from August 16, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We came under Pioneers umbrella in 2007. This is the second in a series of five reflections designed to better familiarize you with the 16 areas in which ACMC provides practical services for local church mission leaders. Please contact me if we can be of service to your church!


Our mission statement reads “ACMC helps churches mobilize their resources for effective involvement in world evangelization.” Our motto provides insight into a vital part of our methodology: “churches helping churches with missions.”

ACMC provides practical services in 16 areas organized under four broad headings:
1. learning
2. leading
3. sending
4. engaging culture

This reflections will briefly describe the four areas included under the first heading -- LEARNING.

BIBLICAL: The ultimate source of authoritative information about missions has always been the Scriptures. Missions is clearly a significant theme that runs thru all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. Some would contend that missions is the theme of the Bible. ACMC provides pastors, children / youth / adult Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, and outreach events coordinators with excellent, age-appropriate Biblical resources which they can use to better educate their congregations regarding the cross-cultural component of the Great Commission.

HISTORY / TRENDS / MODELS: Understanding the past (history) and present (models), and the linkage between past / present / future (trends) are vital for understanding what God is doing in the world we live in. ACMC helps church mission leaders stay current and cutting edge with what God is doing in the world in the 21st century.

WORLD VIEWS: Christianity (evangelical and nominal) is the world view of 1/3 of the world’s population. Five major non-Christian world views dominate the other 2/3s of the world: Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, tribal / animistic, unreligious / humanistic. Understanding and uniquely tailoring our missionary methodologies to each world view is absolutely essential for reaching people who interpret reality and life thru a grid that is radically different than what Jesus lived and taught.

LEAST REACHED: 28% of the world’s people live in a people group with little or no access to the gospel or a culturally relevant church. ACMC seeks to educate church missions leaders regarding the priority of engaging in the challenging pioneer missionary work of bringing Christ to peoples who currently have no access.

Our assistance to church mission leaders is made available through:
• conferences / training events
• local mission leader networks
• consulting / coaching
• developing practical mission resources
• partnership with other mission mobilization organizations.

from August 1, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We came under Pioneers umbrella in 2007. This is the 1st in a series of reflections designed to better familiarize you with the 16 areas in which ACMC provides practical services for local church mission leaders. Please contact me if we can be of service to your church!


Our mission statement reads “ACMC helps churches mobilize their resources for effective involvement in world evangelization.” Our motto provides insight into a vital part of our methodology: “churches helping churches with missions.”

ACMC provides practical services in 16 areas organized under four broad headings:
1. learning
2. leading
3. sending
4. engaging culture

LEARNING. ACMC provides training and resources for church mission leaders so they can better educate their congregations about the missionary task: Biblical, history / trends / models, world views, least reached.

LEADING. We help church mission leaders become more effective in leading their church’s mission efforts through assistance with issues related to: missional leadership, vision casting, strategy / policy, organizational structure.

SENDING. ACMC helps churches better send and support individuals long-term from their congregation to the mission field through: prayer, giving, missionary care / advocacy, missionary preparation / training.

ENGAGING CULTURE: To advance and support the emerging missional church movement, ACMC provides churches with services to better engage their entire congregation with the Great Commission: missional culture, incarnational ministry, local outreach, short-term.

Our services are not limited to these 16 areas, but we do focus on these areas. During the past four decades, we have engaged many thousands of Protestant churches in the U.S., representing a broad spectrum of denominations, sizes, demographics, worship styles, and outreach objectives. These 16 areas are the issues that surface day-in and day-out as the ones in which local church mission leaders indicate they welcome practical assistance. Our assistance is made available through:
• conferences / training events
• local mission leader networks
• consulting / coaching
• developing practical mission resources
• partnership with other mission mobilization organizations.

from July 18, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We were an independent organization until we came under Pioneers umbrella three years ago. This is the 5th and final reflection designed to better familiarize you with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

Pioneers eight core values are:
1. passion for God
2. unreached peoples
3. church planting movements
4. ethos of grace
5. the local church
6. team centered
7. innovation and flexibility
8. participatory servant leadership

In this reflections I will focus on our seventh and eighth core values: “innovation and flexibility” and “participatory servant leadership”.

