Saturday, December 21, 2013

Part One in Developing a Missions Program: Create a Team

There are two common approaches to determining the mission program of the local church.  The first is pastor led.  In many congregations the pastor determines which missionaries will be invited to be a part of a mission conference or speak before the congregation.  In some cases, the pastor has the authority to take on missionaries for support or pledge money to a project without the congregation voting on such projects.  The second approach is through committees.  Committees are important, but many times committees can be cumbersome and time consuming. 


I personally do not have a problem with either approach as long as the pastor or the committee know the issues of missions and its complexity.  I will no doubt say this many times in the course of this series, but missions is for the most part an emotional exercise and that is unfortunate.  For a mission program to be successful the emotion of ministry (serving the poor, or having a warm feeling for a family of six going to Congo), must be eliminated. 

Because “committee” has a negative connotation in some quarters, I suggest that the local body create a team, which is a trend concept that fits well in today’s twenty-first century vocabulary.

The reason to create a team on missions for the local church is, first, it fosters inclusion and a sense of belonging into the life of the church.  Not everyone has the talent or ability to teach a class or be a part of the worship team.  However, they want to serve Christ and being a part of a world outreach program gives them a sense of belonging.  Second, group decisions give balance to any project.  If the decisions of world evangelism are just in the hands of the senior staff it may not have a balanced approach.  Third, if the rest of the body is aware there is a missions team that is giving direction in the congregation, theoretically, they will have more confidence that missions is not just another program that the church is doing.

WHO SHOULD BE ON THE MISSION TEAM?

First, they should be people who are active participants of the congregation.  By that I mean they attend regularly and support their congregation financially. 

Second, they should be interested in global outreach.  Between ten and fifteen percent of people in any congregation, including liberal non-evangelical churches, are interested in missions in one form or another.  We can safely say that there is the same percentage of people in any congregation that are not interested nor engaged in missions of any kind.  Obviously the first place to look for a mission team would be people who are already interested global outreach.

The makeup of the missions team should be a combination of older and younger people, male and female.  I don’t think it’s imperative that the senior pastor is a part of the team, but I also know that if the pastor or senior leadership of the church is disinterested in missions it will be very difficult for the program to advance in an effective way.  One mission policy I am aware of state that at least one person in the leadership, be they a deacon or elder, be on the mission team.

Start off by announcing to the congregation that a missions team is being formed and all those who are interested meet.  If there are people in the church that is known to be interested in missions, they should be encouraged to attend the meeting.  At the first gathering you might prepare a questionnaire for those in attendance as a guide.  Here is a sample questionnaire.

1.     Have you ever served on a missions team/committee before?  Yes – No

2.     Do you presently support missions either through the church or outside of the local congregation?  Yes – No

3.     What type of missions are you most interested in?  (a) local missions (b) foreign missions (c) Bible translation (d) church planting (d) social action – orphanages, feeding program etc. (e) Other (explain) ________________________

4.     Would you be willing to take a course in missions provided by the church to be a part of this team?

5.     Name one part of the world or people group that most interest you?

This is the beginning, step one in creating a good mission program for your church.  We will visit the purpose of the team in the next post.