visionSynergy

Launching a new learning community

2011-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

We at visionSynergy are committed to advancing collaboration in Christian ministry around the world. That's why we are launching an updated, revamped, and massively retooled community site dedicated to empowering the leaders of missional networks and partnerships.

Collaborative leaders in Christian contexts have had few places to go for connections, resources, and further development in the specific skill-sets needed to lead these collaborative initiatives. This new community site will be the place to make connections, share ideas, find resources, and move mountains.

By entering your email address on the new www.powerofconnecting.net home page, you will be notified when the new site launches and be able to download a free PDF of the book Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope Through Kingdom Partnerships.

Why We're Captured by the Vision

2011-10-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

"With a business degree I actually started professional life as a journalist – almost 100% of it international," comments Phill Butler, Senior Strategy Advisor for visionSynergy. "In traveling around the world I met many wonderful people doing great Kingdom projects. Time after time, though, I saw that, busily focused on their own efforts, these folks were not talking with others either in their geographical area or even those also working in their kind of ministry. The result, of course, was frequent lack of coordination, duplication of effort, waste, and lack of potential effectiveness. Seeing a world full of incredible spiritual need and remarkable opportunity, as a layman, I kept wondering, 'What about the practical implications of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 for unity among His followers?'"

"So, over twenty five years ago, along with a small group of colleagues, we began to see if we could find ways to help with this problem. It was slow going in the beginning – lots of resistance to the idea and our own steep learning curve!"

"Now, after hundreds of opportunities to help people form effective, lasting partnerships, networks, and other forms of Kingdom collaboration, I’m more convinced than ever; God’s people actually working together can produce dramatically more effective outcomes. Networks and partnerships by the dozens are now operating effectively around the world. Thousands of people from hundreds of ministries have formed an amazing range of Kingdom collaborative efforts. Whether its ministry to refugees, sports-based outreach, Kingdom use of the internet, strategies to touch great cities, large unreached people groups, or neighborhood initiatives – God’s people working together are making a huge difference."

“'Easy' work? No. But I’m so glad I got involved and have to be able to see the remarkable results around the world. But, what’s happened so far is really just the beginning. Join us here at visionSynergy and our extensive network of partnership practitioners while we talk about this and many other amazing collaborative initiatives around the world on the soon-to-be-launched community website: www.powerofconnecting.net."

Update on the Christian Higher Education Initiative

2011-10-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Three schools are currently teaching the Cause Collaboration course in Nepal, Singapore and Philippines, another one from the Philippines will begin soon, and Bakke Graduate University will teach it again next month. Some 12 more schools are committed to teaching the course in 2011-2012.
Pray for those schools who have recently expressed interest in the course and are currently evaluating the content.
Translation of the course into Russian is now 50% complete. Pray for Phill Butler as he participates in the EAAA regional event in Kiev, Ukraine in late October to promote collaboration and this course across the Russian region.

Partnership for Grass Roots Leaders

2011-10-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

visionSynergy and our partners in India will hold a three-day intensive “Tree of Life” training course for 30+ leaders in Chennai, India on how partnership can power local, grass-roots churches in hostile communities of Muslims and Hindus.

Just prior to the training, visionSynergy and our Indian coordinator, Chandan Sah, will be making plans for expansion of this program in 2012.

In the last twelve months over 1100 grass roots leaders have been trained and a range of remarkable collaborative community transformation projects have been launched by local church leaders.

“Collaboration in Community Transformation” Workshop

2011-10-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

Last month, some 67 individuals from more than 15 organizations attended this 2-day workshop co-sponsored by visionSynergy, Bakke Graduate University and Leadership Foundations.

What was the reaction to the event?

“It was very helpful, and I was so glad at the emphasis on relationship, story, and the practical nature of understanding the collaborative process.”

“Very well presented and valuable resource on collaborative partnership opportunities in multiple contexts.”

“I acquired excellent tools (for my ministry) and met great people."

“Very good roadmap on how this works.”

International Orality Network

2011-09-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Orality – preaching the Gospel through stories, video stories, and narrative to oral cultures and those who won’t read. visionSynergy continues to coach this network of more than 50 practitioner ministries and literally hundreds of other ministries. If you want to learn more go to www.oralbible.com.

Bill Sunderland guided the leadership team of this maturing network by continuing to develop their skills of collaboration. As a result, several key initiatives and specific partnerships are growing out of this effort. The Digital Repository is one such example. This repository will store and archive Gospel story sets from around the world done by indigenous speakers and available to the global church body.

Don't Skimp on "Collaboration Spaces"

2011-09-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

Productive, effective networks, provide ways for individuals to have specific involvement in a topic that is of greatest interest to them. We are past the era where people are willing to go to conferences just to sit and listen to interesting topics delivered from the front. They want to see collaboration help them accomplish larger ministry for God. They want their skills and gifts to be used well so they are not just onlookers. They want to actually strategize and work on collaborating together.

