Framework for PreparationIt’s just that simple. You don’t have to prepare for everything. One of those two dynamics in what God is doing sets up the basic framework for your missionary preparation. That is:

• Are you gifted in evangelism? Does it make sense to prepare as an evangelist-missionary to move to South Korea?

• Are you gifted in administration and have extensive training in the fi eld you most enjoy: accounting? Is it probable that God would want you doing healing meetings among the Fur of Sudan?

In either cross-cultural dynamic, the setting itself might be a powerful indicator of how you need to prepare. That is, as God leads you toward a geopolitical country—in which He still will direct you more specifi cally to a particular people...for now—it might be obvious that...

• ...Immigrant missions will be most strategic. Consider actually, permanently moving to and becoming a citizen of that country. (Much of Gladys Aylward’s infl uence in China came with her citizenship in that country.) This is a shocking concept to most North Americans, but Majority World missionaries from places like Brazil, Nigeria, China routinely go as immigrant missionaries. This stance—“I choose to live here and raise my family for generations in your land”—is a statement of credibility that is powerful to locals, who sometimes see the Western missionary as a temporary visitor.

•...Business as mission will be most strategic. (See our Business As Mission unit.) Most restricted-access mission fi elds virtually require that a team take a business approach—and so it makes pretty obvious sense to prepare for business. Fake businesses propped up with funds from home become quickly suspect in any real-life setting. And poorly-run businesses mean a mission team won’t be long on the fi eld.

So getting business experience, starting your own business where it’s easiest—North America is the most conducive marketplace on earth to launch a viable, profi table business—is only rational. Launching and growing a Kingdom business in another culture is a massive challenge that requires careful, rational preparation.

Of course, God can pull you into anything—even irrational ministry opportunities. That’s why fl exibility is one of a missionary’s most prized attributes. But more than likely, as your SHAPE (See Find Your Niche.) nudges you toward the reached or unreached, you’ll clarify the framework of your missionary service...for now!

4. PLOT YOUR PREPARATION Prep 101 Launch a Pre-Candidate Fellowship—a setting in which you and other aspiring missionaries can

network to fi nd answers, share info and encourage one another. Develop a solid sending base:

• Serve and build relationships with leaders in your home church. • Begin now developing a list of people who trust you, are interested in your ministry aspirations

and will pray for you. Explore ways to minister to them now—providing big-picture news, listening, praying specifi cally for them, etc. (See the unit on Serve As a Sender to begin developing your core team.)

DETERMINE YOUR FRAMEWORKContinued

Going Page 64

Learn to derive your joy and spiritual nurturing from your relationship with Jesus, not from Christian groups and events—services, community groups—or from serving in ministry. Getting used to not “doing church” is one of the most unsettling of missionary adjustments.

Concentrate on appropriately shoring up your self-image. Culture shock, the devil and cross-cultural life all gang up on goers who are the least secure about who they are as people and as believers.

Sharpen skills in resolving interpersonal confl icts. (North American Christians are famous for avoiding the people we don’t get along with and for simply switching churches when the relational going gets tough.)

Get good at cross-cultural friendships. This is where Welcoming is a powerful part of going; you can hone your cross-cultural skills now—skills that comprise sitting down and eating and talking with international students and immigrants.

Adjust now to the world Christian “wartime lifestyle” we studied in Perspectives. Live as frugally as possible with few frills—while generously budgeting funds for Kingdom priorities. Avoid or get out of debt.

Go on short-term vision or ministry trips to the culture(s) you’re interested in. Take one of these trips with your denominational mission department and/or each mission agency you’re investigating. Then take an unsupervised short-term—just you and some friends.

Learn practical skills—from fi rst aid to bookkeeping to even small-engine repair. Business skills are crucial regardless of the reached/unreached setting of your ministry. In a reached culture, new Christians and especially church leaders are often plagued by poverty, and your business coaching could be an answer. Among an unreached people, business knowledge may well form the infrastructure of your ministry. (See our Business As Mission unit.)

Get informal training. (See Resources.) Consider formal training. Your local Christian college will offer cross-cultural courses. But unless you commit to an agency that requires a degree in Bible or missions, don’t presume you need to pursue a full degree. Every reputable mission agency will have its own suggestions for pre-candidate training and, after your appointment, will provide training and orientation.

Take time to study dozens and dozens of mission agencies. Just because one is familiar to you or it’s one of three you know about doesn’t mean that’s who you’re destined to work with.

It’s one thing to take an action-step—study and call an agency, sign up for a short-term, send out an email to friends about your aspirations. It’s another thing to, well, grow. Again, missionary preparation is knowledge, skills and character. And the greatest of these is character. Anybody can learn skills and acquire knowledge. Not everybody does a good job of impersonating Jesus.

This is one of the very positive factors in what we mentioned early on: The average time it takes from the point of commitment to actually arriving on the fi eld is now 7-10 years. You’ve got time to not only run through your action steps, but, frankly, to grow.

PLOT YOUR PREPARATIONContinued

Going Page 65

Q. HOW DO YOU “WORK ON YOUR CHARACTER”?

A. MAKE YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE TO A MENTOR.

MISSION MENTORING

Mission preparation is about God’s Word, His work in His real world. Mission readiness is a process of growing in knowledge about each of these areas, a process of practicing skills in each of these three areas. And it’s about character: Nobody will bother to receive the Good News from a jerk.

The Real DealThis Mission Mentoring Program guides you from your Self Assessment Profi le into your own customized Personal Prep Plan that emphasizes knowledge, skills and character.

So this isn’t just an elementary step in mission readiness. It’s the real deal: the beginning (or acceleration) of the process of fi ne-tuning your role in the Great Commission—a lifelong exploration. Which always brings up questions like:

Is there a “call to missions”?• How do you know where to go?• Where do you get training?• What agency do you go with?• If you go, do you have to make it a lifelong • commitment?What’s the deal with raising support?• What about resistance from family?• How do I know I’m qualifi ed?• What about all the risks?• What if I’m interested in missions but not going?• What about debt? Etc.•

Big questions with lots of answers. So don’t presume too much, don’t play to your own or other people’s conventional “missions” expectations. Don’t pretend to know all the answers in the process of getting from here to there. Just take it one step at a time.

COMMENTS FROM MISSIONARIES ABOUT MISSION MENTORING










(Continued)

Going Page 66

Immediate Steps in Being Mentored for Missions

1. Ask God to guide you as you complete the Self-Assessment Profi le. This self-check is not “turned in” to anybody offi cial to be fi led in any way; you keep a copy and your mentor keeps a copy. It is seen only by you, your mentor and the church mission or staff person you consult with.

• In the last section, indicate three areas where you want to focus your initial efforts for growth. You can work on more areas later, but it is important to concentrate on only a few at a time in order not to be overwhelmed.

• Ask someone who knows you well—a friend or relative—to evaluate your character and skills by completing a second copy of the Assessment without having seen your version of it. If married, ask someone other than your spouse to complete this second-opinion Assessment.

• Compare your answers. If you don’t understand his/her assessment of certain areas, talk it over. This in itself could be a huge growth-step for you. (How often do we give good friends/relatives permission to thoroughly critique us?) Ask God to help you not to be defensive or discouraged!

2. Establish a time to meet with someone from your church staff/mission team to discuss how she/he can help you grow. If married, you should meet as a couple with this person after each of you has completed an Assessment.


• Talk with this person about several people who might be a mission mentor for you. (Each person in a married couple will connect with her/his own mentor.) A mission mentor doesn’t need to have mission experience, doesn’t need to be older than you, doesn’t need to generate the content of your preparation process. She or he simply needs to care about you and agree to keep you accountable

The Do-It-Yourself ProgramThe process is:

• Complete the Self-Assessment Profi le.• Ask a close friend or relative (not a

spouse) to evaluate you in a “second-opinion” Profi le.

• Meet once with a person from your church’s mission team/committee or church staff.

• Find someone who’ll serve this year as your mentor-encourager. (Relax. It’s easier than you think.)

• Meet a second time with the mission team or staff person along with your mentor.

• Embark on your Personal Prep Plan.

If you opt-in for this process, you’ll get:• A Growth Guide for Aspiring Cross-

Cultural Workers to follow up the Self-Assessment Profi le. The Guide gives you directions for growth in each area where you want to develop—in knowledge, skills and character.

• A Personal Prep Plan—one of the authors of which is you—to plot an individualized action plan that will guide you through systematic steps to develop the character, skills and knowledge to succeed in mission work.

• Accountability to meet every other month (or more often) with your mission mentor, who prays for you and keeps you accountable to actually work on the growth steps you’ve chosen.

• Accountability to meet twice a year with the team, committee or person responsible for missions in your church.

• A free trip to Paris, Rio de Janeiro or the South Pacifi c island of your choice.

(Just kidding on that last one. We wanted to make sure you were

tracking.)

MISSION MENTORINGContinued

(Continued)

Going Page 67

RESOURCES FOR GOINGThe actual cross-cultural work we’re led toward is one thing; that alone takes a tremendous amount of orientation, training, preparation, study, prayer. But we all also have questions about the missionary lifestyle itself. Security, support-raising or working in a denomination on salary, cultural adaptation, kids—family life, schooling, Third-Culture Kids—, communication with home, taxes, seasons of service, language-learning, team dynamics, home church relations, residency, travel, retirement options, etc., etc.

If going as a missionary is such a noble, strategic role in the Kingdom, why is all this so confusing? And why don’t we know the answers?

Peter Armstrong of M-DAT asked in a recent Propel blog (See below): “Where did all the missionaries go?” A generation ago, the detailed questions about missions used to be answered around the dinner table by...missionaries! Nearly every church would have missionaries featured from time to time—showing upside-down slides of their work, preaching, teaching in the Sunday School and Training Hour classes, speaking at the Sunday night and Wednesday prayer meeting services, being hosted in homes and dining with church families night after night.

But churches in our increasingly helter-skelter North American culture began cutting back on missionaries’ presentations—knowing they’re not always the best speakers. Meanwhile, church schedules started phasing out prayer meetings, training hours and sometimes Sunday school and Sunday evening services because everyone in our society is so busy and exhausted. So missionaries began getting a “missions minute” in a Sunday service. Or they’d be interviewed by a staff member since missionaries are notoriously boring or might give too long an answer if we let them hold the microphone. So, generally, few Christian young people today have grown up in a home where “we always had visiting missionaries” to ask the detailed questions about a missions career.

(Continued)

as you work through a plan to explore the possibility of a missions career.



3. Pray for a mentor. Ask believers of your own gender if they would consider:

• A one-year commitment to meet with you at least once every two months.

• To regularly by email or phone ask you how you’re doing in your mission exploration plan.

• To pray for you.

Your mentor must be a believer you know to be spiritually healthy, must be of your own gender, must be local enough to meet with you in-person at least every other month. This person does not have to be a member of your own church, does not have to have any missions experience and does not have to be older than you.

Use the Directions for Mission Mentor-Encouragers to give possible mentors a clear idea of what they’re committing to.

Few Christian young people today have grown up in a home

where “we always had visiting missionaries”

to ask the detailed questions about a missions career.


Going Page 68

Further, the world of missions has changed so radically in the past 25 years that many church leaders don’t feel equipped to answer mission explorers’ questions. In a denominationally linked congregation, the quickest response to a question about being a missionary is, “Good question to ask our mission department!” In denominational and nondenominational churches alike, everyone knows there’s a vast new roster of hundreds of mission agencies. And each probably answers our questions differently.

Our best advice?

1. Study the generic resources such as those listed below; the more you know, the more you’ll know what and whom to ask.

2. Pray and explore till you feel God is narrowing down your agency choices to a top two or three.

3. Ask your questions to the agency mobilizer/recruiters, agency leaders, missionaries currently serving with the agency, and—if this request doesn’t give the agency a heart attack—ask your questions to a few missionaries that have left the agency.

Be sure to browse all our mission tools in the Resource Library. Check out the resource lists at www.GoConnect.org and the resources for Goers from the Next Steps section of the Perspectives website. www.perspectives.org

RESOURCES FOR GOINGContinued

BUSINESS AS MISSIONCHAPTER 7

Business as Mission Page 71

BUSINESS AS MISSIONUsing business in your sending, welcoming or going ministry

While missiologists and business experts sometimes wrangle over precise defi nitions of “business as mission” (See sidebar.),

business and mission have always coincided in the Kingdom of God. Remember the accounts of the 18th-century Moravians in our Perspectives Reader and sessions on the History of the World Christian Movement

Thousands of years ago, God told the alien Israelites, captive in Persia, to do business—and so get involved in local society and bring peace in His name:

Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce.... And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”

—Jeremiah 29:4-7

Later Paul the Apostle explained the strategy of his tentmaking vocation in a church-planting setting (See Acts 18:1-4):

Don’t we have the right to food and drink? ...Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living? ...The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights.

—I Corinthians 9

• Is your role for now Sending?Consider shaping your Marketplace Ministry business to contribute heavily to missions—providing free or discounted services to Kingdom workers, arranging logistics or communication packages for goers, etc.

• Are you a Welcomer?Consider starting a business that provides some of your livelihood and allows you the natural connections of the marketplace with immigrants, refugees, foreign business travelers and tourists and—by hiring part-timers or interns—even international students.

• Are you Going as a missionary?This is the core realm of the latest business as mission (BAM) movement. There is plenty of dialogue, orientation, short-term opportunities, articles, books, advice and implementation of this long-term strategy for blessing the nations. And, frankly, we at the Perspectives Study Program offi ce aren’t the experts! BAM seems simple, but is actually a highly complex topic since it involves all the disciplines of business, missiolgy and practical missions all in the context of the global market.

THE TERMS

• Marketplace MinistryInfl uencing your own home culture with business practices built on Christian ethics and Kingdom business principles is the focus of hundreds of effective new organizations across North America.

• TentmakingThe Apostle Paul often supported himself by his tentmaking business (Acts 18:1-4). Oddly enough, Westerners in the 1980s started using the term to describe believers who go to a foreign country and take a job in order to advance the Kingdom.

• Business for MissionsOkay, it’s not really a term—more a concept as senders on the homefront push for profi ts in order to contribute funds for missions. One highly competitive industrial company in Memphis, Tennessee, for example, annually gives a million dollars to mission efforts.

• Enterprise DevelopmentNeal Johnson and Steve Rundle in Business As Mission (See Resources.) describe this as helping “the world’s poorest people bootstrap themselves out of poverty by helping them create a business.”

• Business As MissionJohnson and Rundle defi ne BAM as “the utilitzation of for-profi t businesses as instruments for global mission.”


The New Frontier of Business As MissionBut we know the experts—and so present this unit of Post-Perspectives as a signpost pointing toward the best resources. (Quick start below.)

One of our best resources, of course, is the founder of the US Center for World Mission and co-developer of the Perspectives course: Dr. Ralph Winter. In his blog at www.RalphDWinter.com, he spells out some BAM considerations in his exellent overview of “Twelve Frontiers in Context”:

NEW FRONTIER: “BUSINESS AS MISSION”

Let us now turn to what could be called a new frontier of thinking-the mere fact of the new swirl of books and conferences on “Business as Mission.” While the idea is not altogether

new, the mounting discussion of it is, and thus at least in that sense can legitimately be called a “new” frontier in mission awareness and thinking.

I will begin with some of my own experiences in what might exemplify business activities. During grade school I delivered papers early in the morning. I worked one high school summer in a heating company spray painting on the night shift. Another summer I worked as a mechanical draftsman for the Square D Electric company, in a huge plant, later in its quality control department. After the war I was hired to do a topographical survey of the Westmont College campus. While in seminary I worked as a civil engineer for several engineering companies.

In Guatemala I initiated 17 small business endeavors allowing seminary students to earn their way in school and gain a portable trade after graduation (most pastors were tied down to the soil so all of these “businesses” were portable as with the Apostle Paul) the fi rst ever in which Indians were the registered owners. Two other missionaries (from other missions) and I started the InterAmerican School which is thriving to this day. I helped very slightly in the founding of an Evangelical university which today has 30,000 students, and has provided all the judges in Guatemala.

At Fuller,while on the faculty, I was asked to set up a publishing activity which I called the William Carey Library. It has been operating for 35 years now and sells $1 million worth of books a year and is now part of the US Center for World Mission. I also helped set up the self-supporting American Society of Missiology, not to speak of the U. S. Center for World Mission, and the William Carey International University, both of which have essentially business functions.

The history of missions is full of other examples. The Moravians went out to establish new villages with all of the necessary functions. They planted what is today the largest retail company (sort of a Sears Roebuck) in Surinam. Swiss missionaries planted a chain of hardware stores in Nigeria, which not only fulfi lled a much-needed function but displayed an attitude toward customers that was a marvelous Christian testimony. And, of course, every church or school that is planted on the mission fi eld and is self-supporting, is like a business that renders a service and earns what it needs to function. If you added up all of such “small businesses” on the mission fi eld (churches and schools) it would run into millions.


However, let us ask the question:

What is business?Basically it is the activity of providing goods and services to others on the condition of repayment to cover the cost of those goods and services. This is not to say that businesses never do anything that does not at least indirectly assist their efforts in image building, public relations or something of that kind, but using profi ts in ways that add nothing to the business would seem to be very rare.

Businesses, in fact, would run into confl ict with customer’s interests, employees’ interests, owner’s interests or stockholder’s interests if any considerable proportion of their gross income were diverted to private interests of no concern to customers, employees, owners or stockholders.

Note that a business involves a concrete understanding between two parties, the customer and the company, and comprises what is essentially a two-way street: the company gives the customer something and the customer gives back something previously agreed-upon.

Missionaries, by contrast, serve people from whom they do not expect to receive anything previously agreed upon.

However, even mission work is in one sense a business. Donors, in this instance, are the customers paying for a service to be rendered. The missionaries are providing the services for which the donors are hiring them. An additional feature is that the ultimate benefi ciaries of the missionaries’ labors, and of the donors’ payments, are needy people in foreign lands who receive aid of some sort without paying for it. For those fi nal recipients to get something for nothing is hard for the recipients to believe-as with those healed by Jesus, who apparently did not charge for His healing services.

Sooner or later it may dawn on the ultimate recipients that someone wants to help them without asking a price. How better can God’s love be communicated?

Of course it is equally true that a hardworking businessman may be providing a very benefi cial service out of genuine love, not just as a means to earn a living. That is equally true but not equally obvious.

What Types of Businesses?You can well imagine that some business missionaries will go overseas and start a business that will be owned and operated by citizens of that country. Others will plant a business or a branch of an international business, owned by the business-missionary, that truly serves the people and is itself a type of ministry.

Still others will not only plant a business but will expect to support other work from the profi ts.

Others may not have the capital necessary or the required expertise to set up a business but will take a job in the foreign land. Not everyone can buy 20 tons of castor oil at a time as described in an excellent book I will mention below.

Just getting a job in a foreign land is what is more often thought of when the phrase tent-maker is used.

“Others may not

have the capital....

Not everyone can buy

20 tons of castor oil

at a time!”


Ironically, Paul the Apostle was not that kind of tent-maker. He essentially owned his own business. He likely supported both himself and others with him, although they, too, may have helped him in his leatherworking tasks. He also accepted gifts from churches so as to cut down on leatherworking. Thus, he fi ts all of these patterns except the one we most often associate with tentmaking, namely becoming an employee in a foreign country.

How is the Business Viewed by the Customer?I fi rmly believe there is ample room for businesses owned by believers who work with Christian principles. Those principles may not always be clear. The hardware chain I mentioned that was founded by Swiss missionaries astonished people by the fact that if someone bought something that had the wrong specifi cations or that did not work they would exchange it or get their money back. Thus a business to be effective mission needs to be conceived of by onlookers as a service, not just a way of making money, although most assumptions will tend to be the contrary.

