First and foremost, you’ll want to take care to give glory to God. His agenda for His glory in Jesus Christ is the whole reason and motivation for missions. In addition to giving proper focus and attention to God and His word, you’ll want to consider the following purposes for your missions event. Note that your missions emphasis event will be most effective if you don’t attempt to accomplish all of these purposes at the same time. Choose just a few key purposes per year.
- general missions education
- challenge and how-to-s of personal missions involvement
- missions awareness in the world
- missions awareness in the community
- deepening relationships with supported missionaries
- the biblical basis of missions
- the theological basis of missions
- missionary characters and experiences in the Bible
- demographic understanding of unreached people groups
- adoption of an unreached people group
- historic and contemporary motivations for missions
- opportunity-awareness for missions involvement through your local church
- commitment-motivating biographies and mission stories
Year-to-year you want your congregation to look forward to the annual missions event as something that is fun, a change of pace, informative, and personally challenging. It’s perfectly okay for your missions team to leave your church wanting more. You will always do well to highlight the Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel, the biblical priority of missions, and personal relationships with missionaries.