The best way to do this is by giving people their choice from among a set of working groups rather than designating only two specific work groups that are considered of primary importance to the leadership team. That way we have people in these groups who are truly more interested in that particular topic. The goal is to give them enough time to think through their work group topic on what they might do together that they aren’t able to do working individually (as their own organization). These become the ministry dreams that give ongoing life to a network. It also allows for bigger and more impactful collaborative projects to emerge.

So the point isn’t just to break them into groups for small group discussion or for another presentation. The point is to get attendees into a work group to think on crucial and highly valued challenges, strategize on how to tackle those challenges, develop actual planned objectives with assignments, report those to the large group, and work together through the year.

There are some advantages to just having two work groups meet at the same time besides saving some money – larger groups might have more energy than smaller groups. But larger groups also dampen involvement and you typically get two to four people who dominate the discussions, which doesn’t result in much.

My main thought is that people have invested so much to get to the conference, why would we skimp to save a little money on break out rooms when that is quite probably the most productive time for the alliance, to give it purpose, shape what we can do together collaboratively? It seems a small price to create the better environment for collaboration.

Notes We Love To Receive ...

2011-09-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

“My engagement with partnerships and collaboration for Christian mission has been a long standing one. However, what I pursued and practiced all these years has now, as a result of attending the Cause Collaboration Course training and then teaching it here to my students, a fresh theological grounding, conceptual clarity ...”

“Observing the enthusiasm of the students in class and in working on their various projects, which were part of the course, gave me a glimpse of the positive impact that this has had on them as well. Thank you for VisionSynergy's contribution to this process.”

- Paul Joshua, faculty, SAIACS, India

Take Time, Make Space: Discover Your Group's Specific Interests for Effective Collaboration

2011-09-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

How do we keep people interested in a network or partnership? This age-old question is faced by every collaborative venture that sees participation rates drop off at embarrassing and disappointing rates. In short, the answer is to lead participants into work groups that reflect their specific interests. We call this specificity.

Productive, effective networks give individuals the opportunity to focus their attention and involvement onto a specific aspect or topic of challenging ministry that is of the greatest interest to them. For instance, in a network on ministry to international students, some will choose research, some will be drawn to event planning, and still others will yearn to strategize on returnee connections. Putting someone to work on research when their actual interest is returnee connections is a fundamental mistake! In your network planning, find ways for participants to identify the aspect they are most interested in.

We have found a simple truth: Interest rises with greater specificity! People want to use their skills and gifts; but they are most willing to do this when working on a topic in which they are greatly interested. Low interest - low involvement. High interest - high involvement! If the mismatch is severe, they will be onlookers only -- or will drop out.

How might we group people so that they are highly interested in strategizing and collaborating together? It certainly isn't by having people go to a conference just to sit and listen to topics delivered from the front. These days, a conference must have practical value. It must help participants discover ways to do their own ministry better, easier, or lead it to grow more quickly.

We have found that the better way to help people get into groups that most specifically relate to their interest area is to have a large group identify its greatest challenges to accomplishing its ministry. For instance, to a group of those involved in international student ministry, we would ask, "What are the greatest challenges you face when trying to do that ministry?" Using small and large group discussion, we would gradually have the participants themselves generate a list of challenges. By grouping them in categories of similarity, we are able to reduce a longer list down into a more manageable set of, say, six major groupings of challenge areas.

We might use a second round of discussions to have the participants identify, from that six, what are the three most-valuable challenges to work on -- the ones that if they were actually able to make progress in that area, it would truly benefit their entire ministry. So now in this process you have arrived at three very highly valued topics, and you can invite people to go to the topic area of the three that they are personally most interested in. This choice process empowers people, and lets the network help them do their own ministry better by working on the specific aspect that is worthwhile to them. These three challenge area topic groups can then become work groups devising potential solutions to the challenges they jointly face.

You can see, we hope, how this process is far superior to a leadership team simply announcing "the three most important challenges," and breaking the group into three groups to work on them. Because the challenge areas came right out of the whole group's deliberations, there is greater "buy-in," or ownership. In a real sense this process is the single most important activity your network can do! We urge you not to skimp on time or space so that your group can do this process. Provide for it. Give it space, and sufficient time. To cut corners on this may jeopardize your network's ability to be of any earthly - or heavenly - good!

Once work groups are formed around challenge ares, the goal is to give them enough time to think through thoroughly what are possible solutions on what they might do together that they aren’t able to do working individually (as their own organization). These become the ministry objectives that drive the energy forward and give life to a network. This approach also allows for bigger and more impactful collaborative projects to emerge. And that, friends, results in high, sustained interest in a network.

How NOT to Kill a Partnership Before it Gets Started!

2011-09-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

“The fastest way to kill a city reaching movement is to call a meeting.” Phill Butler, Senior Strategy Advisor of visionSynergy, frequently mentions this quick route to failure – and adds that it applies to any other potential ministry partnership or network, including those focused on prayer, youth, HIV/AIDS, and people group evangelism.