Here in America all businesses loudly proclaim their desire to serve the customer. We get used to that. We don’t really believe it. In many overseas situations businesses don’t even claim to be working for the customer. Neither the customer nor the business owner views the money being received as simply enabling the continuation of the service rendered but as a contest to see who gets the most.

It is also true that no matter how altruistic an owner is, what pulls down many a business or ministry is the quality of the employees. The owner may have high purposes. The employees may not.

Incidentally, if any business starts siphoning off “profi ts” overly to increase the owner’s wealth or even as gifts to Christian work, the business may, to that extent, be unable to withstand competitors who plow all profi ts back into the service to refi ne it or to lower their prices below what the Christian-owned business (with its extra drain on profi ts) can afford to offer.

An excellent book, edited by one of our board members, Ted Yamamori, is entitled, On Kingdom Business, Transforming Missions through Entrepreneurial Strategies (Crossway Publishing). Several authors of chapters wisely question businesses run by missionaries as a “front” or disguise for mission work. And they should. To “see through” such disguises is not at all diffi cult for governments or private citizens. We also read that “micro-enterprises” have their problems. If one woman in a village gets a loan enabling her to employ a sewing machine she may produce more for less and be better off, but at the same time she may simply put a number of other women out of work in that same village, which is not a desirable witness.

More “New Frontiers” discussion at www.RalphDWinter.com

For resources for Business as Mission, visit the Next Steps Section of the Perspectives website. www.perspectives.org

Several experts wisely

question businesses

run by missionaries as

a “front” or disguise

for mission work.

And they should.

Life After Perspectives

APPENDIX

Self Assessment for Aspiring Cross Cultural Workers

Growth Guide

Mission Mentoring

World Christian Fellowship Pilot Session

Standard Application for Mission Service

A Story about Prayer

Self Assessment Profi le Page 77

A SELF-ASSESSMENTFor Aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers


The following Self Assessment hinges on these three emphases of competence as a missionary.

The Assessment is not scientifi cally constructed; it’s only for your own use. Take your time praying through these factors to assess your readiness to serve cross-culturally as a learner, trader, storyteller.

You can simply print off a copy of this profi le and work through this assessment on your own. Then you can browse the GrowthGuide for suggestions of action-steps for areas where you want to grow. Or you can accentuate its effectiveness by printing extra copies for:

Spiritual Formation

Character

Lifelong learning




1. A very close friend—anyone who knows you well. This person is to fi ll out as much as she/he can on the assessment form about you and then hand it back to you. You compare what this friend perceives about you—as contrasted or confi rming what you perceive about yourself. (We’re all very good at fooling ourselves.) By comparing the two versions, you’ll have a more accurate appraisal of your character, skills and knowledge.

2. A mentor-encourager. If you want to develop a serious personal preparation plan, you’ll follow the suggestions under Plot Your Preparation, where it’s explained that a mentor can simply be a friend who helps keep you accountable to your preparation plan. This person would get a blank copy of this Assessment for her/his own reference as you work through issues. You’ll need to print off Instructions for Mentors.

Even if you make these extra copies:

No one sees your completed Self-Assessment except you.

You can be totally open and candid about evaluating how you feel about each area.

If you plan on following a personal preparation plan, take the Assessment now—and then about six months from now to trace your development. For now, relax your personal defenses, pray for clarity and see if you think you’re ready for a cross-cultural career.


SELF-ASSESSMENT PROFILEFOR ASPIRING CROSS-CULTURAL WORKERS

The purpose of the assessment is to help you identify your strengths and areas in which you think you need improvement.

Note, Welcomers: If your cross-cultural aspirations are in the role of a Welcomer— welcoming other cultures to your own country—simply adjust or ignore items if they only apply to cross-cultural ministry in a foreign setting.

Assessing your strengths and weaknesses in no way suggests you need to be perfect in every area in order to move into missionary service. Self-evaluation can be unsettling; we’re always our own worst critic. But do not give in to the enemy’s ploys of discouragement and depression about not right now measuring up to what you think is “the missionary ideal.” (And remember, this isn’t some defi nitive, scientifi c evaluation; it’s what you think about each of these areas of growth.)

Your “so/so” and “needs help” ratings should give you some red-fl ag areas to grow. Your “okay” and “mostly okay” areas should be encouragements to strengthen your strengths.

You can average each segment as a benchmark for that area—and then compare the totals the next time you complete the assessment.

Just remember this is a totally subjective assessment. You can fool yourself, so consider having a very close friend complete one about you as well. Also consider sharing this Assessment with a mentor-encourager to help you be accountable in working on growth areas. (See MISSION MENTORING.)

Spouses each complete a separate assessment.

Your Name _________________________________________________________________

Address ___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Home phone ____________________ Cell phone _________________________________

Email ____________________________ Date Assessment completed _________________


1. SPIRITUAL

1. Assurance of personal salvation Comment:2. An intimate, daily relationship with God Comment:3. Commitment to God’s will (whatever, wherever, whenever?) Comment:4. Prayer life and practices such as fasting, meditation on Scripture Comment:5. Commitment to the local church Comment:6. Personal accountability to another/other believers Comment:7. Healing and freedom from old wounds and negative life-baggage Comment:8. Spiritual and emotional stamina to endure hardship Comment:9. Knowledge of the principles of spiritual warfare Comment:10. Moral integrity in all areas of life Comment:11. A lifestyle evidencing fruit of the Spirit Comment:12. Stewardship: personal giving; support of a missionary Comment:13. Knowledge of basic Biblical doctrines Comment:14. Knowledge of the Bible in general Comment:15. Memorization of Scripture Comment:16. Knowledge of various Bible study methods and tools Comment:17. Knowledge of other churches and Christian denominations Comment:

Totals — Add how many you checked in each column — Multiply (Go ahead: Grab a calculator!) — Total these — Divide by 17 (the number of questions)The answer tells you whether you think this area of spirituality is—generally—(1) Okay! (2) Mostly okay. (3) So/so. (4) Needs help!

Being as honest and objective as possible, evaluate and jot a comment if desired:

This area of my life is...needs

help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷17

+ + + =


2. PERSONAL

1. Willingness to work hard even without supervision Comment:2. Ability to multi-task Comment:3. Personal organization and time management Comment:4. Setting and reaching goals Comment:5. Physical fi tness Comment:6. Management of money Comment:7. Handling of failure or disappointed expectations Comment:8. Freedom from compulsive/addictive behaviors Comment:9. Self-esteem Comment:10. Handling of anxiety and fears Comment:11. Handling of anger Comment:12. Honesty Comment:



help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷12

+ + + =




help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷17+ + + =

3. INTERPERSONAL

1. Family relationships with parents and siblings Comment:2. (If married) Marriage relationship Comment:

2a. Regular prayer together and times alone with spouse Comment:2b. Spouse’s attitude toward cross-cultural ministry Comment:

3. (If children) Relationship with child/children/grandchildren Comment:

3a. Quality time together as a family Comment:

4. (If single) Acceptance of single status; open to change Comment:

4a. (If single) Relationships with opposite sex and with families Comment:

5. Comunication to family about mission aspirations Comment:6. Understanding of how his/her own personality affects relationships Comment:7. Friendliness among strangers Comment:8. Friendships with non-Christians, ability to relate to non-Christians Comment:9. Christian friendships Comment:10. Listening skills Comment:11. Reactions to others in stressful situations Comment:12. Ability to admit error and laugh at own mistakes Comment:13. Hospitality Comment:14. Flexibility Comment:15. Openness to constructive criticism Comment:16. Willingness to confront friction or problems with others Comment:17. Practice of Biblical confl ict resolution Comment:


4. INTERCULTURAL

1. Awareness of what’s Biblical and what’s cultural in your own North American Christianity

Comment:2. Ability to adapt quickly to new people, places, activities Comment:3. Freedom from racial prejudice Comment:4. Experience of being with people from other cultures Comment:5. Respect for people of other religions Comment:6. Language-learning aptitude; open to life-long language learning Comment:7. General knowledge of world geography and people groups Comment:8. (If children) Development of plan for cross-cultural orientation/

training for children, knowledge of options for schooling Comment:9. Knowledge of culture shock issues Comment:10. Awareness of the various scenarios of a missionary lifestyle Comment:

Totals — Add how many you checked in each column — Multiply (Go ahead: Grab a calculator!) — Total these — Divide by 1o (the number of questions)The answer tells you whether you think this area of spirituality is—generally—(1) Okay! (2) Mostly okay. (3) So/so. (4) Needs help!


help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷10

+ + + =


5. MINISTRY

1. Confi dence about God’s leading so far into missions Comment:2. Interest in a particular people group/ministry approach toward

which God is leading Comment:3. Awareness of spiritual and natural gifts Comment:4. Concern about the eternal destiny of the lost Comment:5. Ability to share Christ in culturally appropriate ways Comment:6. Apologetics: Ability to “defend the faith” Comment:7. Ability to disciple new believers Comment:8. Leadership skills as a servant-leader Comment:9. Communication skills in group settings Comment:10. Enjoyment in ministering as a team, in being a team player Comment:11. Faithfulness in current ministry tasks Comment:12. Experience in ministering outside of church meetings Comment:13. Counseling skills Comment:14. Interest in the fi ght against poverty, disease and injustice Comment:15. Ability to fuse personal work (such as business) and ministry Comment:16. (If applicable) Knowledge about missionary support-raising Comment:17. Awareness of formal mission education Comment:



help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷17

+ + + =


6. ORGANIZATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL

1. Commitment to a home church’s core values and doctrinal statement

Comment:2. Relationship with mission leaders of the home church Comment:3. Ease in accepting authority, working well under others’ leadership Comment:4. Knowledge of various missionary approaches (business-as-mission,

medical missions community development, church-planting, etc.) Comment:5. Awareness of mission agencies Comment:6. Credentials that have credibility in secular circles Comment:7. (If tentmaking/doing business as mission) Development of

realistic employment strategy or business plan Comment:8. Skills to communicate mission vision and mobilize others Comment:



help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

x1 x2 x3 x4

÷8

+ + + =



help

4

...mostly okay

2

...so/so

3

...okay

1

There are possibly other areas of growth that weren’t listed, areas you thought of while completing the Assessment. Jot below any that came to mind—areas that you feel are strengths or weaknesses in your readiness for cross-cultural work:

After completing this Self-Assessment evaluation, list the three areas where you believe you need the greatest amount of growth. (Don’t generalize that you’ll work on an entire category—for example “Spiritual” or “Intercultural.” Instead pick specifi c numbered areas within a segment to plot out your growth plans.)

1. ____________________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________________

Only work on three areas at a time. See the list of ideas and resources for each area in the GrowthGuide for Aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers. Then plan your growth regimen in the Personal Prep Plan chart attached to the Growth Guide. And turbo-charge your cross-cultural preparation with a mentor-encourager.

Adapted with permission from Send Me! (see Web site listing in Resources), World Evangelical Alliance Missionary Training Network resources, Recommended Reading from ACMC and Readiness Guide by DualReach www.dualreach.org.


Growth Guide Page 87

GROWTH GUIDEFor Aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers

Adapted from Assessment Tools from DualReach www.DualReach.org

This chart suggests action-steps to be taken to grow in a particular area of missionary preparation—whether in “welcoming” foreigners in your home culture or serving in another culture.

The setting for this kind of preparation is your local church. You can use the Growth Guide on-your-own. But it will be far more effective—if you really want to grow toward ministry readiness—to let a mentor-encourager or a leader in your church keep you accountable in your preparation plan. (See INSTRUCTIONS FOR MENTOR-ENCOURAGERS.) Remember that this process is not formal missionary preparation; it’s far too subjective for that. It’s just the solid fi rst step of your character-building readiness—while still at home in your local church—to take on the formal/nonformal training your mission agency will require.

How long will you work on these Growth Guide action-steps? That’s totally up to you, depending on how many areas you want to work on, depending on how in-depth you feel you need to go. (Don't even think about working on all of them as a prerequisite to cross-cultural ministry!) What we’re outlining is chiefl y growth in character—a life-long process. So be patient with yourself and with the suggestions of your mentor and church leaders. This is about growth, not about wrapping up a to-do list.

Work on just two or three areas at a time. —Not whole sections such as "Spiritual" or "Interpersonal" but one or two numbered items. Choose from the suggested action steps, make up your own, do them all for that item or only what you feel is needed. But be specifi c: Plot your objectives on the attached Personal Prep Plan.

QUICKSTART TIPS• Get connected. If you don’t have full access to the Internet, fi nd a

way. Nearly all the mission-related information you need is on the Web.

• Budget now for crucial resources—particularly the books you just have to study through in cross-cultural preparation. (See Resources, below.)

• Find a mentor-encourager. It’ll be easier than you think. See INSTRUCTIONS FOR MENTOR-ENCOURAGERS.

• Pray for a counselor who will work with you on some of the deeper issues of personal growth. A counselor might “tithe” his/her skills and offer counseling at no cost to you as you prepare for cross-cultural service. Ask your church leaders to suggest counselors and advocate for you if you choose to ask for no-fee counseling.

Don’t even think about working on all of these areas as a prerequisite

to cross-cultural ministry! Just pick a few hot-button areas

for now.

Note: Make at least 3 photocopies:• for you• for your mentor-encourager• for your church mission

leader/ staff member

Each of you can now and later add, edit, expand ideas for building/strengthening each area of your knowledge, skills and character.


• Enroll in another Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course in your area, or take the course again online. It’s amazing what you’ll catch a second time, and besides—Perspectives alumni attend free!

• Join with a few other mission-minded friends to experiment with: —A Pre-Candidate Fellowship, a regular peer-to-peer gathering of friends exploring a missions career.

You can track each other’s Growth Guide progress. —A Monthly Mission Fellowship for all mission-minded believers in your church—or in several area

churches.

GROWTH GUIDE for Aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers

1. From your Self Assessment Profi le results, pick an item or three to work on.

2. Follow some or all of the suggested action-steps, come up with your own, and ask your pastor, counselor and mentor-encourager for more ideas (See instuctions for Mentors).

3. Fill in the Personal Prep Plan with those action-steps. Share your plans with anyone who’ll keep you accountable—friends, mentor-encourager, pastor, spouse, counselor, Jesus.

AREA OF GROWTH • SUGGESTED ACTION-STEPS & RESOURCES

1. SPIRITUAL

1. Assurance of personal salvationPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Memorize Romans 10:9-10 and carefully study every phrase.• Write out your testimony—the unabridged version of how you came to connect with God through Jesus

Christ. Freewrite. that is, don’t worry that anyone (other than your mentor) will see this rough version; don’t worry about spelling, grammar or continuity. Just blurt it out on paper. Later you can use this rough draft to craft something that will communicate your story to others.

• Go to www.BibleGateway.com and click on Topical Index to enter “assurance.” Study every one of those passages!

• Talk with your pastor about everything!

2. An intimate, daily relationship with GodPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get real: Do you mean the things you say when you sing worship songs? If not, write out a tell-all letter to

God about how you really feel; God loves an honest heart. Sometimes an on-again off-again relationship with God stems from not really trusting Him, not really knowing Him. Tell Him about all that.

• Walk in your new nature (Eph. 4:22-24) by practicing “spiritual breathing”: confession, submission to the control of the Holy Spirit, confession, submission to the control of the Holy Spirit, confession….

• Ask several mature Christians what they do in their personal devotions.• Keep a journal about your devotional time for at least one month.• Read a devotional classic such as Knowing God or The Pursuit of God. (For all book recommendations, see

Resources, below for author, publisher, etc.)


3. Commitment to God’s will (whatever, wherever, whenever?)Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Memorize Romans 12:1-2. Think through your role as a “living sacrifi ce.” What kind of sacrifi ces are you

willing to make in following what God wants?• Ask two or three mature Christians how they discern God’s will and ask them to pray with you for God’s

leading.• Discuss with a missionary how he/she deals with fears about what obeying God may require. Locate

that mentoring missionary on your home church’s missionary roster, or fi nd a missionary at www.FindMissionaries.org. Remember that in restricted access locations, you must observe security principles (not using Christian terms, words such as Christian, missionary, prayer, etc.)

• Read Experiencing God.• Read Decision-Making and the Will of God.• Browse the answers at www.AskAMissionary.org and www.Urbana.org 4. Prayer life & practices such as fasting, meditation on ScripturePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Subscribe to Global Prayer Digest (www.Global-Prayer-Digest.org) for daily prayer points of the world’s

remaining unreached peoples.• Read Touch the World Through Prayer.• Daily visit the Web site of Operation World (www.OperationWorld.org) or purchase the book Operation

World for country-by country prayer points, stats and updates on people groups within each country. (See Resources.)

• For the next six months, keep a record of your prayer requests and how God answers them.• Set aside one day a month of solitude for prayer, fasting and meditation and the development of your

spiritual life.• For one year, regularly contact several missionaries for prayer requests and intercede for them daily.

Check with your church for a missionary contact list and/or contact missionaries in your area of interest—both in type of ministries and in geographical locations¬—at www.FindMissionaries.org

• Read any of Andrew Murray’s books on prayer.• Wear a colorful sticky-dot on your wristwatch to remind you constantly to pray for particular requests

and topics. (Or stick the dot on your wall clock, calendar, computer monitor, steering wheel, toothbrush, etc.!)

• Read Celebration of Discipline for simple, profound insights into the power of meditation on Scripture, fasting, etc.

5. Commitment to the local churchPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Apply for church membership.• Join a small group.• Volunteer for a regular ministry assignment.• Talk to your pastor about your interest in missions.

6. Personal accountability to another/other believersPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Interview someone who is part of an accountability group to discover what makes their get-togethers

profi table.• Recruit two other believers of your own gender to form an accountability group. (They don’t even have to

be “friends”!) You can meet weekly for 45 minutes during lunchtimes, etc. to report how you’re doing on three areas you want to improve in, to talk over three chapter of Scripture you’re each reading and to pray for three things: each other, a non-Christian and an unreached people.

• Blog. Start your own blog about your missions aspirations. Whether anyone ever reads any of it, you’ll be “journaling” and constantly aware of the accountability you’ll daily bear as a minister of the Gospel!


7.Healing & freedom from old wounds & negative life-baggagePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Inside Out. (See Resources.)• Read and carefully work through The Steps to Freedom in Christ.• Read Bondage Breakers.• Talk with a Christian counselor about issues that are too complex to work out on your own. (See the

suggestion in the introductory QuickStart section about securing a counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the Great Commission. This person will prove invaluable on your journey to the nations…and beyond.) This step is particularly necessary when dealing with some of the issues listed under #10 below.

8. Spiritual and emotional stamina to endure hardshipPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read biographies of missionaries who have endured hard times such as Hudson Taylor, Borden of Yale, Amy

Carmichael. (See Resources.)• Talk to people who have experienced hardship and ask what they learned about God and themselves.• Email missionaries now in diffi cult settings and ask how they maintain their emotional and spiritual

stamina. Get the missionary contact list from your church and/or connect at www.FindMissionaries.org.

9. Knowledge of the principles of spiritual warfarePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Prepare for Battle.• Recruit a prayer partner or two with whom to pray regularly for individuals, neighborhoods, cities and

people groups—and against the spiritual forces of darkness that fi ght to hold these in spiritual bondage. • Consider taking a short-term trip with a few others outside North America to follow the training in

PrayerWalking: Praying On-Site with Insight.• Examine the ministry of Jesus in His dealings with the spiritual entities arrayed against Him and His

Kingdom. (Start with the simple story of Matthew 17:14-21.• Examine the ministry of Paul to learn from their modelhow to deal with spiritual warfare.• Ask leaders in your church about the realities of satanic spiritual opposition to ministry. • Ask via email or Internet phone (remembering any security issues in restricted-access settings) about

spiritual warfare.

