Management by Objectives, 1968-1974

Summary: In 1961, our leaders committed to demonstrating that our vision “worked” through the multiplying of disciple-makers, “producing reproducers.” This led naturally to assessing our progress. Lorne Sanny was attracted to the emerging secular tool called Management by Objectives (MBO): It offered a disciplined approach and standards that should keep us on track. After all, one of our values was the pursuit of excellence. This article describes how we applied MBO and why we moved on after several years.

Contents

Historical Context
Expanding Use of MBO, 1969
Looking Back at the MBO Era

Historical Context

Our first attempt at using Management by Objectives (MBO) began in 1968,1 although Sanny had earlier embraced some of the benefits that it was said to offer as he drew from the experience of the American Management Association.

One prompting context was his frustration with Glen Eyrie, which he described in 1964 as “at the heart of the majority of my problems.” Not only were we $150,000 in the red and going deeper, but tensions abounded: between the Glen and the areas; between conferences and training operations at the Glen; between competing philosophies among the various Glen leaders. Managing the Glen, Sanny wrote, had worn Daws out and caused Foster and Downing much trouble. In melancholy mood, he wrote in his journal, “Maybe Glen Eyrie has outlived its usefulness and ought to be sold.”

Armed with such opinions, he noted, first regarding Glen Eyrie:

Separate Glen Eyrie from headquarters
Never launch a fundraising campaign until your house is in order
Don’t use external consultants to raise money
Cut deeper than you think is necessary
Balance your own budget first
Begin moving employees off the Glen
Release people carefully, with sensitivity, into greater usefulness

His journal records that this was conceived with “much anguish and prayer.” What he distilled from this troubled period contributed to the prominence of measuring results across The Navigators for perhaps the next ten years. It was not a small thing.2

These were his thoughts in June 1964, just as he was given a copy of Managing for Results3 by Peter Drucker. He was struck by Drucker’s views such as “focus resources on results” and “the only effective way to cut costs is to cut out an activity altogether . . . don’t try to do cheaply what should not be done at all.”

Sanny’s methodical approach and the agreed need to demonstrate producing reproducers were the conditions that made him receptive to MBO as the decade progressed.

What Is MBO?

The phrase Management by Objectives had first been popularized by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.

Essentially, MBO is:

. . . participative goal-setting, choosing courses of actions and decision-making. An important part of MBO is the measurement and comparison of an employee’s actual performance with the standards set. Ideally, when employees have been involved with the goal-setting and choosing the course of action to be followed by them, they are more likely to fulfill their responsibilities.4

Important features and advantages often claimed for MBO include:

Motivation: Involving employees in the whole process of goal setting and increasing employee empowerment. This increases employee job satisfaction and commitment.
Better communication and coordination: Frequent reviews and interactions between supervisors and subordinates help to maintain harmonious relationships within the organization and also to solve problems.
Clarity of goals.
Subordinates tend to have a higher commitment to objectives they set for themselves than those imposed on them by another person.5
Managers can ensure that objectives of the subordinates are linked to the organization’s objectives.

We were lax on some of these features. For example, our practice did not usually work toward “increasing employee empowerment” or allow for “frequent reviews and interactions.”

Navigator Need for Additional Missionaries

What was our context, as we approached our MBO era? There was, for example, a large need for more American missionaries. How were our ministries progressing around the world? Sanny had summarized where we had reached by 1964:

Europe: On the verge of sending Europeans; growing towards a European Training Center; lesser need for Americans; challenge of raising funds within Europe. Requested: fourteen men, three women.
Middle East: Solid basic ministry; men needed to enter Egypt and Iran; Waldron Scott should take responsibility also to open Africa. Requested: three men, one woman.
Latin America: Still exploring the best focus for our work in Brazil; need to decide between Costa Rica and Venezuela as our staging area for the Spanish-speaking countries; Skip Gray could become a key player. Requested: seven men, two women.
Asia: Singapore to serve as our staging area, with Roy Robertson responsible for all of Southeast Asia; Philippines progressing well; Vietnam needs help; In Japan, must concentrate our manpower until we see a breakthrough. Requested: ten men, two women.
Africa: To open Kenya and Southern Rhodesia. Requested: four men.
Australia: Work in progress. Requested: four men.
USA: Expanding vigorously into new contact points; Atmosphere of growth; Redefining the use of Glen Eyrie.

