It's about the Bride not the brand

I am a senior vice president of the EFCA - a brand of the church. Having said that, one of my core convictions is that while brands can be helpful in the spread of the Gospel, at the end of the day my concern should not be about the brand but about the Bride. Jesus died for the Bride, not my brand (hard as that is for some to believe, given our often parochial attitudes toward those of another brand). 

Most of us like the brand we worship in, which is why we are there. I like the broad evangelical parameters of the EFCA and the freedom I have as the leader of ReachGlobal, its international mission. But, my highest allegiance is always to the Bride of Christ, His church, of which mine is but one small expression.

When we value the Bride over the brand we become open to working with other churches to bring the Gospel in a relevant way to our communities, something none of us can do ourselves. Moving from competition to cooperation in the spread of the Gospel is an expression of mature leadership that places what is close to God's heart (that people respond to His good news) above our parochial interests.

There is nothing wrong with brands. But think of the power of the unity of the church when we choose to work with other like minded evangelical churches and denominations to reach our communities and the unreached globally. It is a visible expression of the unity that Jesus prays for in John 17, by which the world knows that we are in Him and He in us. There will be no Presbyterians or Baptists or Free Church folks in heaven (really!). Just worshipers of Jesus Christ. I suspect we will quickly realize that those things that once divided us were insignificant compared to what should have united us - the Gospel and person of Jesus Christ.

It is for this reason that ReachGlobal does not plant EFC churches internationally but works to plant healthy, reproducing, interdependent, indigenous and self supporting churches. As long as Jesus is at the center in a biblical way, we will work with a wide variety of movements to bring the Gospel to places where it has not yet penetrated. We then link the various movements we work with together so that they too are working alongside one another in cooperation rather than competition. There is enough division among denominations for us to further contribute to disunity rather than unity.

I am heartened by expressions of Bride over brand in this country when churches from across denominational lines band together to bring the gospel to their community. They are demonstrating Christ's heart and His interests over their own. 

Think about your ministry. Are you more about the brand or the Bride? For me, the Bride trumps the brand every time.

Index and links to all blogs on world missions

Disturbing trends for Christianity in China

Missions and China's current political climate

The curtailing of freedoms in China will impact business, missions and the free flow of information

Putin crosses a line - Bans Russians from preaching the Gospel outside churches

Terrorism and missions

Check out this map of the world's largest languages

What missionaries aren't telling you (and what they need from you). From a veteran missionary

A must read for all those interested in Latin American Christianity

God is alive and well in Cuba

The future of world religions with growth projections from the Pew Research Center

7 encouraging trends in global Christianity

Great article: A plea for Gospel sanity in missions

Check out this map and article on Islam in Europe from the Economist

If we saw ministry in the United States through missionary eyes we would do things differently

Does missions separate families?

The top 50 countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian

Cracks in the atheist edifice in China - a very encouraging update from the Economist magazine

The insider movement and Islamic ministry

One map says a great deal about the growth rate of evangelical Christianity globally

Why mission agencies do not pay ransom for staff who are kidnapped

A surprising map on the world's most and least religiously diverse countries

Understanding one of the most important countries in Africa

World conflict, the Gospel and our personal response

Five current dangers to world missions

14 things missionaries might want to tell you but probably won't

Avoiding paternalism in missions through a round table approach with ministry partnerships

A real time picture of globalization: Most commonly spoken language (other than English) in each London borough

Christianity is alive and well in Cuba

Can the gospel impact whole cities?

Looking away from the lamppost

The 20 countries where Christianity is growing the fastest

The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of the earth in 9 charts

The single greatest deficit in missions today

Change blindness and missions today

Missions and Europe: Should we be sending missionaries to a place that has been evangelized in the past?

Partnerships in missions: Five principles

Berlin - A city of destiny

Looking and praying for open ministry doors

This story will rock your world! From India

It is time to stop the blame game in missions

Can the cities of Europe be re-evangelized?

