Saturday, May 26, 2007

Getting Your Church Involved In Missions- Part 1

Just before Christ ascended to the Father he gave a charge to his disciples to teach all that he had commanded them to others, as well as to baptize and disciple those whom they taught. This, of course, has been passed onto the church. Currently, missions looks a lot different from what it did back then. We hop on an airplane and can be all the way around the world in less than twenty-four hours. To the disciples a short-term mission trip would have been several months, not several days. Indeed, the way missions is done has changed drastically.

So, you or your church could, theoretically, open up an encyclopedia of world cultures, find a people, hop on a plan, pass out some tracks and come home to catch the Sunday football games on T.V. But, I believe that we should give more thought and care to the mission efforts of our local brothers and sisters than that. And, I am sure that most of you agree.

What I will be encouraging here is a long-term commitment to people groups by your church. And, it just does not have to be one people group. It can be as many people groups as you have people interested in going to people groups. But, that is beside the point. What I am hoping to talk about in these series of posts is simply how you and your church can get involved in missions anywhere. We’ll discuss some things that have been thought through by several people, and I’ll even ask for you to help me think of other things that we may consider as well as what I post here. But, my main commitment is to give you the tools and resources that I have to help you communicate, educate, and equip the people of your church to go anywhere and do missions/plant churches.

I’ll break it up into two main parts. The first, which we will spend the most time on, will be related to how your church can engage people groups. People groups are the key, not so much the missionaries in a church that engages missions. Now, I’m not saying, “Don’t support missionaries.” In fact, that is why I have a second part. But, the main thing is that sometimes missionaries are sent home for reasons they cannot control; they get sick, they die, they get too old to continue to work the same way they did before. Therefore, the main goal is to commit to working with a people group.

The second part will be dealing with the missionary—especially those that come from your own congregation. What are they going to be looking for when you want to help them? How can you help them before they even go? These are things that will be looked at in this second part.

This is a forum. We welcome discussion and there are many of you who read this blog with plenty of experience that will be helpful concerning this subject. We do ask that you share as freely as possible about the things that you have learned.

Thanks!

Through Christ,

Dougald

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