How to Make Sure the Home and Away Teams Don’t Blow the Game

by Greg Fritz

An influential group at Community Church was excited. They effectively mobilized their church to pray for the cities of the 10/40 Window, and were now emboldened for a bigger challenge.

An influential group at Community Church was excited. They effectively mobilized their church to pray for the cities of the 10/40 Window, and were now emboldened for a bigger challenge.

They thought God had led them to adopt the Cyernaican Arabs of Libya. They committed themselves to “pray, give and go” until there was a viable church for this unreached people group.

During the summer of 1996 they sent a team to Libya to pray through the streets of Tripoli. Unfortunately, a stubborn Libyan Arab Airlines agent in London would not let them on the plane.

Two team members found an Arab neighborhood in London and spent two weeks prayer-walking there. The other five team members toured Great Britain as they awaited their return flight to the States.

When the Smiths, tentmakers in Tripoli, heard about this group from Community Church, they were terrified. What if they had made their way into Tripoli? What if they bumped into the Smiths or found out about their work in some other way? What if some of the group ended up in a Libyan prison? The Smiths breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that the prayer journey team did not make it into Libya.

In September, the Community Church voted to adopt the Cyernaican Arabs. They established a “home team” to learn all they could about ministry relating to the Cyernaican Arabs. As they learned about these ministries they began supporting them financially. An immediate windfall came to one of the major Christian broadcasters, which received $20,000 to increase its Arab language broadcast into the Cyernaican Arab region.

During their investigation, a home team researcher uncovered information about the Smiths, missionaries who lived near a large Cyernaican Arab community. She immediately began to try to establish contact with them. Unfortunately, her letter included much sensitive information and was intercepted by the Libyan authorities. Mr. Smith was interrogated extensively at the local police headquarters.

When news reached the Community Church leaders that their initiative had caused so much difficulty for one of the few Christian witnesses in Libya, they became depressed. Currently, all momentum is lost and all the members of Community Church are trying to get back to ministry as usual. They have experienced some growth in membership and are considering a building program.

INTEREST IN UNREACHED PEOPLE
In recent months there has been a swell of interest in specific unreached people groups. The names of specific unreached peoples are becoming known to those who have previously had no contact with missions. A number of churches are looking at ways to focus new ministry funding and efforts solely on those peoples. Truly, we are entering an era when the church is uniting to see the Great Commission fulfilled.

New partnerships continue to develop as Christians workers in each country, area, or city gather for prayer and to share information. Some of these partnerships are based on ethnolinguistic people groups. At the same time, people on the “resource” side see the need for their own networks and partnerships. Sending churches, intercessors, and other supporters are working together. The information flowing through these networks brings synergy, excitement, and an increase in prayer and giving. It also brings very real security risks, and a host of other communication problems.

One of the key issues is contact between the two types of partnerships: the field partnerships and the networks of advocates, mobilizers, and senders back home. A number of strategists, including Ralph Winter, Patrick Johnstone, and Luis Bush are coming together to call for people to serve as a friendly link between field partnerships and sending networks. We could call these people gatekeepers, key contacts, or network linkers. As the concept develops we hope to clearly define these terms.

WHAT DOES A NETWORK LINKER DO?
Network linkers are teams, or individuals, who understand well the ministry situation for a specific people group or cluster ofgroups and are available to help inform, educate, and direct those who are expressing interest in ministry with this group.

Ideally, the linker has a broad base of experience to draw from. He or she should be familiar with the security issues of the area: what is appropriate to share, and when, and what the risks are.

WHO BENEFITS?
1. Missions strategists who desire to see missions resources most effectively deployed that churches will be planted among all unreached people groups.

2. Missions mobilizers who desire to see more resources released and invested in strategic outreach.

3. Mission agency executives who desire more resources to continue their current church-planting activities and enter new fields.

4. Missionaries who need specific physical and human resources that will help them accomplish their narrowly focused task.

