Church mobilisation is the act of mobilising a local church to respond to the needs of the community in which it is based. The focus of this approach is local church pastors and their congregations. Pastors are envisioned to carry out integral mission. The pastors then envision their congregations.
The approach does not mobilise the wider community, but seeks to enable the local church to meet the community’s needs. In this sense, it is a welfare approach because the church responds to the perceived needs of the community.
Common elements of church mobilisation include:
- envisioning pastors
- envisioning congregations
- setting up a core team to manage the initiative
- recruiting volunteers
- providing training to volunteers
- supporting volunteers
Those involved in initiating church mobilisation processes may be Christian NGOs, Christian umbrella groups such as Evangelical Alliances, and church denominations.
There are a number of approaches to church mobilisation. This section explores five models:
- Issue-focused church mobilisation
- Open-ended church mobilisation
- Mobilising whole denominations
- Mobilising a large city church
- Mobilising churches in difficult contexts