Identify Your Networks Using a Network Map
What is a Network Map?
A Network map is a great way to identify the people God has placed in your life for witness and potential ministry partnership. Some folks are visible and obvious, such as family and close friends. Others require more exploration and thought, such as work colleagues, fellow students, professors, online contacts, and casual acquaintances.
Getting Started
Draw a circle at the center of a page. Label it “Me.” Then draw two or three lines branching out from “Me” and add a circle at the end of each line. Inside each circle, record a different area of your life where you know people or would like to know them better. Examples might include your department at school, the gym, cousins, friends of your family, hiking partners, neighbors, teammates, acquaintances through a sports league or reading group, professors, friends from high school or college, and even friends of friends that you’d like to know better.
Here’s a sample network map:
Categorizing your Network
Witness
As you create your map, identify all the non-Christian friends and acquaintances that come to mind. Pray through their names and ask God which ones He may be preparing for witness. They may be at the early stages of simply trusting a Christian, or they may already be open to spiritual conversation and perhaps reading the Bible with you.
Ministry Partners
- Who could volunteer with you on campus?
- Who could possibly serve as a prayer supporter?
- Who might be interested in providing financial support?
Make note of all the names God is giving you, then prayerfully select those in each category of your interests and needs, and begin to reach out to them in faith.
Remember, the idea of a Network Map is to identify who’s already “in place” in your networks as given by God and to stimulate ideas of connecting with new folks you don’t yet know.
