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Missionary Apprenticeships by Global Frontier Missions

Missionary Apprenticeships Mission Statement

Missionary Apprenticeships is...an EXPERIMENT: a desperate attempt to equip affluent, institutionally nurtured, comfort and security loving believers to launch messy, organic, rapidly reproducing Jesus Communities in some of the most unwelcoming places on earth.

Missionary Apprenticeships Overview

Consider the fantastic potential of attending a proven training program that equips Christians to share Jesus and His Kingdom with the Muslims in their own communities while preparing them to go long-term to start church planting movements among some of the most unengaged people in the world.

Our radical training process teaches interns the principles necessary to reach out to Muslims, both locally and globally, with the love and message of Jesus Christ. During this apprenticeship, interns live in community where the values and skills of Church Planting are shaped, embraced, and embedded to prepare them for unleashing rapidly reproducing Jesus communities in the mission field.

Missionary Apprenticeships are 10 month "after-hours" internships geared for people that want to get missionary training while continuing to work or study full-time. The apprenticeship takes approximately 15 hours per week of time commitment (3-4 hrs/week in personal development (spiritual disciplines); 3-4 hrs/week in training (1 night/week in mentor’s home); 2 hrs/week in independent reading; 2-3 hrs/week focused outreach to beloved "Cousins"; 2-3 hrs/week sharing life in a Jesus Community both in communitas (with the world around us) and in community (with believers alone). All of our interns live within walking distance of each other and our Muslim friends.

Missionary Apprenticeships are all about first doing over here what we must eventually do over there. And so we are the church rather than merely learning about church. We don't memorize verses of the Bible; we share Jesus stories with Muslim refugees. We don't just study the Qur'an; we use it as a bridge to help Muslims cross into the Kingdom. We read very little about Mohammad and Islam but we enjoy hours of dialogue each week with Mohammad, our Muslim neighbor and friend. We’re taught a simple inductive Study method (takes ~ 30 minutes); then we inductively study the Bible daily for the next ten months, and we fast and we pray, and practice other spiritual disciplines, and grow to be like Jesus. In fact, we develop a personalized Curriculum for Christ-likeness and we use it to help us become like the One we treasure. Sure we read about mosques that become “Jesus Mosques”, but we also visit mosques regularly, engaging Muslim international students in a study of their Qur’an and our Bible, etc. After all, we are preparing interns to do all this...over there.
 
We have a God-sized dream: to WIN! Our goal is to deliver entire people groups from the kingdom of darkness and usher them into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son. But to win over there we must first learn by trying to win over here. We know we can plant a church just about anywhere in the world. What we can’t seem to do (very often) is launch movements that look like the book of Acts. So, that’s the experiment, to learn how to ultimately win over there by first trying to win over here…so help us God.
 
We figure that to win, we must probably unlearn some of the ways of our highly structured, rather expensive, staff intensive, slow to reproduce western style churches, the only church we have ever known. And, we figure we must also relearn the forgotten ways of former days when the early church exploded from 20,000 to 200 million in a couple of centuries. We must keep experimenting until the DNA flowing through the church in China flows also in our veins, until God can use us to plant millions of Jesus Communities among every people on earth.
 
Missionary Apprenticeships are not schools. No intern will write an exam, receive a grade or earn a degree. But interns will learn! We have three core passions.  We are blood-earnest to provoke all three in those we apprentice:
a passion for Jesus,
a passion for His Kingdom and
a passion for going strategic… in that order.

Missionary Apprenticeships provide training for ordinary (non-seminary) apprentices (who treasure Jesus) to go (primarily in STRATEGIC Teams, to launch Church Planting Movements among the Unreached). Historically, one third of our interns go overseas within two years of completing a Missionary Apprenticeship. Another one third go to the mission field within three to five years. The other third do not go to the frontlines, but stay in the United States to help others of go (and stay) over there.

Missionary Apprenticeships History

Missionary Apprenticeships grew out of a specific call of God to start discipling others to share their treasure with the Muslims in their community as a way of preparing them to do here, what ultimately needs to be done over there. The vision was to see a new generation of workers go to the Muslim world, ready to hit the ground running, trained and equipped, with a culturally sensitive Kingdom focused message of Jesus.

Missionary Apprenticeships started ten years ago but has really picked up steam over the last few years and now Global Frontier Missions is proud to offer this training as well. There are currently Missionary Apprencticeships also found in Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, and Georgia. In addition we have people interested in launching Missionary Apprenticeships in Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Philadelphia, Denver, Chicago, Russia, Cyprus and Mexico.

Missionary Apprenticeships Core Values

We exist to fulfill God’s Vision for mankind: That the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea – Habakkuk 2:14
We TREASURE Jesus supremely! We believe Jesus is the best in every conceivable way - His Worth, Words, Wounds and Ways are the best humanity has ever known!
We “gossip” about the Gospel of the Kingdom: With zeal we share the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus shared, rather than just simply preaching the Gospel of Sin Management.
We plan strategically: We value lifelong learning and discovering fruitful practices that help fulfill God’s vision
We learn by doing: we are committed to first do over here what we must eventually do over there.
We do everything reproducibly: We desire to make each component of Missionary Apprenticeships reproducible and thereby model the importance of simplicity and end-visioning to bring about the rapid reproduction of Jesus Communities where the church is not…yet.

Missionary Apprenticeships Core Components

1. Missionary Apprenticeships lasts 10 months
2. Missionary Apprentices meet in a home-like setting
3. Missionary Apprentices attend a Weekly Half-Time (Eat together, discuss Jesus Stories, share their experiences with Muslim friends, discuss the independent reading)
4. We eat together at the Missionary Apprenticeship Half-Time
5. Missionary Apprentices Learn and Share Jesus Stories
6. Missionary Apprentices complete 100+ hours of face-to-face time with Muslims
7. Missionary Apprentices are required to complete the Weekly Reading & Response
8. Missionary Apprenticeships include 3 Weekend Boot Camps (Know yourself, Team Dynamics and Peacemaking, Contextualization Training)
9. Missionary Apprentices Curriculum includes three passions (Jesus, His Kingdom, Strategic/Contextualized Gospel Proclamation)
10. Missionary Apprenticeships includes some of these Field Realities: Spiritual Warfare, Influence of Affluence, Suffering, Cultural Incarnation, Career Options, Language Acquisition, Male-Female Challenges, Emotional Cycles of Crossing-Cultures, Support Raising, Team Building,
11. Missionary Apprentices meet weekly as a Jesus Community during the House Church Module
12. Missionary Apprentices are required to work or go to school full-time (not raising support), which requires them to learn to prioritize their time and be more intentional in reaching out.
13. Missionary Apprentices create and maintain a personal Curriculum for Christlikeness
14. Missionary Apprentices participate in an Overseas Practicum practicing Abundant Gospel Sowing
15. Missionary Apprentices meet regularly for Corporate Prayer learning to use a variety of prayer methods like listening prayer
16. Missionary Apprentices work through a Gospel Reading Plan for the 10 months
17. Missionary Apprentices spend 3 hours a week in quality time with God using the spiritual disciplines

We currently offer Missionary Apprenticeships in Atlanta and soon hope to have them in Houston as well.