May 01, 1997 by Phill Butler, with Clyde Cowan

Find Out How Strategic Partnerships Can Help Your Church or Agency.

Partnership is an idea whose time has come in the world of missions.

Leading mission organizations and churches are exploring how to partner effectively rather than whether to partner.

The goal of Strategic Evangelism Partnerships is to reach the most people, in the shortest time, at the lowest cost, among people who have the least chance to hear of Christ.

Strategic Evangelism Partnerships hold the brightest hope for reaching the 2 billion unreached people on earth.

Of the many ways churches and missions can work together, this particular kind of partnership emphasizes the big picture, yet fits the details in place. It offers a comprehensive plan and coordination of resources with the goal of seeing a viable national church developed among unreached people. It is an effective, strategic approach to fulfilling the Great Commission.

Interdev specializes in partnership, serving other ministries through initiating and enhancing cooperative outreach. This article shares some of the basics about effective partnering that have come out of that experience. It addresses recurring issues raised by mission leaders, church leaders and conscientious donors.

Strategic Evangelism Partnerships are Biblical, practical, and efficient. Partnering with others can make your work more effective.

Why Partner?

Imagine that you decided to build a house.

Depending on where you live, you might get your friends to help you build it, or you might hire builders. Either way, imagine what would happen if each worker on the house didn't know what the others were doing.

What would happen if the person planning the size and shape of the house never talked to the one ordering building materials? What if the one cutting materials didn't coordinate with the one putting the pieces in place? What if each worker didn't know when others were coming to build, or how his work fit anyone else's?

It's hard to build a house if the builders don't work together. It is hard to build a church among a people if ministry specialties don't work together.

In some ways, that's what our mission efforts have been like. A radio ministry broadcasts one message. Printed materials from another ministry present Christ from a completely different approach. Personal evangelists share films and preaching from yet another perspective. All of these ministries train workers separately and may schedule outreaches with little thought about coordinating with others working in the area.

The non-Christian person approached by disorganized ministries is like someone looking at the house where none of the builders worked together. He sees a strange house, one that is not very inviting. The one listening to these ministries hears disjointed messages from different Christian outreaches.

All of the ministries have the best intentions. But no matter how talented, sincere and hard working the house builders (or missionaries), it's hard to build something good and lasting if you don't coordinate with the others doing the same work.

Another problem when ministries don't work together is that some people in great need get no missionaries and no message at all. In house building, that would be like making lots of walls but no roof or making windows but no door.

Many times, two or more different ministries will broadcast, print literature, or send missionaries to one people group, while lost people from another nearby language group never hear anything of Christ.

A better example comes from North Africa, in the case history below.

Cooperation: A Case History Of Partnership.

A man named Ahmed, seeking for life's answers, began listening to a Christian radio broadcast. He wrote for a Bible correspondence course, which eventually led to a meeting in person with a Christian worker, who led him to the Lord.

Despite responsibilities of running a shop and caring for his aged mother, Ahmed commuted to a night Bible course in another town, and became part of a growing church fellowship.

Five different ministry agencies deliberately coordinated their efforts over a period of several years, evangelizing Ahmed till he was part of a growing national church.

It wasn't just coincidence that Ahmed received a correspondence course, or that someone was in place to talk to him when he was ready. The broadcasters gave Ahmed's name to the correspondence people. The correspondence work referred him to a missionary in the area, who passed Ahmed on to Bible teachers and national Christians.

These agencies planned ahead of time how to contact, follow-up, bring to Christ and disciple people into a local church. They agreed to "share" the ministry to Ahmed, each contributing what it did best, whether broadcasting, literature, having local personal workers visit him, or networking with local national Christians.

Strategic Evangelism Partnership

In the case history from North Africa, missions agencies worked in partnership. Specifically, they worked together in what Interdev calls a Strategic Evangelism Partnership.

Strategic, because it is an overall plan to reach a whole people group. It includes all the possible ways to reach a people, tying media, medical care, evangelism, follow-up, discipling, etc. together.

Strategic Evangelism, because the clear goal is to bring people to maturity in Christ, and establish them in their own national churches.

Strategic Evangelism Partnership, because the different parts of the body of Christ work together, each church, donor and mission contributing resources and the skill it does best to the overall whole.

Why Partner?

Because Working Together Is Biblical.

Scripture calls for believers to work together in unity. Christians generally agree, but organizational pride, egos, finances, and independent agendas keep Christians from working with others outside of their own church or organization. In addition, unity schemes without a scriptural basis in Christ have made some believers suspicious.

