Is your primary focus on your church or community - and what it says about your Kingdom perspective

How large is your vision for what God could do and wants to do in your city and community? 


When you think about it, that is a very different question than "What do we want God to do in our church?" The first is outward focused and a Great Commission question while the second is an inward self focused question. 


In many places, one can grow a church with little impact on the community of which that church is a part. Most often that is through transfer growth from other churches. And it makes us feel successful. But is that truly success? What impact does Jesus want our congregations to have on the community at large of which we are a part?


Last evening I met with a small group of believers who are praying for Berlin, Germany. Their prayer is for a result like what happened in the planting of the church in Ephesus where the text says that "the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor" and "in this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power (Acts 19:18-20)." Bear in mind that this was a totally pagan context, like Berlin today.


Can this happen in a place like Berlin? Can it happen in a place like yours? I believe the answer is yes - but with certain qualifications.


It will not happen if we all focus on our own church. It will not happen if we don't work together for the sake of the Gospel in our communities and cities. It will not happen if we are unwilling to work together across denominational lines. Most fundamentally, it will not happen if we are building our own kingdom (our church) rather than Christ's Kingdom (impacting our whole community). It will not happen until we lose our pride about doing our own thing and humble ourselves to work with others to do God's thing. And it will not happen without the very real power of  God behind this God sized effort.


Fortunately in Berlin and in a number of places globally including the US, there are churches who are starting to think differently. They are placing the Bride of Christ over their particular Brand. They are thinking in Kingdom terms rather than provincially about their church only. They are focused outwardly rather than inwardly with a coalition of the willing to bring the Gospel to their community and city and make the name of Jesus well known and His reputation great.


Where does this start? With pastors and church leaders who will see their communities through the eyes of Jesus and who realize that a God sized vision is not a vision for their church but for their community and their city. I don't find very many of those kinds of leaders but when I do I celebrate them. What about you and your leaders? Are you thinking about Gospel penetration of your community or simply yourselves. If the former what are you doing in practical terms to make it a reality?


Are you church centric or Gospel centric?

There is always more: don't settle

Is this all there is? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Realizing that life is different than you expected and maybe you are on the other side of fifty? Perhaps life as we dreamt it would be and life as we know it to be brings a certain dissapointment and restlessness of the soul. Is this all there is?


Jesus says NO! There is always more: don't settle. He says, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10)." He wants us to have a life that is fully lived, fully realized, fully filled up and full of Him. He is the giver, the source and the goal of the "more" that we long for.


As long as we have life, there are six areas of life where we can always experience more. 


Dreams to pursue. Who is the giver of our deepest longings if not God? I knew as a young child that I would write but it took over fifty years to get the first book out and now there are four and several on the way. He is the giver of dreams so don't settle. Our world is made better every day by those who pursue God given dreams.


Relationships to develop. God gave us the capacity for close, meaningful relationships but they take time and nurturing to grow and flourish. Relationships with fellow pilgrims are what bring some of the greatest richness to life. Each one changes us in some way. That is why the loss of a friend through death is so traumatic. We are enriched when we invest in those relationships.


People to love. Being Jesus to others through our love, help, assistance, encouragement, and kindness brings joy to the heart and richness of life. We find life as we give it away in a Jesus sense. Life is not found in what we get as much as in what we give. There is no shortage of people to love and to be Jesus to. In fact there are now 7 billion to choose from so enrich your life daily by being Jesus to someone.


Growth in Jesus to experience. He is the source and goal of the "more" we long for. Learning to live in His presence, focusing on allowing Him to transform us, letting His Word marinate in our minds and walking in His Spirit is an ongoing, never ending process of growth. It costs nothing and is the most rewarding life giving and soul satisfying thing we could do.


Things to learn. Who created us with the capacity to learn and to grow if not our Creator? Those billions of neurons in our brain were designed by a creative God for His creative people. As part of the Image He endowed us with, He created us to create and to learn and to stretch our minds because the more we do, the more we appreciate the One who gave the gift. It is never too late to learn and grow.


Creation to enjoy. Why are we drawn to the shore, or to mountains, or to the streams to fly fish? Why are we awed by the sky on a clear dark night? Why does the sea fascinate us? Why is my 16 month old grandchild smitten by the funny looking creatures he sees at the zoo looking back at him? He made all this for us and as we consider it and play in it we experience the Creator in a new way. And, His majesty is greater than the sum of it. 


