Recruitment Starts A New Short Term Service Program - Global Service Program
Dear Friends,
Today Wycliffe’s Recruitment Ministries department is pleased to announce that Wycliffe USA is launching a new program to engage people in short term opportunities called Global Service Program. We hope to see many more people involved in the Bible translation movement as a result. This new program will be managed and operated by Recruitment Ministries and will allow people to use this short term service program as an avenue toward becoming Wycliffe USA members.
GSP HISTORY
The idea for this project was initially recommended two years ago when Larry Jones met with the Recruitment Ministries leadership team. After a week of collaborative processing, we developed a four pronged approach to strategically resource Vision 2025 people needs from Wycliffe USA. One of the ideas that emerged was to develop a short term service option that would quickly process individuals and provide some mentoring for them during their service in an SIL or Wycliffe assignment.
The added benefit of this arrangement being that each entity will evaluate and have a significant part to play in determining each person’s long term service in Wycliffe USA.
Discussions have continued over recent months with the Offices of the President, Recruitment Ministries and Personnel sections regarding this concept.
GSP PURPOSE
The purpose of this program, which we hope to launch beginning January 1, 2010, is to provide people with an opportunity to serve in INSITE open positions for a period of six months to two years. During that time a growth plan will be formulated for meeting membership requirements that were not met at the time of entry into the GSP program.Each participant will be assigned an GSP mentor who will connect with the participant at specific times on the field to ensure there is adequate support for each participant’s service as well as monitor the participant’s meeting of goals from the growth plan on the road to membership.
MOVE TOWARD MEMBERSHIP
By the end of the service time in the GSP program, it is expected that the person will have fulfilled all of the membership requirements or equivalents and be able to seamlessly become a Wycliffe member. This means that during their term of service with GSP certain steps will be necessary for the participant to meet membership requirements or equivalents. They will also need to receive a favorable review from the leadership in their field of service.
GSP APPLICATION
The application for participation into the GSP program will allow people to move quickly into a service position. Our intention is that the application process will take less than a month with placement into a position soon thereafter. Therefore, the GSP application will be looking to fulfill the minimum requirements for service. The application to the GSP program will likely be a hybrid between a trip or internship application and the current application for membership. Discussions with Personnel Administration will need to take place during the developmental stages of this program to ensure a smooth transition from the GSP program to membership.
REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATION IN GSP
A significant aspect of this program will be a ‘Code of Conduct’ agreement. Each GSP participant in the program will have to agree to and abide by the principles of this code. The code of conduct will affirm the Statement of Faith of Wycliffe, but will also address expected behaviors and the expectations for growth in the individual’s life. Certain behaviors could prevent a person from serving with the GSP program.Non-compliance to the code of conduct during a term of service will result in a quick exit from the program and departure from a field of service. The program will not have school debt limits that prevent an individual from short term service and will likely have a higher limit on non-secured debt. We are asking Personnel Administration to reconsider current school and non-secured debt policies for membership.
GSP LAUNCH
The GSP program will be rolled out in phases with teachers and their spouses representing the first group. Other specialty department assignments (likely IT, Administration, Finance, etc.) will follow some months later and eventually this program will roll out during the 2010 year to all assignment possibilities.
Details such as how finances and insurance are handled will need to be sorted out.
Assistance will be given to the individual as it relates to raising needed funds upon review and approval into the program and orientation to Wycliffe.
GSP LEADERSHIP
At this time, Chuck Micheals will be heading up the GSP program. He will be assembling a team to help fully develop the GSP program starting January 2010.
PRAYER NEEDS
Please pray for Chuck as he works to develop an GSP team and for needed GSP staff. Please pray for discussions with Personnel Administration as the GSP staff work with them to develop membership equivalents. Please pray for the work that will be needed to promote the program and for the selection of a program name.
Blessings,
Chuck Micheals
Recruitment in Wycliffe Increases 30% In Five Years!!!
