12. The Opportunities of Serving the Globally Mobile (MICN Missiology Series by Andrew Lupton)
Ministering to the globally mobile people group is summed up in one word, strategic. Mobility hurts, destabilizes, and causes us to languish relationally when not proactively managed. Having a target market that is as diverse theologically as it is transient means living in a world of ambiguity. But the strategic opportunities of an international church far outweigh its challenges. Allow me to use Jack Wald’s imagery again. Given the choice between pastoring a stagnant crowd or pastoring a constantly moving parade, I am convinced the parade, given the state of the world around us, has a strategic advantage. This strategic advantage not only encourages servants like you and me, but it also whets the appetite of would-be sending organizations and partners.
Numerical Impact
To begin with, healthy international churches are positioned to have exponential numerical impact compared to churches of similar size with less mobility. Pre-COVID we averaged around 400 people who attended our church two-three weeks per month. In a highly mobile setting, these are considered regular attenders with whom we have a meaningful relationship and impact.
As mentioned previously, every summer 20% of our congregation moves to another part of the world and are normally replaced by another 25% in the fall. This represents the trajectory of the past five years. Projecting ahead for the next five years, the size of the congregation would be 508 congregants. But those impacted are another 551 because of the high turnover. Thus, we will meaningfully impact 1,051 congregants in a five-year span. While this feels like a rollercoaster for our officers, ministry leaders, and staff members, this exponential numerical impact is one of the strategic blessings of high mobility within international churches.
Evangelism
Within the numbers of meaningfully impacted congregants, international churches have an enormous evangelistic opportunity as part of the disciple-making mission of God. Since arriving in 2013, I have long since lost count of the number of first time professions of faith we have been able to witness as a ministry team. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why God has allowed us to see so much evangelistic fruit. It may be because we peel away many of the labels of Christianity, which seekers and skeptics find disarming. It may be because for the first time skeptics are able to see brilliant and successful laypeople and professionals whom they respect embracing and embodying Christianity.
Warren Reeve with MICN articulates my suspicion as to why the globally mobile are especially tender to the gospel. He observes:
These global nomads can be far more open to the gospel than at home. When expatriates are physically displaced and are experiencing culture shock, they tend to become spiritually displaced as well. Torn from the familiar and comfortable, they experience so much change in their daily, temporal lives that they become more open to change in their spiritual lives and may be ready to seriously consider the claims of the gospel.1
The globally mobile come looking for a community to call home. We find that they are willing to have spiritual conversations along the way of being accepted, loved, and known. In this way the trauma of mobility destabilizes us and our families and thus highlights the need for answers found through the One who “is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Reeve continues, “Back in their own country, this family may not have been interested in attending church, but in the host country they are far more likely to accept an invitation to attend a service.” They find what he calls a “haven of familiarity, with some people who speak their own language and understand their culture.” Socializing leads to community, which leads to hearing the gospel, which leads to eternity-altering conversations and commitments.2
Regardless of the why, the what is clear. International churches are positioned to be a strategic entry point into the family of God for the nations and the next generation. When I speak with my friends and fellow pastors serving stateside, I see that my team and I are blessed to spend a disproportionately high amount of time and energy engaging with non-Christians. I am astonished at the frequency with which I speak with newcomers or members of the international community who have never heard about Jesus and his grace. I am equally astonished toward worship with how many respond in repentance and faith. We aren’t getting evangelistic results through manipulation or emotional pushiness. We are simply engaging in loving conversations in life’s most crucial moments. The Spirit is moving at the intersection of the nations and the next generation.
For this reason, our church leadership prioritizes speaking opportunities among international groups and opening our building to international groups in need of space for their events. We want whatever touchpoint the Lord will give us with our target market and those who may come to know and trust Jesus. We tend to have our members and leaders intentionally integrated within those events.
We also host events that are aimed at the larger community, like our annual Thanksgiving banquet or our ongoing (usually monthly) UCB Concert Series featuring elite classical musicians in Colombia and from around the world. While some of these events include a gospel presentation, all include an invitation to our services and community. We want to be already familiar and friendly when God moves in the hearts of those we are trying to reach. Those who wander the globe with all the trauma therein, frequently come to grips with how lost they really are. We stand ready to point to Christ.
Those who may not come to faith while among us still leave us with gospel seeds that were planted. I pray that the back row of West African Muslims who faithfully attended our church for a year would finally experience Christ. I pray that the skeptical European husband who attended my weekly Bible study would finally have his eyes opened in faith like Noah did.
Noah was a Dutch diplomat who attended UCB for years with his Christian wife and children. He and I spent as much time together as our schedules allowed. He was open concerning his questions and doubts about Christianity. He loved Christian morality as he called it, but he feared that organized religion was the source of many of the world’s problems. It wasn’t until he moved to a Muslim country that the seeds bore fruit and he could finally join the rest of his family following Jesus. My eyes teared up as I read the message he wrote me one day, “We are now one family in Christ.”
I bet, like me, you could tell story after story like Noah’s of how God used your international church to grow his spiritual family. You should tell those stories often as you dialogue with outside partners, inviting them to invest in growing the family of God through the international church.
Tune in next week as we delve further into strategic disciple-making through the international church.
Andrew Lupton
1 Sadiri Joy Tira & Tetsunao Yamamori, Scattered and Gathered: A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology (Chapter 11: Unleashing Great Commission Potential through International Churches by Warren Reeve, section: Evangelism to Expatriates).
2 Ibid.