This sums to a need for forty-two men and eight women.6 It would require a 110 percent increase in missionaries over the five years (1965 to 1969), double the rate of progress of the preceding five years (1959 to 1964).

Because of the elastic phrase “where we decide to operate,” the Overseas Directors Conference (ODC) in 1964 had produced “Guidelines for Entering and for Leaving a Country.” Entry should depend most on building around “our man” and expanding from our centers of operation. Countries with English as a major language and with a Christian heritage were also rated highly. Lowest on the list was “personal call,” which has continued to have a very limited application within The Navigators.7

We confirmed that we would “grow our own” and buttressed this with the requirement that prospective missionaries should have spent at least six months at our international HQ before proceeding overseas. The emphasis on quality control was also expressed in several requisites for appointment as a Rep.

The work outside the USA was newly organized under an overseas director to whom the continental directors reported. The overseas department was phased out.

The concept of teams of collegians for short-term thrusts overseas was introduced. This has proved its worth and lasted, indeed expanded, until the present.

Given our sacrificial history of loaning staff to participate in what we called “other works,” one can see that our focus on “demonstrating” was causing a shift. ODC 1964 “generally concluded that (loaning our staff) is a good thing as long as it does not detract our staff from the basic objective.”8

An insight into the increasing precision and alignment among our leaders can be seen in an attachment to the ODC minutes which set out as many as seventy-seven working definitions! Examples:

14. Contact point: One who is potential Navigator staff placed in a ministry area for the purpose of proving his ability to produce.
28. Follow up: Repeated action, a system of pursuing an initial effort, conservation and development of the fruits of evangelism.
34. Inside man: A contact who was available to open doors of ministry in a strategic location.
39. Layman: Someone who does the will of God as a non-professional.
60. Staff: One formally associated with the organization.

Distinctions were made between coaching, developing, discipling, training, tutoring, teaching, and transmitting.9

Sanny’s Leadership Views

One should balance the above with the spiritual wisdom that Lorne Sanny continued to dispense. For example, toward the end of 1965, he wrote to our staff:

Galatians 6:4 in the New English translation says, “Each man should examine his own conduct for himself; then he can measure his achievement by comparing himself with himself and not with anyone else.”

Leadership has to do with setting objectives, working out a plan to accomplish them, and putting that plan into action. In an organization like ours, who sets the objectives? How are they set?

This Scripture indicates that each person should set his own objectives. Then, “he can measure his achievement by comparing himself with himself and not with anyone else.”

I trust that every staff member knows what the Nav objective is. It is to contribute to the fulfillment of the Great Commission by recruiting, building, and sending laborers for Christ.10

As a Nav, each representative should prayerfully set up his objectives for the period of, say, September to December. He can do this by carefully considering the resources at his disposal (such as men, money, time) and considering his opportunities in the light of the overall objective. Then he sets shorter term objectives that should be identifiable enough to put in writing, and measurable enough to measure progress.

From there he determines what activities he might best engage in to accomplish these objectives, and finally sets a timetable for these activities.

Now he is ready to go to work.11

Finally, Lorne asked a very pregnant question during our May 1965 staff conference: Have we relied too much on “Egypt?” This was a warning posed by Isaiah 31:1, which says, “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord.”