We praise the Lord that recruitment continues to increase each year. Our recruitment since 2002 has risen 30%! When we arrived in 2004, our recruitment the year before resulted in 133 new members. Since October 2004 we have had 1025 people join Wycliffe.
We are also happy to report that recruitment costs have gone down 29% over last year. This savings has reduced our recuitment costs by $ 300,000!
This year, Chuck and Barb helped lead a short term mission trip to Papua New Guinea. Barb helped organize and plan this trip and will soon be starting to plan for the 2010 short term trips Wycliffe does. You can read about these trips for high school students online at:
In the past two years, we have had three young high school students who have been on GET Global trips in the past make a commitment to become Bible translators and so have begun to apply to undergratudate schools that teach Bible translation and applied linguistics.
Chuck has been very involved in buidling partnerships with other Christian organizations to help Wycliffe find new pools of recruits. In the past year, Churck has worked in building partnerships with Perspectives. He has also worked with Focus on the Family's The Truth Project and now has a site people can go to who have taken The Truth Project and want to learn how they can serve the world's poor by serving with Wycliffe.
Navigators is another partnership Chuck has worked on. In the summer of 2009, Wycliffe and the Navigators had a joint short term trip to Ghana. Our hope is that Navigator students will want to serve with Wycliffe and our college trip participants will join a Navigator group while in college.
Work continues on our 'Military2Missions' partnership. A planning meeting is scheduled for Novembeer to help create a web site where people leaving the USA military can find ways to serve as missionaries with Wycliffe. Here is our draft version of the Military2Missions web site:
We appreciate your continued prayers as we lead Wycliffe's recruitment work in the USA.
New Recruitment Work in 2008 and 2007 Ministry Work
National Recruitment Ministries Leadership Team. We recently hosted our national recruitment meetings in August in California. Our topics for discussion are:
What promotional material do we need to do our recruitment work? A media plan has been developed, but dicussions will be held about how to better engage with the internet, radio and even tevelion to get the word out that Wycliffe needs workers.
How do we better assist people who are applying to Wycliffe? Many people begin the process, but most never follow through after they start.
Wycliffe is looking at various partnerships this fall to help with recruitment work. Some current partners that we have recently teamed up with are:
Our major work these past few months has been to implement the recommendations of a recruitment survey. This has included:
Changing the way we do our recruitment work by focusing more on relationship building than before. We now have recruiters spending 70% of their time in relationship building and 30% of our time in vision casting.
Changing the way we handle our application. It is now more relational and involves a team of two staff to work with each recruit. A pilot project showed that this approach can double our recruitment.
Update our new recruitment brochures. We recently completed six new recruitment brochures. Two more brochures are being planned.
Meeting with a study group to find ways to increase our diversity in Wycliffe. While we have had recruiters recruiting in Korean, Chinese and African American areas for several years, the results have been small. We created a Mosaic Commission to look at the issues related to that and now Chuck is working on implementing the recommendations from the commission.
Setting up a recruitment training program. Chuck now has five full time staff training our 150 recruiters. In August Chuck's training team held its first training event in Orlando, FL. In April another training event will be held in Dallas, TX.
Setting up a new database to track recruits and designing a reporting system to better understand what is happening with our recruitment.
Held two Recruitment days of prayer to focus on our relationship with God through prayer.
Coming Up - Our 2007 Ministry Work Plans
A. In late December and early January Chuck's recruitment department will be representing Wycliffe at Inter Varsity's Urbana program. Urbana will have over 20,000 young people attend this important mission conference.
Here are the seminars Wycliffe is doing at Urbana:
1. Indigenous Expressions of Biblical Faith - Tom Coombs 2. Christian Response to Islam - Abdul-Massih Saadi 3. Overcoming Obstacles to Missions (Debt, Doubt, Indentity Issues & More) - Maralee Gutierrez 4. Women in Missions Today: Role Models and Reality - Maralee Gutierrez (panel of missionaries) 5. Prayer, Revival and Missions: The History of Prayer in Missions - George Cowan
Pray for good recruit contacts at Urbana and for many of these young people to move toward membership with Wycliffe.
