In the latest issue of Evangelical Mission Quarterly, the lead article was entitled “2020: The Decade of Collaboration.” In fact, the whole edition was devoted to the greatest need in world missions: globally coordinated collaboration. Everyone we talk to knows that our world is increasingly complicated, people are migrating all over the place, and urbanization is breaking down historical assumptions, making it nearly impossible to get our arms around the completion of the Great Commission. We simply must do missions differently than we did in the last decades if we are going to get the job done. At the center of it all is the need for new levels of cooperation.
This is at the foundation of Completion Global. We could even joke that collaboration is our middle name. Everything we do is about getting ministries to work together in new ways that haven’t been considered before. But new ways can also be confusing. For example, a few people told us we would be more effective if we joined a larger organization that is reaching more people directly, not realizing that it is our very neutrality that allows us to bring hundreds of ministries together, for example, our gathering of parachurch and church ministries to form the Houston Diaspora Coalition which meets February 21.
Because we are not competing with other organizations, they have been open to our assistance. So, if we were to merge with an existing agency, just the fact that we are were affiliated with a perceived rival creates unnecessary barriers. Being non-partisan has opened doors to hundreds of ministries, across a broad denominational and theological spectrum, among different ethnic groups, and in unusual mission contexts like prisons.
The other misconception is that people think we are denouncing traditional mission strategies to advocate only new approaches. The truth is that we are not pitting one against the other. We celebrate every traditional approach to reach the world for Christ but want to continue adding new innovations to accelerate the Lord’s work everywhere. Thus, we are not an either-or, but a both-and kind of ministry.
As we enter the Decade of Collaboration, we need your prayer support to stay true to his call; to be Completion “Collaboration” Global.
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