Eight Things Great Mobilizers Do

Do you believe you are an influencer? Yes. You are. We ALL have the power to influence those around us. Influencers become mobilizers when they inspire people to care enough about important causes that they TAKE ACTION.

Great mobilizers, who influence people to TAKE ACTION do eight things well.

One: Great mobilizers cast BIG vision

They cast big vision for the cause, the goal, and the big need.

Let’s use the example of a person mobilizing others to CARE about and GO to the 3 billion people. without access to the good news of the Kingdom of God.

The cause is: three billion people need Jesus.The goal is: to reach them. The need is: People to go! People to welcome! That’s big vision.

How about someone mobilizing others to care enough about these three billion people to PRAY extravagently for those unreached people groups. We know that disciple making movements, especially in unreached peoples, are sparked by intensive, extravagant prayer. People must pray more or these people are never going to come to faith, no matter what else we do.

The cause is: it’s going to take movements for the world to be reached. The goal is to start these movements. The need is: extravagant prayer.

What’s your cause? What’s your goal? What’s the big need? What’s the big vision you’re trying to cast?

Two: Great mobilizers zero in on one person

They paint a picture of how that one person could have a specific role in that vision.

One person, that’s key. Yes, we speak to the big group, but we narrow in on one person at a time.

 Here’s two examples:

You’re a social media analyst for Facebook? Wow, there are eight teams in South Asia right now launching a chatbot project to find people of peace. You have experience in social media. You could live there, do what you love, and join this team. Your skills could help search through thousands of people to uncover people interested in spiritual things that on-the-ground live people could meet.

You say that you’re a business person who loves the nations and God has blessed you financially? I know these cross-cultural kingdom workers in Khartoum. They’re starting a micro-finance training school so that local believers could be self-supporting and go back to their home villages to share Jesus. You could fund this! You could be responsible for hundreds of workers sent to unreached places, with your money.

You might say, I don’t know all these options like you do, Jeannie.

Sometimes it’s not so important the specific options and all the details. I mean, you DO have to have a pulse on things in the world. If you don’t have ideas, then get out there and get some. But people probably won’t end up doing most of your ideas. But what great mobilizers do is helps people picture themselves in a role. When they see themselves in a picture you paint, it can take off from there.

Write down the names of people you’re mobilizing. How could you paint a picture for them?

Three: Great mobilizers debunk myths

They move the rocks out of people’s paths.

I remember talking to a young woman being trained in a disciple-making internship to move overseas. She told me, “I don’t think I’m a goer, because I’ve developed an interest and love for film, and telling people’s stories through film. So, I don’t think I’m supposed to move overseas now.”

 No, no! I said, It’s not true that because you love videography, you shouldn’t go. Actually, it’s the opposite. We need goers to use their skills, training, be who they are overseas. I have teams actually asking for videographers.

She was so relieved—and excited. She started texting and calling me asking, “Okay! What do I need to do next?”

Are there people who aren’t responding to your mobilizing that you believe God is calling to take action? Great mobilizers ask, “What would keep you from following God’s leading for you?” and then help them process the answers.

Four: Great mobilizers invite a person to his or her next step

They meet with people and offer a customized next step, such as a book, a podcast, a short trip, an internship—or a long-term application.

Before meeting one-on-one with someone, great mobilizers ask themselves, “What does that person need to move forward? Prayer? A story? A connection? Maybe you know, what they really need is marriage counseling, or that another org is a better fit.

So we offer that next step for the sake of the bigger cause and that person’s own development. Great mobilizers also recognize that the next right step might not be with their own organization, or even the vision the mobilizer hoped for that person.

Also, great mobilizers do the same thing when speaking to a group. When preparing for a speaking engagement, you can ask, “What do I hope my audience DOES after I speak (such as fill out the card for follow-up, sign up for Perspectives, or join my internship)?”

Who are you meeting with next? What’s a next step you can offer?

Five: Great mobilizers create and promote experiences that are steps to the big vision

They know that experiences change peoples hearts, which affects their belief systems—and this affects their actions.

