Momentum in Missions

I thought I would write something on missions (or share something I wrote to a church missions committee chairman recently), since I do this every day. This is actually a modified version. My thought is I would have it to use again in the future if I put it on my blog, but it also might encourage others. Or someone out there might write something really provocative and tell me I've made no sense. Either way, this is in response to a missions committee chairman who had asked for some suggestions for his church. They had recently asked families to adopt missionaries, and wanted to make a great impact and maintain the momentum.

This is a great idea and I hope that it is going well so far. Here are some of my initial thoughts about how to keep people involved:

1) Promote it! - Folks won’t maintain the momentum or awareness on their own. They need to continually hear about it and see it, from the pulpit, in the bulletin, in small groups, etc… People are busy these days, and even though their hearts are in the right place, their minds are often distracted by a million other things. Instead of simply continually reminding them, you could suggest things such as the following:

a. How to pray - use this document (particularly the second page) to suggest weekly or bi-weekly ways they can pray specifically for their missionary family (there are 34 items, to which you could add others). You could email/mail a note every other week, and rather than say, “pray for your missionary,” you can say, “pray for your missionary, specifically for their understanding the differences between themselves and others on their team.”) You could elaborate more to spur their thoughts to deeper concern and prayer. Bottom line is that prayer is one of the key ways to minister through and to missions so modeling prayer, creating a prayer book, praying in worship services, planning a time of prayer emphasis, praying for the persecuted church, teaching people to pray, etc…are all great ways to move people from wanting to pray to actually praying.

b. Country Fact Sheet - either encourage folks to find or send families a “fact sheet” about a country; use a website like Operation World (or you can use the book by the same title) to email/mail people facts that will spur prayer and develop understanding

c. Missionary Fact Sheet - this could be something very simple that you put together (or get help from us to put it together) that is either specific about a missionary or very general about missionaries (such as issues facing “Third Culture Kids” or the struggles of learning a new language); sharing some such facts as are on this website in a bulletin sidebar, can remind people about language differences, and thus how to pray more specifically for a missionary

2) Story telling - I would suggest that it not just be “remember to contact your missionary family,” but use ways that would encourage (and thus motivate), such as story telling. One way is to have one family each month or so, give a report of what is going on. This could be on a Sunday morning, in a SS class or small group, or some other public format. They will thus inform the church of the work of the missionary, but will also share ideas they’ve come up with to minister to the missionary. It will motivate others to do this and keep the church aware of how they can pray. (e.g. The Jones, Browns and Smiths have adopted the Johnson family; they learn the Johnsons are using teaching English as a second language as a ministry to connect with unbelievers and share the Gospel; one way they do this is with American magazines, but they have trouble getting them regularly where they are; so the Jones, Browns and Smiths decide to start collecting the magazines they get and ship them together over to the Johnsons - when they tell this story to the church, others get ideas of what they can do and they learn about the Johnsons’ English ministry and how folks are coming to Christ through it)

3) Report it - when good things happen, tell everyone. You may get an email from a missionary telling you how much this has meant to them, or you become aware of something creative a family has done. When you do, report it.

4) Connect - as you mentioned, when missionaries come to the US, allow them to have some meaningful “connection” time with the church body; but also consider connecting through 2-week trips. Any 2-week trip that the church might take should definitely go to one of these 7 places, not to another place. Furthermore, the church should send the pastor annually or every other year, to visit one of these families. And he should come back and report. This is often where missionaries praise the church for their meaningful ministry to them (to the pastor when he visits). But then when these 2-week teams come back, or the pastor returns, they are all a resource to the adopting family for ways to minister (e.g. we noticed they love Reese’s cups and they can’t get them there; their computer is really old and they could use a new one; the kids love reading Hardy Boys books but only have 10 of them; etc…). Remember to consider the uniqueness of your church for connecting; that is, have folks brainstorm as to how they can uniquely connect with the field. Consider the attached Partnership Case Study as a guide for how churches can use their unique skills, assets, etc… to make a big impact on the field.

5) Read - provide a “book nook” of missionary biographies and relevant missiological books that will prompt prayer, and acts of thoughtfulness; you can see a list of recommended reading here; reading will prompt a lot of good acts and keep people mindful; it may even be good to read books together, for as many people who will participate

I wouldn’t expect every missionary to be as well taken care of as everyone else. There will be variety in the care given, based on the participation. I guess I wouldn’t make that the measure of success. Instead, I would consider any meaningful connection with the field a success. I would bet that over time it will grow.

One of the things we’re seeing is that churches want more meaningful connections to the field. Many churches (especially larger ones) are trying to become their own sending agency in an attempt to accomplish this. But this extreme isn’t necessary (or very efficient). What you’ve described is a wonderful way to make that kind of meaningful connection, and better serve your missionaries. I think what you’ll see over time is a greater desire on your peoples’ part to give more and to go more. And given enough time, I think you’ll see future missionaries grow up out of this work.