80% of the world’s evangelical Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Over the last 50 years, God’s church has grown exponentially in these areas.

These regions have tremendous mission sending potential to help bring the gospel to unreached peoples, but they currently send only 20% of the world’s cross-cultural missionaries!

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Total Number of Evangelicals

Cultural Bridges to UPGs

Regional Access to UPGs

Religious Freedom

Prosperity

Current Sending Abroad

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Custom Mobilization Potential

Number of Evangelicals

Cultural Bridges

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Current Sending

This infographic provides a visual score for seven data points ranked on a 0 to 100 scale. Faded icons show scores for other countries on the mobilization index. See below for actual scores and country-specific insights.

ADDITION

FINANCIAL DEPENDENCY

INACCESSIBLE

LIMITED MISSION FORCE

DISTANT AND FOREIGN MISSION FIELD

THE WORLD IS THE MISSION FIELD

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In my previous article, I shared a vision for pursuing professional growth in your ministry role. While we still trust the results of our work to God&ndash;he&rsquo;s the one who changes hearts and changes lives&ndash;we partner with him in pursuing a growing competency in our ministry context and skillset. The big idea behind this is to personally develop a growth mindset, believing that you can cultivate your talents as well as your gaps by engaging in learning opportunities and focusing on the process behind your desired growth.&nbsp;
In this article, I want to bring to the surface some motivations as well as possible barriers you might experience, along with how you can practically put together a growth plan.&nbsp;

As with any endeavor, identifying your &ldquo;why&rdquo; will make a significant impact on your ability to follow through. This includes both why you are creating a growth plan in general, and why each of the items on your growth plan matters.&nbsp;
What are some compelling &ldquo;why&rdquo; statements that resonate with you? Perhaps some of these will get you started:
<ul>
<li>In a job where you aren&rsquo;t working for promotions to show that you are improving, a growth plan can provide you with an internal sense of knowing your current reality and how you want to get better.</li>
<li>A growth plan can offer a tangible measure of success that isn&rsquo;t dependent on an outcome.</li>
<li>You can develop greater confidence in what you are capable of as you embrace challenges and accept failures, seeing them as the pathway to your growth (and opportunities for dependence on the Lord!)</li>
<li>You can lean into your strengths to grow in effectiveness in areas you already get excited about working; you don&rsquo;t solely need to develop your areas of weakness or lack of experience.</li>
</ul>
When developing a &ldquo;why,&rdquo; it may also be helpful to consider what happens if you don&rsquo;t intentionally move toward growth:
<ul>
<li>You may feel stagnant and repetitive in your role, which is not motivating for long-term ministry health and passion.</li>
<li>You may settle for an assumption that you aren&rsquo;t good at certain things. How do you think this would impact you throughout the year?</li>
<li>You may linger in frustration with areas that drain you, not recognizing that it could simply be a lack of training or ideation keeping you from enjoying this aspect of your job.</li>
<li>You can have a hard time knowing if you are actually doing a good job and making a difference (especially when you see outcomes that are outside of your control).&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

There are always going to be obstacles to growth. Some of them are within your ability to change, while some of them may simply be realities that you need to factor into your plans. You will want to consider these both in light of making a growth plan and in light of the individual objectives of your growth plan.
The reality is, it can be hard to find the time to actually make a plan in the first place. Ideally, this should happen at the beginning of the academic year. Once students arrive, and you&rsquo;re in the middle of outreach events and meeting new people, the work has already begun. At that point, you&rsquo;re hopefully moving forward with a fresh intentionality&mdash;one that aligns with your goals for the year.
If you are struggling with the question of, &ldquo;How do I even know how I should be growing?&rdquo; consider asking someone else for feedback and ideas. If you have engaged in any sort of formal feedback process before, you can use this to help you think about using your talents in new ways or intentionally moving toward the gaps in your experience and your growth needs.
Some of your obstacles to your personal goals may have to do with limited availability from students, lack of known resources, or an undeveloped strategy. Your main barrier might even be yourself&ndash;your insecurity, your lack of desire to engage in certain initiatives, or your lack of expertise to help you grow. As you process these, be honest with yourself, and consider which of these are a reality to accept and which are changeable.
You may not really know how to measure success. Many of us may initially feel uncomfortable with the idea of combining ministry and achievement. We often shy away from numbers, quick to tell others (and ourselves) that it&rsquo;s more about the individuals than the crowd. However, the idea of achievement in our conversation is directed more toward the idea of&nbsp;personal growth and effectiveness in ministry (as opposed to numbering our ministry highs and comparing them to someone else&rsquo;s). Keep this in mind as you consider what goals you are setting and what success might look like.