INNOVATION AND FLEXIBILITY. These are values that I aspire to, but they don’t come naturally for me. I prefer well defined processes and structures. However, in the rapidly changing world we live in, innovation and flexibility are important values for any organization that seeks to stay on the cutting edge. There is such remarkable diversity encountered in any cross culture work, making these practices essential to being effective. Additionally these values are highly regarded by many from the emerging generations in our own culture.

PARTICIPATORY SERVANT LEADERSHIP. This is one of the striking distinctives of Pioneers and a big part of what won my heart over to this organization back in 2007. Our leaders are humble, servant hearted men, who are truly men of God. Their leadership style is participatory, not autocratic. Every person on our team has a meaningful voice at the table. This creates participation in and ownership of important decisions. I find this value to be a rarity in both secular and Christian organizations. It is in stark contrast to many of our larger local churches who have chosen to embrace a pastor as CEO model of leadership. It is a leadership style that I highly value and thrive under, and it is a leadership style that I seek to practice.

from July 4, 2010 prayer email

Our ACMC staff met in Orlando on 6/27-30. We do so twice a year to help stay connected with our colleagues spread across the U.S.

We devoted a major chunk of our time together to interacting around the topic of “incarnational ministry”, one of the 16 areas in which we provide practical help to local churches as they engage in their mission efforts. One of our staff taught a 3 part series tracing the theological underpinnings for incarnational ministry from both Old and New Testaments. Another staff member facilitated 3 interactive sessions around Robert Lewis’ book, The Church of Irresistible Influence (which we had all read prior to our gathering).

front row (Kelly & Connie McClelland, Pat Noble, Joe Steinitz)
middle row Dave Shive, Danny & Judy Armstrong, Kevin Bradford, Blake McDaniel, Frank Emrick)
back row (Sandy Good, Devon Mackey, Lee Christenson, William Griffin, Ken Baldarrama, Larry Walker)

One of the significant take aways from this gathering was a commitment to begin work on four new practical mission resources for local churches on missions strategy, short-term missions, prayer, and missions leadership team. I will be serving as the point on the new resource on developing an effective missions leadership team. I am passing the baton to another staff member in my role as point for our web site, and will take on a new role as point for new resource development.

On our last day together our staff met with Steve Richardson and Ted Esler, Pioneer’s U.S. president and executive VP. We interacted around a number of strategic and current issues impacting Pioneers. At the top of the list was the upcoming departure of Pioneers’ VP for church resources, Kelly McClelland. Kelly has led ACMC since we became a part of Pioneers in March 2007. To the person we will greatly miss Kelly’s godly and effective leadership of our staff team. We pray for God’s best and great fruitfulness as he follows a new course that he senses God leading him to pursue outside of Pioneers.

For the past year plus I have been interacting with Dr. Kevin Bradford about the possibility of our partnering together in the central U.S. region. Kevin was able join with us for this gathering. Lord willing, Kevin will relocate next summer to Norman, OK after 20 years of high impact leadership development and missions mobilization work among Latins near Sao Paulo, Brazil. I am delighted by God’s wonderful answer to my prayers for a strong partner and colleague in this region.

from June 19, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We were an independent organization until we came under Pioneers umbrella three years ago. This reflection is part 4 in an effort to better familiarize you with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

Pioneers eight core values are:
1. passion for God
2. unreached peoples
3. church planting movements
4. ethos of grace
5. the local church
6. team centered
7. innovation and flexibility
8. participatory servant leadership

In this reflections I will focus on the fifth and sixth core values: the local church and team centered.

