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Chapter Four
BEING A MISSIONS MOBILISER
A missions mobiliser
is a Christian who not only wants to get involved in
evangelism and missions work but who wants to get
other people involved as well. This is in obedience to
the Great Commission and to the words in Second
Timothy where it says,
"And
the things you have heard me say in the
presence of many
witnesses entrust to reliable
men who will also
be qualified to teach others."
(2 Timothy 2:2)
If we are going to
see the world evangelised we are going to have to see
some major steps forward in the mobilisation of the
whole church. I believe that every believer should be
involved in this great task.
God can use anyone
who loves Jesus. My own testimony is that God launched
me into missions and mobilisation when I was only 16
years of age. When I was 19 God sent me to Mexico. (I
actually got involved in raising money for missions,
especially Scripture distribution, before my
conversion.) This proved to be one of the birthplaces
of short term missions, a movement that has now become
accepted by most mission agencies. As we look back
over more than four decades, from the earliest
beginnings of Operation Mobilisation, we can rejoice
over about 100 thousand men and women, largely young
people but not exclusively, who actually came on OM.
In many cases their involvement with OM was only for a
summer or a year but an amazing percentage of those
people are now involved in missions or missions
mobilisation in a whole range of different ways. We
know that hundreds of thousands of others have been
impacted, but not necessarily joined OM. Many are back
in very ordinary jobs - what I like to think of as
"market place ministry" - but in varying
degrees many are attempting to help the cause of world
missions. Bob Sjogren and Bill and Amy Stearns put it
like this:
"If
your heart's cry is for the whole world,
if you
can't seem to hear God
directing
you to go to one
specific people or area,
if you're gifted
naturally and
spiritually
in communicating and
encouraging,
perhaps your strategic
niche is that of a
mobiliser. You can
encourage, exhort,
prod, lure, hand-hold,
cajole and pray whole
churches into a sharper
vision of their part in
God's global
purpose."
As I consider these things I am reminded again and
again of the tremendous challenge to go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every person. Look
again at those verses where the Great Commission is
set out - Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47,48
and John 20:21-23. Then look again at Acts 1:8 where
we have that final expression of it before the Lord
Jesus ascended into heaven:
"But you will receive power
when the Holy
Spirit comes on you ; and you
will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of
the earth."
That little phrase "The ends of the
earth" is one that continues to inspire me
deeply. It is because of this that I want to consider
six basic principals that need to be taken on board if
we are to be effective mission mobilisers as part of
our obedience to Christ's command.
WALKING WITH GOD
On the opening page
of his book concerning the supremacy of God in
missions "Let the Nations be Glad",
John Piper says this:
"If
the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered
above the pursuit of man's
good in the
affections of the heart and
the priorities
of the church, man will not
be well served
and God will not be duly
honored. I am
not pleading for a
diminishing of missions
but for a magnifying of God.
When the flame
of worship burns with the
heat of God's true
worth, the light of missions
will shine to the
most remote peoples on
earth."
As with all areas of
Christian service, so with missions mobilisation, it
is important that we begin by reaffirming that our
priorities are knowing God, walking with Jesus and
experiencing the continuing reality of His Holy Spirit
in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the Chief Executive
Officer of world missions. That is so clearly seen in
great passages like Acts 13 where the church waited on
God in prayer and the Lord, through the church, sent
the first missionary team, including Paul and
Barnabas, out into the harvest field.
We need a constant
work of the Holy Spirit. I often tell the story about
D L Moody who would emphasise the need to be filled
with the Spirit again and again. One day when asked,
"Mr Moody why do you keep saying we have to be
filled again and again?" he replied,
"because I leak". I think many Christians
can relate to that reply. Praise God that He can fill
us again and again just as happened in Acts 4:31 where
we read that the believers gathered together in
prayer, the place was shaken and they were filled with
the Holy Spirit and went out and spoke the word of God
with boldness. What a challenge !
As we confirm the
importance of our walk with God in beginning to think
about our part as mission mobilisers, so we need to
recognise the importance of prayer. Prayer is at the
heart of the action and a world-wide prayer movement
must run parallel with any kind of world-wide mission
movement. Different believers approach prayer with
different viewpoints but without prayer we must
acknowledge that missions mobilisation on the scale
needed is never going to happen. We have clear
teaching in Matthew 9:37 and 38, in the very words of
our Lord Jesus.
"Then
he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is
plentiful but the workers are
few. Ask the Lord
of the harvest, therefore, to
send out workers
into his harvest
field'."