Consider John 17:20-23, where twice in four verses Jesus prays that His followers may be one, in order that the world may believe and know that God the Father sent Jesus. Except for the Great Commission itself, this is one of the strongest comments Jesus made on missions. He hinged the credibility of our mission message on our oneness in Him. It's as if He said to the world, "Don't believe them if they don't have unity among themselves."

"...that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

John 13:35, John 17:11, I Corinthians 12:4-27, Ephesians 4:1-16 and Philippians 1:27 all describe facets of our unity in Christ.

The Bible isn't merely discussing theological theory about unity. I Corinthians 12 says that coordination between believers should be as "down-to-earth" and practical as coordination between the parts of one human body.

Why partner together to reach the unreached? It is Biblical.

It is also practical.

Why Partner?

Because Partnerships Are Efficient.

Partnership reduces duplication of effort. It reduces cost and waste. It maximizes manpower, impact and credibility of the message.

Partnership Reduces Duplication: A Case History.

Seven ministry agencies working with related people groups felt a need to better train their workers how to communicate in those cultures. Each agency trained its candidates separately.

After cautious meetings and exploration, they started a combined training course. Each ministry provided its best trainers.

The result? "This course reduces mistakes by new missionaries and makes them effective much sooner," says one agency director. "An unexpected bonus," he added, "is how field people from different agencies now trust each other and work together in evangelism, discipleship and media projects--all because they know each other from the joint candidate course."

Why Partner?

Because There Is Great Power in Community Witness.

In the West, most people live at a high level of individual isolation compared to people from traditional societies, who live their lives as an integral part of a family and community. Westerners, especially, often don't comprehend the united power that extended family and community holds over individuals in tradition oriented cultures.

The vast millions of people in unreached language groups and unreached cities are nearly all from traditional cultures. Family and community are critically important to them.

Imagine what our missionary efforts look like to people within these traditional communities...

...The missionaries are usually outsiders, not connected to the local traditional world. And what seems amazing to traditional people, the Christian outsiders are not even connected to one another!

Separate, individual ministry approaches rob Christianity of believability.

In the John 17:20-23 passage already quoted, Jesus seems to have anticipated this obstacle. He indicated the way to be believable is to have believable unity.

To establish viable national churches within the 10/40 Window, missionaries must offer a Christian community at least as strong and relational as the one from which converts come, the community they have known from experience.

Why Partner?

Because Partnerships Are the Most Effective Way to Develop a Church.

The ultimate goal of evangelism is always a functioning body of believers. Medical work alone doesn't establish a church. Neither does literature, teaching, or Bible translation. An evangelist or church planter may establish a church, but his task is vastly easier if he has some contacts, some sowing before him, some literature and teaching help.

Combining these efforts, so that each specialty contributes its best toward the goal of a viable national church--that's the essence of a Strategic Evangelism Partnership.

Such a partnership is vertically integrated, including many specialties and contributors. In a vertically integrated partnership, ministries specializing in relief, medicine, translation, radio, literature, evangelism, discipleship and a multitude of other services can voluntarily coordinate their efforts in one overall ministry goal of establishing believers in a strong national church.

To use the house analogy again, it takes vertically integrated materials to build a house. Wood alone isn't a house. Neither is glass, cement or stone. Workers who know how to build with these items contribute their part and work together to produce the goal of a new house.

When missions cooperate in a vertically integrated partnership, - they reach more people - in less time - at a lower cost, ...and the result is a stronger, more unified national church.

Partnership and cooperation can be and should be a way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit.

Why Partner?

Because World Conditions Call for Partnership.

World conditions change rapidly. Nations and opportunities open and close faster than traditional mission approaches can respond.

The greatest mission opportunities of our century beckon... today.

At the same time, risk and hostility shadow most of these new opportunities.

Sudden, unstable changes in politics and borders cry out for sharing risks and opportunities in a partnership--flexible enough to seize opportunities and broad enough to adjust to setbacks.

The world's largest corporations, frequently former arch competitors, now collaborate through strategic alliances and international partnerships. Such partnerships allow the most effective response to expanding, high-risk, rapidly-changing world markets.

In these circumstances, no one agency can go it alone--particularly in a holistic evangelism and church-planting strategy for a nation, a great city, or a people group.

