MoP 258 Training for the Sending Church 9 0f 10 - Elevation 2 of 3

Episode 258

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions. Come on in to episode 258 of Missions on Point. We're in number 9 of a series on training for the sending church, so we're closing in on the end here.

This element is elevation. That basically means raising the awareness and acceptance of the whole church in all the parts that we talk about on Missions on Point, for the local church to be the center of missionary training, evaluation, sending, and shepherding their missionary.

In the previous episode, we talked about some elements of putting that together for teaching biblically and practically what this means for the church, organizationally, having discipleship at several different levels, and incorporating or starting a Barnabas team or a prayer and care team. We talked about having a special annual event for missions, and how to recruit key elements and persons in roles like mentors and the missions team people, and the Barnabas team people. We talked about having a time set aside for leaders to think about, pray about, finding candidates in your church. And lastly, we talked about prayer as a significant element of moving the church forward in missions.

In my notes for this episode, I have the words, dauntless dissemination. It is a determination of the church leaders to communicate well and thoroughly and often how the local church does missions, so that everyone is on the same page. And literally, it may take you producing some printed material that I would call a missions booklet or handbook that describes on a regular basis and is available to every member and every new member the missions, purposes, and commitments of the church.

So that booklet would include things like leadership commitments to mission. Biblically, why is it so that missions is such a big deal? Biblically, why is it so that the local church takes the lead in raising up, sending, and shepherding missionaries? I would assume that there may be some doctrinal integrity issues you want to articulate in this missions booklet or handbook. Certain doctrinal elements that are in line with your church's doctrinal position or statement need to be articulated in view of missions. Things like, what is the gospel? What is the missionary task? What is the goal of our doing missions work?

Of course, it should include some articulation of how the Bible demonstrates that the local church is the center of responsibility for missions and it is the beginning and end of the mission's task. So beyond leadership commitments and foundational things, there should be some statement about the strategic focus of the church. In general, I always recommend that the church specifically name church planting, the training of healthy church pastors, as part of their commitment and strategic focus.

Planting and strengthening healthy biblical churches has a lot of underlying facts that are important. Things like, who becomes the pastor of a foreign church plant? How are those pastors and elders or leaders of that church qualified biblically? Other things like that that are not so easy to understand at face value, but probably should be articulated at some point in the leadership's communication with the whole church about where we stand on missions.

It might be that your church has already selected a strategic focus geographically or in a people group or ethnicity context, and that would be a great place to articulate that and even tell a little bit of the story of how your church arrived at that conclusion. Maps and visual elements are welcome.

Then there needs to be a little bit of explanation about your church's tools for implementation and mobilization of the church. What I mean by that is the organization or reorganization or foundation of the missions team of the church. There may need to be some further explanation about a Barnabas team or a prayer and care team or mentorship. These are relatively new structures in your church. To handle the missionary candidate in your church and move them from point A to point B, getting them through the pipeline process of qualification in every area of character, conviction, and competencies. Even a word or note or reference about those qualifications could be really significant to someone who is praying about or seeking to be involved in missions in the future, even for their families and friends.

This communication piece, which I'm calling a missions booklet or handbook, could be done online. It could be done in print or it could be in both. It also should include some statement from the leadership about their desire to have whole church involvement. That is, everyone who is a member of the church has a part in fulfilling the Great Commission, whether through encouragement, funding, prayer, or going. It may be simply coming alongside a missionary candidate and encouraging them in the pipeline process. And it could be visiting their missionary on the field.

Involvement in short-term missions should ultimately have a link to your strategic focus. If you only send short-term people and it's not connected with a longer view of connecting to your strategic focus, there isn't very much that is going to be accomplished. So you want everything to merge into your goal and desire to send long-term career missionaries for your strategic focus.

It would be helpful to have whoever is putting together this missions booklet to have representatives from the elders or leaders of your church, the missions team, and perhaps others that are concerned about missions and would ask a lot of questions to help clarify the content. Remember, the purpose is to win and woo the regular church member to understand and embrace this new vision for missions.

Now take a step back and think about it. Some of the people you want to understand this new paradigm are the very missionaries and ministries that you already support. So you'll want to get this mission's booklet or its equivalent into their hands so that they can see and read for themselves what's going on with their supporting church and what a difference it may make in their own ministry and certainly the ministries of the church moving forward. You want everyone connected to your church in the sphere of missions to know where you're standing, where you're going, and what your goals are.

A great goal for timing is to have this missions booklet or handbook available at this annual event, the annual missions event. You may want to refresh it and make it available year to year as the handbook of how we do missions at our church. Many churches include a financial report and goal with respect to missions. How much has our church given to missions and where did it go? How much would we like to see given in the next year? Are there some specific projects we're trying to raise funds for or specific missionary from our church that we're trying to raise funds to get them out to the field?

Another good element to include is a short report, maybe with a picture of the missionaries that you already support and ministries that you support. The end result will be one source where your church members can find everything they need to know about missions at your church.

I recommend that you find people at your church that love doing this kind of project, even if they're not missions oriented or don't have a particular personal interest in missions. They will be more motivated to get it done in a timely manner and an excellent manner doing these things will be a great achievement for your church.

Most of your church family probably knows that you have been working on it for some time, all the way from the evaluation stage, asking a lot of questions, through the education stage, seeking to train leaders and develop structures to facilitate your church becoming a good sending church. So it will be no surprise to your church members to see a special teaching sequence happening in the church for missions and making some structural changes organizationally to facilitate that happening and including an annual event that celebrates what God is doing in missions and gives people a vision for moving forward. It will not be a surprise to have some special emphasis on prayer for missions and to see a booklet or a handbook put in their hands that explains everything so that they can refer to it and deepen their motivation and commitment to the Lord in missions through your 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 missyoserve.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.