Butler says that if you truly want to encourage God’s people to work together to reach and serve a city with the love and power of Jesus, your most productive efforts will come from praying three prayers, each with practical steps.

The first prayer: “God, help me identify key influential people in the community who have a ‘Kingdom heart.’”

Begin searching for these people from the primary sectors influencing your area: city and county government, education, business, non-profit (service/ministry organizations), communications, service clubs (Rotary and the like), law enforcement, emergency services, health, judicial/law, and more.

Start with the people you already know and ask them about the people they know – and just keep moving forward with exploring the sectors. Keep in mind some folks you talk to will know people in multiple sectors that fit the ‘profile.’) You’re asking the question, “Who do you feel has a) a Kingdom heart; b) a heart for the city; and c) is respected, in that he/she has some kind of leadership role and a sphere of influence.

Be ready to explain to these people – in simple, clear, transparent ways that show no personal agenda – why you want to know these things and what you’ll do with the information. Before long, your list of 2, 3, 4, or 5 people will become a list of 20, 30, or 40.

The second prayer: “God, help my personal approach to these people be effective, and give me extraordinary favor when I meet with them.”

We demonstrate our authentic care and interest to people through our demeanor, the questions we ask, and our listening skills as they talk to us. Don’t forget that those basic courtesies are fundamental to a successful interchange. The book Well Connected has extended discussion on how to plan and execute these crucial one-to-one meetings. One chapter is about this “exploration” phases and offers case studies about how to call on people and what to say – and not say!

The third prayer: “God, help me to discern the common themes that come out of these contacts with people – to see how you are already drawing together the community’s Kingdom-hearted people to work together.”

You will find that as you talk with these people, a sort of consensus will begin to emerge from their comments. Before these people ever meet face to face, their concerns will already likely be clustered around one, two or three similar issues. Keep in mind that your basic opening question is always very, very simple. It may not necessarily be easy to answer, but it will be clear and simple to state – such as: “Impossible as it may seem, imagine the different sectors of our community actually working together to address the key needs in our community. Over the next year or year and a half, what one issue – or problem, or community challenge — do you feel most urgently should be addressed? Or restated, what one issue do you think is the highest priority if we, as a community, could truly work together?”

Finally, be aware that those you approach will want to know whom you represent. That question may come when you first call to set up these appointments, or it may not come until you are face to face with them. The better answer explains your affiliation (church or organization), but that you are truly seeking to draw together a broad coalition of Kingdom-hearted people who want to join hands and hearts to reach and serve with the love and power of our Lord.

Network Growth in Muslim Regions

2011-09-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

Efforts to use the Internet for evangelism among followers of one of the world’s largest unreached religions have been rising almost unnoticed in recent years across a huge swath of ministries.

Initially, very little collaboration among these ministries was taking place until an enterprising group of internet evangelism ministries formed an alliance to bring together in a neutral atmosphere many of these practitioners.

This Muslim Internet Evangelism Alliance (which goes by a different name we won’t list here for security reasons), now in its seventh year with continuous visionSynergy counsel, is a glowing success. It has practical work groups moving forward strategic but commonly-shared concerns, such as media-to-ground follow-up and security.

Many partnerships have flowed out of the alliance-advancing the gospel in powerful ways.

Fear Gives Way to Trust

2011-08-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

A classic physics classroom experiment has students tightly tie a balloon on one outlet of a two-outlet bottle and fill the bottle with water from the other airtight opening. The result? The balloon inflates with the air displaced by the water. The Apostle says, “perfect love casts out fear.” (I John 4:18). So, when Jesus is truly present in our relationships, fear is displaced by trust and new confidence. Fear often keeps Kingdom ministries and their personnel apart. And when that happens, we simply know that God isn’t present.

Now Jesus says — “…Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev 21:5) Jesus’ promise in Revelation is a powerful vision of hope – of the future. But an equally powerful real reason we follow Jesus is because He makes things new now! For individuals, families, communities – and for ministries.

Over the years, God’s people working together in partnership and other forms of collaboration have had some pretty radical new experiences – powered by the Spirit of Christ:

Broken relationships give way to reconciliation.
Fear gives way to trust.
Duplication and waste give way to coordination and efficiency.
Division among ministries gives way to unity and commitment to each other.
Separate, often less effective strategies, give way to a common vision and approach.
Isolation gives way to a sense of belonging.
Despair gives way to hope.

This seems like a pretty formidable list.

Often, where the challenge is the greatest, like reaching the completely unreached, the battle is more intense. So, what gives with all the division and brokenness in the Body of Christ? Satan, who introduced mistrust and division in the first place in Eden, still prowls the world intent on instilling fear and separation. So, building or restoring trusting, open relationships unmarked by fear takes specific initiative; vision, commitment, and trust that God’s at the heart of the process. It doesn’t “just happen.” And, for our unreached peoples strategy to be blessed, He has to power everything anyway. But, He often has to fill the vacuum of fear as a first order of business.

