Does your church have a mobilization strategy?

The goal of your church mobilization strategy should be to build vision within the church for world evangelism by better understanding God’s plan for the nations and His heart to see every tongue and tribe before His eternal throne. Your church vision should then lead the church to train and strategically send teams onto the mission field. Those teams are supported, cared for and prayed over by a fully engaged sending church. Some essential steps to an effective church mobilization strategy should include: Teach, Lead, Send and Engage.

Teach

For the vision to be caught, it must be taught, modeled, and integrated into the church’s overall ministry. This is usually done in one of two ways, but is most effective when both are utilized.

• Intensive – a periodic mission experience: Short term mission trips, a mission conference, a youth camp, or VBS week with a mission focus.
• Extensive – missions is present throughout church ministry: in the prayers, in the preaching, in the worship, and around the church campus.

Both are necessary. People who grow up in a missional church may understand missions, but it may take an intensive experience to move them to a life commitment. People who make a life commitment as the result of an intensive experience often need the extensive reinforcement to insure it is not short-lived.

Lead

Create strategic opportunities for the church to connect with missions. Begin praying for unreached people groups. Connect with missionaries on the field. Financially support and encourage them as you are able. Go on short-term mission trips. Develop teams: prayer, fundraising, pastoral care, short-term trips, etc. Whenever possible use some of the overseas strategies in your local evangelism to help break the disconnect between missions and local evangelism.

Send

Intentionally and strategically place long-term teams on the ground. Keep the congregation linked through regular updates from the field and short-term team visits. Continue to develop, train and send new teams.

Engage

For the mobilization strategy to be effective, the overseas workers must be fully engaged and partnered with the indigenous church. The sending church must also be fully engaged with the overseas worker. A good mission agency can be very helpful in building and maintaining those healthy partnerships without removing the role of the sending church.
Some Ideas for getting the mobilization started:

• Set goals, both immediate and long term
• Create and train a mission team
• Create an ongoing weekly/monthly mission event to raise awareness.
• Work locally in a cross cultural setting
• Engage in short term trips both near and far
• Seek out full time workers