5. The Western church, which is looking for a new spark to overcome and/or reverse the negative trends in missionary involvement.

6. The non-Western church, which is beginning to make a significant impact on the global missions movement.

The network linker should also be familiar with the indigenous church, its size, growth, the opposition it faces, and its strengths and weaknesses. If books of the Bible, videos, recordings, radio broadcasts, or literature in the indigenous language are available, the linker should know. He or she should have some understanding of where Christian workers are working, in what capacity, with what goals, and how they can be contacted.

Linkers can channel appropriate and up-to-date information and prayer requests to the support community, including key opportunities for donations, or for new short- and long-term workers. One of the linker’s goals is to connect new ministries as smoothly as possible. Starting off right will lay a good foundation for partnership and cooperation in the future, especially with appropriate initial supervision and trust.

Network linkers build bridges for:

• Appropriate cultural information.
• Sensitive ministry information.
• Introductions and trust.
• Big picture/partnership thinking.
• Prayer requests and opportunities.

For those working in restricted-access areas, the linker must truly be a gatekeeper, controlling important and dangerous information. But in most cases, the linker is there to open doors, not close them. If we are going to finish the Great Commission, we can not afford exclusive people-group clubs.

We must reach out to help other agencies, churches, denominations, nationalities, even those with a slightly different point of view, into ministry.

CLUSTER-BASED PARTNERSHIPS
Luis Bush, Ralph Winter, Phill Butler, myself, and others are part of a task force planning an April consultation to struggle with the network linking concept. The strategy we are exploring is based on partnerships at the “cluster” level. With the Joshua Project 2000 list published by AD2000 and Beyond as a basis, Patrick Johnstone and other researchers created a list of 140 clusters of people groups. Each Gateway People Cluster (GPC) represents a group of related or similar people groups, often speaking similar languages and sharing elements of lifestyle and culture.

For example, the Uzbek cluster includes the Northern Uzbeks of Uzbekistan, the Uzbeks of Kazak-stan, and the Southern Uzbeks of Afghanistan, as well as the Karakal-pak and Bashkir peoples of several countries. While ministry efforts among some of these groups are well-developed or well-known, many of the people groups within a cluster may have little or no mission effort focused on them. The cluster strategy can bring this to light so that resources can be located and allocated to reach the entire cluster. These clusters form a strategic base for the growth of both field-based partnerships and sending networks.

For cluster-based partnerships to succeed:

• Clusters and their key contacts must be clearly defined and identified.

• Each key contact or team must be accessible by resource-basedand field-based interested parties, be well informed about issues surrounding the cluster, and personally know the key field-based and or resource-based participants.

• Each key contact must be adequately trained to effectively perform the role.

• Each contact must build a network of trust-based relationships and safe means of communication.

At the same time, we face some significant challenges in developing this strategy. Security issues are not the only challenge. Differences in cultures, ministry goals, and leadership style also require just as much insight, experience, and discretion. The church’s communication problems are rooted in differences that won’t go away easily; differences, that, in fact, are part of God’s beautiful design for his kingdom. We need to keep a humble attitude in this whole process, and be careful not to build a structure of Western academics and missiologists that neglects the ability, position, and calling of other members of the international church.

How do we find the people God has prepared to play these linking roles, especially internationally? Then, how do we make them accessible to both the field-based and resource-based participants? I welcome your help in answering these questions.

While the need for field partnerships, resource networks, and links between the two is clear, the concept is far from complete, even philosophically. Putting these ideas into practice will take time, wisdom, and flexibility.

Caleb Project, 10 W. Dry Creek Circle, Littleton, Colo. 80120. E-mail: gfritz@cproject.com. Web page: www.goshen.net/calebproject

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Greg Fritz is president of Caleb Project, a Colorado-based ministry that mobilizes North American Christians for involvement in frontier missions. This article also includes material from John Hanna, Caleb Project's director of people-specific advocacy. Greg and John are both serving on a task force for the Gateway People Clusters Consultation.

Copyright © 1997 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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