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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
EP 42 Moving forward as a mission: A conversation with Ben B
In this conversation the tables are turned and Ben B the normal host of the World Outreach Podcast will be interviewed. Ben B was appointed the International Director of World Outreach in September 2023.
This episode peels back the layers of the missions field as we witness the seismic shift toward a rising Global South Church, the innovative impact of technology on ministry, and the profound effects of global migration on evangelism. The art of collaboration stands in focus, with an emphasis on the synergy between missions organizations and local churches to reach out effectively to migrants and refugees. We explore the strategic implementation of Church Planting Movements (CPM) and Disciple Making Movements (DMM) to weave together a tapestry of diverse communities into the body of Christ.
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You're listening to the World Outreach Podcast dynamic conversations designed to empower our community as we engage unreached people groups everywhere. In today's episode, we're going to do something slightly different. Ben G, who was on episode 22 a few years back and who is our member care coordinator, is going to do an interview with me, and so we're going to switch things around and talk a little bit differently. So, Ben, thanks for coming on and doing this interview and I'm going to release it over to you. Thanks.
Ben G:Ben, it's great to be here. So as we go into today's podcast, our hope is to learn a bit more about you as you've transitioned into the role of international director of world outreach. We'll just talk a bit about some of the things that are happening in the realm of missions today and how world outreach hopes to navigate those changes and optimize our responses to those kind of things. How do we get to know you? You're used to not talking but asking other people to talk. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Ben B:I'm married to my wife Rachel. We've been married for 25 years. We have two children a daughter, lydia, who's 21 and married, and our son Noah, who's 18 and in his last year of high school. We got involved in missions back early days, so my wife was an MK in Mexico. Missionary kid grew up in Mexico. Then we were involved in leading short term trips and stuff like that when we worked for our church back in Utah. Then we joined world outreach in 2003 and set off to the jungles of Borneo. That's where we got our start into missions a little over 20 years ago now.
Ben G:So I think one thing that's unusual about you is you're still young from ministry standards and yet here you are leading the organization. What was it like for you back in the day 2003? You're quite young when you first went to the mission field.
Ben B:Well, that's an interesting question. We were quite young, so we were in our mid-20s. At that stage we had always had a sense of calling to ministry, in a sense that when Rachel and I got married, we got married at quite young 19 years old but we just said we're just going to put God first in everything that we did. We were just involved in ministry in our church doing local stuff, youth groups, outreach. We ran outreach programs Then.
Ben B:So it was just a natural progression to move into missions for us as God began to stir that on our hearts. We've just kind of always done ministry and been in ministry Starting young. It's been a unique journey. Everybody comes into missions not really knowing what they're doing, Whether they come in young or old, and they might have tons of ministry experience. But as soon as you step across cultural barriers and move into different contexts, you actually start as a newbie in many ways. So in some ways that helped us because we didn't have a lot of life experience that maybe shaped things. So we're maybe a little bit more open to learning and growing and trying new things. But yeah, it's been an interesting ride to kind of see the progression over the last 20 years of how God has faithfully led us through different seasons of ministry types and responsibilities and that kind of stuff.
Ben G:I'm sure when you started out 20 years ago you couldn't have imagined that someday you'd be leading the whole organization. Tell me a bit about what it was like to, or how God has developed you through these years, from these young 20-somethings who are now holding all this responsibility for world outreach as a whole.
Ben B:Yeah, looking back, I think Rachel and I have always kind of had a leadership calling on our lives and those for me that matured, I think, later than it did for Rachel. Rachel has always kind of been very much a leader in her own right and for me it took me a while to find myself. I did a lot of different things and I've explored a lot of different things and so for me I've seen God steadily move me from things, but also seeing people call out leadership skills and things within my own life and say, hey, we see this on you, why don't you step into this or try that? And so I think a lot of it's been through intentional mentorship. So I think leadership has kind of got those things where you are in one sense born a leader but you also can grow as a leader, and so I think for me it's been uncovering natural latent calling that God's put into me, but then also intentionally working to develop and grow as a leader, reading lots of books.
Ben B:I mean I did a master's degree in organizational leadership. I've done all sorts of things to continue to hone the skills of leadership as well, to get ready over the season and as God's moved us, we've seen start with small things. Those who are faithful as little will be faithful as much God will trust him with much later on. So I think we've seen that little baby steps along the journey of God giving us more responsibility and doing well in it getting more responsibility. I also think back down to my teen years and stuff quite a few prophetic words and people speaking into our lives about leadership, about that kind of sense of calling of God on our lives, and so that was also there as a foundation that you could reflect back on over time, too.