Great mobilizers create experiences such as short-term trips, dinner with a refugee family across town, a small group visit to the mosque, prayer nights, classes, courses, and internships to shift worldview and motivate behavior.

Great mobilizers often use existing process, trips, courses and tie their vision to it so they don’t have to re-invent something from scratch.

However, if there’s steps missing on the way to a big vision, and no existing options, great mobilizers also create the next step.  

I talked with four, young potential goers that dreamt about engaging a specific people group where no cross-cultural workers lived. They could have join a team somewhere else—but they wanted to explore an unengaged people group and what it might take to live there. There were no trips planned in that area, so this step in their process was missing. So, after a lot of prayer, I created a trip, and offered to lead it.

What experiences could you join—or create—to mobilize the people you influence to the big vision?

Six: Great mobilizers pray

They pray for the vision, for the unreached, for themselves, for their meetings they’re going to have, and for the people they are mobilizing.

Great mobilizers pray before they enter a meeting—and when they finish a meeting with someone. They stop all their vision-casting, and role-casting, and rock-removing when they sense a trouble in the other person’s spirit, and pray right in the moment.

Great mobilizers also train people to pray, while they mobilize.

I remember meeting with the four young people going on that survey trip I created. They expected we would discuss logistics and do some training. We did some of that. But we spent most of the time with maps on the floor, listening to how God saw this people group, asking God what we should look for when we go, asking for scripture for this people group, and praying for breakthrough.

How can you pray more while you mobilize?

Seven: Great mobilizers know themselves, their spiritual gifting, and they use this to mobilize

They don’t try to be someone else, or mobilize like someone else.

I remember a decade ago or so, I wanted to be just like a mobilizer I respected. Words of wisdom oozed from his mouth, mixed with deep prophetic insight, and the people he mobilized were first mesmerized—and then quick to act. So I tried channeling my inner Yoda. I’d say something I thought might be wise, give a longggggg pause and then quip, “I see your future. A goer, you are.”

Nothing.

I realized that prophetic wisdom wasn’t something I had much experience in. But I knew God had gifted me with encouragement as a spiritual gift. I know this because I see people responding spiritually with fruit when I am encouraging to them. (That’s one way to know if a spiritual gift is a spiritual gift and not just a talent or skill).

So I started really focusing on using encouragement to mobilize. God gives me insight to see positive attributes in people paired with potential possibilities. So, God shows me something about them, and I can say, “Look at you! You meet people so easily, everyone is your friend, and you’re an easy conversationalist. All we would have to do is re-plant you someplace where there were not believers, and you’d have a hundred friends in a minute!” Many times I sense relief, joy, extreme excitement, and willingness to obey God in something they wanted to do, but didn’t believe God would choose them.

 What are your spiritual gifts? How can you be acting out of those giftings in your mobilizing?

eight: Great mobilizers don’t sugar-coat the realities

They go deep and they challenge people to do hard things.

Surrender is a big word in mobilizing people towards any big vision. Great mobilizers say things like, “It’s hard. You’ll suffer. Perseverance is key. AND it’s worth it.”

Greg Livingstone, a man who mobilized thousands to serve Muslims all over the world and founder of Frontiers, mantra is, “Come and die”.

Great mobilizers always, always call people to something hard, to struggle, to come and die, so that they can live.

Some of my most moving talks I give to groups have been those on counting the cost or surrendering our dreams and expectations.

Yes, I can still use gifts of encouragement to call people to hard things when I say, “You can’t do this. But God can do it through you. It’s possible!”

That’s what I say to you, an influencer, a mobilizer on behalf of the three billion people with least access to the Kingdom of God, “You can’t do all of these eight things great mobilizers do perfectly, all the time. But God can do it through you. It’s possible!” 

Want to do what you are trying to teach others to do? Consider joining The Neighbors & Nations Course so you can have the stories to tell first-hand, and bring people with you. You could also run your own Group Training for the Inviting Muslims to Follow Jesus Course, in-person, using my short videos + discussion + exercises + Lesson Plans for a Weekend training or a Six-Week small group. Check it out!