Mobilization – The Key to the Mission Movement

It is vital to understand the historical progress of the modern mission movement to grasp
where the global Church presently is right now in its expansion. Launched through William
Carey in 1792, the Western mission thrust initially came primarily from the United Kingdom,
United States and Canada.

This led to what some historians have called the “Great Century of Missions” in the 1800’s,
where Western missionaries preached the Gospel, planted churches, started schools and
established hospitals across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

With the coming of the 1900’s, its two massive World Wars and the political upheaval that
allowed Communism to take root in many portions of the world, the Western mission
movement continued, yet was hindered, stifled.

This opened the way for another phenomenon. The Gospel that had been introduced during
the 1800’s in many cultures across Asia, Africa and Latin America, spread like wildfire
indigenously in the 1900’s. This produced significant indigenous churches in many traditionally
mission receiving parts of these continents.

Together these historical facts of expansion have produced a mind-blowing statistic happening
today – there are now believers in literally every single country on earth. Never in church
history has this been the case.

What might the mission force among near and distant unreached peoples look like if these
believers and churches were adequately mobilized for the Great Commission?

Although the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the spread of the Kingdom of God, has seen incredible
expansion into new cultures all over the world over the last 300 years, with some believers now
in every geo-political country, in 2024, still about one-third of the total global population are
located among unreached people groups.

What do these two extraordinary facts (believers now in every nation and yet still a third of the
population unreached) reveal to us about God’s plan to fulfill the Great Commission?

That a key ministry in the global Church today must be that of focused and deliberate mission
mobilization among the current national churches, primarily in the spiritually exploding global
south – Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Not only mission as going far distances in the traditional way but of prioritizing both reaching
near and distant culture unreached people groups. This is done through families relocating to
live amongst unreached peoples, taking up jobs among them, laying down roots, for the sake of
the Gospel.

This process had already been taking place among some African, Latino and Asian churches in
the later 1900’s. They have been transitioning from being primarily mission receivers to now
becoming mission sending national churches.

The key to unlocking this incredible potential lay in effectively mobilizing the whole body of
Christ and seeing her equipped for this great task.

Mission mobilization is the fuel that allows the mission movement overall to burn. Without
adequate mission mobilization within local church communities, the Church will not be
educated to grasp Jesus’ big-picture heartbeat, inspired to partner with God and become
activated to engage in the role He has set before them.

Most believers don’t ever think about the mobilization aspect of the body of Christ when they
think about global mission. They may understand cross-cultural mission as being what we do
among the unreached peoples of the world.

Yet, they often overlook that it is through mission mobilization that local ministries are
educated, inspired and activated in God’s unfolding redemptive story among all peoples.
Therefore, wholistic mobilization, equipping churches to facilitate mission mobilization within
their own denominations and local ministries, is a foundational need in the Great Commission
today.

Whether or not we get mobilization right, among so many churches and believers now in every
nation on earth, determines if the mission movement itself is propelled forward effectively. Or
stagnates because this great potential force to accomplish the Great Commission remains
untapped for another generation.

The potential net of national churches raising up laborers is widening, particularly from Asia,
Africa and Latin America, and for the first time in recorded history, we have a truly global body
of Christ able to fulfill their assigned roles in the Great Commission. Previously, it was never
realistic to speak of fulfilling the Great Commission, though each generation did.

Now the work of the Great Commission is in the hands of a truly representative global Church
and mobilization thrust for the first time. If the global Church can be awakened to her core
identity, through multiplying mobilization movements, the fulfillment of the Great Commission
is realistic in our generation, culminating in Jesus’ redemptive purpose in this age.

The whole church engaged in her corporate responsibility in scattering the gospel of the
Kingdom among all subgroups of all remaining unreached ethnic peoples with power. This has
never happened before in church and mission history. Jesus will have a truly global Church
engaged in His Great Commission before the end of the age.

This will only take place through a broader, comprehensive implementation of the ministry of
mission mobilization than previously seen.

God has positioned His global people today for massive spiritual breakthrough among all
nations. We are truly moving toward redemptive fullness at the end of the age. This will include
denominations and church networks within every nation purposely emphasizing and
implementing mission mobilization across the spectrum of their churches.

Enabling churches to experience firsthand the restoration of the core identity of the global
Church as “God’s multiplying, reproducing people,” prioritizing the Great Commission within
their local fellowships and engaging every believer in their assigned roles.

These results will take place through a reenergized, redefined understanding of mission
mobilization as the key to the mission movement today.

God has been shaping and forming church and mission history, bringing us to the era of its
potential culmination. And now, like never before, it is possible for the whole, global body of
Christ to arise as one in carrying out Jesus’ last command before ascending to the right hand of
the Father.