There is always more so don't settle. And in the end, the MORE with Him in His presence will be so much more that it will take a new and heavenly body to experience it - replacing this present one that starts of fail us. Don't settle!

Mission Agencies: Choose wisely

One of the things mission supporters pay too little attention to is the agency that a missionary is or intends to serve under. Mission agencies vary widely in the due diligence they use in vetting potential staff, clarity of direction, quality of strategy, level of empowerment or control, and personnel health. Not all agencies are equally healthy, effective or empowering.

Because of the investment we make in missionaries, it is critical that we evaluate both those we support carefully as well as the organization with which they serve. If either are substandard, the investment is problematic and should be reconsidered.


The most important thing to consider is whether they have made the shift from the Black and White to the Color World - as described in The Nine Shifts. This will tell you much about whether they are leveraged for significant influence in today's world. 

Here are some other markers of good mission organizations:

·  They vet potential staff with great care and are ready and willing to say no or not yet if there are issues with spiritual, emotional, relational or skill health.

·  They deal proactively with health issues of their staff in a redemptive way.

·  They have clarity of direction that is understandable and makes sense.

·  They place people on healthy teams for maximum health and synergy.

·  They stress ongoing learning and education for all their staff.

·  All staff operate with an annual ministry plan and have monthly coaching meetings with their supervisor.

·  They operate with healthy, empowering and strategic leaders.

·  They mandate that their staff raise enough support to ensure that they have a decent standard of living, have adequate health care and are putting aside money for retirement (for long term staff).

·  They want to work closely with the local church when there are personnel issues.

·  They love to work with local churches to help them achieve their mission vision with good missiological practices.

·  They are committed to strategies of multiplication and are developing, empowering and releasing healthy national leaders wherever they work.

·  They are deeply committed to personal, team and leader health.

·   They are innovative, entrepreneurial and empowering of staff.

The Nine Critical Shifts that must take place in missions today

Many mission agencies are still living in the old, pre-globalized world paradigms. The world has changed around them, but they have not changed. I believe that there are nine critical shifts that mission agencies and churches engaged in missions need to make to minister effectively in today's world context. They are also the nine shifts ReachGlobal has made over the past eight years.

Shift One: Moving from being primarily doers to being primarily equippers of national workers. It is no longer about what we, as missionaries, can do ourselves but what we can help others do in their context. Increasingly, we must stand behind and alongside national workers as equippers, coaches, and encouragers rather than in front of them.

This is reflective of what Jesus intended for the church. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:11-12 that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Often, we hire pastors to do the work of ministry for us when, in reality, their job is primarily to equip all of God’s people to be involved in ministry in line with their gifting and wiring.

The application of this in missions is that missionaries are often trainers and equippers of others to help them do what they can do better than us in their context. Thus, in many cases, missionaries are no longer primarily church planters and evangelists but are equippers and trainers of nationals in theology, church planting, holistic ministries, and those ministries that contribute to the growth of the church.

This leads naturally to Shift Two: Moving from being in charge to equal partnerships with nationals where neither party is subsumed under the other and where each retains their autonomy. The day of colonial and paternalistic missions is over. It is a remnant of the black-and-white world. Equal partnerships are the coinage of the color world where each party, missions, and nationals brings different skills and abilities to the table for mutual cooperation.

It is in partnership with national movements that are orthodox in their theology and missional in their activity, bringing the most significant leverage and synergy. This is a natural outcome of the first shift: We are present to help the church grow, and that is done in equal partnerships where each party brings something of value to the ministry table.

Shift three is a natural outcome of the first two. Moving from owning and controlling to a philosophy of “we own nothing, control nothing, and count nothing as ours.” This is a servant mentality that says we are here to serve you in helping you plant churches, develop holistic ministries, and evangelize your people. We will serve you, not control you. Those agencies that serve with an open hand are magnets for indigenous believers to partner with.

Living out a non-controlling ministry philosophy is a prerequisite for partnerships today. It also models the ministry model of Christ and the Apostle Paul and the spirit of humility that Paul speaks of in Philippians 2:5-11. This is sometimes a challenge for Western missions, who are used to being “in control” rather than at a table of equal partners.

Shift four. Embracing the reality that missions are moving from Western Missionaries to Global missionaries. The future is all people reaching all people. Increasingly, missionaries will be coming from the majority world, and our willingness to invite them to the table on our teams and within our structures or to partner with them becomes a test of a servant philosophy.

This also means that we must work to encourage and equip our national partners to become sending entities rather than simply receiving entities. When national movements become engaged in the Great Commission, amazing things happen, and they participate in the joy of seeing new areas reached for Christ.

