Missions Strategic Plan

Overall Objective: WHY

The “Kingdom Life” in FBCW and around the world

Our ultimate objective in missions is a person. It is not a cause, strategy or idea. It is a person who is living the abundant, intentional, outward focused life of Christ inside him. He or she is a person who is obedient to our Lord, allows Christ to live through him or her, and is living in his or her “sweet spot” (the intersection of his calling and capacity as a believer, God’s mission and mandate for the church, and the needs of the world). The Kingdom Life is a person who is the “church on mission”, the “church going”, the “global-minded Christian”. The Kingdom Life is a fully developed follower of Jesus who is available to serve God anywhere, any time and in any way. Our objective at home is the same around the world –God’s people living the Kingdom Life. Everywhere we go and everything we do should result in people living the Kingdom Life. People living the Kingdom Life reproduce that life in others through discipleship.

The Kingdom Life (see diagram)

A life lived at the center of three domains:

  • The mandates and desires of God:
  • The realm of God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Commonly known as “the activity of God”, this is His divine purpose in the lives of people. This realm includes His mandates to the Church and His desires among the un-churched, which are revealed in Scriptures.
  • The calling and capacity of the Church:
  • The commands and commission given to the local body of believers as seen in Scriptures. This includes the global Church’s directives and guiding principles, and also the local church’s specific expression of grace among their neighbors and nations. Every believer and every local church has a corporate competency and calling (Ephesians 2:10).
  • The needs and dreams of the world:
  • The cognitive desires of the world outside the Church, as well as the perceived and unperceived needs of the world. The Church acts in response to those needs only within the mandates and mission of God. However, the Church is in the world interacting with those needs constantly. Therefore, the Church must determine God’s activity among those needs and dreams.

A life guided by the intersections of three domains:

  • The intersection of God’s desires and the needs of the world:
  • The place where God is already working and desires the Church to interact with the world’s needs and dreams. Because the Spirit leads us to work where He is working, this area represents our first Core Value – Spirit-filled Strategy (see below). Every believer must be attuned to God’s mandates and desires in the world and respond in obedience. This determines WHERE God wants the church to work in mission.
  • The intersection of God’s desires and the calling of the Church:
  • The work that God has created us to do. When we realize how God has gifted and equipped the Church, and what He desires us to do, we become Kingdom focused and begin to steward the calling and capacity He has given us, realizing to our second Core Value – Kingdom Focused Stewardship (see below). This is the obedience area of the Kingdom Life where God wishes us to engage with the world. As more believers discover who God made them to be, and understand His desires for the world, more people align their lifestyles to His purpose through living a Kingdom Life. Based on God’s desires and the believers/Church’s calling, we can determine WHAT we do in missions.
  • The intersection of the calling of the Church and the needs of the world:
  • The relationships the Church has in the world. As believers allow God to work through them, they interact with people in the world, as well as the sectors of community – government, social, business, education, etc. This results in our third Core Value – Authentic Relationships (see below). The Church must develop relationships with people and communities in the world like Jesus did. Missions runs on the “rails” of relationships, both with other believers and unbelievers. This area determines WITH WHOM we work in missions and WHO we reach.

Characteristics of the Kingdom Life:

  • A person who Worships God, Loves Others, Serves God, and Invites Others
  • God’s love to their neighbors and the nations
  • Urgency to finish the task
  • Full and abundant life
  • Services others
  • Deep abiding prayer life
  • Sacrificially generous
  • Surrender and obedience to God
  • Student of God’s Word
  • Authentic
  • Compassionate
  • Selfless
  • Intentional and expectant
  • Multiplies the Kingdom Life

Core Values:

Spirit-led strategy

  • God always initiates His work
  • God shows his people what He is doing and invites them to join Him
  • Need does not equal God’s will
  • Our response starts by asking, “What is God doing?” and “How is God leading our church?”
  • We do not rely solely on our own understanding, logic, common sense, or strategy
  • The Kingdom Life is a life totally surrendered to the Spirit’s leading in every area

Kingdom focused stewardship

  • God owns everything, we own nothing
  • God gives generously according to His will
  • God’s people are entrusted and accountable to Him
  • The local church must steward the resources God provides
  • The Kingdom Life is a life lived generously for the benefit of others

Authentic relationships

  • Relationships are everything in missions
  • Transparent relationships are the core of spiritual community
  • Spiritual community is the vehicle through which the Spirit works in the world
  • The Kingdom Life is lived in relationship with God, other believers, and the world

Plan:

To reproduce the “Kingdom Life” in the people of FBCW, and among our neighbors and the nations

WHAT we do in missions:

