Launching of Simply Mobilizing Malaysia

On the 23rd of May 2015, Simply Mobilizing (SM) Malaysia was launched at the Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM). Among those who showed up to witness this event were pastors, ministry leaders, and individuals who have themselves been impacted by the Kairos Course, from which Simply Mobilizing has developed.

There to commission SM Malaysia was the Kairos Course founder and International Director of Living Springs International, Rev. Max Chismon. He started out by giving a brief history of the Kairos Course, and why Simply Mobilizing was founded.

Rev. Max shared his story about how he and his team had learned through their experiences in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, that the best way to reach unreached people groups is to mobilize the Church that is closest to the unreached, both geographically and culturally. If a group of people is not receptive to the Gospel, the best way to bring the Gospel to them is not by sending foreign missionaries to them, but by mobilizing and training people who share a common culture and background with them to be the ones to bring the good news to their neighbours.

Rev. Max Chismon shared about the Kairos Course and the reason for Simply Mobilizing

In 1980, there were 5 Filipino missionaries and 30 foreign missionaries working with the unreached in Mindanao. With the introduction of the Kairos Course in 1994 that all changed dramatically. By 2003, the number of Filipino missionaries had increased to more than 100, and for the first time, breakthrough reports started coming in. By 2009, there were well over 1000 of these unreached people who had come to faith in Christ.

Finding that this approach to cross-cultural missions was indeed effective and lasting since the locals were able to become well accepted, self-sufficient and void of any ‘foreignness’ which is often a stumbling block in successful missions, the Kairos Course quickly spread to other parts of the world. It is now used in over 80 countries around the world all the way from Ghana in West Africa to Albania in Eastern Europe and Venezuela in South America and many countries in between. Countries that used to be missionary receiving are fast becoming missionary sending, and new breakthroughs in cross-cultural missions are happening.

Although the Kairos Course has been an immense success and thousands of people around the world have come to know Jesus through the fruit of this ministry, there was the realization that much more could yet be done to further accelerate the cause of mission.

“If I had 2 hours, I can give you evidence from Genesis to Revelation that Christianity is all about mission,” Rev. Max said. “Over the years, the church has cut off a sliver of evangelism and given that to mission whereas mission defines the Church’s existence on earth. It ought to be at the center of the Church. Mission is the reason why we exist as the people of God on planet Earth and everything else revolves around the mission of God’s people in a lost and dark world.”

What it has been in the past and what God is moving the Church towards:

He pointed out that after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus only had a limited number of days left on earth before His ascension. He didn’t have the time to teach them biblical truths as He did before so he “opened His disciples minds to understand all of Scripture.”

For them, Scripture meant the Old Testament: Genesis to Malachi. And Jesus’ summary of Scripture was this: “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance and forgiveness of sin will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem” (Luke 24: 46-47).

Jesus summed up the Word of God into two themes: The finished work of Christ (on the cross), and the unfinished work of Christ (which He left for us to do until He comes again). That is ‘mission’, and until we move from understanding mission as being a small segment of the church’s ministry to mission as being the center of the church’s ministry, we are never going to see the mission of God fulfilled. Simply Mobilizing exists to help churches and church leaders make this change!

God has called us all to participate meaningfully in mission. No believer has been saved just to be saved or blessed just to be blessed. We all have a ministry of reconciliation to carry out – to participate with God on mission. The church is a ‘sleeping giant’ that needs to be woken up, and Simply Mobilizing has developed its ministry to help in this process and to see believers become meaningfully involved in the world Christian movement.

Simply Mobilizing works at the grass roots level: To transform the worldview of Christians so that they see the world through God’s eyes, and to equip and nurture God’s people for His work. Many churches are nurture focused only, but nurture is not an end in itself. No one is nurtured just to be nurtured. We are nurtured so we can go on to be equipped and released into kingdom ministry.

Simply Mobilizing’s materials are designed to run in the local church context by church members. Whether in cell groups or in Sunday school, their resources are designed to be integrated into existing local church programmes.

“2000 years ago, Jesus said, ‘The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.’ If Jesus were here today, He should be able to say, ‘The harvest is great, and the laborers are plentiful,” Rev. Max said.

This task of reaching the whole world for Jesus is more doable today than any other time in world history. There are more born again believers in the world today than there ever was in all of history. There are more churches today than any other time in history. We are more geographically dispersed and more culturally diverse than ever before and we speak more languages in this generation than we’ve ever spoken.

The potential to reap the greatest harvest in all of history is possible in this generation IF—a big “if”—the church is mobilize. Unless the church is awakened to it’s responsibility, the harvest could very well be lost and the unreached remain unreached.

“We are here to help and to provide the tools that you can adopt and use,” Jesse Teh, National Director of Simply Mobilizing Malaysia said.

“We are a service provider to train you when you need us. We are not here just to run courses for the sake of running courses. We want to see the churches journey towards mobilization. We will come alongside you and assist you, pray along with you, coach your people, and empower your leadership.”