GFM: THUMBs Up Expansion Vision
History of GFM - broad overview of how the Lord has led GFM over the last several years
* GFM started out planting churches in 2002, then the Lord led us to raise up nationals to go out and plant churches (indigenous Bible school) in 2003, followed by the Lord leading us to raise up Americans to be church planters (Mission Training School) in 2004, after which the Lord led us to raise up long-term laborers focusing on a church planting movement (church planting team) in 2006
* The call - The Lord has given GFM a gift for pioneering new works in frontier areas and a heart for church planting among unreached people groups (UPGs).
Problem: There are still 6428 unreached people groups in the world that don't have churches among them that are capable of evangelizing the rest of their people group. 95% of all missions work is happening in places that are already reached with the gospel. Very few workers are doing church planting which seems to be the consensus among missiologists as to the most strategic method of world evangelization and seeing the gospel taken to all nations (people groups).
Solution: GFM is dedicated solely to mobilizing, training, and sending out short-term and long-term laborers to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the unreached people groups (UPGs) of the world. GFM needs to expand its current ministry not to make a name for itself but because so few people are extending the kingdom of God into unreached areas.
THUMBS Up Vision: The initial short-term goal is to plant bases among each of the major world religion groups (THUMB - Tribal/Ethnic, Hindu, Unreligious/Non-religious/Chinese, Muslim/Islam, Buddhist) which could then grow into training centers set up in each of the 12 world regions. Our desire is to raise up an end time army of long-term laborers dedicated to taking the Gospel to the places where it has never been preached and see church planting movements (CPM) started all across the globe.
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| Primary Religion (click name for details) |
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| Islam |
3,286 |
1,423,021,000 |
2,686 |
81.7 % |
1,213,609,000 |
85.3 % |
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| Hinduism |
2,406 |
938,796,000 |
2,135 |
88.7 % |
828,758,000 |
88.3 % |
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| Buddhism |
561 |
624,247,000 |
424 |
75.6 % |
277,179,000 |
44.4 % |
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| Non-Religious |
148 |
708,922,000 |
40 |
27.0 % |
116,282,000 |
16.4 % |
|||
| Ethnic Religions |
2,801 |
535,721,000 |
909 |
32.5 % |
95,403,000 |
17.8 % |
|||
| Other / Small |
159 |
34,905,000 |
140 |
88.1 % |
28,459,000 |
81.5 % |
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| Christianity |
6,477 |
2,202,125,000 |
56 |
0.9 % |
1,136,000 |
0.1 % |
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| Unknown |
126 |
4,720,000 |
38 |
30.2 % |
127,000 |
2.7 % |
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| Totals: 8 Major Religions |
15,964 |
6,472,736,000 |
6,428 |
40.3 % |
2,560,952,000 |
39.6 % |
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| Region (click name for details) |
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| Central Asia |
5 |
11 |
400,686,000 |
973 |
770 |
79.1 % |
385,999,000 |
96.3 % |
| South Asia |
4 |
7 |
1,282,520,000 |
3,151 |
2,742 |
87.0 % |
1,144,703,000 |
89.3 % |
| Middle East and North Africa |
6 |
19 |
281,099,000 |
589 |
360 |
61.1 % |
180,838,000 |
64.3 % |
| Southeast Asia |
2 |
11 |
560,752,000 |
1,797 |
638 |
35.5 % |
297,649,000 |
53.1 % |
| West and Central Africa |
8 |
24 |
361,495,000 |
2,211 |
466 |
21.1 % |
112,479,000 |
31.1 % |
| Northeast Asia |
3 |
8 |
1,531,231,000 |
624 |
472 |
75.6 % |
347,865,000 |
22.7 % |
| East and Southern Africa |
7 |
27 |
397,091,000 |
1,356 |
365 |
26.9 % |
54,774,000 |
13.8 % |
| Eastern Europe and Eurasia |
9 |
21 |
330,814,000 |
722 |
197 |
27.3 % |
17,931,000 |
5.4 % |
| Western Europe |
10 |
29 |
398,003,000 |
938 |
202 |
21.5 % |
13,769,000 |
3.5 % |
| South Pacific |
1 |
27 |
32,624,000 |
1,526 |
27 |
1.8 % |
502,000 |
1.5 % |
| North America and Caribbean |
12 |
30 |
477,491,000 |
1,028 |
91 |
8.9 % |
3,003,000 |
0.6 % |
| Central and South America |
11 |
21 |
418,931,000 |
1,049 |
98 |
9.3 % |
1,439,000 |
0.3 % |
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| Totals: |
12 |
235 |
6,472,736,000 |
15,964 |
6,428 |
40.3 % |
2,560,952,000 |
39.6 % |
Why is there an urgency to plant new bases when there are still unreached people groups and work to be done in Oaxaca ?