That part of partnership-building is essential, of course. But also seems like an incredibly valuable goal.

Update on the Christian Higher Education Initiative

2011-08-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Four schools are currently teaching the Cause Collaboration course in Nepal, Singapore and India, and one more school from the Philippines will begin in the next couple of weeks. An additional 15 schools are committed to teaching the course in 2011-2012.
The presentation of the course at the Overseas Council’s Institute for Excellence in Santiago, Chile in May produced serious commitments from 4-5 Latin American schools to offer the course in 2012. Phill Butler also presented a keynote on “Collaboration and Economic Sustainability.” Click here to read the entire article.
The Spanish version of the course was used for the first time in the bi-lingual setting at CHET (Centro Hispano de Estudios Teológicos) in Los Angeles.
Translation of the Cause Collaboration course into Russian is now underway. In October, visionSynergy staff will participate in a Christian higher education event in Kiev, Ukraine to promote
collaboration and this course across the Russian region.
Copies of the Russian language edition of Well Connected arrived in our offices this week!

"The Iron Chefs of Partnership": Emphasizing a Process-Oriented Approach to Partnership

2011-08-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Do you know the “Iron Chef” TV show? This was a show that originally launched in Japan in the early 90′s and then had spin-offs in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Israel. In the show, there are master chefs in an outlandish “kitchen stadium” who compete to quickly create entire multi-course meals around a single theme ingredient, which is revealed to the chefs at the opening of the show. They make some pretty crazy dishes. Let's examine this illustration to explain one of the distinctives about the model of collaborative partnership we encourage in our training here at visionSynergy.

There are many different forms a partnership can take depending on its size, scope, setting, and structure. Likewise, there are many good models or approaches to partnership in general. Most of the models of partnership you will find are “ingredients-oriented” approaches. The model visionSynergy encourages is a “process-oriented” approach. An “ingredients-oriented” model will focus on the different qualities, characteristics, or dimensions of healthy and effective partnerships – things like openness, mutuality, accountability, cultural sensitivity, and so on. But a “process-oriented” model is more focused on the step-by-step – the actual processes and best practices of developing an effective partnership.

It’s kind of like the difference between a nutritionist (or dietitian) and a chef. Hence, the illustration. You see, a nutritionist can give you all the ingredients for a healthy and balanced diet, but do they show you how to cook it? No. That’s what a chef does. A chef understands the process of making a meal. So our goal in training is to help others become the “Iron Chefs” of partnership. No matter what their mystery ingredient may be, we want them to have the skills to be able to cook it up into something wonderful.

Now, obviously this is a generalization. Other models of partnership do, in fact, talk about what it takes to make partnership happen. The model visionSynergy uses also, in fact, seriously considers the attributes of a healthy and effective partnership. It’s a difference of emphasis and degree. We find that people want more than anything to know how to actually do it. So, we tend to focus more on understanding the process of partnership than on analyzing the qualities of partnership. We place less emphasis on talking about the influence of culture, or inequities of power, or issues of accountability, or things like that.

That definitely does not mean such qualities or “ingredients” are unimportant. Not so. Like the knowledge of a nutritionist, it’s important to understand the different dynamics of health in collaboration, especially from a diagnostic point-of-view. You need to know why things may or may not be working right. But you also need the knowledge of the chef, otherwise you might have all the right ingredients, but end up making a big mess in the kitchen.

As they say on the Iron Chef TV show: “Allez cuisine!” Let’s get cooking!

Bridging the Divide

2011-08-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

visionSynergy’s Dave Hackett was tapped last month to facilitate “Bridging the Divide,” an unprecedented global summit of 50+ professors, funders, missiologists and leaders of evangelism and church planting ministries among Muslims.

The delicate consultation directly addressed the Insider Movement controversy and is broadly considered a success, breaking new ground by dispensing with misperceptions, building relations between groups, healing broken relationships, and prompting higher ethical standards by those criticizing one side or another.

"This was the best conference I have ever been to in my life! I have struggled for years to know in practical terms what it means that they will know we are Christians by the way we love one another. This week I experienced that love reaching across our differences …"

Participants gathered for the purpose of “Bridging the Divide” over the differences related to ministry practices in the Muslim world. Over these days we have prayed, worshiped and examined the scriptures. We have examined case studies from the field and celebrated what God is sovereignly doing to call Muslim peoples to Himself and a place in the body of Christ. We have spoken openly and honestly, showing love and respect to one another about our differences. Although serious differences remain and ongoing interaction is needed, we have sought to listen and learn and most of all to hear what God would say to us corporately as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. We have sought to be faithful to Scripture, and by the grace of God we have found agreement on certain issues, clarified misunderstandings and identified issues for further study, reflection and dialogue. With mutual respect and in submission to God and His Word, our authority for faith and practice, we have come to agreement on a number of points and committed ourselves to continue the process that we have begun in these days.

