After you have assembled your team for missions, the first item on the docket to discuss is the fundamental questions, what are we trying to accomplish in missions? In my classes I routinely remind my students “hazy goals will produce, at best, hazy results.” If missionaries surrender their lives to overseas service they should at least have a plan for where they are going, what people group they are going to serve and what ministry they will be involved in that process. If this is true for missionaries going, it certainly should be true for sending churches as well. So, what’s the plan?
Here are three things to consider when creating a mission
policy or guidelines.
1. What
type of work do we want to support?
2. Who
do want we want to focus on in terms of mission outreach?
3. Who
are the best people to help us reach out world outreach goals?
Mission Work
There are about as many mission activities as there are
missionaries on the field. Most of
them are worthy of support.
Unfortunately no church can be involved in every mission ministry so it
is important to choose what type of ministry is most important and focus on those programs. I would suggest that you limit your
support to two, possibly three, projects.
Church Planting –
The heart of Christianity is the local assembly of believers. Our Lord’s Great Commission was for His followers to go into the entire world,
present the good news of His salvation, baptize those who choose to follow Him
and then disciple those new believers in God’s Word. There is no other singular important ministry that is more
vital than establishing local congregations. Of all the ministries your mission committee will consider
the one question that should be asked is, “how does this ministry contribute to
the establishing of the church?”
Evangelistic ministries are worthwhile but evangelism does
not plant churches. It’s been said
that you can do evangelism and not plant a church, but you can’t plant a church
without evangelism. Too many
evangelistic programs are stand-alone programs. The printings of tracks, radio or television programs and open-air
evangelistic meetings are most effective when they are tied to the church
planting process.
Discipleship programs within themselves are not church
planting projects. Orphanages,
rescue shelters, feeding programs, youth camps, seminaries and countless
numbers of other ministry programs (which I will address later), though
helpful, are not church planting programs. As a missions team, you should always have at the forefront
of your thinking, “how does this ministry aid in the establishing of a church?”
Types Of Church Planters
Pioneer Church
Planters – A pioneer church planter is one who goes to a defined
location and a people where there are few or no churches. That was my job description when we
moved to Kenya in 1976. After
language school I worked among two tribal groups called the Pokot and
Turkana. Both of these tribal groups
lived in remote semi-desert regions of the northwest, bordering near Uganda and
South Sudan. The roads were often
impassible, not easily accessible.
As a result of their remoteness there were few churches among the people
and very few missionaries working among them. For fourteen years I went to the towns and villages and
established twelve congregations through witness, evangelism and discipling.
Two hundred years ago most Western missionaries did pioneer
work, but that is no longer the case today. Most Western missionaries are involved in other types of
ministry, but there are still a few that do pioneer church planting.
Facilitative Church
Planters - The reason
there are fewer American pioneer church planters is because in many places of
the world it is the national missionaries and pastors who are engaged in
pioneer outreach. There are,
however, Western missionaries who come alongside the national church and help
facilitate pioneer church planting efforts. The FCP missionaries teach, disciple and promote the work of
national church planting.
After leaving Kenya as a resident pioneer missionary, I
became a non-resident facilitative church planter. There are several seasoned veteran missionaries with
experience and expertise, like myself, who now train nationals in how to plant
churches. In my case, because I
have worked in over 50 countries, I bring a perspective in training that comes
with age.
It should be noted that not all discipling ministries are
FCP. Many short-term ministries
from North Americans today are engaged in teaching marriage seminars, teaching
a Bible course in a college or a two week children’s programs. Much of those programs is taught from a
mono-cultural Western perspective that is not contextual, and therefore could
not be classified as FCP activity.
To recap, the role of a church planter is one who
establishes or helps establish a congregation. A pure church planting missionary, be they Western or
national, does not pastor a church for an extended period of time, their focus
in multiplying congregations, not a single assembly. Like the Apostle Paul, a pioneer church planter is always on
the move, with a focus of establishing another church in the next town or
region.
As we will see later, other ministries can and should point
to establishing a church.
