Category: Missions for Church People

1. Support at a substantial part of his basic support such as one fourth because after all he is your missionary
2. Send visitors every year to visit. To be a blessing and maintain that personal relationship
3. Prominently keep pictures, needs, etc before the church
4. Send special gifts for special days all year long
5. Treat him like you would treat a soldier from your family that was overseas in war. Gifts, entertainment, Bob Hope visiting and encouraging the troops
6. Get involved in his afflictions Philippians 4:14
7. Fervently pray for your missionary
8. Let him keep up with the church and what is going on
9. Treat him like pastoral staff
10. Recognize his anniversary in the ministry
11. provide him with materials
12. get him personal growth opportunities
13. give him recuperation time Acts 13
14. be in constant communication and contact
15. send him out with much prayer

1. Get people from your church to prepare cards and notes to send to your missionary.

a. Have special cards and notes sent to the children.
b. Have everyone put in a few dollars in each card to make it very exciting for the children to open
c. Adults might send gift cards for iTunes or Amazon in the cards

2. Get together some goodies to send to your missionary. Be sure to contact them and make sure that they will not have to pay customs on whatever you send them
3. Be prepared to report on your missionary in the missionary presentations for the Goer Sender Coalition
4. Make sure that you keep their name in the church bulletin, on the church facebook page, etc
5. Ever so often set up a display from their country, give out their prayer cards, and get people talking about your missionary
6. Figure out ways to make the missionary know that their family is loved and remembered
7. When they come to the church have a gift basket, candy for the kids etc
8. Really pray for your missionary

a. Pray for their families that they miss very much
b. Pray for their health
c. Pray for their walk with the Lord
d. Pray for their physical and financial needs
e. Pray for their emotional needs
f. Pray that they will be able to learn the language
g. Pray that they will be able to preach clearly and boldly
h. Pray that they will be able to over come loneliness
i. Pray God will use them
j. Pray that they will be able to stand against the devil and all of his traps

9. Do nice things for the missionary kids
10.Make sure his wife feels loved

1. How much research have they done on their country.  Before a missionary comes to the church check out the general statistics of the country and ask him about them while he is there.  He ought not know everything but the general questions.  If he hasn’t studied his country enough then he probably isn’t the kind of missionary that you want.
2. What is his work ethic?  Missions is over spiritualized many times.  Just because a person has been called by God to a place does not mean that he ought not be working. The answer I have not had to call any pastors
and I think that is what God wants me to do is very spiritual but very rarely works.  They will then proceed to tell you how it has been a long time and not much money coming in.  If a man has a full schedule for a year or so then it might be alright but if not they need to be on the phone.  God honors hard work. On the mission field, a lot of times, the work is established through Gods leading and much hard work.  If they do not work hard here then how are they going to work hard there?
3. Missionaries do not need to be taken on by pity or by need.  Many time the pastor and people in the church feel pity for a person and when they do this, this causes the church to want to help.  Help by giving a one time offering maybe, but a missionary should not be taken on by need they ought to be taken on by their fruit.  Look for a man who will produce or has produced in what God has called him to do.  Some pastors might say, I just know that no one else will support him so I just wanted to help him.
4. Ask him about his preparation or what makes him feel that he can do what God has called him to.  Has he been prepared?  Has he studied?  Is he looking into language schools?  What are his prerequisites for the language
schools that he plans on going to?  Why did he choose that one.  Be sure that he is going to language school and if not do not support him.
5. We are sending way too many missionaries out to the field who are not prepared to do the job and cannot fulfill their own expectations for when they arrive.  We ought to take on the missionaries like we would invest in
a business. If you had a stock in the stock market then you would watch it to see how it was doing.  In missions we ought to keep our eyes open as to what is going on.  That doesn’t mean large numbers in attendance but he should be able to produce 2 or 3 disciples in a term.
6. What kind of strategy do they have?  Or are they going to train with someone who can teach them about how to develop a strategy? God has called me to do something now the question is how am I going to do that?  Are they studying and thinking of ways? What is their view of teamwork.
7. Many of the problems that we have in missions is caused by the kind of missionaries that we allow in our churches.  Our people don’t come to the conferences but it might be because they are tired of  what they see in missionaries.  Pick the right ones to be before your people and your people will get excited about missions, support the right ones and you will have a church that thinks that it is impacting the world. Support missionaries who you would be happy to have on your staff position at your church.
8. Consider nationals as a possibility to support due to the obvious advantages that they have.
9. Does he agree with and practice the philosophy of your church discipleship.

Know their accountability stance for example mission’s agency, local church.

