In his book Strategy Coordinator: Changing the Course of Southern Baptist Missions, R. Bruce Carlton sets out to provide a historical analysis of what he considers the most significant shift within the strategy of the International Mission Board since its inception in 1845.
Between 1980 and 2000, he contends the Board focused on bringing the gospel to the remaining unreached people groups of the world. At the center of this shift was a transformation of the missionary model. For over a century, missionaries served as life-long frontier workers (what Carlton refers to as the “incarnational model”). Their role changed late in the 20th century to itinerant or remote “trainers” (first dubbed “Non-Residential Missionary” and later “Strategy Coordinator”).
Understanding this shift, its causes, and its consequences is central to understanding how “Church Planting Movements” took hold of the International Mission
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