But, the linked resources of multiple ministries can provide the diversity, flexibility, funding, prayer support and speed necessary for a timely, appropriate response.

World conditions call for strategic planning, anticipating change, preparing responses.

Why Partner?

Because Over-Stretched Resources Call for Partnership.

Our scarce and overworked resources of people, money and equipment cry out for coordination of effort. The church has the resources to fulfill the Great Commission, but not enough to waste in duplicate efforts and conflicting agendas. Worse than the waste and garbled message that comes of duplication is that some people of the world get left out completely.

The church has the manpower, money, prayer resources and technology to fulfill the Great Commission in our age. But it will not be fulfilled by chance.

If we seriously plan to fulfill the Great Commission we must identify the unreached and effectively apply our great but materially limited resources to the most critical needs.

The Great Commission can only be fulfilled through Godly unity and cooperation.

Interdev calls such cooperative efforts partnerships, whether they have a formal, written constitution or merely a general agreement of mutual Kingdom goals. In both kinds of partnership, the needs of field ministries must drive the decisions.

When a partnership focuses on reaching one language group or people, with vertically integrated ministry specialties working together to establish an indigenous church, it is a Strategic Evangelism Partnership.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like Organizationally?

An individual agency may work alone, and it usually becomes aware of others working in the same field or area of specialty. Agencies aware of one another may network to share information.

Partnership is an active step beyond networking. The primary focus of a network is to share information. The focus of a partnership is to take joint action--to do something, and to do it better by working together.

Partners need not give up their organizational identity to work together.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like...to One Being Evangelized?

>From the perspective of someone on the receiving end, a partnership approach looks whole. Message and messengers are connected, and work together.

For a horseman in Central Asia, the message he hears on his radio ties in with the literature he got from an Asian evangelist passing through his village. That message fits what he saw in the Jesus film and heard from Christians afterward.

When local Christians meet the horseman and take him to their new church meetings, he finds a seamless continuity to the message and messengers. He doesn't have to puzzle through disconnected groups and information.

The horseman focuses on Christ, without distraction from confusing or contradictory variations on the message, and disorganized or discordant messengers.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like...to a Christian Field Worker?

In an effective partnership, a Christian worker knows he is not alone. He knows he can count on many others, with more specialties, and in more locations than his own agency serves. He knows he can trust these friends to handle contacts or converts he passes on to them.

The worker can use their material and they can use his, or they can work together to improve it. Expenses go down because more people use the resource, which lowers the cost. Sharing the cost of a project among partners also lowers the expense for each agency.

He knows that the new believers he works with will have a larger circle of Christian fellowship. In cultures resistant to Christianity, this is a tremendous advantage of partnering, because the new Christians often feel isolated.

The church planter in a successful partnership leans on others in literature, video, Theological Education by Extension (TEE), and regional Christian fellowships to help supply him with potential contacts, discipleship training, and church development resources. He doesn't do it all by himself.

In a partnership, each worker doesn't have to "reinvent the wheel" in each specialty phase of church planting, from first contacts to helping a new pastor and congregation be independent.

The original reason for forming mission sending agencies was for missionaries to gain the advantages of cooperation and not go it alone. Partnership between mission agencies is the obvious next step in our changing world.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like... to the Emerging Church?

Contacts between believers helps build the sense of a national Christian body. In the early stages of evangelism, believers may be few and widely scattered. A partnership between different ministries facilitates contact and fellowship between new Christians.

Where conditions permit, believers from several ministries can gather. Such a gathering offers fellowship impossible for any one ministry, and may be the first group meeting that new believers experience.

Building a Regional Church Fellowship: A Case History of Partnership

Four mission agencies working among a resistant people had a combined total of 12 church planters in a region 500 kilometers in diameter. Each church planter was discipling from one to ten new believers.

The different ministries partnered together to organize an Easter conference for believers from all around the region. The large meeting built relationships between national believers, gave national ministers wider experience in preaching and leadership, and accelerated the formation of seven churches in the region.

Contact among national Christians helps build an indigenous church movement. Regional gatherings of small groups, from many diverse but coordinated ministries, lets new believers meet many like themselves. They leave feeling, "We are not alone. Many others of our people have found life in Christ and share our struggles."

Partnerships maximize the influence and contribution of national Christian leaders, who are few in number in the early stages of evangelism among an unreached people. Sharing their ministry among different missions offers a tremendous resource to church planters who don't have such a "leading convert." It also enhances and expands the ministry of the national, who might have limited opportunities within the bounds of only one agency's work.

