Innovations in Mobilization Collaboration

Mark Stebbins

Uber, iPhones, Airbnb, Netflix, and Amazon. The list goes on. Disruptive innovations are taking over traditional North American industries. The missions realm also needs consistent creative effective new ways for how we activate, recruit, and onboard new workers. The environment is ripe for unprecedented breakthroughs in mobilization collaborations in the North American missions’ enterprise.

This article will explore what is already trending in new mobilization collaborations, peek into what the future holds for creative new designs in mobilization collaboration, and offer practical ideas to help us get there. As we look to the Lord, our Chief Innovation Officer, his timeless promise is, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” Isaiah 43:19).

Recent Research

The twenty-second edition of the North American Mission Handbook, released by Missio Nexus in late 2017, screams at us with data calling for a new day in mobilization collaboration. Results from a 2016 Mission Agency CEO survey asking for areas of needed agency innovation over the next three to five years, are captured in a chart. A desire for mobilization innovation is ranked fourth highest, reflecting a priority for thirty-seven percent of respondents.1

The following editorial corresponds to the innovation findings, “A world of rapid change requires the ability of organizations to think innovatively when it comes to operations that have existed in a similar fashion for many decades. Time are resources spent on innovation, research, and testing ideas is rarely a wasted endeavor.”2

In another chart from the Mission Handbook, the complexity for North American mobilization is cast by the sheer numbers of diverse organizations involved in the North American missions’ domain. 922 separate organizations represent denominational, non-denominational, and inter-denominational bodies. 778 are from the U.S., and 144 in Canada.3 Surely more profound and beneficial collaborations among these bodies must be explored and attempted. Those who fail to collaborate and innovate will most likely become marginalized and increasingly irrelevant.

Add to this complex landscape the reality that fewer long-term mission candidates from North America are headed to serve internationally, and that those who go are taking longer to get there and with more interruptions in their service. The Mission Handbook points at new trends in non-resident missions, part-time missions, and non-North Americans serving with North American missions’ organizations. It is incumbent upon us observers, participants, and leaders to not only perceive the new things God is doing or wanting to do in missions’ mobilization, but to also see that the old things have already shifted!

Game changing innovation does not happen in a vacuum. One of the axioms from the innovation consulting firm, IDEO, speaks to the need for collaboration by a team of designers, “Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius.” Their motto is “Fail faster to succeed sooner.”4 The stakes at risk for North American missions’ mobilization are too high for us to remain cloistered in our silos.

Many mobilization practitioners articulate declines in North American mission candidate traffic, and even in mission vision and interest. Table 4.2 in the North American Missions Handbook shows a 7.5% decrease in North American long-term worker numbers serving between 2008 and 2016.5 Is it an inevitable erosion for the North American missions’ movement, relegating mobilizers to a role of bailing water on the Titanic? Or is this moment an opportunity for more adventurous, even risky, collaborations in mission mobilization leading to profound new growth? I would assert and choose the latter based, if for no other reason, upon the stated heart of God that none should perish, but all come to be saved.6

A timely reminder for navigating such turbulence is Peter’s walk on the water, interrupted by wind and waves. Since the Lord has unchangeably bid us come to him and to go for him, our first and greatest need is a laser focus on him as we walk through uncertainties. His clear commission to go and keep on going both stabilizes our footing and takes us beyond the shifting elements of current trends.

Collaboration in Mobilization

How then should we go? Perhaps in God’s sovereignty a new day in mobilization collaborations will take us there. We may be in for a season of wobbling and repositioning at first, but based on the expressed promises and purposes of God, there is still much global work for North Americans to contribute! Our mindset should be one of just getting started.

Mission mobilizers, whether volunteers or professionals, need a growing understanding of candidate culture to be effective. North American goers, especially millennials, are presenting themselves as wanting to be inspired by compelling causes that offer a platform for tangible, high-impact contributions. They expect a high level of professional competency by mission organizations, offering clear pathways that include a developmental bias. They want to be a part of an authentically collaborative community, with low emphasis on hierarchy and traditions as motivation for action. They hope to be joined to organizational cultures that are relevant and growing (i.e., innovative).

Organizations without the distinctive qualities just listed may predictably be experiencing low candidate enthusiasm and numbers. But can organizations add these characteristics on their own? Or is it even possible for one organization to add all of them? I think not. Rather than aiming for omni-competence, would it not be more attainable to reach for a shared competency?

