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.
