FAQ: Missions Door Distinctive
What makes Missions Door unique?
Missions Door is unique in our mission of identifying, resourcing, networking, and encouraging local multipliers everywhere. Some mission organizations specialize in sending Americans overseas. A few mission organizations specialize in fiscally supporting internationals. Still others focus on training internationals. By contrast, Missions Door begins locally, wherever the local multiplier lives. Our mission is those missionaries nationally and internationally specializing in multiplication strategies. Our purpose lies not in assisting the wealthy to subsidize the poor, but in identifying, resourcing, networking, and encouraging those practitioners who think and act to create multiple platforms from which healthy, local churches develop.
Moreover, we work in three specific areas crucial to the future. They are college campuses, communities (villages, cities, and regions), and castaway groups (ethnically, economically, and societally). Finally, while we believe in training, education is limited. One may be educated without being entrepreneurial. Many seminaries produce those who can read Greek and Hebrew but cannot start something from nothing, or lead others effectively. Our multipliers are entrepreneurial because they're making attempts to see the kingdom of God advance in their local context, and context requires contextualization. Because they are learners, they seek training and education. Multipliers require support teams, and Missions Door provides those support teams cross-culturally and locally.
What makes Missions Door distinct from organizations like WorldLink?
Organizations like WorldLink focus on two things: indigeneity and internationals (non-Americans) in need of funding. They are primarily a funding agency designed to broker support between international locals and Americans.
Missions Door is unique in that we focus on a particular type of local leader, irrespective of where they live. Some live in the United States and others abroad. The locality does not matter in terms of international vs. national, but local (insider) vs. non-local (outsider). And it is secondary to whether the local missionary is a multiplier or not. Many people lead wonderful initiatives around the world, most working on initiatives for outreach that revolve around “addition” (more people engaged in their initiative). Missions Door is focused on strategic leaders and their supporting teams engaged in multiple efforts toward exponential results. Another distinction is that while organizations like WorldLink focus on supporting indigenous leaders towards a variety of results, Missions Door is focused on one outcome: a world full of healthy, local churches. To see the local church thrive is our ultimate goal. How we get there is up to local, contextual strategies, which are ultimately best led by the local leader.
Okay, so Missions Door is distinct in that it a) is not primarily concerned with cross-cultural missions (i.e., moving Americans abroad), b) nor with becoming a fund-raising branch for indigenous missionaries, and c) focused on church planting. How is it different from organizations like NAMB or City-to-City?
Missions Door is distinct from NAMB in two primary ways. First, NAMB is focused on “North America.” Missions Door is international. Second, NAMB focuses on specific methodologies for church planting. The launch of NAMB church plants is similar (or the same) nationally. Missions Door believes church planting methodologies are varied and contingent on contextualization beyond “North American.” For example, church plants targeting addicts or street people will look different in their methodology. City-to-City is international, and also very much “locked into” a specific methodology for church planting.
Moreover, because Missions Door believes the method is fluid and varied, it opens up platforming opportunities pending context. In Third World countries, one local platform may be basic shelter, food, or educational provision. In other contexts, it may be creativity or sports. Latin American countries may yet leverage street preaching or evangelistic events that would be considered attractive and normative by local expectations. European countries may leverage business, book, or creative events to gather and engage. As such, Missions Door has missionaries who are also entrepreneurs, engage with governmental organizations like US Aid, meet with ambassadors, and broadcast on television or radio programs. We would share the sentiment sung by Oleta Adams in the song, “Get Here.” “I don’t care how you get here, just get here if you can.” We share the NAMB and City-to-City goal of church planting but are very different in how we seek to fulfill that goal.
Why do you focus on local multipliers (and what does that even mean)?
With over 2000+ years of missionary history, we can look back and learn a thing or two. Missions Door is 76+ years and counting, and we’ve learned a thing or two as well. One thing we know from missions history is that church plants do not simply erupt spontaneously, nor do they thrive without care. We see this in the intentionality of Paul (and Timothy) and the New Testament letters to fragile (often embattled) churches demonstrate the necessity of intentional care. From history, we know that care is related to the character and competency of the leader. Leadership still matters. That is not to say that leadership is devoid of servanthood or disciple-making (to the contrary, they are necessary for Biblical leadership towards the establishment of healthy, local churches). But it is to say that leadership still makes a difference in how movements are shaped. This is true for your local church as well. The pastor matters to the health of the church.
We also know that the crucial point between establishing churches that survive and church planting movements that thrive is a Scripturally sound, high moral character leader who sees and enacts multiple opportunities for societal engagement. And we know that the hand-off between the cross-cultural missionary and local leadership is crucial. We believe in William Carey, but we know that the future of missions in that state of India is dependent on local Indians. James Marsden was extraordinary, but church planting grows exponentially when led by the Māori. Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and company may introduce the Good News, but the exponential growth of the movement hinges on those locals from the Huaorani tribe reaching fellow tribesmen.
Why “Campus, Communities, Castaways”?
Missions Door does not focus on “Preschoolers, Parents, Precincts.” Why? There are three reasons. First, many young people change their worldviews based on their campus experiences. We think instead of running from that transition, we should run towards it. We are seeing healthy, local churches begin on college campuses by college students who have met Jesus and are following Him in the context of a local church on campus. That’s trajectory changing! Second, people graduate from campuses and move into communities. They become teachers, parents, and professionals. By engaging with the “majority” of those in any given city or region, we cover many of the aforementioned life stages (childhood, teens, parenting, families, couples, retirees, etc.). Third, every society has those who are marginalized. These include addicts, the homeless, the poor, ethnicities, etc. Missions Door views those as groups with particular needs requiring particularly informed knowledge to engage. Plus, Jesus told us to care for the marginalized.
Anything else distinctive?
We would encourage you to familiarize yourself with our core values and beliefs. Our core values say a lot about the filters through which we make decisions. They are: Love Changes Everything, Begin Where Others Are, Leaders Serve First, and We’re Better Together.
We are also public and thankful that we are Conservative Baptists and our sister organizations, Venture Church Network and WorldVenture. Conservative Baptists are neither liberal nor fundamentalist, and we are distinctive from other Baptist or Protestant denominations (or associations). That said, our distinctive puts us firmly in mainstream evangelicalism, minus any political overtones.