Missions

One of the highlights was a service in the town of Goroka. The church house was filled with hundreds of people. Approximately fifty children sat on the floor. All three of us preached. Not one child left their seat. I still can’t believe how quiet and attentive the children were for a three-hour service.

Having served as a church planting missionary in London, England for over five years, I had some groups that were a tremendous blessing. I also had others who were a tremendous burden and left my family and the ministry that the Lord gave us suffering when they left. Let me quickly say, a missions trip can be a great blessing to the church planter or it can be a great burden. Below are a few thoughts about short term missions trips that will come from the perspective of a pastor and a church planter:

A furlough is defined as “a leave of absence.” To missionaries, the term “furlough” is known as the time to go “home.” There are many different views on what a furlough is, depending on what a missionary wants to accomplish while he is back in his homeland.

I wrote these thoughts last month in the middle of our annual Faith Promise Missions Conference. This year, like most years, we were privileged to have a number of missionaries and fields represented in our conference. They are sharp, articulate people desiring to go the mission field and share Christ with the multitudes. The only thing holding them back is the financial resources necessary to go and be sustained on those fields.

A common decision missionaries run into on the field is deciding if they should use their church as a hub to train nationals and send them out; or if they should turn their own work over to a national once it is self-supporting, and start over somewhere else repeatedly. I have personally done it both ways and would like to share some insights I have learned.

There are many issues churches need to address concerning modern missions. Should churches in the U.S. support national pastors on a monthly basis? What are the positives and the negatives? Is it good to fund national projects? There are many churches and individuals who have a heart as big as Texas and have a desire and capacity to help, but are we, in fact, helping or hindering?

As recently as a few weeks ago, I stood with Dr. Daniel Kim at the DMZ by North Korea. It’s a heartbreaking feeling to stand just a few hundred yards away from people locked in a country of repression and, for Christians, a place of severe persecution—and be able to do nothing to help them.

As you learn the language, you won’t just be learning how to express yourself, but how the people of your country express themselves. As you do this, you will understand their mentality. Culture and language are inseparable. Therefore the faster you do this, the easier your transition will be.

A few years ago, Amanda and I were privileged to meet some American missionaries to the Philippines, and they became very good friends of ours. They told us about an animated evangelist they saw try to communicate to a Filipino audience—through a less-than-animated translator.

If you feel that God is calling you to the mission field, I want to thank you for your willingness to stand in the gap for the lost souls of this world. You are needed more than you can imagine.

Make sure the schedule is planned out well in advance of your arrival so everyone is on the same page. This will help the missionary plan and prepare, and hopefully, there will be fewer surprises.

There is a broad spectrum of responses when one hears the phrase short-term missions. “Why even bother?” “It’s a total waste of money that could be better spent somewhere else.” “It opens the eyes of the world to the needs around them.” “It will forever change your life.” “No short-termers ever become long-termers, so why waste the time and effort?”

To most missionaries on deputation, arriving on the mission field after just eighteen months of raising support is an unattainable dream. I have met missionaries who have been on their deputation trail for three to six years. One missions agency says that the average deputation time is four years.

What is a missionary? I have been called one for twenty-one years, and through those years I have heard many different people use the term—from well diggers, to doctors, to school teachers, to veterinarians, to church planters, to orphanage directors, and some whose sole purpose is teaching good hygiene habits.

True biblical Christianity is far different from what we see in most modern churches. When we read the New Testament, we are brought face to face with the fact that every believer is expected to be a participant, not an observer, in world-wide evangelism.

Culture shock is a feeling that can happen to us when we are in cultural situations that are different from our expectations­—usually in a bad way. With this definition in mind, we would guess that reverse culture shock should not exist.

As missionaries and church planters, we are always looking for ways to reach people and effectively fulfill the Great Commission. One area which many missionaries are seemingly afraid to consider is having a Christian school.

It is impossible for any local church to carry out the Great Commission without missionaries. Missionaries, then, are our co-laborers in the harvest.

A good website can be a valuable tool to help burden people’s hearts for the work God has called you to do. It is also a very cost effective way to bring people to your field through site and sound, through testimonies and information about your ministry.

As a missionary, I would like to recommend an app to you that could be a great blessing in organizing your deputation or your furlough. I use it all the time, and it has made this process easier. If you are like me, you have a list of churches that looks like a spreadsheet. This contains churches that you know pretty well, and also many churches about which you know almost nothing.