Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions. Thanks for listening to and telling others of episode 251 of Missions on Point. We are in a series on training for the sending church. This will be our second in the series. This section is on evaluation.

Whatever the precipitating factors are for a church to begin training as a sending church, the missions leadership of that church or the partner agency like local church-centered MissioSERVE Alliance needs to do some evaluation. Most churches need help understanding and rising to their biblical role in missionary sending. This is not an unfair statement. That's how it is.

Even churches that have had the privilege of raising, equipping, and sending a missionary from their membership need help understanding their comprehensive role in validating the candidate's call to missions, verifying their qualifications to serve well for the long term, and shepherding them on the field through a lifetime of ministry.

A historic shift through the decades of modern missions has moved most of the responsibility of missionary sending to para-church missions agencies. So, we've grown accustomed to the church giving cursory agreement to the missionary and the mission agency concerning the missionaries' membership in a missions agency, their field of service, their field goals, and their field methodologies.

Evaluating a local church's ability to become a good missionary sending church becomes challenging. We must return to the foundations of the church's doctrine, desires, and design through the lens of missionary sending. We ask a lot of questions to find out these basics.

When we start asking questions and probing into the history and makeup of the mindset of this local church in missions, we usually encounter three typical stances from the people responsible for giving answers to the questions, or finding answers to the questions:

1. Readiness to ask and give answers to questions, which in and of itself is a mark of teachability and willingness to change. Readiness is a good thing.

2. Reluctance. Reluctance to ask and give answers to questions is often a natural response. Sometimes leaders and missions leaders within the church feel a bit threatened. In that case, take it slow and affirm that the process is intended to yield positive and helpful results for the church's missions growth.

3. Resistance. Resistance is a more challenging response. Some individuals and churches are resistant due to personality, history, or culture. This is still not a lost cause. Gentle correction and a willingness to listen to their concerns can often open the door to the questions and the potential for change.

Rapid change can be destructive. An old saying goes like this: Catastrophe can bring rapid change. And vice versa. Rapid change can bring catastrophe. Pray. Pray. Proceed with caution. Keep moving forward wisely.

When we evaluate a sending church or a potential sending church, we're trying to find out evidences from their history, from their documents, from their leaders, the elements that would show that they have a biblical, local church-centered ministry philosophy.

Here are some examples of the types of things we want to learn from a church in evaluating their readiness and capacity to become a local church-centered, sending church in missions:

First, doctrinally: Does the church understand ...
 • Its significance in God's plan for His glory?
 • Its purpose is both the starting and ending point of missions ministry?
 • The exclusivity of the gospel and the necessity of its proclamation?
 • How does a non-believer become a believer?
 • The qualifications of a missionary?
 • The goal of the Great Commission ministry?

Hopefully, answers to these questions can be found in the documentation of the church, in their bylaws or constitution, or their missions team, missions committee documents. It's evident in both the policies and the programs of the church, and the leaders of those things should be articulate in explaining their answers to those questions.

The second area in this consideration is desires:
 • What does the church desire in its involvement in world missions?
 • Random or deeply relational partnerships in ministry?
 • Missionaries coming up from their own church, people sent to them from agencies, or just friends of the pastor and other influential people in the congregation?
 • Anonymous pins in a world map? Or a more consciously focused approach?
 • Does the church have a long-term goal for sending missionaries from the church?
 • Does the church have a long-term goal for accomplishing something specific in a specific field of service overseas?

These desire questions are things that the everyday pew sitter should hear and understand and feel as the desire of the church. In fact, everyone involved in missions in and through the church should understand the kinds of desires and answers to these questions for themselves, that is, the church leaders. Certainly, the church leaders in missions, like the mission's leader and the team around him or her. The missionaries and ministries that the church supports should understand that this is the church's philosophy and desire.

The third area of questions has to do with design. We'll deal with design a lot more when we get into the education and elevation parts of this process:
 • How is the local church prepared to be a good sending church?
 • Is there a recognized process or training pathway for a missionary candidate?
 • How should a candidate's qualifications be verified and affirmed?
 • How does the church guide and help select a partner missions agency and target field ministry?
 • Does the church have a structure or mechanism for ongoing shepherding of its missionaries?
 • What checks or safeguards are planned for oversight and care for their missionary, the missionary family, and the missionary's ministry on the field?

These last two items are like a black hole for most churches. Only the mission agency goes there and the church never steps in. Our experience with training missionaries and with field missionaries is that the local sending church’s lack of involvement in caring for the ongoing shepherding of its missionaries are some of the major precipitating factors for the missionary returning home, which might have been prevented by the church's care.

You may be thinking, I don't know how my church would answer those kinds of questions. I don't know if we have the resources or the structure or even the thoughtfulness to think about trying to provide or do those things. That's why we do evaluation at the beginning of our church engagement process.

Whether you are connecting with a really good missions agency partner that understands local church-centered ministry philosophy for missions, or whether it's just that season in your church when you're re-evaluating a lot of important priorities and missions happens to be one of them that you know you need to grow and improve. The motivation to evaluate missions in your church just might be that someone in your church says that they feel a call to become a missionary and you're trying to figure out how to do that.

Whatever the case, there are resources out there. On the internet, MissioSERVE.org and Propempo.com have resources and references to check to help your church answer these questions. Together, these websites have hundreds of articles and blogs with hyperlinked references to other resources. The book, Missions on Point, and the podcast, Missions on Point, also present a biblical and practical case for answering these questions. Go to Propempo.com/resources to see listings of the Missions on Point episodes by topic and by date, as well as many other resources available to you.

I do highly recommend that you get some help from outside in your evaluation. It could speed up your growth process by years. Getting some help could also help you avoid mistakes or pitfalls that you wouldn't otherwise see for yourself.

Evaluation toward becoming a local church centered on missions is not easy or quick. Those involved in the evaluation need to do some homework on the documents and history of the church. They need to talk with key leaders. Discover the answers to as many of these foundational questions as possible. The answers are building blocks to learn the strengths and weaknesses of that specific local church and to develop steps toward becoming that great local church centered missionary sending church.

May God grant that your church will become an effective sending church. Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and MissioSERVE.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.