Ben G:Something I hear kind of under your story is the idea of, as a leader, coming to places where you maybe hit walls or like you reach the end of your natural giftings or what you could easily do. And how did you, for the people who are listening and want to know how to develop their leadership, how did you move past those barriers each time and work on things, maybe in areas that you were more weakened or not naturally gifted?
Ben B:Yeah, Part of that's been recognizing and being okay that you have weaknesses, because we all grow, and I think John Maxwell, or somebody else like that, said you know, try and fail. Forward this idea that you can learn a lot through failure if you stop and reflect like where did I mess this up? Or you know moments of reflection. So how did I, how could I have done better, how could I have improved this? So being open to that, one of the things that's been, you know, because I've been so much younger than many people for a long time, particularly in world outreach, as I've worked, you know, in different areas of leadership within the organization, is I've always been, you know, 10 to 15 years younger than the rest, so putting myself in positions where I had people ahead of me that I could watch and to see and ask questions about. So how did you handle this? How did you handle raising your children? Or how do you handle balancing family and work life and how do you, you know, deal with difficult conversations? So having intentional relationships with people asking lots of questions.
Ben B:I've been fortunate that I have quite a few quality mentors, you know. Peter Smith was a great mentor to me. The Baylases have mentored me a lot. The Talbots have mentored me a lot. External mentors as well, outside of world outreach, who I've reached out to for different seasons of life that you know, some who are more business oriented, so they've helped me with some more systems and understanding, some maybe financial aspects of leadership, and others who are, you know, done mergers and acquisitions for large corporations and so how do you do change and how do you do transition and how do you talk to people you know and have difficult conversation. So I think, having lots of mentors and lots of people that directly in your life, but then also you know, there's that adage that says you know you can have lots of mentors. Just read a book, you know, and so I've been mentored by far from you know, distance, from a lot of different people through different books and learnings. That I've done as well.
Ben G:I think that's definitely a trademark that I have seen, knowing you for about 10 years now, that you are a voracious learner and so active in seeking it out, not just sort of waiting for things to come to you. Yeah, for sure.
Ben B:You know they say leaders or readers, so people who are learning and growing, and you know as a value, as a what the organization, lifelong learning is one of our cultural values that we try and uphold, that we want everybody to continue to lead and as a leader, but also to continue to learn, to grow and to learn. There's one of the reasons that I started this podcast I guess four or five years ago now. This is our fifth season, so, yeah, so this we're starting our fifth year with the podcast is because this is one of the ways that I learned.
Ben B:I listened to a lot of podcasts because I can do other things while listening to other people conversation. So starting the podcast was, for me, was a lot about how do we stimulate thought and growth in different people and with our, you know, personnel scattered all around the world, so it's not easy to gather everybody around, but we often drive cars or we cook dinner or we go for a walk, and so there's natural times that we can can learn, and so hopefully, we can stimulate each other in our conversations and our learning, but we have to be intentional to seek it out. It doesn't happen on its own without intentionality.
Ben G:You went through kind of a year long search. You're formally set in as the international director in the last quarter of 2023. And now you're coming sort of. This is your first new year starting off in leading this organization and it is an interesting time in world missions to be kind of taking over and looking at the future of an organization like World Outreach. Can you talk a bit about some of the challenges or some of the changes and shifts that you're seeing in the missions landscape?
Ben B:Yeah, there's been definitely quite a lot of shifts over the last probably five to ten years, and then COVID definitely sped that up significantly. Some of the things that you know we see would be the shift of the global South Church. So you know the Western Church, typically a majority world church that often called versus the majority world church, and there's been a real shift in rising of the majority world church or the global South Church, taking more prominence, developing more of their own theology, developing more of a role as a key player in missions, and we're seeing that very much reflected in our own mission. We're now sit about 65 to 70 percent of all of our personnel are from the majority world, where ten years ago it would have been 65 percent were from the minority world and only 35 percent from the majority world. So there's been a whole shift that way within missions. It's that would be.
Ben B:One another one that's been, you know, really big is technology and the use of technology. So podcasts, like this ability to do Zoom, you know all these online communication platforms that have come out, particularly out of COVID, and people adoption of that is much higher. We have ministries, you know, who are doing discipleship online, so they go and they visit people in person and they work with the people on the ground in person, maybe three times a year, but on the off times they're having, you know, weekly Zoom meetings with their teams or their you know running house churches via Zoom, you know. So there's a lot of different technology that's at play on how we can connect and interact with people and that's shaping how we can do missions and what's available to us. That would be a big one, I think.
