How the WMA functions

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The functioning of the World Missions Academy is shaped by its basic goal: to develop churches committed to and equipped for carrying out the Great Commission. In order to accomplish this goal, the WMA must offer basic training in the area of missions, it must offer it to a broad spectrum of the local church (church members in general, local church leadership, future missionaries, etc.), it must offer it in an affordable yet thorough format, and it must be capable of rapidly impacting a large number of people through multiplication.

Basic training in missions

This training must start with the core, foundational issues such as: what does the Bible have to say about missions, what is the Great Commission, how does it fit into the broader ministries of the local church, what is a missionary, what is a missionary call, when and why should the local church use missionaries, and how does the local church develop and apply a Biblical philosophy of missions. But this training also must go beyond these foundation issues, and build a superstructure of knowledge that will serve the local church as a solid, supporting network for its missions program. At the same time and as much as possible, although now treating a more advanced subject matter, this training must still remain "basic" in nature (making it easy to understand and to apply).

Rooted in the local church

This training must be rooted in the local church. The idea here is to have the training occur in the context where it will reach the broadest number of people who need it the most, and do the greatest amount of good. Since the WMA targets a broad spectrum of the local church congregation, then the training must logically occur there. And by having the training rooted in the local church, this also means that future missionaries, local church leadership, and local church members in general will be studying together and growing together. This promotes a healthy bond between congregation and leadership, and between church and missionary, which helps make the missionary task flow much more smoothly and naturally.

Affordable and thorough

This training must be offered in a format that allows it to be both affordable and thorough. Since most of our textbooks and materials are developed by the WMA itself, we have direct control over how thorough the content is (starting out with basic texts and materials that provide a brief yet adequate introduction to missions, and ending up with 300-page textbooks that scrutinize the subject matter in a much more thorough fashion). And since we develop most of our own texts and materials, we are able to make them available in a very affordable format. Practically all of the WMA's texts and materials are freely available for download through this website, and the only costs involved are basically those of printing out a master copy and then making photocopies for the students.

Capable of multiplication

And this training must be capable of rapidly impacting a large number of people through multiplication. The spiritual need of the world is great, and the time to accomplish the Great Commission is now. Therefore, we must prepare the Church as quickly as possible for this task. In this area, the WMA takes a two-pronged approach. First of all, we target providing our texts and materials in multiple languages. Although our materials are originally produced in Spanish, as the Lord provides translators, we work on getting these materials out in English, French, and other languages that are key to reaching the world's evangelical population. And secondly, we target multiplication through our class structure. The WMA is designed to function with classes of 10 to 20 participants, each under the direction of a facilitator. And out of every 20 participants or so, we look for a key individual or two who demonstrate a special interest in equipping others in the area of missions. These individuals are potential future WMA facilitators, and they are encouraged to continue their studies with some of our more advanced textbooks, where the first couple of courses give them a solid foundation from which to serve as facilitators with their own groups of 10 to 20 participants, always keeping an eye open for those of their students who are potential facilitators, and thus continuing this process of multiplication. By functioning this way, the WMA promotes exponential growth which is capable of impacting extremely large numbers in a relatively short amount of time.

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