Our Strategy of Missions
Spiral development of capacity alongside engagement
To understand our thinking and reasoning of our strategy better, read about our Philosophy of Missions.
Our Strategy is the basic outline developed by David Bogue at the Gosport Academy that either directly trained up or strongly influenced a majority of the strongest missionaries of China, India, Africa, and South East Asia. We have adopted this outline for the Filipino cultural and economic context. This outline strategy is best described by its foundations and its steps:
Foundations
- The Word of God converts… nothing else. Trying to use other means is to depend on weak means. 1 Cor 1:18-31, Heb 4:12
- His Sheep know His voice… and they come to Him when they hear it. John 10:27, Rom 10:14-17
- A Missionary's FIRST and PRIMARY job is to Clearly and Faithfully Proclaim the Word.
Steps
- Partner with Churches to Find Those with Calling and Gifting to Missions (Full-Time, Part-Time, Sending, Giving)
- Train deeply in the Bible… It's what will be proclaimed… it's the weapons and armor of God
- Learn the language deeply so that the Gospel can be communicated clearly
- If needed, translate the Bible accurately
- Preach the Gospel with the Bible… Jesus says that His sheep know his voice, and when they hear it, they come to Him.
- Gather those who respond to the Gospel proclamation… Train up Elders and Deacons… Turnover the Church to them…
- Partner with the new church to develop training resources and establish training programs in the people's language to sustain the growth of the maturity of the church
- Repeat until people are reached
Spiral Development of Capacity
Our strategy involves a spiral development of capacity alongside engagement:
Language Training
The first step in entering a missions field is to learn the language. Meaningful evangelism requires clear presentation of the Gospel. This normally can only happen in the heart language of the people being reached.
Significant research has shown that learning the heart language of the people, especially to a high level, is the number one predictor of whether a team will plant a church. In fact, a church planting team that DOES NOT have high capacity in the heart language has a greater than 90% chance of NEVER planting any churches at all.
On the other hand, teams that DO LEARN the heart language at high capacity, have greater than 80% chance that they WILL PLANT at least one church and greater than 40% chance that they WILL PLANT MULTIPLE Churches.
Our first spiral of development therefore focuses on the founding of strong Language Training programs to ensure church planters and their team will have strong foundation to rapidly (1-3 years vs 3-5 years) learn the language of the people groups enabling them to present the Gospel clearly and successfully plant churches. We are doing this thru the Bob and Mariel Ward School of Filipino Languages.
Bible & Missions Training
For future missions centered Giver-Sender-Goer, clear and strong understanding of the story of the Bible, the Theology and Doctrine of the Bible, and ability to communicate it is the most important skill. To this end, DMI is implementing an in-depth Bible and missions training program to ensure that the Church planting team has deep understanding of the Bible, doctrine, and theology, and has full equipping in all areas needed to be effective in missions. We do this through our Apprenticeship programs that equips the next generation of the Missions eco-system in the Southern Philippines. For more information see our page on Programs for Filipinos HERE.
Mobilization and Equipping for Church Planting
In order to develop the full capacity needed for strong missions teams, DMI shall mobilize those who are called by their church, faithful in their church, and demonstrating of gifting needed for cross-cultural missions. Then, DMI shall integrate them into the missions field to be trained and equipped to be Church planters, Bible Translators, and EAP (Evangelism, Apologetics, Polemics) practitioners. We do this through our Fellowship programs. Entrance into Fellowship programs is open to graduates of the Apprenticeship Program and qualified called candidates from Philippines and the Western World. For more information see our page on Programs for Filipinos HERE.
Translate the Bible and Christian Resources
Since it is the word of God that brings man to saving knowledge, it is a great necessity for successful church planting for the Bible to be translated into every language.
It should be noted that currently of the 13 Muslim people groups in Philippines, only one (Maranao) has a fully translated Bible. And this translation, a product of the long effort of Bob and Mariel Ward, is considered dated and not easily understood by today's generations. Furthermore, few resources for training Christians exist in their languages.
Therefore, DMI shall enable the high-quality translation of the Bible and Christian training programs into the language of the Muslim people groups. This shall be done starting with the Bible Translator Fellow programs. The primary post-graduate work of these Fellows shall be to help start, join with existing teams to finish, or as needed update Bible translations and to develop and translate more training materials and develop training programs in the languages of the Muslim People Groups.
Furthermore, it should be noted that literacy in one's own language brought from the written word has been one of the greatest cultural blessings to every civilization it touched, including the barbarous ones like the Picts, Celts, Angles and Saxons in ancient times up to low or non-literate nations such as the original people groups of the Philippines. There is no Shakespeare or Beatles without Wycliff.
Expand the Missions Ecosystem
For the Filipino context, expand to raise up and equip via combined training pipeline, the full eco system of missions in the contact zone, to include the future Givers, Senders, and Goers.
Imagine the future Christian professionals and business leaders and future Pastors, trained alongside the future cross-cultural church planters, in the same basic pipeline as them, developing the same heart for missions and the same in depth understanding of what it takes, with deep relationships built up with their classmates who will become the cross-cultural church planters…
By doing this, we develop the entire eco system of missions that can face the challenges of a long-term missions environment that can and will be equipped and sustained to engage the hardest environments.
Plant Churches
That's the step. The Goers engage in the Unengaged Zone, the Senders take care of the Goers and engage in the Contact Zone, and the Givers support the Goers logistically and with advocacy, while themselves engaging in their churches and realms for the Gospel.
The Final State
In the final state, DMI and its programs will become fully run by a partnership of Bisaya/Cebuano, Maranao, and Badjao Pastors, Church Planters, and Christian professionals, along with Western churches and missionaries.
When do we expect this final state to occur? The Lord converted Ireland by the testimony of one man in about 30 years… but for their Pict brethren in Scotland it took dozens of missionaries and Christian contacts over 300 years. The Lord's timing is His timing.