Ben B:Just the whole idea of what is missions in the sense of people movement. We have a lot of things of, you know, people, migration, globalization, displace peoples, and so that shifts things. So it used to be, you know, the West to the West, and then now it's kind of like everyone to everywhere, because we are very much a mixing pot of a global world. Now I don't know the actual statistics, but there's millions of people who are displaced now and there's millions of people who, you know, live in refugee camps or now gone to another country to work or to study and they stay there, and so they come from unreached people groups where they might not have access to the gospel before, but now they're living right next door to someone who does have the gospel and so their access to ministry like we haven't had before. And so we have to shift our minds like what is missions from that perspective as well? It's not just someone going, but it's also someone receiving an outsider in and beginning that whole discipleship process.
Ben B:Because even when people start moving and we have all these people who group movements you know that axiom, you know birds of a feather flock together still reigns true in most ways, or there might be some intermix Most people still flock to their own people group or their own language group. You know things that are familiar with them in a new land. So there can often be segregated and missed out by traditional churches or the church that's already there, unless there's intentionality about reaching out to that newly. You know person in that community. In the past we've seen the need for missions organizations to work together with local churches.
Ben G:And obviously, World Outreach specializes in sending and trainings, cross-cultural, all the things that are needed towards having a successful missions career. Now that more often the unreached are even showing up in sending traditional sending, you know, in sending traditional sending nations, how do you see the organization and local churches interfacing to reach the refugees and the migrants that are showing up at their door?
Ben B:Collaboration is going to be big. I mean, missions as a whole is not doable by one organization or one group. It's always going to require collaboration and partnerships, and I think that's where we can marry the two skills. There are specialties that you know the different groups have, like churches have people and they have resources right there amongst the people group. And a mission agency has the ability to mobilize people and to provide training and skills and kind of mythological perspective to help those people better engaged with people who are different than them, that are now in proximity to them. And so I think we can marry the two together and work collaboratively to help continue to advance the cause of missions amongst unreached.
Ben G:And so one of the methods that World Outreach has seen a lot of success in through the years is the CPM or DMM, the church planning movement, discipleship making movements. How does that work in this context of more migrant and refugee ministers?
Ben B:It works because as I was saying before, people don't necessarily naturally integrate into a new community. When they move to a new place, you know, they're still often because of language barriers or education barriers or work, a variety of different reasons they don't actually integrate into the new community. So the CPM, dmm, you know approach is going to make disciples, who can make disciples. So we're looking for reproducibility of discipleship making things. So it's still going to take a catalyst, a person, an outsider, to come in, engage with somebody, start, you know, sharing the gospel with them, helping them to study scripture themselves, and then they invite their community in and they can start reading and study scripture together and following Jesus. And so it works because that can be done anywhere amongst anyone. It just takes someone to help start it and to nurture it along its growth cycle. So from that perspective those models marry very well with people coming in because it's an individual approach to a group.
Ben G:So the idea continues to be, as people hear the gospel and respond within those groups this refugee groups or migrant groups that they will stay in those communities and then reach out and then it will continue to multiply within those communities rather than pulling them into a church setting kind of thing.
Ben B:Yeah, I think it's probably both, and I think the gospel will. We've seen it in many places where the gospel flows best through their own heart language, through their own cultural dynamics. So there is that element of the natural ability for it to flow through themselves and be able to communicate and to share deep spiritual things in their own language. But there is an element of the bigger picture as actually as a church, as a community, that's already there we want to welcome the foreigner amongst us. That's what scripture tells us to do. So we also don't necessarily want to say you stay over there and we stay over here. So let's find ways that we have commonality and common ground and build off of those things as well. So I think it's a bit both and, but probably from a spiritual discipleship perspective it's going to have been the quickest within its own people groups. We don't want to not have a mixture of people as well if that makes sense.
Ben G:So it strikes me that one of World Outreach's strategies that they're implementing right now in regards to setting up hubs in some of these areas relates well to. It's a strategy to address in part this situation as well.
Ben B:You know our strategy for hubs in different regions that we're looking at. So we're looking at from an organizational perspective. We're looking at three things a convergence of where do we have World Outreach personnel who are trained and skilled and equipped to make disciples. Where is their growing church community Like? Where are there a massive believers? And then where is proximity to unreached people groups? And so when those three things converge we're like, okay, let's invest in setting up a facility to help train local people, to help them to be upskilled and to get a mission's heart and to the skill and passion to then go out and make disciples amongst those unreached people groups that are nearby them.
Ben B:And oftentimes it still requires outsiders to do that because of cultural barriers between unreached people groups. Why don't they intermix? Why there might be animosity between the groups. There might be a variety of reasons that the groups don't connect. So an outside catalyst coming in and saying, hey, let's foster these relationships, often helps stimulate growth that might not naturally be there. So that's what we're looking at with the hubs and we're starting to see some really good fruit in that. In certain places like Indonesia, we've been going for a while. There. They've got a couple of different internships that have ran. They're now having new churches started. They've got new disciples being baptized and growing in themselves and starting groups. So we're seeing good things from that and we're excited to see how that's going to move in the different other regions that we are setting these up.