Divisional Directors and Corporate Objectives

In 1967, the divisional directors launched an annual evaluation of progress towards our Aim. This was supported by a dozen corporate objectives, by which we meant those which will ensure the effectiveness of our teamwork and the accomplishment of our mission as an organization.12 Those that look ahead to the rigors of MBO included:

Develop and initiate a system of planning objectives, measuring results and appraising progress as it relates directly to our objective of multiplying laborers.
Plan and institute a staff development program mainly in the areas of quality of life, clarity of the message, proficiency in ministry, utilization of individual gifts.
The program should include a means to measure its effectiveness.
Set up a system for gathering, evaluating, developing and communicating innovations in concepts, methods and tools and for measuring their effectiveness.

Of these corporate objectives, only two committed us to a specific annual increase. Both our staff of representatives and our annual gift income were targeted to increase by 15 percent per year. In this connection, by the end of 1968, our count of Reps showed:

December 1966 (77)
December 1967 (88, an increase of 14 percent)
December 1968 (98, an increase of 11 percent)

And it is instructive to see how the ninety-eight were distributed.13 (See Table 1)

Involvement with Regional Directors

In 1968, Sanny began to use the acrostic:

Planning
Organizing
Leading
Evaluating

When the regional directors from around the world met in November 1968, they were given several papers to discuss on this sequence and on management as it should apply to The Navigators. The agenda was not the standard MBO approach, because we included more on creative planning and on leadership than most of the business texts. This was appropriate.

It was now time to move toward a measure of decentralization. However, from the perspective of today, the material presented to the regional directors was indeed heavy.14 Some of it was extracted from sources such as the Top Management Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1960). Jim Downing assembled the central paper on management. There were separate papers on supervision (Marshall), on training (Eims), and on training and evaluating (Sparks). To bring some balance, there were presentations on a director’s personal life, such as prayer, fellowship, and holiness. However, the impression lingered that we were trying to manage our way forward.15

Expanding Use of MBO, 1969

In August 1969, Sanny participated in a management course for presidents16 put on by the American Management Association (AMA). He reported that much of it, while not new, helped him “fit things together much better” and, after observing that the AMA was “a movement,” he studied on the side how they multiplied the proclaimers of their message and how they honed this message.

In the following month, he sent the divisional directors an agenda for their upcoming meeting in November. It is in this communication that we see the flowering of the MBO approach. Some extracts:17

The primary objectives of this conference are to evaluate where we are in the worldwide work, to determine where we should be, and to institute a management by objectives program for the future. . . . Since we have not yet set standard categories for evaluating our worldwide ministry, we would like you to bring your ministry statistics for the 1968-1969 school year in the form you have been using in your division. . . . We will then work on establishing some clear, measurable senior objectives for the overall Nav work for the next year, the next three years and the next five years. Then, with these senior objectives in mind, we will develop a job description for a divisional director and set objectives for each division. . . . We will work together on setting these objectives. . . . Theoretically, the divisional objectives cannot be set until the organization’s senior objectives are determined.

The most helpful formula and one we hope to use in the conference for setting objectives is to state them as follows: To (action verb), (desired results), by (date), cost not to exceed $______. For example, one objective for a division might be: To produce three new contact points by June 1971, cost not to exceed (approved budget). . . . After divisional objectives are set, we will work on the plans necessary to reach those objectives. This will include personnel planning, budgeting and determining strategy, tactics, and major activities.

By the time the conference arrived in November 1969, our ministries had been organized into geographical divisions:

Three North American divisions: northern division and Eastern Canada, Jack Mayhall; Western US and Canada, LeRoy Eims; Southern US including Mexico and Costa Rica, Skip Gray.
Doug Sparks was the director of the EMA division and Waldron Scott of the PAN division. Jim Petersen was the LAN director, still reporting to Sanny.

The North American directors were men of much experience and capacity, with strong views on our ministry priorities. At the risk of oversimplifying, one may say that Mayhall focused on training, Eims on evangelizing, Gray on recruiting.

