Influencing Other Influencers (Part 1)

We often get asked this question when we meet people for the first time:

Good question.

In short, we recruit, disciple and coach ministers and other leaders in a missionary approach to life and ministry. In the process we help them understand cultural shifts in a secular world and the missional principles needed in sharing our faith.This is motivated from a hope to see the Church become infused with a greater ability to live out the commission Jesus gave us: Go and make disciples.

As we work to influence other influencers, we take ministers on a journey of discovery to reclaim some “forgotten ways” (Alan Hirsch) which greatly inform the ministry that gets accomplished. Our hope is to gently guide them into life and ministry from the same missionary approach Jesus taught His followers.They put into play the principles He gave them as the Early Church began to take shape.

What generally happens, for those we influence, is that out of our conversation comes the start of something new. It grows and develops as those involved lay their hands to the plow and go to work. We help turn the soil in ministers’ lives to prepare them for the seeds of mission we will sow as we disciple other disciple-makers.

Ultimately, this all sits at the foundation of our assignment from USM as we help the local church to mobilize and rediscover the call to SEEK, SAVE, and SEND.

Our desire is to see every minister we work with living and ministering through a missionary approach. We really believe this is crucial because a missionary-minded minister leads differently than they might have from other approaches. The apostolic nature (sent-ness) of the church Jesus started becomes much more the focus as ministers reproduce, in those they serve, the same approach to life and ministry.

In fact, we want to see entire congregations turn into missionary families on mission: people of the local church living sent lives while taking the Gospel to the isolated, lost people of their neighborhoods. We are working to activate this missionary calling among the people of God to live sent lives as they discover how to seek and save those who have lost their way. This is the Jesus way of disciple-making and evangelism we help other influencers to rediscover.

To help you get started in your neighborhood, we are including a link to a series of blogs about the subject of Good Neighboring. We wanted to give you a few missionary tools for your neighborhood as you get things going around your home.

We trust this short article helps bring clarity in what we do as U.S. Missionaries with the Church Mobilization window of the Assemblies of God’s U.S. Missions.

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