This is an article from the January-February 1996 issue: The USCWM is Charting a New Course

Mobilization Division: Five Promising Years 1996-2000

Mobilization Division: Five Promising Years 1996-2000

With the Lord's help we could be seeing a significant increase in the number of Boomers and Busters who are catching a vision for world evangelization.

An Interview with David Imboden, the director of the Mobilization Division at the US Center

Welcome to the USCWM’s Mobilization Division—a division encompassing everything from the monthly production of the Global Prayer Digest, to the various components of the U.S. and International Adopt-A-People Campaign, to the publication of Mission Frontiers Bulletin, to the services of Frontier Media.

In order to further explore what this division has to offer, a question and answer session, between MF and Mobilization Division Chairman, Dave Imboden, has been arranged to walk our readers through the "maze" of information that will be offered in this particular article.

MF: Just for starters, do you think the USCWM can accomplish much in the short space of time that exists between now and the turn of the millennium?

DI: One only needs to reflect on the recent past to see that it's taken but twenty years for the frontier missions movement to become an enormous international phenomena. And though the vision has barely skimmed the surface of the American Church, the Perspectives course alone has produced some 26,000 alumni and its 900 page reader has sold over 100,000 units--the majority of which have been used by students in roughly 100 Christian colleges and universities across America. Relatively speaking, this is no small number of people, especially when you consider them as potential candidates for spreading the vision to a far larger number of people. So, as you can see, based on the results of Perspectives alone, and by capitalizing on those results, there is great promise that the next five years of frontier missions mobilization can be very fruitful.

MF: How do you see your division playing a part in mobilization these next five years?

DI: For those of our readers who have been tracking with the USCWM for quite awhile, it is a great pleasure to be able to say that we have finally brought to completion every resource that we have long felt essential to the task of mobilization. With these tools completed it has now become a matter of prayer and planning as to how God would have us get them into the hands of those whose hearts are prepared to use them.

MF: Why don't do a quick review of these resources with our readers.

DI: Gladly! But as I do, please notice that the following resources, though they could be used by themselves, find their greatest impact by utilizing them as components of a whole program. ,Let's begin our review with:

1) World View Video Library

The USCWM's Frontier Media office has pulled together nine captivating missions videos and created four complete curricula (for different time factors) to go with them. These videos have already proved their ability to open the hearts of believers who, by virtue of ignorance, aren't initially interested in the Great Commission. Equally important are the way these videos can prepare the hearts of viewers to take what we feel is the next essential step in catching a vision for world evangelization, namely, the Vision for the Nations (VFN) curriculum.

2) Vision for the Nations

This recently released thirteen week, video-oriented, lay-level version of the Perspectives Study Program provides the main component for seeing the Adopt-A-People strategy easily understood, embraced and carried out by local churches. With the videos averaging 25 minutes in length, VFN can be ideal for a typical 50 minute Sunday School or stretched to a 90 minute home study group time frame.

MF: Tell us a little about the VFN Reader.

DI: I'm excited that within the Reader there are excellent articles that support and expand on the material covered in the class as well as full page overviews of some of the most important missions resources, agencies, networks and seminars available to the church today. Though many typical participants will forego the reading element of VFN entirely, others will devour the entire Reader and walk away with not only a comprehensive exposure to missions, but also excellent exposure to missions mobilization.

MF: Do you have high hopes that, like Perspectives, VFN will inspire its participants to recruit others to take the course?

DI: Yes. In fact, we will likely have a chart in our soon to be published Mission Mobilizer's Handbook that shows this expected dynamic taking place among all four USCWM related missions curricula, (World View Video Library, VFN, Perspectives and World Christian Foundations). But, perhaps even more important, I feel I need to stress a conviction that most Boomers and Busters aren't ready to take VFN until they have been exposed to missions through one or more of the following: the World View Video Library--a heart-impacting, eye-opening short-term mission experience or good missions books .

3) Adopt-A-People Advocates Kit

We feel that once VFN study groups begin to explore how to adopt an unreached people, the Advocate's Kit will then provide thorough instructions on the entire process, including resources to "sell" the missions committee, the pastor(s) and the congregation on the adoption strategy. However, if all that is desired is a manual on how to adopt a people group, one can purchase our AAP manual called, Adoption: A Practical Guide to Successfully Adopting an Unreached People Group. , Each kit contains: 1) one Adoption manual, 2) overhead transparencies with presentation script, 3) a Doing Your Bit AAP promotional video, 4) AAP introductory literature, 5) the latest Adoption Agency List and, 6) other assorted literature to help prepare a church for understanding the frontier mission movement.

4) Global Prayer Digest

At the beginning of this year the English version of the Global Prayer Digest (GPD) added "Adopt-A-People" to its title.

Since the GPD is already providing strategic communication for various national AAP initiatives around the world, we would love to eventually see it provide the same kind of communication for our American audience as well.

