International Mission Board (IMB) President David Platt proposed streamlining the missions agency’s strategy and structure in keeping with his desire for IMB to exalt Christ and work more effectively toward accomplishing the Great Commission.
He presented his proposal during IMB’s Feb. 24–25 trustee meeting in Houston, Texas, and trustees unanimously voted to approve the plan.
“We want to empower limitless missionary teams to make disciples and multiply churches among unreached people,” Platt said. “We need a strategy that doesn’t cap our number of missionaries merely based upon how much money we have.”
IMB operated “in the red” last year, with the agency’s operating expenses exceeding income by nearly $21 million, Platt noted.
“Right now our funnel is really small … such that we’re turning people away,” he said. “And what I’m saying, what we know, is that we need to blow open this funnel and create as many pathways as possible … to get the gospel to unreached people.”
Multiplying churches
IMB must creatively consider how to leverage the avenues God has given for limitless men, women and families to join together on missionary teams to make disciples and multiply churches among unreached people groups, Platt said. Since his election in August 2014, Platt has stated his five biblically based desires for IMB are to exalt Christ, mobilize Christians, equip the Church, facilitate church planting and play its part in completing the Great Commission.
Platt recommended to IMB trustees a “reset” of the agency’s strategy and realignment of its structure to focus on five main areas:
- Global training, led by Zane Pratt, who was named vice president of global training during the November 2014 trustee meeting.
- Global engagement, which entails work formerly called “global strategy,” to be led by John Brady. Trustees elected Brady, current vice president for global strategy, as vice president of global engagement.
- Operations and finance, which consolidates the current offices of personnel, logistics and finance into one team. Trustees affirmed the search for a person to lead the newly formed operations and finance work. Randy Pegues, vice president of global logistics support; Tom Williams, vice president of global personnel; and David Steverson, vice president of finance, will step out of their current positions and into other assignments to be determined in the days ahead.
- Mobilization, which “re-envisions” the current church and partner services team to more effectively mobilize Christians and churches for global missions, to be led by a to-be-named vice president of mobilization. Ken Winter, vice president of church and partner services, plans to return to work in a local church.
- Strategy, which overarches all the areas with a “relentless” focus to unify IMB culture. As a result the current office of global strategic mobilization, currently led by Scott Holste, will fold into the new strategy in various ways. Some areas will report directly to Platt and Sebastian Traeger, IMB executive vice president. The current office of prayer, led by Gordon Fort, will be “infused across this entire strategy,” Platt said.
‘Used by God’
Clyde Meador, executive adviser to the president, said IMB has gone through many minor and major “resets” in its history to adjust to changing needs. Each “recalibration” of the organization “has been used by God” to advance His Church, Meador said.
Platt said the changes are intended to be reproducible through IMB’s national partners around the world. Maintaining a cycle of making disciples among unreached people and seeing churches established, then seeing those churches send Christians to unreached people is IMB’s mission.
“Let me be clear — strategy and structure are not the ultimate answer to seeing Christians and churches engaging unreached people with the gospel. … What that means is that more than we need a streamlined strategy or a simplified structure, we need the power of God to do what only He can do.
“This is why I am calling everyone across our IMB family … to fast and pray because only God can do this work. … Let’s get down on our knees, then get up … and do whatever it takes, no matter what that means, to set the sails for God to empower limitless missionary teams who are making disciples and multiplying churches among unreached people for the glory of His name.”
(BP)
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