December 01, 1990 by Eric Adams and Tim L.

New Mission Structures for Church Planting: A Case Study

The world is rapidly changing, and these changes are having a profound effect on today's mission enterprise. Even as modern missiology identifies more people groups which have little relevant access to the Gospel, it is apparent that many of these same people groups will not be accessible by traditional mission methods. Most of these new methods find their focus in the concept of a mission team.

Frontiers is a mission focused on reaching Muslims ö particularly those in the restricted-access areas of the world.

In order to generate further thinking about mission teams, Frontiers invites MF readers to critique the developing strategies described below.

Teams: The Basic Building Block

To complete its mission, the structure of the Frontiers movement is broken down into three parts: the Sending Bases, the International Council, and the Field Teams. The Sending Bases mobilize people and develop the support base to keep the church planting teams operating on the field. The International Council and its staff, the International Bureau, coordinate the overall movement.

The third structure, the Field Teams, is the primary vehicle within Frontiers to penetrate Muslim people groups in restricted access countries with church-planting activities. Because the team structure is the key element through which the overall objective of the organization is accomplished, the whole of the Frontiers movement is organized around this fundamental unit.

Each team forms around a leader with a vision and a strategy for penetrating a particular Muslim people group or segment of a Muslim city. Each team has a Memo Of Understanding (MOU) written by the Team Leader for his field. This MOU sets goals and expectations for that team's ministry and life on the field within the larger context of the goals of the agency. Because each team has a unique leader and MOU, many different field models are created with unique adaptations to the field context and personality of the team.

The teams are diverse, forming around different financial, lifestyle, strategic and/ or organizational styles defined by the field requirements, the leader's vision and strategies, and the makeup of the individuals on the team. As an organization, Frontiers seeks to be a nonjudgmental community that affirms this diversity of lifestyle and philosophy of ministry among the teams while maintaining a unity of focus and common goals and agreement on foundational Christian doctrine's and authority of Scripture. This emphasis reflects the nonnegotiable goal of being a "grace-oriented" fellowship.

Frontiers has granted the Team Leader extensive autonomy and authority for his field out of the conviction that decisions pertaining to church planting among Muslims should be made as close to the field of activity as possible. While affirming this relationship of semi-autonomy, Frontiers also requires that each Team Leader maintain a strong accountability relationship with the International Bureau.

Freedom & Accountability

This balance of semi-autonomy and accountability in the teams is a central strength of the Frontiers organizational structure. Semi-autonomy allows the teams the freedom to creatively pursue their goal of church planting among their target people with the most appropriate means at their disposal and allows them to enact rapid strategic planning as field situations change. At the same time, accountability ensures adherence to the overall goals of Frontiers and maintains requisite standards of ethical, moral, theological and legal conduct, and encourages inter-team communication and ongoing training on key issues affecting church planting in a Muslim context.

Because the majority of Muslim people groups targeted by Frontiers teams are in restricted access nations which allow few or no missionary visas, almost all Frontiers missionaries must develop "entry strategies." These strategies allow the missionaries to enter the country and gain residency among their target people.

Entry strategies range from renewable tourist visas to long-term residency visas based on professional skills, a development project or an entrepreneurial business. Most restricted access countries contain thousands of foreigners working in many capacities. Entering in one of these secular capacities never requires signing any document about not practicing or sharing your religious faith.

The Team as Community

Once individual team members gain residency on the field, their church-planting efforts are coordinated by the Team Leader and his MOU. Under his leadership, the team structure provides on-site accountability, encouragement, assistance, training, resources and spiritual community for individual team members. Because each team member has different ministry gifts, a team effort allows a fuller expression of the Body of Christ within a people and demonstrates some of the dynamics of Christian community.

In addition, because each team is unique, much of the member care and member training is conducted on the field and within the team context. While some traditional pre-field candidate training and psychological assessment is done, this is kept at a very basic level. Ongoing, specific felt needs for training and individual member care are provided as much as possible within the field context, often resulting in deeper and better implemented changes.

This field team model is also sensitive to today's missionary candidate. Those of the "Baby Boom" generation require more emotional care and support and a stronger sense of belonging and community than prior missionary generations. Using a team structure consisting of a small committed community provides the kind of intense caring and support which this generation needs to survive and thrive on the field. It fosters a higher degree of commitment to the task and co-workers.

Studies indicate this generation is less likely to make a long term commitment to anyone other than their own nuclear family or a few close relationships. Long-term commitments to organizations are even rarer. A great deal of sacrifice and perseverance is necessary to work in closed-country situations. Strong commitments to other individuals on the team can provide the necessary motivation to keep going.

Frontiers has a program of field coaching to assist in on-site training and problem solving. These field coaches advise teams and the Team Leader in such areas as missiology, spiritual life, entry strategies, language and culture acquisition and team dynamics. In addition, these coaches encourage and provide tools to allow the team leader and team members to upgrade their skills in interpersonal relationships, communication, family life and other key areas that contribute to their effectiveness on the field.

Complexities in the Team Approach

In order to encourage a diversity of approaches and strategies to be tested in each people group, Frontiers allows for more lhan one team to operate within a given people group. Also, in the event of the expulsion of one team, another can carry on the work, allowing continuity. In addition, this allows for German, Korean, or Latin teams, for example, to operate in their mother language in the team context. Multiple teams on a field can communicate with each other frequently and share insights as well as difficulties.