Ben G:For those who may not know, world Outreach differs from many missions organizations in the sense that there's not a head office that dictates where you're sent and what your strategy is and where you're going to go and what you're going to do. So they've always been field driven, the idea that the people who are closest to the people that they're ministering to should set the strategy and they have their finger on the pulse, and so that's always been kind of a pioneering, I would say also eclectic, kind of way to do ministry. So why the move towards something a bit more organized? Still field driven, in that sense that it's close to the action, but a bit more structured, yeah so we have pioneering roots as an organization and we want to keep those pioneering roots.
Ben B:But what we've seen, and it's kind of been documented throughout the mission's world, is there's been a shift in kind of personalities over the last 40 years, the generational shift that we call the previous generation kind of pioneer, the hardy people, and then this newer generation. They're calling them fragile, but that's not really fragile as in. They're weak but fragile as in. They're more aware of their own humanity and pioneers can just be stubborn and they can just drive and no matter what comes against them, they're just going to keep moving forward. The newer generation is much more aware of their own human frailty and limitations and so they want to work together more in groups. They want to work together in collaboration with more people and they want a little bit more direction. They're like here I am, I'm ready to go, send me, where should I go? Where the previous generation was much more like hey, god told me to go there, so I'm going to go do that.
Ben B:So we're trying to marry up the two of those things with us, as there's been a shift in cultures from generation to generation and personality behind that. And then also still recognizing, because for us as an organization, we're unreached people groups focused, so we tend not to say, hey, just go anywhere. We tend, okay, where's an unreached people group, let's go there. So we want to be more selective in that as well. So this will help us in kind of marrying those two things together, being very intentional about engaging in unreached people groups but then also helping new people who are of a different kind of breed, different generation, to go out and to continue to pioneer new things, but just in a different format.
Ben G:And how will the hubs, along with that, help with raising up kind of the whole near neighbor approach to the unreached people around them?
Ben B:Yeah, so the hubs will help in that because, as I said, we're looking where there's already a church, probably in proximity or growing to Christians in that community, and so where we set those up, that means there's already probably some local believers and they're probably in relationship or know some unreached people groups, people from unreached people groups, but they might not have the training, the vision, a lot of people.
Ben B:I think one of the shortfalls of missions over the last generation of missionaries has been that they've been sent and they had their people group that they're working amongst and that was their target and that was their end goal.
Ben B:And the part of the discipleship process got left off of helping them to be brought into the Great Commission and to be made missional believers who are going out and making disciples themselves, and so they became the end goal.
Ben B:And so we kind of have a what looks to be a cycle of people going particularly from the West, going amongst an unreached people group, working there, developing something there, but never imparting the vision and DNA of the Great Commission and going to their neighbors themselves. And so we're hoping that through this we can help break some of that cycle and help them see, actually I still have a place to make disciples amongst unreached people, groups who are around me, and so that's one of the things I think. Another thing is that because we as a mission organization specialize in missions, where very much or we try to be up to date on kind of statistics and on what trends are happening, what nations look like from a Christian perspective of how this gospel is going Is it there? Is it not there? And so we can bring in some of that specialties, skills or awareness, research, knowledge that maybe a local believer just doesn't have access to, so they don't know, and so we can help raise awareness that way and mobilize them into the Great Commission.
Ben G:You mentioned before that one of the trends that you're seeing within our organization is more majority world people coming in, and obviously these hubs will is really leaning into that trend and probably will increase that percentage even more. So what are some of the strengths that brings and what are some of the challenges that you see in having such a diverse workforce, if you will?
Ben B:Yeah, the strengths I would say is that we get a well a greater picture of who God is. If all of us, every human, is created in that nature, god and we've been separated, you know, by sin and all that stuff, and dispersed as different people, groups who are of God as they become to come into a relationship to him and manifest his glory, manifest who he is. As they come into, you know, walking with him, we get a different picture of God. We get a greater understanding of who God is and the nature of God. So it's kind of like a mosaic of the different pieces coming together and we see a bigger picture of God. As one of the amazing things about having such a diverse group of people, we get to see how God's working in different places and different people in different ways. I think we also get to grow together as a global church and so that also changes the way we look at things.
Ben B:You know, I'm an American, so I have an American worldview, kind of as a foundation thing. I think I've worked hard to kind of suppress a lot of that, and not in a bad thing. I'm not not proud to be American, but you know, like one culture is not better than the other, and just often we talk about, you know, the nation's course is not wrong, just different. We do things differently. We have different perspectives because God's put different things into us and so because of that we also get to see different perspectives of how the gospel can be played out, so we can learn from each other, so we get so much richer environment. I would say.
