An_Open_Letter_to_Global_Partners.pdf

All praise and glory belongs to our God for the speeding ahead and honoring of the gospel through saints like you among many peoples around the globe. We also give thanks to God for the incredible growth Bethlehem has experienced over the last 10 years.

Here is a summary of the changes that have taken place since I arrived 9 years ago:

The greatest growth challenge for Bethlehem’s Global Outreach (GO) ministry today is that the number of those seeking to be sent has outpaced the growth rate of our support structure (financial and pastoral).

There was a time when we invited any and all who the Lord was calling to go out for the sake of the Name, and Bethlehem’s unchanging commitment has been to send such Holy-Spirit called members “in a manner worthy of God”—making us “partners in the truth” (from 3 John 5–8, NLT—hence, our new term for you: “Global Partner”). But how can we continue to honor this commitment when more members seek to be sent than we have the capacity to send?

After much prayer, discussion, and seeking outside counsel, we have come up with a strategic plan that will, Lord willing, help us better steward God’s people and resources for his glory. The following is an overview of the strategic focus and restructuring that we hope will allow us to continue sending/supporting our Global Partners (GP’s) in a manner worthy of God:

1. Five Strategic Focuses of Ministry—
   (Muslims, Students, Theological Education, Bible Translation, and Community Development).
   An Unreached/Unengaged People Group focus in each category will receive priority attention. These five categories are based upon an appreciative historical view of how God has led the majority of our GP’s within the last 20 years. We would like to continue to support this Holy-Spirit-led pattern from among our members. One way to remember this focus is the acronym “MuST BC.”
2. 1:40 Max Capacity Ratio Per Campus—
   In addressing both the financial and pastoral/relational limitations of our multi-campus church system, we developed a scalable and sustainable model for determining how many GP’s the church can send and support well. It is based upon biblical models and sociological reflections on relational dynamics. This keeps us from simply becoming a church that “pays and prays” (in diminishing increments) for our GP’s. In short, we have determined that we can know and support well one GP for every 40 regular attenders/members on each campus. Thus, as the campus grows, so does the number of GP’s they can support.
3. Campus-specific GO Elders, GO Teams, and GP’s—
   On the pastoral front, we recognize that one GO Pastor cannot know and shepherd hundreds of sent GP’s and aspiring GP’s on three campuses. So, being unable to hire three GO Pastors (one per campus), we have obtained the approval of the Bethlehem Elders to appoint one GO Elder to offer pastoral care for GP’s from each campus. This would include the establishment of GO Teams on each campus, chaired by the Campus GO Elder. All of our existing GP’s have been asked to align themselves with one particular Bethlehem campus according to their most significant relational connections and time spent on Home Assignment. The GO Elder and GO Team on that campus would then be the primary pastoral and accountability team for all GP’s aligned with that campus.

For those of you who were sent out before this new strategic focus was in place, we are not seeking to pull your support or diminish our advocacy for you and your ministry. In fact, most of you fit quite appropriately into one or more of our five strategic focus categories. This will have more bearing on those seeking to be sent from Bethlehem in the future.

Thank you for your patience and understanding—and prayers!—as we have wrestled through all of this. No human system will be perfect but we believe that this is the best stewardship of the people and resources God has entrusted to Bethlehem at this point in time.

I welcome your thoughts on how we might improve this even further for the joy of our sent members, and for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Trusting him who continues to supply all of our needs according to his riches in glory,

Erik Hyatt
Pastor for Global Outreach