Where do missionaries come from?
Missionaries come from local churches – communities of Christians – who have evangelized, discipled, equipped, and sent people from among them to establish local churches where Christ is not known.
How do churches know where to send people?
Often, local churches learn about world needs and opportunities from mobilization representatives – people who have served in other places and can connect local churches with information they need to take action.
What is Mobilization?
Mobilization is coming alongside of local churches and individuals as the seek God’s will, timing and direction for their global ministry. Local churches send missionaries. They might not know where the needs are, what has already been done, or how to go about engaging in a meaningful way.
Mobilization Representatives bring to Christians the Bible basis of missions, the needs of the people around the world, testimonies of what God has been doing, and the opportunities for people to engage in His work.
Why Mobilization?
People act by faith in God’s word when they know what God has said. So, the primary purpose is to present God’s word about His work so that people can act by faith to accomplish God’s purposes.
"...behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."
What is involved in Mobilization?
Ethnos360’s mobilization representatives focus on presenting to Christians the people groups who have no access to the Gospel. They work to bridge the gap between the people who have no way to learn about Jesus and the people who could work together to tell them. They present opportunities to engage as individuals and as a local church, in church planting or support ministries, both locally and overseas.
Mobilizing people to accomplish the Master’s mission involves
- people going to the ends of the earth as ambassador messengers,
- people sending those messengers with the message, and
- people preparing messengers to be sent.
How do they find out where the needs are that must be met?
If You Don't Know, You Can't Go
When it comes to eternal salvation, if you don’t know about Jesus and what He did to save you, how can you believe on Him and be saved? (Romans 10:13-17)
Faith comes by hearing God's word
It’s the same thing with the walk of faith. If we don’t know what God’s word says about what He is doing in the world and our role in His plan, we can’t act on it.
Furthermore, if we don’t know about specific needs and opportunities to glorify God with our own sacrificial living, then we cannot go to meet those needs.
That’s where mobilization comes in. A mobilizer helps people engage with God’s word and presents opportunities to act by faith toward glorifying God through ministering to other people; especially where Christ is unknown.
Mobilization? What is that?
The greatest need on the mission field is people to do the work of bringing in the harvest; laborers.
Completing the task our Savior commissioned His disciples to accomplish requires being sent, sending, and preparing people to be sent.
Mobilizers are generally experienced missionaries who have been give the task of sending out the cry for help.
Often people think of mobilizers as recruiters. That’s not what I’m presenting here. A recruiter is often seen as someone who comes into the church to take talent away from the local church to be independent from the local church.
A mission mobilizer engages with the local churches to teach God’s word, impart vision, and present needs to help local churches, by faith in God’s word, to prepare, send, support, and sustain people to accomplish what God is calling the local church as a body to do.
Have you ever considered servings as a career missionary?
Mobilizers ask individuals, “Have you ever considered being a career missionary?” Many answer, “No.” “Will you consider it now?”
We are not shopping for participants in a short service trip someplace uncomfortable. We are looking for people who will lay down their own lives to share the Gospel with people who have no other opportunity to hear. We realize that not many people are willing or able to do this, but likely there are more who could than who will. (John 12:24, Luke 14:26-33, 16:24-27, Matthew 4:18-22, 6:19-34, 10:37-39, 13:23)
Mobilizers may ask, “How may we assist you and your church in sending missionaries to the ethnolinguistic people groups who are the least reached with the Gospel?2
So, what's the problem mobilizers seek to solve?
Didn’t Jesus tell us to pray for laborers? Isn’t He the person responsible for bringing workers in to reap the harvest?
Yes. So why did He tell His disciples to look and then pray? (Luke 10(To align their hearts with God’s?)
And what did He do next? (Did He lead them into ministry toward answering their prayers?)
Faith without works is dead. The farmer can pray for an abundant crop. Should he expect an abundant harvest if he never planted the seed? Can he bring in a large harvest if he doesn’t call for harvesters, laborers, when the crop is ripe?
