This is being written to you, the prospective student or trainee. We expect that most of you who are reading this are thinking about training for yourself. So we want to address it to you…to make it personal. We want to give you an idea of exactly what Radius will do for you, of how Radius will equip you for long-term, pioneer church planting among an Unreached People Group. So this is the extended explanation of why we think you ought to come to Radius!

 

Every component of Radius has been designed with the end in mind. The “end” is a reproducing group of obedient Jesus followers formed among an Unreached People Group. By definition the setting is going to be resistant, hostile, difficult, defensive, etc. So what kind of person is it going to take to get the job done? What kind of character do they need to have, what kinds of skills, what kind of knowledge base? You are going to do a difficult and complicated job in a hostile and resistant setting. You have lots of cards stacked against you. What is going to give you the greatest chance of success? Radius has been designed with that in mind…to give pioneer, cross-cultural church planters the greatest possibility of being successful at what they are going to do. To give you the greatest possible chance of success at what you are going to do.

 

We have broken down the areas in which people need to be skilled and/or informed into 6 main categories. These are the areas that Radius commits to train you in. This is what Radius will build into the lives of its students:

(The hours of formal study are included in parentheses)

 

Language Acquisition

The primary tool of your trade is language. You are communicators of a message. You need to be 100% certain that your message is being heard accurately. You need to learn to handle language with the skill with which a surgeon handles a scalpel. Too often this is felt to be an impossible goal. Our Western commitment to efficiency asserts, “Time doesn’t allow for it”, so we treat fluency in language as an unrealistic or idealistic luxury.  But sound biblical missiology demands that you fully incarnate the gospel and do everything possible to live out the missiological principle “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you”. Radius will teach you the skills to do that on each level of language, from basic sounds to extended stories, even including translation principles.

At Radius you will learn:

1) Phonetics (80) – you will learn to identify and reproduce the sounds of the language of your target people so that you can speak without an accent. You will learn the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of consonants and vowels, the differences of tone and stress, aspiration, fricativization, nasalization, glotalization. As a language learner these skills are vitally important for several reasons:

• so that you can identify, write down, and reproduce sounds in normal speech at normal speeds
• so that you sound like a person who can speak with authority (and not like a little child)
• so that you sound like you belong, not sound like a foreigner
• so that your message sounds like it belongs, not like something foreign

2) Vocabulary (20) – you will learn how to develop a working vocabulary in your target language and how to determine the domain of meaning of individual words so that you will know the right words to choose (and to avoid) to communicate biblical themes. Too often missionaries use “something close” and they sound either crass, juvenile, “old school”, or trendy. Proper vocabulary, not just workable alternatives, takes time to investigate and land on.

3) Grammar and structural analysis (22) – you will learn how to break down phrases and form sentences so that you understand exactly what people are communicating to you, and you will know exactly what they are hearing when you communicate with them. You want to be 100% certain that the message you communicate is being heard accurately.

4) Discourse analysis (15) – you will learn how to distinguish between different types of communication in your target culture. Exhortation/preaching, storytelling, poetry, teaching, etc., all have unique stylistic tendencies in each language. You must navigate those areas well so as to give the Gospel an accurate hearing. As you communicate the Gospel, you don’t want it to sound like a fairy tale, but like extremely important truth. The way you communicate can be as important as what you communicate!

5) Language acquisition skills (160) – Radius will give you skills so that from the first day that you arrive you will have a clearly defined strategy for learning both the written trade language and then the written or unwritten heart language of your target people. This will be broken down into principles (16 hours), methodologies (44 hours) and practicum (100 hours). You will be taught how to memorize, how to work from words to phrases to dialogues and then monologues, always from the simple to the complex. You will learn how to climb the Mt. Everest of language fluency in incremental, attainable, daily, weekly and monthly goals. Without goals that you can achieve daily, the discouragement factor is large.

6) Phonemics (15) – you will learn how to break down the sound system of a language so that if you are dealing with an unwritten language you will be able to provide an alphabet and thus be able to translate Scripture into that language.