"The breakthroughs that occurred this week on the issue of translating the filial language of God into Muslim languages was a miracle I could not have dared to hope for …"

At the end of the time together, a broad consensus was reached on the following:

To glorify the Lord and help to bridge the divide between us as we seek to extend the Kingdom to Muslim peoples,

We repent of

Our careless and harmful and unconfirmed words, gossip, slander, and bitterness that we may have used against each other,
Our failures to seek to honor brethren above ourselves; and
Our contributing to a divisive spirit, since God has called us to be co-laborers in declaring His glory among the nations.

We reject

The insistence that the particular ways God has worked with our community are the only or preferred ways He must work with others in His great harvest in-gathering, and
The practice of encouraging cross-cultural workers from a Christian background to take on a Muslim identity.

We affirm

God is moving globally in a variety of ways to draw Muslims to Christ,
The primacy of the Word of God for all aspects of faith and practice guided by the Spirit of God for the people of God, and
Practicing fidelity in Scripture translation using terms that accurately express the familial relationship by which God has chosen to describe Himself as Father in relationship to the Son in the original languages.

We commit to

Examine the Scriptures and our own hearts diligently to renew and transform our theological, missiological and ethical understanding and practice,
Love those in the global community lifting up the Lord among Muslims, pursuing the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and to
Intentionally seek out opposing peer review for our proposed publications that attempt to characterize the views of those with whom we disagree
Promote unity and understanding between new and existing expressions of the church, the body of Christ.

To the End That all may know the Gospel, Jesus returns in power and great glory, and as many as possible enjoy the new heaven and new earth, for the glory of God alone. Even so come Lord Jesus!

Contact Sue Pierce (spierce@visionsynergy.net) for a copy of the report that the consultation produced.

Notes We Love to Receive ...

2011-07-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

“I am so excited about this deal of collaborative partnerships! This methodology (the story-based approach used in the course) is going to be a great tool for my students, several of whom are directly involved in the development of nonprofits with a focus on meeting the needs of communities.”

- Marv Gibbs, faculty, CHET

visionSynergy Announces New CEO

2011-07-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Dr. Brad Smith, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at visionSynergy, announces that on July 1, 2011, Kärin Primuth became the new CEO of the global partnership development ministry, visionSynergy. Primuth took over the helm of visionSynergy from Phill Butler, a pioneer in the global partnership movement. Butler was the founder of Intercristo, Interdev, and visionSynergy, and will continue full-time with visionSynergy as Senior Strategy Advisor.

For the last two years, Primuth led visionSynergy's higher education initiative to develop and globally distribute collaboration curriculum through Christian higher education institutions.

Regarding this announcement, Butler said,

“There's a wonderful twist to this story: Kärin is my eldest daughter. Neither of us anticipated Kärin’s transition to this role, but after a prayerful search for a next generation CEO, the Board identified Kärin as the best candidate. I am delighted with the decision, and I am fully committed to supporting Kärin and her great team as they help God's people work together to advance Kingdom priorities.”

Orality and the Global Church

2011-07-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

The International Orality Network (ION) assisted ministries in India and Africa this past year by conducting multiple Orality consultations. visionSynergy Associate Bill Sunderland says, “The local leaders are taking ownership of this movement and are moving ahead with or without us.”

This is a welcomed development as this new but centuries-old method of sharing Christ’s message is gaining recognition by the Global Church. On the North American front, ION has taken a huge step forward in its development as more task forces have been formed to take on critical projects.

The research task force will be looking at the impact of Orality on Church Growth. A new task force, Music and Arts, will explore the impact of all culturally appropriate arts in Oral-based cultures.

In September 2010, 185 Orality practitioners and ministry leaders gathered for the International Orality Network’s annual meeting. This meeting increased awareness in North American churches about the viability of storytelling to build disciples, and grew excitement in churches to use it. 500 organizations are involved with ION, and 1,300 on its mail list. visionSynergy will continue to have a major influence on the direction of this crucial network.

The Power of the Pack

2011-06-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

One of the key sporting events that is underway at this time of the year is Tour de France – the Tour this year consists of 21 stages with a total distance of 3,500km (2,174mi). Ever watched the race? It was first staged on July 1, 1903 and is an amazing event combining the absolute ultimate expression of BOTH individual performance and teamwork. Sounds like the Body of Christ (Romans 12, I Corinthians, etc.) doesn’t it? Each stage has a winner and, of course, there is an overall champion – at the end of those grueling 3,500 kilometers! The length and challenge of the race sounds a lot like reaching an unreached people group.

But in watching the race you soon see that the heart of the Tour de France is the peloton.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the peloton:

The peloton (from French, literally meaning little ball or platoon and also related to the English word pellet), field, bunch or pack is the large main group in a road bicycle race. Riders in a group save energy by riding close (drafting or slipstreaming) near (particularly behind) other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; in the middle of a well-developed group it can be as much as 40% (my emphasis).

