Missions on Point

If your church aspires to be a missionary sending church, you don't have to wait for volunteers. Create a culture that expects God to raise up missionaries from your membership. Look for opportunities to challenge and encourage your people to consider vocational missionary ministry. Draft, recruit, join, mentor, call people to give their lives for God's glory on the missions field because Jesus is worth it!

This is #6, the last, of this six-part series on "Missiology You Need to Know." The simple concept is that the means, methods, and tools/resources that the missionary uses must be reproducible by his audience. The content of the teaching and training has to be able to be replicated by the local people. So, don't use things that are inaccessible to them! Find out how they would do things if it were up to them and/or if the missionary wasn't present to do it.

This is a big one because failure to understand and apply these principles has caused a lot of confusion and problems for us on the missions field today. We must continually ask ourselves and our missionaries if the Gospel is clear, biblical conversion is clear, and the key definitions of ministry results are biblical. Let the stumbling block of the Gospel to unbelievers be the message and not the messenger.

Please listen carefully. It may seem like a "no-brainer". However, the missions world is always fighting popular definitions and methods that are primarily driven by pragmatism and sometimes cross the line into twisted beliefs and practices. The traditional biblical definitions of our faith and the traditional methodologies that arise out of steady, relational, and Word-based ministry will always prevail in the long term. We have a right and an obligation to ask the questions and challenge fadish or trendy definitions and methods. Go for solid, long-term growth over short-term statistics any day!

It seems embarrassingly simple, yet this principle is one that we even fail to apply appropriately in our ministries here in our home country. It is very significant and necessary for the missionary to point their local people to the Bible as the sole authority for Christian life and practice. God's Word is truth. It is trans-cultural in its application. The missionary must consciously and humbly point to the Scriptures as the source of answers for his people. That implies teaching them how to read, interpret, and apply the Bible. But, hey, that's part of the job anyway! Right?

Somehow this simple, intuitive, and practical principle gets lost in the mix of missionary activity. Yet, it is one of the most important principles for long-term results and indigeneity on the field. The missionary MUST intentionally and systematically reproduce him (or her) self in the ministry. Producing partners rather than dependents is key to fruitfulness. Listen. Pass it on. Ask the questions. 

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Missiology - what is that? If you have an interest in missions, leadership of missions, or are going into missions, you must know some basic principles of missiology. Sound, biblical principles and practice of missiology will be the lens for your understanding and evaluation of missions ministry. The first one is the first priority: the missionary must make culture and language learning their first priority on the field. It is the foundation upon which all other ministry is built. It is a process that is intense at first and never really ends. It is comprehensive in its impact on their life and work on the field. Don't short circuit a requirement and the time required for high proficiency in the language.

The topic of expectations is full of land mines!  Somehow we hope that our missionary loved one coming home is going to yield our fulfillment of every our dreams for time together. Think again! Right expectations are going to yield joy and fulfillment. Wrong expectations will yield disastrous results. So, listen and learn. Grow up and take responsibility for embracing good and proper expectations centered on them and not on yourself. You'll make your and their life better in so doing.

This episode is loaded with practical observation and counsel on how to deal with the unique challenges of your loved one serving overseas. Understanding builds empathy and a helpful safety net for both you and your missionary. Learn what those challenges are all about and how we can overcome them with wisdom and prudence.

Every profession has its own set up specialized vocabulary. Missions does too! If you want to relate well to your loved one in missions, learn the glossary of terms they use in their context, their mission organization, their field. It will help you and them a lot! This episode could be viewed as a little quiz on missions terminology. See how well you and your family or friends score :-)