Here’s what I’m seeing about why so many people are reaching out to the Unreached Network, and what it is that they’re looking for.
Those exploring a call to cross-cultural mission are looking for a map.
Often, they are asking “how do I get from here to there. Not just in terms of physical relocation, but in terms of a journey of preparation, of equipping, of change. And they want to know how to take their church with them on the journey. And they want to know how to do it as part of their Newfrontiers sphere, which they love and to which they are committed.
We are finding this is more than just being about training (which we offer) or mentoring through the pipeline journey, it’s actually about networked community too. Mission-minded people find each other, inspire each other, speak each other’s language. We spend a lot of time connecting those who want to go there and do it with those who have been there and done it. It’s also about geographical connectivity – wherever someone wants to go there are other people around who have been there, or who are from there. It’s one of our great joys to introduce people to others – usually within the wider Newfrontiers diaspora – who have local experience.
The map, then, is about training for skills, but it’s also about many people holding your hand – many cousins and aunties who will be part of your cross-cultural journey.
Church leaders are looking for tools and processes.
Church leaders are busy people with full heads. Most church leaders want to encourage, send and support people well, and they want tools to help them do this, and processes to make sure they do this well.
Apostolic-prophetic preaching and envisioning across the spheres is always igniting hearts for mission, but it is local church pastors who carry the responsibility for those who will go, to make sure the network of care around them is adequate, to love and serve them in their journey.
Most church leaders aren’t asking to be taken on a journey of transformation, or to do a deep dive into global mission, but they do want to send and support as effectively as possible. To that end, we are constantly tweaking, refining and updating the tools we have designed, or the signposts to experts beyond us.
Our most popular two resources are the Pipeline and the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU).
Global thinkers are looking for missional theology.
Lots of people find us because they are looking for theologies of mission, global theologies, signposts to books and content that will stretch them, challenge them, enrich them.
Contributors to our blog and youtube channel are practitioners and thinkers from many different places. The Margins to Mic videos platform voices from across Newfrontiers and around the world which are speaking into mission, contextualisation, diversity, justice, and similar subjects.
People already living cross-culturally are looking for connection.
One thing in common across those who have gone cross-culturally, especially into small, unchurched contexts, is a sense of isolation and a need for more connection. Families and especially single people in pioneering church planting situations need bigger worlds, multiple sources of connection, and especially connection with people who “get it,” who have been there and done it, or are facing similar challenges in different locations.
It’s also often true that those “back home,” the sending church community and peers within the apostolic sphere, although they love and support, don’t always understand, aren’t always attuned to the unique challenges of cross-cultural mission, and can’t always offer the most relevant advice. So people find our network.
In addition, cross-cultural “sent ones” need spaces in which to process what they are learning, need ongoing training or activation opportunities, and need to engage with peer practitioners who are learning complementary things.
Returners are looking for usefulness.
When people return from long-term service overseas, they have a wealth of skills and experience that can be quite hard to use within their local church. We have found that creating spaces for returners to express their hard-won insights is essential for the re-circulation of institutional memory – “one generation shall tell another.”
There are forty years’ worth of experience and genius within Newfrontiers in the area of cross-cultural mission, but it tends to be siloed, or accessible on an ad hoc relational basis. In the bigger picture, we are seeing that all the investment of money and prayer that went into sending a previous generation can be paid back to the wider family in the currency of wisdom and experience. One of the coolest things we get to do is to introduce those who have been there and done it to those who want to go and do it, joining their experience to your passion.
Putting it all together
So here’s what I’m seeing across our growing Unreached Network.
People are looking for good practice exchange, not expertise. Expertise tends to be mono-directional, from the expert to the beneficiary, whereas the spaces we are creating are multi-directional, with everyone contributing their learning, reflective practitioners all. And all of us are always learning.
Like-minded people find each other. To that end we recognise that we are a grassroots movement, with connections being made across nations and across spheres.
People in pioneering situations need bigger worlds, not smaller. In particular, people are more likely to find sympathetic people who “get it” out there across the wider family.
Why not connect with the Unreached Network today?
Coming soon: Join us online for the Hummingbird Charity Launch Celebration. A ministry of Cross Cultural Pollination and the new home of the Unreached Network. 1st March 2025. Online. Find out more here.
