An Expanded Vision of Missionary Teaming

In recent history, the cornerstone of global mission strategy has been the missionary team. Normally, it is a handful of missionary families sent by the same mission organization. The organization defines the ministry's strategy and structure and appoints a team leader to implement it.

This form of teaming is concrete. It has clearly marked borders, which are enforced by a memorandum of understanding (MOU). These borders often isolate missionary teams. The members are unable to see over the steep institutional walls to how else the Lord is working in their context.

Out of this soil, a competitive spirit between organizations or individual teams has often been the fruit. This creates an environment where we want to reach our field more than we want to see our field reached.

The idea of concentric circles of teaming provides a better path forward.

Your Team is Bigger than you Think

The graphic above illustrates layers of teaming based on different components of the core missionary task. There is still a core group of apostolic laborers, as in the traditional model, but it then expands. There will be people you can partner with in church planting outside of your apostolic team. Likewise, there will be people you can team with in evangelism who you wouldn’t plant a church with, and so forth.

In this model, the field of lostness you are pursuing becomes your filter for teaming. Institutional structures or MOUs can still be helpful guides, but they no longer draw the borders around who you work with. We call this “teaming after targets.”

When the target is the filter, we can broaden our understanding of who our team is in unexpected ways. We no longer view ourselves as the answer to every problem. We can invite others into the vision of reaching our target, transforming competition into colaborers.

For example, in closed contexts we can team with NGOs or job market opportunities to gain access to an otherwise inaccessible field of lostness. Or we can pursue cross-denominational partnership in evangelism that we would have missed under the traditional model. 

Operating within concentric circles of teaming is not as simple. It takes regular, serious reevaluation of partnerships. While the traditional model can create sharp divisions, it is easy for many today to ignore differences. While the ecumenical desire for unity is to be applauded, ecumenicism like this leads to a gospel message stripped of its substance.

The work of teaming is hard. It takes serious time investing in the work of theological triage[1] and clear communication with those you are teaming with. When done well, concentric circles of teaming is a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God advancing by the unity of His church partnering together.

May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. John 17:21 CSB

Getting the Band Together

While a target defines a team, Paul and his colaborers had a vision to reach the region.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8 CSB

This vision led to the organic growth of an apostolic band of colaborers. While teaming is defined by vision for a place, banding is defined by vision for a region. Paul and his colaborers were united around this bigger vision.

The apostolic band spent significant time in the cities of Phillipi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth. All within Greece and Macedonia, they serve as a good example of the paradigm illustrated above.[2]

When we look at Philippi, there were a multitude of gospel workers mentioned. Paul, Silas, and Timothy were not alone. The jailor leads his family in baptism, Lydia hosts a church in her home, and Euodia, Syntyche, and Clement contended for the gospel along with many others. All of them teamed with Paul around the target of Phillipi.  

While we don’t see the jailor catching a vision to reach the region (so we would say he was a part of the Philippi team but not a regional band), other local laborers do. Sopater was from Berea, and Aristarchus and Secundus were from Thessalonica. Yet in Acts 20 they have become traveling ministry partners of Paul. This is how the apostolic band grows.

The vision for the region united the apostolic band, but they do not all individually team around every target. The part of the apostolic band working together to reach a specific target is called the apostolic team. The apostolic team parallels traditional teaming. Traditional teams often sacrifice other opportunities for teaming and banding in their attempt to be an apostolic team.

We should be careful not to overextend this paradigm. It does not mean that traditional teaming is inherently wrong or unfaithful. Paul was not drawing my Venn diagram into the dirt to cast vision to Timothy. Yet it helps to describe the structural result of organic gospel ministry within the narrative of Acts. 

At minimum, we find a helpful example to learn from which can expose some of our modern blind spots in mission strategy. At maximum, we find a new best practice for how we should partner together for the sake of gospel advance. 

[1] Theological triage is the act of ranking doctrinal issues by level of importance. This helps us determine how to interact with others who disagree with us in both grace and truth. The term was coined by Albert Mohler and later expanded upon by Gavin Ortlund in his book Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage.

[2] A study of teaming and banding patterns in the region of Greece and Macedonia throughout scripture can be found here.