7) Literacy (15) – you will learn how to teach illiterate and marginally literate people to read. Having access to God’s Word is a critical element in the survival and growth of a local church.

8) Translation (20) – you may need to provide a new or a revised translation of the Word of God for your target people. You will be given the tools to assess that need and then to know how to approach the process of Bible translation. Again, having the written Word of God in their language is essential to insure the on-going health, growth and survival of each and every local church.

9) Self-assessments (20) – you will learn to do self-assessments in order to gauge your progress in language learning, and then to develop strategies to shore up the weak areas.

 

Culture Acquisition

In order to communicate the gospel in a way that makes sense to your target people, you need to understand how they think, how they see life, what they are hearing by what you are saying, etc. This is all part of culture. Language and culture are inseparable. You cannot learn culture without language, and you cannot understand the meaning and functioning of language without culture. Without knowing the culture exceptionally well, you have no hope of making the message of the Gospel either understandable or culturally relevant. If it is not understood the danger is that it will be “accepted” on a superficial level resulting in syncretism. If it is not culturally relevant, it will always be perceived as foreign and will never root…it will never multiply or become a “movement”.

At Radius you will learn:

1) Culture acquisition principles (16) – you will learn and practice the proper posture and attitudes with which to enter another culture in order to minimize costly mistakes and maximize your chance of being accepted and of accurately understanding that culture.

2) Culture acquisition methodologies (44) – you will learn the principles of applied anthropology in order to observe, process and categorize each of the components of your host culture. You will learn to work from the basics of material culture (houses, pets, cars, pots, utensils, weapons, toys, tools, clothing, etc.) to social culture (family, clan, tribe, outsiders, random insiders, old age, responsibilities to and from all those relationships, who has honor, ways to lose and gain honor), to economics (buying, selling, trading, types of employment, ideas of wealth/poverty, prestige within various disciplines, valid and invalid expectations in all these areas) to aesthetics (beauty, poetry, art, craftsmanship) to recreation (acceptable relaxation, different types and status of each). You will learn to keep a cultural journal covering each of these areas as well as to identify beliefs and values behind observed behaviors and to identify integrating themes across the culture.

3) Culture acquisition practicum (100) – you will spend time on the street and in homes in Tijuana and in El Cajon with Mexican, Chaldean, Burmese, Sudanese and other ethnicities learning to apply the principles and methodologies of culture acquisition.

4) Worldview (15) – You will learn how to take the data of your cultural analysis and to articulate that critically important component which is the Worldview of your target people, including good spirits, evil spirits, abode of the dead, when do they go there? for how long? formal (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism) vs. informal (animism) religions, ways their spirits act, how they are appeased, how many are there? territorial or not? what decisions do men have a part in vs. what is out of our control? what is “sin”? how is it dealt with? These and countless other questions must have solid answers before you ever think of speaking meaningfully of what Christ has done for them. In practice the construction of worldview happens only after you have a solid grasp of the various aspects of cultural, and after your language ability allows you to proceed to this next step. You must not be guessing at that point, but must know what mental images your words and examples are triggering.  Without specific, pointed, detailed investigation of these areas you can and will speak only in generalities within a small arena of what you think you “know”. It takes time…but the results are worth it. In fact the importance of your message and of its accurate communication demand that investment of time!

5) Ethnographic interview (20) – you will learn to formally ask the questions of individuals that will give you insight and understanding into the different belief and value systems of their culture that we just enumerated.

6) Form and meaning (10) – you will learn how to distinguish between form and meaning in all of communication. This will especially give you the ability to avoid misunderstandings by assuming that similar “forms” shared by two cultures contain similar “meanings”.

