An adaptation of SOILS for local workers
This is an attempt at adapting a great article by Steve Smith: SOILS of the CPM Continuum. If you are not familiar with this article, I'd encourage you to read it first: https://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/the-s.o.i.l.s.-of-the-cpm-continuum-the-sliding-scale-of-strategic-time-inv
The article, and this adaptation of it, are seeking to answer a key question: As I pursue the multiplication of disciples and churches, how should I spend my time?
Let it be known that Steve's article doesn't need revising. Steve wrote it to help missionaries know how to best use their time in pursuit of a movement. He was specifically writing for those that were laboring to reach people groups to whom they were outsiders.
There are so many good insights in the article, but I found myself trying to translate it back into my context where I'm an insider among the people and places I am trying to reach. It was difficult to draw a one-to-one comparison.
What I offer here is merely ideas. I'm typing them up for two reasons:
You can make this better. If you have ways you could improve these thoughts, please send them my way.
I had to start somewhere. I process things by communicating them, so this is just a personal attempt to know how to best spend my own time as I seek to multiply disciples and churches.
So here are the adaptations. (Again, I'm assuming you have read the original article.) These came about from a dialogue with some friends and coworkers on a Zoom call. Anything good is probably from them.
Adaptation 1
Steve asks us to consider: How many 'target group believers' do you have? In post-Christian or churched contexts, that can be a hard question to answer. And even if my city is truly 10% genuine believers, it doesn't mean they are engaged in the harvest.
Instead of 'target group believers', we adapted the question to become: How many 'active disciple-makers' do you have? Said again: In your target area, segment, etc, how many people are functioning as disciple-makers? None to Few? Some to Many? Or an abundant number?
Adaptation 2
Steve talks a lot about "outsiders" and "insiders". These are a very true reality in frontier missions work. But in contexts where you are already an insider, this language became confusing. So the adaptation is this:
Outsiders become "Harvest: Existing Believers to Mobilize"
Insiders become "Discipleship: New Believers from the Harvest"
Adaptation 3
Another adaptation that we realized in our dialogue is that in contexts with existing legacy churches, you could find potential leaders sooner than in completely unreached contexts. There seems to be a need to acknowledge that you should spend some time investing in those leaders when that is the case.
So taking those adaptations, here is an attempt to rewrite the chart that Steve offers in the article. (Sorry for the ugly chart, that graphic design degree never panned out for me.)
Just a few thoughts on what each area of investment looks like in the chart above:
Prayer: By this I mean personal prayer, corporate prayer, prayer and fasting, prayer for people, prayer with people, prayer for the lost, and prayer for God to move. In short, any and all kinds of prayer.
Harvest: Mobilizing existing believers into the harvest. Remember: You're an existing believer so mobilize yourself into the harvest. By which I mean, you going out to engage the lost and share the Gospel is essential as well! Training others to share the Gospel and start discipleship is also part of this work.
Discipleship: This is discipling NEW believers. Training existing believers in discipleship tools falls into the previous category
Leaders: Investing and coaching leaders that God gives you from either existing believers or new believers.
Gaps: Seek to reach gaps in your city or area that are not being reached with the Gospel.
Something to remember for both this version and the original version of the chart: Your time is relative to all of the things God has called you to do in your current stage of life. If you are working a full-time job or a pastor that already has a church you are shepherding, or a mom with kids, it is good to acknowledge you have a different capacity than others.
But. (a big but!) :)
All of us have some capacity. What are you doing with it? (And again, this article is attempting to answer: What should you do with it?)
Let's use this scale in a real-life situation that I think many practitioners in the US find themselves in: There are a few active disciple-makers in your area. Some people are regularly engaging the lost and making disciples, but not very many.
If I'm a pastor that wants to designate 10 hours a week to pursue multiplication, how should I spend my time according to the percentages above?
Prayer - 2 Hours
Harvest - 6 hours
Discipleship - 1 hour
Leaders - 1 Hour
[Note: I'd actually want to change this to 15% of your time for discipling new believers and investing in leaders so there could be 1.5 hours for one meeting a week with each. One and a half hours would be a good amount of time for a 3/3rds gathering. This means that only 50% of your time (5 hours/week) would be spent in the harvest.]
What about the situation of a full-time worker, whether paid by a church or raising missionary support? How does a '40 hour work week' fit into these percentages? (Again, this is assuming there are just a few active disciple-makers.)
Prayer - 8 Hours
Harvest - 24 hours
Discipleship - 4 hours
Leaders - 4 Hours
If there's any merit to any of this, here are my personal takeaways:
EIGHT HOURS in prayer and fasting each week. Are you kidding me? I have some work to do. I just published a podcast episode about prayer being ministry... looks like I better re-listen to it. (https://ontheroad.link/blog/mindset-shift-4-prayer-is-ministry)
Harvest: 24 hours. That's three days of a typical work week. Three days should be spent mobilizing existing believers into the harvest and doing so myself. Again, I have some work to do here.
So those are my thoughts. What do you think? Do those percentages seem accurate? Or would you adapt my adaptation? What percentages seem like too much? Where does it seem too few?
Even better, if you've already field-tested some ideas, I would love to see them!