10. Moral integrity in all areas of lifePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Keys to moral integrity are always 1) walking with God (See #2) and 2) accountability (See #6).• Discuss with a counselor moral issues with which you have struggled. You must get professional help when

dealing with issues such as pornography, homosexual desires, pre-marital or extra-marital affairs, a criminal history or the experiences of abuse, molestation or rape. A mission agency will need to know that you’ve had counseling help in dealing with such powerful issues—and you will need to be candid about such struggles with a sending agency. As you confi dentially reveal your history involving these issues, your sending agency will know how to best help you when the stresses of cross-cultural ministry squeeze every unresolved issues to the surface.

• Start practicing now the boundaries that people in ministry have to live by (never alone with a person of the opposite sex, never handle group money yourself, etc.). Ask your pastor how to avoid all appearances of questionable behavior.


11. A lifestyle evidencing the fruit of the SpiritPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Study the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5. Do a concordance (or www.BibleGateway.org) search

through the New Testament for other mentions of non-literal uses of the term fruit. Focus on the point of the passages, which is abiding in Him step by step. Pray through this study!

• The term is fruit, not “fruits.” If you’re patient but not joyful, ask friends, your mentor, your counselor, your pastor on what may be blocking the Spirit in that area. When the Holy Spirit is in control, all these wonderful qualities are yours. When we simply fake or naturally exhibit some of these qualities but not others, the antidote isn’t to try harder. It’s to release the infl uence of the Spirit of Christ fully into our attitudes and behavior. Don’t try to fake spiritual fruit since your charade will be fully, sadly revealed in the stress of cross-cultural ministry! Instead, ask others for insights.

• Ask a friend or two to complete the SELF-ASSESSMENT PROFILE about you—and then bravely discuss their assessments.

12. Stewardship: personal giving; support of a missionaryPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Study 2 Corinthians 9 about what giving does in us and through us.• Regardless of amount, faithfully, monthly support a missionary from your church or one listed at www.

FindMissionaries.org• Take a course in fi nancial stewardship such as the Dave Ramsey series Financial Peace University; or get

the book Financial Peace.• Invite a mature saint or two out for coffee or lunch—believers you know to be good stewards of the

resources God has entrusted to them. Have a list of questions about fi nances and stewardship. Write down key insights.

13 Knowledge of basic biblical doctrinesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Enroll in a theology course.• Talk to your pastor about your church’s beliefs and ask for recommended reading.• Purchase a few reference books of the doctrines of the Bible.• Browse the Web for sites that specialize in doctrinal discussions, articles and resources. Take care to

examine each for orthodox approaches to Scripture. (Ask advice from your pastor and other mature believers about any doctrinal input that’s suspect. There is a lot of bizarre Bible teaching rampant on the Net, but it’s good for you to be exposed to various slants and then to search Scripture diligently to “see if these things are so.”)

• Teach a new believers class. Being responsible for the spiritual welfare of others always is a powerful motivator to keep studying, learning, synthesizing the great doctrines of Scripture.

14. Knowledge of the Bible in generalPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read it. Consider following The Bible In One Year schedules (See http://eword.gospelcom.net/year).

15. Memorization of ScripturePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Memorize it. Be sure to memorize passages that are not just about you, but about God’s heart for all

peoples.• A good set to memorize is the “Fighter Verses” from www.DesiringGod.org.


16. Knowledge of various Bible study methods & study toolsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Getting the Message: A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible • Browse sites such as www.StudyLight.org to get used to using online reference tools such as interlinear

Bibles, Bible dictionaries, topical Bibles, lexicons, etc. You will be using these as a missionary almost regardless of where you are deployed!

• Learn personally how to study the Bible using the inductive method (Google “inductive Bible study” for lots of options), the chronological approach (See www.chronologicalbiblestorying.com), the expository word-by-word study (Great teaching outlines at www.xenos.org/ct_outln/index.htm), etc. Get comfortable with several methods not just for your own study, but to be able to disciple new believers who might have a preference for one study method over another. (See Resources.)

17. Knowledge of other churches and Christian denominationsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Attend Christian churches of denominations or traditions that are unfamiliar to you. Attend not as a critic,

but as a learner intent on honoring the spirituality of every genuine stream of Christianity, intent on capitalizing on the unity of the Body of Christ. (Your dearest fellow workers on the fi eld will often be missionaries from denominations or traditions that are all over the spectrum of Christendom!)

• In a citywide/regional prayer initiative or other collaboration of various churches, volunteer to work with several others from various church backgrounds.

2. PERSONAL

1. Willingness to work hard even without supervisionPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Interview at least two self-employed people in your church to fi nd out how they structure and evaluate

the use of their time.• Browse at a bookstore or library several books on entrepreneurship. Many have excellent suggestions for

sparking th can-do spirit in you, for tapping into the energy needed to envision, plan, start and complete a task.

• Taking initiative, being a self-starter even at your own inconvenience is always part of ministry—and particularly of missionary work. If you see yourself not initiating (It’s always easier to do nothing.), not completing tasks, ask a few friends, your mentor, your pastor for opportunities to take charge of a project—and to fi nish it.

• If you fi nd you are simply not a hard worker, passionately ask God to change you—since that last thing the Kingdom needs is a worker who does just enough to get by. Test out that change by taking on a diffi cult part-time job and sticking with it.

2. Ability to multi-taskPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Cross-cultural ministry is always about accomplishing something plus modeling ministry. These

responsibilities pervade the time for family/personal time, cultural learning, maintaining offi cial status, simply livingm etc, Ask your favorite missionaries how they do all this at once! Connect with missionaries connected to your church and/or missionary friends you make at www.FindMissionaries.org.

• The best trainers to teach you multi-tasking skills are children! Regularly practice babysitting while also completing a small project—phoning, reading, planning, studying.


3. Personal organization and time managementPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get expert help for understanding the crucial value of boundaries, of margins in your life as you juggle

priorities. Read and implement the book Boundaries. (See Resources.)• Track the use of your time in 15-minute increments for one week. Identify several time wasters and for the

next thre weeks keep a log of ways in which you “redeem” this time for more important activities.• Browse your library for books on time management and personal organization. Choose an approach that

you feel will work best for you and then stick to it! (Most time-management systems don’t work for people because they don’t habitualize the method, not because the method is faulty.)

4. Setting and reaching goalsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Evaluate your response to this assessment and Growth Guide project Have you been able to maximize its

value as a too to help you in goal setting and step-by-step improvement without becoming overwhelmed or discouraged? Talk over your Personal Prep Plan objectives with your friends, your mentor, your pastor: Are your expectations reasonable?

• Simply working through your Prep Plan will coach you toward being realistic in your goal-setting and in keeping yourself accountable to actually reach those reasonable goals.

• To practice another valuable development project, work through the book Send Me! The more you persevere at this kind of challenge to your dream of a cross-cultural career, the more you’ll experience the pleasure of completing something important. Just as with this Growth Guide outline, you must let yourself be accountable to someone else in your study of Send Me!

• If you fi nd yourself unable to stick with this Growth Guide or the Send Me! process, talk over your tendency to quit even important project with your friends, your pastor, your mentor, your counselor. Let them help you discover why and how you tend to sabotage even your deepest aspirations. God can bring a new confi dence as He trains you to set and reach realistic goals in your life and ministry.

5. Physical fi tnessPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get a complete physical and address any concerns raised by your physician.• Ask your doctor about particular physical problem areas that might prevent you from a reasonable exercise

routine.• There are so many highly acclaimed fi tness routines in magazines, books, courses and as taught by

exercise center trainers that we’re without excuse for remaining physically unfi t for the strains of travel and sometimes strenuous activity of missionary lifestyles. Accountability is the key; see #6 under the “Spiritual” segment, and recruit a partner for regular exercise.

• If eating properly is an issue, get help from a counselor, join a weight-maintenance group, and again become accountable to others about your diet.

• Collect nutritious recipes you could continue to prepare overseas. Ask a good cook to give you some lessons.

6. Management of moneyPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• See suggestions under “Spiritual” item #12. Especially consider taking the Financial Peace University

course.• Budgeting, planning and careful spending are only part of money management. Another area is the

character issue of integrity in handling money. Volunteer to handle the fi nances for a particular project; it could even be collecting money for a friend’s party. Let your mentor or other accountability partner know the details of that responsibility, and perform your management of the funds impeccably. The worse your usual mishandling of funds has been, the more of these small accountability projects are needed to re-establish in your own thinking the integrity you can demonstrate in managing money—particularly others’ money—with integrity.


• If you have debt, establish a plan to eliminate it (with the possible exception of a mortgage). Keep yourself accountable to fulfi ll that plan by discussing it with your mentor/church staff person.

• Sit down with a fi nancial counselor to assess your fi nances and spending habits. This person might want to continue as your fi nancial advisor as you move into fulltime ministry.

7. Handling of failure or disappointed expectationsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Hudson’s Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. Talk with your mentor about Taylor’s lessons on dealing with

failure.• Read any missionary biography. They all deal with disappointments and failure. Write down insights from

these “missionary mentors’” lives.• During one of your monthly spiritual-development days (See under “Spiritual” item # 4.), freewrite (not

worrying that anyone else will ever see this, not pausing about spelling, grammar, etc. Just fast, free writing.) about the failures and disappointments you’ve experienced in life. Talk to God about each of these. Listen to His responses.

• Talk to your pastor or counselor about your exploration of failure and disappointed expectations. Do you blame others when things go wrong? Do you blame God? Do you give up? Get angry?

• You will experience failure—sometimes spectacular, humiliating failure—in strategic cross-cultural ministry since the satanic “counter-kingdom” wars against any progress in God’s Kingdom. Ask intercessors you begin to recruit to pray for you in this inevitable area of challenge. Ask for prayer for humility, for faith and trust, for resilience and, always, for the ability to genuinely laugh at yourself.

8. Freedom from compulsive/addictive behaviorsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Explore carefully the areas listed under “Spiritual” in this Growth Guide. Ask your pastor or mentor

whether they feel some of your behavioral issues are rooted in the spiritual. Study Bondage Breakers and Steps to Freedom in Christ.

• Commit to regular counseling sessions (See the idea above of securing a personal counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the sake of the Great Commission.) to understand and defeat negative behaviors.

• Keep yourself accountable, enroll in a support group and/or a treatment program to fi nd freedom from any addictions—addictions to food, pornography, television, alcohol or drugs, even to adrenaline!

9. Self-esteemPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Believers with low self-esteem, insecure people are often attracted to missions as a career because

they’re granted instant importance and inferred spirituality if they’re going to be missionaries. Pray for healing in what the enemy has done in your life to damage your sense of self-worth and security about who you are. Pray for insight into your upbringing that may have given rise to feelings of inadequacy or defi ciency.

• Study the Scriptures about God’s creation and esteem of you. Work through prayer to constantly confi rm that you will believe God about what He says about you rather than believing the lies of the enemy, the misperceptions of others and even those lies you tell yourself about why a low self-esteeem is fi tting for you.

• Explore carefully the areas listed under “Spiritual” in this Growth Guide. Ask your pastor or mentor whether they feel some of your self-esteem issues are rooted in the spiritual. Study Bondage Breakers and Steps to Freedom in Christ.

• Commit to regular counseling sessions (See the idea above of securing a personal counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the sake of the Great Commission.) to understand and defeat negative behaviors.


10. Handling of anxiety and fearsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Stepping out of your comfort zone to even consider cross-cultural ministry—a counter-cultural career!—

naturally brings discomfort. But the discomfort of faith, of not knowing or pretending to be in control, isn’t to be an habitual attack of fear and anxiety. Pray for wisdom to clarify your issues in this area.

• Fear and anxiety are always humanly appropriate reactions to much of the missionary lifestyle. But God is leading your toward a life of reacting to unnerving circumstances with a supernatural rather than a human response. Pray for healing in what the enemy has done in your life to damage your sense of contentment and security in Christ. Pray for insight into your upbringing that may have given rise to recurring, “fl oating” feelings of fear and anxiety.

• Study the Scriptures about God’s care for you and provision for you. Work through prayer to constantly confi rm that you will believe God about what He says about His complete love casting out fear, and that you’ll be obedient to “be anxious for nothing.”

• Explore carefully the areas listed under “Spiritual” in this Growth Guide. Ask your pastor or mentor whether they feel some of your fear is rooted in the spiritual. Study Bondage Breakers and Steps to Freedom in Christ.

• Commit to regular counseling sessions (See the idea above of securing a personal counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the sake of the Great Commission.) to understand and defeat ingrained fears, anxieties, panic attacks.

11. Handling of angerPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Feeling acutely angry against team members or locals in a missionary setting doesn’t seem spiritual. And

so mission workers with anger problems often resist expressing anger appropriately—and then seethe over slights, injustices, irritations. As a fi rst step to addressing this problem area, simply tell yourself you have no healthy alternative but to fi nd freedom and healing from inappropriate anger—or you’ll never be able to enjoy cross-cultural ministry!

• Anger has its place in your response to all kinds of circumstances. Yet if anger controls you—if your anger is free-fl owting and sometimes uncontrollable, get help. Pray for healing in what the enemy has done in your life to damage your sense of injustice and hurt. Pray for insight into your upbringing that may have given rise to feelings or patterns of handling anger inappropriately.

• Study the Scriptures about anger.• Explore carefully the areas listed under “Spiritual” in this Growth Guide. Ask your pastor or mentor

whether they feel some of your anger issues are rooted in the spiritual. Study Bondage Breakers and Steps to Freedom in Christ.

• Commit to regular counseling sessions (See the idea above of securing a personal counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the sake of the Great Commission.) to understand and defeat uncontrollable anger.

12. HonestyPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Several suggestions under “Spiritual” item #10 (Moral Integrity) and “Personal” item #6 (Handling of

Money) might be especially appropriate for you to work through if you feel you’re weak in the area of honesty.

• Honesty in handling money is one thing. Honesty is simply always telling the truth in love is another. The chief reason people aren’t honest is they feel they need to appear better than they are, they need to defl ect attention from their own shortcomings. In other words, it’s a matter of insecurity; see item #9 above (Self-Esteem).


3. INTERPERSONAL

1. Family relationships with parents and siblingsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Identify areas of unresolved confl ict with your parents and ways you could address issues. Discuss concerns

honestly with your counselor, pastor or mentor.• List steps you could take to prepare your parents and siblings for your move into a cross-cultural career.

Ask experienced missionaries for suggestions on how to maintain family relationships at a distance. (Email your church’s missionaries or fi nd a missionary in your interest-area at www.FindMissionaries.org.)

• If, as an adult, you have parents who don’t approve of your seeking a missions career, pray for them. Ask advice from your pastor, mentor or counselor on how to honor your parents and yet not be bound by their opinions.

2. (If married) Marriage relationship Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Ask your counselor (See suggestion for acquiring a counselor in the intro to this Growth Guide.) to assess

the health of your marriage and family relationship. Work on specifi c areas of improvement.• Take a marriage seminar or “tune-up” weekend. Schedule another extended time alone with your spouse

to discuss ways to strengthen your relationship.• Talk to missionaries serving on your anticipated fi eld and ask about the particular obstacles to maintaining

a good marriage in that setting. Email or talk via Internet phone with missionaries connected to your church or fi na a missionary at www.FindMissionaries.org.

• Read up on the attitudes about marriage and gender in a culture or a culture bloc (tribal, Hindu, secular, Muslim, Buddhist) that interests you.

• Read Honorably Wounded: Stress among Christian Workers.

2a. Regular prayer together & times alone with spousePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Use the prayer tools suggested in “Spiritual” item #4.• Discuss with your counselor any awkwardness or hindrances you and your spouse experience in praying/

having devotions together.• Regardless of your life-situation, set aside and guard a regular time alone with your spouse—A few hours, a

day, a date.

2b. Spouse’s attitude toward cross-cultural ministryPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Pray for your spouse and his/her vision.• Include your spouse in helping you through these readiness steps of preparation.• Encourage your spouse to participate in short-term mission experiences with you.• If your spouse is antagonistic toward a missionary life, ask and listen as much as possible for the root

reasons. Get advice from your pastor and mentor about being submissively supportive of your spouse in this difference of vision.

• Dig until you fi nd plausible info to respond to any of the fears your spouse expresses about the missionary lifestyle.

• Commit yourself to be patient while honoring your spouse in her/his concerns, acknowledging that God’s timing and leading can well come to you through your spouse.


3. (If children) Relationship with child/children/grandchildrenPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get good at communicating electronically with your kids/grandkids—whether they’re going with you

eventually or not—via email, instant messaging, blogs, personal Web pages, etc. • If these kids are to go with you at some point, start now digging into Third-Culture Kid information and

training. Read the book Third Culture Kids.• Browse the Web site of InterAction—www.InterAction.org—, a ministry focused on international family

issues. Contact them about any upcoming family orientation retreats or conferences.• Ask missionaries with kids (See ideas for connecting with missionaries under “Spiritual” item #3.) how they

manage, what to prepare for, the plusses and minuses of missionary life for a family.• Follow the links at www.MissionaryCare.org for great insight, training and general information of kids and

missions.• Read Families on the Move.

3a. Quality time together as a familyPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• A family that’s healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually will be your greatest asset in cross-cultural

ministry; the kids will connect more directly and naturally with locals than you do! So start now buffering set times for family recreation, exercise, talking, praying, reading and discussing Bible stories and Scripture, attending church and mission events. Be a happy family to “let the nations be glad” (Psalm 67).

• Follow the advice of Christian ministries such as Focus on the Family (www.fof.org) about quality family time.

• Take your family outside your own culture for a vacation or short-term ministry. Look for ways to help ease fears and give children an anticipation of actually living in a foreign setting.

• Explore the possibility of raising support for your kids to attend Missionary Training International’s CHIPS program or a similar MK preparation program. (See Resources.)

4. (If single) Acceptance of single status; yet open to changePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Talk to missionaries serving on your anticipated fi eld and ask about the particular challenges of serving as

a single in this culture. (See “Spirituals” item #3 for missionary contacts.)• Read up on the attitudes about gender relationships in the people group or culture bloc you’re interested

in.• Discuss with a Christian counselor your feelings about serving as a single in missions. Be honest about hurts

from the past that may affect your relationship with colleagues of the same or the opposite gender.• Read Honorably Wounded: Stress among Christian Workers.• Regardless of your gender, read True Grit and Through Her Eyes. (See Resources.)

4a. (If single) Relationships with opposite sex & with familiesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• See suggestions in “Spiritual” item #10.• Intentionally develop a close friendship with a Christian family in your church, contributing to their lives

and allowing them to enrich yours. Plan to continue that family relationship throughout your mission career.

• Ask your growing prayer team to intercede regularly for you in this area of singleness, actually asking them to pray for a future spouse as a possibility in God’s plan for you.


5. Communication to family about mission aspirationsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• (If children/grandchildren) Take one child at a time on an activity that allows plenty of talk time, and

describe as well as you now can what your missionary life will be like. If the child/teenager is to go with you, don’t ask for “permission” or any sort of commitment; just drip into their awareness the outline of what you think God has ahead for you…and them.

• Browse the Resources below for good books to recommend to parents/family members to help them visualize your future cross-cultural ministry.