Accountability for missionaries - rethinking the paradigm

The both/and of missions: Gospel and Compassion

What is missions? Be careful how you define your missions efforts

Short Term Missions - Doing it Right

What are you and your church doing to raise up workers for the harvest?

Mission agencies: Choose wisely

The nine critical shifts that must take place in missions today

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

What I wish my supporters understood about my work as a missionary

We will not support you as a missionary because...

A wake up call for missions: The world is moving to the city

Moving from fear to friendships with Muslims

Sticker shock in missions

Holistic missions: Cautions and Opportunities

Bride over Brand

Best practices for training overseas

Strategic missions strategy: Leveraging your investment

Its about the Bride not the Brand

Generosity by ministry personnel and missionaries

Missionary support team building: Very tough work

Safety is not our highest value

Missions and child protection

Parents: A major inhibitor to sending new missionaries

The world hits 7 Billion

TED talk at the Mission Exchange on critical shifts that need to take place in the mission world

It really is a very bad idea

Changing antiquated local church mission strategies

Definitions of poverty and wealth in the majority world

Muslims are not the problem

Straight talk about results in missions

Disappointment in missions

Leadership in missions

Persecution: How God turns the tables

Syncretism and false altars

Missions in the 21st Century: Two circles, one goal

When money hurts mission efforts

From leader to partner in global missions

What kind of churches should we be planting around the world?

Western vs. indigenous missionaries

Missions and the Holy Spirit

Determining what missionaries to support?

What is the Gospel worth?

Do it alone or do it together

Missions and the incarnation

It's too dangerous

Trends in missions today

Game changers in missions

Emotional Intelligence in missions

Understanding Sharia law

Missions nice and missions strategic

Missions and risk

Real missions

The changing face of world missions

What missionaries should your church support?

Best practices that can help you leverage your missions strategy

By the numbers: A snapshot of our globe

Ordinary people

Ripples in global ministry

A wake up call for missions: The world is moving to the city

The largest migration in the history of the world is quietly taking place and it will become a tsunami shift of the world's population in the next forty years: the world is moving from the countryside to the city in massive numbers. This shift threatens to catch the missions world unprepared.


Consider these statistics from 2005 related to foreign born migration to the cities. The percentage of the foreign born population in Miami was 50.94%, Toronto, 44.99%, Los Angeles 36.24%, London 27.05%, Brussels 26.58%, Dubai 82%. And this does not count all the internal migration taking place within countries like China to the city. China is set to resettle 400 million people from the country side to the city in the next 30 years.


Look at the populations of these cities of the world:
1. Tokyo, Japan - 32,450,000 
2. Seóul, South Korea - 20,550,000 
3. Mexico City, Mexico - 20,450,000 
4. New York City, USA - 19,750,000 
5. Mumbai, India - 19,200,000 
6. Jakarta, Indonesia - 18,900,000 
7. Sáo Paulo, Brazil - 18,850,000 
8. Delhi, India - 18,680,000 
9. Õsaka/Kobe, Japan - 17,350,000 
10. Shanghai, China - 16,650,000

11. Manila, Philippines - 16,300,000
12. Los Angeles, USA - 15,250,000
13. Calcutta, India - 15,100,000
14. Moscow, Russian Fed. - 15,000,000
15. Cairo, Egypt - 14,450,000
16. Lagos, Nigeria - 13,488,000
17. Buenos Aires, Argentina - 13,170,000
18. London, United Kingdom - 12,875,000
19. Beijing, China - 12,500,000
20. Karachi, Pakistan - 11,800,000

21. Dhaka, Bangladesh - 10,979,000
22. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 10,556,000
23. Tianjin, China - 10,239,000
24. Paris, France - 9,638,000
25. Istanbul, Turkey - 9,413,000
26. Lima, Peru - 7,443,000
27. Tehrãn, Iran - 7,380,000
28. Bangkok, Thailand - 7,221,000
29. Chicago, USA - 6,945,000
30. Bogotá, Colombia - 6,834,000

With some exceptions, traditional missions has flourished in rural mono cultural settings. In many ways it is easier and less expensive than tackling the growing major urban areas of our planet. It is also where the majority of the world's population lived until recent decades. Hard as this was, it pales in comparison to reading the multi-cultural complex urban centers of the future.


