It’s really important to recognize a settler for who and what they are. Use them to potentially open up blue ocean spaces if that’s a possibility (it may not be). But don’t lean into them to turn that unexplored wild into a God movement. You need to find the migrator wanting to become a pioneer or the pioneer themself.
Settlers don’t easily change. They tend to be set in their ways. I worked for 5 years trying to encourage change in a settler and at the end of the day it never happened; he vocalized a desire and is an amazing guy and leader but there was never any forward change (only talk). That’s not to say it won’t happen or is impossible but don’t stop looking for someone to engage the wild blue ocean just because you find a Settler you like.
It’s important to note one big difference between the settler and the migrator: the settler’s people never wanted to be involved. The migrators always did. The settlers and migrators that I know are all leaders in their own right and have “their people”. I’ve never seen settlers “people” want to engage in movement oriented work in the same way that migrators people have. And I think this is something that will strongly hold in the majority of cases as it points to the lived reality of the leader in question. If you are engaging someone and aren’t sure who they are - ask yourself, “how do their people respond to movement principles?”
Migrators will open the door to find potential pioneers if they aren’t willing to fully be a pioneer yet themselves. With the migrator I focused on, I know of at least 2 strong potential pioneers standing in generation 1 of what the migrator did. In hindsite, I probably could have invested in them more directly and it would have probably sped the work up a bit but I don’t know relationally how that would have looked (and there were other barriers as well like language and culture) but it’s important to at least consider. Migrators are significant paths to the pioneers around us.
Migrators do evolve more readily than settlers - just be willing to push them. It’s ok - really! Stay on top of it and you might even find that they become a pioneer. But don’t focus on this to the exclusion of other potential pioneers. The migrator I focused on above looks much more like a pioneer than migrator today. Likewise, some of the other migrators I mentioned above didn’t significantly change and I don’t relate to in the same intentional ways anymore.
Pioneers are 1 in a million. At least that’s how it feels. Look for the innovative people willing to take risks, willing to be hated and disparaged by traditional church people and willing to engage in dark and broken places (especially to the exclusion of the traditional folks).
My next newsletter will focus on the development of a tool to help sort all of this out.