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.