1. If you have certain prerequisites for who you will support then let them know up front so that they do not make the trip for nothing.  If you tell a missionary that you are going to support him or send him the missionary offering then do it when and the way you say.
2. Has a world view and not just a localized view.  He is not going to pastor in one place like a supported pastor on the other side of the world.  Know the man and support him not the field.
3. He understands the training of men to do the work and not the fallacy of doing it himself.
4. Have an explained system of how you choose missionaries.  Don’t let it be whoever calls the most or catches you at the right time.  You should have a way to get the best missionaries in your church.
5. Do not hide behind a questionnaire because you do not have a plan.  It is ok to use a questionnaire if you really use it to ask the right questions.  A missionary should know the first time he calls how to or how not to get a meeting.  He shouldn’t be left with false expectations.

A missionary that understands the difference between hard work and smart work.

 

Getting the Gospel to the lost is what the church is all about, both at home and abroad. Most of us are able to keep home missions in front of people, but it’s a bit more challenging when it comes to world missions. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to visit many great churches and glean off their ideas for keeping world missions in front of the church.

• Read prayer letters or updates. Before offering or during offering, have someone read/update the church on one of your missionaries. Place the prayer letters somewhere where people can read them.

• Skype missionaries to give a live and personal update. This is very effective for mission’s conference.

• Hold a missions conference every year. If we say missions is important, we should put time in our calendar and room in our budget.

• Place maps and missions posters on the walls. Posters with statistics of a country, need and Bible verse so that missions is in front of the people. Instead of just a pretty picture on the wall, put a missions poster that carries a message of the need to get the Gospel to the world.

• Use illustrations, examples and stories of missions in your preaching and teaching.

• Plan a mission’s trip for your youth group or church every year or every other year. A mission’s trip should be well planned, not just thrown together at the last minute.  Give your church people time to start saving back the money for it. Seeing the mission field firsthand will radically change someone forever.

• Schedule missionaries in at least once a month to visit your church and preach. Many missionaries are now serving the Lord because of how they were influenced by a visiting missionary preaching, showing a video, sharing a story or challenge about the need on the foreign field.

• Make sure you have Sunday school curriculum that speaks about missions both to the adults and to the children. I remember hearing missionary stories when I was younger and those stories stuck in my mind and heart for years.

• Make missionary biographies available at the church. Whether you have a church library, bookstore or just have them on a back table to let people borrow, making missionary biographies available will encourage, challenge and help young people have a desire to serve God.

• Special offering for a missionary project. You are communicating to the church congregation that missions is important to you and to your church when you have a special love offering for a specific need or project.  The children can also learn during Vacation Bible School how important mission’s work is when the offering goes to a certain need.

• When a missionary visits, have them spend time with the youth. When a missionary visits and the youth are in another service, it communicates that missions is for the older people and not important for the youth. If it is a mid-week service or Sunday school class, bring the youth in with the adults to hear the missionary. It would be worth having the missionary arrive a day early to have a special time to be with the youth. Some have planned a youth night a couple of hours before or after the service with time for the missionary to speak specifically to them.

• Encourage the people to correspond with the missionaries. Our home church has a missionary of the week to keep the missionaries on a rotation and in front of the church. Make their email address or other contact information available to the church family and encourage them let them know you’re praying for them.

• Keep faith promise in front of the people. Whether in announcements or bulletin, every once in a while give a reminder about faith promise. Teach even the children that they can give to missions as well no matter the amount. When people give to something, their heart follows it.

• Have missionaries visit the children’s class for a couple of minutes when they visit your church. Children make decisions that affect their entire lives. Do not think or belittle a child when he/she wants to serve God; encourage and congratulate them.

• If someone in your church says they want to be a missionary, give them special attention. Place books in their hands, put them in contact with missionaries, take them on a trip, spend time talking to them about it and help them start a missions prayer group.

• Pray in each Sunday school class for your missionaries. Our home church weekly provides every class with a card that has the missionary family’s picture on the front along with 2-3 prayer requests and spaces on the back for each person in the class to sign. Someone then collects the cards from all the classes, then sends them to the missionaries to let them know they were prayed for.

• Have your church get involved with various ethnic groups in your city. Find out what nationalities live close to you and find out what you can do to reach them. This will give your people a burden for the outside world. Missionary Micah Rastelli was working drywall with Bosnians and had such a burden that now he is going to Bosnia as a missionary. Missionary Brady Van Winkle was doing ESL classes with Turkish people at our church and now is a missionary going to Turkey.

• Properly care for those who are sent as missionaries from your church (financially supporting them, but also mentioning them frequently, praying for them, sending them care packages, etc.).

• Keep missions in front of your youth. Encourage them to give to missions. Encourage them to be missionaries. Encourage them to realize the need, go on a trip, contact missionaries, read about missions and fall in love with God and what God loves.

 

Jeffrey Bush

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