Will Christians be ready for harvest if they do not understand the importance of the crop?
Will Christians respond to a need they don’t know about?
Will Christians respond if they do not know what they can do?
I have helped bring in crops. Someone had to tell me the location of the crop and how to gather the produce. The blueberries were sweet, the apples were ripe, and the baled hay was ready to be loaded for transport.
Mobilizers help Christians understand what needs to be done, where there are needs for assistance, roles that can be filled, and how to engage in the work.
"...Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."
Foundations for Mission
The future of missions is in foundations.
People often think of missionaries as “having their thing” as if it were unrelated to what all of us are doing here on earth. In reality, career church-planting missions (especially among ethnolinguistic people groups who are still unreached with the Gospel) is about a Body functioning under the directions of the Head. (1 Corinthians 12 & 13) Colossians 1:18, 19, 28, Ephesians 1:19-22, 4:15-16, 5:21-30.)
The Great Commission cannot be completed unless the Church functions as a Body in obedience to the commands and direction of the Head, Jesus Christ.
It is through the ministry of the local church that we learn to add to our faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance (self-control), patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity. (2 Peter 1:3-11) Without growth in faith, the churches will have no one mature enough in faith to send to accomplish establishing thriving churches in remote contexts. (Hebrews 5:4-14, esp. 4 & 12)
To have people within the local church who are qualified (or on a trajectory to be qualified) as spiritual leaders, the local church must be intentional about equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4) and intentional about preparing to send them. (Romans 10:13-17) Mobilization must be part of the mindset of the church and its leadership.
Moving and Motivating
Mission mobilizers may assist in directing the attention of the church toward activities that will stimulate, encourage, build, and energize the church. A mission mobilizer seeks to stir churches and individuals to engage. (Hebrews 3:13, 10:24) Sometimes to accomplish Biblical objectives under the guidance of the Holy Spirit a local church may, as a Body, send their best people.
Mission mobilizers are often ordained and experienced missionaries, or pastors. Mobilizers work to seek out Christians wherever they may be found. They seek to to engage with people about God’s written word concerning His purpose in the world, our responsibility for action, opportunities for training, and vision of where people and resources can be directed to meet specific needs. However, anyone can mobilize others in their sphere of influence. Just ask a mobilizer what you can do.
"...Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. "
Unknown to Known
Why is a mobilizer necessary? Isn’t the local church already on mission to share the Good News about Jesus with the world?
Generally, the short answer is, “No.” In regard to ethnolinguistic groups of people who have never heard the Gospel, unless something changes, most of this generation of the unreached people groups will perish without ever hearing what Jesus did for them. (More about that below.)
Here’s the deal. If you don’t know about something important, you cannot intentionally engage with it. If you do not realize the importance of dealing with it immediately, then it may not grab your attention until its importance rises to prominence in your understanding. At that point in time, it may be too late to avoid grief, or to experience greater joy.
For example, if your house is on fire, but it’s just a candle in the bathroom that fell over onto the toilet paper, if you know about it you could probably avoid an emergency by quickly putting out the fire while it is small. Realizing the importance of immediate action, you will likely drop everything else you are doing to put out the fire. While it is small, it may take only a minute of your time. The reward is the joy of continuing to build memories in that building with people you love.
Imminent Importance
It’s about eternity. It’s about what’s coming.
Mobilization is about drawing the attention of the churches to the extreme importance of knowing God’s heart for the world, and sharing the Good Tidings with people in every part of the earth. It’s about laying up treasure in heaven. It’s about loving our neighbors. It’s about losing our lives for Jesus and the Gospel that we might find/save our lives.
Without missions, without the intentional effort of believers telling people who were yet untold, across language and geographical barriers, none of us would have heard the Gospel and be now able to share this Good News with others.
At the moment, a third of the people on earth have never heard who Jesus is or what He has done for them. Of over seven thousand languages, there are thousands of languages where God’s written word does not exist at all. Believers cannot tell these people what God has said because the Bible does not exist in these language to tell them. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. (Romans 10:13-17) The Great Commission is about teaching people everything that Christ commanded us.