Missions mobilisation,
in a sense, starts on our knees - or whatever other
posture we may adopt for praying. I actually do some
of my praying walking around. Stephen Gaukroger in
"Who Cares About Mission" says,
"We
should pray about mission until it becomes
a priority! We may not
personally be able to
take the good news abroad,
but we can all pray
in such a way that regions
abroad are
affected...Prayer needs
no passport, visa or
work permit. There is no such
thing as a
'closed country' as far as
prayer is
concerned...Much of the
history of mission
could be written in terms of
God moving in
response to persistent
prayer."
TAKING OWNERSHIP
OF WORLD EVANGELISM
Christians must take
ownership of world missions. I have noticed a tendency
for people to think that some other person or group is
going to do it. I notice, in meetings right around the
world, that it seems to be only a small number of
people who are really taking ownership of the task. To
be concerned with missions mobilisation involves a
sense of personal responsibility. As we inform
ourselves about missions we need also to sense the
weight of responsibility to take action. It's possible
to even be a missionary and yet not really take
ownership of the bigger vision and task.
Taking ownership means prayerfully developing goals
and aims. Some have criticised the world-wide AD
2000 network, with its vision to raise 200,000 new
missionaries for having goals and aims which are too
high. Actually, some purely national goals are so huge
that if they were all fulfilled, it would go well
beyond the 200,000 mark. It may be true of some people
that they aim too high but I think that we have to
acknowledge as Christians that often our goals and
aims are too low. What we need are tasks in which we
can see a combination of the "possible" and
the "impossible". We want to be filled with
faith but we want to be realistic. When we think and
pray about the setting of targets, an important
scripture is Luke 14 where we are told clearly that we
must count the cost of what we set out to do. The more
we count the cost of what is involved in mobilising
large numbers of missionaries the more of a
"Mount Everest" the task appears.
As well as individuals, mission agencies and churches
will need to have goals and aims in the area of
missions mobilisation. There will also often be
national goals and aims which may be put together by a
national umbrella group in a particular country. It
may be done by AD
2000, WEF,
Lausanne, DAWN
or some other grouping. God has raised up a range of
fellowships, structures and institutions and one of
the greatest burdens of the AD 2000 Movement is
somehow to be able to network together even though
there may be things that we don't fully agree on. As
we attempt to do this, there will be times when things
get messy. It will be complicated and there will be
relational difficulties because agreeing on goals and
aims is notoriously difficult.
As we face these difficulties we must decide to put
into practice the biblical teaching of 1 Corinthians
13 about patience, love, and forgiveness. Biblical
unity is essential if we are going to see goals and
aims fulfilled. At the same time we can't be
unrealistic. We can't spend too much time, effort and
money trying to build a kind of artificial unity that
doesn't reflect the situation in the real world. There
has never been complete unity since Pentecost and it's
unlikely to happen now. It is an area where we are
going to have to find the balance.
Wisdom and discernment are essential as we consider
taking action on missions. A. W. Tozer said that the
greatest gift we need in the church today is the gift
of discernment. This doesn't come just like a
supernatural lightening bolt but also as we become
saturated with the scriptures, as we read widely, as
we fellowship with a wide range of godly people and as
we stay in tune with what's happening in the countries
that we are concerned about and involved in. I know
that in any great area of biblical faith some people
can get into extremes. There is certainly the danger
of becoming extreme in the field of missions as we set
targets and talk about numbers, dates and methods. I
am always concerned about these dangers but I believe
that a far bigger problem today is that people
overreact to extremism and end up in the deep freeze
of tradition, judgementalism, legalism, dead orthodoxy
and inaction.
I urge you to develop personal goals and aims in
regard to missions and missions mobilisation. For
example if every person who had some degree of
understanding, wisdom and commitment had as a target
the mobilisation of just ten others, can you imagine
what would happen across the world? Often, of course,
missions mobilisation will be teamwork rather than the
work of one "lone ranger" who somehow has a
special gift to mobilise others. We need small groups
around the world, churches around the world, and
missions committees around the world which are going
to spend time in prayer and discussion and develop
definite goals and aims in regard to world evangelism
in obedience to the Lord Jesus.
DEVELOPING A GREATER KNOWLEDGE OF WORLD MISSIONS
Closely linked with the development of ownership of
world missions is the need to improve our knowledge of
them. We can do this by reading, watching videos and
listening to audio cassettes. Then when we have
absorbed it we can be involved in helping others to
get hold of this material. I believe that we need to
increase tenfold the amount of information available
on missions and that we must use every method of
communication available to do it if we are to meet the
targets that are being set. We need to get people into
mission experiences both across the street and across
the globe. We need to see that acting locally can make
an impact globally.
