The International Mission Board needs churches. Missionaries can’t get to the mission field without churches, and churches enable missionaries to remain in the places God called them to serve. Churches also play a crucial role in raising up a new generation of missionaries.
This spring, the IMB will host a Sender’s Summit, where leaders from four ministries that are excelling at mobilizing their constituencies will share their methods to encourage other churches to be on mission.
Jeff Ginn, vice president of mobilization for the IMB, said the role and goal of the mobilization department is to encourage and equip more churches and Christians to engage in the missionary task.
“Mobilization seeks to awaken the church to pray more, to give more, to go more and to send more,” Ginn said. “We’re resolved to address the world’s greatest problem.”
RELATED: Check out more international missions stories here. To learn more about this spring’s IMB Sender’s Summit, click here.
Among its many functions, IMB’s mobilization office develops church partnerships and encourages Southern Baptists to take short-term mission trips. A NextGen team is dedicated to mobilizing students from churches, universities and seminary campuses. Another team is engaged in mobilization among ethnic congregations.
Churches needed
It is the IMB’s hope to continue to build relationships with churches. IMB missionaries are heading to the mission field to engage unreached people groups and need the church’s help, Ginn said.
“We need you. We can’t do this alone. The Great Commission was given to the local church. And we’re here to serve Southern Baptists in getting the gospel to the ends of the earth,” he said.
Pastors are integral to mobilizing the church.
“A church reflects the heart of her pastor,” Ginn said. “The pastor puts his imprint on the church. What he emphasizes, the church will emphasize, what he deemphasizes, the church will deemphasize.”
“You show me a pastor who loves missions, who goes on mission trips, who promotes missions, and I’ll show you a church that loves missions, goes on mission trips, promotes missions, gives to missions and prays for missions,” he said.
Pipelines key to mobilizing churches
One of the ways churches can mobilize their church members is through creating pipelines.
The IMB uses the term “pipeline” for people who are in the process of considering and preparing to serve as missionaries. Churches are using the term in reference to their own missionary preparatory processes. The localization of the missionary pipeline is gaining momentum, Ginn said.
It’s Ginn’s hope that churches will adopt the Acts 1:8 model, “You’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
He said churches can mobilize their members to be involved in missions locally, then engage in a state missions effort, then take a national mission trip, and then move to an international mission trip.
Ginn, who served with his family in Latin America as an IMB missionary, said it was the mobilization efforts and Acts 1:8 vision of his childhood home church that influenced his later decision to become a missionary.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tessa Sanchez and originally published by the International Mission Board.
