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The Road We Are Traveling
Posted by Strider in Church & Missions
So, there I was writing up the definitive post on the Lord’s Supper and modern ecclesiology when my wife came down and said our guests are coming in an hour and I still need to go out and buy chicken. The post is not ready. But then I had a thought. I just spent two weeks on a training event paid for by Southern Baptists maybe someone would like to know what we did and are doing? Well, maybe. If so, below is our strategy blueprint. Feel free to critique it and make comments. Here is what at least one of your missionary teams is doing.
Team Strategy Blueprint for the People of Gondor
August 21, 2010
Affinity Group Vision Statement (Affinity is what we are calling ‘regions’ now)
- Our vision is a multitude from every language, people, tribe and nation in our Affinity knowing and worshiping our Lrd JC.
Affinity Group Mission Statement
- Our mission is to make disciples of all peoples in our Affinity, in fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Gondor Team Vision Statement
- Our vision is a multitude of peoples from Gondor in every region where they live knowing and worshipping our Lord Jesus.
Gondor Team Mission Statement
- Our mission is to lead SB’s and GCC’s(Great Commission Christians) to evangelize and disciple People of Gondor to start reproducing house groups in each valley population segment of the Country of Gondor, and the cities of Edoras and Helm’s Deep in Rohan resulting in ready access to the Gospel for every person of Gondor.
Gondor Team Purpose Statement
- We want to see the Kingdom of God established in our lives, on this team, and among the Gondor people.
Gondor Team Core Values
All Peoples Nothing Less is our team’s ethos and battle cry. (Rev 5 and 7)
We are called to make disciples of all peoples. Making disciples is what we are about.
(Matt. 28)
Disciples are born and grow best in the context of healthy churches. (Eph 4, 1 Cor 12)
Prayer is foundational to all that we do. (Eph 3:7-21) (Col 1:9-12)
The Gospel is best communicated by plain words and loving actions. (1 Cor 2:1-5)
The Word in the heart language of the people is one of our most powerful tools. (2 Tim 3:16)
Disciples train disciples. (John 4, Matt 28)
Apostles MAWL nationals to grow a movement. (Model, Assist, Watch, and Leave) (See Paul’s work in Acts)
Healthy teams are normative for doing the work He has called us to. (Lk 10)
Cooperation among all believers is the best way to see God-sized results. (John 17)
Hospitality is key to loving believers and impacting the lost. (Rom. 12:13, Heb 13:2)
Key Result Areas
- We will pray, build prayer networks and request prayer, and teach those whom we disciple to pray from beginning to the end of all we do.
- We will utilize every available means to access the communities God is calling us to transform. For example:
- Disaster Response.
- Well digging team.
- Agriculture projects.
- Business consultancy and development.
- Community Health Education.
- We will build national teams of Church Planters to go and impact every Valley Population Segment. VPS’s are where people live. The Gondor people are tribal and reluctant to move from one valley to the next.
- We will train Gondor CPers to form house churches that multiply through out their family, community, and to the ends of the earth.
- We will work to provide the materials necessary for the contextualized presentation of the Gospel.
- We will continue to support the new Gondor Bible Translation project.
- We will continue to support the dubbing of appropriate videos into the language of Gondor.
- We will continue to promote the writing and producing of music.
- We will continue to promote the recording and distribution of Gondor Bible Stories.
- We will help national Church leaders to fellowship and support one another in appropriate networks.
- We will cooperate with GCCs and everyone God is sending to do the work that He is orchestrating. We will operate within the concentric circles of cooperation that our organization has set forth.
- Every member of every team will function as the Body of Christ in that they will encourage one another in love and good works. We will guard each other by continually pointing each other to Christ in healthy loving relationships with God and each other.
- We will continually seek God’s plan and evaluate each step seeking to go where He is going and be about what He is doing.
End Vision for the Gondor Team
The goals of the Gondor Team will be reached and our mission completed when there are reproducing house churches in every valley population segment in Gondor with mature national leadership who has a vision for leading the Gondor Church to obey everything God is calling them to.
Well, there it is. What do you think? What questions do you have about the way we do the work? What is left out that needs to be in?
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Strider:
The SBC and all its strategies have some confessions to make.
I don’t want to sabotage your post here right out of the box, but would like your and David Rogers in particular response to this which goes to the heart of the character of the SBC over the last 30 years.
And in that vein Andrew Murphy’s insight into Fervent Nostalgia versus Prophetic Witness speaks to a temptation that continues to seduce the SBC; murphy earlier this week at the easily googled religion dispatches.
Hope some of you, in particular David Rogers, will address Colin Murphy here as they navigate your thinking:
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16624
Stephen,
Would you please give Strider the respect of addressing what he says here, instead of hijacking his post elsewhere on the first comment?
Strider,
I have a thought on one thing that should be added in,
I think that MAWL (Model, Assist, Watch, and Leave) is incomplete. Paul didn’t just leave. He returned. He sent people back to minister. He maintained relationships and continued to work with people in the areas where the nationals were leading and growing. I’m not saying the IMB doesn’t do that; I think it does in a lot of cases. But perhaps there should be a few more letters on that acronym.
I’m not suggesting how those other things should be done (it will probably look different depending on a lot of variables), but I think that including some of those aspects (returning, sending more ministers, continued partnership/fellowship) would better align with the example of Paul in Acts, if that is the model for the MAWL acronym.
Point of clarification: you said you spent two weeks in a training event; is this “blueprint” the result of those two weeks, or did it take two weeks for this blueprint to be presented to you in totality? If the former, I see some real gems, although other parts are akin to a college football coach walking into the locker room and saying, “Boys, this is a football.” (Of course, that is sometimes necessary.) If the latter, it somewhat bothers me that it appears to be a very top-down way for local missionaries to be presented with their instructions, and even then, I hope that there was a lot more to the two weeks than what is given here. Of course, you did not say this was all you did in the two weeks, so I may be reading too much into it.
