OBJECTIVE:Ministries

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Beyond The Mall

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Taking The Mission

Beyond The Mall

With Wendy Tullar

"Enemy-occupied territory – that's what the world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."

— C.S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity

In my years as a Mall Missionary, I have had to come up with many tactics to get around those forces of Secularism that would have all mention of God abolished from the public arena. It is my belief that some of these Mall Mission tactics can be applied in other, non-mall venues as part of the greater campaign of sabotage that we as Christians are called upon to engage in against the enemies of God. To that end, I have developed a number of new missions based on the principles and techniques I have learned.

While I have implemented these new missions myself to some limited degree, I have not exploited the full evangelical potential that they offer. Hopefully, by describing them here, others will answer the calling to take up these new missiological forms, which then can, like the Mall Mission before them, blossom into full-fledged missionary movements in their own right.

Here is are two of my more developed mission concepts:

If you implement either of them, please contact us at OBJECTIVE: Ministries to let us know your success or failure. Anything learned will be reported here so that we can continue to develop these new missions.

Mobile Ten Commandments Brigade

The Problem

As we enter the End Times, antagonism towards God's Ten Commandments is growing among the militant Secularists, who -- spurred by Satan in a last-ditch attempt to arrogantly seek power for themselves -- would deny that all righteous Earthly systems of justice are based on His word. To that horrible end, these bitter, spiteful Atheists are trying to have all copies of the Commandments removed from public sight!

You are probably familiar with their successful attack on Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who defied threats against him and bravely placed a granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building, only to have Secularistic judges order it, and Justice Moore, removed. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg of their villainy, as Decalogues all over our Nation are under Secular attack. (Visit Restore The Commandments to keep abreast of current anti-Commandment activities, and learn ways you can oppose them.)

It is imperative that Christians and Jews (and, to an extent, our Muslim neighbors, whose flawed Koran gives them some vague understanding of what God actually said,) act to keep the Commandments from being removed from our courts, townhalls, and other public places. If the Secularists should get their way, our society will fall into decadence and we would become unable to reach the unsaved before the Rapture: lies and deceit that would make even Chris Harper pause will reign, creating utter confusion about the Truth; many will die, as laws against murder are abandoned by those with no moral guidance not to kill; traditional family values will cease as children no longer honor their parents' teachings; most will be too smitten with covetousness to listen to our pleas for their souls; and none will be home on Sunday to answer the door when our Door2Door Missionaries come knocking, instead toiling away at work to manufacture ever more blasphemous Santamas gifts. We must not allow this to happen!

A Stopgap Measure Using Mall Mission Tactics

Fortunately, I think I have come up with a way to alleviate this problem using Mall Mission tactics: Employ the homeless to walk around in public places wearing sandwich boards with the Ten Commandments enumerated on the front and back.

This Mobile Ten Commandments Brigade (or MXCB) will be able to avoid the prohibition on government endorsed Decalogues since they will be acting extragovernmentally. As their name implies, they will be highly mobile, able to avoid any additional censorship put into place to keep private citizens from speaking the Truth by continuously moving through target areas, much as my Mall Missionaries are able to avoid mall security. Also, they will be decentralized once deployed, making it difficult to stop them -- if one is kicked out of a building, another will eventually wander in.

This is, obviously, not an ideal solution. Ideally, we would like to have the Secular judges routed from power, the Ten Commandments returned to their proper central place on public lands, and the restoration of God's Laws to judicial preeminence. However, until the Lord sees fit to bring that victory to us, the MXCB will keep His Commandments in the public eye and blunt the damage done by the Secularists.

Why The Homeless?

Hiring of the downtrodden to wear sandwich boards is a tradition that goes back to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployed men were payed to wear advertising. Back then it was an economic depression our nation was facing, requiring the advertising of goods and services to help spur the economy; but today we are facing a Great Spiritual Depression, one that requires us to enlist the homeless in advertising God's Word to spur spiritual revival.

Besides tradition, the homeless are ideal for MXCB work for a number of practical reasons: Not having jobs, they have plenty of free time to spend walking around parks and public buildings. Also, being on the street all the day, they know the best ways to get around town on foot and avoid Secular authorities -- important abilities for the MXCB tactic to work.