In addition, because the evangelical movements in the United States largely abandoned the cities of our nation for the suburbs and rural areas, there are very few personnel coming into mission organizations with experience of working in large, complex, highly populated, diverse urban areas.


What are the challenges faced for mission agencies in reaching these huge urban areas with the gospel? First, Gospel penetration will never happen without agencies and denominations working together in cooperation to reach the growing urban areas of our planet. Mission agencies and denominations have a poor track record of cooperating for the cause of the Gospel globally but until that happens we will not see significant Gospel penetration of the world's cities.


Coupled with this, many denominations in the United States (and globally) do not see the value in working with believers outside of their particular theological tribe. Our small kingdom hearts, compared to that of Jesus hold us back from seeing the synergies of working in cooperation with others who are Gospel centered and missional. For too many of us it is about the brand before the Bride. For Jesus it is about the Bride, not the brand.


Cities are complex. They are also the populations of influence. Their large immigrant communities are more open to the Gospel then when they lived in their traditional places with their traditional social systems. There is a higher level of education and often higher concentrations of evil. In addition, they are not mono cultural but multi cultural requiring multi-cultural teams and strategies. Unless we unlock the code of how the Gospel can penetrate these huge and growing population centers - and start today, we will again be playing catch up to a changing world. 


The Western church, indeed the global church and its mission agencies need to take up the challenge of cooperative efforts to penetrate these growing global cities with the gospel. The time to start is now!

Ministry accelerators and anchors

Ministry accelerators are practices, commitments and culture that allow some ministries (churches, missions and otherwise) to flourish, expand and see results that are far above the norm. Alternatively these very accelerators when not present become the anchors that hold us back, create a drag on forward movement and often keep us from achieving the momentum we long for. As you look at these accelerators, think about the ministry you are a part of and ask if you have an accelerator or an anchor.

Spiritual Dependence

One of the most promising and scary verses in the New Testament is found in John 15:5. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” One ministry I work with has a guiding principle of “Intimacy before Impact.” They know that without staying close to the father, without bathing their plans and purposes in prayer, without listening to what He might be saying in return that they will never accomplish much of eternal value.

Many ministries give lip service to dependence on God but there is not much in their rhythm or strategy to back that up. After all, we can do a lot with our money, people, strategies and programs. But, if we want to have the blessing of God, if we want to know where the best strategies lie, if we want to make an eternal difference the accelerator of spiritual dependence is what we desperately need. Without Him we can do nothing of eternal value. With Him we can do amazing things!

Clear Direction

There is a connection between spiritual dependence and clear direction because through His word and through the promptings of His Holy Spirit, we are given discernment as to where God is leading our ministries. Getting to clarity of direction (rather than a typical shot gun approach to ministry) takes concerted prayer, thinking and dialogue with other key leaders. Moses was clear about his direction, as was David and Nehemiah and Daniel, Paul and Barnabas. Why? They stayed close to God, were sensitive to His leading and were therefore able to articulate to others the direction they needed to go.

Here is something to think about. Every ministry is unique. Your direction is determined by the skills, personnel, mission and unique niche that God desires you to fill. Never simply copy the direction of another ministry. That is theirs, not yours. You may learn from them but you need to ask what God is calling you to and be able to articulate it with absolute clarity.

High alignment

In the days of the judges a common observation was that “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Nothing dissipates energy and missional effectiveness in ministry like staff all doing their own thing in their own way toward their own good purposes.  Ministries that see significant results are those where the board, senior leader, staff and ministry teams are all on the same page and moving in the same direction. It only takes one key staff or board member to sabotage that synergy and cause an anchor that holds you back.