In particular we need to gather information on the
open doors where new workers can enter. There is
already an avalanche of information on this but the
average person doesn't have it. I recommend that every
missions mobiliser be in touch with at least a dozen
mission fellowships; getting their information and
finding out about the open doors. It takes
correspondence, phone calls, faxes and E-mail. When we
think of all the communications methods that we have
today we really don't have an excuse for inaction. Can
you imagine the Apostle Paul having a mobile phone or
a computer at his finger tips ? God has given these
things as tools. We should not be afraid of high tech.
It can be misused but this should cause us to be
careful that we do use it properly. There are open
doors and I believe that as ordinary people and
potential recruits hear of these open doors they are
going to respond. First though, they have to be in
possession of the information.
We need to appreciate the importance of networking
with as many other individuals and groups as possible,
often through modern methods of communication, in
order to have specific, up-to-date information and
prayer requests on the unreached people of the world.
The larger groupings such as the Adopt a People
Movement, AD 2000,
Lausanne and WEF
can act as centres as we attempt to achieve this
world-wide networking. Meanwhile let's not forget the
importance of the small mission agencies. There are
thousands of these across the world. (Those of us who
have decades of experience in missions need to be
generous in sharing our experience with these new
agencies; helping them to avoid some of the mistakes
that we made. This is another reason why I believe
networking is so important.) Large groups, small
groups and individual missions mobilisers need to be
talking to one another.
A further benefit of strong communication links is
that they will help to stamp out some of the ignorance
that seems to surround world evangelism. Some of the
things that I read and even the statistics that I see
are just not true. It is amazing what is now on the
World-wide Web. Recently in a huge conference the
total number of 'Christians' in Africa, where there is
phenomenal nominalism in some places, all turned out
to be 'born again' due to someone's mistake. People
are not doing enough research before they release some
of their information. Even stories of great events in
evangelism can turn out not to have happened once the
research has been done. This produces general
unbelief. It causes a lack of trust towards the
missions movement and will be one of the most slick
tools that Satan will use as we set our targets for
the future. We are told in Proverbs 18 and many other
places in Scripture that we need to make sure of our
information before we open our mouths and speak.
However we must not be intimidated by these problems
because then we won't attempt anything. We can still
disseminate information but choosing our words
carefully, checking the facts, admitting when we are
uncertain and communicating with reality, humility and
teachability. That important scripture in Philippians
2:3 which urges us to consider others better than
ourselves is vital in this context. As we contact a
wide range of agencies we need to esteem them and take
an interest in what they are doing. Let's not be put
off by some piece of bad news or some little thing we
have read about them and meanwhile fail to see the big
picture of how God has used so many different
churches, agencies and movements despite their
failures, weaknesses and sins.
This will bring us together in a greater way. We can't
all work together on a practical level but we can have
a good attitude toward other agencies within the Body
of Christ. There are many tensions in missionary work
- some of them are considered elsewhere in this book -
and we need to accept the paradox that our unity is
going to be in the midst of diversity.
USING THE TOOLS AVAILABLE
There are so many excellent tools available for the
task of mobilisation. I am amazed by the amount of
exciting material that pours in through my own post
box from churches and missions agencies - videos,
audio cassettes, books and leaflets. I have written
elsewhere about the need for about a hundred million
pieces of missions mobilisation literature. I don't
believe that's too much. A lot of this is already
being produced by all kinds of churches and agencies.
If we can multiply what is already being produced by
ten, I believe it would lead to the greatest missions
mobilisation movement of all time. This would then
enable us to fulfil the phenomenal goals and aims that
are being set such as the ones to reach every person
and to plant a church in every people group by the
year 2000. As I see it now, we will need many years
into the new millennium before this actually happens.
We must admit that we are a long way behind.
We can have endless debates about the numbers, the
dates and the nature and timing of the opportunities.
Personally I think it probably isn't good to fix
dates. At the same time our hearts cry out, " the
sooner the better", because we know that these
targets are connected with lost people, real people
who are going out into eternity without a knowledge of
Christ. This is an area where all of us can so easily
be involved. Why not invest a few pounds (or a few
hundred) in missions mobilisation material that you
will be able to take around with you and have handy
when the opportunity arises. Use it yourself but
distribute it to others too so that they can use it.
