A great buzz word for the missionary church relationship is “partnership.” I love that churches are looking at it that way, because that is what the relationship is! How does this pan out in churches? If you want to be partners, you want to get to know who that partner is, but how does that functionally play out? Here are a few cases of what some churches are doing. Feel free to input what your church does.
FCBC is a smaller church (150 or so) with a big heart for missions. Last year they gave around 41,000 dollars to missions and their commitments after this year’s conference jumped to 48,000. In this year’s Wednesday through Sunday missions conference they had four missionary families represented; three of whom were already supported by the church and one other they are now taking on. The Pastor is looking to raise the current missionary’s support given by the church from 50 to 100 dollars a month. According to him, with the amount of missionaries that leave the field (unfortunately); this is a possibility. Yet, they still are looking to gain new missionaries as well! The Pastor also is praying for someone to be sent out of their church.
This new missionary they took on will be working with a couple the church already supports. It is great to see the church invest with multiple families into a specific field they really want to see reached.
I appreciate this Pastor’s heart for missions. He works an extra job and his wife works. Many pastors in that situation would probably put more emphasis on being paid as the full time Pastor, but this Pastor’s heart for missions is so big that he places the emphasis on the church giving more to faith promise.
Calvary Baptist Church used to have a longer missions conference, but like so many churches, they have shortened it up due to the busy schedules of its members. However, in order to get to know their missionaries better they will have a cookout on a Saturday night with informal questions to the missionaries. They want it more laid back so people are more apt to really get to know the missionaries. The missionaries will teach different Sunday schools and then have a few minutes in the main service to show their presentation. At night there will be a banquet as a time to get to know the missionaries even more.
Heritage and Cornerstone both do missions months. Each Sunday they have a different missionary in to present their work. This seems to be popular amongst churches today.
Many other churches have missionaries in for an evening service and decide to take them on either by church vote, missions committee vote, or the Pastor deciding.
I think it would be neat to go to a church on a Wednesday, take a couple days for final organization of a Saturday soccer tournament outreach (or some other outreach) in which I helped organize and speak at... and then speak at the church on Sunday. Doing ministry together is always a blast and a good way to get to know people.
One missionary did an internship with a church with an agreement that they would support them for a larger chunk of their support. Love. Love. Love. In case you did not catch that. I loved that idea. Why? Because the church can really get to know a missionary better when he is there for 2-6 months. The missionary does not have to constantly be on the road (and potentially raise his support in a year, or year and a half, while still being in a stable environment for that time). Then the church will really feel the heartbeat of the missionary and both will be better able to serve one another (sounds like a Biblical principle). What if home churches supported for 25-50 percent, then the missionaries did two other internships where the church supported them for 10 percent each. (Then the rest could be made up by individuals). The missionary could have 3-4 supporting churches (wouldn’t be so burdensome during furlough) and they could really get to know those 3-4 churches which would then provide much more powerful prayer support.
This writing has caused other internship ideas to float around my head, so be looking for another post on it! For now, how does partnering work in your church? Do you have any ideas for it?
Dave, thanks for taking time to share your thoughts and ideas as the Lord allows you to see so many different ministry models as you travel. That is often a perspective that gets overlooked by many local churches. Hopefully this will create greater dialogue and get the discussion going between missionaries and local churches. This has been needed all along. I like the idea of an internship as it does give the church a much greater connection that will only serve to help the church and missionary family partner in a more productive way.
ReplyDeleteOne missionary I met on the field several years ago shared with me that they felt like they didn't even know their sending church. He said they had sent missions teams to countries all around them, but had never even stopped to see them. He said they came home on furlough and asked to get plugged in to their sending church so they could build relationships with the people. He said the response he received from the missions pastor was, 'We give you $500/mo. what more do you want?' He said we realized we did not have a sending church that even cared about us. He said we eventually shifted our sending church to another church in another state that we had never even visited because they had sent 3 teams down to serve with them and were continually connected with them and the ministry there. Today that missionary is no longer on the foreign field. What a tragedy with the local church that missions could be reduced to just sending a check.
Keep the dialogue going. Looking forward to seeing you guys this weekend. Can't wait to see what God will do.