Entry

Abstract

One purpose of IMB’s Foundations1 is to highlight the foundation and parameters on which missionaries build strategies and tactics. There are six core components to the missionary task. The first task listed is Entry. Effective entry is critical to the process, as we must cultivate “access to people who need to hear the gospel” if we want to reach them.2 That step requires missionaries not only to know the unreached peoples they are seeking to reach, but also to know themselves well so their access strategy fits within biblical parameters as well as their giftedness, training, and calling. In some ways, entry starts when potential missionaries begin to address their calling and consider their options. Gailyn Van Rheenen notes that missionary candidates are frequently “certain of God’s call to missions but unsure of the place to which God is leading them.”3 God may burden a potential missionary for a particular peole or place through study, shortterm trips, or other means. These potential laborers wrestle through several