Have missions parties in your home at which you show a
video and share literature. It is unlimited what could
happen if Christians realised that they could be
involved in missions in a way that will ultimately
affect millions of people across the world.
As we see people becoming interested in missions and
reading about them it may be right that the next step
is to encourage them to go to some kind of missions
event. Almost every major nation is now having
missions events and of course individual churches and
agencies have them as well. We can get people
interested in these events. Let's not be put off
because we don't like the music ! (How sad it is that
the Body of Christ is fighting over style of music
when history proves so clearly that the Spirit of God
has used a wide range of music to bring people into a
closer walk with Christ.) Let us not get hung up on
areas where we may not agree.
We need to learn how to agree to disagree and get on
with the basic living out of the Christian life,
mobilising people for missions and presenting the
gospel to the whole world. We need to keep one another
informed about these missions events no matter how
small they may be. Those of us who lead these events
and who are involved in other ways need to be
sensitive to the wide range of people we are dealing
with. Let us not purposely be controversial. Sometimes
purposely being controversial can be a little bit of
an ego trip. We get special attention from certain
kinds of people and this isn't always healthy. We need
to listen to the people who don't agree with us and to
those who feel we're extreme and that we're stating
things that are over the top. In this way we can build
unity and get on with the top priorities.
Formal education is a powerful tool for missions
mobilisation. Most Bible colleges have a fairly good
commitment to missions and mission agencies
traditionally work closely with them. My cassette
tape, 'Why Go to Bible College' has gone out around
the globe and is now in print. Quite a few Christian
colleges (now sometimes called universities) also have
a significant missionary thrust. These are mainly a
North American phenomenon. In Great Britain the
Christian Unions at Universities and Colleges of
Higher Education are important in mobilising people
for missions. We need an all-encompassing strategy
that makes use of all these vehicles for mobilisation.
If you consider yourself a missions mobiliser, find
out about these places and possibly visit them. Keep
informed about what they are doing.
Consider the possibility of getting into Bible college
for a year or two, perhaps majoring on missions while
you get to know the Word of God. However, don't think
that the only need is for theologians and
sophisticated church planters who are brilliant at
learning languages on the mission field today. Again
and again we've seen God sending out people with basic
skills. We need behind-the-scenes people, mechanics
and secretaries, bookkeepers and computer workers. We
desperately need staff who will work in the home
offices in their own country. How sad it is that so
many people are ignorant about the range of jobs that
need to be filled.
The mountain that immediately looms up in front of us
(and it happens every time I talk to somebody about
the tools needed for missions mobilisation) is,
"where do we get the money?" The answer lies
in a commitment to the kind of intercessory prayer
that will release finance for world missions and in a
commitment to biblical fund-raising. We need to
understand biblical lifestyle and avoid extremes at
both ends of the lifestyle spectrum. People need to
understand the clear teaching of Jesus about laying up
treasure in heaven and that it is more blessed to give
than receive. We must think again about the story of
the widow's mite. At the same time we need to study
history and realise how God has used men and women in
the market place who earn considerable resources
through hard work and tears and then share those
resources with mission agencies and churches for the
sake of world evangelism.
Woodrow Kroll puts the case powerfully:
"Behind-the-lines
missionaries who finance
the spread of the
gospel are the most
critically needed
people in the world today.
Tragically,
those who are called and trained
can't find
enough financing to get to the field.
They end up
doing something other than what
God has
called them to do, and it's not their
fault. Their
failure is the failure of behind-
the-lines
missionaries to do our part."
As we develop the right way of thinking and acting let
us beware of putting down another agency or another
group because we think their methods of raising money
are unspiritual. All of us at one time or the other
have been fairly unspiritual in this context. Whoever
is without fault, let him or her throw the first
stone. God's unity is certainly in the midst of
diversity but meanwhile we need a greater biblical,
compassionate strategy for releasing finance. At the
same time, we need the highest level of reality and
integrity in all our fund raising.
INVOLVEMENT IN A LOCAL CHURCH
Every committed mobiliser should be involved in a
local church. Different people respond to the
challenge of being a missions mobiliser in a church
context in different ways and the response of their
churches is also very varied. It is another field
where we need to avoid generalisations, judgementalism
and, of course, extremism because Satan is a roaring
lion (and subtle at the same time) seeking whom he may
devour in the area of relationships within churches.