Ben B:From that perspective, some of the challenges would be obviously the cultural diversity and differences. Because there are different ways to do different things. It takes a little bit longer to kind of figure out what's the most appropriate thing to do in this situation. You have the language barrier factors. You know we have to do a lot of things either through translation or English as a second. You translate things into other languages, but also a lot of people English is their second language or third language or maybe fourth language, and so you have to slow down to make sure that we're communicating well, so that everybody is brought along the journey together and so that just you know just practical things that you have to work through because of that.
Ben B:It's just so. That adds a level of complexity to it. And then you have, you know, diverse time zones and access to internet and technology, access to learning, access to a variety of different things that just make it a complex situation to kind of lead across and through. But at the end of the day, we're all people and we all have a heart to serve God, and so we get to see the win as a collective win when we do see things break through and we have, you know, disciples being made in different places and stuff like that. So from that side it's very rich and we get lots of good food because there's such diversity and food around us.
Ben G:So how is unity achieved when you have so much diversity? Like I know, world Outreach's value has been multicultural through all the years and, thinking back to last July, when there was a gathering of a global summit and everyone together, there was a unity there. And what do you, what do you think, has led to that, and how do you continue to build that in the future?
Ben B:Yeah, well, I think, as I was saying, to come back to it, we all want to see God glorified. So I think the the objective that when we join the organization we have the same priority really of making God know and amongst underage people, groups, and so that really helps to have a, you know, a same value or vision for that thing. The other side, I think we have a lot of great mature believers and so there's an understanding of I'm gonna die to myself for the good of others so that God can be glorified. So I think those things build on it. But we very, we really genuinely try and build an atmosphere or environment where different voices can be heard and different perspectives can be heard.
Ben B:So, as you mentioned, you know, we're field driven and so we set up forums and avenues for different people to communicate with different ways to share ideas, so that we're getting broad input into the organization, not just a single group, you know, in an ivory tower some way making up all the plans for the organization, but we try and bring in different levels and of people within the organization, but also from different backgrounds and personalities, so that we get a real broad input.
Ben B:So those are some of the things that we work on to do that we try and communicate the why behind a lot of what we're doing. So people might not understand what it is on the surface, but once we start communicating the why or what's the intentionality behind it, then people get brought along that journey like, yeah, we can understand. That might not be the way I do it, but yeah, we understand what you're trying to do and so we do try and foster that kind of openness and bringing people on the journey. So and we value relationships significantly so we'll spend a lot more time in relationships and talking with each other and praying with each other and worshiping together and, you know, getting to know each other beyond just the work of ministry, and I think that also helps us significantly in creating a spirit of unity, because we know each other, we know our motivations and our heart more than the outcome that are being produced or the objectives that we're trying to reach.
Ben G:And so I think that's been really key to be a really organization, a relationship organization that's built on relationship more than like on rules and policy and that kind of stuff you alluded to, trying to make room for the voices of, maybe, cultures that are less direct, or obviously the Western cultures tend to be quick to speak, quick to sort of jump in, quick to lead. How have you worked to foster leaders from some of the majority world cultures that might be more likely to wait for somebody else to do it or even just take longer to process or longer indirect ways to to speak?
Ben B:Thankfully, we've had a previous generation of leaders who have been very aware of these things and has helped foster an environment to help with that. So some of the things that we do. So we have a leadership development program for organizational leaders and that looks at 15 kind of global leadership competencies. But then also we look at the individual, like what's the personality profile, like what's their natural disposition, like what are their skills, what are some of the passion areas that they want, and we assign them a mentor. We also have some mandatory learnings that everybody has to go through and then we also have self learning, so a process of like hey, these are areas I want to grow in, so here's some resources to explore. So we try and tailor it that way for them as an individual. But then we also like running meetings or running trainings. We try and control that environment in the sense of creating space for other people to speak up. So if we know someone you know in another culture, where there's a power distance and they're not going to speak unless they're specifically called on, then we will make sure that hey, let's, let's hear from you this time. Hey, tell us what you're thinking about. This or where some of them who, like he's alluded to. You know some of the Western communities. They'll jump in with ever their ideas right as soon as they think it, until we like, hey guys, why don't you hold off? We haven't heard from other people for a while, so, and then you can bring in your ideas and stuff. So trying to create opportunities that way, but also time to process information.
