What Is Fusion?
Fusion is a College Freshman year-long life transforming process that blends personal and spiritual disciplines with challenging opportunities for ministry leadership and practice. The Fusion process includes a regimen of rigorous personal and spiritual disciplines that instill personal responsibility, godly character, and a passion for Christian service. This training is immediately followed by a four month international mission experience. Placed throughout the Fusion process are powerful rite of passage experiences that instill in participants a personal transcendent cause for the Christian life that is both supremely meaningful and eternal. The result of the Fusion process is a young adult who is spiritually mature and capable of exhibiting personal bravery, leadership, and sacrifice for the cause of the Great Commission and calling of Jesus Christ!
What makes Fusion truly unique is that students experience the Acts 1:8 mission directive while growing in “wisdom and stature with God and man” (Luke 2:52). This is possible because Fusion unites the resources of local and state ministries with those of the International Mission Board. Additionally, Fusion participants complete a year-long educational component (27 credit hours) offered through Midwestern Baptist College-SBC; the undergraduate program of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This ensures that students attending Fusion have the very best experience while receiving a year of fully transferable college credit.
Students who attend Fusion complete two distinct phases that are designed to help them prepare for the challenges of international ministry and everyday life. Both phases build on each other and provide participants the very best experiences and practical training to equip them for life and ministry wherever the Lord may place them.
Phase One - 1st Semester
Phase One takes place in Kansas City, Missouri, and includes classroom work and intense personal and spiritual training. During Phase One, students live, train, and serve together in cohorts. It is in the first phase that participants receive training critical to the successful completion of Fusion. Formal classroom training is held weekly at Midwestern Baptist College. Training faculty includes pastors, Christian leaders, missionaries, and professors. Courses are fully accredited and transferable through Midwestern Baptist College.
Included in Phase One are personal and corporate training scenarios that are conducted outdoors (think team building). Individuals and teams will experience various challenges designed to help them develop mutual trust and respect for other class members, as well as develop skills needed to work with others overseas. Training scenarios can include (but are not limited to): low and high ropes courses, orienteering/GPS usage, first aid training, isolated rescue scenarios, and wilderness experiences such as hiking, rock climbing, and rappelling. Training of this nature is designed to take students beyond classroom lecture and into the realm of self confidence and personal competence in their ability to live and serve as believers. Important! These experiences are designed to be accomplished regardless of a person’s physical abilities and are intended to be tailored to the abilities of both the individual and group.
Also in Phase One, students complete personal internships through local churches around Kansas City. These internships allow students to work alongside pastors, church planters, and other ministry professionals. Through these internships, students learn what it takes to be a person of influence and how to lead others through the planning, coordination, and implementation of different programs. Ministry opportunities include (but are not limited to) internships in evangelism, youth and student ministry, inner city ministry, church planting, and worship leadership. Students’ personal experiences, coupled with guidance and direction received from ministry leaders, will help them understand how much time and energy goes into leading people and growing a church. Whether called to vocational ministry or not, these experiences are intended to help young people understand personal responsibility in leadership as well as their need to support the work of the local church, both physically and financially, throughout their lives.
Phase Two - 2nd Semester
Phase Two begins upon completion of 1st semester's classroom studies and Fusion’s domestic training. During Phase Two, students travel overseas four months or longer to experience international ministry and put what they have learned in the USA to the test. This international work could be completed in many different areas of the world including Africa, Europe, Asia, Pacific Rim, and South America.
For the safety of Fusion participants, specific ministry areas are provided only to registered students. For more information on ministry service areas and options, please contact the Fusion office.
Phase Two serves two critical purposes. First, students get to experience the international mission field and what international missionaries go through on a daily basis. This includes the joys of seeing churches planted and lives changed, as well as the hardships of living in a culture that may be closed to the Gospel of Jesus. Students also develop the leadership skills necessary to lead a mission team around the globe and empower them to passionately serve in the name of Jesus Christ as they partner with missionaries and local believers.
Second, participants gain a significant cross-cultural experience and internalization of a foreign language. A cross-cultural experience includes learning about local customs and courtesies, religion, and history. While on the international mission field, students are not expected to learn fluently a foreign language, rather they are to gain the basics of how to learn a foreign language and communicate in a cross cultural, multi language setting. This experience is invaluable for students who study foreign language in college, plan to work in business, or choose a career that allows them to serve the Lord both nationally and internationally.