* The Biblical basis of missions and God's heart for all nations as well as there being so few laborers to go pretty much sums it all up. Christ's return is imminent and His gospel must be taken to all nations (Mt. 24:14). There are still 6428 unreached people groups in the world and the vast majority of those are in the 10/40 window, so that is where GFM needs to be. "This generation is responsible for this generation of souls all over the earth. "
* Rapid multiplication of bases is a great model for the type of church planters that we want to raise up to start church planting movements (CPM); we could build a small church (base) even though it is made of foreigners, raise up leadership and then move on to the next area once we are confident that the base is going to continue going out and making disciples; in a sense GFM would be a type of CPM - a model when planting churches in the target unreached people group
* GFM in Oaxaca is becoming more and more complex as we add more staff members and positions, skilled ministries such as medical and community development, etc. If we go ahead and reproduce bases while things are fairly simple, it will be much easier.
* We have almost outgrown the Mixteca region and saturated the region with white faces. GFM can only grow as fast as our short term program and Mission Training School because that is the gateway into the organization. The short term mission program and missions school can't get much bigger than they are right now because Tlaxiaco can't sustain those kind of numbers without us becoming an overwhelming foreign presence, so we need to look at opening other bases or looking for alternative options like online/distance education with which we still need locations to send students for their internship upon completion of classes.
* We need to take advantage of current open doors in the world such as cheaper travel, globalization (English, internet communication), etc.; many of the characteristics that came along with Christ's first coming during the Roman empire are evident in the world today; opportunities for rapid expansion of the gospel are in place and need to be used to expand the kingdom
* Some of our potential staff members that could start new bases are beginning to get older and have children that are getting older; everyone will have a harder time with language learning and acculturation the longer we wait to get moving on planting new bases.
* If we wait until we have perfected each of our ministries and just hand over the programs for other people to continue running, those disciples lose out on the leadership growth opportunities of learning by growing, learning by failing, learning by risking, etc. We have to let GFM Oaxaca get taken to the next level by those that come after us.
* GFM is in danger of getting into a comfort zone or complacent if we don't get out and take risks by doing new things. I think it is healthy to always be growing and stretched as that will force us to be more intentional at raising up new leaders, keep faith in Christ rather than self, etc.
Why not just have GFM in Oaxaca train workers and have them go serve with other organizations?
* In the limited traveling and scouting that GFM has done in the world, we have found very few church planting efforts in unreached areas. Many of our students graduate wanting to do church planting in unreached areas and the number of laborers working towards that end is very few. Obviously many organizations are doing good works in many parts of the world but we couldn't find many places that were open to taking our graduates and mentoring them in church planting on the field. There are still many places where we could serve and pioneer new works without stepping on the toes of other missionaries because the harvest is still great and the laborers few.
* Our current training is mainly focused on tribal people in rural areas ( Oaxaca ) and if we really want to be effective at raising up laborers to serve among unreached people groups, we need to provide contextualized training and mentoring opportunities in each world region. Even if GFM just trains people to work with other organizations, we need to be more effective by giving religion, culture, and worldview specific training as well as hands-on experience inside those people groups.
* We have a running theory that there are so few people working among unreached people groups because there are so few mission trips going to UPGs; most long-term workers got called to missions on a short-term trip; we have got to offer more short term mission experiences among unreached people groups hoping to see many more long-term laborers raised up in the next few years; we are one of a few organizations allowing short-term teams to work in these areas.
What about the work in Oaxaca ? Who will continue the work until all the people groups are reached?
* We will always need at least one person or family that has a long-term vision to be dedicated to at least five to ten years or until the task is completed. Each base needs a team of long-term laborers that will be set up as an authority to mobilize, train, and send out workers and to see a church planting movement happen. However, we shouldn't tie up all of GFM staff and resources in one place until all groups are reached in an area before branching out into new harvest fields.