There are many gifted individuals who do not believe that they need to be in alignment with their leaders. They are very happy to require alignment from the team they lead but they are not committed to the same level of alignment upward. In other words, they suffer from not following well. They love to lead but resist following. No matter how gifted, these individuals will become anchors to ministry progress because they subtly and regularly undermine the power of alignment.

Healthy Boards, Personnel and teams

This goes to the issue of health. Unhealthy board members, staff and teams cannot produce healthy ministry results. Indeed, lack of health in any of these areas can be one of the heaviest anchors to pull along. Healthy individuals on the other hand get amazing things done because they are team focused, mission driven, other centered and are not building their kingdom or needing to deal with a lot of their stuff.

In the Christian world, in the name of grace, we often do not deal with unhealthy personnel. First by being honest with them and trying to help them. But if that fails by moving them out of our organization, knowing that their dishealth is hurting those around them and compromising the call of the organization. Healthy people are huge accelerators to ministry while unhealthy members are huge anchors – and it only takes one big anchor to cause a whole lot of frustration and drag.

Mission focused

All of the above are necessary for us to be mission focused – committed to reaching the mission of the organization in real, tangible ways with all hands on deck keeping the ship moving in the right direction. We have a clear mission, we are all aligned around that mission and everything we do is designed to help us achieve that mission.

Results Driven

Jesus says in John 15:5 that “If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit.” The book of Acts, was a book of spiritual fruit. The fact that the church is Christ’s bride and that not even the gates of hell will prevail against it clarifies that Jesus intends for His people to see real, tangible fruit from their ministries. We cannot control the fruit of our work but we can do those things that are likely to result in fruit as God blesses. And we ought to expect it, pray for it, work toward it and measure it.

A culture of empowerment and releasing

A key ministry accelerator is that of empowering good people in ministry and releasing them to do that ministry in line with their gifts and abilities. The more we try to control the less momentum we have. The more we truly release, the greater the momentum. As an example, in ReachGlobal, we could try to control how our churches work with our national partners. Instead we see them not as our partners but God’s partners and we willingly give away relationships between these partners and churches so that they can accomplish far more than we as a mission could. We increase our influence by giving away ministry opportunity whenever possible.

This is true in the local church as well. One of the things to consider is whether we are program centric (which depends on the church to control the program) or ministry centric (which releases the whole body to do ministry in their circles of influence). The first is often the focus because programs are tangible. The second is far more powerful because it is viral and releases the whole body to ripple on folks who will never be touched by a program.

Cooperation rather than competition

If you want to accelerate your spiritual influence, don’t go it alone! One local church may reach its community but ten local churches working toward the spread of the gospel can reach a whole county. The question here is whether we are committed to spreading our brand or His brand. I know that most churches will not choose to cooperate with churches that are not of their brand (if then) but when they do it is one of the most powerful ministry accelerators of all.

In ReachGlobal, an international mission, we decided to move from replicating our brand (EFC churches) to His Brand, (Evangelical churches whatever the name). This opened up partnerships with an amazing number of partners and movements and vastly increased the spiritual influence of ReachGlobal. It was all about cooperating with other like minded believers rather than living in our silo and competing with them.

Each of these accelerators will increase your spiritual influence. Each of them not lived out, will create an anchor and drag. Some of us need to pull up some anchors so that the wind God wants to give our sails can fill them and propel us into a fruitful season of ministry.

Mature Congregations

Local congregations go through predictable stages of development from birth, adolescence, and maturity. In the birth phase they are often doing those things necessary for survival. In adolescence, they are finding their way, dealing with internal issues and clarifying their identity. All of us hope that our congregation will get to the place of maturity but what are the marks that we have reached maturity? I would suggest that there are at least five. As you read these, think about your congregation as it relates to these five areas.