Ben B:So our and for our meetings tend to go a lot longer and consume a lot more time because we have so many different learning and cultures, look, learning styles, but also cultural styles that have to kind of get navigated to create. So we have to create space for that to happen in our organizational development as well and how we develop people and how we run the organization. So we move a little bit slower. But you know, as that African proverb says, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And so we try and figure out how do we want to go far. We have a vision to reach unreached people groups, and there's still 7,000 left in the world. So we have a lot to work to do. We want to go far, so if we have to go a little bit slower to make that happen, but that will reach our objectives and that's what we want to do.
Ben G:Another challenge that I know has come up in regards to majority world mission force, and something I know you're quite passionate about is is financial viability and support. Raising world outreach is under the ethic from your position all the way down, that everyone raises their own funds and it's a faith-based organization in the truest sense that people are really seeking the Lord and and looking around to raise their support, which obviously is different in some of these cultures, or especially if people are doing ministry within their home nation.
Ben B:Talk a bit about that yeah, that is a concern, a challenge, so I'll talk about it from a couple different perspectives. One from, like, the Western church perspective. We've seen a huge shift in mission giving and and resourcing of missionaries and the work from a sense of we've moved to a culture that wants to see results quickly. So we want we. There's a big shift towards, like projects, short-term funding. Here's, you know, ten thousand dollars to build a building and we're done, you know, because you can measure that really easily and quickly, which is good and we need those things. But the reality is, discipleship is a lifelong journey and it takes time to make disciples and underage people groups. So the ability to have people on the ground doing missions and discipleship requires funding and and so that ongoing funding is important for missionaries to be able to stay and do the work. So that's been a shift and I think it's been a negative shift and but so it's been a shifting away from the church. But we've seen more, particularly around the globe, we're seeing more individuals individually supporting ministries or missionaries versus a church supporting a mission or ministry. So that's been one shift. But coming back to your idea of this personal support raising or how do we help other people raise support. So there is a kind of a talk about, hey, well, that's just a Western church thing to do. But actually when we look at scriptures and the whole of scripture and the different way that God provided funding for the ministers throughout scripture, we see a variety of different approaches to it and and that's not set in the Western context, that's set in the Middle East and so it's not a Western thing. And we see, you know, paul asked for support. But we also see Paul do tent making for a season. And Paul did tent making for a season so that he wouldn't be a burden on the Thessalonians for one, and then when that stopped, he went back to getting support. But then also he, as soon as he got support in the Corinthians example is, he then devoted himself fully to ministry all the time, not to having to work and do ministry. So there's a variety of models, obviously, but what we're seeing is that, as we've been teaching so we're a big advocate of the God ask book and approach by Steve Shadrach as we've gone through over the last two or three years, training different personnel from a variety of different contexts in biblical Support, raising, ministry, partner development, some people call it.
Ben B:We're seeing that people in India, in Thailand, in Indonesia, you know, in Africa, in a variety of different places, are able to raise ministry support from their local communities. That's based on the fact that there is a growing church in that community. If there's not a growing church in that community, they got called to missions. It definitely makes it much harder, because who do they appeal to? But from the sense of where there's a growing church and the invitation to hey, god has called me into this, would you consider supporting me in this so that we can go and, you know, bring the gospel to these people.
Ben B:We're seeing a very positive response in a variety of different cultures and backgrounds Towards that. So it is a still a constant challenge and we do need resourcing and financial resources to continue to send people, and so we Are working, develop organizational partners as well. Who wants to so big into bigger picture organizational things? But also For the individual missionaries as well, helping them raise their support. But by training them and giving these resources, we're seeing them also being able to raise their own support in their ministry con that's excellent Thanks.
Ben G:So let's go back to tech. You were talking about how tech is changing the way that we do missions. Talk a bit about some of the trends you're seeing and what world out reaches doing or what you would like to see us do to to leverage those some of the things that are Taking place is, you know, social media is a big is in everybody's life.
Ben B:You know, very few people don't have social media in one form or the other, whether it's you know what's up or signal or these are, you know, messaging groups, or whether it's Instagram or Facebook, youtube, all of these different things those are great at.
Ben B:So there's a couple ways that they can be used really well. One is the sowing of gospel seed. Like gospel communication can happen very well through Through these, these mediums, and so that's broad seed sowing. And from a missional context, how do we broad see so? And If you set up and there's people who are doing this, quite well, follow up to that thing. So if there's a call to action on your social media and you start connecting with the people, you can have interactions with them and start kind of leading them down a Discipleship journey. So it's very positive. But where some of it's falling short is the in the after. They say, okay, yeah, I'm really interested. How do we then do discipleship? It's discipleship is relationship, and so how do we have real relationship where, you know, we all know this behind a screen we can present a false self. Essentially, behind a screen, we're not necessarily seeing our truest self. And if we're only interacting with people on screen, you know 20 or 30 minutes, maybe an hour a week, the sixth days a week after that how much of our life actually reflects this and how do we have discipleship in the rest of Our days and lives and stuff like that. So I think that's one of the weaknesses of kind of using social media as a a total package Discipleship. I do think it's a great seed sowing and the connections and building the initial stages of relationship before actual Gospel transformation. I think it needs to be personal but a bit more one-on-one in person. So that's one aspect of it. So we have some ministries in Thailand, for instance, who are doing this very well with using social media, getting awareness. They start groups, then they follow up with those groups on a more personal relationship and then we have different people throughout the country who visit those people In person and so that's working well to kind of do the whole kind of Process of sowing seed, building that relationship and then moving into ongoing discipleship. So that's very, very cool.
