Where is CRM headed?

CRM’s direction for the future is shaped by five distinct influences:

APOSTOLIC COMMUNITIES

These communities are teams of “sent ones” called to do life and ministry together, exhibiting (1) ruthless missionality, and (2) commitment to a common calling. Increasingly essential for effective ministry in the postmodern era, bases of apostolic communities will soon become the norm for CRM staff.

A HOLISTIC GOSPEL

While all CRM staff are not called to live incarnationally among the poor, we are all called to the obedience of a holistic gospel – living out the good news in a more holistic, full manner. We see this as a firm commitment to the biblical core – the redemptive work of Jesus – plus an understanding that the biblical gospel includes more than just personal salvation. It affects how Jesus, the King, wants to exercise his Kingdom rule in us and through us, touching all of creation in the here and now.

Organizationally, this means empowering those leaders who embrace the totality of the gospel, multiplying expressions of church that reflect a commitment to a holistic gospel, and internalizing a recovering of the gospel in staff formation and training.

CONEXT

CRM will not evolve into a “multi-national corporation.” Instead, we are pursuing an international partnership of national apostolic entities, wholly independent, relating to one another on the basis of shared vision, purpose, values, and belief. This global ministry model is called CoNext.

CoNext insures that CRM-US does not have centralized control over CRM’s expansion internationally. Instead, control is decentralized and the Spirit of God is allowed to be the one who guides and directs. CoNext partners – independent CRM entities such as CRM-Korea, CRM-Hungary, and CRM-UK – relate to each other on a fraternal basis. The organizational goal of each entity is three-fold: nationals on staff, nationals in leadership, and nationals being sent as missionaries.

While CRM currently has a presence in 25 nations, we aim at expanding into 50 countries by 2015, with at least 20 of those countries being full CoNext partners.

CREATIVE FUNDING

As financial pressures and uncertainties have grown, particularly as the local church in North America has become an increasingly unreliable source of funding for the global missionary movement, we’ve begun to explore and employ other creative ways – consistent with our values and our biblical understanding of such a process – to meet the logistical needs of those serving with CRM. Especially in the developing world, creative funding been championed by CRM’s Enterprise International, which starts and manages for-profit businesses to provide additional funding for CRM ministry and personnel. Important to note, however, is that such funding does not replace but only subsidizes CRM’s current support-raising model of funding, to which we remain fully committed.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Still central in all that we do is leadership development – among the poor, the younger, emerging generation, pastors, church planters, laymen and women, business and professional people. The primary unifying theme that defines our common calling is this: empowering leaders.