Shift Five: Moving from dependencies to self-sufficiency wherever possible. Helping indigenous partners grow out of their dependencies on the West by realizing what they bring to the table and by assisting them to fund their efforts from their context wherever possible lifts them up, gives them dignity, and allows us to partner as equals rather than dependents. Dependent partners cannot be equal partners.

This often means helping national partners find ways to finance their ministries more independently and partnering together in places where that is not fully possible.

Shift Six, Moving from addition to multiplication. This is consistent with shift one, from doers to equippers. It is not about what we can do but what we can help others do. While we must often start with addition, basic evangelism, and discipleship, our mindset should always be to move as quickly as possible toward multiplication strategies that allow us to leverage our efforts for the Gospel.

Shift seven, Moving from competition to cooperation, gets more personal for many of us. We are used to doing our thing. We have taught our national partners to do their thing. In the process, we have created ministry silos and denominational entities that work alone in relative weakness rather than figuring out how to work together to propagate the Gospel. We are better together than alone.

This is a time in history when we have a unique opportunity to work together rather than separately for the sake of the Gospel. The world's needs are too high to tackle alone, and we need one another. It is possible if we look at what we have in common instead of concentrating on those things we don't.

This leads me to Shift eight. Moving from an emphasis on my brand to His brand. Jesus did not die for my brand of the church, the EFCA. He died for His bride, the church. That is why we no longer plant EFC churches but seek to plant healthy, indigenous, self-supporting, reproducing, and interdependent churches. The brand is not as important as the spread of the Gospel. At the end of the day, Jesus is not concerned about brand names. He is, however, concerned about His Bride and the spread of the Gospel.

Shift nine. Moving from agency-based missions to church/agency synergy. The vision for missions belongs first to the local church, not to mission agencies. Missions that thrive in the future will be those that serve the mission vision of the local church, domestically and internationally. We are servant organizations. In the globalized world, we no longer have a monopoly on the great commission, and local churches will increasingly go their own way if we do not serve them well.

Let me illustrate these shifts with a real-life example. Six years ago, I met a young couple in Manila from a closed country in South East Asia. They had just finished their degrees and were heading back to work in the complex context of a brutal regime in a profoundly Buddhist context. I knew this individual had leadership stuff in him, and we developed a relationship over the next several years.

Sometime later, a cyclone hit this fragile country. I received an email saying that he had spent all his money providing rice and water to those affected who were without food and homes. He asked if there was any way we could help. 

Over the next several years, we helped my friend develop a ministry team that has rebuilt bamboo homes and lives, done evangelism and church planting where there are few believers, trained pastors, and developed leaders. He is one of the few leaders in this country that works across denominational lines. We helped him develop three businesses, providing funds for his team to fund his efforts. Regularly, we coach, mentor, and train him and his team. They have formed a ministry to train leaders and plant churches nationwide regardless of their brand.

This country is a classic example of the result of propagating our brands over the years. I have been up to the northern mountain village where missionaries in years past liked to live. I won’t forget that town. We landed on an airstrip with animals wandering on it. The only hotel we could stay in as foreigners charged us twenty dollars a night for lousy food, no mosquito netting, and about one hour of electricity daily. I was particularly enamored by the airport security when we left. The airport had no electricity, but we still had to walk through the non-functioning security machine.

Here is the wild thing. You will find every denomination known to mankind in this town and many denominations not yet known to mankind as the original denominations split and formed new groups. It is a hoot to drive through this town in this Buddhist country. All the streets have biblical names, and you pass building after building of different denominations. Here in a country that desperately needs the Gospel, you find an amazing number of small, weak denominations that don’t work together. We trained them well, and they followed our example.

But think about this: In equipping my friend, we have lived out shift one, moving from being primarily doers to primarily equippers. In partnering with him, we live out shift two, from being in charge to equal partnerships. In helping him develop his ministry, we live out shift three, that we own nothing, control nothing, or count nothing as ours. In helping him build his own team, we live out shift four of raising up indigenous missionaries.

We live out shift five by helping him become self-sufficient rather than dependent. In empowering his team, we live out shift six of multiplication. In mentoring him to work with multiple Bible-based denominations, we live out shift seven of cooperation rather than competition and shift eight that it is not about our brand but the Gospel.

In connecting my friend to churches in the States and Asia interested in reaching this nation, we live out shift nine of agency/church synergy. In every way, it is a win for him, us, the Gospel, and his nation. Start multiplying that one example globally, and you see the amazing potential for the Gospel.