There were other latent issues among the directors. Seeds of tension that were not entirely resolved until at least 1975 when the new concept of an International Leadership Team was launched. In fact, Sanny commented publicly in later years that his greatest regret as president was that he never had a truly united team.18

This 1969 divisional directors conference was notable also for the ambitious decision to “computerize ministry statistics”19 and for some serious work on both finance and personnel policies. Another decision, with respect to the next three years, was “to formulate and communicate a Nav philosophy of ministry.” During the same timeframe, the team would “begin to apply and adjust a “Strategy for the 70s” by developing specific programs for moving various countries into stage 1 and stage 2.”20

Lorne told the staff, as soon as the November 1969 conference ended, that:

We had a great Divisional Directors Conference. God answered many prayers in guiding us to some significant decisions. We are learning to set overall ministry objectives in three categories—representatives, disciple-makers and ‘Nav disciples.’ Now we have unified profiles21 for each of these so that we are all speaking of the same thing. Also ready are job descriptions for divisional directors, president, executive vice president and treasurer, an outlined strategy for the 70s, and personnel work for 1970.22

He added a significant comment from his reading of Peter Drucker: “There are no results within the organization—all the results are on the outside. It is not the decisions made by us that produce results, but the decisions that non-Christians make—for or against. It is the dozens of decisions being made by young converts that take them along the road to discipleship. Those are the decisions that accomplish the aim of the Navigators to make disciples and develop disciple-makers in every nation. Since this is the case, “Therefore, we persuade men . . .”(2 Corinthians 5:11).

MBO and Our International Stages of Ministry

At this point, it may be helpful to explain that we were assigning one of three stages of ministry to each country, as follows. (The IET currently uses four stages of ministry, different than those listed below).

S1 In: working to develop a country for sending missionaries
S2 From: beginning the adventure of sending
S3 To: going deeper into the fabric and context of the (sending) country

Thus, as the divisional directors noted in May 1970, our internal manpower will come mainly from the first or “grow” or intensive stage. An extensive ministry would come later as a “spin off” or outgrowth of earlier stages.23 Our zeal for the nations placed pressure mainly on the US but also, on a far smaller scale, on our other embryonic sending countries, such as the Netherlands, the UK, and Singapore. Stage 2 called upon the US to send many of its best leaders as missionaries, in some cases prematurely. Then, stage 3 was assuming greater importance as the community ministry emerged and, by its nature, made us less mobile as we sought to put down roots into communities as well as manpower pools.

By this time, we had finalized our overall objective. As Sanny now called it, our corporate aim for the 1970s that had been gestating since 1968: “To create a broad enough base geographically and deep enough in personnel and support to carry the Navigator ministry into every nation of the world in the 1980s.”24

Sanny had prepared the staff for this objective through an article on Ephesians 6:13-18 in the “Nav Log” at the start of the year.25 As he realized, we had a visionary aim but no “worldwide program to accomplish it.”

A few months later, he was assuring our staff that “we believe in participatory planning. Persons to be involved in carrying out the plans should be involved in their formulation as much as possible.”26 He soon returned to the theme of battle:

Now we are launched into the accomplishing of our objective for the 1970s. A quadrupled staff, eighteen new Nav sending countries, an official Navigator work in twenty new countries, multiplying a movement of disciple-makers, etc.

We know these things will not happen because we have planned them, advertised them or organized them. This ground will be taken only as a result of battle: “. . . behold, I have given into your hand . . . begin to take possession, and contend . . . in battle” (Deuteronomy 2:24).

Do you sense the spiritual struggle? I am sure you do. So do I. We need holiness, love, wisdom, courage. For these things I need prayer. We need prayer. Our potential co-laborers need prayer. D. E. Hoste said, ‘Unless he is constantly and faithfully wrestling in the heavenlies with the powers of darkness, there is a real danger of his becoming involved in wrestling with his colleagues.’ Let’s be sure we are fighting the right battle.27

The investment of most of our ministries around the world in a form of MBO can be dated from 1973. The previous year had ended with the presentation by Scott of his full “Strategy for the 70s,” accompanied by a preliminary discussion of the strategy among the divisional directors, largely for understanding.28

In the turmoil that this 1972 strategy precipitated, we find a ready embrace of Sanny’s mantra that planning should be “top down, bottom up.” However, it was soon apparent that the countries chosen as sending countries in this strategy were not going to join the US in producing more than a modest flow of cross-cultural missionaries. The pressures on us contributed to what might be called a performance culture. Undue attention was given to that which is external, observable, accessible. One undertone was that people were increasingly appreciated for what they could do rather than for who they were. Evaluative tools were sometimes misused as weapons.