Ernst Shakleton’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1914-1917 has become a classic case study in leadership. Trapped in the ice and facing certain annihilation, Shakleton focused on keeping his men together – often with what seemed to be almost unreasonable discipline. Focused on the common good, the group survived. Not a single man was lost in the face of humanly impossible odds! And, in spite of the impossible, Shakleton has become a symbol of the remarkable capacity of people when they work together.

That sure sounds a lot like the partnership paradigm, doesn't it? The fact is that we were designed by God to live and work in community. That is, until Adam and Eve made their fateful decisions.

Imagine a 40% increase in effectiveness in what you do – in the outcomes you see. If the peloton in the Tour de France can achieve that, can’t we at least aspire to that dream? And what might be the impact on our unreached people strategies?

Partnership for Oral Communicators

2011-05-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Some 2.5 billion people in the world can’t read. Another billion don’t read. They represent the largest block of “unreached” people in the world! For over 200 years, most literate Western missions and evangelism strategies have simply bypassed these people. Typically at the margins of society, these poorest-of-the-poor desperately need to know how to work together.

Recently, a three and one-half day intensive course on partnership development skills for oral communicators (non-literates) has been field-tested in north India. Thirty-five Indians from ten indigenous mission agencies participated and made plans for specific, village-level collaborative initiatives, each with well-defined goals for the next six months.

Hosted by the BORN (Bihar OutReach Network) of Patna, Bihar state, the course was jointly developed and presented by team members from Scriptures In Use (SIU) and visionSynergy (vS). SIU has pioneered training of oral communicators at the grassroots levels in evangelism/church planting, discipleship, and leadership training. Their training, “Bridges To Oral Cultures,” is now used in Africa, the Middle East, and numerous locations in Asia. visionSynergy specializes in helping ministries develop strategic forms of collaboration for Kingdom ministry.

The course in India focused on helping the emerging “oral Bible” churches work together at the village level in four sectors: evangelism and church planting, economic development and sustainability, community development (health, education, clean water, etc.), and social justice issues.

In cooperation with BORN, the test course’s 35 participants will meet again in six months with SIU and visionSynergy team members to evaluate progress. Additionally, plans are underway during 2009 to train the majority of Bihar’s indigenous missions leaders and to develop a network of master trainers who will serve the emerging church in Bihar’s population of nearly 90 million.

Global Church Planting Network Taps visionSynergy

2011-05-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

Church planters gathered in March in Istanbul, Turkey, at the Global Church Planting Network received partnership training provided by visionSynergy’s Dave Hackett. The sessions equipped church planters from Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, China, Kenya, Liberia, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, the UK, the US, and other countries in principles and best practices of effective collaboration.

One of the attendees, a church planting network leader, wrote:

"It was great to connect in Istanbul. Thanks for your excellent partnering training and coaching input for regional CP [church planting] mobilizers. Cheers to visionSynergy!”

Winning American Cities

2011-05-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

visionSynergy continues to work with the Mission America Coalition to develop a “cadre” of partnership specialists who will continue to widen the core value of collaboration within the city-reaching movement of American churches, denominations and para-church ministries.

Monthly reinforcement calls were held recently and were met with a high level of acceptance. visionSynergy staff Phill Butler and Bill Sunderland delivered another eleven hours of class during the City Impact Roundtable in Boston.

A second tier of training is being developed for delivery in later months.

Update on the Christian Higher Education Initiative

2011-05-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

Karin Primuth (Director) reports these exciting developments:

Thirteen schools are confirmed to run the Cause Collaboration course in 2011-12. An additional 14 schools are in active communication regarding their interest.
Translation of the Cause Collaboration course into Spanish is now complete. A bilingual Spanish/English version of the course is in progress in Los Angeles.
A collaborative innovation workshop and faculty orientation for South Asia was completed in Singapore in March.
visionSynergy staff will present the course at the Overseas Council’s Institute for Excellence in Santiago, Chile in May.
The Russian language edition of Well Connected is complete and the course translation is soon to begin. Four universities in the Russian-speaking region are preparing to use the course in 2011. A faculty orientation and course presentation at the Russian regional association of Christian higher education is set for October in Kiev.

North Africa / Arab Advances

2011-04-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of recent visionSynergy efforts in the Muslim and Arab world:

Muslim Internet Evangelism Network Advances: For the first time in its seven-year history, the leadership team of a strategic network focused on reaching the Muslim world through the Internet met mid-year in Denver to map out major new directions. visionSynergy staff facilitated the meeting. The leadership team deepened their relationships and the planning energized the team for a new era of collaborative work.

Collaboration Initiative to Impact Muslim Country: visionSynergy has been asked to provide in-depth leadership to a new collaborative effort to bring together workers in a prime Muslim country. This new effort will require extraordinary levels of engagement with on-the-ground workers, but holds great promise for the advancement of the gospel.