We will do those key ministry activities essential to reproducing people who live the Kingdom Life (listed below). What God wants the church to do is at the intersection of God’s mandates and desires and the Church’s calling and capacity. Historically, the following key field activities have been found necessary to spread the Kingdom Life to others (make disciples of all nations). These activities are the same for ministry among our neighbors and the nations. Consideration in each of these areas should be given to FBCW’s unique abilities and collective potential (the calling and capacity of our Church) to determine in exactly what way our church accomplishes the activities most effectively. There are many activities that our church can do, but these areas make up the activities that we must do in order to accomplish our vision, and therefore must receive priority in funding, promotion, and involvement. The emphasis is on reproduction and sustainability, doing for others what they cannot do for themselves (Kingdom Focused Stewardship core value!). We have defined the following key ministry activities that lead to the Kingdom Life:

  1. Prayer
  2. A comprehensive church wide prayer strategy will be developed by the end of 2011 to include the following:
  3. The Intercessors Prayer Ministry of FBCW
  4. Sunday School class prayer initiatives
  5. Corporate prayer as part of the worship services
  6. The World Impact Center
  7. Each Partnership and each Platform ministry network
  8. Short term project prayer strategies
  9. Evangelism and Scripture distribution
  10. Key Principles:
  11. Contextualized – the first role of a missionary is as a learner. Therefore, evangelistic efforts will seek to present the Gospel in a context consistent with the people we are reaching.
  12. Sustainable – in coordination with the local church for follow up purposes. We do not seek to accomplish more than the local church can handle, leaving them with a impossible situation and sabotaging our efforts to make disciples.
  13. Good stewardship – we will seek to accomplish evangelistic ministries in the most effective way using the resources God has provided. We will not do evangelism for a partner when they can do it better and more effectively. We may train partners in evangelism as long as it meets the above principles.
  14. Scripture distribution will be accomplished through significant partners whose primary ministry is to get the Word of God into areas where it is scarce.
  15. Teaching, training and equipping
  16. Key Principles:
  17. Field driven - training and equipping conference will be conducted at the request of the field partner and according to partnership and project criteria. This is to ensure good stewardship of our resources and that the need is real among the partners.
  18. Quality - we will only send qualified trainers and equippers to conduct the training. We will resist the urge to fill up a team with people and then decide what topics to teach.
  19. Consistency – the church will seek to send return teams of trainers to partnership areas where we are training in order to establish trust, measure outcomes of the training, and build strong relationships between teacher and student.
  20. Humility – we have as much to learn as we have to teach. Every teacher will study the local culture to understand more clearly who they are teaching, and ask questions related to the training. We must understand that we almost always underestimate the cultural differences and overestimate the results when training cross-culturally.
  21. Mercy Ministry
  22. Mercy ministry is a reaction to an urgent need. It is ministry done alongside a partner to address specific, timely issues at hand. The ultimate goal is transformation, but the understanding in mercy ministry is to help someone’s immediate need.
  23. Examples of mercy ministries include feeding programs, clothing drops, water projects, medical clinics, shoe box ministry, emergency care, disaster relief, etc.
  24. Key Principles:
  25. Mercy helps for a day. Equipping helps for a lifetime. Evangelism helps forever. Therefore, mercy ministries are to be accompanied by evangelistic efforts. Mercy (good works) produce good will, which allows us to share the Good News.
  26. Mercy ministries must be held to the criteria for Projects.
  27. Wisdom – all mercy ministries will be the result of careful prayer and abundant counsel from the Mission Stewardship Team, Staff, and partners.
  28. Mercy ministry needs will not circumvent the field strategy established by our partnership leaders.
  29. Multiplication Ministry
  30. Multiplication ministries are those that help reproduce the Kingdom Life among believers outside FBCW among our neighbors and nations.
  31. Multiplication ministry includes mentoring other believers and churches, birthing new ministries, coaching churches in missions strategies, and multiplying church planting efforts.
  32. Multiplication ministry is subject to partnership criteria.
  33. Key Principles:
  34. Kingdom focus – the desired outcome for the multiplication process is to reproduce Kingdom Lives.
  35. Long-term – the nature of multiplication is long-term relational engagement.
  36. Church planting efforts will fall within the FBCW Church Planting Ministry guidelines and processes using the “Count the Cost” approach.
  37. We will seek to develop a “Count the Cost” process for new ministries by the end of 2011.