Sensibly, starting in 1973, our countries were invited to supply their own annual objectives. However, for a variety of reasons, these objectives were soon seen to be far too optimistic. Factors included some mix of influences: zeal for the nations, intemperate faith, poor grasp of the principles of MBO, and in some cases, gaming the system.29 It is fair to say that our American culture was especially attuned to the process of quantifying. As Uchimura Kanzo had written, “Numbers, numbers, oh how they value numbers!”30 The attached page summarizes as many as twenty ways in which we experienced actual or potential dangers from our Navigator use of MBO, internationally. As Sanny commented, “MBO got us on track, but almost tore us apart.”

This honest and perceptive comment highlights the impact of MBO, both positive and negative. Therefore, because the spread of MBO had numerous effects and because there are lessons to be learned from this era, I attach:

A. Maximal Use of Navigator MBO: Twenty Lessons
B. The Dark Side of a Driven Culture
More diffuse but also more critical
C. History of Counting in The Navigators
The broad sweep of our experience, quantitatively

Looking Back at the MBO Era

Let’s look at some comments from those who experienced that period in our history:

Tom Lee: “My recollection is that Scotty was the first of us to read Peter Drucker and he then promoted those ideas to Lorne. Later, when Scotty came out in Asia with the profiles, using the study books as progress indicators plus the contact points, the whole package looked interesting and attractive.”31
Ray Hoo: “There was a military style of leadership. A ‘shape up or ship out’ type of attitude. It was quite attractive to me as I was serious about following Jesus. I was single. It was, as many people would consider today, cultic. . . . It was highly performance-oriented. . . . I was in the northern division through my early years as a regional director. We had the pink sheets for women and the blue sheets for men, in our reports! . . . It was helpful in some ways because it was accountability. We knew what stage of development people had reached. What was his or her next step? Those were the days when we had the ‘cans on the shelves’ package which, although some laughed, was a serious attempt by Mayhall and probably very helpful for that period, because it forced us to think more intentionally about helping people grow. It was all meant for good. However, it was placing people on our curriculum and agenda, not sensitive to where they were in their development and their needs. We did not pay much attention to giftedness. We put a stop to the excessive counting towards the end of the 1970s.”32
Jack Mayhall: “There was good and bad in MBO. Navigators who picked up on it were not careful enough to pick the good and release the bad. It’s a secular term and doesn’t entirely fit a not-for-profit religious organization. . . . In the Great Lakes region we learned from a terrific teacher at the University of Wisconsin: I took the guys to listen to him. One of his key thoughts was that one has to get the monkey off one’s shoulder onto your shoulder. This helped us delegate. However, I recall that the illustration was not at all appreciated when I spoke at a British staff conference.”33
Jerry White: “We did top-down MBO, and in the divisions it was strongly top-down. I would say that it was Lorne and then Jack Mayhall who really bought it. Skip and LeRoy did not. MBO, for us, grew out of Lorne’s frustration in the late 60s. . . . “He was frustrated with every man doing what was right in his own eyes. We don’t know what a Navigator is. We don’t know what a Navigator ministry is. We don’t have clear objectives for what we are doing. . . . People are basically doing “the Navigator ministry” in whatever way they wanted to do and the minute you infringed upon them . . . Lorne was trying to get a grasp on where The Navigators were going. . . . Each area Rep “owned” his area. Lorne wanted to break that down and think more in terms of target and strategy. Incidentally, I argued that, if we were going to continue with the business of counting, we should roll the odometer back to zero when a person graduates from college: for two reasons . . . the skills do not always transfer and it was totally demotivating to our community Reps to adopt any graduates because they received no numerical credit for developing anything new.”34

Even if we had fully implemented MBO and won over our staff to the benefits that can accrue when it is well used, there is an open question as to how far the MBO process can be pursued in a community that is dependent for guidance upon the Holy Spirit. Were we managing when we should have been leading?