John
Strider,
Thanks for posting this. I believe it gives a good window of insight for those in SBC churches to understand what IMB workers are all about. Having come up, together with my team, in times past, with similar strategy documents related to the people we were working with, I think this is, overall, a very sound and balanced summary statement.
My only critique falls along the line, somewhat, of Andrew’s comment. While I see that, in a sense, the IMB is an organization that specializes in “apostolic” ministry, and that the work of the Body of Christ directed toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission is broader than “apostolic” ministry alone, I think it is important to frame what we are doing, as “apostolic workers,” within the broader context of the Body of Christ.
Viewed from this perspective, the “end-vision” on which we are working is still not complete, even though we may have “reproducing house churches in every valley population segment in Gondor with mature national leadership who has a vision for leading the Gondor Church to obey everything God is calling them to.” The “end-vision,” as I see it (and, as I have mentioned from time to time here and in other places), is best described in Eph. 4:12–14: “building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
Now, I am aware there is a danger, as “apostolic workers,” of staying too long, and making a local church, that should be indigenous, dependent on resources from the outside. But, I also think the work of the Great Commission is not complete until the “end-vision” of Eph. 4 is accomplished. There is a point, in any given locality, when the Great Commission work must transition from a place of being primarily an “apostolic” work to a place of full partnership with the rest of the Body of Christ around the world. When this point arrives, yes, we as “apostolic workers” must “work ourselves out of a job,” and complete the MAWL cycle, as it were. But I agree with Andrew that we never really, truly leave. We reach the point, rather, of full and mature partnership in the missio Dei, the Mission of God.
For some individual “apostolic workers,” when this point arrives, the best thing may well be to physically move on to another place, and begin “apostolic work” there. But, as the SBC as a whole, I don’t think it necessarily means pulling out of our on-going fellowship and partnership in the gospel.
And, I think a strategy statement, if it is really complete, and if it represents not only the work of the specific IMB “apostolic workers” in a particular place, but also the SBC at large (in partnership with the rest of the Body of Christ around the world), ought to somehow recognize this reality in the way it is worded.
Some good things here to discuss. To begin Stephen, I would very much like to discuss the character of the SBC. I am laying this document down and saying, ‘Hey, this is who we are and what we do’. I do not let those with whom I disagree with define me or our Convention.
Andrew, Yes we discuss the L in MAWL a lot on our team. Leave has more meaning than walk away and never come back. We have done that and we have regretted that. If I may address David’s comment with yours I will say this: As the SBC we need to decide how God wants us to build up His world wide body. We are His and He has a role for us. How I see this role developing is two-fold. One, Paul did not just leave and write letters back occasionally. He took some of them with him. This was a key part of discipleship. In Jesus’ example as well as Paul’s disciples don’t just learn stuff, they do stuff. The stuff they do is to go and make disciples to the ends of the earth. Every church we plant should have this built into their DNA.
Second, mature churches have partnering relationships with other mature churches. We work best together. There are truckloads of things I can’t do. I need you and the same goes on the macro level. I have been thinking more and more churches are getting involved with overseas churches. Instead of trying to figure out how the IMB is supposed to facilitate all this maybe the IMB should do what it is doing; focus on apostolic ministry to the places where no witness for Jesus exist and then see the churches and associations back home make partnerships with churches in other countries. This would need a lot of training to keep the US group from controlling and over financing the small national church but it may be what needs to happen.
John Fariss, this is a fair question. No, the plan was mine and my team’s. I have been given responsibility for finding God’s plan for Gondor. It is not top down. But this little document was a small part of what we did for two weeks. We discussed everything from language learning to hospitality to church planting and beyond. It was a full time. I know that in an organization as large as ours there must be some time-servers, some company men, some corporate bean counters who see rules more important than the people they were meant to serve but of the 14 couples who trained with us you wont find any. The training was excellent because our region is difficult and it attracts the most remarkable men and women of God you have ever even heard of. I am humbled to be serving with those with whom I serve. And I thank all of you who make it possible for us to be here.
Strider,
Yes, I agree that building in worldwide disciple-making DNA in new disciples is an important aspect of Great Commission ministry on a local level.
Also, I agree that partner relationships of relatively mature churches with other relatively mature churches is another important aspect.
Perhaps, as you imply, mixing the second of these aspects with the IMB’s primary work of initial evangelism and discipleship “on the edge” may lead, in some contexts, to watering down the main focus, and get some workers off target from the main part of the task they were called to.
Yet, if the IMB doesn’t get involved in this aspect, who will? You suggest local churches and associations. There is some merit to this suggestion. State conventions and associations, for example, have many productive partnership agreements with national unions and conventions overseas. And, many local congregations also have good partnerships with other congregations in other countries.
Yet, it still seems to me the collective experience and expertise of the IMB could be useful in facilitating and channeling this type of thing in the right direction. It used to be that the BWA was another important channel for facilitating international relationships of cooperation among Baptist churches and unions. But, now that we, as the SBC, are no longer members, there is an important gap that needs to be filled.
Yet, resources are limited. And, some would claim the urgency of reaching the unreached should take precedence over this, when collective SBC resources are being allocated. I am not totally unsympathetic to this view, but,
personally, I think this whole issue merits some top-level creative thought. I don’t think it should just be swept under the carpet.
I honestly think this article that I am about to link is of great significance to the character of the SBC.
Strider talks about modelling Christian Virtue.
I think the SBC has some confessions to make or all their strategies will come unravelled.
Consider this template as you navigate Strider’s Retreat:
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16626