Among other exciting GPD accomplishments that have occurred over the past year or so are the development of a Korean GPD, ongoing usage of the GPD in Papua New Guinea, increased usage in the Philippines and a growing number of Latin American countries providing their own national editions of the magazine, including: Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Brazil is also pursuing its own Portuguese edition which, prayerfully, will be up and running soon.

By virtue of these advances and in light of the emerging worldwide prayer force, we are believing the time will come when at least one million intercessors will be utilizing the GPD to pray daily for the unreached peoples of the world. My question and challenge now to the U.S. audience is, "Will you become a part of this awesome and strategic Great Commission prayer venture? If you haven't joined yet,

or have for some reason dropped out of the race, won't you resolve today to sign up again? Get your spouse and children involved and within a few years you will have prayed for over a thousand people groups!"

As valuable as it is to pray through the 10/40 Window once every two years, and as worthy as it is to pray for the Islamic world once every year (we support and promote both of these events) these prayer campaigns aren't designed to cover every unreached people group. The Global Prayer Digest, combined with the International Adopt-A-People Campaign is currently the only prayer campaign providing systematic prayer coverage for every unreached people under heaven.

5) Global Countdown 2000

Four superb-quality videos, shot amongst ten different people groups in India, Mexico, Cambodia and Central Asia, have been produced for this Adopt-A-People video "four-pack." Since these videos contain stories of churches that have adopted some of the peoples highlighted on each video, GC2000 is ideal for encouraging and sustaining mission fellowships that adopt unreached peoples.

We are also recognizing that many churches and fellowships are finding GC2000 useful for both introducing their constituencies to the unreached peoples of the world and for serving as prayer tools (all four will soon contain break sections with suggested prayers for each people group and ministry highlighted).

Also, in the same way that the Global Prayer Digest is being translated into other languages, plans are being laid to translate GC2000 into Korean and Spanish. Please pray for these efforts and for other key languages needing these resources.

6) Vision Booktables

William Carey Library has long provided a wide selection of missions books, pamphlets and videos for churches and fellowships to utilize in their mobilization efforts. As in the case of VFN, booktables may not be initially perceived as valuable until church members have utilized the World View Video Library or have participated in a high- impact, short-term mission. I personally believe that the ideal time to display a booktable is while small groups or Sunday School classes are utilizing the Video Library or VFN.

7) Mission Frontiers

The USCWM's bimonthly newsprint bulletin continues uniquely to serve the worldwide frontier mission movement, the AD2000 and Beyond movement, the International Adopt-A-People movement and the Perspectives movement.

Since MF is basically a trade journal for those who have already caught the vision, we feel that VFN and Perspectives alumni, as well as missions committees, missionaries, mission executives, mission professors and mission mobilizers are the primary audience for this bulletin. That's why we have never bothered to spend a large amount of money on a tool that was never intended to win the masses to missions.

As for content, we do intend to include eventually (perhaps this year) a "scorecard" on how the North American Church is progressing in its AAP involvement (listing the names of unreached people groups as well as how many agencies are working among them and how many North American churches and fellowships have adopted them-if any). This will require much data gathering, so pray for God to provide the staff and time to do so.

8) Mission Mobilizer's Handbook

This long-delayed handbook hopefully will be going to the printer shortly after this edition of MF goes to press. It will contain sections on: 1) mobilization agencies and networks, 2) mobilization resources and 3) strategic mobilization articles. Its primary purpose is to bring local churches and fellowships rapidly up-to-speed with vital information on what they need to get started in missions, or to perfect what God has already started.

MF: How do you foresee this handbook getting to the hundreds of thousands of American churches?

DI: On page 21 you will find the strategy that Mobilization Division is prayerfully proposing to implement over the next five years (which would include placing the Mobilizer's Handbook in the hands of as many churches as possible).

MF: In the past we have highlighted the USCWM's connection with the AD2000-inspired/Lausanne-coordinated Mission America campaign. Why don't you reiterate what you plan on doing to continue cooperating with this movement.

DI: Our intentions are to continue interfacing with the Mission America campaign which is utilizing a citywide strategy targeting some 216 American cities. Since we already have Perspectives coordinators, classes and/or alumni in scores of these cities, we feel that it is likely that some of these folks will be willing to align with the "mission mobilization" dimension of Mission America. ,Ideally we would like to recruit and equip lay mobilizer/networkers in many or all of these cities so that they can at least offer their churches and fellowships opportunities to get the new Mobilizer's Handbook and other helpful introductory literature. Once the mission's "point person" of a church receives this material they will then have a chance to hear about all the many agencies, networks, resources, conferences, seminars and strategies that now exist to help their church catch a vision for world evangelization. The vast majority of churches have yet to be exposed to this information.

MF: Since we've come to the end of our interview do you have a few parting words for our readers?

DI: We have certainly not exhausted the full range of topics that we could have covered within the realm of the Mobilization Division. For example, a strategic video series being planned in Frontier Media that could be a key contribution to the mobilization of the Church. Also, the Latin American Division has really taken off this past year with increasing opportunities to assist the growing missions movement in Latin America, and the growing staff of the Korean American Center for World Mission continues to make a significant impact on Korean American churches.