 

Church Planting

The goal of the great commission, the primary means of seeing God’s Name honored among the nations, the primary means of bringing transformations to the nations, and the focus of Radius’ training is Church Planting. A healthy, reproducing group of obedient Jesus followers among the Unreached People Groups of the world is the goal of Radius’ training. Learning language and culture simply provide Radius students with the tools you need to accomplish the end of starting Biblically healthy, culturally relevant churches among your target Unreached People Group. In fact, every piece of Radius’ curriculum is designed to give you what you need to do that better. So, church planting, in many ways, is at the heart of the training.

Because this is at the heart of what Radius does, and because this is a point at which we differ with some of the thinking that is out there, even among missions organizations, it is worth clarifying what we mean by “the church”. Jesus did not intend for His statement “where two or three have gathered together in My name” to be a definition of the church. A church is a group of obedient Jesus followers that is salt and light in its community and that carries out its corporate functions as the body of Christ. It grows out of its own social and cultural context, so it is comprised of families, marriages, children, and elderly. It has mature leadership that teaches, disciples and exhorts. As a living organism it grows through bringing in new believers and through reproduction. It loves and cares for its own members, including the poor and the elderly. It meets regularly for teaching, worship and regular giving. It loves its neighbors by meeting their needs. It evangelizes those around it and sends its own members to disciple the nations. These are not Western ideas, but New Testament concepts that must be built into the churches that you plant.

At Radius you will learn:

1) Entry strategy (20) – you will be taught to ask the right questions about having legitimacy and identifiability in the country of your target people and within your host culture, and then to design a strategy for answering those questions.

2) Church Planting stages (50) – you will learn the respective stages of church planting and how to implement each stage of the process. Those stages are:

• Pre-evangelism – What is your identity in the community? What relationships are you developing? What are the best contexts and means for communicating the Truth? To whom? What are the belief systems already present among your target people?
• Evangelism – you will learn how to present the Gospel chronologically (see below under “Biblical Foundations”). You will learn how to implement the conclusions of your culture study in order to properly contextualize the presentation of the Gospel, while avoiding syncretism.
• Nurturing new believers – you will learn to develop biblically and culturally appropriate styles of discipling new believers that will lay the foundation for a healthy church.
• Gathering new believers – you will learn the principles involved in giving individual followers of Jesus a corporate identity within their own context. You will be introduced to the C-scale discussion and begin formulating a missiology of appropriate contextualization.
• Leadership training – you will learn to consciously equip believers in your host culture to be the spiritual leaders of their own congregations. This is the direct preparation for your own departure.
• Exit strategy – you will be taught to create and implement a specific strategy leading to your own departure…to the complete turning over of the church to local leadership.

3) Ecclesiology/New Testament church principles (30) – you will develop a biblically-based understanding and theology of the Church (ecclesiology). What is the church? If our job is to start them, we have to have a very clear idea of what we are starting. You will also define the essential New Testament principles of church life and practice in order to appropriately incorporate those into the church(es) you start.

4) Church Planting and various contexts:

• Animism and Folk Religions (30) – you will be provided with tools for analyzing animism and folk religion and for guiding strategies to plant churches effectively among folk religions or animistic peoples.
• Islam (15) – you will be introduced to a Muslim worldview and to the unique issues involved in planting churches in a Muslim setting, including determining the appropriate level of contextualization.
• Hinduism (10) – you will be introduced to a Hindu worldview and to the unique issues involved in planting churches in a Hindu setting.
• Buddhism (10) – you will be introduced to a Buddhist worldview and to the unique issues involved in planting churches in a Buddhist setting.
• Urban Church Planting (15) – you will learn to identify and apply the principles that are unique to and that contribute to success in planting churches in an urban context.

5) Alternative missiologies (20) – you will be introduced to practices in the missions world in general and in church planting in particular that do not emphasize a long-term, incarnational approach to cross-cultural ministry. We will look at the strengths and weaknesses of these alternative approaches, and how to work with those who espouse them.

 

Biblical Foundations

It is very important to us that you understand the rationale for what you are doing in the light of the Big Picture. We want you to understand the ministry of Church Planting among the nations in light of the whole biblical narrative. Missions is not just one of the things that God is doing…God’s glory among the nations is the goal of and theme of the entire Biblical drama.

