New Mission Mindset
Global Assist provides executive coaching to native disciple-making ministries
As part of the new paradigm of missions, Global Assist serves native church planters and disciple-making ministries as a consultant and executive coach to ensure the world is reached for Christ.
“We have seen a growth of humanity from 2 billion in 1927 to a record-breaking 8 billion as of November 15, 2022. In light of this explosion, the ‘missionary model’ is being replaced by God with an alternate strategy,” Global Assist founder Dr. Jim Kirchner wrote in an article about the new paradigm of missions.
“It appears that God has and is calling native/national catalytic leaders in countries to reach their own people with the gospel. In the last 25 years over 2,000 native led church planting / disciple making movements have come into existence. This is a paradigm shift.”
It can be challenging to get American evangelical churches to switch from the traditional missionary model to a new mindset of supporting native leaders, Kirchner said. However, he believes it is the only effective way to reach the world’s population. And it is dramatically more cost efficient too.
“We don’t think churches should stop what they are doing [supporting Western missionaries], but let’s not create new ones,” he added.
The retired optometrist got involved full-time in the ministry after he retired from his practice in 2018. The ministry had previously been called Kingdom’s Harvest International and had helped a couple of native-led ministries in India with church planting efforts.
Access to MinistryWatch content is free. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. To make a donation, click here.
However, in 2018, the leadership underwent a rebranding and became Global Assist.
“We have a very specific role in raising up native-led church-planting movements. We are called to help propel them,” Kirchner told MinistryWatch.
Global Assist helps the native leaders increase their ministry capabilities through leadership development, organizational planning and growth, and financial resource management. It also provides launch pad funding and facilitates networking among partner organizations.
Kirchner said it has identified key factors that help make a successful long-term ministry leader. It is creating a tool for assessing the core competencies of its global ministry partners to help them improve in leadership areas where they may be weak.
What can happen over time, Kirchner said, is that these ministries can outgrow the competencies of the founding leader. That leader likely needs help in continuing the ministry’s growth and function, but he may not understand how to overcome challenges or to raise up other leaders to help the ministry grow. This is where Global Assist can provide coaching.
“We need these ministries to be strong, vibrant, and long-lasting if we are trying to reach billions of people around the planet,” Kirchner said.
The Global Assist team members provide consulting and coaching to native leaders at no charge in order to help them overcome any structural problems that may slow down their growth and impact.
The coaches also help global partners understand financial management techniques and how to raise needed funding within their own country.
“Over time, the West has dumped a lot of money for missions and created a kind of dependency,” Kirchner pointed out. “That can’t last forever. We believe there is not a country in the world where a ministry can’t be self-funded.”
In providing what it terms “launch pad” funding to its global ministry partners, Global Assist looks for one-time funding opportunities that are project-based and can help “propel” the ministry forward. Those launch pad funding projects make up about 60% of its current budget.
It currently has 15 global ministry partners who operate in 30 countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. Those global ministry partners represent 1,500 full-time church planting indigenous missionaries as part of their teams.
The partners are independent and often function in isolation, so Kirchner believes another of Global Assist’s key roles is to help these ministries create a community. The coaches place them in cohorts where they can share prayer concerns, challenges, and updates.
Global Assist is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. It works to keep its administrative costs under 20% of its budget. Its most recent IRS Form 990 showed annual revenue of $630,000, down about $285,000 from the year before.
Main photo: Photo by Arpit Rastogi / Unsplash
