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By Jon Hietbrink
We are starting in the wrong place.
Most of our ministry priorities are built on an assumption that we should focus on what exists and grow what we’ve got. We invest in leaders, engage more people, and 
construct our network, all in an attempt to build Kingdom influence in the communities we’re trying to reach. The paradigm looks something like this.
It’s a simple enough proposition and has often borne significant fruit; the problem is that it’s wrong.
WHAT JESUS DID (AND DIDN’T) SAY)
Imagine all that Jesus could have said as his disciples gathered around him in Matthew 28. He was about to ascend into heaven and this was his last shot— his final instructions to those who would lead the church forward. Conventional wisdom would’ve expected him to say something like this: “Return to the 120 disciples in Jerusalem and focus on them. Build that community. Develop those leaders. Invest your life there.” Focus on what exists and grow what we’ve got.
But of course, that’s not how it went down. Instead, Jesus issued a command that altered the trajectory of the church forever and demonstrated his apostolic brilliance—“Go and make disciples of all nations.” Rather than focusing his disciples on what already existed in Jerusalem, he unswervingly commanded them to make disciples of all nations, and in a moment reframed the starting place for apostolic mission—not what is, but what isn’t. In answer to the question of “what are we responsible for?”, Jesus’ answer is decidedly NOT “the community of faith back in Jerusalem”, but a resounding, “ALL OF IT!”
Of course, this burden for the whole included Jerusalem and the growing community there, but the genius of Jesus’ commission is demonstrated by what takes priority. The first 
order of business in Jesus’ kingdom is NOT to grow what we’ve got, it’s to “own the whole field” of every nation to the ends of the earth and allow our leadership of what exists to be fundamentally shaped by what doesn’t.
This type of thinking doesn’t come naturally to most of us. When I became the Regional Director for InterVarsity’s work in the Midwest (Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas), I inherited a growing movement of roughly 30 chapters—not bad, considering that we had presence on only 12 campuses just four years earlier! BUT, as our leadership team wrestled with the implications of Jesus’ commission, we were invited to lift our eyes and come to grips with the reality that there were 200+ campuses in our region where we had no ministry. To be sure, there was plenty for us to do where we WERE—students to be reached, leaders to be developed, communities to be grown, but we were compelled that we increasingly needed our priorities to be dictated by where we WEREN’T—we needed to own the WHOLE field that God had entrusted to us.
FIVE SHIFTS
Here are five key shifts that have emerged as we’ve sought to embrace this paradigm shift in our ministry:
- Multiplication, not Addition — If we want to impact every “nation” of our territory, incremental addition simply won’t cut it—it requires the math of multiplication. The very idea of Jesus’ eleven disciples reaching every nation on earth assumes multiplicative, exponential growth. No one ministry could ever be large enough to reach the whole of a given territory, let alone the whole world; multiplication is the only way to have whole field impact.
- Abundance, not Scarcity — Almost every ministry I know feels as though they don’t have enough resources, and most allow this perceived shortfall to trump any dream of apostolic expansion— “How could we possibly resource a new work when we’re short-staffed as it is?!” A whole field burden assumes something fundamentally different about resourcing: not that we need to compile all the resources necessary BEFORE we expand, but rather that abundant resources are latent in the harvest already and will be released WHEN we expand. Expansion releases abundance, not the other way around.
- Collaboration, not Isolation — When we are primarily concerned with growing what we’ve got, it’s easy to operate in isolation from other partners in ministry, or function as adversaries “competing” to attract the same people. However, when we embrace the whole field, organizational collaboration becomes an absolute necessity. How else could we possibly hope to reach every nation on earth with the gospel but through partnership with other like-minded organizations? Owning the whole field calls us out of our organizational silos and into an interdependent web of Kingdom collaboration.
- Empowerment, not Recruitment — When we’re focused on growing what we’ve got, the task of leadership recruitment can feel endless—we’ve got ministries to run and we need waves of volunteers to keep things flowing smoothly. All too often, this need can cause leaders to clamp down on extra initiatives or redirect people toward the structured center of a ministry, preventing them from starting something new beyond the borders of what currently exists. However, when we start to own the whole, empowerment is essential, and the question shifts from “How would you like to serve in OUR ministry?” to “Where can we empower YOU to start a new ministry?”
- Dependence, not Ability — For Jesus to command eleven men to make disciples of all nations is borderline laughable. It’s impractical, impossible, and, I believe, intentional. Had he commanded them to look after the 120 in Jerusalem, we can imagine them believing that they were competent for the task, but in the face of a mandate to reach the WHOLE world, how can they help but wonder at their ineptitude and embrace a posture of absolute dependence on the God who makes all things possible? Perhaps the deepest genius of Jesus’ command lies in the fact that it invites us as his disciples into a place of extravagant faith in the movement of God to see it come to pass?