North Africa Mission Network Rises to the Challenge: With continual counsel from visionSynergy, a partnership focused on one of the North Africa countries experiencing revolution is growing in its capacity to respond to quickly changing situations. Though the leadership of this partnership wrestles with unexpected developments and the immensity of the need, it is rallying to the situation and discovering a partnership way of responding.

Internet Outreach Coalition for Africa is Born

2011-04-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

The newly formed Internet Outreach Coalition for Africa seeks to “evangelize, disciple, and mentor unreached people from across the globe through the Internet and train believers in Africa to use the Internet and mobile devices to do the same.” visionSynergy advised this coalition in its early efforts to form a network to use the Internet for evangelism.

Founder Adeyinka Yomi writes,

“Thank you so much for encouragement, motivation, for the video conference we did for pastors in Nigeria 2007, and for Anglican Priests in Nigeria 2009, [and] especially the fictional story ‘Technology Evangelism Movement in Sub-Saharan Africa’ [written by Dave Hackett] . The Lord specifically last year instructed me to pay highest attention to Internet Evangelism, and since January I have met people and prayed ... My world Africa Nigeria needs this light urgently.”

Fellowships and Others Use "Well Connected"

2011-04-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

The partnership handbook “Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope Through Kingdom Partnerships” by Phill Butler continues to have valuable impact. The book has recently gone into a revised edition, 2nd printing.

Nearly 600 books were ordered by the Nigerian Evangelical Missions Fellowship for use with mission and church leaders throughout the country.

One “Well Connected” reader wrote from Africa:

“I work for African Enterprise as a Pan-African Missions Director. I plan to use all the principles which are well articulated by Phill Butler who got the mind of Christ to write this most valuable book. It will definitely help me to build lasting partnerships in our mission to evangelize the cities of Africa through Word and Deed in partnership with the Church. This book will be my most valuable resource as I develop partnerships in the cities of Africa.”

"Partnership" in the Cape Town Commitment

2011-03-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Lausanne has released the new Cape Town Commitment coming out of the Cape Town 2010 Congress. Of special interest to the partnership Movement are the sections in this new Commitment that describe the call to partnership and collaboration in the body of Christ.

The full document of the Cape Town Commitment is available online at http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/ctcommitment.html.

The sections referring to partnership are:

Part I, Section 9 A:

Love calls for Unity. Jesus’ command that his disciples should love one another is linked to his prayer that they should be one. Both the command and the prayer are missional - ‘that the world may know you are my disciples’, and that ‘the world may know that you [the Father] sent me’.[50] A most powerfully convincing mark of the truth of the gospel is when Christian believers are united in love across the barriers of the world’s inveterate divisions – barriers of race, colour, gender, social class, economic privilege or political alignment. However, few things so destroy our testimony as when Christians mirror and amplify the very same divisions among themselves. We urgently seek a new global partnership within the body of Christ across all continents, rooted in profound mutual love, mutual submission, and dramatic economic sharing without paternalism or unhealthy dependency. And we seek this not only as a demonstration of our unity in the gospel, but also for the sake of the name of Christ and the mission of God in all the world.

Section VI

VI. Partnering in the body of Christ for unity in mission

Paul teaches us that Christian unity is the creation of God, based on our reconciliation with God and with one another. This double reconciliation has been accomplished through the cross. When we live in unity and work in partnership we demonstrate the supernatural, counter-cultural power of the cross. But when we demonstrate our disunity through failure to partner together, we demean our mission and message, and deny the power of the cross.

1. Unity in the Church

A divided Church has no message for a divided world. Our failure to live in reconciled unity is a major obstacle to authenticity and effectiveness in mission.

A)    We lament the dividedness and divisiveness of our churches and organizations. We deeply and urgently long for Christians to cultivate a spirit of grace and to be obedient to Paul’s command to ‘make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’

B)    While we recognize that our deepest unity is spiritual, we long for greater recognition of the missional power of visible, practical, earthly unity. So we urge Christian sisters and brothers worldwide, for the sake of our common witness and mission, to resist the temptation to split the body of Christ, and to seek the paths of reconciliation and restored unity wherever possible.

2. Partnership in global mission

Partnership in mission is not only about efficiency. It is the strategic and practical outworking of our shared submission to Jesus Christ as Lord. Too often we have engaged in mission in ways that prioritize and preserve our own identities (ethnic, denominational, theological, etc), and have failed to submit our passions and preferences to our one Lord and Master. The supremacy and centrality of Christ in our mission must be more than a confession of faith; it must also govern our strategy, practice and unity.

We rejoice in the growth and strength of emerging mission movements in the majority world and the ending of the old pattern of ‘from the West to the Rest’. But we do not accept the idea that the baton of mission responsibility has passed from one part of the world Church to another. There is no sense in rejecting the past triumphalism of the West, only to relocate the same ungodly spirit in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. No one ethnic group, nation, or continent can claim the exclusive privilege of being the ones to complete the Great Commission. Only God is sovereign.