Mission mobilization can be accurately compared to an iceberg, with an often small, publicly visible section that is complemented by a much larger, invisible foundation. God uses a plethora of resources to get the attention and bring about the preparation of his workers, building into their lives over time. And mobilizers are often links in a long chain that includes peers, family members, mission trip veterans, pastors, or even those calling out with needs to “Come help us!”

Mobilization Accelerants

Those who consistently mobilize articulate a common set of accelerants that help them in their efforts. First, connections and networking with others who mobilize is of great benefit. The opportunity to “talk shop” with other practitioners is of immense value and encouragement to them.

Second, the discovery of helpful content is a great boost to their efforts. The testimony of other mobilizers about helpful books, web resources, events, partners, etc., provide invaluable tools to enhance mobilization efforts.

Third, collaborations enable mobilizers to not have to re-invent the wheel in their working with others toward global engagement. Finding real assistance in inspiring, coaching, counseling, equipping, tracking, funding, logistically assisting, and leading others makes mobilizing a joy and much more cost-effective in time and money. Such ad hoc or sustained teaming is of immeasurable encouragement and help.

Mobilization Innovation

Lest we yield to melancholy about current realities and needed changes, there are emerging trends in collaborative innovation within the North American mission mobilization community. Progress is moving forward. New initiatives are not in decline nor at a standstill. Significant momentum is building.

Innovation in connected networking among mobilizers has been catalyzed by increasing forums for learning and engaging. Missio Nexus has been at the fore in their offerings of relevant events, webinars, publications, and online cohorts. Regional and city mobilization affinity groups are on the uptick. Local and remote prayer groups for mobilization are being birthed. An increase in professional friendships, mentorships, and consultations among mobilizers has resulted from the relevance and consistency of these multiplying networks under the umbrella of mobilization.

As connections increase for mobilization, content is being more readily shared. Mobilization Facebook pages, Mobilization Ideation events, mobilization conferences, and mobilization resources are circulating to a growing number of mobilization participants. Books related specifically to mobilization have come to market, such as Well Sent by Steve Beirn, Mission in Motion by Matenga and Gould, and Pipeline: Engaging the Church in Missionary Mobilization, David Wilson, Editor.

Websites that focus on mobilization and mobilization resources include www.frontierventures.org, www.equip2go.org, www.1615.org, www.mobilization.org, www.joshuaproject.org and www.missionscatalyst.net. The strengthening of mobilization networking and content sharing are creating new opportunities for innovative collaboration in mobilization. Specialty agencies are helping more organizations succeed in their mobilization efforts such as MissionNext, Café 1040, and Frontier Ventures.

One startling and very encouraging innovation in mobilization collaboration is taking place at the Toronto Missions Hub in Canada. A number of mission agencies have partnered with Knox Presbyterian Church in downtown Toronto to set up a missions’ space called “The Missions Hub,” literally across the street from the 58,000 students at the University of Toronto St. George.

Activities at the space include a missions’ week, mobilizer’s day of prayer, mobilizer’s roundtable discussion, Urbana follow-up events, missions’ speakers, social media training, a mission’s job fair, and missions’ discussion panels. Increasingly, students gather at the space to pray, talk, study, and have fun.

Five agencies (Avant, SIM, TEAM, Wycliffe, and OMF) decided to collaborate more deeply so together with Knox Church hired a full time, shared missions’ mobilizer. The mobilizer is based at the Missions Hub, and spends 60% of her time with students on campus, 30% coordinating events at the Hub, and 10% raising Missions Hub awareness.

More and more agencies are co-hosting training events, mission orientations, immersion experiences, and recruiting events as the benefits visible from collaborations are growing. In a collaboration experiment, TEAM, SEND, and SAM have tried mobilization personnel sharing. In this arrangement mobilizers from some are being supervised by others. Similar new inter-agency configurations may breathe fresh life and fruitfulness into missions’ recruiting.

In my own experience, I was involved in the merger of Mission Moving Mountains with The Navigators a decade ago. The profound competencies of MMM joined with the unique capacities of The Navigators to bring about a wonderfully blessed new configuration. None of these experiments with innovation in mobilization collaboration is without stress and challenges, but they are well worth the strategic outcomes.