Ben B:But also just online learning people. You know resources for people to use. So you know on our website, bruce Hills, the previous international director, has got a great leadership Workshop that you can take through on our website. You can go through a whole series of leadership seminars, which is a great resource. So that can also be done.
Ben B:You know, using these digital tools for that ongoing, more personal study discipleship in a variety of means like that. So there's a lot of opportunity with it. As I said earlier, one of our groups who works in Pakistan they go and they do discipleship in Pakistan. We actually meet face-to-face with people, you know, run training seminars, also connect with them in their house, churches and stuff, but then From a distance, they then have weekly, you know, online church together and they have small groups online that they facilitate. So there's there's there's both and being done there, and so I think we need to be open to new ideas and new ways of doing discipleship and what it could look like, and I think technology will help with that for sure, but it doesn't necessarily replace personal touch and that relationship that we need as people sounds like you're saying that we're meeting people where they are, where a lot of them Maybe are removed and behind their screens and used to doing that, but then trying to draw them into relationship both with God and with others.
Ben G:Yeah, for sure. And so that goes back to the whole relational thing again. That you were talking about is, which is one of the strengths of world outreach Sort of has a hallmark of being known as this real sense of family. In the past that probably looked at times more like mom and pop, and there's quite ambitious goals to continue to grow and Reach in order to reach more. Not to grow for the sake of growth, but for the sake of the gospel. How do you see Maintaining that sense of family and relational Community? That is a high value as the organization keeps growing?
Ben B:It definitely is. One of our Values is family and relationships, and so to maintain that Some of the what we do will look different as we grow, obviously we have to have some more Systems and structures in place to make things naturally Work. Just like any body that grows the body, the bones have to grow with it to be able to support what's happening there. So we want to do that, but we also continue to want to be relational and so we try and exercise our leadership and discipline and resort policies and all those kind of system things in the context of relationship. So what's what's best for people? Not necessarily best for the organization, you know, people first over, kind of an organizational requirement or need, and part of that's driven because we have people who work in such diverse ministry contexts. Anyways, it's it's really hard to have a one-size-fit all approach to what we do. Um, but we also want to continue to foster relationships, actual relationships. So you know, we have different communities, have started kind of communities of practice, where people who have similar types of ministries will get together online every two weeks, you know, and they're spread out regionally, but they come together online, they talk and they share challenges and problems, they pray for one another. So that's a way to foster relationships. Uh, we foster relationships around, you know, online town halls and different kind of gatherings where we do things online, but then also in person, retreats in person, the summits that you mentioned earlier. We had a global one this this last july, but we also try and do those regionally or in different contexts. Um, affinity groups of people who are working maybe the same type of ministry, children's ministry or something like that get them Together online, um. So those are some of the ways that we're trying to develop relationships and continue to have relationships.
Ben B:But I spend a lot of time and I know a lot of our leaders and, you know, member care teams and those ones Spend a lot of time just calling people up and saying how you doing, you know, and having kind of one-on-one conversations.
Ben B:We might not be able to have long conversations, but we're continually trying to check in with people and see how they're doing, um, and how you know what's god doing in their lives, how can you pray for them, how can we encourage them and how can we spur each other on to good works, you know, as the scripture says.
Ben B:So those are some of the things that we're really trying to foster Um more of so that we can continue to have Relationships as we spread and grow in diverse places. But another aspect of that is also more and more People who speak, coming back to kind of the diversity aspect of our, more and more people who look like them in leadership for their context. So, um, you know, in india, for instance, um, we have different region set up, so we'll have different leaders from different regions who can speak the local languages and, you know, can can communicate more Effectively that way and and really connect that way. But then we also try and foster connections between the, the larger group as well. So appreciating both sides of that Um and giving opportunity that way for people to to Be included and to be seen um in the organization and, I think, to um.
Ben G:Probably another underlying reason for the hubs as well Is to have um People who are, from their cultural context, leading them and and Um strategizing. We're near to the action there.
