Rites of Passage: Building a Mobilization Team in Your Church

David J. Wilson

Rites of Passage is a foreign concept to most evangelical churches, literally and figuratively. Somewhere along the way, the local church has lost this important value. Rites of passage are still common among institutions like fraternities and sororities, military and civic organizations. A few church traditions have kept this concept of development for their youth and new converts. The Catholic Church has baptism, catechism, and first Communion. The Jewish bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah still help young people move along the pathways of their faith. The Mormons (LDS) have elderships, Melchizedek priesthood, and the ever-present two-year mission after high school.

It seems like evangelicals have eliminated this concept, by not only separating from these faith traditions theologically, but also avoiding elements of their practice. We can disagree with their message, but maybe we can still learn from their methods. Perhaps these practices are what churches need in order to rediscover the Great Commission and mobilize missionaries.

As we develop this framework for mobilization in the local church, keep in mind that these are principles and not a program. Any church, of any size, can take these principles and apply them to their own context. All that is required is a commitment to the Great Commission and a desire to obey those final instructions given to the church by our Lord and Savior.

The Lord’s Mobilization Strategy—We Pray and He Sends

The first priority to becoming a Sending Church and developing these mobilization rites of passage is to pray. In Matthew 9:38 and Luke 10:2, Jesus compels us with an imperative verb, to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” It is important for us to understand our different roles as we endeavor to build this missionary pipeline. According to Jesus, our role as believers is simply to pray. The Lord’s role is to send the laborers.

When we approach mobilization with this fundamental understanding, all the stress of evangelism, discipleship, recruitment, mentoring, and candidate preparation just melts away because we begin to realize that the results are in the Lord’s hands, not ours. Our job is to be faithful, and He will make us fruitful.

So, what if we pray and He sends, but now we have no idea what to do with all the people who are hearing his voice calling them to the nations? Hopefully, this article can help you begin the process of discovery and answer that question. We will be laying the fundamental groundwork for establishing an intentional and proactive ministry of church-based missionary mobilization.

Designing a Church-based Mobilization Team

In the beginning, the local church leadership should develop a ministry team with the specific purpose of mobilizing the next generation of missionaries. When the team is developed and fully functioning, they can establish rites of passage for their congregation that will serve as spiritual markers in the lives of disciples, future pastors, and missionaries. As in all areas of church life, if something is important we usually organize a committed group of people to get the job done. For example: children’s ministry. Most churches have a group of people who are formally organized to recruit teachers, purchase curriculum, and make sure the budget and calendar needs for the children’s ministry is being met. So, ask yourself, “Is the Great Commission as important as children’s ministry in your church?” If so, let’s get organized.

Recruiting the Team

After prayer and seeking the Lord’s direction, the priority should be recruiting people who are devoted to the task. The selection of team members is especially important when you consider the lives of those whom they will be nurturing to live a life of sacrifice in service to the Lord. Some on the team need to understand what it’s like to live cross-culturally. Others need to have a serious mind for studying and recommending resources to help people mature. The team also needs people with organizational skills to coordinate events as well as keep them on task.

P.O.E.M. (Philosophy of Effective Ministry)

Once the team is assembled, they can begin developing policies, practices, and priorities in the form of a P.O.E.M. Here is a sample that was put together by a local church:

The purpose of the Mobilization Team is to prepare missionaries with the skills, knowledge, and character1 required for effective cross-cultural service, so that we can affirm the Holy Spirit’s calling on their lives, and fulfill our responsibility as their “Sender” when we match them with a compatible global partner agency.

When evaluating missionary candidates, there are three desired outcomes in the quality of the person that will be sent:

1. Spiritually Mature—Able to sustain and nourish a close relationship with the Lord
2. Relationally Healthy—Development of skills in conflict resolution and maintaining appropriate interpersonal relationships
3. Culturally Adaptable—Experience with building bridges in another culture to become more incarnational as a servant of the Lord

This well-conceived P.O.E.M. is a good starting place for your newly formed mobilization team to begin meaningful discussions. Take your time and give lots of thought to the future mission field as well as the present. This may seem theoretical or even impractical, but over time you will continue coming back to your original ideals as a point of reference when you face difficult decisions.

Once you have recruited a mobilization team, and established your priorities in the form of policy and practice, then you should begin looking for potential candidates that the Lord is calling out for you to build up and invest in. You may not have any candidates in the pipeline now, so it may be helpful to study those whom Jesus recruited and how he engaged them in ministry.

The Steps of Jesus

During his earthly ministry, Jesus gave us a great example of leadership and organization. He didn’t do ministry alone, but he mentored his disciples by using progressive steps of development. Consider these examples as recorded in Luke’s Gospel when he engaged his followers in four different ways: First Step, Next Step, Step Up, and Step Out.