* Right now, because we are in Mexico we are naturally mainly getting people in our programs that have a heart for Latin America . The number of short termers, students, and full-time staff called to Oaxaca shouldn't be affected as we branch into new parts of the world, because God will continue to call people to Mexico . All of the bases should start off and grow well as we give opportunities in other parts of the world for short term missions and training where people may already have a heart or calling.
* If GFM takes the strategy of waiting for a full blown church planting movement to start and then go to the next country to start another base, we are looking at growth by addition rather than exponential growth through multiplication which seems more Biblical.
GFM is still relatively new, small, and understaffed? Why do you think you are ready for expansion?
* The Oaxaca leadership team has worked very hard to write out mission statements, statement of belief, foundational values, organization structure, base policies, etc. that are very reproducible and should take a lot of the headache and hassle out of starting a work from scratch.
* The Mission Training School is very reproducible since it is mainly made up of videos and reading books; it keeps a consistency of training across the organization for people that want to get trained at one base and then serve at another; we could begin raising up laborers in other regions almost immediately by starting the school and beginning to train workers.
* Through the internet, promotion at conferences, and the number of people coming through our programs we have created a decent network of people excited about unreached people groups. The GFM newsletter has also created a pool of potential laborers to recruit and start new bases and grown to several thousand.
* Maybe if we get even more desperate for laborers by having some of our key people go into other fields, other will accept the challenge and take up the baton in Oaxaca and other places.
How can you spontaneous and rapidly multiply bases when there is a large language learning and acculturation curve?
* Learning language and culture is going to make the process be a little bit slower on the front end and there is no real way to cut corners or make that part of the process any shorter. We really need to have a good understanding of the language, culture, religion, and worldview of an area if we are going to train others to minister there. Some staff members may need further training and will definitely need to be fully immersed in language and culture before doing other types of ministry.
What are some of the obstacles you anticipate facing?
* Lack of staff and leadership have always been something that we have struggled with in Oaxaca and will probably be an even bigger problem as we expand.
* We are going to be very stretched staff wise with every base planted which could cause potential problems with families, etc. We need to continue keeping families first in the ministry.
* There are many discussions that need to happen as to the who, what, when, where and how of all of this. There will probably need to be a great restructuring of finances, accountability systems put in place, diversification of our board of directors, etc. There will be many birth and growing pains as we have "children" and we may have to learn a lot through hardship and failure.
What else needs to be done in Oaxaca before we set that base up as the model for other GFM bases?
* We need to do some major recruiting to take over key roles in Oaxaca and recruit laborers to send out several small base planting teams (at least a family and some singles).
* Get an audio department up and running in Oaxaca as GFM should be a major player in the whole OneStory vision (a movement seeing every people group in the world have access to the Scriptures in their own language) even if that means using bilingual people to get the job done.
* See at least three house churches planted and local leaders raised up (the start of a CPM).
* Get some Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFOL) training which is going to be a key strategy for church planting in most parts of the world (develop our teaching English program).
* Get our community development as well as micro-enterprise up and running.
* We need to experiment with a school of church planting and the Mission Training School to see exactly what is going to be the entry program into GFM.
* A Global Leadership Team will get set up made up of the base director from each regional center. We need to set up the structure of a base director (at least a five year commitment) and a leadership team (made up of base director and each Mobilization, Training, Sending leaders) before the team gets sent out.
What are the next steps that GFM needs to take to see this vision fulfilled?
* If this is going to happen in the next several years, we need to start immediately recruiting team members to help start these base: we can plant the vision with short term trip participants, get more people coming through Mission Training School during the next two or three years, have some people do their apprenticeship with us to get them ready leadership roles at a new base or we could go ahead and send people over to get a jump on language and culture in places that we would like to start bases.
* Get the word about the "THUMBS Up" vision through the website. We may need to get websites up and running for potential bases and begin working on search engine optimization again as we will need to get more GFM exposure if we are going to grow.
* Get the word out through newsletters and word of mouth.
* Possibly get some short-term 10/40 window trips up and running as early as next summer to places where we want to plant bases in order to get some people excited about the vision and possibly on board for a base plant.
* Do research on what are some of the most strategic places to plant regional bases and begin sending out scouting and prayer teams. They will be permanent GFM bases and a launching pad for starting other works within the region, so they should be places that are in a central location to the UPGs in the region, places that are more or less open to Christianity and mission work, places that are somewhat easy to set up non-government organizations (NGOs) and get visas for foreigners, places that are fairly accessible to travel to, places where other ministries are not working for the most part, etc.
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