Crowdsourcing is a new term you may have heard in recent years. There is even a website called crowdsourcingweek.com. They define it this way: “Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal — often innovation, problem solving, or efficiency.” It occurred to us that this is the essence of Completion Global: we are trying to engage the crowd of American Christians-- toward a common goal, the Great Commission, and doing so through innovation, problem solving, and efficiency.
It’s a new day, with new ways to get more people involved. In the past, we left it to the professionals to carry out world mission by giving money, offering encouragement, or going on short-term missions. But now we can get everyone in America involved because God has sent the nations to us.
In Houston, for example, we have listed 10 ways for believers to engage the refugees, immigrants, and international students (aka diaspora) in their city, from organized prayer for a specific ethnic group to training prisoners for cross-cultural ministry to volunteering with local mission agencies to plant an indigenously-led church. No longer do we need sit on the sidelines and watch; we can all get in the game.
This month alone we met the leaders of Ethne Church Network, planting churches among the nations in Denver; we connected with Sowing Seeds of Joy in Arlington, TX, who are training African American congregations to do cross-cultural ministry across America, and I participated in a newly-formed 24:14 Network task force on reaching the diaspora in America and Europe.
Meanwhile, we were greatly encouraged to hear of the amazing work in prison by our colleagues Dillon and Kenyan, TUMI graduates in Muskegon Correctional in Michigan. They were interviewed in a podcast from Prison Fellowship and we were highly impressed by their insight, depth, and maturity. They are so well-respected that the warden has allowed them to go to other prison yards to teach classes to other inmates.
Crowdsourcing the Great Commission. Innovation, problem solving, efficiency. It’s a concept whose time has come. Thanks for being on the vanguard of this movement.
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