Another important consideration is that many homeless will be willing to wear the sandwich boards for nothing more than a bowl of hot soup and some bread, which makes them ideal agents for mission groups with limited funds or volunteers.

Lastly, and most importantly, the homeless are often without hope and can usually trace the cause of their current condition to not following God's path. By enlisting them in the MXCB, we can smite two sins with one stone, both promoting the Decalogue and giving the homeless valuable, wearable instructions on how to turn their lives around. (And, in the mean time, the sandwich boards themselves can provide some measure of shelter against harsh weather.)

Implementation Notes

In order to avoid problems, not all homeless people are suitable for this mission straight off the street. Those that are drunk or mentally ill (beyond charming quirkiness) shouldn't be used at all, as they might become unruly and bring ill repute to the mission. Scruffiness or unpleasant odors should be dealt with before issuing a sandwich board; your Brigade HQ should be stocked with grooming supplies and clean clothing for the new recruits.

No special training for the Commandment carriers is required, as all they need to do is wear the boards in view of the public. However, they should be instructed not speak beyond answering simple questions, as they are not trained in missioning and may confuse listeners by giving theologically incorrect statements. Although the goal is for people to see the Commandments, the carriers should be cautioned not to make too much of a spectacle of themselves -- such as by yelling or dancing about -- as this could lead to their being given a premature bum's rush, lowering their missiological effectiveness.

Also consider issuing your brigade a supply of pamphlets with the Commandments written on them and any additional information you feel inspired to include (however, be careful not to include contact information unless you are prepared to deal with the Secular authorities or ACLU lawyers showing up at your Church seeking retribution). The homeless can be instructed to hand these out to anyone that seems interested, but should not force them on people nor litter them.

One thing I've learned from dealing with Secular mall security while trying to witness to consumers is that you need to work in waves. Security will eventually ask you to leave the mall and you must have someone waiting to move in and replace you. By having a large number of homeless in the brigade, they can wander from public space to public space, so when one is asked to leave another will soon take his place. The more homeless you can enlist, the more successful the mission will be.

FaithMobs

FaithMobs are a type of decentralized, guerrilla prayer group designed to jar the unsaved (or lukewarm Christians) out of their Worldly mindset and raise their awareness of the Truth using unexpected or incongruent actions1.

FaithMobs also have Mall Missionary applications, and I have often employed them successfully in breaking shoppers and mall employees out of their Secular Consumeristic stupor, for instance by having many random people go up to merchants in clothing or housewares stores and asking where they keep their Bibles. FaithMobbing can be used in any setting where people are engaged in activities that distract them from God; this includes not only stores, but also workplaces, government buildings, public transportation, and Secular entertainment events.

A typical FaithMob would work like this: Organizers would e-mail or hand out fliers to church members with instructions on where and when to show up and what action to take, and ask them to forward the message to as many friends as they can. All people involved arrive separately at the location and are not to communicate with each other while there. At the appointed time or signal, the action would take place. After it is done, everyone will disperse quietly and calmly as if nothing had just happened.

Some ideas for FaithMobs to do include:

  • Saying a short, audible prayer.
  • Silently praying for the unsaved around you. They will be surprised when God blesses them.
  • Yelling "Hallelujah!", either in unison or at random, spontaneous intervals.
  • Looking up into the sky, smiling and pointing.
  • Turning to the nearest non-FaithMobber and saying "Jesus loves you."
  • Humming "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" in unison while going about your business.
  • During a Secular movie, have everyone's cell phone ring, all using the same Christian ringtone.
  • Riding up escalators with arms outstretched and face joyfully raised skyward as if ascending into Heaven.

Because they only last a short time and are organized covertly, FaithMobs are a great way to quickly reach the unsaved before Secularists can stop you.

Footnotes:

  1. « FaithMobbing is a technique that I invented and developed during the 1990s and successfully used a number of times in malls; for example, back in 1999 I organized a FaithMob of over 100 people to converge on a Disney Store to spontaneously pray for America to repent. However, I have learned that FaithMobs have since been co-opted by Liberal Secularists under the ribald name "flash mobs" and used for meaningless entertainment, not the awareness-raising purpose I intended. I suspect that this was a deliberate move by the forces of Secular Consumerism to try and trivialize this powerful witnessing technique before I could teach it to other Mall Missionaries.

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