One of the best ways to stay encouraged and engaged in cross-cultural ministry is to find like-minded folks and do it together. As internationals come from cultures that value community, they typically are more attracted to groups of strong community rather than to individuals. Such groups are increasingly called missional communities.

Some great resources for learning about and forming missional communities include :

Austin Stone Community Church (Austin, TX) is arguably the most fruitful model of missional communities in the US. They post videos explaining missional communities and showing them in action.

Austin Stone’s pastor of missional communities, Todd Engstrom, blogs regularly about missional communities at http://toddengstrom.com/.

Soma Communities in Seattle offers good videos that teach about how they conduct missional communities.

Helpful books about missional communities include the following, all available at online portals such as Amazon.com:

Breen, Mike, Launching Missional Communities.

Halter, Hugh and Matt Smay, The Tangible Kingdom.

Timmis, Steve and Tim Chester, Total Church.

• Get training as needed.

Need to learn more about a particular religion or culture in order to understand the people to whom you’re ministering? Materials and courses especially have been developed for outreach to Muslims, such as Bridges and the Oasis Conference. Encountering the World of Islam is a 15-week event for learning about Islam. ISI produces several resources for understanding cultures and religions.