THE LOCAL CHURCH. Pioneers holds a high view of the local church. We are not only a church planting organization, we see the local church as an essential partner in the work of world evangelization. My work through ACMC is an excellent example of Pioneers commitment to partnership with the local church. “ACMC helps churches mobilize their resources for effective involvement in world evangelization.” By serving the mission leaders in local churches with the practical issues they grapple with, ACMC helps local churches meaningfully involve their congregations with the least reached around the globe.

TEAM CENTERED. In an age in which so many churches and organizations have become enamored with corporate models, Pioneers has not. We are not a top down organization, with a command center in Orlando from which everything is controlled and managed. Pioneers has a decentralized leadership structure built around empowered teams. Those higher up on the organizational chart on the field and in Orlando see themselves as servants to those who are laboring at a grass roots level. Our field teams operate with high levels of autonomy, guided by the mission and core values of Pioneers. Everyone in Pioneers is part of a team, with no lone rangers.

from June 6, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We were an independent organization until three years ago when we came under Pioneers umbrella. This reflection is part 3 in an effort to better familiarize you with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

Pioneers eight core values are:
1. passion for God
2. unreached peoples
3. church planting movements
4. ethos of grace
5. the local church
6. team centered
7. innovation and flexibility
8. participatory servant leadership

In this reflections I will focus on the third and fourth core values: church planting movements and ethos of grace.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS. Many evangelical leaders are convinced that church planting is the single most effective vehicle for engagement in the Great Commission (evangelism and discipleship). “… on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:18-19). Church planting movements trace their roots back to the work of the apostle Paul in the book of Acts, but they have received renewed and needed attention in recent decades. Not simply planting individual churches, but employing Biblical principles and methodologies that lend themselves well to the rapid reproduction of simple, missionally focused, Biblically based local churches.

ETHOS OF GRACE. Paul’s exhortation to his young protégé Timothy, “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” (II Timothy 2:1). Regularly practicing an ethos of grace is an aspirational value for me. Although accountability is a good and needed thing, I am often out of balance. My natural tendency is to hold myself and others to a very high standard. And my life in years past was often characterized by a performance orientation, which sadly is a mark of many evangelical leaders today. We do not have anything we need to prove to God or to others. This core value of Pioneers has been a much needed breath of fresh air for me and for ACMC. I am learning to embrace the fact that God loves each of His children fully and accepts us unconditionally in Christ, with all our warts and wrinkles. And that my response to this truth should be to extend this same grace (unmerited favor) to others, even when I may feel they don’t deserve it.

from May 16, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We were an independent organization until three years ago when we came under Pioneers umbrella. This reflection is part 2 in an effort to better familiarize you with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

In my last reflections, I listed Pioneers eight core values. Today I will focus in on the first two: passion for God and unreached peoples.

PASSION FOR GOD. This should be the foundation for all Christian service. Sadly, I regularly meet good people who have a passion for ministry, but lack a passion for God. Unfortunately, this was my personal experience for many years. These individuals’ service is sincere, but self energized, hollow, and lacking power. It is only as the life of Jesus Christ is lived out through us that we are supernaturally empowered to truly serve His Church and the lost of this world. As consumed as the apostle Paul was with his missionary work, he had a greater passion. That passion was to know Christ. “I consider everything a lost compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ … I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” (Philippians 3:8, 10). I seek to keep this as the consuming passion of my life as well.

UNREACHED PEOPLES. Missiologists define an unreached people group as a people group that is less than 2% evangelical Christian (in many cases a fraction of 1%). Years of missionary work have repeatedly demonstrated this to be a threshold that must be broken through before the Church of Jesus Christ within that people group has the capacity to complete the job of evangelizing the rest of the group without dependence on outside missionary involvement. This is the work of frontier missions. The apostle Paul was deeply committed to missionary work among unreached peoples. “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.” (Romans 20:15). 97% of the world’s unreached people groups lie within a geographic area called the 10-40 window (north Africa, Middle East, central / south / east Asia). Joshua project has identified 639 unreached people groups of 100,000 plus people. From a strategic vantage point, these people groups should be the top priority of our missionary efforts today.