Spurgeon College’s Fusion program, known as Fusion: International, launched 61 student-missionaries to the ends of the earth on Jan. 11, as the program’s deployment phase commenced.
Teams of four-to-seven students, known as cohorts, bid farewell to their families and friends and boarded planes headed for destinations across the globe. Each team will serve alongside International Mission Board missionaries for a 120-day period – undertaking tasks and projects that assist in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“After a semester of formal training and intensive discipleship, our Fusion cohorts are now heading to very difficult places to work with missionaries in the field and proclaiming the gospel to the lost,” said Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Seminary & Spurgeon College. “We are extremely proud of the dedication these students have shown in preparing for this semester-long deployment, and we pray that through this experience they will gain a heart for a lifetime of missions service.”
The heaviest concentration of teams will be in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, while other cohorts will serve in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. Once on the ground, members of these 11 teams will engage in serving opportunities such as English as a Second Language teaching, people group research and mapping, church planting, and church leadership training.
“Our teams will be partnering alongside long-term IMB missionaries to advance their ongoing strategy to plant and multiply churches in the world’s hardest to reach places,” said Fusion Director Erik Odegard, who is a Fusion alumnus and has led the program since 2013. “Fusion projects always have a direct connection with the missionary task of proclaiming the gospel, discipling believers, building churches, and raising up leaders.
“These cohorts have prepared well in these areas, and now they will go, as is called for in the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations. The ultimate aim of Fusion is found in our motto: ‘So others may hear and live.’ It is our prayer that souls will be saved as a result of these students’ efforts.”
Spurgeon College Dean, Sam Bierig, noted that because of their extensive training, Fusion students are welcomed by missionaries in the field, “These teams come by request of IMB missionaries around the globe who are convinced that young believers, with the right training and with proper expectations, can make a significant contribution to their work.
“Fusion cohorts train throughout Phase I in disciplines such as navigating public transportation, implementing personal security practices, and overcoming the daily challenges of living in a tough environment. As a result, they are competent to carry out the practical skills needed for making disciples in hard places. Thus, they are welcomed as valuable team members to missionaries in the field.”
When Fusion students arrive at Spurgeon College in August, throughout the training phase, they experience academic and physical training as well as one-on-one and group discipleship, which helps in developing deeper relationships amongst the cohort members and their leaders.
They also learn language skills particular to the part of the world where they will deploy. Then, to practically apply the lessons and language skills they’ve learned in the classroom, Fusion students partner with local Kansas City churches to evangelize and to work and minister among the many different people groups throughout the city.
“We would ask that Southern Baptists everywhere keep these young people in their prayers,” Allen added. “This calling to serve Jesus through missions is a great responsibility and will require complete dependence upon the Lord. In the end, we pray their lives will be transformed, and that they will return to Kansas City and their home churches with a fire and passion for missions that will spread to numerous others.”
In addition to the Fusion: International track, Spurgeon College recently announced Fusion: North America, which focuses student training and field ministry on church planting and serving in local churches within the North American context.
To learn more about Fusion or to register for the program, visit spurgeoncollege.com/fusion.
