Mission Leader

Here’s a local church sending question – one that is only important if you are dealing with it.

The question – What if my church wants to send our own missionaries without the aid of a mission sending agency?

Many churches come from a tradition that believes this is the best way to send and support missionaries.  No question – missions is the responsibility of the Local Church.  No question – when a small or large church takes complete responsibility for the sending, the financial supporting, the field mentoring, the financial oversight, the transportation and housing needs, the ministry guidance and the spiritual support of a missionary family thousands of miles from the US, there are issues to address.

I’ve been in a setting in which missionaries felt called to go, they were qualified, but for some reason were not able to join one of the existing mission agencies.  That fact alone is worthy of asking some serious questions.  Why wouldn’t this  individual go with one of multiple excellent sending agencies? Why aren’t they qualified to go with an agency?

There are clearly situations in which a particular project really merits the local church sending their own team.  That decision is wrought with potential land-mines.  That decision can also be a tremendous means to involve the church in a great way than ever before.  With everything riding on the church’s effectiveness to send, support, pray and engage the missionaries and their ministry – opportunities abound for the entire church to get involved.

My own experience with local-church sending outside of a partnership with an existing sending/supporting agency/partner is this –  only experienced, mature, cross-cultural workers should endeavor such an effort.

Why?  Here’s two reasons that I recommend when sending as a local church, to make sure you partner your chruch’s missionaries with great field partners.

1. Cross-cultural learning requires guidance, accountability, and repeated encouragement from someone who has experienced the value of going deep into the language and culture.  Even the best North American mission leader, committee, or pastor doesn’t have the time and touch to constantly monitor and encourage an inexperienced missionary to make steady progress in appropriate cross-cultural learning.  As an experienced missionary who can speak a second and third language fluently, I was never able to insure that the missionaries our church sent separate from a partnering agency ever learned the language.  Even today they continue to use a translator and thus will never be able to communicate deep spiritual truths in the heart language of their audience.  This, in my view is one of the greatest tragedies and greatest risks to the spread of the gospel through a means that indigenous communities can understood.  It’s a fallacy to think that getting the gospel out there is enough. The message must be communicate not only through intelligible words, by means of messengers that understand the subtle non-verbal communication that often carries more weight than words.

2. Isolation, personal spiritual crisis, and marriage and family issues are nearly impossible to monitor and support without lots of opportunities for presence and touch.  I’ve had the unfortunate responsibility as mission pastor to travel from North America to Asia to meet with a family whose marriage fell apart on the mission field.  The warning signs were apparent to many, but there was no one on the field who was responsible for sharing those concerns with their sending church. In fact, there were two sending churches and both of us assumed the other was doing their part.  We failed and the children and marriage suffered the loss.  Avoidable, personal tragedy is too easy without hands-on care.  Add to that the fact that the right agency might have better screened the couple and rejected them, encouraging them to stay and work on their marriage.  In our case, the couple was connected to people of influence in the church, which made it nearly impossible to not send them.

Not every story ends in tragedy so that my message is not “Don’t Do This.”  Rather, my advice is when a local church sends, do it right. Don’t send novice missionaries on your own.  Don’t send any missionaries without some kind of prearranged field support system.

This subject was raised by a pastor who recently wrote a group of us and asked for policies and procedures related to local church sending absent from an agency.

Gary Coombs is the Mission Pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, CA.  Gary’s church is diligently seeking to be an effective sending church.  He sent a copy of his church’s sendingagencypolicy for local-church-sent and supported missionaries.  Thanks Gary for allowing us to make your guidelines available.  If any of you have similar documents to share – please jump in and pass them on so the rest of us can benefit from your experience.  That’s code for “we want to steal your ideas.”  It’s for the kingdom!

Take advantage of more from mission leaders by checking out the resources and links on missionleader.com.  If you have a resource you would like to share with others and you are willing to give them away on this site, please send them my way and I’ll post them for others to “borrow.”

Mark Morris

A friend sent me this letter from a Muslim background follower of Christ.  The letter gives a different perspective on the role of mothers in his land.  Remember your mother this week.