6. Understanding of how her/his own personality affects relationships Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Here again is an area where honest friends can give you amazing insights to how you come across to

others—if you ask those friends for honest, no-holds-barred comments. Be brave and ask.• If there’s a pattern in your history of relationships that seems to recur, talk to your counselor for clues on

how your personality affects your relationships. (See ideas on retaining a counselor in the intro to this Growth Guide.)

• Ask your counselor or pastor about taking a personality assessment such as Myers-Briggs, DISC or other inventories. Your mission agency will use these assessment tools, and getting a good inventory now will give you and your counselor, pastor and mentor time to fully examine the inventory results. Why is this so important? Because most missionaries’ ministry problems involve relationships not with the locals but with co-workers!

7. Friendliness among strangersPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• If your shyness at meeting strangers is acute, talk to your counselor. An introvert can always learn

friendliness skills.• Intentionally make eye contact and initiate conversation with store clerks, waitpersons and other service-

oriented personnel who normally are ignored. Think of what appropriate things you could say in passing to bless them.

• Practice being careful to listen to names and repeat those names as you’re being introduced to strangers. When meeting a foreigner, ask for help from the person to correctly pronounce her/his name. Put yourself intentionally in a setting—such as an international students dinner—where you can polish these simple, powerful skills.

• Attend a party with unbelievers or other social events with those with whom you do not naturally feel comfortable. Get good at small talk, listening, empathizing and noticing details about a person.

8. Friendships with non-Christians, ability to relate to non-ChristiansPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Few missionaries anticipate attending formal occasions in their ministry, but knowing how to act at an

ambassador’s event or a state dinner is valuable. (Actually, the more remote your deployment, the more likely it is that you as the foreigner will be called on to attend elaborate functions, make toasts, understand protocol.) Take a course in etiquette! Study any of the business books that cue corporate offi cers on cross-cultural etiquette, formal greetings, etc.

• Follow a “socially gifted” person at a social event and see how he/she interacts with others.• Read How to Win Friends and Infl uence People. Really, it’s a classic that has common-sense advice.


9. Christian friendshipsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Ask two elderly saints for their “life story.” Ask specifi c advice about one thing. Then continue the

relationship.• Most other cultures develop a few deep friendships by spending years of time together. Our mobile, fast-

paced North American culture almost ensures that we’re not good at intensive friendships, but that we make and lost friendships fast with the people we’re around at the time. Think of two or three Christian friends you’d like to befriend in a lifelong, more intentional way. Then begin or continue to be part of those friends’ lives for lifelong friendships.

• Begin now to pray and plan toward friends who should be part of your sending team. (Read Serving As Senders and the Post-Perspectives unit on Serving As A Sender.)

• Especially after working through item # 6 above (How your personality affects your relationships), make new friends!

10. Listening skillsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get in the habit of engaging in conversations in which you ask questions, then ask more clarifying

questions and simply mostly listen.• Browse your local library for a CD/tape on “active listening” or read a book on listening skills.• Observe at least two conversations between other people. Identify what each person’s body language

indicates.• Practice a day of listening to a particular person in your life. Journal about what you learned from

listening.

11. Reactions to others in stressful situationsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Think through how you respond in emergencies or a high-stress situation. Ask a few friends and if married

your spouse for their perception of your demeanor under stress.• Enroll in a CPR and First-Aid course. • Review your last two performance evaluations at work. Identify where and how you will seek to improve

your working relationships.• With your mentor, analyze a past confl ict situation. Come up with a few different scenarios of how you

could have improved your interaction. Project these mentally into possible future personal confl icts you’ll face in ministry.

• List as many stressful situations as you can imagine as you move into a cross-cultural career. (The list probably begins with public speaking, support-raising conversations, travel, terror threats….) Use your imagination to visualize each situation. How will you feel? How would you like to act? What will you do to ensure you handle the stress well?

12. Ability to admit error and laugh at own mistakesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Not being able to admit mistakes suggests deep insecurities and portends mission team problems. Review

the suggestions under “Personal” item #8.• Not being able to laugh at your own mistakes is a surefi re block to language-learning. Learning to speak

another language is virtually a process of making mistakes, laughing at yourself and trying again. Again, review “Personal” item # 8 on seeing God redeem your sense of self-esteem.

• If you have failed at something, wronged someone or made a signifi cant error and left it unresolved, go to the person involved and admit your mistake. And ask for forgiveness.


13. HospitalityPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Cross-cultural ministry is based on relationships. And in most fo the world, relationships are built through

hospitality. Much of our North American culture feels hospitality is a take-it-or-leave it quality—since everyone’s always so busy. But it’s an art. So at least once a month accept an invitation to someone’s home or entertain someone in yours. You don’t have to do full meals; coffee, tea or dessert is fi ne. Intentionally focus on creating a welcoming environment rather than worrying about the perfection of the setting or food, the cost, or the time involved.

• Learn to eat whatever is placed in front of you by going to ethnic restaurants and ordering items that are unfamiliar.

14. Flexibility Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Review the Gospels and identify four instances where Jesus demonstrated fl exibility.• Ask several missionaries why fl exibility is a crucial attribute for a cross-cultural worker.• Take a short-term ministry trip beyond North America with just a few friends. Plan and organize the trek

yourself. There is nothing like international travel to force you to practice fl exibility!• Volunteer to work with children. Or if you have children, volunteer to babysit extra children at no cost to

a couple parents. You will learn fl exibility as you care for a batch of kids!• Pray that God develops you into a fl exible person. Record incidents where you are growing in this area.• If your response to situations that demand fl exibility still shows a pattern of frustration, anger, irritation,

consider talking with your counselor about control, about loss-of-control fears.

15. Openness to constructive criticismPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Since this quality is closely related to #12 above, review those suggestions.• If you recognize stubbornness or instant fl are-ups of defensiveness in your character, spend some time

before the Lord looking for the underlying reasons and talk this over with your counselor, pastor and/or mentor.

• Study the Acts passages on the incredible biblical character Peter—whose opinionated stubbornness God had to challenge with a powerful vision (Acts 10). (Later notice how the Apostle Paul had to again challenge Peter about diminishing the status of Gentile believers.)

16. Willingness to confront friction or problems with othersPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Another opportunity for your friends, family and if married your spouse to tell you the truth in love: Ask

them if you seem to avoid initiating confl ict-resolution with others. • If this is a weak area, it probably means you have current relationships that are strained in some way, and

you’re avoiding resolution. Call or make a point to talk with the person involved. Begin now to overcome this need to avoid confrontation since in the stressful cauldron of cross-cultural ministry, dealing immediately and clearly with friction, problems, misunderstandings may mean the difference between effectiveness or disaster.

• If this is a deep-seated issue, get help and further suggestions from you counselor. (See the introduction about retaining a counselor who will “tithe” counseling skills for the sake of the Great Commission.)


17. Practice of biblical confl ict resolutionPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Study the key biblical passages on confl ict resolution. (See Resources for books, ministries, courses on

these passages.)• Study the book Confl ict or Connection. (See Resources.)• Write out your own understanding of a “policy” you’ll follow of confl ict resolution. Include clarifying

whether an issue is preference, opinion, fact or actual Scripture. Include the basic principle of always going to the person involved. Include how you can always approach confl ict resolution in humility. This personal confl ict-resolution policy will be a priceless document for you as you minister in teams of Great Commission Christians!

• Apply principles of confl ict resolution to a diffi cult situation you currently face.• Take a course at a local business school in negotiation or teambuilding.

4. INTERCULTURAL

1. Awareness of what’s cultural and what’s biblical & what’s cultural in your own North American Christianity.

Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read American Cultural Baggage. (See Resources.) Note what you agree with or don’t agree with.• Ask a missionary to describe his/her greatest struggles to adapt to a new culture. What areas of Christian

practice did he/she have to learn to consider “cultural” rather than “Christian”? Journal your refl ections and report on them.

• Take your vacation in a dramatically different culture and spend as much time as possible getting to know the people and culture. Identify at least fi ve things you learned.

2. Ability to adapt quickly to new people, places, activitiesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Enroll in a cross-cultural internship such as Mission Training International’s SPLICE. • Host an exchange student.• Volunteer your services to an organization in your area resettling refugees.• Read Foreign to Familiar.

3. Freedom from racial prejudicePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Don’t confuse “not liking” someone with racial prejudice. Prejudice is a matter of a warped upbringing,

fear, ego and generalizing and stereotyping (He mistreated me, therefore all his kind will mistreat me.). Pray against the damage that has been done to you to which evidences itself in superior attitudes toward other people groups, other races—even other classes of society.

• Ask God to heal you of the disease of prejudice as you study and memorize Genesis 1:26; Matthew 7:12; Acts 17:26-27; Romans 2:11; Galatians 3:28; James 2:8-9; 1 John 2:2, 4:20.

• Spend serious time with individuals of other cultures and races. (See the suggestions in the next item.) Coming to know individuals as individuals is always a powerful antidote to prejudice.

• Talk over with your mentor-encourager, your pastor, your counselor your struggle in this area. If you fi nd you simply cannot yet overcome this malady of racial prejudice, please do not go out to represent Jesus Christ.


4. Experience of being with people from other culturesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Research the ethnic communities in your area and study one in depth.• Spend time at a university library to study sociological research on the culture of a people group God

seems to be directing you toward. • Read a novel by an author from the people group.• Read Anthropological Insights for Missionaries. (See Resources.)• Take your family or home group to an ethnic festival and help the children understand and appreciate

cultural differences.• Search the Internet for an English-language newspaper published in a foreign country. For one week, spend

15 minutes per day reading it. At the end of the week, jot down everything you have learned about the culture it represents.

• Take a part-time job in which you work with those of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Or look for an opportunity to work with, or preferably under, people of other nationalities in your job.

• Take an applied anthropology course at your local college.• Complete a short-term missions assignment. • Read God Brings the World to Your Doorstep. (See Resources.)• Serve with an outreach to international students at a local university.• Volunteer to be a welcomer for visitors from other cultures to your city.• Read Confl ict or Connection: Interpersonal Relationships in Cross-cultural Settings.

5. Respect for people of other religionsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• With a friend, attend lectures or go to services of other religions, especially the group with which you

anticipate working.• List 5-10 positive elements of another person’s faith.• Read one of the following about a cultural bloc that particularly interests you: Encountering the World of

Islam, Hinduism, Jesus in Beijing, Sharing Jesus in the Buddhist World. (See Resources.)

6. Language-learning aptitude; open to life-long language learningPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Buy and use the classic book about the LAMP Method—Language Acquisition Made Practical.• Take a language aptitude test and review the results with someone on the personnel staff of a mission

agency.• Explore the free language-learning resources at http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ and start

practicing!• Take a course on language acquisition such as those offered by Missionary Training International,

MissionsPREP and Summer Institute of Linguistics, etc. (See Resources.)• Enroll in a foreign language course with an adult education program or at your local community college.

7. General knowledge of world geography and people groupsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Regularly play on GoogleEarth (www.Earth.Google.com).• Get a good map—particularly one highlighting the locations of people groups. Browse at Global Mapping

International (www.GMI.org).• Go to www.NationalGeographic.com and enter “map” in the SEARCH box. Subscribe to National

Geographic Magazine.


8. (If children) Development of plan for cross-cultural orientation/training for children, schooling options, etc.

Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Make sure your kids are catching a mission vision. Let them and other children and youth in your

fellowship enjoy the great kids’ resources now available. For resources, ask your denomination’s mission department, ask any mission agencies that interest you, or go to www.CalebProject.org and search for “children curriculum.”

• Read and absorb Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds. (See Resources.)• Contact missionaries with kids and talk! (See “Spiritual” item #3 for how to connect.)• Bookmark and explore the InterAction site for missionary kids and families at www.interactionintl.org/

home.asp.• Visit www.barnabus.org—Barnabus International, an info and encouragement for missionary families.

9. Knowledge of culture shock issuesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read carefully the article “Language Shock, Culture Shock and How to Cope” at http://www.

strategicnetwork.org/index.php?loc=kb&view=v&id=16416&. • If this is an area you want to fully explore now, real all of the articles at http://www.strategicnetwork.

org/index.php?loc=kb&view=b&fto=943&&sf=Y• Ask some internationals (See item #4 above.) what shocked them most about coming to the North

American culture. Note these topics since they’ll probably be part of your eventual re-entry cultural shock almost every time you return to this your “passport country.” (On the topic of calling your passport country your “home country,” see the discussion on “Immigrant Missions” in the post-Perspectives Going All-Out unit.

10. Awareness of the various scenarios of a missionary lifestylePick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Scaling the Wall to get specifi c about the challenges this life brings.• Ministry and the missionary task is one thing; every mission agency and mission resource has tons of

stories about strategic mission ministry. But it takes some digging to fi nd out more about the day-to-day missionary lifestyles—which vary greatly depending on the fi eld. Contact missionaries (See “Spiritual” item #3 to fi nd missionaries.) in very different settings (developed city such as in Western Europe/rural village in Papua New Guinea/plains of Mongolia/etc.) to ask specifi c questions about their lives such as “How do you shop for food?” “What’s your typical daily schedule?” “How are you careful about security?” “What happens if you get sick?” “How do you communicate with home?” Etc.

• Read any or all of the real-life adventures and misadventures of missionaries in the Heroes Then and Now series of missionary biographies. (See Resources.)

• Join or initiate short-term ministries to the people group/geographical areas that interest you, and spend casual time with the missionaries to observe their daily lives.


5. MINISTRY

1. Confi dence about God’s leading so far into missions in generalPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Be careful of that loaded mission-eze term “Call to Missions.” Instead insert into your explanations of your

passion for missions the term “leading.” God is leading, has led. (On the other hand, if you’ve received one of those exceptional supernatural statements from God about where you are to serve, say so!)

• Explore Scriptures to see how God confi rmed His leading in the lives of Bible characters and in the book of Acts.

• Identify at least fi ve confi rmations that God may be leading you into a cross-cultural ministry career. Talk to your pastor, church mission leader and mentor-encourager whether they sense that God is leading you in this direction.

• Be gripped by how God uses ordinary people in His extraordinary global plan by reading the Heroes Then and Now series of missionary biographies. (See Resources.)

2. Interest in a particular people group/ministry approach toward which God is leadingPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Traditional missions is all about location, right? The knee-jerk reaction when you say you’re interested

in becoming a missionary is “Where?” And they’re always asking for a geo-political country. But God is more interested in the “who”—what people, what individuals is He readying for your ministry? Practice educating your friends by replying that it doesn’t matter “where” since world populations are constantly in motion.

• Memorize Acts 17:26-27 to remind yourself constantly that God may be moving representatives of a people group to you!

• Live for a few weeks at www.JoshuaProject.net to explore and research the people groups profi led under the major cultural blocs of tribals, Hindus, secularists, Muslims or Buddhists.

• Not every coincidence is a directive from God. But it could be! Pray for memory jogs, for insight and for sensitivity to the Spirit as you freewrite (not worrying that anyone will ever see it) about the coincidences that had something to do with a particular people, a particular country, a particular ministry.

• Read The Next Christendom for a startling overview of where God is moving globally. (See Resources.)

3. Awareness of spiritual and natural giftsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Complete a spiritual gifts inventory in the post-Perspectives unit Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche or go

to www.churchbuilding.net/2gs-i.htm or, for $12, take a 23-gift and DISC personality inventory at www.UniquelyYou.net. List in order what you believe to be your strongest and weakest gifts.

• Identify three things you could do to test or develop new gifts. What gifts do you wish you had? What gifts are you unsure if you have because you have never served in those areas?

• Take a course or lessons to further develop a natural talent that could be useful in ministry or friendship building (art, music, drama, carpentry, etc.).

4. Concern about the eternal destiny of the lostPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Spend one dedicated appointment with your pastor talking over this vital issue.• In spite of today’s pervasive universalism (“Everyone who responds to God in their own ways will go to

heaven.”), the Bible is clear about the eternal destinies of mankind. Do a concordance search/topical search (Start at www.BibleGateway.org.) using the terms “death” or “hell.”

• Read “Are the Heathen Really Lost?” at www.calebproject.org/userfi les/MIB-lost.pdf. Discuss this paper with your mentor.


5. Ability to share Christ in culturally appropriate waysPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Every church, denomination, every parachurch discipling organization has a favorite way of presenting the

Gospel. (See an overview of some methods at www.christiananswers.net/evangelism/methods/home.html.) Explore all the methods, and then settle on what works best for you in your current life-situation. And introduce people to faith in Christ!

• Enroll in a comparative religions course at a local college. As you learn, also look for opportunities to express your faith clearly but as non-offensively as possible.

• Intentionally initiate friendships in which one (but not the exclusive) goal is to share Christ.• Read Ministering Cross-Culturally. (See Resources.)

6. Apologetics: Ability to “defend the faith”Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Google every question you yourself would like to explore about Christianity—Is the Bible true? Did Jesus

rise from the dead? Is there a God? Etc. Expect some great articles and some horrible ones; pray for wisdom and discernment.

• Get The Apologetics Study Bible (Holman Bible Publishers) that covers virtually every question a Christian needs to answer. It features key comments from the best of the Church’s apologists—Lee Strobel, Chuck Colson, Norm Geisler, Hank Hanegraaff, Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias and many more. (Also, search for books by these apologists.)

7. Ability to disciple new believersPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Ask your pastor to match you with a new believer who needs assistance in his/her newfound faith.• Volunteer as a counselor at a youth retreat or summer camp. Look for opportunities to encourage campers

during and following the retreat time.• Lead a short-term missions team. Identify ways you can encourage team members to grow.• Choose one of your personal friends whom you believe is not living up to his/her full potential. Think and

pray about how to stimulate this person to utilize God-given abilities.

8. Leadership skills as a servant-leaderPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Volunteer to lead a team assigned to complete a task or project. Identify the skills of each team member

and look for specifi c ways to develop and use his/her gifts.• Take a signifi cant leadership responsibility in a ministry at your church for at least six months. Ask a

mature leader in the program for specifi c suggestions for improvement.• Ask your pastor to recommend three books on leadership. After you have read them, discuss key concepts

with your mentor. Keep track of the lessons you learned about being a leader.• Read Leading the Way. (See Resources.)

9. Communication skills in group settingsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Ask a professional teacher to critique a class you lead. Afterward talk with him/her about specifi c ways to

improve.• Take a speech class or join Toastmasters to enhance your oral communication.• Work on how to tell the story of your ministry using PowerPoint® or video.• Read The Effective Missionary Communicator.


10. Enjoyment in ministering as a team, in being a team playerPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Study through the book of Acts to verify that not even the Apostle Paul never went out by himself. • Begin now forming your personal Sending Team. (See the post-Perspectives unit Serve As A Sender for

details and resources.) In that unit, download the entire book Serving As Senders by Neal Pirolo (www.eri.org)

• Check with your denomination or favorite mission agencies as to their approaches to forming missionary teams.

• Participate in sports teams, and note insights that translate to any team—including mission teams.• Google and browse the plethora of books and training courses about team-building available from

corporate sources. Again, use insights gained to translate into team-building principles for missionary teams.

11. Faithfulness in current ministry tasksPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Allow your mentor to ask three people to honestly share their evaluation of your faithfulness in service

and to process that information with you. Pray together, confessing failures and asking for God’s power to improve.

• Take on a behind-the-scenes responsibility and fulfi ll its every responsibility. Do this in your church and do this in the community with a local service organization.

12. Experience in ministering outside of church meetingsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• While faithfully ministering in conventional church settings, make a point to minister—serve—outside the

church walls. Arrange now to spend time in a regular ministry to non-believers outside the church. (See #8, above.)