First Step

Follow Me—Walking alongside the Teacher (Luke 5:1-11)

Though it was simple for Jesus to invite these fishermen to follow him, it had profound impact and consequences. The rabbi-disciple relationship was common, and the disciples of Christ knew that they were being recruited to learn from a teacher by walking, talking, and serving together on the dusty road “classrooms” of Palestine. Though Jesus knew that the cross was coming, his disciples weren’t aware of that. When Jesus was selecting men to be by his side, he knew that he was recruiting them for more than just learning. He was preparing them for a life of sacrifice and service to a heavenly kingdom on a resistant earth. As David Platt says in his book Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live, “The road that leads to heaven is risky, lonely, and costly in this world, and few are willing to pay the price.”2

Within the local church, our primary role as leaders is to equip people to follow Jesus and to be his disciples. There are numerous pathways for discipleship to happen: Bible study, fellowship, home groups, special events, etc. The pressing need however, is for a mentoring/teaching emphasis, so wise church leaders would do well to make that a priority.

Next Step

3+ Christians—Teaching Them to Obey (Luke 6–8)

The teaching ministry of the pastor is central in most evangelical churches, but sometimes it leads to head-knowledge only, instead of producing the desired result of the Great Commission. The final instructions of Jesus to his followers, after his resurrection and before his ascension, was to make disciples and to teach “…them to obey all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis mine). This is quite different from just teaching them about the Lord. For three chapters in Luke, Jesus is teaching in a variety of places and methods. He performs miracles with purpose, tells parables with and without explanation, and then prepares his followers to be sent out to do the same in chapter 9.

As a pastor on a church staff, we would sometimes identify people from the congregation who were “3+ Christians.” These were members who gave the church more than three hours per week (the minimum time allotted for worship, Bible study and fellowship). The task for mission leaders is to find ways of engaging these 3+ Christians in meaningful service either in the church or in the community. They can greet at the front door, help in the nursery, volunteer at a local after-school center or homeless shelter. This is an intentional next step of service that meets a need in the church, builds confidence in the individual, and also gives pastors and leaders the opportunity to observe the person to see if they have an even greater potential for deeper ministry.

Step Up

The Lord will Provide—Getting Organized and Waiting for the Blessing (Luke 9:12-17)

During the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus helped the disciples understand their role in his ministry while at the same time he distinguished his own role. He engaged his followers in an extraordinary demonstration of provision. They started out with only a few loaves and fish, but when the disciples got organized Jesus began to perform a miracle. Sure, Jesus could have done this on his own, but he intentionally chose to use the disciples and to make them a part of his ministry. He does the same with us today.

Jesus will provide, but it is our job to organize and get ready for the blessing to come. In every church, large or small, there are people whom God has given the gift of organization. They can catch the vision, see the task ahead of them, and implement the strategy—just like the disciples did during the miracle of feeding the five thousand. Every pastor/mission pastor would benefit from identifying those people and engaging them in ministry such as serving on the mission committee, deacon board, or an outreach team.

Step Out

Sending Out the Seventy-two—Training: Spiritually, Relationally, Cross-Culturally (Luke 10:1–12, 17–20)

Jesus sets the stage for sending out seventy-two of his followers to go out and share the good news of God’s kingdom. He trains them spiritually, relationally, and cross-culturally. He gives them instructions, vision, and encouragement. He also entrusts them with his message, his power, and even his kingdom.

There will come a time when your mobilization team has to release people into a very dangerous world, and you may question if they are ready. The best part of this story is that Jesus didn’t just send out the twelve, but he sent out the seventy-two to be “lambs in the midst of wolves.” They were sent intentionally underprepared (no moneybag, knapsack, or sandals). They were even equipped to be rejected, “Even the dust … we wipe off against you.”

Missionary mobilization is not about designing the perfect missionary, but about sending people whom God has chosen to represent His kingdom. We are preparing people who are faithful, prepared, and resilient for a lifetime of service to the Lord. If we are going to send people to reach the unreached, we need to understand that they are unreached for a reason. They are in hard places, and our people need to have some experience with hardships and suffering. A theology of mission would be incomplete without a proper theology of suffering. Perhaps establishing rites of passage will help equip people to suffer well, and not just perpetuate our culture’s obsession of avoiding suffering.

Rite of Passage

Rite of Passage n. (from anthropology): A significant event or a transition period in someone’s life that marks a change.

A changed life for the kingdom of God is a beautiful thing. And that is our business as mission leaders. Through interviewing successful church mission leaders to discovering their best practices, we noticed that most all of them were doing some of the same things. They spoke the same lingo, read the same books, attended the same conferences, and consulted with the same leaders. The ways they lead their churches were different, but many of the same principles were employed as they sought to mobilize missionaries from within their church. They were all focused, intentional, and proactive in developing their people for a lifetime of faithful service.