First: We understand that it is not about programs but about life change – true spiritual transformation.  While programs can serve the purposes of spiritual transformation, the emphasis is on what gets us to our goal, rather than running great programming for the kids and family. Mature congregations have thought through the reasons for their programming and evaluate whether that programming is actually contributing to life change and the mission of the church. Where it does not they retool or kill the program.  Mature congregations are after transformation of hearts (where grace is understood and lived out), transformation of our thinking so that it aligns with God’s, our priorities so they reflect a new way of thinking and finally relationships that reflect the grace and truth of Christ.

Second, mature ministries understand that it is not about our brand but about His Brand. They see themselves as part of a larger whole in their community and region – of Christ centered churches that have different names and different denominational affiliations but which are all part of the Bride and they value those relationships, pray for those other ministries, and promote an attitude of togetherness rather than independence. Immature ministries are still focused on themselves while mature ministries are focused on building the Church of Christ in their community and region.

Third, mature ministries are committed to working alongside other believers in the area to reach their area with the gospel. They are willing to set aside their petty differences, theological distinctive that are important to them but not to the gospel itself in order to see transformation come to a whole region. This is what happened in Acts 19 where the Church in Ephesus had such an outward vision that it saw a whole region come to knowledge of the gospel with amazing results in the lives of people who experienced genuine spiritual transformation. This could not have happened without the church in Ephesus both spawning other fellowships of believers but then working with those other fellowships for the proclamation of the Gospel. It was an outward looking church that was committed to His brand rather than its brand.

Here is a visual. When we are concerned only with our own ministries, we are like a dot on a map so in a large metro area with many churches we may be one of 100 dots. When we start to work with other congregations for the cause of the gospel we move from being a dot on the map to a concentric circle that intersects with several other circles. Would you rather have one hundred dots on the map or be one of 100 concentric circles intersecting one another so that there are synergies between churches rather than independent dots sitting in their own neighborhood?

Fourth, mature ministries give themselves away to others. They are involved in community transformation, helping meet needs around them. They are willing to mentor, train and give away ministry expertise to others who are not as far along as they are. They willingly share their facilities with others who can use them. They see beyond helping churches in their denomination and willingly serve those in others. In other words, they are kingdom focused rather than self focused. They are “rich in good deeds” toward their community and other believers and churches. They go out of their way to serve others.

Fifth, mature ministries are generous ministries. They help those in need both within their body and outside. They live out the command of Paul in 1 Timothy 6:17- 19 to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and to be willing to share. This is the inevitable result of living with an outward focus and open hands. Where there is a need they are found there. When they need to get their hands dirty they do. They live out the model of Christ who cared for those in need, even the least of these, and those who don’t fit our natural demographic.

There are many churches who live in adolescence for much of their existence. Has your congregation moved from adolescence to maturity? Actually it is not a matter of time as much as it is a matter of heart and commitment to a vision and lifestyle modeled by Christ himself.

Bride over Brand

This week I had a remarkable set of meetings with 20 movement leaders in Africa. All of them represented different denominations and countries and all of them were together for a week to discuss how they could work synergistically together to send missionaries, see church planters trained and to reach those parts of Africa where the gospel has not penetrated.

What is remarkable is that they were placing the Bride (the church of Jesus) over their particular brand (denomination). 

Bride over Brand is a mindset that should pervade all of our efforts to spread the Gospel. This does not mean that we must give up the distinctives of our brand. It does mean that we are willing to actively cooperate with others for a higher goal of seeing the Bride expand, knowing that our brand is one small expression of the Bride that Jesus died for.

This takes a mindset that "we will cooperate rather than compete." It is a humble posture that knows that no one of us can do this by ourselves and that we have a lot to learn from others. It is a kingdom rather than a provincial mindset that places the Bride in its proper perspective. It is a Jesus mindset above all that values what He values - that all men might come to believe. 

I long for the day when this kind of mindset prevails across Christianity. When it does, we will see the Gospel spread in ways that we cannot imagine. Until it does, we will continue to do our own thing, not realizing that we are better together than separate. 

What is your mindset? What are you doing about it?