• Go to http://ied.gospelcom.net and pray about using the Internet to reach Web users for Christ.

13. Counseling skillsPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• View one or more of the American Association of Christian Counselors videotape series on helping people

with common life problems. See www.aacc.net and talk over with your pastor whether your church should purchase a video series.

• Google “Christian lay counseling” or other key terms to browse sites and resources in this fi eld.• Ask your church’s counselor for recommendations of key books to read.• Volunteer to become a mentor of a teen struggling with personal issues. Review with your mentor what

you are doing to help him/her work through these issues.

14. Interest in the fi ght against poverty, disease and injustice.Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Read Famines and Face Packs or Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, or Justice, Mercy, and Humility or all

three!• Use a concordance (easiest at www.BibleGateway.org) to fi nd 5-10 biblical passages that address each

issue.

15. Ability to fuse personal work (such as business), relationships and ministryPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• There is no end to ministry—a fact that gets many vocational ministry people in trouble as they also try to

bear the responsibilities of relationships, rest, etc. Read Boundaries: When to say YES, When to say NO to Take Control of Your Life. (See Resources.)

• Work through any time-management program (Search for free formats on the Web.) and pray for God’s guidance as you prioritize activities in your current schedule.


16. (If applicable) Knowledge about missionary support-raising Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Work through the post-Perspectives unit Serve As A Sender to get oriented to building a support team.• Talk to two or three missionaries about the lessons they learned while raising support.• Interview several individuals who support missionary friends through prayer and fi nances. Ask them what

motivates them to give and what they appreciate about their missionary partnership.• Talk to your church mission leaders about your church’s guidelines and expectations regarding support

raising.• Read Friend Raising: Building a Missionary Support Team That Lasts.• Enroll now in one of the support-raising training programs listed under Resources.

17. Awareness of formal mission educationPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Get an overview of what’s available globally in mission education and training at www.TrainingForChrist.org.• Ask your church leadership about their requirements and suggestions of missionary training and education.• If your church is connected to a denomination, contact the denominational mission department and ask

about requirements and suggestions of formal missionary education and training. Explore their ideas about education and training even if you don’t necessarily plan to minister through the denominational mission department.

• Research the biblical and missions studies requirements of the agencies you’re interested in serving with. Many look for the equivalent of one year of formal biblical training. Explore alternatives for getting this foundation and other education you will need for effective ministry.

6. ORGANIZATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL

1. Commitment to a home church’s core values & doctrinal statementPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Study your church’s values, history, doctrinal positions and purpose. Match those with the theology, values,

purpose and approaches of the mission agencies that most interest you—including your denominational mission department. Discuss any reservations you may have with your mentor-encourager and the appropriate leaders.

• Read Equipping for Missions. (See Resources below.)

2. Relationship with mission leaders of the home churchPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Invite your church’s missions leaders for coffee or dinner and get acquainted at a personal level to catch

his/her heart for missions and learn more about your church’s current missions priorities.• Volunteer to serve on the missions team or to help them with a specifi c project or event.• If your church has a written missions policy or strategy, ask for a copy and read it carefully. Talk it over with

your pastor, mentor and missions team leaders.• Study Serving as Senders and ask help from your church mission leaders to begin developing a sending team.

3. Ease in accepting authority, working well under others’ leadershipPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Join a ministry team led by someone you do not know and look for ways to serve the other members.• Study Jesus’ example of servanthood in the Gospels.• Ask your church leaders, friends and your mentor to evaluate your responsiveness to authority.• Think through your school and work histories. If there’s a pattern of grating against the authorities over

you, it’s time to stop blaming the authority fi gures. If you know you have serious problems working under authorities, don’t put yourself in a cross-cultural ministry position only to a) get frustrated with your leadership and b) cause problems until you deal deeply with this issue with your counselor, pastor and mentor.


4. Knowledge of various missionary approaches (business-as-mission, medical missions, community development, church-planting, etc.)

Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Google these terms (business as mission, missions community development, church planting movement,

medical missions, etc.) or get great lists to peruse in these categories at www.GoConnect.org.• Work through the Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit of post-Perspectives studies. (And we’re

presuming you’ve gone through the Going All-Out unit.) Follow suggested Web links to organizations working in the various strategy approaches of missions.

• Submit your profi le with one or more of the coaching-matching services RightNow, MissionNext or The Finishers Project. (See Resources below.) As you’re introduced to various mission agencies, explore their various approaches.

• Read and jot notes from Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century about the creative ways God is reaching the nations.

5. Awareness of mission agencies Pick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• If your church is denominationally linked, begin serious exploration of mission service through the

denominational mission department.• Submit your profi le with one or more of the coaching-matching services RightNow, MissionNext or The

Finishers Project.. (See Resources below.) As you’re introduced to various mission agencies, explore their various approaches.

• Ask missionaries from your church and at www.FindMissionaries.org about the pro’s and cons of the mission agency they’re with. Ask them to be as candid as possible, and hold their responses in total confi dence.

• Begin exploring agencies’ Web sites; there are hundreds and hundreds of organizations, and just because you’ve heard of a few doesn’t mean they’re the organization you’re destined to join. So keep a notebook on what you fi nd, remembering that God rarely leads us by information we don’t have!

6. Credentials that have credibility in secular circlesPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Consider whether certifi cation or an additional degree would enhance your effectiveness. Ask the advice

of missionaries, your pastor, your mentor and others in your fi eld. If your degree(s) is only in a Christian discipline (Religious Education, Bible, etc.) and you’re considering a restricted-access place of ministry, consider earning another degree in an obviously secular fi eld.

• Get more hands-on experience to better prepare you to work as a professional in a foreign setting where there may be less support and infrastructure.

• Interview people who have lived and worked for several years in the country where you anticipate serving. Make a list of their advice as to how to adapt your skills to your future ministry setting. Follow through on suggestions they make for further reading or training.

7. (If tentmaking/doing business as mission) development of realistic employment strategy or business planPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• With your mentor, go through Working Your Way to the Nations. (See Resources, below.)• Read Tentmaking, Business As Mission and/or Great Commission Companies. (See Resources.)• Do an Internet search for the terms “Tentmaking” and “Business As Mission.”• Browse through the tremendous resources listed under “Business As Mission” at www.GoConnect.org.• Talk to other tentmakers or entrepreneurs working in the country where you anticipate serving. Learn as

much as possible about the economic climate, opportunities, obstacles and government regulations.• Ask a business person to help you develop several possible plans. Review them with people with fi eld

experience.


8. Skills to communicate mission vision and mobilize othersPick a couple suggested growth steps (along with your own ideas):• Carefully work through the post-Perspectives unit on Make A Difference: How to Mobilize….• Arrange to lead groups in your church as they study one or more of the mission Bible study curricula

courses for home groups, Sunday School classes, etc. (See Resources.)• Study the Traveling Team’s Ten Modules on raising mission vision as a world Christian (www.

TheTravelingTeam.org).• Read The Effective Missionary Communicator. (See Resources.)• Implement in your church several of the world-changing strategies in Building Global Vision (www.

CalebProject.org/store) and on the DualReach Web site (www.DualReach.org).• Lead your fellowship in adopting an unreached people group—and why not make it the people group that

most intrigues you? See the Adopt-A-People resources listed at www.USCWM.org• Take a seminar on using PowerPoint® or an introductory course on video production.• Identify people in your church with expertise in journalism, marketing, public relations, videography,

photography, graphic design, etc., who can advise and train you.

RESOURCES Related to the suggestions above

Don’t panic! You will not read all these resources—at least in the next year or two! This is simply a list of the great info which is referenced in the Growth Guide. If an area particularly interests you, browse more resources in the Resource Library, and see additional lists at www.GoConnect.org.

BooksOrder books from ChristianBook.com, WorldChristian.com or Amazon.com. Browse the great mission books

listed in your denominational resource department, at William Carey Library (www.missionbooks.com), Authentic Publications (www.AuthenticBooks.com), YWAM Publishers (wwwYWAMPublishers.com). etc.

• American Cultural Baggage by Stan Nussbaum / Orbis • Anthropological Insights for Missionaries by Paul Hiebert / Baker Book House• Boundaries by Henry McCloud and John Townsend / Zondervan• Business As Mission edited by Chris Barnett and Tom Steffan / EMIS• Changing the Mind of Missions by James Engel / InterVarsity Press• Christian Heroes Then and Now, the missionary biography series / YWAM Publishing• Confl ict or Connection: Interpersonal Relationships in Cross-cultural Settings by Levi Keidel / EMIS• Decision Making and the Will of God by Gary Friesen / Multnomah• The Effective Missionary Communicator by Paul Goring / EMIS• Encountering the World of Islam by Keith Swartley / Authentic• Equipping for Missions by Daniel W. Bacon / OMF• Experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King / Broadman• Families on the Move by Marion Knell / EMIS• Famines and Face Packs by Emma Stratton / Authentic• Foreign to Familiar by Sarrah A. Lanier / McDougal


• Friend Raising: Building a Missionary Support Team That Lasts by Betty Barnett / YWAM• Getting the Message: A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible by Daniel M. Doriani / Presbyterian &

Reformed Publishing Company• God Brings the World to Your Doorstep by Lawson Lau / Leadership Pub.• Great Commission Companies: The Emerging Role of Business in Missions by Steve Rundle and Tom Steffan

/ Inter-Varsity Press• Hinduism by H.L. Richard / William Carey Library• Honourably Wounded: Stress Among Christian Workers by Marjory Foyle / EMIS• How to Win Friends and Infl uence People by Dale Carnegie / Pocket Books• Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret edited and revised by Gregg Lewis / OMF• Inside Out by Larry Crabb / NavPress• Jesus in Beijing by David Aikman / Regnery Publishing• Justice, Mercy, and Humility, Tim Chester, Ed. / Authentic• Knowing God by J.O. Packer / Inter-varsity Press• Language Acquisition Made Practical (LAMP) by Tom & Elizabeth Brewster / Lingua House• Leading the Way by Paul Borthwick / Gabriel Publishing• Ministering Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter / Baker• Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century by Stan Guthtie / Paternoster• The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins / Oxford University Press • Prepare for Battle by Neal and Yvonne Pirolo / Emmaus Road Intl.• The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer / Christian Publications• Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider / Thomas Nelson• Scaling the Wall by Kathy Hicks / Gabriel Resources• Send Me! by Steve Hoke and Bill Taylor / William Carey Library, download at:http://www.wearesources.org/PublicationDetail.aspx?PublicationGUID=b5198367-2252-427b-a032-

9573011b7c74• Serving as Senders by Neal Pirolo / Emmaus Road • Sharing Jesus in the Buddhist World by David Lim & Steve Spaulding / William Carey Library• Steps to Freedom in Christ and Bondage Breakers by Neil T. Anderson / Gospel Light• Tentmaking by Patrick Lai / Authentic• Third-Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by David Pollock / InterCultural Press• Through Her Eyes: Life and Ministry of Women in the Muslim World by Marti Smith / Authentic• Touch the World Through Prayer by Wesley Duewel / Zondervan• True Grit: Women Taking on the World For God’s Sake by Deborah Meroff / Authentic• Working Your Way to the Nations ed. Jonathan Lewis / www.wearesources.org offers a free download


Group Bible Study Curricula on Missions• Eternal Impact, Caleb Project www.CalebResources.org• God’s Heart for the Nations by Jeff Lewis, Caleb Project www.CalebResources.org• Encountering the World of Islam, Caleb Project www.CalebResources.org• Missions: God’s Heart for the World: Nine Studies for Individuals or Groups by Paul Borthwick / Inter-

Varsity Press• Until the Whole World Knows, Alicia Britt Chole, www.onewholeworld.com • 2020 Vision by Bill and Amy Stearns / Bethany Curriculum at wwwBillAndAmyStearns.info

Mission Curricula For Children:• Outside the Lines DVD material by Jill Harris, Caleb Project www.CalebResources.org• Window on the World (Operation World for Kids), Gabriel Resources

Missionary Prep Resources and Programs• Browse www.TrainingForChrist.org for global mission training programs• Consider the courses offered by The Center for Intercultural Training www.cit-online.org• Consider the courses offered by Gateway Missionary Training Centre http://66.54.153.74/home.htm• Take a weekend retreat to explore missionary possibilities: www.thejourneydeepens.org • Consider the courses offered by Missionary Training International www.mti.org• Consider the courses offered by MissionPREP www.missionprep.ca• The Summer Institute of Linguistics offers language acquisition courses / www.sil.org

Support-Raising Training• The Body Builders offers “Boot Camps” in support-raising / www.TheBodyBuilders.net• Kingdome Come Training offers videoconferenced classes / www.KingdomComeTraining.com• People Raising offers the book by Bill Dillon plus info and seminars / www.PeopleRaising.com

Coaching and Matching to Mission Agencies• www.ShortTermMissions.com for short-term opportunities• www.MissionFinder.org for short-terms and other mission information• www.RightNow.org for coaching and matching to an agency short or long-term• www.Finishers.org or www.MissionNext.org for mid-career mission explorers

Adapted from Moody Church Missionary Preparation Program, Bethlehem Baptist Nurture Program for Missionary Candidates, Send Me! (see Web site listing above), World Evangelical Alliance Missionary Training Network resources, Recommended Reading from ACMC and Readiness Guide by DualReach www.dualreach.org.

Growth Guide Page 112PERSONAL PREP PLAN

FOR MISSIONARY READINESSBased on Self Assessment Profi le & Growth Guide

Prospective cross-cultural worker ____________________________________________Date Self Assessment Profi le was completed ___________________________ Address _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Home phone _____________________ Cell phone _______________________Email _____________________________________________________________

Mentor-Encourager __________________________________________________Address _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Home phone _____________________ Cell phone _______________________Email _____________________________________________________________

INSTRUCTIONS1. Complete and evaluate your Self Assessment Profi le. 2. Pray and think through what you’d like to do to grow in particularly weak areas: Follow a suggestion listed in the Growth Guide,

get input from your pastor/mentor/counselor or come up with your own action-steps. 3. Work on perhaps 3 areas at a time. With your mentor, evaluate your progress as of the date you’ve set for completion. Then shift

to a new set of 3.

Make several copies for yourself, your

mentor-encourager and your pastor/church leader.

Mission Mentoring Page 113

MISSION MENTORING

Mission preparation is about God’s Word, His work in His real world. Mission readiness is a process of growing in knowledge about each of these areas, a process of practicing skills in each of these three areas. And it’s about character: Nobody will bother to receive the Good News from a jerk.

The Real DealThis Mission Mentoring Program guides you from your Self Assessment Profi le into your own customized Personal Prep Plan that emphasizes knowledge, skills and character.

So this isn’t just an elementary step in mission readiness. It’s the real deal: the beginning (or acceleration) of the process of fi ne-tuning your role in the Great Commission—a lifelong exploration. Which always brings up questions like:

Is there a “call to missions”?• How do you know where to go?• Where do you get training?• What agency do you go with?• If you go, do you have to make it a lifelong commitment?• What’s the deal with raising support?• What about resistance from family?• How do I know I’m qualifi ed?• What about all the risks?• What if I’m interested in missions but not going?• What about debt? Etc.•

Big questions with lots of answers. So don’t presume too much, don’t play to your own or other people’s conventional “missions” expectations. Don’t pretend to know all the answers in the process of getting from here to there. Just take it one step at a time.

The Do-It-Yourself ProgramThe process is:

Complete the • Self-Assessment Profi le.Ask a close friend or relative (not a spouse) to evaluate • you in a “second-opinion” Profi le.Meet once with a person from your church’s mission • team/committee or church staff.Find someone who’ll serve this year as your mentor-• encourager. (Relax. It’s easier than you think.)Meet a second time with the mission team or staff person • along with your mentor.Embark on your • Personal Prep Plan.

COMMENTS FROM MISSIONARIES ABOUT MISSION MENTORING








(Continued)


If you opt-in for this process, you’ll get:A• Growth Guide for Aspiring Cross-Cultural Workers to follow up the Self-Assessment Profi le. The Guide gives you directions for growth in each area where you want to develop—in knowledge, skills and character. A • Personal Prep Plan—one of the authors of which is you—to plot an individualized action plan that will guide you through systematic steps to develop the character, skills and knowledge to succeed in mission work. Accountability to meet every other month (or more • often) with your mission mentor, who prays for you and keeps you accountable to actually work on the growth steps you’ve chosen.Accountability to meet twice a year with the team, • committee or person responsible for missions in your church.A free trip to Paris, Rio de Janeiro or the South Pacifi c • island of your choice.

(Just kidding on that last one. We wanted to make sure you were tracking.)




Immediate Steps in Being Mentored for Missions

1. Ask God to guide you as you complete the Self-Assessment Profi le. This self-check is not “turned in” to anybody offi cial to be fi led in any way; you keep a copy and your mentor keeps a copy. It is seen only by you, your mentor and the church mission or staff person you consult with.

• In the last section, indicate three areas where you want to focus your initial efforts for growth. You can work on more areas later, but it is important to concentrate on only a few at a time in order not to be overwhelmed.

• Ask someone who knows you well—a friend or relative—to evaluate your character and skills by completing a second copy of the Assessment without having seen your version of it. If married, ask someone other than your spouse to complete this second-opinion Assessment.

• Compare your answers. If you don’t understand his/her assessment of certain areas, talk it over. This in itself could be a huge growth-step for you. (How often do we give good friends/relatives permission to thoroughly critique us?) Ask God to help you not to be defensive or discouraged!

(Continued)


2. Establish a time to meet with someone from your church staff/mission team to discuss how she/he can help you grow. If married, you should meet as a couple with this person after each of you has completed an Assessment.


• Talk with this person about several people who might be a mission mentor for you. (Each person in a married couple will connect with her/his own mentor.) A mission mentor doesn’t need to have mission experience, doesn’t need to be older than you, doesn’t need to generate the content of your preparation process. She or he simply needs to care about you and agree to keep you accountable as you to work through a plan to explore the possibility of a missions career.



3. Pray for a mentor. Ask believers of your own gender if they would consider:A one-year commitment to meet with you at least once every two •

months,To regularly by email or phone ask you how you’re doing in your mission •

exploration plan.To pray for you.•

Your mentor must be a believer you know to be spiritually healthy, must be of your own gender, must be local enough to meet with you in-person at least every other month. This person does not have to be a member of your own church, does not have to have any missions experience and does not have to be older than you.

Use the following Directions for Mission Mentor-Encouragers to give possible mentors a clear idea of what they’re committing to.



DIRECTIONS FOR MISSION MENTOR-ENCOURAGERSThe requirements for missionary mentors are very simple. You need to be a spiritually healthy believer, be of the same gender as the person being mentored and be within geographical proximity to meet at least every other month. No special missions expertise is needed.

ResponsibilitiesA one-year commitment.• Regular prayer for your mission explorer and occasional communication.• A meeting with your mentoree at least once every other month for 60-90 minutes.• At the 6-month and one-year mark, a meeting with your prospective missionary and her/his • church mission team representative or staff person to talk over progress.