A)    We stand together as church and mission leaders in all parts of the world, called to recognize and accept one another, with equality of opportunities to contribute together to world mission. Let us, in submission to Christ, lay aside suspicion, competition and pride and be willing to learn from those whom God is using, even when they are not from our continent, nor of our particular theology, nor of our organization, nor of our circle of friends.

B)    Partnership is about more than money, and unwise injection of money frequently corrupts and divides the Church. Let us finally prove that the Church does not operate on the principle that those who have the most money have all the decision-making power. Let us no longer impose our own preferred names, slogans, programmes, systems and methods on other parts of the Church. Let us instead work for true mutuality of North and South, East and West, for interdependence in giving and receiving, for the respect and dignity that characterizes genuine friends and true partners in mission.

A Global Call for Collaboration

2011-02-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

In an e-mail sent to our office recently, a reader from India challenges Christians around the world to work together to reach India’s ever-growing “Unreached.” Here are some excerpts from that letter:

“The population clock in the Union Health Ministry, Nirman Bhavan, New Delhi, now ticks at the rate of 31 persons per minute. The clock shows that about 44,640 babies are born in India every day. Hence the population of India increases by 16.29 million every year, which is equivalent to the total population of Australia …"

"The birth rate in India (31 per thousand people) is greater than that of China (20 per thousand people). If this trend continues, India will beat … China by 2025 A.D., making India the most populous nation in the world …"

"[Yet it] has been reported that less than 2% of the evangelical effort is directed towards reaching these needy souls …”

"In India there are about 1,942 language groups without God’s written Word. There are also 1,658 different mother tongues and 16 major languages — classified as official languages, spoken by about 90% of the India population …"

"At present, translation work is in progress in more than 82 new languages in India …"

"[Still] India urgently needs young men and women who will give their talent and life to translating the Scriptures into 210 languages …"

"[And how] can we ever reach the more than 70% of India who are illiterate? We can reach them with video, audio cassettes, Christian films, and personal evangelism through native missionaries. Doesn’t your heart break when you read and learn all these facts, realizing that the work is still undone?"

"… The death rate in India is 8.39 million per year. This means that 23,000 people everyday, 958 people every hour, or 16 people every minute, pass into a Christless eternity. Are we “moved with compassion for them because they are weary and scattered” like Jesus Christ … (Matthew 9:36)?"

"… [O]f [India’s] 1028 million population … [only] 24 million (2.3 per cent) [are] Christians."
Are we willing to stand in the gap?

Partnership Field Guide to 4,000

2011-02-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

visionSynergy has created a 60-page Partnership Field Guide: A Step-by-Step Process for Building Ministry Partnership.

This guide was distributed to the 4,000 participants at the recent Lausanne Cape Town 2010 event last year.

For your copy of the PDF version, please click on the following link:
http://www.thecollaborationcourse.net/Partnership_Field_Guide.pdf

Notes We Love to Receive ...

2011-02-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

“I have been very impacted by the ministry of Phill Butler. His models and trainings on kingdom partner- ships have shaped the way we do things at our church. We have built multiple strategic partnerships that have lasted over a decade and are very fruitful, both on the field and in the life of our congregation. As a leader and teacher, I am very excited to use the Cause Collaboration Course to train and equip existing and emerging leaders for impact in our globally connected world.”

Lynne Ellis, Adjunct Professor, Northwest University, Kirkland, WA; Missions Pastor, Overlake Christian Church, Redmond, WA

Update on the Christian Higher Education Initiative

2011-01-27T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Cause Collaboration Course website - www.thecollaborationcourse.net - is now live on the web! The site features a password-protected area for a faculty forum as well as an online Moodle version of the course.

Over 20 schools have expressed interest in piloting the course, and three have already completed teaching it. A face-to-face orientation for faculty teaching the course last fall was held in August 2010 at the visionSynergy office. Both Kärin Primuth and Phill Butler (vS staff) traveled to the Asia Theological Association (ATA) conference in Hong Kong that same month, making overwhelming successful connections for this course among educational institutions in that part of the world.

India Orality Partnership Strategy

2011-01-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

Working with our long-time partner agency Scriptures In Use, visionSynergy Senior Strategy Advisor Phill Butler facilitated formation of a national resource and training network powering oral strategies for evangelism and church planting.

Seventeen indigenous Indian mission agencies deeply committed to the vision are already seeing remarkable response among the country’s 200+ million non-literates. In the last three years alone these agencies have trained over 25,000 grassroots church planters!

Central Asia / Strategic Network Consultations

2011-01-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

The North America Central Asia Forum was held in Bothell, WA last July with about 70 ministry leaders in attendance.

visionSynergy Associate Dave Hackett serves on the steering committee and assists in developing this first-ever forum combining the annual consultations of several Central Asian Resource Partnerships - Uzbek, Ughyur, Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, North Caucasus, and more.

Also, Dave recently returned from productive network consultations in Europe where he advised a strategic network in North Africa, and another using the internet to reach out to Muslims globally.