Shifting Missions Paradigms Part 3
Written By // Amy Maxton
Shifting Missions Paradigms: Training
We all want our investments to matter.
As college ministers, we know this firsthand.
It is the clarion call of the Gospel that motivates us to reach students, make disciples, and pour out our lives. We want our students to not “only” come to faith, but grow in that faith. (Col. 2:6-7)
And while we are certainly ready to make sacrifices for our students - regardless of the return - we long for them to truly “get” it. We long to see the fruit of the Gospel in their lives, and see the Good News reach the corners of our campuses and go around the world to those who are desperately waiting.
In our first article, we talked about the first and foremost important task of a campus minister: to train and equip individuals to be effective in their walk with Jesus.
We next talked about the benefit of cultivating long-term partnerships when engaging in international missions.
Here’s where it all collides.
In order to maximize our time, resources, and truly equip students for a life with Christ - while also fulfilling the Great Commission - we have to think strategically about how, when, and where we organize our investments.
Consider the long time horizon
The Kingdom of God grows steadily. We may not always see it, but we know the Gospel is taking root and growing all over the world. (Col. 2:7)
Simply put, a time horizon is the length of time from where you are to your finished goal. It is how far out you are going to take into account before you are “done.” It has applications in everything from investment planning to navigation. When assessing something’s effectiveness, you gain the most clear picture in taking a long time horizon - looking far ahead, rather than just at a discrete moment in time./
Similarly, we all know and have experienced the need to look up from the race of a single semester to the marathon of the year, the student’s collegiate experience, and beyond.
If we’re going to be strategic about our investments - our time and energy, resources, and more - in relation to our goals - reaching the campus and advancing the Great Commission - we have to position international missions and our campus ministries within the framework of a longer time horizon.
We have to ask, what price am I willing to pay now in order to achieve my long term goal?
Consider what it takes to get people from “here” to “there”
Regardless of what age we come to Jesus, we need help. We need direction and mentoring to grow in our ability to be more like Christ. It’s one of the chief reasons we work in campus ministry.
We also need training to help improve our skill in sharing the Gospel. Pure passion for the Good News is key, but for effective evangelism we also need a method, directions, and the opportunity to practice.
These truths taken together with our goal to see our campuses reached and the Good News to go to the ends of the earth reveals a picture:
Training and investment are necessary for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in our hearts and in the world.
Good training is focused and intentional. It brings you along from where you are to where you need to be. The better the training - the better prepared you are - the better you are able to meet the demands of your activity.
The benefits of training are important enough that it’s worth doing well, even if it means the start up is harder than the finish. You pay a higher price in preparation in order to be better positioned later.
As we discussed in the first article of this series, by-and-large, we’ve mostly focused on sending students overseas with an eye toward their participation, rather than toward their preparedness.
However, as we will detail next, we can increase our overall effectiveness in our calling if we consider training within the longer time horizon of the Lord’s work in and through our ministries.
A FOCUS Example
FOCUS International works to connect teams of college students - and the campus ministries they represent - with short term overseas projects. Teams are sent to long-term field workers where they join the work and ministry for a summer. Projects include everything from helping with English corners, to conversational clubs, and more.
FOCUS exists because the Gospel must go to those who have no access. The training model employed by the organization servers as a case study and model for everything we’ve been discussing.
Now, full disclosure, I do some work as a FOCUS staff member. As we discussed in our earlier articles, their training convictions have been honed since 1993 and include the commitment to helping intensive train students for their summer projects.
FOCUS students apply, and then are placed on teams together with other students from their campus. If there aren’t enough students from a campus to create a team, they are added to a mixed team with students from a similar situation.
All students receive months of training through online lessons, and student team leaders attend an in-person leadership training weekend in the spring.
It all culminates in an in-person, all-student training event called Orientation Week. Together with more than 100 volunteers, students have the opportunity for an immersive, experiential-based training that works to prepare them for the rigorous spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational demands of overseas ministry.
The more than 100 volunteers who participate in the training come from campus ministries and churches across the United States. They prepare for more than two months for one week of training. They come at their own cost and pour in hundreds of hours of preparation and work.
Why?
Because good training matters.
“I always love getting FOCUS teams,” says one overseas partner.