InstructionsPray for wisdom as you embark on the mentoring relationship.1. With your prospective mission worker, meet with a member of his/her church mission team or staff 2. to talk over expectations, ideas and any questions about the process. The prospective missionary will set up this meeting to accommodate all of your schedules. Ask your mentoree for a blank copy of the 3. Self-Assessment Profi le; this gives you the initial framework of what an aspiring cross-cultural worker can work on. If she/he feels free to give you a copy of her/his completed assessment form, be careful to treat the evaluation confi dentially.Decide on a consistent time you’ll meet for 60-90 minutes at least every other month. At the fi rst 4. session, let your mentoree take the initiative in defi ning needs and goals in at most three areas in which she/he wants to grow. As much as possible, serve as an encourager and sounding board rather than teacher or director. Consider the action steps outlined in the Growth Guide, a copy of which should be furnished by your mentoree. Together, brainstorm other action-steps your aspiring cross-cultural worker can take. Work together to defi ne and then write down chosen action steps and deadlines on the 5. Missionary Prep Plan sheet attached to the Growth Guide. Each of you keeps a copy.Each subsequent time you meet, talk over progress, challenges, ideas. Consider reading/viewing/6. attending yourself the mission resources and opportunities suggested to your mentoree. Pray for each other.

RememberYou’re not assuming responsibility for the growth or progress of the prospective missionary. You’re not to • pose as the missionary expert, personally training your protegee—even if you’ve served as a missionary! Each individual is accountable for his/her own development before the Lord. You’re there to encourage, challenge and, when appropriate, to share your own experience.

Your role is to listen more than to talk.•

Mentors are not in authority positions nor are they part of the team that ultimately decides whether to • recommend individuals to be accepted by the church and/or a mission agency as missionary candidates. Instead, mentors are a “safe” sounding board—even for frustrations during the missionary preparation process.

You as a mentor are not carrying all of the coaching responsibility. The mentoree’s church mission • leaders are also regularly providing guidance, suggesting resources, encouraging participation in mission-related events and imparting mission input to these aspiring missionaries.

Mentors commit to just one year of involvement. Yet if the relationship is positive, obviously the • mentoring relationship can continue indefi nitely! You can serve as the missionary’s advocate to the church or as part of a long-range support/advocacy sending team.

(Continued)


Comments from Missionaries About Mission MentoringDualReach (DualReach.org) asked missionaries about pre-fi eld preparation provided by their local sending churches. Missionaries made these comments:

Make sure individuals have someone discipling them to have a deeper walk with God—a walk which • doesn’t rely on outside spiritual nurturing.

Pastoral encouragement was very signifi cant in affi rming my giftedness for ministry.•

Encourage local churches to show an interest in future missionaries by holding them accountable. • Sending a person through a preparation process shows the church’s interest.

I would like to have had several ministry options and counsel on how my gifts matched up with those • options.

Help prospective missionaries be involved in a small group of people who care about each other’s • spiritual well-being and the direction each one is going in life. Ideally they will continue to care even when someone departs to train or to serve the Lord somewhere else.

I wish the pastor and missions committee had taken an interest in me. I would have liked the pastor to • have taken more of a role in meeting with me and for the missions committee to have provided direction and been more proactive.

It is extremely benefi cial to feel like you are supported and encouraged by your church at home. • Nurture relationships between missionary and missions leaders in the church prior to departure.

Ideas from MentorsMy husband and I served as mentors to a couple planning to go overseas. We usually met without their • children present, but occasionally we got together with the whole family. By observing family dynamics, we knew how to better pray and offer support for parenting roles.

My mentoree gives me a paper copy of prayer requests. I always put the list in my Bible where I am • reminded to pray each day for the current requests.

Part of my role is to help my mentoree exercise discipline in tackling support-raising tasks. Because he • feels that I am on his side, I can be pretty fi rm when that is what is needed.

One experienced missionary who was mentored in his church reports: Ongoing mentoring was key in that • it helped me form my own thinking about ministry and what ministry is. Many words which were shared with me during that time are the same words of encouragement that I fi nd myself sharing with those I mentor today.

Another experienced missionary suggests: Assessing giftedness and preparedness for mission work is very benefi cial because having others confi rm God’s calling in your life is a wise thing. Having them tell you what your weaknesses are is just as important, humbling the soul and increasing your dependency on God.

DIRECTIONS FOR MISSION MENTOR-ENCOURAGERSContinued


Mission Fellowship Page 119

A WORLD CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIPGlobal Activists for the Cause of Christ

KEY VERSE: “Look among the nations. Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! For I am doing something in your days you would not believe if you were told.” —Habakkuk 1:5

THEME: Changing the world is defi nitely a group activity, and a fellowship-style session might model what your group could do on a regular basis: Keep spurring each other on to learn, train and more effectively join God in what He is doing.

OBJECTIVES: After this session, your group members will: Know• more about how to access information about what God is doing in our world.Feel• excited about future adventures in aligning our lives with God’s unchangeable purpose.Act• to plot out personal and group initiatives as world Christians. Also, perhaps to organize regular world Christian fellowship sessions.

Is there life after Perspectives?

A Pilot Session for

FACILITATOR’S COMMENTARY

Very little of the information in this commentary is to be presented to your study group! This is for your own background thinking and for following up in outside-the-session conversations.

1. IntroductionNeedless to say, the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course is only a cursory look at what God is doing and how we can join Him. There’s plenty to more carefully review and examine in Scripture, and there’s a whole world out there to learn about. This session can be both a wrap-up of course highlights for Perspectives grads and also a springboard to encourage non-Perspectives mission-minded believers into ongoing involvement as “world Christians.”

The term “world Christian” was fi rst used in the 1920s in America as zealots in the Student Missionary Movement began to mobilize their churches with a broader vision of God’s harvest fi elds. In the 1980s, World Christian magazine focused believers’ attention on the “bottom line” of God’s global purpose. World Christians like Gordon Aeschliman, Dave Bryant, Tony Campolo and others popularized the term.

As you know, a world Christian is simply a disciple without borders, a believer committed to living out biblical truth in the real world—personally, at home, locally and globally.

If the term conjures up an image of radicals pressing for change, good. But if the term in your particular Christian circles has a negative connotation, feel free to re-name this session and edit any references to “world Christian.” The point of this session is an energizing step forward in God’s work, not the adoption of an awkward term!


2. The Process of Becoming World-ChangersMany Western Christians are pre-disposed to respond to information by jumping into action: “Ready! Fire! Aim!” If your Perspectives colleagues and church mission group fall into that syndrome, you can emphasize during this session that many of us are still in the very fi rst stage of effectively aligning our lives with God’s global work. The typical process of becoming a global activist for the cause of Christ is:

Awareness Education Training-Exposure Involvement

Actually, more harm than good has been done in church ministries, local outreaches and missions by “ignorance on fi re.” Encourage your group to think in terms of action steps, yet be clear that, for most of us, our initial action steps are still fi rmly in the entry-level arena of awareness-education-exposure-involvement in God’s big picture. (See the post-Perspectives unit on Make A Difference: How to Mobilize Mission Vision in Your Fellowship for ideas on how to gradually move toward intelligent action.)

AwarenessEveryone in your fellowship can become better aware of God’s big picture through more exposure to His Word, His world as it now is and His work. One of the most effective ways to encourage awareness in a fellowship is to regularly drip into the normal routine brief breakthroughs of what God is doing. This session’s Participant’s Worksheet features a list of sources for catching up-to-the-minute information on God’s work in His world.

A generic, quarterly Global Report is also featured in this session. You can download, photocopy and pass out Global Reports available at www.BillAndAmyStearns.info, or abbreviate excerpts and:

• When prayer or praise items are requested in a meeting, tell about a breakthrough.• Ask that a breakthrough be included in weekly programs, newsletters or on a church Web

site.• Include a breakthrough at the bottom of your emails among your fellowship.• Submit a breakthrough to be included in the announcements during a worship service or

meeting.

The perks of simply sharing what God is doing are:• Announcing “God’s wonderful works among the children of men” fulfi lls Scripture (Psalm

145:4-5; Isaiah 12:4-5).• We can accustom a fellowship to celebrate what the entire Body of Christ is doing rather

than only what our particular church, denomination or association is doing.• Dripping snippets of God’s Word, world and work into a fellowship asks for no response. No

commitment is required, no funds are being solicited, no answers are sought. Consequently, even jaded Christians usually drop their defensiveness against pleas for outreach or mission involvement. With greater awareness, vision grows, and more individuals begin to ask, “What can I do about this?” The answer, of course, is “Learn more.”

Key Awareness Resource


EducationA world Christian’s learning curve is always steep. Encourage your group members to foster a habit of lifelong learning in God’s Word, in understanding more about our world and in keeping updated about the “new things” (Isaiah 43:19) God is doing in His work.

Generally, fi ne mission education resources are available at www.MissionBooks.org and www.WorldChristian.com.

Training-ExposureMany Christians feel that, since they’ve been part of church meetings for years, they’re prepared for on-the-street cross-cultural ministry. Many seminary students expect that their mission education courses equate to ministry-skills training. But church habits and classroom information are only part of the education process for a world Christian. Actual skills training is also required to be effective in God’s big picture. Also, genuine exposure to other cultures is requisite in preparing to serve the nations cross-culturally.

Entry-level training-exposure is easily accessed by most believers by:• Volunteering in ministries that serve outside the church.• Becoming as involved as desired in groups that minister to internationals. These

“welcomer” organizations minister among international workers and students.• Participating in short-term mission ministries.

Because short-term mission trips can be life-changing at the awareness and education levels, they often spur participants into serious commitment to improve ministry skills. A one-stop Web site that opens to thousands of short-term opportunities is: www.ShortTermMissions.com

InvolvementThrough a graduated process of growing awareness, education and training plus exposure, many of your group’s participants will move into strategic involvement—perhaps fulltime for now—in what God is doing among the nations.

Actually, most of us believers are geared best to minister within our own culture. Since that involvement doesn’t require so much relocation, cultural adaptation and language-learning, it may be thought of as less crucial than cross-cultural involvement.

But it’s all good. God arranges His harvest workers according to the needs of His harvest fi eld. So rocking babies in the church nursery is as vital a service in God’s Kingdom as frontline missions.

For every frontline combat soldier in the military, more than 100 support personnel are required. This infrastructure of scores of individuals comprises dozens of roles—many that are not nearly as dramatic as that of the infantryman. Yet all are vital to the cause, and all can be acutely aware of the big picture of their overall effort.

Key Educational Resource

Key Training-Exposure Resource


Yet God has wired some of us to be on the front lines of reaching the nations. For those, this stage of involvement can use some coaching from denominational ministry experts and organizations that exist to mentor new mission workers. Encourage your group to pursue coaching from:

• Your church’s denominational ministry/mission departments• For college-age mission explorers: www.RightNow.org• For mid-career mission exploreres: www.MissionNext.org• For Baby Boomer-age mission explorers: www.Finishers.org

Involving your entire church in ministry is, again, a process of awareness-building, education, training and exposure. If a church has no vision beyond itself, please do not get that church involved in what God is doing beyond the walls of the church!

Vision-building resources for churches are available through, among other groups: • Your denominational offi ces • Advancing Churches in Mission Commitment—www.ACMC.org • Accelerating International Missions Strategies AIMS—www.AIMS.org • Caleb Project—www.CalebProject.org • DualReach—www.DualReach.org

3. The Long ViewWhat’s next?

Whether your group wants to continue gathering informally in a regular World Christian Fellowship or not, you need to network with other mission-minded believers. If a regular monthly World Christian Fellowship doesn’t click, you can:

• Contact the Perspectives Study Program Alumni offi ce to fi nd other Perspectives alumni in your area. Go out for coffee once in a while!

• You can send out an invitation to any and all mission-minded believers in your area to drop by your house or a friendly cafe. You meet, eat whatever folks bring, and talk informally about world Christian news, about resources, about what God is doing in your lives and in the big picture of His unchangeable plan.

• Forget all this world Christian movement business and try again to be a nice, ordinary Christian who goes to lots of church meetings to be a nicer ordinary Christian who goes to more meetings.... (Yeah, right.)

Key Involvement Resources


THIS WEEK’S LESSON PLAN

MATERIALS NEEDED Bibles Whiteboard, fl ip chart and

appropriate markers Photocopies of the

Participant’s Worksheet. Photocopies of the Global

Report (If possible, download and copy a more extensive .pdf version at BillAndAmyStearns.info)

PROVIDED BY VOLUNTEERS: A world map or globe Updates on your own

fellowship’s ministry efforts and needs—within and beyond your church Prayer points of an

unreached people group (In case a volunteer hasn’t gathered information about an unreached people, perhaps be prepared with a people profi le from Global-Prayer-Digest.org (Or see JoshuaProject.net) Refreshments

Preparation1. Pray that your group will know, feel and act on the

objectives listed for this session.2. Ask a few friends to volunteer to bring some of the items

needed. (See below.)4. Prepare materials and equipment as listed in the box.

THE PLAN As Participants Arrive

Pass out Global Reports and challenge participants to fi nd the locations of these breakthroughs on the globe or world map.

FOCUS (3-4 minutes)Brian McLaren in A Generous Orthodoxy (Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2004) describes a diagram that is easily acknowledged by virtually everyone in Christendom.

Suggest participants label the diagram as you draw and label it on the board.

Biblical Christianity:A World-Christian Outlook

MEI go to

CHURCH.

My church sometimes

reaches out to THE WORLD.

The Church is in the world

I am part of The Church

Me

Churchianity: A Typical Christian Outlook


PrayerOpen your fellowship session by praying for big-picture vision in all our lives as global activists for the cause of Christ.

DISCOVER (12-15 minutes)Church Ministries Overview (3-4 minutes)Ask the volunteer who has researched your own fellowship’s ministries to present a very succinct overview of current efforts and needs.

Discussion (5-10 minutes)Talk over as a group which of your church’s ministries fi t where in the four dynamics of what God is doing. Use the “rocket” analogy if warranted. How many of your fellowship’s ministries are:

• Focused within the church, • Outreach to your own culture, • Mission efforts to reached peoples • Mission efforts to the unreached nations

of the world?

An Unreached People Overview (2-3 minutes)Ask the volunteer to give a brief overview of an unreached people group—one with which your church is already involved or any other group.

NOTE: Be prepared with your own unreached people profi le just in case. A new unreached people is presented daily at www.Global-Prayer-Digest.org or www.JoshuaProject.net.

DECIDE (15 minutes)Priestly Duties: IntercessionFrom the overview of your fellowship’s ministries, pick several to pray for. Intercede specifi cally for those ministering and for those being ministered to. Pray against the schemes of the satanic world-system to blunt the effectiveness of those ministries.

Pray as well for the unreached people group profi led.

Challenge the group to continue to intercede in their priesthood-of-the-believer roles for these needs and cultures.

Priestly Duties: ServingReview the “Finding Your Niche” chart (page 2 of the Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche) and moderate as the group discusses implications for each other’s ministries as priests who intercede and then serve in what God is doing.

Note any particular interest by participants in the “Your Impact” stage of exploring a ministry; this is a key step in considering cross-cultural ministry among nations other than our own.

DO (3-4 minutes)Next StepsSuggest that it’s crucial to move into some action step as a result of studying our part in God’s global purpose.

Go around the group to read the list of action-steps in the Participants Worksheet. (If you know that someone feels uncomfortable reading, fi rst ask for volunteers to take turns reading the items.) Direct participants to check those they plan to do, and remind them that the list is only a starting point to prod their own thinking about personal next steps.

Closing Prayer (2-3 minutes)Let the group pray for each other in their ongoing “pass on the blessing” responsibilities to intercede for and serve the nations—our own included.

RefreshmentsClose your session with plenty of talk-time around refreshments.


PARTICIPANT’S WORKSHEET

A WORLD CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

Finding Your Niche

Your Priesthood: Fulfi ll your duties. (Exodus 19:5-6 & 1 Peter 2:9)

Your Life Experience: “Know Thyself.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

Your Gifting: Study the spiritual gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:4)

Your Ministering: Practice the gifts.(1 Corinthians 12:5)

Your Impact: Explore various settings including other cultures. (1 Cor. 12:6)

Your Assignment:Find your niche

—for now! (Eph. 2:10)

DISCOVERYour Priestly Duty: Interceding Jot notes during overviews of your fellowship’s ministries and of an unreached people. Then pray for the details that seem to catch your attention.

Our fellowship’s ministries overview: An unreached people group overview:

As You Arrive Find on the world map or globe the locations

of the cities/countries mentioned in the Global Report.

FOCUSLabel the circles. Then pray for grander vision for all of us as global activists for the cause of Christ!

Your Priestly Duty: ServingQuickly review the steps of Finding Your Niche in God’s global cause.

Pause carefully at the “Your Impact” stage: Are you willing to explore the effectiveness of your serving in another culture?

Pray for each others’ ongoing ministries as a “nation of priests.”

“Look among the nations. Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! For I am doing

something in your days you would not believe if you were told.” —Habakkuk 1:5


DO

Next StepsCheck the following action steps that you’d like to take on as your personal next step.

Awareness of God’s Work in God’s World: Sources

• Global Prayer Digest—A monthly prayer guide for the unreached: Global-Prayer-Digest.org• Assist News Service—Wide-ranging stories: AssistNews.net• Mission Network News— Sponsored but solid news: mnnonline.org• Mission Frontiers—The USCWM bi-monthly bulletin: MissionFrontiers.org• The Joel Newsletter—A Europe-based, anecdotal newsletter: JoelNews.org• Momentum—A research-oriented update: Momentum-Mag.org• Mission Catalyst—A mobilization newsletter. Subscribe at [email protected]• Brigada—A weekly e-newsletter for World Christian activists: Brigada.org• World Pulse—Info e-news from the Lausanne movement: Lausanne.org• Every God-honoring ministry—Web site info, newsletters, prayer updates• Best secular info on global developments: The Economist, Foreign Policy Journal, World Press, etc.

(God always has a huge hand in world events!)

Read books that focus on fi nishing the task of the Great Commission (See MissionBooks.com)

Take the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course.

Subscribe to several mission agencies’ magazines and newsletters.

Ask an agency if you can help research a particular unreached people group.

Volunteer fi ve hours weekly to your church, service/evangelism ministry organization or mission agency.

Volunteer to help in your local or regional international student service organization.

Go to school for education in ministry—part-time, fulltime, via distance learning, etc.

Write to missionaries working on the front lines. Do research for a mission agency focusing on unreached

peoples. Research what people groups other than your own are

in your area—workers, refugees, students. Use your vacation time to help research an unreached

people group or assist in pre-evangelism relief work. Draw a timeline of your expected life, and “tithe” a

tenth for fulltime ministry. Correspond with a mission agency about possible short-

term or career assignments. Research the possibilities to promote missions in your

area churches. Photocopy and pass on the Global Report to Christian

friends. Find one or two friends who will meet with you for a

regular priestly prayer session for the nations. Initiate a regular monthly or quarterly “World Christian

Fellowship!”

Write a letter to a friend telling of your commitment to the vision of God's great purpose on earth.

Explore further your role as a "priest" (1 Peter 2:9, 10).

List your blessings. How can you consecrate each one as a blessing to pass on to others?

List activities you can do away with to better commit your time to God's purpose.

Set up a monument to your world-Christian commitment (See Joshua 4.).

Scope out RightNow.org, MissionNext.org or Finishers.org about mission service.

Put a sticky label-dot on your watch to remind you to pray for laborers in God’s harvest.

Commit to pray for your church, denomination, or a mission agency.

Browse JoshuaProject.net and choose 2 or 3 unreached peoples to pray for regularly.

Subscribe to the Global Prayer Digest at Global-Prayer-Digest.org.

Set out reminders to pray for these ministries, people groups and others.

Perhaps "tithe" a Sunday and spend one-tenth of your day in prayer for the nations.

Begin to underline in your Bible the passages that refer to God's blessing for the nations.

Memorize Habakkuk 1:5. Read online or in newspapers/magazines

about the hot spots of global news and pray God’s intervention.

Study the news of the advance of God’s Kingdom in sources such as listed in the box.


GLOBAL REPORTOne generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.