There were other weaknesses that we experienced that are endemic to the practice of MBO:

An over-emphasis on the setting of goals over the working of a plan as a driver of outcomes.
An under-emphasis on the importance of the environment or context in which the goals are set.

We see this in the article on “Global Planning: 1966-1975.”

Our international collection of ministry statistics was suspended by Jerry White in his proposal35 to our International Navigator Council in January 1985. By then, in any case, we were only gathering centrally numbers of new and all disciple-makers. Jerry noted that the collection of statistics had frequently been an emotional issue with our staff, both in the US and internationally. He went on to suggest that the purpose of information flowing outside a country would at least include:

1. To know how the brethren are doing (Acts 15:36)
2. For prayer and praise (Colossians 1:3-4)
3. To encourage and help as needed (2 Peter 1:13-14)
4. To give account of our stewardship (Mark 6:30)

His view was that these purposes “express the essence of biblical evaluation and communication which result in encouragement, correction and help. In no way can God’s work be fully measured, but it should be evaluated in terms of promises, objectives and God’s leading of those who are doing the ministry.36

Jerry added that every leader should “know the state of his flock.” This meant “both character and fruit. Used rightly as a basis for asking questions, numbers could be very helpful.” He ends with the desire: “Let us not put a burden on any country that does not help them.”

For seven years starting in 1977, McGilchrist had assembled an annual Historical Series, a numerical record of how our ministries had developed, consolidating the data that our countries had provided. From this extensive tabulation,37 he derived two varieties of summary, one for the council and one for general distribution.

It is good to note that the US Navigators now use annual Plan & Progress Reviews which feature eight components including developmental goals and responsibilities. This process provides “the opportunity to communicate to your supervisor about your past successes and ways you wish to grow.” The intent is to encourage and enable staff to “excel still more” in their service to Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:1).

By Donald McGilchrist

6887 words

See also articles on:
Global Planning: 1966-1975
Training
Stages of Ministry
Evolution of our Strategies: December 1972 to December 1976
Structures in the 70s
Evaluation in the Seventies
Contextualizing
Our Enabling Global Society
Fundamentals of the Navigator Ministry
Ethos and Values

See Attachments
A. Maximal Use of MBO, Internationally
B. The Dark Side of a Driven Culture
C. History of Counting in the Navigators

