I am told that it is possible to turn an aircraft carrier around in a matter of minutes, but that in so doing you will lose planes and equipment off the side if they’re not tied down. The point is simple: The larger an entity, the more critical it is that adequate time and care be taken to implement significant change.

As people interact with Crossworld’s vision to engage all professions in our disciple-making mandate among the nations, they sometimes wonder whether we’re attempting to turn the ship, and whether we’re going to lose our crew over the side. They ask: “Are you turning Crossworld into a Business as Mission organization? Do you no longer need your traditional religious workers?”

First of all, we are not turning the “Crossworld ship,” but we are making a course-correction. Crossworld will continue to send vocational religious workers to places where it is still possible to do so. So in that sense, we are not turning the ship. But we are making a course correction — recommitting ourselves to what Jesus told us to do: make disciple-makers. While the western missionary endeavor has succeeded at making converts to fill the church, we’ve often failed at making disciples to be the church. This must change. Followers of Jesus are fishers of men. Disciples of Jesus are disciple-makers. We have embraced a fresh and compelling vision for authentic spiritual reproduction and intend to do all we can to see Jesus’ mandate accomplished in our lifetime.

Second, we are launching a new boat. Believing that God wants us to engage the whole body of Christ to disciple the nations, we are creating a new legal entity (totally separate from Crossworld) that will allow us to more effectively mobilize, equip, deploy and support disciple-makers from all professions. We are seeking godly business and marketplace professionals to use their God-given skills to launch disciple-making communities and transform lives through sustainable business creation or professional engagement in international marketplaces.

We are thoroughly convinced that the world will not be transformed without having “all hands on deck” — fervent followers of Jesus from both of the above models — working together to bring life as it was meant to be to the world. Pastor Bob Roberts, in his book Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World, writes: “When the world is transformed for Christ, it won’t be because we have more preachers and missionaries. It will be because we have mobilized the entire body of Christ via their vocations” (emphasis added).