I have lots of ideas as to how a local church can send out members of its church to be missionaries, but I have never been in a position to implement those ideas. My friend Nathan Sloan does have that opportunity. Nathan and I wrestled together in college and shared in our passion for missions. He went to Nepal for a couple years before God brought him back to the USA to receive his masters and he ended up with the opportunity at a thriving church to develop their missions program. They now send out many missionaries and even have a missions school. He sent me their 23 page International Vision booklet, which shows their philosophy of missions. Obviously I am not going to copy that to the blog, but I will highlight some of what is in it.
The booklet starts out with vision! What can the future hold and what should we be doing? Then it moves on to seven of their convictions as a church towards missions such as “It is the local church that sends out, sustains and cares for its missionaries,” “Priority should be placed on frontier missions” and “Missions should happen in a team context.”
The next part of the booklet is how the church sends. They are sure to use leaders, give them more training (they actually have a missions school), build relationships and have accountability. Many of their members are sent to their three different strategic partnerships, two in Africa and one in Europe. They have target areas in the unreached world that they have a strong desire to see reached.
A look at the book of Acts shows several lessons we can learn about missions that should be taken as principles. “Paul and Barnabas were sent through the church.” “Their calling came in community.” “The elders of the church were fasting, praying, and worshipping the Lord.” “The church sent out Paul and Barnabas as a team.” “Paul maintained a relationship with his sending church.” “Paul had a ministry partnership with other churches.”
Sojourn also has an adopt a missionary program where their small groups can really invest in the lives of the missionaries. Besides these small groups who adopt, they also have advocacy teams that specifically serve their missionaries. There are 4-10 people whose role is to assist the missionary in educating themselves and groups about the missionary, their work, host culture and events from that part of the world. They also pray and communicate prayer requests to others. They regularly communicate with the missionary and represent the missionary in the different adopted community groups. The team also provides support, encouragement, counsel and prayer for the missionary while he is on the field and at home.
I find this booklet to be very organized and intentional as to how this church handles missions. The sending church has the opportunity to have a huge impact on the field by how they support their missionary.
What ideas do you have? What involvement does your church have in sending missionaries?
10 ways to intentionally partner with missionaries
Missions Conferences
Partnerships- How do you get to know your missionary?
Should missionaries use an agency or go strictly through the local church?
Worst Fear
What ideas do you have? What involvement does your church have in sending missionaries?
10 ways to intentionally partner with missionaries
Missions Conferences
Partnerships- How do you get to know your missionary?
Should missionaries use an agency or go strictly through the local church?
Worst Fear
From Jason (a missionary who can't publicly post from where he is at).
ReplyDeleteI am blessed to have been sent out by a home church that both loves me and loves missions. There support is one the the major tools that God has used to both prepare us for the field and to sustain us. One thing that our church has done, which seems different than most churches, is seeing us as 2 things. First, they see us as a true extension of their church. It is almost as if we are a satellite Sunday School class. We are fully connected with our church as we receive prayer requests, newsletters, etc and as they do the same from us. We never feel forgotten about. We hear their prayers for us as we listen to their sermons online and we commit 1 day to faithfully pray for them as well. Secondly, our church has taken a role to reach the people we are trying to reach. They ultimately said, "Your place will be our place, and your people will be our people". They looked beyond just supporting us, but they play a very strategic role in our ministry, doing whatever they can to help us reach them.
I would also say that Sojourn has a great template for us to follow. Their church and Brook Hills (Alabama) are 2 churches that are faithfully seeing members go to the field and are well prepared. Brook Hills asks every member to tithe 10 percent of their days each year to missions. This can be overseas or to a different people group in their area. I think another thing that we can do as churches (which was noted by Sojourn's mission statement) is we can direct those looking into missions to go to the places that need it most. Let's give them a heart not just to go, but to go where the Gospel has never been heard. Let's send them where there are no Bibles. How will our people know of these places and these needs if we don't teach these things to our churches. Pastors, it starts with us to cast these visions before our people to reach the ends of the earth.
Can you post a link to the 23 page International Vision booklet you mention in your article? Thanks and God bless you!
Deletehttp://international.sojournchurch.com/?page_id=3073
DeleteThat is a link to some of it, but definitely not all. I have the copy as a PDF on my computer; if you email me at carrelda@gmail.com I can email the file to you.