Mark

Excerpt of a Letter Below —

As most of you know I grew up in a Muslim Family, and brought up with a combination of Muslim and Central Asian cultural values.  Some very good values, while some not so impressive. One of the teachings of Islam is about honoring your parents especially mother. Mohammad said: “Paradise is under the feet of mothers.” So in order for a person to go to paradise his/her mother has to approve of his/her good behavior and ask God to send her child to paradise. While she herself is not sure where will she end, to paradise or to hell or to a place in between called Barzakh.

On the other hand even for the most righteous Muslim to go to paradise is that they have to cross a bridge called SERRAT. Which, according to Mohamad and the Mullah of our neighborhood Mosque the serat bridge is thinner than a string of hair and sharper than Sword.

And the legend in our neighborhood says that one day when a famous drug addict and gang member of our area was in the mosque for Friday prayer. There he heard Mullah say that all Muslims have to cross the Serat Bridge to get to paradise otherwise they would fall down in everlasting Fire of hell; he got up, shook his prayer mat and leaving the mosque he said to Mullah: “if that is the way to paradise not even you can cross it, so why should I waste my time here” and he left.

I am reading you this so that you know how hopeless I was as a Muslim. But today I thank and Praise God, because now I don’t have to cross the Serat Bridge. I don’t have to go to bed with fear that if I die I will fall from Serat Bridge in to the flames of hill that Allah has prepared for me.  Today I have a promise and that promise with Confidence says: “my child, if you leave this world today, you will be with me in Paradise”

We thank God and Jesus the living son of God for his sacrifice on the cross, and for this GREAT ASSURANCE and Promise. That whoever who believe in Him shall not parish but have eternal life. And where will that eternal life would be? IN PARADISE WITH JESUS.

Now that you know about the role of mothers in recommending God to take their children to Paradise I should also let you know that it gives some mothers a bit more power of persuasion . And the example of that would be my mother who lives in Central Asia.  When I told her that I am a Christian. She began weeping and saying “if I am your mother please come back and be a Muslim. Or I won’t forgive you” in other words: “you won’t go to paradise”. And crying she mentioned “I sent you to the Islamic school to learn Quran so that when I die you read Quran on my grave, and now you become an infidel. Now God not only punish you but God will punish me as well for your sin.”

So should I be afraid that because my mother is not happy with me I will end up in hell. No of course not. Because I love Jesus and he is enough for me. I am content with Jesus. Because I have Jesus and he takes my hand and take me with him to where he is. And I am sure wherever he is it is much nicer than (the writer’s home city) in winter.

One day Fatima the daughter of Mohammad asked her Father to make sure she goes to Paradise when she dies. Mohammad got angry and said: “I am not sure if I am going to paradise and you ask me to promise you that. Everyone is responsible for himself or herself.” Wow. Isn’t that a risky business to follow a leader who doesn’t know where he is leading you?  That was my situation 10 years ago.

We are so blessed to have Jesus Christ, the great leader, friend and savior who not only knows the way, but HE IS THE WAY, The truth and the life. Isn’t this a wonderful promise?! “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) and he says this with authority and confidence. He doesn’t say if I go then you can come with me.
Jesus not only takes us straight to God but He also gives us the right to become children of God.  “To all who received him (Jesus Christ), to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
And of course children are always allowed to stay in their father’s home. And guess where our Father’s home is? PARADISE.  Imagine a place where there is no war, everybody loves one another, no one cuts you off while driving, and we even don’t have to pay taxes any more, And we might never see any pothole again.

Just remember if Jesus says to a dying thief on the cross: today you will be with me in paradise. How much more does he want you and me to be with him in paradise?  And this promise is not only for the dying man on the cross but to all of us here who believes in him.
And we have this confidence in Jesus Christ. That one day we will be with him in Paradise. Because in Jesus we have eternal life, and we have the assurance that we will not be condemned, and we have the promise that we have crossed from death to life.

“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed from death to life” (John 5:24).

P.S: you are free to share it with friends without mentioning my name and address.

A dear Afghan brother, Hussain Andaryas does a weekly, live call-in television broadcast into the Muslim world.  In today’s post-9-11 world, Americans tend to rule out any thought of Muslims coming to a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. We’re distrustful and simply do not believe it.  In fact we struggle with the question – “God, how could you love a Muslim?”

Take a look at some excerpts from recent telephone calls from Iran and Afghanistan as well as Saudi Arabia.

God is at work, even among Muslims.  Could it be that God loves All Peoples?  See excerpts from his recent newsletter.