Partnership

Partnership—Who Do you Work with at Home and on the Field?

Joe Parnell with Mobberly Baptist Church launched a discussion about partnership and the role it plays in their church planting around the world.

They have planted in Anchorage, planting in Vancouver and have just relocated a couple to the UK to plant.

They are looking to partner with people and open to many things though there are theological barriers to close partnership.

In Malawi, they saw 5 churches planted in a one week trip. All still functioning with avg of 100 in attendance. Yet in other places like Romania, they have seen the Church Planting process to be very slow.

When going into a new place, the first thing they look to do is meet and bless IMB people. After that, they are open to looking to partner with those that are theologically similar.

The way you communicate with and motivate your people is through story-telling. Joe’s favorite part of his job is weekly writing a story for his people to see how God is working.

Important to identify what missionaries are there that would be good to partner with.

Good to partner with an association if they are helpful, but when not, they press on anyway. Some pastors will hate you for planting in their area, but you love them and move forward.

Larry McCrary shared about partnership from Scripture and his experience.

Paul was thankful for the Philippian church for their ongoing church. There was longevity in the partnership.

Partnership is mutual. It involves high levels of trust. Respect is essential. Partners believe in one another.

An important part of partnership is being invited in.

Identify partnership needs to know what types of partnerships to pursue.

Look for partners in your own context. God is doing something in your church. Find those partners.

Look for existing networks like SkyBridgeCommunity.net or BAMmatch.

Internationalization of missions is key to what God is doing in many parts of the world.