After serving as a leader in the mobilization arena the past twenty-one years, I dream of more courageous efforts to build effective innovations in mobilization collaboration. I wonder if we may one day have a shared North American training center or network of centers for mobilization with a strong biblical and practical curriculum. Perhaps degree-granting programs could be crafted. I see foundations being strengthened for a North American network of mobilization focused organizations, serving as hubs or “nodes” in a network giving momentum to a mobilization movement. Might there be a time when a trans-national mobilization network would agree upon common goals and form a united campaign to send a new 100,000 North Americans, for example, to unreached, unengaged peoples? I hope so!

I see a North American mobilization future that has robust data sharing among mobilization bodies. Repositories of mission job openings and mission candidate pools would be of immense strategic value. Cross-agency trainings in various areas of expertise would be a wonderful addition to the mission mobilization landscape. The possibilities are exponential for equipping broadly from the remarkable skill sets of various agencies such as church-planting, evangelism, community development, discipleship, working with the poor, business as mission, education, Bible translation, orphan outreach, etc. The list would be nearly inexhaustible.

Already upon us, opportunities for innovative mobilization collaboration are begging for more attention as we seek to relevantly mobilize ethnic communities and diaspora peoples. Much greater collaboration is needed to assist in mobilizing churches, denominations, secular campus ministries, military personnel, young professionals, and seniors. New opportunities for new approaches are in exceeding abundance. Who will step up to collaborate for the innovation of new goer platforms?

Looking to the Future

So where do we go from here? Innovation and collaboration, like mobilization, do not just suddenly appear. Solid, strategic innovations in mobilization collaboration will have to be built over time. It will be a process. The on-ramp for this process begins with each of us taking initiative to get into the mix. We need to right now explore and join existing networks, make an effort to connect, and be part of the mainstream of what’s happening in missions’ mobilization.

Once engaged, we need to dialogue with others in two directions. First, find out what our peers in the mobilization domain are identifying and prioritizing that needs collaborative innovation. Turn relational connection points into focused talking points. Next, we need to go to our own churches, organizations, and potential sending fellowships with these new ideas to find possible integration points. We must keep squeaking, asserting ourselves into these conversations. And we will need a strong sense of humble teach-ability as we move ahead.

We will also need to assess our risk tolerance. Will we need new God-confidence that he desires to do this new thing? How can we boost our faith, our budgets, our manpower to design and test collaborative innovations? How can we keep the direction arrows pointing outward to potential partners and beyond to the ends of the earth? Inertia, tradition, and spiritual opposition will work against us, tempting us to settle for working inwardly, and to remain in our silos.

To realistically and practically bring about innovations in mobilization collaboration we will have to stay the course, maintaining steady and wholehearted commitment to it. Leaders will need to buy-in and give their permissions, endorsements, counsel, feedback, and ongoing access to resources.

Possibly the most critical success factor for effective innovation teamwork is in finding strategic partners for collaboration that share our vision for strategic outcomes. Time and resources are wasted if collaborations are agreed upon without due diligence to establish a vision for shared outcomes.

We will need to carefully agree on desired outcomes that are clearly defined in as much detail as possible. Getting the right people into these conversations, especially those affected by any agreements, is crucial. Sustaining communications until all parties are satisfied that God is clearly leading, and then documenting any agreements is vital in following the way of wisdom.

Finally, utilizing beta tests and well-evaluated trial run periods adds great probability for success. To turbo charge our efforts, especially for jump-starting collaborations, www.visionsynergy.net and www.linkingglobalvoices.com are outstanding sites for stimulating ideas and real help.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of glory to God among the nations can be achieved by collaboratively applying new forms to the biblical functions of missions’ mobilization. A summary for this effort is captured well in Isaiah 62:10, “Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.” Mobilizers, let’s getmoving! 

Mark Stebbins has been on staff with Navigators for forty years, including ten years in Ghana. He served twelve years as Director for Short-term Missions and Director for International Mobilization and Recruitment for the U.S. Navigators. He currently serves as Missions Director for the U.S. Collegiate Navigators. He is also a Mission Advisor with Missio Nexus for Mobilization.

Notes

1. North American Mission Handbook, 22nd Edition, Peggy E. Newell, Editor, (William Carey Library, 2017): 27.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 43.

4. ABC Nightline; “The Deep Dive” 07/13/99, N990713-01, ABC Productions.

5. North American Mission Handbook, 22nd Edition, Peggy E. Newell, Editor, (William Carey Library, 2017): 55.

6. 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4.