B. In March 2007 Chuck & Barb will be attending the opening of Wycliffe's office in Puerto Rico. This opening is a result of over four years of work by Chuck's department in getting the recruitment work established there.
Pray that many new people will join our work from Puerto Rico. Already two women have started the process.
C. In April 2007 Chuck hosts his National Recruitment Ministries Leadership Team meetings in Dallas, Texas. These meetings set the strategy for our work.
Pray for good meetings and that God will continue to reveal His will for our work.
Our July 2006 Ministry Work
In July 2006 Chuck will be traveling to Puerto Rico to work with his recruitment staff to find ways to better support the work going on in that country. Chuck is responsible for oversight of the recruitment work there.
Wycliffe has eight volunteer staff who head up the work there. While they have been active for several years, the response from Puerto Ricans has been slow. While interest is high, the number of people responding to apply with Wycliffe has been low. So, Chuck is heading there to work with our Wycliffe Americas office to find ways to see this work produce fruit.
The Church Task Force concluded its meetings with a recommendation that Wycliffe create a National Church Realations department. Current that proposal is before the Wycliffe President, Bob Creson. We expect an answer soon.
Barb has been busy helping organize two short term trips (Mexico/Honduras) for our Get Global program. Get Global helps high school and college students go overseas to observe our work first hand. We pray that many who attend these trips will apply to Wycliffe or make a committment to study linguistics when they go to college. The Mexico trip leaves June 28 and comes back July 10.
Chuck has also been involved serving as a member of the Mosaic Commission, which was assembled to find ways to see more ethnic communities join us in our work. Recommendations were also made to the Wycliffe President and we are waiting for his response on this issue too.
Chuck is working on budgets this past two weeks. Work needs to be completed by July 7. Chuck's team is also working on producing new media peices for recruitment, creating plans for Wycliffe's presence at Urbana 2006 (December 27 - 31) and helping organize his next National Mobilization Leadership Team meetings in Portland, OR in August.
JanuaryJanuary 2006 Ministry Work
In January 2006 Chuck will reassemble the Church Mobilization Task Force to discuss how Wycliffe will work with the Church in the USA over the next three to five years. This important task force is comprised of Wycliffe Church Mobilization workers in addition to several pastors. Please pray for meetings scheduled in early January and again in February.
January will also be a time when all 150 Wycliffe Mobilizers will assemble for their first National Mobilization Conference at Lake Yale Baptist Convention Center. Chuck called for this meeting to bring unity to a team that is spread out from coast to coast. Oli Jacobson, board chairman for New Tribes Mission, will be the devotional speaker along with Dr. Steve Brown from the Reformed Theological Seminary. Training workshops along with general sessions on the theme "Together In Unity" from Psalm 133:1 will round out our week. Please pray for safety in travel and for a spirit of love and unity among our team.
Chuck & Barb are also traveling to Peru to attend SIL's branch conference there. You can read more about this at the toolbar to the left. Please pray for safety in travel and that Chuck & barb can effectively encourage the believers there.
Chuck is also heavily involved in many new changes in his Mobilization department. You can read about some of these new ventures at the toolbar to the left. These changes have taken him on travels to the states of PA, OK, MI, WI, TX, CA, OR, NC in the past six months. More travel is ahead as he challenges his team with Mobilization's goal of recruiting 7000 new members by 2014. Pray for safety in travel, peace among his staff as they go through these changes and good health.
December 2005 Ministry Work
In late November Chuck attended the National Mobilization meetings in Orlando, FL at Wycliffe's USA Headquarters. These yearly meetings set a new course for our work. We adopted a new Purpose Statement, "Accelerate the pace of Bible translation by recruiting 7000 new members by 2014".
Why that number and year? Well, several years ago Wycliffe adopted a new Vision Statement, "We exist to see a Bible translation project started for every remaining language group by the year 2025." That's a statement that can only be accomplished by God, but it is a challenge to us all to see this work complete in our lifetime!