In our churches are a lot of people who do not know that these ethnolinguistic people groups have no access to the Gospel, or what they could do about it if they would. Those who know should go so that all can be equipped with the information and resources they need to act in obedience by faith.
There will come a time when each of us will stand alone before our Creator and give an account of our own individual obedience to God’s specific direction to tell “every creature” in “all of the world” about His wonderful provision for our sin through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On that day we will be very aware of the importance of action and it will be too late to do anything. (2 Corinthians 5:10-11
"...I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. "
Connecting Communication
Many missionaries can tell you of at least one person who helped that missionary to realize the importance and value of setting aside their own earthly ambitions to engage in eternally important activities at personal cost. In every church that has engaged in missions, there has been at least one person who has cast the vision, presented the opportunities, and invited action toward sharing Christ with people who have no other way to hear the Good News.
You would think that with all of the talk of missions in our churches that a mission mobilizer would not be needed. But the reality is that missionary work can be considered a minor ministry rather than a primary purpose for the presence of the church.
The final commandment of Jesus, which is repeated in all of the Gospels and carried as a theme in every book of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament, is the proclamation of God’s glory to people in every corner of the earth. The fact that all of the apostles (except James) died in foreign countries proclaiming Christ underscores the importance of this work.
God alone raises up laborers to bring in the harvest of souls. God alone brings people to understand that salvation is through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Both responses of faith come only through human instruments proclaiming His glory and sharing His written word. Both involve leading people to understand what God requires of them so that they may respond in obedience to what God has called them to do; receiving and ministering His life, His grace to others.
One of my favorite verses is Hebrews 12:2 because it talks about Jesus enduring suffering because of the joy set before Him. That is the same privilege He has set before us. The servant is not about his Master. Jesus has great joy prepared for us in the obedience to proclaiming His glory to the world; especially where He is not yet known.
We would love to help you connect with information to communicate to people you know. Please contact us.
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. "
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People Groups Still Untold
One thing all believers in Jesus Christ have in common is this: someone told them. We believed the Good News message because someone else who heard it intentionally made it accessible to us; so that we could see for ourselves who God is and what He has done for us. The Ma people of Papua … Continue reading
Mobilizing On Mission
How should we as believers view our God-given mission? What are the foundations for correct understanding? Are there things that could shape our understanding of our role in God’s plan? There is much more that could be included, but these are things I think could be emphasized more. 1) Glorious Worth. God’s glory, His worth, … Continue reading
Why Missions?
(Good vs evil living and eternal reward for earthly work.) People of Papua New Guinea Why should you believe God and sell all that you have to give yourself totally to the serve Lord? Why labor in difficult places to bring unreached language groups of people to faith in Christ and equip them to plant … Continue reading
Bible Basis Of Missions
Bible Basis of Missions: Completing the Great Commission. All of human existence is anchored in one relationship. Before He formed the earth, moon, and stars our Creator knew us and intended for us to relate to Him, eagerly reflecting His goodness for eternity.* Before He said, “Let there be light!”, He was thinking about you… … Continue reading
Why Missions? - stilluntold.com
Still UntoldEvery World Christian A Mobilizer - thetravelingteam.org
“In the airport in Dubai, on our way back from a trip through the Middle East, my wife and I had a short but life-altering conversation. After seeing the needs overseas, we asked each other the question, “Do we want to be the missionaries, or do we want to multiply the missionaries?” In other words, what is the best and most strategic thing we can do for the millions of unreached people of the world in this season of our lives? … … Continue reading
Mobilization: The Key To World Evangelization - thetravelingteam.org
…Estimates are that from the moment someone first gains a World Christian conviction until the time that person finally ends up on the mission field is, on the average, seven years. If ongoing encouragement and practical World Christian discipleship are not incorporated into people’s lives during those seven years, they usually lose their vision and passion for the world. … … Continue reading
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