Cornerstone Baptist Church to learn how to develop global missions documents to guide their missions ministry. These leaders desire to support and equip their missionaries and their missions ministries in a more effectual way to help the spread of the gospel. Global Missions Coach David Selvey said, “According to the Ephesians 3:8-10, God has chosen to work through local churches to accomplish his plan in the world in this age, so I think it is important for local churches to be equipped to do the work of global missions.”

three workshops. They examined what the Bible says about missions and discussed how theology informs their global missions ministry. After a presentation on how to identify their philosophy of ministry, they broke into groups and discussed how philosophy informs their global missions outreach. The third workshop brought theology and philosophy together into a strategic plan. Each church group worked independently to develop these three areas specifically for their ministries.

What prompted Dr. Selvey to develop and present these workshops?

Selvey said, “People who know me learn pretty quickly that I am passionate about the local church and global missions.” Selvey has had an active interest in missions since he was 10 years old and has been involved in cross-cultural work for more than forty years. God used his short-lived career as a missionary in Spain to motivate him to study missionary attrition and its preventable causes. The result was his doctoral project, Pre-Field Orientation and Training of FGM Missionaries.

Selvey told the group that the church loses half the North American missionary workforce every 8.2 years – 48,175 missionaries! He said that most of those who quit do so for preventable reasons that can be addressed by local churches and missions agencies. According to Selvey, we could save 4,171 missionaries every year by eliminating those preventable causes.

This is like adding 41,710 missionaries to the workforce every 10 years!

His work focuses on empowering local churches to reduce missionary attrition and be more effective in their global missions outreach.

Dr. Selvey speaks in churches and conferences on missions, missionary training, and missionary attrition. He also provides one-on-one coaching to missions pastors/leaders and trainers as a global missions coach with Propempo International. If you would like to know more about this important faith supported ministry, contact David at MissionsCoaching at gmail.com.