Helpful and wise words from a veteran missionary to the US Church

I have been asking our staff for feedback on what they wish their supporting churches understood about missions today. One of these was posted on July 5 and was read by a huge number of people. This response also comes from a younger generation of missionaries who are grappling with the changing context of missions globally as well as in the church in the United States. His insights are helpful.

The reason I share these insights is that unless we get the dance right between local churches, missionaries they support and those they are serving internationally we create complications for the mission endeavor. Dialogue and careful thought about how we do what we do in missions is deeply needed today. Here are his thoughts.

"Their sincere generosity (money, short-term teams, etc.) can actually do unintended harm by creating dependency and undermining local sustainability (as addressed very well in Toxic Charity and When Helping Hurts). Not all financial gifts or short-term teams are helpful to local ministry, and they should not be expected to direct or dictate the ministry of a long-term missionary.

"Different regions of the world have different challenges that need to be addressed differently. One size really doesn’t fit all.

"Being involved in regional multiplication as a facilitator, trainer, coach can actually be a MORE EFFECTIVE way to church plant, even if the missionary isn’t involved in one specific church plant as a leader.

"Short-term teams simply do not have the same impact as on-the-ground missionaries or local partners and such short-term teams often do not adequately understand the long-term needs of a given people

"Mission committees have a tendency to shift directions depending on current leadership and members’ interests; the result is that long-term missionaries can be left with unstable partnerships with U.S. churches.

"Local church accountability needs to happen in the context of a caring, committed relationship that believes the best, not just as an administrative task to make sure missionaries don’t screw up.

"Because of the potential for missionary mobility in the modern world, I would encourage church’s to focus more on supporting gifted missionaries instead of supporting people based on their specific location.

"Not everything that looks green is healthy or sustainable (much of Latin America’s evangelical growth).

"Places with little spiritual fruit need missionaries and patience (Western Europe and the Islamic World). There is no harvest if there is no sowing.

"Good ministries and teams require supported missionaries in leadership. This is not just an administrative waste.

"Most missionaries are not low-level “interns” but highly trained and experienced professionals who are a tremendous resource to the America church as partners.

"Let us know what gifts and unique skills/resources you have available within your congregation. Then we can better know ways to partner that will really matter."

See also
Sticker shock in missions
We will not support you as a missionary because...
Missionary support team building: very tough work
Holistic missions: Cautions and opportunities

Leaders and honesty

If you are a leader, this article will cause you to think!
Are we completely honest leaders? 

Hidden agendas and passive aggressive behavior

Have you ever worked with someone who is passive aggressive? Probably all of us have. What lies behind this behavior are hidden agendas - a desire to get somewhere on some issue that is kept hidden rather than stated up front. What is unhealthy about the behavior is not the agenda itself - all of us have them, but the fact that an individual is not willing to be honest about their agenda with others.


Hidden agendas and passive aggressive behavior are actually a form of dishonesty that destroys trust. It is dishonest in that the actual agenda of an individual is unstated and hidden. Therefore it is not possible for others to address it. Either they must guess at the agenda or they figure it out from behaviors but it is still difficult to put on the table because it is unstated. 


In our organization we have a principle called Robust Dialogue where any issue can be put on the table with the exception of personal attacks or hidden agendas. The reason there cannot be hidden agendas is that you cannot have honest dialogue when they are present. What you actually have is a surface dialogue with other issues underlying the conversation that remain unstated.


Hidden agendas are often a way of trying to outmaneuver or undermine another individual without stating it. When this happens on church boards or teams it creates an underlying conflict in the group which may or may not be recognized but it is surely felt. 


I was once called by a pastor who had a former leader in his church pushing him to take a sabbatical. He and the board were thinking that maybe it was a good idea. After asking a few questions it became clear that this individual had a history of undermining the senior pastor. 


In dialogue it became clear that he most likely had a hidden agenda in his suggestion - getting the senior pastor out of town so that he could undermine his leadership. He clearly had an agenda that he was not stating and that was therefore dishonest. Rather than stating his issues up front he was maneuvering from behind. 


This is why healthy organizations make it clear that in their culture they will not tolerate hidden agendas and call people on it when they exhibit passive aggressive behavior or there is indication that there is an agenda behind the stated agenda. We are too lax in allowing behaviors that are toxic and unhealthy. Rather we ought to set a standard and then hold people to them. It may be something you need to talk with your organization, board or team about.