What the IMB is doing for Chinatown

Chinatown, San Francisco.  July 4, 2009.  9:30 p.m.

Fireworks were going off everywhere as I considered the irony of this holiday in this place.  Thousands of years ago, the Chinese invented the first fireworks.  Now, here, they were being used to celebrate the birthday of America.  It was, I suppose, the perfect place to celebrate the 4th.

Walking around Chinatown, a girl could almost imagine she is in China.  Signs for shops and restaurants are in Chinese, some with ‘subtitles’ in broken English (like the clothing store with a handwritten sidewalk sign coaxing customers to come inside for their big discount sale: “Close for sale”).  People passing on the street talk briskly in a language that seems to hit the ear and bounce off, so different from the way we hear and discern meaning in English words.  San Francisco might be a different experience for a girl from the Southeast, but stepping into Chinatown is like stepping off a plane and into China itself.

Here in Chinatown, the purpose behind the reorganization of the International Mission Board becomes clear to me.  Perhaps you’ve heard about the reorganization, which goes into effect later this month.  A major missions organization is changing the way it does missions and there are some definite need-to-knows.  This redefinition will, in my opinion, prove to be highly influential in the way we view missions and highly effective in the way we seek after the lost.

The most notable change is the elimination of the IMB’s former framework based around 11 geographic regions and the restructuring around eight new “affinity groups” which are people-based rather than geographically-based.

“Affinity groups” are large groupings of related peoples that share similar origins, languages and cultures.

In the words of President Jerry Rankin*, the reorganization is “freeing (the missionaries) to pursue the lost regardless of their location. Replacing the IMB’s regional configuration is the natural progression of the people group emphasis that now serves as the cornerstone of Southern Baptists’ church-planting strategy.”

A “people group” is the largest group through which the Gospel can flow without encountering significant barriers of understanding or acceptance, such as language and ethnicity.

Missionary support will continue to be regionally based, coordinated from five new support centers strategically located around the world (including one at IMB headquarters in Richmond, VA).

Gospel strategy however, will now be more people group focused with missionary teams now classified into more than 60 “clusters.” Teams will be grouped in clusters based on a common strategic focus or geographic area.  Each cluster will be associated with one of the eight affinity groups (with an additional ninth affinity group serving culturally Deaf peoples).

To put it in terms which I understand, the IMB is now reaching people based on who they are rather than where they live.   So, in Chinatown, San Francisco, culturally Chinese people will be sought after in a way that is applicable to them through their home language and culture.

Jerry Rankin says, “We live in a world without geographic borders when it comes to people groups.  For example, massive numbers of Chinese are found all over the world.    Why should a strategy to reach the Chinese be focused exclusively on East Asia?”

The new IMB reorganization also includes a greater emphasis on church partnerships.  Instead of being fully focused on sending missionaries, the IMB will be moving toward a strategy of serving and facilitating churches and partners.

“There’s a common misperception that the International Mission Board exists to do missions on the behalf of Southern Baptist churches,” Rankin says.  “But Christ didn’t give the Great Commission to the IMB – He gave it to the church.”

*Rankin quotations and information from To the Ends of the Earth, Vol. 6 No. 1, a publication of the International Mission Board.

The International Mission Board is taking new steps to reach all peoples everywhere, like culturally Chinese people in Chinatown, San Francisco.