At Radius you will learn:

1) Foundational Bible Teaching (60) – You will learn to understand the theocentric unfolding of the Biblical drama in order to:

• live your life in terms of the Big Picture
• be overwhelmed by the Person and Purposes of God and serve Him as a love response to the initiative He has already taken

2) Chronological teaching (50) – As a basic approach to laying the foundation for the future church, and for appropriately understanding the Gospel, you will learn to teach the Biblical story in the way that it unfolds in Scripture…in the way that God told it. You will learn to teach through the Old Testament to discover the Nature and Character of God as He reveals Himself through His acts in history; to teach through the Law to reveal the nature of sin as a foundational understanding for the need of atonement; to teach through the Old Testament types of Christ and redemptive analogies as the background and foundation for the story of Christ. You will learn to teach systematically through the key Biblical themes that lead to a clear understanding of the Gospel and lay a solid foundation for the church rather than randomly address topics in a disconnected way or focus on issues that are really only peripheral.

3) Biblical and systematic theology (30) – you will learn to think critically and practically about the essential themes and doctrines that have been presented through the unfolding of the Biblical narrative and to order those doctrines in a systematic way. This will give you the ability to:

• identify and correct any departures from sound doctrine in your church planting context
• allow and encourage appropriate local, contextualized expressions of theological themes

4) Hermeneutics (15) – you will be given the tools to know how to accurately interpret and apply Scripture, and to lead others to do the same.

 

Character

The Radius curriculum was designed in terms of what long-term, incarnational, cross-cultural church planters need by way of knowledge (know), skills (do) and character (be). This section summarizes what Radius is trying to build into our trainees by way of character…the “be” component.

As long-term missions mobilizers and observers of the missions scene, one of our observations is that though “success” on the field is often tied to the learning of the necessary cross-cultural skills, “survival” on the field is usually a factor of character. Do you have what it takes, or can you develop what it takes, to maintain the long-term, nose-to-the-grindstone, come-what-may attitude necessary to survive in a dangerous, difficult, often hostile, stressful, resistant, high-risk part of the world where the remaining Unreached Peoples live? Radius accepts the responsibility to both assess whether you have those qualities by replicating (to the extent possible) real-field situations, and to shoring up those qualities where they are lacking.

At Radius you will practice and/or learn:

1) Daily physical exercise (99) – emotional and spiritual stamina are very closely tied to physical stamina. Radius will help you recognize that connection and develop a habit of physical exercise. We also recognize that those who quit easily will not withstand the rigors of cross-cultural living.

2) Daily prayer for the nations (165) – this will keep your heart attuned to what is on God’s heart, and may well be the means by which the Spirit helps you identify the country and/or people where you will work long-term.

3) Regular disciplines – there is huge value in learning to say “yes” to those things you need to say yes to, and “no” to those things you need to say no to. Radius will implement regular disciplines based on situations often encountered in majority-world settings (such as no heating or cooling the ambient temperature, limited food options, no hot water, no electric appliances, no internet, etc.) to assess whether trainees are capable of living in urban, majority-world situations and to give you the backbone you will need to survive in a difficult setting. This component may feel like “boot camp”!

4) Single-minded focus – you will be tested to see if you have the undistracted devotedness necessary to learn language and culture, and to see a reproducing church planted in a difficult environment. You will learn to make decisions based on how they contribute to the accomplishing of the end goal, of how they contribute to the Big Picture. You will also learn to adopt a long-haul mentality that continues to press on until the job is done.

5) Work ethic – you will be taught the importance of as well as tested in your ability to put your nose to the grindstone and do the work that needs to be done in a disciplined way. In learning language and culture there is simply no substitute for disciplined, focused, monotonous, hard work.

6) Sportsmanship – How do you handle victory? How do you handle defeat? This simple process of the exposure of those character issues and developing the practice of winning well and losing well have huge ramifications for long-term success on the field.

