Partnership for Entry- Utilizing a Person of Influence

It’s time to start talking about partnerships. If you’ve been on the field for any significant length of time, chances are you’ve already started developing some good partners for your church planting ministry. These may be partners who come to join you each summer in the form of volunteer teams or even a student summer worker. They may be national believers who, whether or not they’re Baptist themselves, have a common goal for seeing people get saved and gather them into groups. They may be government partners who work with you to grant you access into schools, institutions, or other places to meet. For the next few weeks, I want us to focus on partnerships- namely, how do you create partnerships, with whom, and what parameters you set. Have you determined your own “theology of Partnership” – Who would you work with? What does IMB allow? How far does a partnership go? What role should we as missionaries play with connecting partners in the states with churches/groups/individuals here in Russia? These are tough questions to answer, but there are answers. When I was Strategy Coordinator in St. Petersburg, we developed some long-term partners with local organizations as well as US volunteers.
But there is a thing that we’ll call “Partnership for Entry”. How you currently utilize a Person of Influence can either make or break your masterplan. The Bible talks about finding persons of peace (Luke 10:6 “сын мира”) when Jesus sent out the 72 other disciples/missionaries, but I like the way the Russian Bible also talks about finding a person of influence (Matthew 10:11,13 “достоин”) when Jesus sent out the original 12 disciples/missionaries. Some think that these are one and the same, but if you study the passages closely, you’ll see that with the person of influence, the missionaries were told to give a greeting and if accepted then peace would rest on the home. (FYI- peace is an interesting word here if you want to do a deeper word study). However, with the person of peace, the missionaries were told to express peace to him personally, and if accepted then peace would rest on him personally. I believe it is important to understand the significance of both the person of influence and person of peace in church planting. Click here for a booklist/web resources for some good resources that discuss these persons of influence more indepth (Disclaimer: I don’t personally endorse all of the books/resources in their entirety, but they are good sources for reading more about persons of influence).
You can maximize your potential as a partner/connector in reaching people for Christ if you find a person who is “worthy” or “influential” in his community. In my experience, these have most often been males who might be quiet-natured but carry some kind of positional authority in the community. They could be female if they hold authority over some workgroup or family. Finding these guys is crucial to developing strongholds or beachheads for potential church planting movements. In Bryansk, one man who was a doctor in the community gave me entry into his circle of friends for witnessing. Another man, a police officer, was influential in allowing us access to his friends. Another man gave me permission for our bible study to meet in a government-owned building. In St. Petersburg, one lady who was the local government administrator gave her blessing for the current St. Petersburg team to hold baseball camps in a city park. Sometimes, these persons of influence may not become the evangelized themselves, but because of the position they hold, they are useful to the Kingdom in opening doors for evangelism. I’m sure you have dozens of stories like these.
When you begin church planting in a new region of your city, you should keep your eyes open for persons of influence, because these “partners” can grant you entry where you might not have thought. The bible says to pray for kings and those in authority (1 Tim 2:2). Sometimes these officials will themselves become believers, sometimes not (Acts 26:28), but sometimes they will be influential in opening doors for others to hear the gospel. In our masterplans, we should plan for activities to help us find these persons of influence. Jesus told his 12 missionaries to plan to find theirs. It usually involves prayer, lots of prayer. I’ve found that prayerwalking is a helpful way to listen to the Holy Spirit and discover persons of influence. I’ve also found that the more I share the gospel with folks in Russia, the more I discover potential partners who open more doors for the gospel. In what ways have you found the Lord leads you to persons of influence?

Next week, we’ll talk about the Luke 10 passage where Jesus told his 72 other missionaries to plan to find a person of peace.