—Psalm 145:4-6

Global• Every hour, 3,000 more people decide to follow Jesus Christ.

—German Mission Society

• Fifteen years ago there were about 100 prayer networks around the world. Today there are 4,000 networks involving 25 million intercessors.

—Dawn Ministries

• A sometimes controversial “insider’s approach” mission strategy implemented in the Muslim world sees mosques turning into “centers of worship of Isa”—Jesus—and new believers not taking on the label of “Christian.” Eminent missiologist Dr. Ralph Winter says, “If [this strategy is] properly pursued, there could be 100 million Muslims who are followers of Christ in the next 10 years.”

—Mission Frontiers

The Virtual WorldChristians around the real world have banded together to buy an island and build a stunning cathedral in Second Life, the 3-D virtual world populated by 7 million real people. Mark Brown, CEO of the Bible Society of New Zealand, says the ultimate aim is to share Christ: “Let’s get our virtual hands dirty.”

—http://slangcath.wordpress.com

VanuatuOn the isolated Pacifi c island of Tanna, the 10,000 inhabitants worshipped “John Frum,” a WWII G.I. who would someday emerge from a volcano and reward his cult followers. But since virtually everyone on Tanna has seen the JESUS fi lm over the past 3 years, nearly 7,000 islanders have come to faith in Christ! Talk about a transformed society—and a discipling challenge.

—Worldwide Challenge

Pray for the Madurese of Indonesia

© by Julie Bosacker. BosackerDesigns.com

China Today it is an open secret that Christian fellowships are active in most Chinese universities. More than thirty academic facilities and research centers in China are now dedicated to the study of this ‘once maligned religion.’”

—China Study Journal

AfghanistanThere were only 17 Muslim converts to Christianity before 9/11/01. Today there are more than 10,000.

—Joel C. Rosenberg in Epicenter

IranIn 1979 there were possibly 500 Shi’ite converts to Christianity. Today, many Iranian pastors suggest there may be as many as one million.

—Joel C. Rosenberg in Epicenter

GermanyAbout 5,000 Muslims come to faith in Christ every year in this country. Many of the new Christ-followers change their identity because they fear they’ll be killed.

—Christian Solidarity Worldwide

UgandaOne church in Kampala seats 10,500 and is fi lled to capacity for four services every Sunday. The church has planted more than 1,000 daughter churches and has missionaries in South America, Japan and the U.S. Twenty-fi ve years ago, Uganda’s population was 22% Muslim. Today that fi gure is just 6%!

—Robert Kayanja, Charisma News

Latin AmericaWith 85 million evangelical believers, Latin America now has 400 mission agencies sending out 9,000 missionaries.

—Lausanne World Pulse

North AmericaNorwegian Aril Edvardsen broadcasts Christ’s message in Arabic via the Internet. “What has really shocked me is the great response from Arabs in the U.S. and Canada. In the last few months more than 30,000 Arabs in North America have responded, interested in being saved.”

—Mission Network News

GlobalThere are now 2,077,909,000 baptized Christian believers on earth. Of these, 703,225,000 are “Great Commission Christians,” committed to Christ’s Great Commission.

—Center for the Study of Global Christianity

Encourage your church to get out a little more! Copy and distribute!


Standard Application Page 129

STANDARDIZED MISSION AGENCY APPLICATION

The following form will help you describe what you have to offer to a mission organization. At the same time, it specifi es most of the topics mission agencies will explore with you as you pursue a role in mission ministry. The form allows you several options:

• Simply read over the form as a prompt to think through your availability.

• Or begin to fi ll in your responses to the various topics. Fill in those fi elds for which you have available information or insight. Save the form and return to it whenever you choose to work through another category.

First & Last Name

I/we are considering mission service beginning (approximate date and year)

The duration of my/our service could be (approximate number of months or years)

I/we would prefer Working directly with those needing ministering

Working among a reached people group Preferences:

Working among an unreached people group Preferences:

Working indirectly, in support-services roles

The specifi c areas of ministry in which I/we are most interested include:

Administrative Camping Children's Ministry Church Planting Computers Construction Editorial/Graphic Arts Evangelism/Discipleship Leadership Development Media/Literature Mobilization

Music/Worship Teaching Technical Women's Ministries Youth Ministries Other: Other: Other: Other:

Geographic areas in which I/we are most interested include:


GENERAL INFORMATIONFirst NameMiddle NameLast NameIf applicable, maiden nameName PreferenceBirth Date(If US citizen) Social Security Number

If married, is your spouse also considering missions service? Yes No

(Briefl y discuss your response—whether “yes” or “no.”)

(If married) Spouse’s First NameMiddle NameLast NameIf applicable, maiden nameName PreferenceBirth date(If US citizen) Social Security Number

Permanent AddressStreet/PO BoxCityState/ProvinceZip/Postal CodeCountry

Current Address (If different from permanent address)Street/PO BoxCityState/ProvinceZip/Postal CodeCountry

Home PhoneFaxCell(Spouse Cell)Work Phone

EmailAlternate Email

Passport—if current—country and numberPassport expiration date


Contact numbers of someone who always knows where to reach you:

NameRelationshipPO Box/Street AddressCityState/ProvinceZip/Postal CodeCountryPhoneEmail

Anything you’d like to explain about your current living situation:

FAMILYList names and birth dates of any living children. Indicate any children currently living with you. Also list any other dependents living with you.Name Relationship Birth Date Check if living with you

Your Marital Status (Check all that apply): Currently Single Currently Engaged to Be Married Divorced at Some Time Widowed at Some Time Currently Married

If applicable, date of anticipated marriageIf applicable, date of most recent marriageIf applicable, date(s) of divorce(s)If applicable, date of widowhood

If divorced, describe any ongoing entanglements—legalities, fi nances, family relationships, your location—that could affect your fl exibility in mission service:


Answer the following:If single, am I comfortable with the idea of mission involvement as a single person? Yes No


If married, do I have a healthy and satisfying marriage? Yes No


If divorced or widowed, am I free from anger or bitterness? Yes No


If a parent, do I have a positive, healthy relationship with my children? Yes No



EDUCATION AND LIFE EXPERIENCEList any post-high school formal education and/or professional training (including formal Bible training):

School/Program (include military)• Dates Attended • Areas of Study/Training • Degree/Certifi cate

Experiences of non-formal training (Please include any informal theological, Bible or Christian-life training):

Program • Dates Attended • Areas of Study/Training

Occupation (most recent or usual occupation)

Current or most recent place of employment

Signifi cant jobs, approximate dates of these jobs and major duties

Natural talents, hobbies, interests, any personal skills not revealed in your job history


Do you prefer to keep serving in the skill sets indicated by your job history? Yes No

Whether you answered “yes” or “no,” freely describe your desires, vision, dreams of the sort of ministry activity you would love to pursue.

Describe short-term outreach-mission trips or extended mission efforts you’ve experienced:Include:Outreach or Mission MinistryLocation(s)Approximate DatesChurches and/or Agencies InvolvedTypes of MinistryYour Evaluation of the Experience

Any non-English languages you speak and profi ciency levels (beginning, intermediate, advanced, fl uent)

Cultures other than your own in which you have traveled

Cultures other than your own in which you have lived (and how long):


Freely explain any life experiences—including any cultural exposure you listed above—which you think contribute to your sense of God’s leading into missions ministry:

Some life experiences are negative, and yet God is a Redeemer. Often He can use even these experiences in ministering to others. Describe any signifi cant negative circumstances in your life

Answer the following:Can I be resilient, adaptable and fl exible in stressful situations? Yes No


Do I generally have a positive outlook on life? Yes No


Do I have the ability to form friendships? Yes No


If people criticize me, the comments typically are about:


HEALTHApproximate date of most recent physical exam

Current status of physical and emotional health

Past physical and emotional health issues

If there is anything you feel might prohibit you from performing the expectations of the mission service in which you are interested (physical/medical limitations; dietary restrictions; alcohol, drug or tobacco dependence; emotional stresses; etc.) please explain:

If there is a health concern—physical, mental or emotional—in a close relative or dependent which might affect your performance of the mission service in which you are interested, please explain:

FINANCESAre your fi nances in good order? Describe your fi nancial situation:

Please explain any unusual circumstances in your overall fi nancial status

Please explain any unusual expenses in your typical month-to-month budget


Approximate dollar amount of debt

Are you able to be self-supporting during the approximate term of your service?

If not, are you willing to take fundraising training to support your ministry?

SPIRITUAL GROWTHDescribe the circumstances and scriptural basis for your commitment to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord:

Answer the following:Do I generally practice personal spiritual habits such as prayer and Bible reading? Yes No


Does my behavior refl ect my commitment to sexual purity and personal holiness? Yes No


Do I have healthy relationships with non-Christians? Yes No



Describe briefl y any areas of particular personal/spiritual struggle (burdens from the past, relational confl ict, negative habits, compulsions, ongoing failures, etc.)

Write a sentence or two describing your attitudes regarding:Baptism

Fellowship (including fellowship among believers from different church backgrounds)

The leading of God’s Spirit

Maintaining a Christ-like lifestyle among non-Christians

Sharing your faith

Cross-cultural ministry

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY EXPERIENCECurrent ChurchHow long attended?Describe the style and major emphases of your current church:

Denominational Affi liationSenior Pastor’s NameMay we have permission to talk with your pastor?Mission Leader’s Name, if applicableChurch Street Address/PO NumberCityState/ProvinceZip/Postal CodeCountryChurch PhoneChurch FaxChurch Email


If your current church is not actually your home church, please list the above information concerning your home church also.

Describe your church-related history including any positions you have held (churches, locations, denominations and/or networks, positions held, any defi nitive church experiences, etc.)

Describe your present church involvement.

Answer the following:Would others in my church say that I fulfi ll my ministry responsibilities? Yes No


Do I work in harmony with those Christians who differ with me—whether in doctrinal points or personality? Yes No


Am I a team player? Yes No



Do I willingly follow leadership and supervision? Yes No


List ministry activity in which you have been involved. Include service within or outside the church. List not the roles, but the activity itself—such as visiting the elderly, fund-raising, preaching/speaking, teaching, practical help to a church or Christian organization, evangelism, counseling, serving on committees for a church or organization, prayer, mobilizing others into ministry, children’s work, sports ministries, work with the homeless, etc. Note if any of these activities were in a cross-cultural context:

List ministries for which you have had formal or non-formal Christian training.

What do you feel are your core competencies in ministering? In other words, what you do best?

(Optional: If helpful, mark below your possible areas of spiritual gifting. Put a slash mark where you feel you might be gifted in an area; put an X at a gifting you are certain about possessing.)

My possible areas of spiritual gifting include: Administration Apostleship Encouragement/Exhortation/Counseling Evangelism Faith Giving Giving a Word of Knowledge Giving a Word of Wisdom Helps, service, hospitality Healing Interpretation of Tongues Miracles Pastoring Prophesying

Showing Mercy Speaking in Tongues Spiritual Discernment Teaching

Other Areas

Not sure about my spiritual gifting Not convinced of the relevance of

spiritual gifts today

Aside from ministry activity for which you seem especially skilled or gifted, what ministries would you like to explore?


MISSIONAL PROFILEDescribe the beginnings of your interest in missions:

Are there any mission agencies to which you have at some time applied? Yes No

(Briefl y discuss a “yes” response.)

Write a sentence or two about any of the following.(If married) My spouse feels this about my mission interest:

My parent(s) (if living) feel this about my mission interest:

My child/children feel this about my mission interest:

My pastor feels this about my mission interest:

My church mission leader or spiritual mentor feels this about my mission interest:


Briefl y describe why you are interested in serving in a missions capacity.

IF YOU COULD PROPOSE A ROLE IN MISSION SERVICE that fi ts who you are and where you are now in life, what would that role look like? You might be describing an actual position currently open somewhere in the mission world—or a similar position. Or you might be describing an impractical dream!

Regardless, it will help a mission agency visualize what you feel you can contribute in God’s global purpose. Freely express your thoughts on this proposal. You can suggest several roles that particularly interest you, perhaps in preferred geographical settings. Or describe a single, specifi c area of ministry. Or feel free to state that you are open to virtually any assignment anywhere!

My Proposal for Service in mission work:


REFERENCESPlease list the contact numbers of 1) Your pastor or mission leader2) A colleague or employer3) A personal Christian friend

COMMENTSAny fi nal comments you feel are important about you, your circumstances, about questions asked or not asked on this form:


Prayer Unit’s Story Page 145

PRAYER: REBELLING AGAINST THE STATUS QUO

Settle back for a good global story about the power of intercession. A good, true story. Then we’ll suggest a few iron-sharpening exercises, mention some key resources and let you get on with your intercessory role in the Kingdom...for now.

A Story

Somewhere in Western Sahara. Okay, so you feel a little vertigo: You have no idea where you are. You casually ask Robert, the Brit who organized this trip and is driving your big Toyota Land Cruiser. He sticks out his lip, looks at the fl at dirt—sand to the horizon—and says, “Haven’t a clue.” The other white Land Cruiser broke a condenser belt around noon. No air conditioning. And now, around six in the evening, it’s 114° F outside. Api, the Berber guide with the piercing green eyes, drives that other airless vehicle while the eight of your team are squeezed into Robert’s air-conditioned Cruiser—both doing maybe sixty miles per hour, side by side, fl oating rooster tails of dust rising behind you in the slanting sun. And Robert doesn’t have a clue. One of your mushed seatmates yells to Robert, “I thought we were following the barrels.” The French nearly a hundred years ago positioned a line of weighted 50-gallon drums on this north-south route across the Sahara, each exactly as far as the horizon from the previous barrel—usually fi ve miles apart. “We were.” He keeps the pedal to the metal, and your side-by-side SUVs race alone across the vast desert that now becomes low, rolling dunes of sand. Lost. From your orientation sessions before this bizarre trek from the Mediterranean to Cote d’Ivoire, you know it will be dark in approximately two hours. Lost is one thing. Lost in the dark—without a safe area to camp—is another. You keep thinking of the two groups of tourists who’d been taken hostage in the past couple years. Algerian and Western Saharan rebels had tried to bargain their demands by threatening to hand over the tourist hostages in body bags. And you’re not even tourists! You’ve been distributing Jesus fi lm videos at every settlement along your route, and driving directly south across Mauritania and a leg of Senegal seemed a perfectly reasonable, adventurous way to continue the distribution ministry in Core d’Ivoire. At least it seemed reasonable at the time. Api the Berber driver honks and motions to stop. Robert slows gradually, allowing the dust to settle before he comes to a full stop. He climbs out, walks over to the other Land Cruiser window and talks to the guide. He’s back in a minute. “Well, everybody, we really don’t know where we are. Api’s GPS unit conked out a couple hours ago in the heat. I thought he knew where he was going and he thought I knew where I were going. But neither of us has seen a barrel in, oh, maybe sixty miles.” You’re not sure how to respond. You know how you would if this weren’t a mission trip! Robert says, “The best bet is to stop now and set up camp. If we turn around and try to follow our tracks back, it’ll soon be too dark. And there’s no good reason to keep driving ahead till dark and waste fuel since we don’t know where we are.


So, sorry, we’ll have to switch off the vehicle. No more air conditioning. And it won’t be dark for a couple hours. So, uh, I guess we’ll just sweat a lot. Everybody out.” It’s about an hour later, sitting in the shade of a green tarp stretched between the Cruisers, that you begin to realize how serious being lost in the Sahara is. There’s the matter of enough fuel. Water. Any mechanical breakdown here where no other vehicle would travel. As far as the simple idea of backtracking till you sight a barrel: After dark, the eerie wind will gust as it does every night and probably erase your vehicles’ tracks. Robert keeps using a word you’ve come to loathe: dicey. The air is still so hot, you don’t actually sweat; any perspiration instantly evaporates, actually leaving you feeling chilled. But your body temp is way up there. This is not good. You gulp water periodically even as all of you pray and pray. Api watches. The sun does fi nally go down, and the sky fi nally darkens. Robert suddenly squints toward the horizon. You all look. A fi gure is walking toward you through the gathering twilight. A man. No, a little boy in a fl apping blue jellaba. Striding purposefully, as if he’s power-walking in a workout. You get goosebumps. You all stand, then, pushing on hats, walk out toward him. It takes maybe fi ve minutes of wading through the sand to meet. You all smile, act animated, kneel to get on his level. He seems very composed, doesn’t seem to be dehydrated or lost. Or even worried. But no one can understand him. Not even Api. “He is Tuareg, I think.” Robert looks east, in the dark direction where the boy had come from. “Well, let’s get him back to the trucks.” Once seated, the boy takes a great guzzle of water, talks and talks, pointing to the direction he came. You’re all dumbfounded: There is absolutely no settlement, no well, no report of any nomadic herders in any of the south Western Sahara. You all talk at once. Api tries to fi nd a few words common to Tuareg and Arabic. Team members chatter about the predicament, the amazing appearance of this boy. Robert settles in his canvas camp chair and tells you about the Tuareg: “They were probably at the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. It was about mid-fi rst century that the Tuareg became known as a Christian people, living all along the North African coast. Their men wear those distinctive indigo-blue jellaba robes. And every warrior has over his shoulder a leather sash, sometimes as a bandelero for bullets, and guess what’s carved in the leather?” “No clue,” you say. “A cross. If you ask why there is the cross on every man’s sash, they can’t tell you. Tradition, they say. But in the 600s, Islamic invaders pushed the Christian Tuareg south into the desert. The Sahara wasn’t as vast then, and the Tuaregs as a huge tribe emerged on the south edge of it—in Mauritania, Senegal, Niger. But Islamic militants were there, too, forcing people to become Muslims. At that point, the Tuareg were too weakened to resist, and they gave up their Christian heritage and became Muslim. And—.” Api interrupts. “I think, Mr. Robert, we should drive where he is pointing.” “Tonight? In the dark?” Api nods. His green eyes say what we all know: He’s been constantly warning us not to travel at night in the Sahara. “We should go now.”


You’re thinking as you pack up camp and climb back in the vehicles, Get out of your comfort zone. Find the edge of adventure. The edge of faith. At least, that’s what the short-term missions brochure had said. An hour later, the boy has guided Api and your two vehicles slowly across nearly eight miles of sand dunes, rocky crevices and dirt mounds. You’re in the fi rst vehicle as you nose up at the top of a dune, then tilt forward and down into a small sand valley. And see the light of a fi re. Next to two desert trucks. With people milling around. The boy’s parents alternate between hugging him, looking in wonder at your foreign faces, whapping the boy’s head back and forth and then hugging him again. You set up your own camp next to this Tuareg family’s camp, which has as its centerpiece a big red 50-gallon drum. And you hear the story from Api after he’s talked around the fi re in Arabic to the parents: About six o’clock that evening, the boy had become uncontrollable in the truck, demanding to be let out. They thought he was going to be sick, and watched him run up a dune and disappear over the top. Both trucks stopped, and the big family decided to set up camp for the night even though it was earlier than normal. And maybe a half hour later, the parents realized the boy had never come back. By the time they too had run to the top of the dune, he was nowhere to be seen, tracks obliterated by the rising winds. They had been beside themselves with fear. Then over the dunes appears this convoy of whiteskin tourists. With the boy! Api translates as they profusely thank us for bringing the youngster back. They yank the boy out to the fi re circle and ask him a dozen different ways, “Why did you run away?” His answer again and again is simple: “I had to.”

Months later you get an email from Robert in Switzerland:

I just spoke about our Jesus fi lm distribution ministry at a church in Lausanne. Didn’t have time for the Sahara story. When I asked if there were any questions, an old fellow who was on a prayer committee for our trip asked, “What about the boy?”

