19 chapter15
- 1. Chapter 15: Relating to Churches and Other Shareholders
- 2. Chapter Outline • Introduction • The Churches • The Others • The Challenges • Missionary Care • Conclusion
- 3. Introduction • Shareholders are those entities with a serious share in the mission enterprise: taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to all peoples and making disciples of them. • Shareholders may come from the supply side, the recipient side, or both. Those from the recipient side include indigenous churches, Christian leaders, unreached peoples, and agencies working in the area. • To the extent that any city, nation, region, or continent is participating in the sending function, shareholders are likely to include churches, agencies, trainers, and mobilizers.
- 4. The Churches • Churches, of course, are the primary senders. This wasn’t determined by chance or by a vote. God made the church, the “bride of Christ,” his primary instrument for accomplishing his purposes on earth (Matt. 16:17–19). • Foremost among the roles churches play as local manifestations of the universal church is to prepare members for Great Commission work (Matt. 28:19–20). • Churches do this by • teaching the full counsel of God regarding the global task, • by preparing all members to find and perform their particular part in it, and • by sending out those called to go (Acts 13:1–3; 3 John 5–8).
- 5. The Others • The other primary sending shareholders—agencies, trainers, and mobilizers—can be sorted according to the nature of the relationship they usually have with churches. • Each of these “other” shareholders has a unique role to play in the sending function, which is the primary responsibility and purview of the churches. • Increasingly, their effectiveness in playing that role depends not only on the quality of their services, but also on their ability to work amicably and in genuine partnership with and under churches.
- 6. Agencies • Agencies generally have the longest lasting and most interconnected relationships with the churches because they share common members over a long period. This has declined somewhat in recent years with the surging of short-term missions and the simultaneous decline of long-term recruits, but it still distinguishes the relationship between these two groups.
- 7. Trainers • Trainers, especially when they are academic institutions, are given a lower priority by the churches as far as the sending function is concerned. • This is so for two reasons: • The period in which they have “members” in common with the churches is not as long (usually four years or less). • The stakes of failure are not understood to be as high (either financially or for the individuals involved).
- 8. Mobilizers • Mobilizers generally have a very different kind of relationship with the churches altogether. • Depending on their particular mission and purpose, they may provide awareness seminars for whole congregations, consultancy for church missions committees, or resources and services that address particular felt needs in the local church context. • They tend to be viewed by the churches much more like a consumer outlet, where distinct services may be procured for a price. Their credibility, however, is often assessed on the basis of multiple years of consistent quality service.
- 9. The Challenges • Rallying the Troops • Balancing the Portfolio • Geography and Peoples • Frontline and Support Personnel • Ministry Areas • Short-Term and Long-Term Efforts
- 10. Rallying the Troops • No task related to the sending function is more important or foundational in the local church setting than keeping the vision of outreach and missions before the congregation. Unless there is zeal fed by knowledge in the hearts of the people, you can say good-bye to the vision of being an effective sending church.
- 11. Rallying the Troops around Worship • It takes a right balance of information with inspiration. • It takes good pathways for gaining experience in service to the task. • It takes the reinforcement of targeted and effective teaching and training. • It takes resources that make a difference.
- 12. Balancing the Portfolio The twin realities of the church’s particular vision and giftedness, together with the global strategic needs of the gospel task, need to be regularly overlaid and reflected upon. Where major change is needed, it should be accomplished in a way that still values continuity. This is both for the overall sake of the work and for the welfare of those who have faithfully given of themselves in the task. Abrupt and careless change does a great disservice to both.
- 13. Geography and Peoples The real need is for churches to ask, “Without limiting ourselves to whatever commitments we have currently, among which of the least- reached people groups of the world can we make a significant difference by investing our prayer, personnel, and financial resources over the long haul?”
- 14. Frontline and Support Personnel • It is crucial that resource providers, and especially local churches, which are chief among them, not lose sight of the fact that it takes a multitude of “behind the scenes” workers to support those on the frontlines. They should get behind them. • Balance is not possible, just as the task is not possible, without support personnel. While their roles may not be as exciting, they are every bit as essential.
- 15. Ministry Areas • Church Planting • Church Nurture and Leadership Training • Translation and Media • Mercy
- 16. Church Planting • Church planting ought to occupy the central place in any church’s mission planning. Some key questions any church should ask include: • Do our church-planting plans have a strategic focus emphasizing the needs of those peoples with least access to the gospel? • Do our church-planting plans take into account the church as it already exists in an area, even if the tradition or theology of that church is very different from ours? • Is the church-planting methodology to be employed one that holds promise for the establishment of a self-sustaining indigenous movement, or is it the imported kind that is totally dependent on the foreigners?
- 17. Church Nurture and Leadership Training • Wherever there are churches, whether newly planted or long-rooted, there is need for godly, effective leaders. Helping to provide and multiply them through training and mentoring has been, and undoubtedly will always be, a major focus of mission work.
- 18. Translation and Media • A bit farther out on the spectrum from church ministries per se are ministries of translation and media, which to about an equal degree have both an inward and an outward focus. • Translating the Scriptures, for example, clearly is on the inward side in terms of its importance to the functioning of healthy churches and effective believers. • In a less dramatic way the same is true of media ministry. Whatever the medium (literature, radio, satellite TV, audio and video tapes, etc.), there is almost always an application to strengthen and build up believers, as well as one of outreach evangelism.