I recently read a book about how a whole church
movement became extreme and all under the banner of
that beautiful word "discipleship". We have
new books coming out indicating that many people have
been hurt in the past ten or twenty years through
extremism in local fellowships and churches. (Those of
us in mission agencies know that we also have hurt
people when we haven't had enough grace or we have
become heavy handed or dictatorial.) It is not going
to be easy but as we move in the power of the Spirit
and take on attitudes of humility, openness and
teachability I believe we can see a new day in regard
to our church relationships. This will happen as we
work together to mobilise missions and to see that the
right percentage of finance goes out from local
churches to the regions beyond which are so often only
given the scraps off the table.
As we attempt to bring local churches into the
missions vision, (and of course there are many local
churches who are themselves introducing others to the
vision) let us use a less threatening approach.
Problems can arise where a member is challenged on
missions mobilisation outside his or her church and
then wishes to introduce the church to the vision.
This can happen, for example, when a young person
returns from a period of short-term mission work. The
book "Re-entry" by Peter Jordan is
essential reading at times like this both for the
returnee and the church.
Many a young person who was planning a missionary
career has been shot down through discouragement or
other fiery darts during the re-entry period after his
or her short term on the field. Peter Jordan has a
chapter called "Horror Stories" describing
some of the negative responses which returning
missionaries have had from churches and trying to
explain them. We must work to understand this problem
and take hold of the kind of reality that is expressed
in 1 Corinthians 13 where the practical outcome of
Christian love is set out for us. For many young
mobilisers the focus of their activity will be their
university. We think, for example, of what God has
done at Urbana, through IFES
or through the Christian Unions in the UK. This
student movement, as well as Campus Crusade and other
movements, are major contributors to the missionary
backbone in the world today. If you are in one of
those groups, pray for groups in nearby campuses and
be a missions mobiliser.
GETTING OTHERS INVOLVED IN EVANGELISM AND MINISTRY
A powerful way to be a missions mobiliser is to get
people involved in evangelism where they are. We must
not see evangelism at home in opposition to evangelism
in other parts of the world. We now have people of
unreached groups living among us in most parts of the
world. It seems so obvious that people who love Jesus
and are committed to world missions will get involved
at least in some way in reaching out to these people,
including students, some of whom come from the most
needy nations in the world.
At the same time there is value in getting people out
of their own country into another one, both as a
learning experience and because it has proved to be a
vital part of God's strategy in both evangelism and
church planting. So talk to the people you are
influencing for missions about short-term work. You
don't have to have a special call for this. God leads
different people in different ways. For some it may be
a summer followed by a one or two-year programme and
then back as a sender rather than as a goer. (In the
wider sense we are all both goers and senders, or
should be.) It is exciting to see how many career
missionaries - and we desperately need more of those -
are coming out of the short-term movement. Think about
using a part of your summer vacation for some kind of
missionary activity and encourage others to consider
it too.
One of the greatest ways to stay on the cutting edge
of world missions is to be involved in evangelism
yourself and especially with people from other lands
who may live right in your midst. Beware of the
struggles you will face as you launch into this. There
will be failure. There will be disappointments. But
remember that disappointment in evangelism can often
be God's appointment to teach us something greater and
something better. We have to stand against the fiery
dart of discouragement. I have wrestled with this all
my Christian life. God's grace is sufficient. Great
biblical, mountain-moving faith does not happen
without doubts, struggles and discouragement or even
sin. It happens in the midst of those things. When we
claim the cleansing of the precious blood of Christ,
renew ourselves through the work of the Holy Spirit
and come back to the cross, He will enable us to obey
His commission to take the Gospel to others.
I am sure that God is already using many of you who
are reading this chapter more than you realise. Be
aware of the subtleties of putting yourself down in an
unbiblical way, just as I am sure you would beware of
allowing yourself to be puffed up. Be aware that God
is doing great things in the world today. He is
working through older churches, newer churches, older
agencies and newer agencies in an exciting way.
So the answer to 'What's the point of mobilization?'
is to release millions of hours of prayer and finances
and workers into the harvest force. To see churches
planted, discipled, and reaching out into their own
cultures - and then on into other cultures. All in
order to glorify Him together for eternity. (Bob
Sjogren and Bill and Amy Stearns, "Run With
the Vision".)
I hope that you will make a commitment to join this
work and be a missions mobiliser.
Suggested Reading:
Contemporary
Christian Music Debate by Steve Miller
Buy
the Book Today!
Home Front Handbook - Woodrow Kroll
Buy
the Book Today!
The Church is Bigger Than You Think
Buy
the Book Today!
You Can Change the
World - Parts 1 & 11
The Great Omission
Why Go to Bible College
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Buy
the Book Today!