I said dumbly, “The boy?”

Then he told of the day he and two others were praying for us, and it seemed God was compelling them to focus their prayer on a boy. They didn’t know what boy, or if a boy was ill, or was responding to the Gospel or whatever, but they prayed! And I told him!

Best Regards, Robert

—Adapted from 2020 Vision by Bill & Amy Stearns


Support Advocacy Page 149

A Role for a Sending Team’s Financial Advocate:

SUPPORT ADVOCACYA missionary’s fi nancial advocate can gather a whole team of believers who will talk to a few friends about helping support the missionary.

The RationaleMissionaries raising their own support is a recent development.(Note: Tentmaking—working to provide your own funding—is an ancient and viable means of God providing for missionaries. But tentmaking isn’t the focus of this paper. See the Post-Perspectives unit on Business As Mission. Rather, we’re focusing on the tradition of missionaries raising their own support.)

Prior to the 1860s, virtually the only missionaries sent out from North America went as “employees” of their denomination. That is, like most of today’s denominational missionaries, the denomination provided the funding. Then began the formation of “independent faith missions” which require individuals to raise their own support to go. About 70% of North American missionaries are now from faith missions.

The traditional Western methods of raising support actually worked well for several generations. Believers were told of the need, they gave, and missionaries went. However, in the past 20 years —during the infamous “me-decade”—several factors began merging into a perfect storm that now clouds missionary funding.

The American mission movement is stymied by the diffi culties of support raising.Right now, 40,000 qualifi ed North American missionary candidates are attempting to raise the fi nancial support to go. This doesn’t even count the missionaries now on the fi eld who struggle with underfunding.

Even those who are successful in support-raising are fi nding that it takes an average of two years to meet their budget—three years if operating expenses also need to be raised. With proper training, of course, that timespan is drastically reduced; The BodyBuilders Support-Raising Bootcamps (www.TheBodyBuilders.net), for example, guarantee that if candidates follow the training, they can raise full support in just 100 days.

Yet in a recent survey, The Finishers Project found that the #1 obstacle for people to move into mission work is their aversion to support-raising.

Raising support is a necessary part of the work for most missionaries today. Most mission agencies will provide training in support raising to assist their missionary candidates in their task. Yet, there is also tremendous opportunity for the senders to get involved and help change this statistic and this attitude toward support raising.

The Principle of AdvocacyAdvocating the cause of vocational ministry workers—as well as that of the poor and of needy believers—is the Scriptural norm.

“One of the greatest missing teachings in the American church

today is the reminder to men and women

that nothing we havebelongs to us.”

— Gordon MacDonald

“In the U.S., Christians continue

to accumulate record wealth while giving

away proportionately less than we did

during the Great Depression.”

—GenerousGiving.com


God always provides what He needs for His work—but sometimes the middlemen don’t pass on the funds.Last year $24 billion was embezzled by church staffs! This is $2 billion more than the whole world’s giving to missions (gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/IBMR2007.pdf). But we’re not talking about church staffs hoarding God’s provision so much as the overall Church misappropriating God’s funds.

Sometimes God’s people obediently release those resources for His purpose; sometimes they don’t. (See Haggai 1 where God’s people misused for their own houses what God had provided for rebuilding His house.) Sometimes a disobedient Church can waste and misdirect the resources God has given for His work.

Many of those 40,000 missionary candidates who struggle to raise support in North America are thus left to ponder in guilt and frustration whether: a. God doesn’t really want them in ministry. b. They don’t have “enough faith.”

The real problem could simply be that they’re support-raising in a Christendom where believers aren’t clearly challenged to pass on God’s resources to those in vocational ministry. (Much like the problem of trying to understand why your life is not going well—when you may be in the midst of a people undergoing judgment. No matter how faithful you are, your life is affected by the state of the Church around you—as the faithful but confused Jeremiah was when his people were being led into captivity.)

God, God’s leaders and Scripture urge us to support ministry workers.• God provided the resources to His people to support the Old Testament

priests and Levites, the full-time religious workers of their day:

I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting (Numbers 18:21).

• God provided resources to Jesus’ followers such as Mary, Martha and Lazarus in order to support Him “out of their own means” (Luke 8:3).

Note: The idea that missionaries are supposed to be so super-spiritual that they go out without funding is bad Bible. Jesus initially did send out his disciples without provision and told them to eat and drink “whatever they give to you; for the worker deserves his wages” (Luke 10:4-7). That bold approach was only for the short-term: Later He said, “If you have a purse, take it, and also a bag,” (Luke 22:35-36). The cavalier idea of just “leaving it all to God”—presuming on supernatural provision when you step out in ministry—isn’t a matter of “living by faith.”

The phrase “living by faith” nowhere in Scripture applies only to ministry workers. It’s the just who shall “live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:3-5 & Romans 1:17), which applies to all believers.

North American Christians are

now used to NOT giving personally to missionary support.

In fact, even among those

intending to become missionaries, only

5% now give to help support a

missionary!

Currently about 40,000 missionaries are attempting to

raise support. Those who can often have to work at it for two

to three years.


• God provides the resources to His people to support elders who direct the affairs of the church since “the worker deserves his wages” (1 Timothy 5:17-18).

• God provides the resources to His people to support “those who go out for the sake of the Name” (3 John 5-8):

The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:14).

The Bible tells us to initiate giving to those in vocational ministry, not to expect them to, on their own, “raise support.” The Old Testament Levites didn’t go door-to-door raising their salaries. Instead, leaders advocated their support as God’s people were simply taught to tithe.

In the New Testament, neither Jesus nor the Apostles asked sustenance for themselves. Other than the Romans 15:24 phrase (See sidebar.) and another vague reference, Paul never asked for himself.

Paul did often compliment and thank his readers after they had sent him support. His gratitude and his ministry to those who supported him is a clear model of the giver-worker relationship; yet, again, Paul virtually never asked for himself. He did, however, model the biblical principle of advocating for others. (See the most blatant example of Paul’s advocacy in 2 Corinthians 8-9, in which he urges the Corinthians to give to the saints in Jerusalem.)

God tells us to give to those in vocational ministry. God’s leaders tell us to give to those in vocational ministry. Maybe we should be telling each other—particularly our “non-mission-minded” fellow believers—to give to those in vocational ministry. Each of us can advocate the funding of ministry workers such as missionaries.

Practicalities of AdvocacyThe Word is adamant about giving to those in vocational ministry. It’s not adamant about exactly how that happens, but there are distinct advantages to recruiting a team of advocates who will advocate on behalf of a missionary:

• Advocates can be boldly upfront about a missionary’s qualifi cations— whereas a missionary extolling her/his own virtues can come across as arrogant.

• Missionary candidates are limited to their own, sometimes small networks. Advocates can talk to friends in other networks—even if the friend has not yet met the missionary. In his advocacy to the

The verb in Romans 15:24 to be “helped on my way” can equally be translated “accompany

me.” We do think it means Paul presumed they would outfi t him for the one journey to Spain, but it’s a slim phrase on which to

build an entire teaching that missionaries— and only non-church-staff ministry workers—are to itinerate, asking

anyone who will listen, for their own fulltime salaries and ministry expenses. Further, it’s

obvious this reference is a presumption that the Romans would provide a sort of “one-time gift” for his trip to Spain;

Paul did not pointedly ask them to support him

long-term.


Corinthians, Paul could be very straightforward about the merits of supporting the Jerusalem Christians even though the Corinthians didn’t personally know them. If a missionary knows 100 people and those 100 simply advocate the missionary’s ministry among 2 or 3 of their friends, the missionary expands her/his network by 200-300%.

Breaking into networks of believers who are not now personally supporting missions:

• Taps into the latent, massive reservoir of resources among the non-mission-minded—90% of the Church.

• Raises mission awareness in the local church.• Blesses the non-mission-minded with a fresh release of God’s grace.

(See the P.S. at the end of this article.)

If a friend of an advocate senses that giving to help support this missionary is one of the “good works which God has prepared beforehand” for him/her to do (Ephesians 2:10), the missionary can then connect personally. During the span of the giving commitment, the missionary ministers to and blesses the new friend just as she/he does any of the ministry sending team.

• The advocate doesn’t need to know all the details. The advocate simply needs to trust the missionary candidate and the

strategic value of the missionary’s work. The missionary her/himself can later fi ll in the gaps of personal and ministry information.

• A team of advocates can share ministry vision all at once. It takes months or years for a single person or couple to locate and talk

individually to hundreds of people; yet if 100 advocates simply talk to two-three of their friends, the missionary’s support needs can be considered by 200-300 people in one weekend.

And so...A missionary’s sending team should have a Financial Advocate overseeing funding details, advising in fi nancial matters. Yet that Financial Advocate can also help a missionary fi nd and orient an entire team of advocates who will help raise needed funding. After all, it’s scriptural that believers advocate the support of others.

—William [email protected]

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world,

and all who live in it. —Psalm 24:1

How shall they proclaim unless they are sent?

—Romans 10:15

We who are on missionary assignments for God

have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support

for us and our families.... You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for

granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the

Temple...? Along the same lines, the Master directed

that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the

Message.—1 Corinthians 9:4-14


P.S. What Giving Does

Giving to those who “go out for the sake of the Name” (3 John 7) is a powerful way God releases blessing in your own life. The Bible is clear that when we give, God gives not only through us but to us as well. Unfortunately, this principle is often distorted and even exploited in some circles as a form of greed: If you send in dollars to some splashy ministry, God must then make you rich.

What Giving Does In YouWhat the Bible actually does teach is that God brings more grace into your life when you give:

Each should give what he has decided in his own heart to give.... And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:7-8).

This passage is a play on words since the original Greek New Testament meaning of grace is...“giving”! That is, as you give fi nancially, God enlarges your ability to give in all sorts of ways, such as in good works. He doesn’t promise dollars in return, but He does promise to “enlarge the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:10).

The Apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthians to give to Judean believers they’d never met—just as you might give to missionary partners you’ve not yet met. As you take that step of faith, God re-invests the profi t of His grace into your life much as a business owner re-invests profi t back into the business to expand its capacity:

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion (2 Corinthians 9:11).

(In case someone tries to interpret that “rich in every way” to mean you should expect lots of money in return for giving fi nancially: Paul already clarifi ed to the Corinthians that being “enriched in every way” means “in all your speaking and in all your knowledge” (1 Corinthians 1:5). If God enriches you also fi nancially, wonderful; but that’s not primarily what Scripture promises.)

What Giving Does Through YouYour giving and the expansion of grace in you brings results that can span the globe through the ministry of your missionary partner. Paul wrote:

• Through us (your missionaries) your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

• This service...is also overfl owing in many expressions of thanks to God. • Because of [your] service..., men will praise God (2 Corinthians 9:11-13).

But there’s still more that God promises in the cycle of your giving. Those who minister—your missionary partner—and those who are ministered to will thank not only God, but will also thank you for the grace you demonstrate in giving:

And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you (2 Corinthians 9:14).

1. A missionary candidate asks friends

to be advocates.

2. Advocates are forthright in asking their own friends to

support the missionary.

3. Anyone interested is then contacted by the missionary who

shares vision, answers questions and initiates

the new sender into the missionary’s home

team.

50 advocatesx two friends each

committing just $40/month

= $4000 monthly

These 50 advocates can advocate all at the same time. Imagine a missionary becoming

fully supported in just one weekend!

Giving fi nancially unleashes a fl ood of blessing through you and in you—including the grace to give in

other ways.


MISSIONARY MYTHS

Besides the many eye-opening insights about cross-cultural ministry we gained in our Perspectives courses, going as a missionary also has quite a few urban legends.

And, yes, it sometimes takes some rather irreverent debunking to get real about a missions career—instead of continuing to parrot conventional myths.

Instructions: 1. Scan the bold-faced headings and check those that, honestly (No one’s watching except

Jesus.), you tend to believe.2. Go back to each and read the “irreverent debunking.”3. Argue, comment or just talk about these topics with your fellow Perspectives classmates

or missionaries that you know.

MISSIONARIES ARE SUPER-SPIRITUAL. In reality, lots of dysfunctional people are attracted to missions because it grants them instant importance and admiration. Insecure believers need to feel signifi cant, and there’s not a more sure-fi re way to exude signifi cance than to become a missionary. If a missionary actually believes this myth, he/she is one of those famous holier-than-thou’s, the kind that should never go around the world representing Jesus. But, then, sometimes the myth is true: Many missionaries are incredibly, deeply spiritual people.

MISSIONARIES GET “THE CALL TO MISSIONS.” Why not the “Mobilization Call”? The “Intercessor Call”? The “Call to Provide IT”? Apparently only professional clergy (with the traditional “Call to the Pastorate”) and missionaries get these supernatural Calls? Surveys tell us that missionaries who say they defi nitely have been “called to missions” stay on the fi eld longer than others; so agencies often insist on your having this mysterious Call. Lots of fi ne aspiring missionaries sort of “make up” their Call so they can check the right box on an application. If you haven’t already, review the “Call” discussion in our Run With the Vision: Find Your Niche unit. Sometimes, however, the myth is true: A person literally hears God’s call to mission ministry.

THE CALL TO MISSIONS IS LIFE-LONG; SO IF YOU MOVE INTO MINISTRY OTHER THAN CROSS-CULTURAL WORK, YOU’VE FAILED YOUR CALLING! Actually, neither of us have time to debunk this silly notion. (Browse the book of Acts for Philip’s careers as deacon, near-culture evangelist, missionary and then family man.) God often works through us in different ways in different seasons of our lives. Sometimes the myth is true: Thousands of missionaries remain in cross-cultural ministry their entire lives. Further, some missionaries who are not prepared, not suited to cross-cultural ministry are failures in that work—and need to start back at square one in determining their actual role in the Kingdom.

YOU’LL JUST LOVE THE PEOPLE YOU’RE GOING TO MINISTER TO. Actually, this people group has been under the direct control of Satan and his minions for centuries. You expect to like them? They’re probably nasty, two-faced, greedy, violent, decadent, etc., etc. That’s why many agencies’ public-relations photographs of an unreached people feature

mostly children; their faces aren’t yet evidencing the damage that’s been done in their culture’s bondage to darkness. It’s when God redeems that His glory is refl ected in them. In the meantime, don’t expect to feel warm and fuzzy as you realistically get to know them. Then again, sometimes the myth is true: Many missionaries incredibly, transcendingly, supernaturally love and even like the most unlovable!

IF YOU CAN’T RAISE SUPPORT, IT MEANS GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU TO GO. The truth is that we’re part of a largely self-focused North American Church that’s packed with busy, distracted believers—including us! About 70% of North American missionaries raise their own support (others are “employed” by their denomination), about 40,000 missionary candidates are now trying to raise support, and the whole topic of support-raising is increasingly a stress point in mission mobilization. So if your support-raising doesn’t happen easily and quickly, just remember we’re all in this together! Support-raising is a challenge, but fortunately there is help. (See Resources, below.) Sometimes, of course, this myth is true: An ill-prepared, dysfunctional person who has trouble being an ambassador of Christ simply won’t have enough credibility to raise support—and shouldn’t go!

YOUR REPORTS ALWAYS SAY YOU’RE JUST FINE. The ministry work is tough, risky, hard. But your mental state, your marriage, your emotions are “just fi ne.” Don’t talk about any of the pain of missionary life: the depression, family abuse, anger or disgust at the people you’re ministering among, pornography addictions, suicide, marital breakups, discipline problems on your team, mental breakdowns, anger, fi nancial desperation, petty jealousies among co-workers, foolish ministry mistakes, etc. If you tell your agency the truth, they’ll put you on the shelf. If you tell your home church the truth, they’ll yank you home in failure. Sometimes the myth is true: Miracles happen, life is hard but very good, we are transparent with our foibles but God heals and we are actually just fi ne!

YOUR REPORTS SAY YOUR LIFE IS ONE BIG SACRIFICE. After all, people are giving sacrifi cially so you can do missions. Don’t tell them about the cool perks you enjoy: Global travel and adventure that your homefolks drool over only in travel books. You get to vacation in a beautiful, exotic setting. You have a maid and a driver. You go to classy embassy functions. You take the kids to the local luxury hotel for swims and ice cream. And your kids are getting the world’s best education at an international school. You sleep in and don’t have any regular work hours. Sometimes, and actually most times in the toughest 10/40 Window settings, the myth is true: Your life is one big sacrifi ce—and is worth every bug bite, threat, illness, heartache, headache, lonely day and risk.

YOUR REPORTS HAVE TO SAY THAT YOU’RE SAVING THE WORLD. Even if you’re a researcher whose contribution to the Kingdom is in phonetics or percentages or your role is exclusively administrative, you have to spin your ministry so that it sounds as if you are on the frontlines of seeing thousands come to Christ. If you can’t wrangle the spin, few will support you when their dollars can more excitingly provide scholarships for AIDs children. Sometimes, of course, the myth is true: You are seeing thousands come to faith in Christ!

MISSIONARY MYTHSCONTINUED

MISSIONS IS WHERE THE BODY OF CHRIST WORKS IN HARMONY FOR THE GOOD OF THE CAUSE. Actually, even within your team, within your sending agency, between your agency and other agencies, between your doctrinal stream and others arise some of the most jagged, antagonistic tensions. And it’s always the other’s fault if they’re not cooperating with you. Sometimes, and increasingly more often, the myth is true: God pulls together the strangest of Christians to work in supernatural unity—and the Kingdom races in its advance.

YOUR LIFESTYLE IS CONSISTENT WITH YOUR CHRISTIAN UPBRINGING. Actually, you often feel like the worst hypocrite: You drink wine at a social gathering when your home church would excommunicate you for such an infraction. You allow your new disciples to smoke during a church service. You do nothing about the cultural practice of slapping children. You don’t even begin to defend the global actions of your home country. You go ahead and baptize the new believer and his four wives. You let the new church call its members “Followers of Isa” rather than “Christians.” Sometimes, of course, the myth is true: Some missionaries can’t shake their home culture, their Christianese subculture, no matter how many years they spend in the fi eld.

IF YOU’RE GOOD AT CHURCHWORK, YOU’LL BE A MARVELOUS MISSIONARY. Dangerous myth. For example: Talent and skills in leading worship—what used to be called “song-leading”—may be your worst frustration in cross-cultural work. Oh, the local believers will want you to “lead worship” the way you do back home in North America. And you’ll want to do just that—the stuff you’re good at, the stuff you’re familiar with. You’ll long to set up meetings so you can do worship-leading—which is long-term detrimental to their developing their own indigenous worship and music. In an unreached people that must discover and create its own forms of worship, your talent is even more useless. Church skills in public speaking and sermonizing will help in heavily Westernized, established churches since they’ve copied the format of Western Christianity—in which “church” is a series of meetings. The locals will bow to your obvious speaking expertise and mimic you and your speaking style—which goes against everything you learned about cross-cultural church-planting in Perspectives, right? If your main experience in ministry has mostly to do with being up front at meetings, this is a good time to face a sobering thought: Most of the roles you can take on in North American churches are so culture-laden that only about two churchy skills are transferable to the fi eld: 1) Relating to people and 2) Faithfulness in completing tasks. Every missionary-preparation list will insist you work at many tasks in your local church to prep you for mission ministry. But frankly the more you internalize the systems of the institutional North American church, the more you’ll have to work at shaking off those cultural forms and norms. In some ways, the myth is true: If you learn how to relate to all kinds of people—including other cultures—and serve faithfully in your home church, you’ll probably do well in missionary work!

MISSIONARY MYTHSCONTINUED

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Life After Perspectives