7) “Thick-skinned” living – How sensitive are you? How often do you get your feelings hurt? Can you have the direct, grown-up discussions that are necessary between team members discussing life and death issues in stressful contexts? Or do your team members always have to put on kid gloves whenever you are part of the discussions? Learning to be thick skinned is essential not only for your survival, but for the survival of your team.

8) Stress preparedness – Radius will help you assess your ability to live in a high-stress environment. You will be asked to undergo designed stress that is intended to approximate real-field situations. Some of those will be:

• Loss of personal “rights” (privacy, space, etc.)
• Going “off the grid” and allowing very limited “virtual” relationships or on-line time
• Providing few conveniences or luxuries, including no vehicle
• Requiring austere living conditions
• Putting you in an environment of 24/7 access to one another’s lives and time

9) High-risk preparedness (25) – you will be trained in anticipating and appropriately responding to kidnappings, terrorist threats, and various hostilities. This will involve being emotionally and psychologically prepared to deal with the daily reality of threats toward spouses and children.

10) Marriage on the field (35) – marriages and families are exceptionally vulnerable on the field. The enemy knows that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so he goes after the weakest link in the family to break the whole chain. Though “risks” are real, it is much more often the day-to-day grind which becomes the point of contention that discourages individuals, that divides family focus and that undermines ministry success. This will be addressed by:

• Defining biblical expectations for our marriages, our families, our parenting, etc.
• Developing strategies for dealing with the day-to-day grind as an entire family

11) Singleness on the field (25) – Close to one third of the global missions force is single, and most of those are women. Some of the concerns for singles and some of the skills you will learn at Radius are:

• How to “protect” single women and give them proper “coverage” in a team setting
• The importance of “above reproach” living for singles and how to always maintain that and avoid inappropriate communication or relationships in your cultural setting
• The importance of “contentment” for singles and how to recognize and deal with the signs of discontent

12) Working on teams: (50)

• Team decision making – you will learn to make plans, implement them and carry them to their conclusion as part of a team. This will include working with personality types that significantly differ from yours.
• Conflict resolution – you will learn biblical strategies for resolving conflict and for making decisions when there are serious disagreements.

13) Spiritual disciplines (66) – for both your emotional and your spiritual well-being you will be introduced to the practice of some of the classic spiritual disciplines. This is a key component in surviving spiritual hostilities in territory that the enemy thinks is his.

 

Ministry Practices & Skills

There are basic practical skills that everyone in ministry needs to master, as well as some that are particularly related to cross-cultural ministry.

At Radius you will practice and/or learn:

1) Prayer for the Nations (165) – you will be introduced to the prayer tools and will daily practice prayer for the Unreached People Groups around the world, as well as for workers who are working among them.

2) Guided reading (330) – you will do extensive reading in all areas related to pioneer church planting and will interact with other students and instructors on a regular basis about the principles found in those readings. You will learn the value of maintaining an on-going, life-long practice of learning and growing.

3) Health in a majority-world setting (15) – you will learn the resources and strategies for coping with the unique diseases and health issues that you will likely encounter in your ministry setting.

4) Choosing a sending agency (10) – you will be directed to several Radius “endorsed” sending agencies and given direction in knowing how to chose one agency over another.

5) Relationships with your local church (10) – you will be introduced to as well as practice the vital aspect of maintaining good communication with your sending church and with your supporters.

6) Developing a sending team (10) – you will learn the importance of having a designated sending team and how to develop and educate such a team from your sending church so that they will understand what it means to be good senders and so that you will have the support from your home church that you need.

 

Though not comprehensive, this gives you a good idea of the kind of training you will receive at Radius. If you have any questions about anything that is either listed or not listed in this overview of curriculum, please don’t hesitate to contact us and ask for clarification or further explanation. We would love the opportunity of explaining our rationale for including each element that we are building into the training, and we would love to hear if perhaps we are leaving out essential components that need to be added in.