Our 'DNA'

So, let me give a bit more background...

When we got together on that Saturday (12th June 2010), we began with a couple of questions:

Who are we? 

Here, we wanted to identify our 'DNA' as a church, reflecting on what we saw from our history, survey and what was going on around our church. Here's the list of things we nutted out as a Missions Team and Board:

• we have an established long tradition in missions (and other aspects) over these 95 years.
• we have a desire to help the poor 
• we enjoy serving/doing something 
• much of our church is professional/well-educated (medical, education, self-employed, media) 
• we are a relational/community church 
• we have many families incl children/youth who want/need to get engaged
• we are generous and respond to need when we hear it (whether requires time, energy, or finance) 
• we are committed to the Bible 
• we have cultural diversity (After native born kiwis, we have many people from Asian countries who have moved here) 
• we have a broad range of interest/focus for missions (eg church planting, poverty aid, social justice, theological education, translation…) 
• we have a particularly affinity with Asia (over above areas such as Africa, Pacific Island and Middle East). 

What would we like to see in future Global Missions?
These are various dreams/aspects thrown around as possibilities for research/further discussion by the group . . .

• an encouragement for new generations of career missionaries 
• an involvement of all ages/cultures engaging in global missions
• an approach congruent with our DNA 
• a connection/congruence with our local and national mission 
• genuine partnerships where we give and receive in relationship 
• holistic ministry/mission occurring 
• upholding the importance of prayer and giving opportunities for this 
• hands on involvement and opportunities 
• working with our local community 
• a potential building project overseas while we born something here ourselves 
• the sale of coffee/trade aid, t-shirts, freeset bags etc which 1) raises awareness of suffering in other areas, and 2) provides financial assistance to these areas. 
• People hearing and experiencing stories 

These provided some scope to send to mission agencies to begin researching options for us to consider.

Some Background (how did we get to this stage anyway??)

I guess the first 1-2 blogs re. Thailand should begin with the question - 'how did we get to this point.' It hasn't happened over night.

Mt Albert Baptist has a significant legacy in global missions. It's imperative that we build on that. Our Global Team met in January 2010 (over a year back now!) to identify a process for us to develop a strategic global plan that would keep global mission beating loud and clear into the future.

From that meeting, we came up with the following 'steps' in the process . . .

FOCUS	DESCRIPTION	DURATION
1. Analysis	Understanding who we are and what we can offer to the world-wide church in terms of missions. Understanding what is happening in the world and where God is at work.	3 – 6 months
2. Revelation	Giving space to God to lead into effective involvement	3 – 6 months
3. Profile and Plan	Pulling together a detailed profile of ourselves so others can engage with us and we can understand our role	1 day and follow up
4. Approach	Finding those who can help develop the international connections	Ongoing
5. Research	Finding out the options and meeting prospective partners	Ongoing
6. Engagement	Discussing expectations and formalizing an agreement	Ongoing
7. Development	Creating helpful timeframes for a strong, mutually beneficial partnerships	Ongoing

The "analysis" step broke down into the following . . .

1. Congruency

These are questions that we paid attention to:

• Values, Beliefs and Major practices of MAB
• What type of ministry characterizes your church? (church planting, theological education, Christian education, poverty development, medical, etc)
• Are there any particular people groups you have exposure too or affinity with? (Moslem, Hindu, tribal, Unreached, etc)
• Are there any areas of the world, countries or places there is an affinity with?
• Are there any preferred types of location? (rural, urban, mega-city, etc)
• What are the demographics of your church and those most interested in cross cultural mission engagement?
• What interests, current experience or missions contributions are your people already involved in. How can their interests contribute to the overall picture of the new direction

To help with this we conducted a survey in Feb/March 2010 and fed some key results of this back to the congregation.

2. History

We also celebrated our history and put together a Missions Passport in August celebrating the various people and places in our church that have made a significant difference globally. 

3. Current Partners
We wrote to our current global missionaries to identify what prospects, if any, could exist to develop greater partnerships.

4. Global trends and opportunities
 Reading and research was key. Here are some books on the reading list during that time . . .

Books:

1. Richard Stearns, The Hole in our Gospel, Thomas Nelson (2009).
2. Michael Pocock, Gailyn van Rheenen and Douglas McConnell, The Changing face of World Mission; engaging contemporary trends Baker (2005)
3. John Piper, Let the Nations be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions IVP (1993)
4. A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin and Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Mission: A Biblical, Historical and Practical Survey Baker (2004)

During step 1, our Board (and others) will take time to read, discuss and pray in the desire to understand more about missions and to give God the opportunity to speak to them as a group about the place of their church in missions.

While the "analysis" step was occurring, the Board committed itself simultaneously to the "revelation" step.

We devoted time to pray, study and reflect over 5 months (February to June), reflecting on various articles, reading 'The Hole in the Gospel' by Richard Stearns, and asking God to lead us in a way forward to better engage in global missions.

Then, on the Saturday morning, 12th June 2010, the Global Team and our Church Board met together to bring a lot of the above together in order to identify a profile about our church (our 'DNA') and the next steps in a plan. I'll share more about that in the next blog...