Chapter 7
Building for the Future

An essential element in effective mobilization is to have a “big picture” perspective. Too often we tend to focus only on the immediate demands of our local task rather than seeing it as a part of a large global task. Our traditional thinking tends to be limited only to the resources we have at hand and what can be provided by the International Mission Board rather than envisioning the scope of God’s kingdom resources. However, those resources have to be accessed and nurtured.

We also tend to be caught up in what we alone can do, and we resent anything that diverts us from our primary task rather than recognizing the value of investing in what others can contribute to our objectives both now and in the future. Making arrangements for volunteers, students and young people may be a hassle. Time spent coordinating their time on the field may seem to be lost to valuable ministry, but the result could be dozens of future missionaries, many of them with a heart for the very place and people among whom they have been enabled to serve.

Carving out journeyman and ISC assignments may actually relieve missionaries of many diversionary responsibilities and multiply the impact on the lost through an enlarged Christian witness. Creating personalized alliances with churches could generate prayer teams and a flow of financial support that field personnel will never know about but, along with other such churches, may be what actually provides the breakthrough and spiritual victories in the future.

Students and Youth
One of the greatest investments in the future is mobilization of students and young people. Four years ago 275 student summer missionaries was the highest number to serve with the IMB. In 1999 that number had reached and exceeded 1,700. The number of journeymen went from the record number of 200 two years ago to 405 last year. These are the personnel who will be the future missionaries to reach the world. It would be short-sighted to deprive them of opportunities to be exposed to a lost world and come alongside us in experiencing cross-cultural ministry and witness.

Due to population growth around the world, 40 percent to 50 percent of the people in many Third-World countries are below 18 or 20 years of age. These are the future leaders of their countries. They are open to Western influence and want to learn and practice English. What better way to reach them than with a blitz of mission-minded American young people who have an opportunity to interface with their peers overseas?

At the end of 1999, over 45,000 Southern Baptist high schoolers filled seven stadiums and coliseums around the country for YouthLink 2000. One of the main purposes of this event was to challenge these young people to missions involvement in the 21st century. Nine thousand made commitments to future missionary service! It is anticipated that 5,000 to 20,000 of them will be interested in short-term mission experiences in the following couple of years.

The International Mission Board has reconfigured and increased staff in student and youth mobilization to service the growing requests and inquiries. If we don’t provide opportunities for them, they will turn to the scores of independent para-church organizations that are already being formed to channel this interest on the part of the “millennium generation.” We aren’t in competition with other Great Commission Christians, but it would be tragic if we missed the chance to mobilize these resources for the impact they could make now and also lose them to their future potential.

Great Commission Partners
Completing the Great Commission in the new millennium means not only mobilizing Southern Baptists but the larger community of Great Commission Christians. A significant part of the “New Directions” paradigm is creating alliances and partnerships that enable us to more rapidly roll back the curtain of lostness. This has been modeled by strategy teams, limited in personnel and resources, who have become advocates for their people groups. Rather than attempting to duplicate what others can contribute to the evangelization effort, they have mobilized far-ranging agencies and organizations, each of which brings its own additional resources to the task.

Wycliffe may launch a Scripture-translation team. Campus Crusade provides the JESUS film and effectively targets university students while TransWorld Radio beams broadcasts into the region. Pioneers and Youth With a Mission may send in short-term teams while others enlist tentmakers and engage in development projects. Literally hundreds of organizations and agencies have become a part of some coordinated partnerships that have vastly accelerated getting the gospel to a target population group.

When we cease to be concerned about who is in CONTROL and who gets CREDIT, we will be amazed at what God can do!

As the church-planting stage develops, we give emphasis to nurturing Baptist churches while other evangelical traditions may emerge parallel to ours. But the kingdom is extended more rapidly, and God gets the glory. When we cease to be concerned about who is in control and who gets credit, we will be amazed at what God can do.

Because of the size and scope of Southern Baptist international missions, we are finding ourselves in a leadership role we did not seek. Few other organizations have been able to maintain as strong a focus on the main thing of evangelism and church planting. No other agency has such extensive deployment of personnel in strategic assignments all over the world.

Throughout 1999 and possibly into the future, the IMB is sponsoring a series of “AWE Conferences”—Accelerating World Evangelization. In follow-up to the AD2000 and Beyond Movement, which was so effective in creating awareness and adoption of unreached people groups, we are trying to provide a forum to stimulate actual engagement of unreached people groups that will result in church-planting movements. In a series of small, focused conferences, we are gathering affinity groups of similar mission agencies to challenge and coordinate involvement in the task.

Similar conferences are being planned with partners from Baptist unions and conventions around the world to garner their insights and clarify an understanding of the new directions of IMB strategies. As we facilitate their involvement and mutual ownership of the vision to reach all the peoples of the world, global evangelization will be advanced.

We must look beyond ourselves and even beyond the extensive but limited resources of Southern Baptists. We must see beyond the present and not sacrifice fulfillment of the task on the altar of the urgent and the immediate. From a vision of the completed task, we must see our role in a “big-picture” perspective and press forward to the goal of bringing all the peoples of the world to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

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