Endnotes

The “Summary of our Strategic Thinking Since 1968,” prepared for ISC October 1974, claims that our first attempt at MBO came during our “worldwide conference” in 1966, though I find little evidence for this.
The above material drawn from The Financial Crisis of 1964, an extended account which Sanny gave Jerry Bridges in July 1977.
Managing for Results by Peter Drucker, HarperBusiness; Reissue edition (October 3, 2006). Drucker had first popularized the concept of MBO in his 1954 text The Practice of Management: A Study of the Most Important Function in American Society.
Accessed from Wikipedia on October 18, 2014.
Ed Dayton of the MARC Division of World Vision used to point to a very human tendency: “Good goals are my goals; bad goals are your goals.” This came home to roost in the early 1970s.
See ODC June 1964, Appendix B.
One of the few exceptions was Jack Blanch’s geographical call to Spain. See article on “Personal Calling.”
Source: ODC 64, minute 25.
The drumbeat of MBO in the wider American context continued to increase. For example, a crucial treatment was published in 1965: Management by Objectives: A System of Managerial Leadership, Pitman, which positioned MBO as a system of managerial leadership.
It is curious that Lorne returned here to the “recruit, build, send” objective that the OPC had replaced in 1961.
Dear Gang, 1965-17.
Sanny sent these to our staff on March 17, 1967. He added, “Corporate objectives are also those for which I, as president, am ultimately responsible.”
This table simplifies the data by omitting contact staff. LAN did not collect such data. Converts & Disciples includes men and women; DMs not shown, but amounted to 581 excluding women, including EMA 64 and PAN 35. Abbreviations: NAM = North American Ministries; EMA = Europe Middle East & Africa; PAN = Pacific Area Navigators; LAN = Latin America Navigators.
Example: the creative planning process “is likely to go through the stages of saturation, deliberation, incubation, illumination, accommodation.”
This RD conference ended with light relief on a serious topic in a (mercifully) brief critique of our poor public relations, entitled Faithful Tychicus Rides the Navigator Blimp. Conclusion: We were not getting sufficient public exposure and were saddled with outdated perceptions among evangelicals, such as being the outfit that worked among WWII servicemen. Practical proposals were thus put forward such as developing a brochure and a portable display and a movie, gathering our scattered messages under a single PR director. The Whing Ding that followed immediately must have been a useful opportunity to “let off some steam!”
Thirty-six presidents for five days in New York, August 1969. He told his staff that “It turned me on. . . . I got several suggestions, any one of which will repay the cost several times over” (DSL 1969-7).
Paragraphs taken from Bob Stephens’s letter to the divisional directors, on behalf of Lorne, dated September 26, 1969.
The chemistry of the team was made more complex by the fact that Walt Henrichsen functioned in the early 1970s as personnel director, and by the progressive addition of others around the table at meetings of the International Team. The number of agendas in play was indeed hard to manage.
This never came to fruition because, by the time the relevant software and skills were available, in the late 1980s, we had ceased to report annual numbers of laborers to the center.
It was this that Waldron Scott took and massively developed into what became “A Strategy for the 70s,” presented to the divisional directors when they met in December 1972. His first outline emerged in December 1968.
It soon became our practice to refer to requisites for those who were on our staff and to profiles for the fruit of our ministry, whose level of engagement was not something on which we could or should insist. Indeed, they were “volunteers” for the Lord’s cause.
DS Letter 1969-11.
DS Letter 1968-3 has the earliest version of these three stages. Thus: S1 = Demonstrate producing disciple-makers: S2 = Send Reps to other countries; S3 = Significant impact in the country itself. See article on “Stages of Ministry.”
DS Letter 1970-6. This was astonishingly ambitious.
Steering Straight, January 1970.
DS Letter 1970-10
DS Letter October 6, 1970 which also included some special prayer requests for the upcoming Worldwide Day of Prayer for Laborers on October 15. This was a vital ingredient, so much so that Lorne sent to our staff around the world seven detailed pages, with names and dates, for a day that would be based on Matthew 9:36-38.
See article on “Global Planning: 1966–1975.”
Gaming the System: Some countries were combined (Malaysia/Singapore or Norway/Sweden) in order to “earn” more missionaries and some country leaders asked for double the number of missionaries they needed, anticipating that their requests would be diluted!
Extract from Kanzo’s perspective on the American missionaries who had led him to Christ in Japan, some years earlier, to be found in chapter 17 of The Missionary Movement in Christian History, by Andrew Walls, Orbis, 1996.
Interview by McGilchrist on January 17, 2012, slightly altered.
Interview by McGilchrist on October 4, 2011, slightly altered and abbreviated.
Interview by McGilchrist on November 30, 2011, slightly altered and abbreviated. Reference is probably to Alan Lakein.
Interviews by McGilchrist in March & October 2012, slightly altered and abbreviated.
Memo to INC of January 22, 1985…see agenda tab 7.
See his additional thoughts in his memo on ministry indicators of January 22, 1985.
McGilchrist’s view was that, given that the collection of statistical data had continued, it was appropriate to use it, however incomplete a reflection of such data would be.