Search Party is working to catalyze discipleship movements among the unreached (see basic definitions of what we mean by this and other similar terms on joshuaproject.net) through Local Partners. Our Partners have demonstrated their faithfulness in sharing the Gospel, making disciples, and working to start new churches by training others to do the same.
In short, we believe that the church is intended to be local, which means that “locals” should primarily be the ones reaching those from their people group.
Beyond this, experientially, one of the things that researchers of discipleship and church planting movement have found is that more than 99% of these movements start as a result of partnership between “Outsiders” – those who come from outside of the culture that they are trying to reach – and “Insiders”, those who are inside the culture, in this case, those we are calling Local Partners. In this high percentage of these movements, the Outsiders have helped in the partnership by bringing vision, encouragement, and simple tools that can be reproduced while the Insiders help in the partnership by bringing a desire to see their people reached and local understanding of the culture and language that the Outsiders will likely never possess.
At this point, Search Party is working with two Local Partners, with several others that we are praying that God will continue to grow through the Holy Spirit in their leadership and disciple-making for reproduction of their work among others.
In certain cases, because of the unique situation that we work within, we have also raised funds to help support the living needs for our Local Partners. To protect their privacy and maintain their security as well as we can, we won’t publish their information here publicly. However, if you, your church, or your organization are interested in being involved and helping us to support these faithful men and women, working to see the Kingdom of God expand locally through them, and possibly also helping us to catalyze a movement through them, please contact us and we can provide additional information about these individuals.