Structuring a mission around semiautonomous teams can create challenges for the organization as a whole. Separate teams, each with their own style of leadership and unique MOU, result in there being no single standard for the teams in such diverse areas as security procedures, philosophy, financial policy, personnel recruitment, training, church- planting strategy or communications. This obviously complicates the administrative role of the Sending Bases in the home countries and the International Bureau.

Still, these disadvantages of working with semi-autonomous teams are considered worth the extra effort demanded. The majority of the organization's decisions are made as close as possible to the area of activity. This encourages creativity in approaching the task, leadership development, entrepreneurial zeal and a greater willingness to risk as well as better team ownership and morale in what is often an oppressive and hostile environment. Because the Muslim world is often volatile, the ability to quickly adapt the operations of the local team to changing field conditions is extremely valuable.

Normal forms of communication and reporting to and from other countries are often unworkable under hostile regimes. Frontiers must deal with the geographical and political diversity of the Muslim peoples around the world, relative isolation of the teams and their significant security needs.

These challenges require creative approaches to administration and management of the movement. Critical links must be maintained between the field teams, the international headquarters, the sending countries and the sending churches to ensure that the crucial supply lines of prayer, personnel, ideas and finances necessary for church planting are not cut off.

Organizational Architecture

The Sending Bases and the International Council (and its staff, the International Bureau) are the two other key structures Frontiers has established to support the field teams in their church planting efforts. The Sending Bases launch the teams and continue to generate personnel and funds for their church planting activities. The International Bureau appoints and oversees the Team Leaders.

Mission efforts to the Muslim world need to be international efforts, drawing prayer, personnel and financial resources from different countries, since many countries are closed to Americans. In Frontiers, each Sending Base is organized by, individuals in a specific country to serve members of Frontier's teams who have been sent out from churches of that country. Each Sending Base has responsibility to not only mobilize and maintain spiritual, personnel, and financial resources for its teams, but also to maintain relationships with sending churches and other mission agencies in that country. These Sending Bases are responsible to the International Council through its staff, the International Bureau. Right now, Frontiers has Sending Bases in five countries on four continents. The International Bureau is responsible for establishing new Sending Bases to increase the flow of resources and personnel to the field.

Frontiers is eager to work in a joint venture relationship with a variety of denominations, churches, and other agencies to further the establishment of churches in the Muslim world. These joint ventures have ranged from normal personnel seconding arrangements to partnership with existing organizations which also function as Sending Bases.

More than one Sending Base may exist in a given country if the situation requires it. Establishing multiple Sending Bases in a country might be appropriate to increase the volume of resources to the field, to specialize in relating to key constituencies or sub-cultures within that country or to amplify options for specific entry strategies.

The International Bureau operates throughout the year, ensuring that the intents of the International Council are carried out within the Sending Bases and Field teams. The International Cooperative Agreement is the document which links the International Council, International Bureau, Sending Bases and Field Teams together, and defines how Frontiers functions.

The basic vision of Frontiers, its foundational structure, coordination, expansion, focus and overall strategy are monitored and stimulated by the International Council and its staff, the International Bureau. The International Council, which meets once a year, is the highest governing body of Frontiers. The International Council members are the Team Leaders presently engaged in church-planting ministries on Muslim fields. The International Council has the power to review activities and give overall direction to all areas of the movement.

Therefore, corporately, the Team Leaders govern the movement, ensuring that the movement's direction, organization, activities and policies best reflect the needs of the church-planting efforts on the fields. Each Team Leader submits monthly reports of his team's activities and progress towards established goals. In addition, each Team Leader requests and/or responds to coaching by individuals sent out from the International Bureau. It is hoped that this structure will establish an effective field government and peer review system. In turn, this structure should serve to keep the focus of church planting among Muslim peoples at the very center of its organizational agenda, and to resist distractions away from this goal.

The State of the Experiment

Frontiers is still in its first decade, and the experiment is still in progress. As the International Bureau continues to establish Sending Bases across the world, much of its attention is focused on seeing these sending bases established and the pipelines of resources to the fields opened. This has resulted in the International Bureau taking a predominately reactive approach to field problems. As the Sending Base network stabilizes, the International Bureau will be able to take a more proactive attitude to the evangelism and church-planting issues of the field teams.

Though the semi-autonomous team is one of the central strengths of the Frontiers structure, it is also its most vulnerable point. Young, relatively inexperienced leaders are granted significant responsibility and authority to engage in their task of church planting among Muslim peoples. Leadership responsibilities, in addition to learning language, making disciples and working their own jobs to maintain residency in the country have, at times, proven to be overly stressful for Team Leaders. Finding the right balance of authority over and servanthood to team members (who are often peers of the Team Leader) has also produced significant strain. The role and experiences of Team Leaders are constantly being re-evaluated. Lessons learned are incorporated into pre-field training and coaching visits for new and ongoing Team Leaders.

Though it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the methods and structure of Frontiers, there are several indicators which show that the movement is going in the right direction. At the time of the writing this article, Frontiers had 38 teams on the field, with 261 missionaries in residency among Muslim people groups, primarily in restricted access nations. In addition, there are 19 more teens in various stages of formation and preparation to penetrate unreached Muslim peoples where there is now no church.

These 261 missionaries are in daily contact with Muslims, building networks of trust relationships along which the Gospel can travel. Through these relationships, many Muslims have entered the Kingdom in obedience to the Lord Jesus. On some fields, Frontiers teams have seen some of these individuals coalesce into small groups which hopefully will become full-fledged congregations with theo own elders. These indicators, as well as the rapidly changing conditions of today's Islamic world, may well be pointing toward a major work of God among Muslims. Indeed, it may finally be their turn.