Additionally, partnerships provide the ideal channel through which the emerging national church can learn of and begin to link with the wider Christian world through regional and international associations of believers.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like... to the Non- Western Church?

Missionary growth rate in the West is presently something over 3% per year. However, in the non-Western countries, that same growth rate figure is over 13%! As many know, by the year 2000, the majority of Protestant missionaries will be from non-Western countries. While effective east-west, north-south ministry relationships have always been a challenging priority, this remarkable growth rate of Kingdom resources from non-Western countries makes new, effective forms of ministry mandatory.

Strategic Evangelism Partnerships are demonstrating the practical potential for non-Western and Western personnel to work side by side. They can pray, plan, and then cooperatively implement strategies that call on the best resources that each has to offer. Nearly one-third of all missions agencies involved in partnerships assisted in some way by Interdev are from non-Western countries. And that percentage is increasing.

Non-Western missionary personnel now account for anywhere from 10-90% of all personnel in the various Strategic Partnerships that are operational.

Because of the unique environment, Strategic Evangelism Partnerships allow a unity that has not been possible in many other more formal and traditional models of cooperation. Frequently, the power and intimidation associated with Western mission agencies' larger budgets and administrative structures have made it difficult for non-Western leadership to have a sense of equity in participation and ownership of cooperative efforts.

Strategic partnerships give the Non-Western sending church an environment which minimizes risk while, at the same time, giving its missionary personnel the fullest range of opportunity for innovative, rewarding ministry.

What Does a Strategic Evangelism Partnership Look Like...to Sending Churches and Donors?

To a donor, a partnership in missions looks like more results for our mission giving.

We would all like to see our resources have the greatest impact possible for the King and the Kingdom. No one wants to see his donation diluted through inefficiency or duplication.

Partnerships maximize use of resources.

For example, giving to one of the 30 mission agencies in a Central Asia partnership assures a donor that the resources of 29 other mission agencies in the region are coordinated for maximum effectiveness and no wasteful duplication.

If a donor gives to a medical worker, he knows that radio broadcasts, literature, evangelists and national pastors are all working with the medical project. They supply contacts who are interested, help in discipling and place converts into functioning local churches.

What does a partnership in missions look like? It looks like a body, whose parts work together.

Partnership Is a Growing Movement.

1. The Lausanne Movement, AD2000, WEF, ACMC and others stress partnership.

Partnership in missions is an idea whose time is now.

The Lausanne Movement, long a catalyst in cooperative efforts, emphasizes partnership.

The AD 2000 and Beyond Movement has a Partnership Development Task Force, chaired by Interdev's International Director, Phill Butler. The goal is to encourage practical cooperation and integration of ministry at the grass roots level for evangelism among unreached people. AD2000 wants its specialized tracks and regional cooperation to bear fruit at the field level.

The Missions Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) focused its 1992 triennial meeting in Manila on the theme "Toward Interdependent Partnerships." WEF is promoting partnership of all kinds through its network membership in 75 countries, 500,000 churches and 100 million evangelicals, as well as through its six major commissions.

In North America, ACMC (Advancing Churches in Mission Commitment) chose the theme "Renewal for Global Partnering" for their 1992 conference. The ACMC represents nearly 1,000 churches in the United States, and is on the cutting edge of missions strategy and helping local churches translate that into effective missions policies.

As a reflection of this growing interest and concern about ministry effectiveness through partnership, national leadership conferences built around the theme of Strategic Partnership have been held recently in India, Nepal, Nigeria, the Middle East, and Europe.

Besides all these, a Partnership Network is growing, linking innovators for fellowship, information and further training. Interdev contributes to this with its Partnership Effectiveness Program, a training course for Partnership Facilitators, regional meetings and a newsletter called Partnership Report.

2. Major donors are looking to partnerships for best use of their resources.

Donors, churches, and individuals are beginning to consider partnerships as a significant factor in giving. Many donors are asking mission agencies if they coordinate their efforts with others in their area.

Such donors are clearly indicating they want the greatest spiritual return on their giving, through cooperative effort. No one wants to see his resources diluted through a duplicated project or one whose timing conflicts with another worthy project.

3. Churches want to be active partners.

More and more churches are seeking ways to become partners in the evangelism of specific people groups. They aren't content to merely supply resources of people, money and prayer. They want to be active partners.

