Reaching out to people from a different culture is truly “foreign” to many Christians and often seems too intimidating to even try. How do church leaders help people get past their fears?

This issue of Postings highlights two types of programs offering put-your-toe-in-the-water introductions to unreached peoples.

Exposure Weekends

Enjoying a conversation with Hmong shop owners? Eating exotic Somali food from a communal plate? Astounded as you watch idol worship in a Hindu temple? If so, you might assume that you’re on a missions trip to the other side of the globe. But you could be in an Explore program in Minneapolis!

Explore programs are 2-, 3-, or 5-day experiences run by Engage Global from their center in one of Minneapolis’ very multi-cultural neighborhoods. Beginning with the initial orientation session, the 10-20 participants in each Explore group are involved in highly interactive learning. Explore is designed so that contact with immigrants and refugees in Minneapolis will be a springboard to passion for these peoples in their homeland.

After helping to connect the global thread running throughout Scripture, they diagram the Great Commission and then plunge into an intense cultural simulation experience. The activity exposes how easily people interpret others through their own cultural lenses. As  program leaders explain the layers of the culture onion—behaviors, values, beliefs, and worldview—participants discover they haven’t even peeled back the initial behaviors layer in their cross-cultural interactions.

Then it’s off to the Hmong or Somali market. Each person is given money for lunch and to buy some type of cultural or religious artifact. Spending money in restaurants and shops ensures that future groups will also be welcomed there. When the group returns, they debrief, share about the artifacts they purchased, then pray for the unreached peoples from the religious blocs represented. A large map helps to visualize the homelands of these peoples.

Explore has successfully involved those as young as fifth grade (fifth-eighth graders must be accompanied by a parent) and as old as 86. The greatest benefit occurs for churches where the Explore experience is tied into the overall missions goals of the church.

Hill Country Bible Church anticipates sending eight groups to Explore this year. The program was first scouted by Rick, their missions pastor. Impressed, he and other leaders decided to have all ministry staff participate so that every level of the church—from children to seniors—catches this vision of the world. Another church is making Explore a prerequisite for all college students joining their short-term teams. They believe it will lay a crucial missions foundation.

Explore is designed so that contact with immigrants and refugees in Minneapolis will be a springboard to passion for these peoples in their homeland. The emphasis is on both the big picture and on long-term engagement with unreached peoples globally.

Engage Global was birthed by Rick Davis whose years of experience working with refugees in the US and unreached peoples in Southeast Asia provided a rich backdrop for the development of this mobilization experience. Several other couples are part of the core ministry team, and they are aided by a number of volunteers, many of whom are themselves headed overseas. When they began, the team assumed that the Explore ministry would serve regional churches, but groups fly in from all over the US to participate. Plans are now developing to expand it to another major city.

Global Frontier Missions (GFM) offers very similar exposure opportunities with their Global Missions Tour (1 day) and Global Missions Journey (3 day). Both programs are available in Atlanta, Houston, and Richmond. Director Grant Hayes explains that the goal is for participants to catch God’s heart for the nations and identify their role in it—praying, giving, going, welcoming, etc.

Their program varies a bit depending on what is happening in the refugee/immigrant communities served by their longer-term staff. Journey participants can sometimes participate in one of the on-going programs. Prayer walking and ethnic mapping are always included, as well as some contextualized evangelism training and an introduction to sharing the gospel with those in honor/shame cultures.

An added aspect of GFM programs is that 30% of the registration fee is forwarded to a church-planting team among unreached peoples, or to a Bible translation or JESUS film project, etc. The benefitted ministry is discussed during the program with the goal of sparking a vision for God’s work among the nations and even potentially, ongoing support. GFM also hopes that churches that participate in these 1- and 3-day programs will send longer-term workers back for their Missionary Training School.

Sparking a vision for God’s work among the nations…

Ministry-Immersion Weeks

A second way to introduce people to the nations is ministry-immersion experiences among diaspora communities. In these programs, participants are trained in a few outreach techniques and then practice them with peoples of other cultures. Confidence grows as they learn basic questions to launch dialog with someone of another ethnic group.

International Project (IP) of New York City runs what they call Seed Weeksthroughout the year. Participants are introduced to hands-on ministry with immigrants and refugees in New York’s amazingly diverse boroughs. The long-term goal is to overcome fear and other barriers, and also to identify spiritually interested people who can be followed up by those in IP’s longer training program and church-planting work.

Each team receives a packet of materials prior to the trip to help them prepare for their time in New York City. Once onsite, mornings are filled with training, role play, and coaching. Each day, participants learn one new tool to connect cross culturally. Then after prayer, they head out to engage people in the way they were trained. The initial day introduces very simple techniques to just initiate a conversation. Many people are so fearful that simply launching a cross-cultural conversation constitutes a major success.

Each day adds to participants’ communication abilities. During the week they learn to effectively share a very brief testimony. They also learn how to identify “people of peace” who can be door openers to others in their ethnic community. Each evening the groups gather to debrief. They share great stories and hard stories. One of the underlying themes is “You are not allowed to be discouraged. There is no failure.”

“We want them to leave here with a love for the foreigner among us,” explains Director Kevin King. “Our goal is that they gain confidence to be able to engage a person of another faith and share with them spiritually at a simple level.”

Kevin and his wife Jeanne have ministered to internationals in New York City for two decades. Their goal is to make the learning curve much easier for others. International Project now has an expanding staff who run both Seed Weeks and their 10-month Equip training program. Some of those who are trained stay on to continue establishing churches among ethnic groups representing peoples that are unreached and much less accessible in their home countries. We want them to leave here with a love for the foreigner among us.

The program’s high impact is confirmed by Andy Edwards, pastor of missions and evangelism at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, OK. Andy and his wife scoped out the Seed Week program last fall, then he returned with a team of 11. “It was phenomenal because 80-90% of the people we encountered were not originally from the US. We got a taste for the world, and particularly for unreached people groups,” he explains.

“The training was amazing but the best part was going out and doing it,” he continues. “We learned how to turn the conversation from the natural to the spiritual. This training, coupled with powerful times of prayer, made us bold. Even our people who started out really terrified were, by the end of the week, able to have conversations at the mall or on the street. One proof of the program’s impact was that on the flight to New York, none of us shared the gospel on the airplane. On the flight home, every single member of our team shared the gospel with someone!”

Global Gates also offers immersion trips that they call Sifting Weeks. Similar in purpose and focus to the IP program, Sifting Weeks involve participants in “sifting” to find people who are hungry to know more about Jesus. The program is offered in New York City and the San Francisco area. A similar 3½ day program called Engaging the Nations will be introduced this summer in the DC metro area.

Churches–Start Here. Download a page of ideas to help churches utilize exposure weekends and immersion weeks.

Agencies–Start Here. Download a page of ideas to help agencies utilize exposure weekends and immersion weeks.