Are You Ready to Partner?

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How do you know if you are ready to partner with a particular church, missionary team, or organization?  In While You Were Micro-Sleeping, Steve Moore asks six questions to determine a partnership fit.  Watch the video

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1. Theology: How much of your theology do others need to agree with before you can partner with them?
2. Philosophy: How much of your philosophy do others need to agree with before you can partner with them?
3. Authority: How much of authority, or we could say control, do others need to relinquish (in terms of decision making or finances) before you can partner with them?
4. Strategy: How much of your strategy – in terms of goals (what) and methods (how) – do others need to agree with before you can partner with them?
5. Publicity: How much of the publicity (in terms of promotional materials or progress reports) needs to have your corporate identity in order for you to partner with them?
6. Chemistry: How much of the other leader’s (or team’s or organization’s) personality do you have to be compatible with before you can partner with them?

Levels of Partnership

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Are you struggling with the decision of whether you should partner with other missionaries and Great Commission Christians?  They seem like great people with a similar passion and burden, but you do differ in secondary doctrines or ministry methods.  Is it worth it to work together to accomplish more than we could alone?  What if someone saw you working with this other group and assumed that you believed everything they believe?  There are extremes to avoid, but how to we live with this tension?  Here is a framework presented in the book To The Ends of the Earth

, by Jerry Rankin.  The idea is that all partnerships are not created equal.  While an Anglican and Baptist are not likely to plant a church together, they may partner in research and publication.  Similarly, missionaries will only partner with non-Christian organizations to a point where both groups goals are being achieved and no group is uncomfortable with another.

• Level 1 – purpose: access to people; principle: creativity to gain access
• Level 2 – purpose: open doors for gospel impact; principle: opportunities to build relationships
• Level 3 – purpose: gospel presentation; principle: evangelical commitment
• Level 4 – purpose: church planting; principle: doctrinal compatibility
• Level 5 – purpose: leadership training; principle: complete agreement in doctrine and philosophy