HOW we do the work of missions:

We will accomplish our key ministry activities through three structures (listed below). Our staff will be structured around this basic format to serve the leaders of these ministries. Eventually, FBCW members will understand how we do our corporate mission work in the same way they eventually came to understand the concept of the SMP. Each of these structures will be managed according to a set of criteria to help us establish quality in the work. We also have a process for developing the strategy for each (each specific partner, platform and project will have a strategy). Our first priority will always be prayerful guidance of the Holy Spirit through His Scriptures (Spirit-led Strategy core value!). The three structures are:

  1. Partnerships
  2. A Strategic Missions Partnership (SMP) occurs when a group in the church has so bonded with a specific mission field and the personnel on the field that they makelong-term commitment to become a vital and strategic partner with that field.
  3. Key Principles:
  4. Commitment – “ownership” of the ministry on the field by FBCW members.
  5. Strategy – a clear set of goals is determined by the field partner and FBCW leadership.
  6. Synergy – all partners are involved in long-range planning and each partner has a specific role to play, which can best be performed by that partner. The sum of the combined efforts is greater than that of the individual contributions.
  7. Criteria for Partnership based on Core Values:
  8. Spirit-led Strategy
  9. Two or more FBCW church members express and exhibit a Scriptural calling from the Lord to the work with the partner.
  10. The Partner exhibits a clear, Biblical calling to the ministry.
  11. Affirmation and peace as a corporate body given by the Holy Spirit to FBCW Missions leadership (Staff and Missions Stewardship Team).
  12. Authentic Relationships
  13. The Partners have a long-term (more than 2 year), reciprocal relationship of spiritual fellowship with FBCW church members.
  14. There is trained FBCW leadership for the partnership and a core group of interested volunteers.
  15. The Partner expresses the desire for FBCW to share in the work of their ministry, and there is evident ministry compatibility among the partners.
  16. There is collaboration in the partnership – both parties express the need for one another, both can define benefits for all parties, and there are clearly defined roles for all partners involved.
  17. The partnership does not create unhealthy dependency (doing for them what they can/should do for themselves) among any of the parties, or the people the partnership is trying to reach.
  18. Kingdom-focused Stewardship
  19. The Partner and FBCW share common vision, values, and major doctrinal beliefs.
  20. The Partner has exhibited evidence of God’s work through tangible “fruit” that is measured by responsible, specific ministry goals.
  21. There are established, transparent lines of accountability for the ministry in the areas of finances, ministry, governance, and volunteer management.
  22. The Partner’s ministry is sustainable – the Partner is not a “lone ranger”, long-term success is not dependent on outside funding, and the Partner has the capacity to manage the partnership.
  23. The Partner’s ministry is scalable – ministry can be scaled to the amount of funding provided, projects are not capital-intensive, and FBCW is not the only funding source.
  24. The partnership plan includes specific goals with milestones, timeline, and exit strategy.
  25. Characteristics of a Partnership:
  26. Involvement in Spirit-led ministry that is reproducible, sustainable, measurable, and accountable.
  27. The church home group (often called a SMP core group) assumes the responsibility of maintaining the relationship and the associated ministry. Church staff involvement, while crucial during the formative stages of the partnership, gradually takes on a facilitative role as the core group assumes full ownership.
  28. Deep friendship and fellowship between partners is a characteristic of all SMP's.
  29. Frequent opportunities for communications and interaction. Group meetings and planning sessions are natural by-products of the fellowship.
  30. Informed and timely intercession between the partners on the field and at home.
  31. Short-term mission projects and home projects designed to meet long-term, strategic needs on the field.
  32. Financial giving as a natural outcome of relationships. Giving also tends to be strategic as the home groups come to understand and engage in the vital aspects of the field enterprise.
  33. Partnership Development Process
  34. Partnership begins with relationships, which are initiated in hundreds of different ways. There is no “formula” for developing a relationship, but there must be one with a FBCW member to begin a partnership.
  35. The FBCW member who has the relationship meets with a Mission Strategist to determine the compatibility of the potential partner using FBCW’s Partnership Criteria.
  36. If it is a potential partnership, the Project Development Process is followed for the initial mission project (see Projects section).
  37. The initial short-term vision project to the field usually results in a mutual bonding of all personnel. A desire to continue to work together in a more significant way develops. Should the project show signs of partnership potential, the Missions Strategist enlists the Partnership leader in training.
  38. The Mission Strategist and Partnership leader develop the SMP Strategy. Partnerships will form when the combined efforts of all the partners are motivated by a single-minded desire to cooperate to accomplish the primary field objective. For the church, the focus changes from performing projects as a resource to completing the primary task of reaching the target people.
  39. The SMP Strategy is affirmed by the Missions Stewardship Team, which helps set priorities in terms of funding and development.
  40. The SMP leader develops the core group for the partnership.
  41. The Mission Strategist, Mobilization Director, and SMP leader meet to discuss mobilization for the partnership.
  42. (Most potential partnerships have difficulty in transitioning from a "project mentality" to the SMP mindset.