Strategic Evangelism Partnerships, with coordinated ministries all contributing to the goal of planting churches, are ideally suited to both church and mission needs.

Action Steps for Ministries / Agencies and Donors

1. Action Steps for a Ministry / Agency.

a. Evaluate the ways in which you already coordinate with other ministry agencies, and look for ways to increase effectiveness.

b. If you are already working in a region, find out about other mission efforts in the area. Participate in any information networks. Participation can range from joint projects to merely sharing information and extending hospitality to people from other groups.

c. If you are considering work among a new people group, find out what others are doing or not doing.

- Check with a national or regional organization that knows the big picture. Know the Christian history for the region. It will speed your progress and help you avoid repeating costly blunders of others.

- Depending on the role of your organization, you may want to support existing networks and develop work complementary to efforts already under way. Or you may move into new areas with few or no other workers or agencies.

- Prioritize your resources to reach those who have not had an opportunity to hear the gospel, but work with others to make sure your contribution will have maximum effect.

d. If there is no existing partnership for a people group in which you are working or plan to work, consider starting one. Be open to dedicating personnel to the sole task of coordinating inter-agency cooperation. This may be the most beneficial use in the long run of a new person with the right gifts, both for your organization and for the Kingdom.

Interdev can assist in getting such a partnership started, and in helping a coordinator. Training and support is available, both formal and informal.

e. Develop a five-year plan to increase your effectiveness through partnering.

Why Partnerships Are Important to the Local Church

• Partnerships are a Biblical, "body" way to establish the Kingdom.
• Partnerships allow a church to benefit from the field experience of mission agencies.
• Partnerships "leverage" or multiply the effectiveness of your church's missions giving. Your gift does not work alone, but every dollar you give works in coordination with many times that amount, from other agencies.
• Partnerships maximize efficiency.
• Partnerships minimize waste and reduce duplication of effort.
• Partnerships assure a high probability of lasting Kingdom results in terms of mature believers in viable national churches.
• A partnership provides a wide variety of options for church people to serve, strategically, and in a project where they can feel "ownership."
• A partnership removes the vague generalities of missions world wide and links a congregation to measurable help for specific people.
• Partnerships provide the best context for a church to get involved in the field--maximizing the diversity of opportunity and minimizing risk.

2. Action Steps for a Donor.

a. Evaluate your current commitments in the light of unreached peoples and what kind of coordination goes into the outreach.

b. In the light of current commitments, begin a long range plan to make unreached peoples a priority for your resources.

c. To encourage coordinated field efforts, simply ask church and mission leaders, "How does your work fit into the overall effort by all churches and missionaries to reach the _______ people? In what ways are you cooperating with others who have the same goal?"

d. Check on ways you can use your resources to encourage mission leadership to reduce duplication, and cooperate to maximize "leverage" of your giving.

Resources and Training for Partnership.

1. Partners in the Gospel, The Strategic Role of Partnership in World Evangelization, edited by James H. Kraakevik and Dotsey Welliver, published by the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187, USA. 203 pages, $6.95.
   Phill Butler, International Director of Interdev, contributed one of the 16 chapters, and Interdev partnership initiatives are strongly represented by several other authors. The book offers an excellent resource tool for sharing partnership concepts and to learn how others have advanced evangelism through successful partnerships.
2. Partnership Diagnostic Kit. Interdev has developed a diagnostic tool to evaluate partnerships. The goal is to strengthen and make the partnership more effective in reaching the unreached for Christ. If you would like a copy, please contact Interdev by letter, telephone or fax, and ask for the Partnership Diagnostic Kit. Address and telephone numbers below.
3. Strategic Partnership Facilitator Training. Interdev offers a two- week course of practical training on how to initiate and operate strategic evangelism partnerships. Intensive interactive instruction covers such elements as contacting mission leaders, how to conduct the critical early meetings, setting realistic partnership goals, problem solving and increasing partnership effectiveness.The course location changes from year to year, and regional courses are planned.

To find out specifics about the next available Strategic Partnership Facilitator's Training, contact Interdev by letter, telephone or fax and ask for information on the next partnership training course. Address and telephone numbers below.

Interdev P.O. Box 3883 Seattle WA 98124-3883, USA, Tel. (425) 775-8330 Fax: (425) 775-8326 E-mail: [email protected]

or

Interdev P.O. Box 47 Ashford Middlesex TW15 2LX, England Tel. 44/1784/420 695 Fax: 44/1784-420 696 E-mail: [email protected]