We discovered these six categories of ministry planning: education, events, exposure, expectations, experiences, and excursions.

Education

There are many educational opportunities and curriculum to choose from. Some require major investments of time and money, and others are very affordable and easy to set up. Your mobilization team may need to start small and build up your capacity over time. Here are just a few resources to get you started:

• Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (www.Perspectives.org)
• Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby
• Follow Me by David Platt
• Skills, Knowledge, Character: A Church-Based Approach to Missionary Candidate Preparation by Greg Carter
• Operation World
• When Helping Hurts by Corbett and Fikkert

Consider studying biographies of missionaries, church planting principles, missionary methods, etc. The list is endless, but the idea is to make mission education a priority and a part of the regular routine of the church calendar.

Events

Similar to educational resources, mission focused events abound, and with just a little research, you will find many in your area:

• Urbana Conference (www.urbana.org)
• Missio Nexus (www.missionexus.org)
• Denominational annual meeting
• Missions-focused summer camp
• Church partner gathering at most missionary sending agencies
• Annual local church mission conference

Exposure

During our interviews with current missionaries, we heard stories that described pivotal moments in their early childhood when they had an encounter with a real-life missionary. It appears that having a personal relationship with a missionary is a significant indicator for future mission involvement. Not every person who knows a missionary personally will become a missionary themselves, but most every missionary remembered meeting someone who served the Lord in some far-off place in the world.

• If your church already supports missionaries, pay for them to come to the church regularly and speak to the congregation.
• If your church doesn’t currently support missionaries, contact a local mission agency and schedule a speaker. (North American Mission Handbook by Peggy Newell, 2017)

Expectations

In today’s world, we can begin to understand rites of passage in terms of prerequisites. In order for you to advance from one stage of personal development to another, you should prove yourself at each level of challenge and responsibility. For example, if someone wants to be supported as a missionary from your church, they need to go through training. To go through training, they need to go on a short-term trip. To go on a short-term trip, they need to go through the Perspectives class, etc.

• Customize expectations based on your church’s specific values and mission
• Design rites of passage so that they build upon one another
• Have young people earn opportunities by participating in local projects, reading books, attending classes and training programs
• Create excitement so they will look forward to doing the next thing

Experiences

Some of the best experiences for the development of future missionaries happen away from the safety and security of the church building. You could just educate young people about the problems of our world, but until they walk the halls of a homeless shelter, prepare meals for low-income families, and shake hands with someone from another culture, these issues will never be real for them.

• Consider taking a road trip to visit missionary sending agencies and training centers
• Take families to meet a local church planter
• Arrange a visit to a Bible school and meet with the Professor of Intercultural Studies

Excursions

Perhaps the most significant rite of passage a church can provide is a short-term mission trip. As evangelicals, we may not agree with the message of the Mormons (LDS), but we cannot deny the impact of their infamous two-year mission. The best trip for church-based mobilization purposes is the one in which participants survey a destination and meet people whom they may be sensing God’s call to serve long-term. There are many additional options, depending on what agency you partner with, but here are just a few industry standards:

• Short-term trips (weekend to two weeks)
• Mid-term trips (two weeks to three months)
• Semester mission trips (three to six months)
• Gap year for students (six to twelve months)
• Stint for potential missionary candidates (twelve to twenty-four months)

Church-based Mobilization is Not Just for the Youth

If we really want to make an impact in hard places, we need to focus our efforts on recruiting and mobilizing people who already have a college degree and workplace experience so that they can get work visas. Another group of people to seriously consider is retirees (Bob Buford’s book Half Time, and Hans Finzel and Rick Hick’s book Launch Your Encore). Retirees have a retirement income, they qualify for special retirement visa programs, and gray hair is frequently an asset in most developing countries around the globe, so retirement could be one of the most strategic rites of passage to highlight in the church.

Rites of passage can be powerful tools to motivate people in the church and bring excitement and enthusiasm to a congregation. If you are intentional and proactive about discipling people to consider the nations, your church can be the solution to the missionary pipeline supply shortages that we are experiencing. When Jesus commanded us to pray for the Lord to send laborers (Matt 9:38 and Luke 10:2), your church may just be the answer to that prayer. 

David J. Wilson, DMin, serves as the Director of Church Relations at Avant Ministries in Kansas City. Before this sweet gig, he served as a Mission Pastor for more than twenty years in the local church. He is the author of Mind the Gaps: Engaging the Church in Missionary Care (2015) and his most recent book, Pipeline: Engaging the Church in Missionary Mobilization (2018).

Notes

Adapted from Pipeline: Engaging the Church in Missionary Mobilization.

1. Greg Carter, Skills, Knowledge, Character: A Church-Based Approach to Missionary Candidate Preparation (Valparaiso, IN: Turtle River Press, 2010).

2. David Platt, Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2013).