The Local Church as the Original Missions-Sending Organization 

I don’t really like American football, but this year I watched the Super Bowl. My wife’s family’s favorite team was playing, so I felt a small degree of obligation to at least keep up with it. When the game ended and my team lost, I didn’t feel too much disappointment. 

I probably would have had a more emotional reaction if I had followed all the offseason moves and watched every minute of every game. Sure, it would have been cool if they won the Super Bowl, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t have much skin in the game.

Sometimes, we treat missionaries the same way. 

It’s not that we don’t care—not completely. We may feel a vague emotional connection to their ministry or have an organic connection to them somehow. They may have been members at our church before they left. We may have even given them a little money on their way to the field. But that’s about as far as the relationship goes. We hope they do well, but they’re mostly out of sight, out of mind. 

We just don’t have much skin in the game.

GO THROUGH THE CHURCH, NOT AROUND IT

I think this happens for two reasons. First, too many missionaries (and missions-sending organizations) have gone around the church for affirmation, training, and sending, instead of going through it. 

Who did the Holy Spirit use to commission Paul and Barnabas for their first ministry journey? The church of Antioch (Acts 13:1–3). The Great Commission belongs to the local church, embassies of Christ’s kingdom given heavenly authority to disciple the nations through baptism and teaching (Matthew 28:18–20). 

Trying to do “missions” outside of the New Testament’s missions-sending organization inevitably strips crosscultural workers of God’s intended source of their ongoing encouragement and accountability. 

But there’s also a second reason: Too many churches fail to empower their members to do the work of raising up, affirming, and sending missionaries (Ephesians 4:10). 

It’s hard to argue the church as a whole isn’t doing their job when they’ve effectively been fired before their first day. Pastors should absolutely give shape and shepherding to the church’s missions efforts, but that’s not the same as doing all the missions efforts for the church. 

If missionary sending is understood as something only church staff do, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the church understands missionary support as something only church staff do too. 

CHURCH MEMBERS AS MISSIONARY SENDERS

So, how should congregations participate in missionary affirmation? It varies from church to church, but it always starts by cultivating a culture of discipling. Church members who realize they are their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers at home will more naturally feel the same way when those brothers and sisters go to the mission field.

We should also encourage members interested in pursuing missions to ask others in the church if they see the character and competency necessary to serve overseas—to open themselves up to being affirmed, not just having their sense of calling confirmed. 

Church leaders should give potential missionaries opportunities to speak in front of the church. Men who desire to be sent as church planters should get opportunities to teach and preach God’s Word to the church. This will help church leaders assess their gifts. 

The congregation should be involved in approving any funds towards sending missionaries from the church. This provides another level of reinforcement that these are your missionaries. 

And, ideally, try to send your church’s supported workers to places the church already has established relationships, so that their ministry fits within an overall strategy the congregation feels a part of. 

THE KIND OF RELATIONSHIPS THAT ENDURE

Relationships solidified on the front end are more likely to endure on the back end. More than being able to put a name to a face on a slideshow, members have heard their missionaries teach Sunday School, watched their children in nursery, and hosted them in their homes. They’ll remember when that missionary shared about their first short-term trip at a prayer service, or that conversation over coffee when they first communicated a burden for a particular country. 

They’ll feel motivated to host missionaries on furlough, or even use vacation time to visit missionaries overseas when they’ve already had practice in sacrificing themselves for the good of others.

May our churches be full of members who are well–practiced in giving themselves to their fellow members and supported workers. It’s hard to have much more skin in the game than that.