In closing, I am especially impressed to ask for your prayers. If, in the past, you have prayed for the frontier missions movement and the USCWM, but somehow got disconnected, would you take the time now to recommit yourself to this invaluable task?

Also, if God is laying it on your heart to: 1) pray for missions mobilization to take place among the churches and fellowships of your city, 2) explore the possibility of becoming a mobilizer/network in your city, 3) become one of the greatly needed staff workers at the USCWM, would you check the appropriate boxes on the inside cover of this bulletin and mail it to us? We will be prayerfully waiting to hear from you.

As God Enables Mobilization Division’s Proposed Five Year Strategy for the U.S.

  • Citywide Intercessors -- PRAYER Interface with the existing citywide prayer networks throughout North America. With prayer as a forerunner in mission mobilization we will surely see what God can do to raise up a mission movement as opposed to what man can do alone. You can help by both praying for the frontier missions movement, for your city to be blessed with capable mission networker/mobilizers, and for the churches and fellowships in your city to be blessed with a heart to embrace the Great Commission.
  • Mission Mobilization Networkers -- RECRUITING Together with the AD2000/Lausanne initiative called Mission America (a multi-dimensional network emphasizing evangelism, prayer, research, reconciliation and missions mobilization) the USCWM will increasingly participate in the cooperative networking of over 200 major cities across the U.S. Already Perspectives networks exist in scores of cities across the U.S. and with the USCWM's recent completion of key mobilization resources, including a user-friendly Mission Mobilizer's Handbook, we have never been better equipped to assist aspiring networker/mobilizers.
  • Statewide Mobilizer's Workshops -- TRAINING On the drawing board and under consideration are a series of statewide workshops that would provide training for those sensing a call to network and mobilize their cities. Ideally, there could be as many as 20 or 30 such workshops in order to adequately cover the country.
  • Education, Mission Fellowships, Adoptions and Research -- MOBILIZATION Though there already are some churches that have made significant progress in mobilizing the majority of their members for world evangelization, the vast majority have yet to even hear that such a thing is possible or that it is biblical and therefore imperative. Through a spirit-led and prayer-supported mobilization campaign we would like to see both mission agency reps and grass roots mobilizers help to see thousands of local churches: 1) catch a vision for world evangelization through various forms of mission education, 2) establish monthly missions fellowships, 3) adopt unreached people groups and 4) participate with other churches in researching the people groups residing in their own communities and cities.
  • Adopt-A-People Agencies Strengthened -- SERVICING If we are to see local churches successfully carry out people group adoptions, adoption agencies will have to place an increasing emphasis on "customer service" as well as make sure that they are offering churches true unreached peoples to adopt.
  • Data Gathered, Coordinated and Published -- COMMUNICATION A shortage of manpower and other "roadblocks" have prevented us from assessing the overall state of AAP progress. However, the International AAP Campaign Office located in Manila has been one step along the way toward laying a foundation for not only gathering, but regularly monitoring worldwide data on the status of unreached peoples.

The U.S. AAP Campaign will work towards gathering data from agencies to assess what peoples have been targeted or engaged and to list the number of churches adopting them so that churches can see which peoples are most needing adoption.

How You Can Pray

If you are being burdened by the Lord to pray regularly for us we believe the following prayer targets would not only help cover USCWM needs but also many of the needs of the entire U.S. missions mobilization movement.

  • Pray for a MOBILIZER/NETWORKER AND TEAM to be raised up to sow missions vision throughout the churches and campus fellowships of your city and to serve as a citywide point of contact for the missions mobilization dimension of Mission America.
  • Pray for CHURCHES, AND ESPECIALLY PASTORS, to be receptive to the vision-giving and vision-building resources and training tools being offered to them, and that they would be given a heart responsiveness and obedience to the biblical imperative of discipling all nations. Pray also that many churches will pursue a people group adoption and participate in researching the unreached peoples in the midst of their own city.
  • Pray for all MISSIONS MOBILIZATION MINISTRIES (ACMC, ACMI, AD2000 and Beyond Movement, AIMS, Caleb Resources, USCWM, World Thrust, YWAM's Night of Missions) to be blessed with staff, finances, wisdom and anointing to seek and obey the will of God.
  • Pray for AGENCIES involved in AAP to provide quality AAP programs for participating churches. Pray also that they would be blessed with staff, recruits, finances, wisdom and anointing to seek and obey the will of God.
  • Pray for LOCAL CHURCHES AND MISSION AGENCIES to grow in understanding and mutual respect of each other's roles as well as to grow in working relationships with each other.
  • Pray for CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST, NAVIGATORS, INTERVARSITY, BAPTIST STUDENT UNION, ETC., and local expressions of each to be blessed with frontier missions-minded leadership and infused with a fresh vision for mobilization and world evangelization.

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