So, we need these 7000 new members by 2014 so that we have the resources in place to fulfill Vision 2025. It takes several years of training to equip Bible translators and build infrustruce to reach this vision.
Please pray with us for God's provision for this goal.
October - November Ministry Work (Pasts)
Barb & Chuck participated in Wycliffe's national mobilization meetings in Orlando, FL in April. At these meetings Chuck presented the mobilization research he worked on in February and March as did a research firm that did an evaluation of our recruitment process.
June - July MinistryWork (Past)
Barb & Chuck participated in Wycliffe's national mobilization meetings in Orlando, FL in April. At these meetings Chuck presented the mobilization research he worked on in February and March as did a research firm that did an evaluation of our recruitment process.
As a result of these reports and our meetings the need for better training, better recruiting materials to use in the work and the need to concentrate in more focused areas producing results surfaced. Therefore, another meeting was called in early June in which Chuck revisited the Wycliffe center in Orlando with a smaller group of mobilizers to help resolve some of these issues.
At these meetings, our Wycliffe North Central Regional Office was asked to participate in a pilot project whereby mobilizers who do recruiting will also be the ones to handle the recruits application if they apply. In the past, once a person applied to Wycliffe, the person's name was send to our headquarters in Orlando and another person took up the application.
Chuck is currently setting up meetings with mobilizers in the area to begin work on setting up this pilot project. The initial meetings will probably be scheduled for early July.
This pilot project is the first of ten recommendations that we decided on at the April meetings. Other recommendations for training, better material production and more focused recruitment efforts are all underway to some degree by our national mobilization leadership.
April - May Ministry Work (Past)
Barb & Chuck will be travelling to Orlando, FL to participate in national recruitment meetings in the end of April. These meetings will help set the direction of our mobilization work for the next year.
When they return from Florida Chuck & Barb will be hosting their 5th Total It Up course at the regional office where they work for Wycliffe. This week long course is designed to teach young people the basics of Bible translation. Classes are held on phonetics, phonology, grammar, translation in addition to classes on Literacy, Sociolinguistic Survey and several days of Language Learning with speakers of another language.
March - April Ministry Work (Past)
Barb & Chuck travelled to Huntington College (IN) in late March and early April to participate in their college's mission conference. They gave several mission workshops as well as interacted with students and staff and challenging them to involvement in missions.
In April, Chuck & Barb also hosted a Trans Scan, one day workshop on Bible translation, at Huntington College on April 3. We had 26 people attend with 13 students coming from Huntington College. Another Trans Scan hosted by Chuck & barb will be held on April 17 at the Wycliffe regional office in West Chicago, IL.
In mid April, the Lord willing Chuck will be travelling to Minnesota for meetings with the Area Coordinator team there. Chuck will be meeting with the three Wycliffe couples who are doing recruitment work for Wycliffe in the St. Paul and Minneapolis area to help review their first year of work and to help them set plans for the summer and fall.
Later in April, the Lord willing Chuck & Barb will be traveling to Orlando, Fl to participate in Wycliffe's semi-annual national mobilization meetings. These meetings will help set strategy for future recruitment work later on in the year.
Chuck finished the research project he was asked to do by Wycliffe's Vice-President's office. This project researched our recruitment database to help determine what trends exist in our mobilization work. Chuck did research about this for our North Central regional area in December and now he has been asked to do this for our national mobilization work.
This research is needed because Wycliffe's overall number of new members continues to decline in spite of many new programs. This combined with the aging population of Wycliffe members has resulted in the total numbers of people involved in Bible translation work with Wycliffe to actually decline in spite of the fact that last year over 150 people joined Wycliffe. More Wycliffe members are retiring than those joining.
Now Chuck and Barb can do back to their regional mobilization work
Pray that God will move many more people into this work so that the number of new language projects can grow and that existing projects can be better supported. Urgent needs also exist in teaching and aviation areas. Translators are being called in the meet some teaching needs and some translators have not been able to get out to their villages because of a lack of pilots.
