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Our Strategy for Growth and Expansion

More about our unique Ministry Growth Strategy 

Our strategy at Completing The Call is to expand the “ministry” NOT the “organization” We maintain a small core organization while expanding the ministry by relying on:

  • the simple but powerful biblical principle of replication and,
  • maximum utilization of outside ministries 

The success of our mission depends upon each and every ministry partner understanding and supporting this approach – it must become part of their DNA. Success depends on our partners sharing their excitement about their ministry thru CTC with others, and not only praying for, but helping recruit more harvest workers to replicate their role.

If every participant commits to prayer, support, encouragement and growth of the ministry, the growth will be like wildfire and it will be unstoppable. The Good News will spread rapidly through unreached people groups around the world.

REPLICATION

This principle is encapsulated in the Apostle Paul’s simple but profound directive to his disciple Timothy:

“The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”  2 Timothy 2:2

This directive contains several elements:

  1. the clear command – to ‘pass it on’
  2. what they are to reproduce – the character and of Jesus Christ and a passion for continuing what Jesus began – world evangelization
  3. who they are to put their efforts into – faithful men committed to reproducing Jesus’ character in others who would do the same
  4. how many times they were to reproduce – more than once (‘men’ not ‘man’)
  5. how long the process would take – implicit in the directive is that they should train faithful men as long as it would take for them to become like Christ

On the individual level it involves a mature believer imparting the character of Jesus Christ into the lives of a few, less mature, but faithful believers who will in turn repeat the process with others. The concept, when implemented as Jesus intended, produces an exponential growth of mature believers. Christ invested most of His ministry time in twelve men who, after His departure, turned the world upside down! This is God’s master plan for world evangelization.

While Paul is specifically talking about individuals, the concept applies equally across the board. Take church planting for example. A church planter starts a few new churches, and stays with them and trains them to become mature churches.  Those new, mature churches plant new churches who then plant more churches. The result is exponential growth of church plants.

Take a CTC church planting partnering for example. This partner raises up a new church planting partner when the need arises with its indigenous church partner, and that new church planting partner does the same. Result – exponential growth of church planting partnerships planting reproducing churches. Take sponsoring indigenous pastors as another example. One sponsor raises up more sponsors who in turn each raise up more. The result – exponential growth of indigenous pastors being supported, encouraged and prayed for. This concept is the common thread, the foundational principle for growth throughout everything we do, at every level. Success under this model is dependent upon strict adherence to the ministry’s fundamental beliefs, its principles, its values and its standards – from generation to generation. This requires strong, consistent, up-to-date “train-the-trainer” training programs and materials. This is to ministry as ‘brand identification’ and ‘product/service consistency & dependability’ is to franchise and chain store operations… .     At CTC the “brand image” we strive for is the image of Jesus Christ. .     

  • Our “product/service quality standards” are His standards, His values.
  • Our internal “motivational tools” are His power, His purpose and His passion.
  • Our goal for training is to develop and provide excellent, ever improving “train the trainer” programs and materials for training both harvest workers here at home and indigenous pastors and believers on the mission field.

MAXIMUM UTILIZATION OF OTHER MINISTRIES:

Because our approach to supporting our indigenous pastors and churches is holistic in nature, ‘reinventing the wheel’ is the last thing we are interested in doing. Therefore, we believe in taking advantage of existing resources to deliver as many materials and services as possible.

There are literally thousands of ministries (both here and in India) that specialize in products and services for world evangelization. So, when we identify a need, we look first for an existing ministry that we can partner with to meet that need. We are specific in our choices. Partner ministries must share our beliefs, principles and values. Here are a few examples of materials or resources we might seek from other ministries:

  • translate materials
  • provide short term medical/dental teams
  • provide expert micro-enterprise development training and services
  • provide specialized pastor training

The list of potential resources and partnerships is limitless.

Stewardship of this manner is also key to keeping our core organization at an efficient yet small and manageable level. This allows us to keep the administrative burden at the lowest level possible so that we can maximize the overseas impact of each donation and gift.

COMPARISON: THIS MODEL vs TRADITIONAL MODEL

Growth by replication is quite different from the traditional organizational growth model.

Unlike the traditional model which is based on growth by adding numbers (the constant goal to get bigger and bigger), growth by replication is based on the principle of multiplication through reproduction. In the simplest terms this is like giving birth and raising children to become a self-sufficient, independent adults who have the same values, goals and purpose as their parents – who then produces offspring with the same values, goals and purposes.

Under the replication model the core organization remains intentionally small. Its focus is on replicating disciples, churches, sponsorships, etc. Under the organizational model growth of a ministry is dependent upon expanding itself to add more and more services.  This means becoming bigger and bigger, raising more and more money, adding  more and more staff, opening more and more offices.

This by definition produces linear growth which has limits. As organizations get bigger and bigger they eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. They become cumbersome and inefficient, burdened by the need for more rules, regulations, and administration as more levels of management become necessary. Eventually they stall out or collapse under their own weight.

In contrast, growth under the reproduction model is exponential and virtually limitless. And, it is more nimble, and can move and adapt more quickly. [table caption=”” width=”625″ colwidth=”208|208|209″ colalign=”left|left|left”] -Organizational Model-Replication Model Growth Method-Growing & expanding the organization-Replicating disciples, church plants, ministry relationships Growth Rate-Linear, limited and diminishing-Exponential, unlimited and ever increasing Management and Decision Making-Centralized, concentrated among a few and slow-Dispersed to every independent entity and very quick Creativity and Flexibility-Limited by rules, regulations & procedures and typically stifled to a greater or lesser degree at lower levels within the organization-Limited only by the ministry’s fundamental beliefs and values.  Inherent within each new and subsequent entity. Its People-Work for the organization-The organization works for its people.  Its people work for themselves [/table]

This is to ministry as ‘brand identification’ and ‘product/service consistency & dependability’ is to franchise and chain store operations. For franchise and chain operations to succeed they must have a clear and well defined corporate/brand image that is consistently maintained by qualified, dedicated and motivated franchisees/store operators.

Therefore they must be selective in their recruiting process to insure the highest levels of dedication and motivation in order to maintain consistency from one franchise to another.

And, they must be continually training and retraining their franchisees/store operators and their employees.

Success in a franchise/chain store operation is more likely

  • the more closely and consistently each franchise/store operation sticks to its brand image
  • the more consumers can depend upon each operation being the same – when the consumer can expect identical results, product quality and treatment whether they go into a store in a small rural town in Georgia or a large metropolitan city in California
  • the better the quality, consistency and regularity of training to communicate values, attitudes and practices.