NEXT STEPS
So, what about you? Have you “owned the whole field” that God has entrusted to you? It may be every corner of your campus or every neighborhood in a city, but one of the key steps in catalyzing an apostolic movement is taking responsibility for “every nation” of the territory God has entrusted to you, and here’s a few next steps to help you do just that.
- Survey your territory and compile your “every nation” list—be specific.
- Use your “every nation” list as a guide for prayer.
- Start showing up in new “corners” of your territory and look for Jesus at work.
- Use your networks to look for local partners who want to help start something new!
PS…If you have a contact at any of the schools on the map above, please contact me at @jonhietbrink or jon.hietbrink [at] gmail.com
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Φοβερό!
Thanks very much for reading, Miguel–glad you liked the post!
Mmm, this is a tension for me. It’s beautiful to invite all people to enter a spiritual journey with IVCF, but it’s disheartening to see a focus on expansion. First hand, leaving school this year to volunteer for a year and hearing updates about how the chapter at school is growing… yet most people from my large circle of influence were not being discipled or ministered to.
I guess I am wondering how does a movement be multiplicative while taking time to gingerly walk with and listen to those “not in the faith community of Jerusalem”?
Thanks
Jessie-
Thanks so much for reading the post and commenting–I really appreciate your engagement with the topic. You are absolutely right that there is a tension to be navigated here between investing in what is (the Jerusalem community) and what isn’t yet (disciples of all nations).
Though I obviously don’t know your story, it sounds as if you were living this out during your time with IVCF on campus, as the concern you mention above is for the folks NOT being discipled/ministered to–a perfect example of the kind of thinking I’m advocating, whether it be in the context of an entirely new campus, or a new “corner” of the campus that isn’t being reached.
That said, I’m sorry to hear that the outreach that was happening during your time as a student hasn’t continued–no way around it, it’s often simply a difficult reality of transitioning. Anyone who is still around on campus who you think might be able to re-engage that network in your absence?
Again, thanks so much for reading and commenting–God bless you!
Jon
Thank you Jon, I am thankful you affirm the obscurity of how to join all types of people together. And I will return as a student in the Fall, after volunteering.
From re-reading the post and your response, I think I see the focus of my chapter. They operate heavier on reaching many corners of campus, which is what you highlight in the post. So there is an emphasis on breadth, but you can only go so deep with a limited amount of empowered students to significantly invest.
Regardless of all of this, I am comforted by recognizing that… yea, wow, Jesus called a few people of one place to be everywhere. It sounds like the same frustration I just shared with you. 🙂 The positive view is that the harvest on my campus is plentiful.
Yes, thank you.
Thanks Jessie, glad to hear that you’ll be back on campus this Fall. May God use you to both reconnect with your network AND raise up a new generation of missionaries to care about every corner of your campus!
I like a lot of what you say, but if we want to be true to the Great Commission, it’s not really about using the Great Commission model and applying it to our form of ministry (ie college campus ministry), it’s actually taking part in the Great Commission. Are many of the students at these colleges already Christian, or are there already churches within a few miles of the campus, or are there other Christian student ministries there? If so, then the ministry you’re describing is not missions in its purest sense. Church planting should start with an analysis of where Christians don’t exist, rather than where your own ministry/denomination doesn’t exist. I’m not trying to undermine your ministry though. I think it’s great! I used to be in IVCF and love it. So, I think good as a model, but not to be confused with real missions that is involved in church planting among unreached people groups. But that’s not to say college ministries aren’t involved in missions; they certainly are when they get involved in international student ministry, fundraising for missions, mobilization, etc. 😀
Hey Kendrick, thanks for commenting–I appreciate you reading and engaging the post!
I’m most certainly with you in trying to do ample homework before we try to plant a given campus–given the missiological needs of the world, we must do all we can to avoid unnecessary redundancy, whether it be in terms of new campuses or new neighborhoods. Of course, there are very few places (whether campuses or neighborhoods) in the US that would register as “unreached” in the same way as countries in the “10/40 window”, but even on campuses where there are a number of solid ministries, total involvement levels (including all ministries) typically don’t exceed 5% of the campus population, so generally, there’s plenty of missionary space where the harvest is waiting for someone to start laboring! (props to Eric Rafferty for that phrase!)
In addition, I might press you a bit in your thinking on what “counts” as fulfilling Jesus’ commission to make disciples of all nations. Of course, I’m biased toward the strategic nature of the campus, but surely there’s room to be faithful to Jesus’ commission here in the US and not only in engaging or mobilizing for overseas missions? I certainly agree that our consistent bias must be toward unreached/unengaged populations, but as America moves in a post-Christian direction those populations are increasingly our neighbors here in the states, aren’t they?
So, thanks again for reading–really appreciate your engagement, and may God bless you as you engage his mission in your local context!