On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced a landmark executive order. The order declared a bold challenge for intrepid, young adult professionals to give themselves to work in foreign lands: “I have today signed an Executive Order providing for the establishment of a Peace Corps. . . . This Corps will be a pool of trained American men and women sent overseas by the U.S. government or through private institutions and organizations to help foreign countries meet their urgent needs for skilled manpower.”
“We will only send abroad Americans who are wanted by the host country—who have a real job to do—and who are qualified to do that job. . . . It is designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development. Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary, and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed—doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.”
The Peace Corps, which was ratified by Congress in September 1961, was the incarnation of thoughts Kennedy had first mentioned nearly a year earlier in October 1960 when he was running for the presidency. Then-Senator Kennedy stood on the steps of the University of Michigan Union and first hinted at his hopes: “How many of you, who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”
Kennedy’s call rings with the heart of AFM’s new tentmaker initiative: 1) Professionals doing “a real job.” 2) Sacrificial service. 3) Peacemaking as our aim.
Two months ago, AFM President Conrad Vine visited three Adventist tentmakers working in Iraq. Here are a few facts about them:
—They live within 100 miles of ISIS battle lines.
—They have found professional work on their own with secular corporations.
—They do not receive a salary from the church, nor are they donor-funded.
—They labor daily in their off hours to see the message of Jesus’ peace flourish in the hearts of local people.
What we are planning for our AFM tentmaker ministry is in line with Kennedy’s historic speech. He said, “But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps—who works in a foreign land—will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.”
I believe that is what many Adventist professionals are looking for as well—the satisfaction of using their God-given expertise to provide eternal value. The AFM tentmaker initiative is seeking to enable engineers, teachers, computer specialists and myriad other professions to live beyond the career ladder. We are organizing the tentmaker program in such a way that every man and woman who feels an inner compulsion to serve God in frontier mission work will be able to do so.
There are many walls that have hindered people from engaging in foreign service. AFM’s tentmaker program demolishes several of them:
1) Traditional mission calls are usually for five- to ten-year service cycles. AFM tentmakers will likely go for one to three years. Because tentmakers usually work with educated nationals who can communicate in English, shorter service times still can bear fruit.
2) Traditional mission calls are salaried by the church, thus limiting the number of calls to what the church can afford. Tentmakers topple this obstacle by drawing their income from their local employer.
3) Missionaries launching through supporting ministries have to raise funds, which can require much time and effort. Not so with tentmakers who can launch within weeks of landing a foreign job.
4) Traditional mission calls are limited by division, union and conference interest in receiving foreign missionaries. Thus, many minority people groups remain unreached because local church leadership has their hands full with majority groups.
But tentmakers are free to go wherever God calls them and provides employment.
In President Kennedy’s address, he said, “In establishing our Peace Corps, we intend to make full use of the resources and talents of private institutions and groups. Universities, voluntary agencies, labor unions and industry will be asked to share in this effort—contributing diverse sources of energy and imagination—making it clear that the responsibility for peace is the responsibility of our entire society.”
Those thoughts are equally true for AFM’s soon-to-be-launched tentmaker initiative. The AFM tentmaker program will draw on the diverse group of professionals now being educated in both denominational and self-supporting institutions. Our Adventist universities globally have an immense untapped potential to impact the 10/40 window. Though our schools are graduating talented individuals who have mission passion, unfortunately these graduates are rarely directed to the mission field because, practically speaking, there are few missionary calls for the diversity of majors our schools graduate. Not so in the foreign job market. Those interested in doing tentmaking missions will find a plethora of employers eager to engage them in interesting, edifying work that utilizes their talent mix.
Finally, President Kennedy said, “It is our hope to have 500 or more people in the field by the end of the year. The initial reactions to the Peace Corps proposal are convincing proof that we have, in this country, an immense reservoir of such men and women, anxious to sacrifice their energies and time and toil to the cause of world peace and human progress.”
Already, AFM is seeing an initial reaction indicating that great numbers of people are interested in tentmaking. Just as JFK needed a year to get the Peace Corps launched, we need a little time to prepare our ministry framework. We hope to send out our first wave of tentmakers in September of 2015. Until then, we have a lot of work to do to insure they have a safe, positive experience with maximum kingdom influence.
If you would like to register to be notified when AFM’s tentmaker training is ready, send an e-mail to GoTential@gmail.com.
By calling for ambassadors of peace, JFK proposed a hand-to-hand battle against “tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.” Since 1961, more than 200,000 Peace Corps volunteers have gone out. Now AFM is calling for a new dawn in Adventist missions, to send kingdom ambassadors to those in deepest darkness. With their intellect and industry ignited by the Holy Spirit, tentmakers have the potential to light the whole world.

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