Global Frontier Missions: Christian Missions, Training, and Discipleship
Until All Have Heard
Did you know that most missionaries last only about two years on the field? Statistics show that proper pre-field training greatly increases your chances of being more fruitful and staying on the mission field longer. We are absolutely committed to providing the best training possible so that our graduates can serve all over the world and bear much fruit.
We take a balanced, holistic approach to missionary training and preparation. We purposely focus on integral ministry training: head (formal, classroom, theory), heart (informal, community, spiritual), and hands (non-formal, on-the-job, practical). Books like Integral Ministry Training as well as others studies and research explain that this is the best way to equip long-term laborers for the mission field.
There are people serving all over the globe with great intentions and a true love for the Lord but making a mess in the missions world! A little bit of Bible knowledge and some good missiology can go a long way. We study God’s Word as well as books like When Helping Hurts, Church Planting Movements, and Eternity in Their Hearts to help us understand some of the best practices to make disciples of all nations. Head knowledge alone can be dangerous and may isolate you from some of the people that you want to reach, as they may not be very educated. Although we do not want to overemphasize “book smarts,” an understanding of things like worldview differences, world religions, how to learn a language, sharing your faith with a Muslim, church planting principles, and Scripture will be a huge help for serving overseas.
The disciples were “uneducated, common men…that had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13) and used by the Lord to “turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). We know that apart from Him, we can do nothing. Because of this, a bit of our training is focused on learning to abide in Christ by becoming better disciples of His. We spend time in His Word, pray together, enjoy corporate times of worship, participate in accountability groups, and provide staff discipleship to the students. Spiritual growth best happens in the context of community, so staff and students live within walking distance of each other, as we live out what it means to be the church and disciples of Christ. And cultivating a lifestyle of worship which is a high priority for us.
Patrick Lai, in his book Tentmaking, researched a lot of missionaries on the mission field and saw correlations between their fruitfulness on the field and things that were done before deployment. People that had worked with internationals before going overseas, people that had been discipled, people that had led someone to the Lord, and people that had led small group Bible studies did better on the mission field than those who had not done these things. Jesus demonstrated that the best way for His disciples to learn to do ministry was modeling it for them and then sending them out to do it. Paul trained Timothy by modeling and doing ministry together. We think that is the best way to prepare to become a missionary. Students spend at least twelve to fifteen hours per week participating in community service, teaching English, learning other languages, doing evangelism, providing discipleship, church planting in apartment complexes, helping with children’s programs, doing youth ministry, leading Bible studies, etc. On-the-job training is where the bulk of the training takes place as you will be discipled, coached, and mentored in the skills necessary to become a successful long-term missionary.
As a missional community, we spend as much time doing missions as we do learning about missions. As we fall more in love with Jesus by individually and corporately praying, worshiping, spending time in His Word, and seeking first His kingdom, He will equip us with everything we need to go and make disciples of all nations. One of the most unique aspects of our missionary training is its holistic nature, achieved by linking cross-cultural principles and missions’ strategy received in the classroom with hands-on missionary training on the field. All of this happens while living in an authentic Christian community.
We often compare our missionary training school to a medical school. We look for students who have already gotten their “pre-med” in the local church by receiving basic discipleship, a firm foundation in Christ and the Word, and some involvement in ministry. We provide specialized training to help people learn how to do evangelism, discipleship, and church planting in a cross-cultural setting with people from other religions which is a special skill set that people do not get in most local churches. We also can help connect you to other on-the-field training opportunities through our partner agencies.
Missionary Training School is currently offered at our Atlanta location each spring (January) and fall (August). As God provides more laborers in the future, we hope to add missionary training schools in new cities as we start new bases. We also have an online missionary training school for those that are not able to make it to one of our existing locations.