Some questions for outside catalysts to consider
Are we posturing ourselves as servants or heroes?
In ministry work, most of us function as both outsiders and insiders. As insiders, we are in a culture, community, and location, and seeking to impact it for Jesus (1 Thessalonians 1:8 style - “the word of God sounded forth” from the local church). But we also train, coach, mentor, and disciple people who are not in our own culture, community, or location. We are the outsiders.
As we think about how to be good ‘outsiders’ or ‘catalysts’ to a place that is not our inside replace, here are a few questions to consider: (I’m asking these for myself, but also because of some attitudes/assumptions I’ve seen in outside catalysts.)
How can our posture align with these verses?
Acts 8:14 “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John…”
Acts 11:22 “The news about them [the new church in Antioch] reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antoich. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord;”
Acts 18:26-27 “… But when Priscilla and Aquila heard [Apollos], they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him…”
Romans 1:11-12 “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may ber established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith,” (Paul was not planning to do apostolic work in Rome where there were already believers. He wanted to encourage people.)
Do you know what I see in those verses? A desire to strengthen and encourage. Yes, there are times that we, as outsiders, enter a space with literally zero believers, but more often than not, there are local believers already laboring.
How would you feel if the roles were reversed?
If you found out someone was going to drop into your city to do some “catalyzing”, how would you feel? What do you wish someone would ask you before doing so? How can you apply that to where you might be going?
Which question are you answering?
Do you want to reach ____ city? OR
Do you want to see ____ city reached?
If we want to see a city reached, we should start by learning from the people who have been there already. I am thinking of two friends in two major midwestern cities. They know churches, disciple-makers, prayer efforts, etc, down to individual neighborhoods in their city. They have probably forgotten more about their metro than I know about it. Why would I not start by learning from them?
Of course, not every believer in a city is sold out to a multiplication vision to reach the entire city. But we should still start with their knowledge and experience to quicken our learning and to come alongside them.
Have you started with the assumption that “nothing is happening”?
I would caution against a posture that starts with “God is not at work here.”
I wrote this post because of a city being a “target” for some outside organizations. What those organizations didn’t know or take the time to learn is that there are dozens of kingdom workers focused on multiplication who are from that same city. One of them has seen over 80 baptisms in the last year. Maybe instead of being a target, it should be a place we go and learn from practitioners who are seeing fruit.1
Are you prioritizing your tribe over the great commission?
This might be the main issue: We only count people in our tribe. So when we say “there is no work in this city,” we’re actually saying, “there’s no one in our tribe at work in that city.”
What if we ask: What is God doing in that city? How can we join him? Who can we serve there? What true gaps exist? (And how can we know about those gaps if we don’t spend significant time in the area, building relationships with the laborers there?)
Do you remember what precedes strategy?
Hint: It starts with an “R” and ends with “elationship.”
I asked Jeff Sundell about how he started training across the country, in the early days before #NoPlaceLeft was a hashtag. And this is what he said:
Never invite yourself to train.
Don't invite yourself into a network. Always allow people to invite you because then you can you have the ability to train what you need to train and do what you need to do. I was just following opportunities and because I was helping the Southern Baptist in North Carolina there came an opportunity in Mississippi.
And that's where I met Zach. And then after the relationship was established I just followed relational lines. Invitations then led to the relationships that led to other relationships. So that's basically what was happening.
Before we even started, we spent two years just straight up engaging lostness and never trained anybody except some local churches that invited us into train.
That was also how things started in Lebanon: We started prayer walk and sharing our story and Jesus' story. We made disciples with the fruit in front of us. And then slowly people would give us opportunities to train. But honestly, the movements started more from zero to one gospeling than it did from training.2
Are we posturing ourselves as servants or heroes?3
I apologize if this comes off as too strong. I think 99% of catalysts have good intentions. I mostly wrote this because I was upset on behalf of my friends on the aforementioned prayer call. My friends who are working hard to see the Kingdom grow, disciples made, churches planted… they don’t need rescued, they need encouraged.
Edited transcript from a voice message. Emphasis mine.
This article by Dave Coles got me thinking about the servant vs hero idea: https://davecoles.freemin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Movement_Servants_Needed.pdf
This is a very good word!