SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) – Mission Principles

       SOF takes the idea of Spiritual Warfare seriously.  We believe that God's comparison in His Word of Christians to soldiers in an army has great significance and that many principles of temporal warfare can be translated to our Spiritual battle to expand His kingdom.

 

       We feel that Missionaries (ones who are sent on mission) are comparable to Special Forces.  Therefore, we thought it worthwhile to study the standard operating procedures of Special Forces and compare those principles with current missiological principles.

 

       What we discovered was that many of the principles adhered to by Special Forces were very similar to the principles all successful missionaries have followed.   Students of Missions will recognize these principles as being very good practice on the mission field.  We, therefore, decided to adopt these Standard Operating Procedures as our own SOP.

 

1.   Competent Training

 

    Missionaries will be most successful when they are well trained before they enter the field.  While pre-training is preferred, there are situations where training must begin or continue once the missionary is already in the field.

   

2.   Signature Reduction

 

    Special Forces make every effort to blend in with the foreign population around them and so should missionaries.  This means that a missionary should remove every cultural barrier which could be a stumbling block to their people group.   The missionary should make an effort to adopt their people group's culture as their own, thus winning their hearts.

    This does not mean that the missionary should try to become more worldly in an effort to blend in, or do anything contrary to God's Word.  Anything not pertinent to being faithful to Jesus Christ should be discarded in an effort to minister, but anything pertinent to the gospel should be defended at all costs.

 

3.  CAS  (Close Air Support) – Targeted Prayer

 

   One of the most effective strategies employed by Special Forces is to get close to a target on the ground, use laser targeting devices to mark it, and then call in Close Air Support to "take care" of it.  The spiritual application of this is an absolute reliance on prayer.

    God Almighty is our Close Air Support.  We must stay in good communication with Him and realize that our main purpose in the field is to bring glory to Him.  Instead of attacking problems in our own strength, we will "target" those problems with prayer, relying on Him to resolve the problems. 

 

4.  Coordinate with Allied Units 

 

    Special Forces don't work in isolation, and neither should a missionary.  The effective missionary will gladly coordinate and work with missionaries of other evangelical, Bible-believing denominations. 

 

5.  Alliance with Nationals

 

    A core piece of Special Forces strategy is to coordinate with national forces, empowering and leading them in the battle.

    The missionary's primary goal should be training national believers and helping them grow into becoming disciple-makers among their people group. 

 

6.  Train for Independence

 

    The church planting missionary should be focused on equipping national believers to the point that they can function independently of the missionary, capable of continuing the work on their own, making disciple-makers among their own people, and eventually sending out missionaries from their body.

 

7.  Exit Strategy 

 

    The missionary should have an exit strategy, i.e. a specific vision of what it will "look like" when the mission is accomplished.  When the goals of the mission have been reached, the missionary should be able to retire from the field and move on to the next battle. 

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