The Church

A. Passion for
God’s Glory Among
the Nations

B. Equipped: Context
specific tools and
methods

C. Teams: Church based

outreach and church
planting teams
The Mobilization “Funnel”: An intentional strategy for equipping expatriate
Christians for in situ cross-cultural ministry

Understanding God’s plan for the nations is a part of the normal Christian life and
maturing process. What are some important passages in this journey as a Christian grows
in awareness of God’s larger purpose in mission, and joins in where God’s Spirit is
working?

The Context
One context in which a parachurch partnership is intentionally mobilizing Christians is in
a creative access international country. Here the Christian faith is a minority but there is
a visible and legal expatriate church present. The majority faith in this country is one of
the fastest growing, and other non-Christian belief systems and faiths are present. This
provides myriad opportunities to engage non-Christians with the gospel witness in situ.
The working population of this city includes many Christians who immigrate for short
periods of time for employment, and who participate and attend the various expatriate
Christian churches. These believers may represent a broad spectrum in terms of Christian
beliefs, and may be at various stages of maturity and discipleship. The vast majority of
these expatriate Christians do not come with intentions to be cross-cultural witnesses in
their new country of residence (in situ).

“The Funnel” Model of Mobilization

One of the assumptions in our mobilization strategy is that the process is divided into a
three-tiered level of involvement as depicted by the “funnel.” The “funnel” starts from
the top which represent an ideal level in which the entire church body is involved, then
moves down to the narrow portion of the “funnel” to more specific levels of targeted
ministry involvement.

A. Building Passion for God’s Glory. 100% involvement starting at the top of the
“funnel.”
God has commanded the church and all believers to go into the world and preach the
good news (Mark 16:15), and disciple the nations (Matthew 28:19). The directive was
given to all believers for all time. These commands follow the culmination of Jesus’
saving work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, and are the focal point of all
prior biblical revelation. A worthy goal for churches should be to proclaim and teach
these foundational truths to all believers. The Abrahamic covenant finds it fulfillment in
Christ, and the Church (the “new Israel”) is God’s people called to “bless the nations”.
Church leadership that makes educating their congregations in these truths a high priority
is essential to building this foundation. Resources that deal with these foundational truths
include John Piper’s book, “Let the Nations be Glad”, and the US Center for World
Missions course, “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (Perspectives).” This
latter resource is a primary building block in our mobilization “funnel.” Our desire is that
biblical expatriate church pastors preach so that 100% of their congregations hear these
truths regularly, and from these some will go deeper in the “funnel” for additional
instruction through the Perspectives course.
The involvement of senior church leadership is critical, as these are not roles that can be
delegated to programs, but must be woven into the “culture” and “DNA” of the church.
One of the goals for churches at this stage is the building of believers’ passion for God’s
glory, and the active seeking of their roles in His worldwide mission program.

B. Equipping the saints with context specific tools.

From God’s church some will be called for specific tasks, like Paul and Barnabas in Acts
13, and equipped to reach across culture as was Paul’s desire and calling. By calling,
gifting and passion they will be set apart for specific tasks. Others will be called, again
like the apostle Paul, to pioneering work among unreached peoples. We should recognize
this and encourage them. Typically these Christians have a passion for God’s glory, and
vision or what He is doing. They may encounter non-believers in their natural sphere of
influence, but may be uncertain how to engage them in spiritual discussion and to
minister to them effectively. Some will be engaging cross-culturally for the first time.
The mid-portion of the funnel addresses the need to put tools into the hands of these
believers. Context-specific training resources are available for many settings and are
helpful in providing useful and effective tools. In our model of mobilization, we do not
expect that all believers will move to this phase of equipping and training: they will
represent a “subset” of those who develop a biblical passion for God’s glory, and want to
be better equipped to engage their world and to minister cross culturally.

C. Developing outreach and “church planting” teams

The final portion of the “funnel” is the development of outreach and church-planting
teams. Christ will build His church, and this is the expression of God’s work in our
world. The importance of a corporate Christian witness and of raising up ministry and
outreach teams is obvious. Two assumptions of our strategy thus include: training teams
to achieve the purposes of reaching out effectively, making disciples and planting
churches; equipping teams, at the stages of development and deployment, with the tools
to be effective. Teams can be single-church or multi-church: there are strengths and
weaknesses to either approach. Our model currently encourages the formation of single-
church teams, which has the advantage of clear accountability structures and oversight.
Also, it is helpful to highlight the importance of corporate witness throughout the
mobilization process, so that it is understood as a normative part of life for the witnessing
believer.

One issue that arises in the process is the need to build passion as well as equipping
people with effective tools. It is not clear that this has to be in the same sequence for all
involved. However, it is clear that passion without tools and training can lead to
discouragement, and tools without passion can lead to mechanistic approaches and
possibly cynicism.

Some of the above processes can be readily done in large group settings; others are more
appropriate for small groups, and some for one-on-one training and/or through mentoring
relationships. As adult learners often have varied learning styles, multiple methods of
instruction may be needed to guide this development. The development and use of
“appropriate outcomes” templates are helpful in addressing specific personal ministry
development issues that may arise.

Finally, outreach and missions should be natural ministries “owned” by the local church.
Ideally, churches develop sufficient capacity to integrate all aspects of these “programs”
into their church life and DNA. Where this is not possible, para-church efforts should be
focused on equipping and building appropriate capacity into local churches, while
enabling and resourcing the local churches to effectively engage the cultures around them
together for His Kingdom and glory.