Spend some time in personal reflection and prayer as you approach your planning time. While the point of this is to consider how you can take an active role in your own growth and your ministry&rsquo;s growth, it&rsquo;s still in conjunction with the work God is already doing and preparing for you!
<ul>
<li>What are the &ldquo;big picture&rdquo; goals our ministry is trying to accomplish this year?</li>
<li>What gifts and passions do I &ldquo;bring to the table&rdquo; within these goals?</li>
<li>What are the other areas of my job description that I want to focus on this year?</li>
<li>In what areas of my job do I struggle with effectiveness? In what ways do I desire to grow in competency? Which aspects of my job require more faith and motivation for me to want to engage?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

In my organization, we have two types of goals:&nbsp;
<ol>
<li>
Those that pertain to our mission and our actual job (Examples: reaching a new target area, leading a summer mission trip, or setting goals for evangelism and discipleship) &nbsp;
</li>
<li>
Those that help us personally grow into more fruitful laborers. (Examples: growth in personal competencies and skills like developing boldness to share your ideas in group meeting settings, incorporating prayer more visibly into your ministry, cultivating a heart for an international partnership, or getting better at recruiting to events and retreats). Keep in mind that these personal goals are not simply about becoming a healthier person who eats well and exercises and reads her Bible; they should still relate to your job but are more focused on who you are as person engaging in this ministry.&nbsp;
</li>
</ol>

Once you have set a goal, you can get more detailed to determine how to accomplish that goal within this semester or year:
<ul>
<li>What will you do, and when?</li>
<li>Who can you learn from? People, books, podcasts, etc.</li>
<li>Who can you process your learnings with?</li>
<li>We learn not just through experience, but through reflecting on experience - how can you build a habit of reflection into your week?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
For more detailed ideas, the <a href="https://cdn.buttercms.com/u0YPda4RgWMHemGpwyLk" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">growth plan worksheet</a> offers some sample goals and related next steps.&nbsp;
One idea for getting even more practical: I like to map out my next steps by the month of the year I want to accomplish them, in order to set realistic expectations for myself. It also helps me follow through each month when I already know what I need to be focusing on.&nbsp;

As you pursue growth, I encourage you to remember the ultimate &ldquo;why&rdquo; for your growth&ndash;to allow you to more effectively bring glory to God and produce fruit that will do the same. You are a steward of the gifts, talents, time, relationships, and responsibilities that he has entrusted to you.
Alongside this &ldquo;why,&rdquo; the most important investment you can make in ministry is growing in your own relationship with the Lord. John 15:4 reminds us, &ldquo;Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.&rdquo; As you deepen your relationship with the Lord and cultivate your attentiveness to the Holy Spirit&rsquo;s guiding presence in your life, your growth will be about more than external recognition or internal satisfaction. You will truly approach your work with a sense of stewardship, gratitude, and humility when it&rsquo;s framed in following Jesus and abiding in him.&nbsp;
Developing a growth plan isn&rsquo;t a foolproof method to ministry success, but it is a way to operate in faith as you set goals and trust God to work through your efforts. My hope is for you to find encouragement, joy, and satisfaction in ministry as you steward all you are given, including growth opportunities, to the glory of God.

Developing a Growth Mindset in Ministry (Part 2): Making a Growth Plan

In This Article

Samantha Barnes

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