Zambia Hunt

Throughout the history of Christian missions, God has used a wide variety of people, methods, and approaches to advance the gospel. At the same time, not all mission strategies rest on the same assumptions about culture, responsibility, planning, and the sovereignty of God. Some approaches prioritize efficiency and replication, others emphasize trust and availability, while still others focus on initiating activity without fully accounting for long-term outcomes.

Understanding these different mission strategies is essential for missionaries, pastors, sending churches, and supporters who desire to see lasting fruit that results in growing disciples and healthy local churches. The following categories are not offered as caricatures, but as broad frameworks that help us think more clearly and biblically about how we engage in God’s global mission.

Standard-Solution Strategies

This strategy treats a single approach as the answer to all situations. It assumes a method tested in one culture works everywhere. Often, a successful minister writes a “how-to” book that claims to teach everyone else the secrets of ministry on the mission field.

World Literature Crusade is an example of the Standard-Solution Strategy. This group aims to place gospel literature in every person’s hands in every city. The strategy assumes everyone can read and that, with the right literature, anyone can choose Christ. 

Western revivalism is another Standard-Solution Strategy. This approach exports revivalism without considering shame cultures, persecution, or oral societies.

Being-in-the-way Strategies

This strategy assumes God has a sovereign plan, so our planning interferes with His. We need only let God use us. Long-range planning is unnecessary—God already has a plan. We just need to be available and let Him lead.

China Inland Mission used this approach. Early CIM culture highlighted radical dependence on God, minimal planning, and trust that God would open doors, provide resources, and lead without a formal strategy. Hudson Taylor later showed strategic thinking.

This approach is right in recognizing God’s sovereign guidance in our lives. Its weakness is its denial of long-term planning and its refusal to acknowledge human responsibility for failure. Its strength is the confident trust in God’s work.

Plan-So-Far Strategies

These strategies focus on starting work, not achieving final results. The idea is that if we begin, God will finish. This philosophy supports much of today’s short-term mission activity.

In practice, a short-term team may arrive for a few weeks, distribute tracts, conduct a crusade, run a Vacation Bible School, or sponsor a medical outreach, often without any intentional follow-up. If people profess faith in Christ, the team leaves, expecting God to care for what remains.

These approaches focus on decisions, define success in terms of professions of faith, and often lack clear plans for discipleship, church integration, or leadership development.

Unique-Solution Strategies

This strategy serves God’s work globally by assuming every culture and situation requires its own approach. No two places, language groups, or missionaries are alike.

This approach allows missionaries to evaluate, learn from other strategies that have been tried, and then prayerfully develop a strategy that applies to the context in which they minister.

Concluding Considerations

Strategy itself is neither spiritual nor unspiritual; it is simply a tool. Our strategies must be shaped by Scripture, informed by culture, and exercised under God’s sovereign control. Missions history demonstrates that approaches that assume a single solution, minimize responsibility, or stop at gospel proclamation often produce shallow or temporary results, even when motivated by sincere faith.

Unique-Solution Strategies are most consistent with the pattern seen in Scripture, especially in the missionary work of the Apostle Paul. Thoughtful planning and dependence on God work together, not in opposition to one another. Ultimately, faithful missions demand both unwavering trust in God’s sovereign purposes and deliberate, humble engagement with those He calls us to reach.

We may not be a Paul, Apollos, or Peter, but as servants of Christ, we are entrusted with the same mission. Whatever strategies we use, we must pursue one clear purpose: God’s glory in making disciples and building healthy local churches among all peoples. Let us pursue this goal with conviction, wisdom, and unity of purpose.