Ben B:Yeah, for sure, that's definitely part of it. Um, they'll, as you said earlier, they can have a better sense of what's taking place there because they're right there on the front line. Um, but also, you know policies and systems, and that kind of stuff can be grown out of the, the soil that they're planted in, you know, because Certain things grow in certain places better than others, and so we have to be cognizant of that as an organization as well. Say, actually, this Is a good idea. How can we accomplish the outcome that we want with different means in different locations, because of the diversity of the, the ministry, diversity of locations, you know, of personnel and all those types of things that are going on in a global?
Ben G:organization. So let's talk a little bit about um you've been in a season of transition, um you're holding multiple roles within the organization right now and um Obviously, you're stepping into this new role or you have stepped in. So talk a little bit about what the transition has been like for you and um what you've learned.
Ben B:Yeah, it's been a big transition in one sense and another sense not so big. I mean, I have been in various leadership roles for quite a few years, so it's not like I'm coming outside from the organization in, but definitely things have shifted and changed as I've stepped into becoming the director. I've spent a lot of time or I'm trying to spend a lot of time listening and hearing from different people of what's going on from their perspective and what's necessary. We recognize and we've talked about this a little bit with the shifts of setting up hubs, but also with leadership shifts, but also the mission context as a whole, the shift of what's going on generationally. We also get to rethink how we do things because of personnel shifts, all those things I just mentioned.
Ben B:So we are in a pretty decent season of transition and so we're trying to identify what are the things that we need to keep, what are things that we need to stop or do less of, so that we can remain an organization that continues to adapt and grow with the ministry context that we're in, into the vision God has given us, that we're not just slaves to systems and structures.
Ben B:I'm not saying that we have bad ones anyways, but I'm just saying, you know, things need to be able to be developed as new seasons come in and different people feel different roles, and so we are in a big transition from a generation to the next generation and I think in many ways I mark the significant one.
Ben B:But we've had other, you know, generations stepping down, you know, from key roles within the organization over the last five years. So we're kind of just navigating that out as an organization. But, as I said, it's about continuing to learn, continuing to see what's going on, reviewing what we have, being willing to make some changes, and we will have to make some changes. We've already started making some changes, but then also keeping true to our vision of reaching unreached groups. You know that's what we exist for as an organization to disciple them. So that's what we want to stay focused on. We don't want to get distracted by other things and, as you mentioned, we're not trying to build a bigger organization. We're trying to build an organization that is effective in bringing the Gospel to unreached people, groups and serving our mission personnel really well so that they can thrive in life and ministry.
Ben G:So that's, that's perhaps a good landing place as we sort of go full circle, talk a bit about the heart and what, what you see driving world outreach as we move forward, not to just be sort of focused on the large number of unreached people and and the numbers, but to really what's the passion that is driving us forward as we go into this next year.
Ben B:You know, we want to catalyze gospel movements amongst unreached people groups as an organization. That's really what we're about is how do we see the gospel spread, the good news of Jesus spread, to where it doesn't have and where people don't have access to the gospel? And so to do that, we need people, and to be a healthy organization, you need to take care of your people, and so we've been making changes to our systems and structures quite significantly over the last two years to really help people thrive in life and ministry. We want to look at people as holistic beings and to recognize the call of God on their lives and to help equip them and send them and facilitate the ministry that God's called to them to. So those two things, I guess, would be our kind of goals.
Ben B:Our external goal is unreached people groups. How do we engage more unreached people groups so they have access to the gospel? The second one is how do we serve our people well so that they can thrive in life and ministry, so that they can go and make disciples amongst unreached people groups? And so those are the passion, I think, from an organizational perspective, as as we step into this new season, as we need to think about those two things, and then also, obviously, keeping our hearts right before God and wanting to see him glorified through the nations, and so he comes first. You know. Love God, then love people, you know, and so that's what we want to prioritize as an organization.
Ben G:Yeah, it always comes back to that, doesn't it does? Well, we've covered lots of ground today. Thanks for your all your thoughts and your insights. And, yeah, we could probably take any one of those subjects and turn them into a whole podcast on its own. So thanks for giving us those those thoughts.
Ben B:Yeah, thanks, ben, for helping host and facilitate this conversation. It's been fun Listeners. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. I hope you have learned a little bit more about the heart of where we're trying to go as an organization and our desire to see unreached people, groups everywhere reached with the good news of Jesus Christ. If you have any thoughts or comments on this episode, please feel free to email me the emails in the show notes and also feel free to share this episode with those who might be interested in learning about missions and about world outreach. We really appreciate you doing that and if you are an Apple podcast subscriber or on Spotify, please do leave us a review there. That would be great. It really helps us share what we're doing and what we're about. So thank you for that and we pray that you have a very effective and fruitful 2024, and may God bless you. We'll see you next time. Bye.