Mobilizing Christ-like Leaders and Laborers

The words of Jesus in Matthew 9:35-38 continue to ring loud and clear in my heart!

"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

In response to Christ's command I am praying! Praying this even more than ever before! PLEASE PRAY WITH US for God to raise up and send out more laborers creating more opportunities than ever before!!!!!

As a ministry, who's vision is to "Build Laborers on the Campus for the Lost World" our strategy is fairly straight forward:

• Evangelize - Reach students with the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
• Establish - Help students grow into mature disciples of Jesus Christ
• Equip - Train them to evangelize and disciple others 
• Export - Help them mobilize into effective life and ministry beyond the campus

Sounds simple doesn't it? Well it is not so simple. Our strategy is not curriculum driven, but life on life discipleship through God's word. As things have changed within our culture over the years, we find that it often takes 1-2 years to see students come to Christ and begin to grow. If we are lucky we have another 1-2 years left with them before they graduate and move on to the next phase of their lives! While this is incredibly strategic, sometimes it has been challenging to truly equip and export or mobilize our graduates effectively!

This is one of the questions we have been wrestling with before the Lord over the past several years. "How can we more effectively mobilize more laborers?" The emphasis of the question is two fold, how can we help more of them and do it more effectively.

As you might imagine, we have invested a huge amount of our time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears on the first three stages of ministry with very little "time" left for effective mobilization. This has led to frustration and many missed opportunities. We now understand that mobilizing is not something we do at the end of the process, but an integral part of how disciple and cast vision through out the process.

We determined that first we needed to define what a mobilized graduate would look like. So we came up with this statement. "We desire for all our alumni to be multiplying their lives in the context of the lost world as a part of a missional community in accordance with their God-given design and in strategic partnership with Campus Outreach."

Each phrase in this statement is there to communicate something very specific. Let's break it down:

• We desire - It is our desire/deep longing 
• for all our alumni - For each and every alumni, not just those who go into vocational ministry
• to be multiplying their lives - We believe that it is God's desire that we al multiply/bear fruit (Jn 15:8,  2 Tim 2:2)
• in the context of the lost world - we believe that God's heart is on the lost world (Matt 9:35-39, Matt 28:18-30, Jn 3:16)
• as a part of a missional community - the people we spend our time with are influencing us toward something, we believe it is imperative to participate in a community focused on the Lord and His mission for our lives or we will be diluted and useless (Acts 2:42-47, Rom 12:1-2, Heb 10:24-25)
• in accordance with their God-given design - we are each God's workmanship/work of art that He has design for his purposes, we each play a special role and our gifts are important to the function of the body of Christ (Jn 10:10, 2 Cor. 12:12-31)

So we have committed...

• to seek to help every graduate have a next step plan
• to create tracks/opportunities for ministry beyond college for graduates
• to partner with other like minded ministries, churches, & missions to mobilize more laborers
• for every graduate have a team or missional community to labor with
• for every graduate to have a mentor through their first two years out of college

As a result God has led us to more effective partnerships in ministry around the world. We are beginning to help mobilize small teams of graduates into strategic life and ministry opportunities across the country and around the world, from Denver to Deli, from Memphis to Malasia, from Augusta to Asia. God is continually bringing other ministries and churches to us that we can help mobilize graduates toward. Praise the Lord! Pray that we would grow in our understanding, capacity, and effectiveness for deeper partnerships within God's Kingdom! All for His Glory!

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." Romans. 11:36