You’ve seen missions, but not like this.
Mar. 29 2007This interview has the potential to change the way you think about bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth, business, and local church involvement. Jonathan and Daniel are founders of Access Partners—a missions focused organization that is truly unique. AP combines business, missions, and the local church to bring the gospel to previously unreachable areas. The names and locations in the interview have been changed to protect work going on in restricted countries.
Na: Why are you passionate about reaching unreached people groups?
Jonathan: When Jesus said in Matthew 28:19 that we are to “make disciples of all nations,” the word He used for “nation” is ethne, from which we get our word “ethnic.” So we’re not talking about nation-states like the USA or Canada. Rather, it seems that God looks at the world through the lens of ethnic groups or, in missions speak, people groups. God deserves worship from all peoples and tribes and nations. Now if we look at the world through a people group lens, then we see there are somewhere around 16,000 people groups in this world, among which are 6,700 categorized as “unreached.”
These unreached peoples often have no access whatsoever to the Gospel. Many don’t even have copies of the Bible available in their own language. I lived with one people group where there were fewer than 10 churches… in a population of over 10,000,000. There, you could drive for hours and hours and never pass by a single Christian. Often, these unreached peoples also live in countries that are hostile to the Gospel, which we call restricted countries (for example Saudi Arabia and China).
Na: What is Access Partners? How and why did it start?
Jonathan: Access Partners seeks to glorify God by helping missionaries bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth through business. We come alongside missionaries and provide them business and technology consulting services in order to launch, operate, and optimize businesses. We currently have projects in nearly 10 countries spanning some pretty remote and interesting areas.
The way we started Access Partners has been a testament to God’s kindness and sovereignty. I have a background in business development and used to negotiate partnerships for a major telecommunications company. But just as Paul states in Romans his special ambition to preach the Gospel where it has not been known (Romans 15:20), my desires also grew to see God glorified in the ends of the earth.
My elders encouraged me to consider living for 2 years in a restricted country, working with missionaries to bring the Gospel to an unreached people. The team there couldn’t go enter that country as missionaries – they needed a more government-sanctioned reason.
These missionaries had decided that they wanted to use a business to live there. They didn’t have much of a background in business so I helped them set it up.
It really was a privilege to be able to work alongside them. I remember waking up in the mornings and being thrilled I could use the skills and experience that God had given me for His glory, bringing the Gospel to those who had never heard.
By God’s grace, we were able to establish the business there and God has since used it to provide opportunities for more missionaries to live and share the Gospel in that land. It has since expanded into new areas.
Following my time in the country, I ended up visiting 5 other restricted countries and meeting with missionaries there. They also expressed a need for business help.
Daniel had helped with some technology consultation in that business and God was also working in him to create a desire for this work. After I came back to DC, we talked some more and then, after talking with some elders at our church, decided to launch Access Partners.
Na: What does Access Partners do?
Daniel: We provide business and technology consulting to missionaries that are using business as a means of getting into restricted countries. We help a team of missionaries to look at their target area through the combined lens of business and missions.
Business Startup: We help the missionary team assess the viability of business opportunities and help with planning for the first few years of work.
Operational Consulting: We help the team streamline operations so that missionaries can spend less time on business and more time on ministry.
Working with Others: Internet and related technologies allow people in the US to play an active role in these missions-related business projects.
Na: Can you give us an example of what this looks like?
Daniel: It’s hard to capture all of what we do in one example, but here’s one project that we worked on that gives you a fairly good taste:
“Nomad Crafts”
There is a team in “Farstan” Central Asia which is seeking to reach the minority people group (“Mandi” people) in the country. A missionary had recently relocated there after the country had reopened to foreigners. For sustainability, they desired to set up a business that would help them to reach the “Mandis” with the Gospel and also to provide economic opportunities for them—the poorest of the poor in the country.
The missionary had a vision of creating a carpet weaving workshop for the Mandi people, where carpets would undergo the full production cycle in their workshop and exported to foreign markets for sale. The workshop would be a cooperative program to help the Mandis feel ownership and responsibility, and eventually take control of the business in 5+ years.
The team contacted Access Partners for help. Jonathan went in early 2006 for a business planning session. He worked with the team to create a business plan and helped to outline the business so that it would facilitate ministry. The plan was that missionaries would visit the homes of the weavers for periodic coaching and quality control, allowing unprecedented access to households of Mandi people.
God assembled an amazing team that we sent to work with the missionaries there. During our time in Farstan, we were able to get the project off the ground and some good processes in place. Jonathan continues to provide coaching for them, and I’ve worked on an e-commerce website to facilitate sales through multiple channels across the US.
For more case studies, go here.
Na: How can people get involved in what you’re doing?
Daniel: Thank you for asking! There are many ways for people to join with us in this exciting work. I would divide up the opportunities in 4 categories: Pray, Volunteer, Give, and Connect.
Pray
We pray that the God who sent Christ to die for our sins and raised Him up victoriously from the grave would allow us – his humble servants – to play some role in the expansion of His kingdom. Please pray for us:
• That God would be glorified in our work – that through our work, the Gospel would spread to the ends of the earth.
• That the businesses we help set up would achieve sustainability, and that the affiliated teams would be faithful in sharing the Gospel and planting churches.
• That we would be a help and encouragement to missionaries that we support.
Please consider joining our mailing list to find out about ongoing prayer requests here.
Volunteer
We cannot do this work alone. If you are interested in using your God-given talents and interests to further the work of missions through our projects, please let us know, and our volunteer coordinator will work to get you involved at a level that you can manage. Here are just some examples of skill sets that we can use:
• Business Management Consulting
• Retail Management/Administration
• Product Marketing
• Web & print graphic design
• Copy writing/Editing
• Import/Export
• Legal – corporate structures, international trade
• Accounting
• Web Software development
• Systems Administration
• IT analyst
• Carpet or Handicraft manufacturing/marketing/retail
Consider joining our mailing list to find out about ways that you can volunteer here.
Give
The teams that we support on the mission field are almost without exception financially strapped. We try to creatively use volunteers, and reduce our own consulting costs by more than 50% so that we can help them. We still charge them (reduced) fees so that they feel ownership over the projects, but we need to make up for the remaining portion that we’re subsidizing.
We are set up as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that can receive tax-deductible donations. Our work cannot continue unless we have the regular support of others who believe in the work that we’re doing. Assuming you are already faithfully giving to your local church please consider partnering with us.
Connect
If you know of others who would be interested in supporting us in any of these ways, please let them know about our work. Also, if you know of organizations that do work that is related to ours, we’d love to hear about them, so please let us know.
We’ve also asked Jonathan and Daniel to write about how they wrestled through the issues of business, ministry, and calling. Stay tuned for the second part of our interview with them. To learn more about Access Partners’ work or to get involved visit: www.creativemission.org/ap/.