“They work independently. They are willing to do challenging things, and they are ready to try things I always wanted to do, but couldn’t because of the time involved and how busy I usually am. Because they took initiative and I don’t have to walk them through everything, they are a blessing. They are able to help boost numbers of seeker contacts. I’m just one person, but teams of four can boost the work, multiplying the number of good contacts we are able to get.”
He later went on to share that in addition to helping the long-term work, teams are also an encouragement to him and his family, giving a boost of energy.
Consider the cost
Yes, intensive training and investment prior to overseas missions work does come at a cost. It requires more time, effort, and money than other models. But its potential returns are stunning.
Our hearts follow our investments. And students who receive intensive training and investment are much more likely to be engaged in practicing a missional mindset - even prior to their summer overseas trip.
Because these students are actively learning about the Gospel in the context of their campus ministry, while being specifically and intensively trained for cross-cultural ministry, they have the opportunity to connect what they are learning in the former to what they are practicing in the latter. They can connect the dots from your investment to the waiting world. This happens faster and more accurately because they are being trained and taught through their preparation for their trip. It’s a guided learning lab with eternal echoes.
Students who have seen, understood, and put into practice sharing the Gospel are much more likely to be passionate and invested in our campus ministries.
Longer training times means more opportunity for input too. Students who engage in a more intensive training process prior to overseas cross-cultural missions can be cross-trained by a community of like-minded men and women. This also happens as they go to join a long-term partnership. Through the continuity of investment and the community of voices, our students gain a better understanding of the true global nature of the Gospel. The Truth they have received in the campus setting takes root in their hearts in a different way.
The cost of a more intensive preparatory investment has the potential to impact your ministry long after the summer trip is done. It ripples into eternity.
Some students may struggle for a season after returning home from an overseas assignment. Do not despair or give up on them. Once again, a long time horizon is key. Such a season of struggle is just a season. Continue to do the work of investment, guiding, and discipleship. Life changes are hard. And these students are working to make sense of all they have experienced. It is a season though, and intensive preparation and investment help position us for resilience.
Once they have truly returned - either after disembarking the plane or pushing through a season of processing - these students have the potential to be an irreplaceable asset to the work at your campus.
The students who have been intensively trained have now gained skill - and experience - in reaching out to the lost. You have the potential to have a specially-trained team that is passionate, interested, and gained some practice at ministry. You have - in a sense - added to your campus ministry resources.
To further the possible eternal echoes of an initial investment in training, returned students can help reach out to the international students on your campus. After coming to faith, those students would then likely return to their home countries, reaching places we can never go ourselves.
We cannot neglect to address one of the biggest costs of more intensive training and investment - that of the literal added cost.
In light of all the eternal benefits, I would challenge us to reframe the expense as an invitation. Yes, a protracted investment and preparation season is more expensive than a short program. However, more time equals more opportunity. Because of the need for a wide base of financial support, each student’s community can and will be invited to contribute. Those supporters will have the opportunity to hear not only about the project, but also about the work being done on your campus - and perhaps, hear the Good News for the first time.
Improbable Math
We all want our investments to matter. And we are deeply aware of how short we come when measured against the great need of the lost world.
Against what feels like a resource shortage, we ration out our energies and try to decide where tasks and charges fall in a hierarchy of needs. We know all too well that everything comes at the cost of something else, and adding to our tasks or proposing a deeper cut feels like one sacrifice too many.
But the Kingdom of God is full of examples of improbable math, here are just two:
“‘Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’” (Mal. 3:10)
In Proverbs 11:24 we read, “One person gives freely, yet gains more; another withholds what is right only to become poor.”
As followers of Jesus, our energies and resources were not meant to be hoarded. (Matt. 16:25) The more we try to preserve our resources only for ourselves, the more we choke ourselves off from full, vibrant Life.
Adopting an outward-facing, investment-intensive focus with our work, students, and programs positions us to see God move. We get to see God strengthen our ministries and resources.
We can trust that He will provide the finances, people, and resources for ourselves, our ministries, and our campuses.
Echoes of an investment
Intensive training and preparation for students prior to cross-cultural trips is an investment that has the potential to bring great return. Together with building a long-term overseas partnership, longer term investment can help us achieve our primary goals as campus ministers.
We pray that these efforts will echo into eternity as we work to train and equip individuals to be effective in their walks with Jesus while working to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.