- 19. Mercy • This area is distinguished by the many ways in which acting mercifully and promoting justice are fleshed out. • It may be educational, medical, well-drilling, fish-farming, famine relief, microloans, agricultural development, desert reclamation, advocacy on behalf of oppressed peoples, ministering among political leaders for legislative reform, and a whole host of other things too numerous to mention. • Perhaps never are God’s people more Christlike than when they engage in these ministries, loving others as they love themselves (Matt. 22:39), and doing good unto others as if they were doing it unto Christ himself (Matt. 25:40).
- 20. Short-Term and Long-Term Efforts • Short-Term Mission Trips: • The majority of them go directly from churches. • Their typical length is one to two weeks. • The median age of the participants probably is under twenty. • Their primary purpose is focused on what they will do for the spiritual growth and worldview of the participants rather than on their strategic contribution. • Because congregational experience tends to trump strategic impact as the reason for these trips, a lot of sound missiological principles are being violated, and vast sums of money for mission are being spent without much to show for it.
- 21. Churches with Effective Short-Term Programs • These churches are distinguished from the majority by the following: • A commitment to relate effectively to what is already happening in an area • A commitment to go back to the same places year after year so that strong relationships can be developed and contributions can be targeted to real felt needs • A commitment to doing the hard work of learning sound missiology so that unnecessary errors can be avoided
- 22. Short-Term Web Resources • MisLinks • Network for Strategic Missions articles • ShortTermMissions
- 23. Missionary Care Inescapable among the many responsibilities all senders have to deal with is the care of the missionaries they send. It is part and parcel of the unwritten contract between the senders and the sent. It is also the clear instruction of Scripture (3 John 5–8)—senders are to perform this duty with diligence, but also with joy.
- 24. Missionary Care • The Challenge of Maintaining Wholeness • The Particular Roles of Senders • Avoiding Attrition and Assisting the Broken • Resources for Missionary Care
- 25. The Challenge of Maintaining Wholeness • Burnout: • The state of emotional, physical, and/or spiritual exhaustion that makes the missionary unable to carry out his or her work. While it is not normally terminal in life-and-death terms, it is often fatal to missionary effectiveness.
- 26. Missionary Families • They tend to be more closely knit and unified in their focus. • They tend to be more out of touch than most with the cultural cues, fads, and fashions of their home culture. • They seem to produce a higher percentage of exceptional and gifted children than their own numbers would justify.
- 27. Missionary Families (cont.) • Needs unique to missionary families: • They tend to face the challenge of transitions much more frequently and to a greater degree than do most families. • Home tends to be an elusive concept, and while a sense of loss may be the dominant feeling this may engender for oneself and one's spouse, a sense of guilt may accompany it with regard to children. • Financial issues tend to be a bigger deal for missionary families than for others.
- 28. Missionary Families (cont.) • The steps missionaries, their agencies, and their supporting churches can take to strengthen missionary families include: • Take full advantage of books, seminars, and other resources available in the Christian community to strengthen families.
- 29. Missionary Families (cont.) • Agencies can create an atmosphere that communicates not only that it is okay, but also that it is essential and expected, that couples and whole families spend periodic time apart from their assignments—time to recharge their batteries, enjoy some privacy, and pursue hobbies or other recreation. • Successful marriages always require hard work, patience, and commitment. Successful missionary marriages are no exception, but they do require something more: recognition that there are additional stresses that will have to be faced.
- 30. The Particular Roles of Senders • The agency challenge corporately is to create an atmosphere in which missionary care can flourish and to ensure that it is actually happening at a healthy and sustainable level. • The church’s challenge is to stay fully engaged with the missionaries they have sent and to make sure that effective missionary care is actually taking place. • The latter may require them to give a series of nudges—asking tough questions until what needs to be done is actually done. • Among more regular duties, they should focus on the kinds of communication and home-assignment encouragement that convey the sense of love and concern that all missionaries need.
- 31. Avoiding Attrition and Assisting the Broken “Let’s take a look at one of the prime findings of the ReMAP research: In terms of the global missions force, it is estimated that 1 career missionary in 20 (5.1% of the mission force) leaves the mission field to return home every year. Of those who leave, 71% leave for preventable reasons.” (Taylor 1997, 13)
- 32. Avoiding Attrition and Assisting the Broken • Who are the broken? • They are those who leave ministry prematurely for preventable reasons. It may be their body, mind, or spirit that is broken, but they share a common need for healing. • The conditions needing healing cover the same gamut of afflictions, addictions, and maladies that inflict the population generally. • This population simply has more pressures and occasions for wounds from living cross-culturally and as missionaries.
- 33. Avoiding Attrition and Assisting the Broken Well-informed and compassionate churches can play a strategic role in ensuring that neither a lack of funds nor a lack of moral support and encouragement will keep wounded missionaries from the healing resources they need.
- 34. Resources for Missionary Care • MisLinks member care page • Asbury: Mental Health and Missionary Care • Member Care Resources • Evangelical Missions Quarterly articles: • “Crisis Intervention for Missionaries” • “Beauty for Ashes: Redeeming Premature Field Departure” • “Boomers, Busters, and Missions” • Mental Healthcare papers