Ten ideas for a strategic missional church

If you’re reading this blog post, it’s because you saw the title and thought to yourself, “Yes, I want my church to be strategic and missional”. Chances are that your church is already halfway there. Perhaps you have some members who are working on the mission fields. You receive their prayer letters. Their pictures are pinned up on notice boards. That’s great. But the fact of the matter is, praying for one family in one location is not the end of the story and, shock horror, may not even be the highest missions priority that there is.

For example, Anytown Evangelical Church has sent and is praying for a family working with street children in Cadiz. Brilliant. And I say that without any sense of irony. They are running kids clubs, sports competitions and badgering local government to provide funds for social housing. Perhaps, in ten years’ time, we may see some of these kids as happy, fruitful members of society and working hard in their churches. Some of them may even be from a Muslim background, and that’s even better.

However, to borrow the fishing analogy – if you give a man a fish he has a good dinner, if you teach a man to fish he can feed a village. The book of Acts tells us of a movement of churches that plant churches both within and outside their own people groups. It’s not too late for us to be a part of that. Here are ten ideas that can help you consider how to target your missions energy in the most strategic ways. OK, Grandma, in some cases you will be sucking eggs. But here goes anyway.

1. Adopt a people group

There are hundreds of unreached people groups in the world. By ‘unreached’ we mean an ethnic group that does not have enough Christians or resources to sufficiently evangelise itself. An arbitrary figure of less than 2% can often be used to mean “unreached”. The Joshua Project is the primary source of information about the unreached. Alternatively you could write to mission agencies and ask them to help you pick a people group.

There is one point of view that interprets Revelation 7:9 to mean that Jesus will only come back when there are believing representatives from every people group. If we want to speed His return, praying for an unreached people group is a good beginning. But it needn’t stop with prayer. Find missionaries working to reach that group. Send prayer walking teams over to the area. See if there are community development projects you could send money to or provide resources for.

It’s important to make this a long-term commitment. People groups are not reached overnight. Twenty years would be a bare minimum, especially in a group which doesn’t yet have the Bible in its own language.

2. Reach the diaspora

France, 1921. Deng was a young, initially fairly insignificant worker in Paris factories. A group of committed believers in set out on his conversion. These believers were thorough, knowledgeable and dedicated. By 1923, Deng Xiaoping had already taken a leadership position in his new church – the Chinese Communist Party.

In your home town, there will almost certainly be students from all over the world that will return to positions of leadership in their home countries. Surely we should be doing all we can to ensure they go back with a heart on fire for Jesus.

3. Release your best

It gets harder when you get older. There are so many more ties to stop people going overseas. Students and young people have it easy: long holidays, money to burn (although they won’t believe it), willingness to rough it on a shoestring. Moreover, churches are always very supportive of young people going to remote places to spread the Gospel. It’s part of their discipleship and growth to maturity.

On the other hand, students take with them nothing but a pair of hands and a servant heart (which is great). The older you get, generally speaking, the more you have to offer. It may be professional skills as a doctor, social worker, teacher or therapist, etc. Or it could be years of experience in a church preaching and leading small groups. These are invaluable skills that could genuinely benefit a small third world (or old world) church or professional community.

Short-term mission does not end at 25. In fact, 45 may be just the beginning. As a church, can you encourage your senior professionals to take time out to serve in strategic places. A lecture tour through Vietnamese universities could be just the fillip that brings favour to the long-termer and visa renewal for a good time to come. And retirement need not be a showstopper either.

4. Support a local missionary

It takes six months to three years for a Brit to learn a language. It takes still longer to learn the local culture. Then, after eight years, just when a missionary is at their most effective, they are called into organisational leadership, or their kids need to come home for schooling, and they come back too. These are headaches that mission agencies try to tackle.

On the other hand, it takes a few months for a Burmese Shan believer to learn the Dai dialect in China and the Buddhist culture is already familiar. Within half a year, the Shan believer can be an effective evangelist and church planter. Moreover, they are cheap. They don’t require expensive international airfares, or schooling packages. If British churches are to be strategic in worldwide mission, then channelling our financial resources into near-culture mission movements is something we need to consider. Obviously, we don’t want to create a culture of dependency, but neither do we want to stifle the growth of the church.

Mission agencies such as OMF recognise the disparity between financial resources and missionary enthusiasm and effectiveness. They ensure that some of their general fund is transferred to nations that would not otherwise be able to afford to send believers onto the mission field.

5. Get ready for the knee-jerk

Disasters strike: earthquakes, tsunamis, war, famine. Some of these are inflicted by man, others are natural disasters. Some are a combination. Either way, it is incumbent on the church to support its fellow man when it suffers. Can the church lay aside a pot of money to send off where it’s needed? Can your church do the research ahead of time to understand the best way to get resources from your bank account into the mouths of those who need it (without lining the pockets of the middle man on the way)? Tear Fund is a great start. But there are others too. Such a disaster could be the catalyst for a long-term commitment. An earthquake is news-worthy for a few weeks. The recovery process can take decades.

6. Receive too

Christendom has shifted. The flow of missionaries is no longer simply from the West to the rest, but missions can now go from everywhere to anywhere. Could you use a team of missionaries in your own home town, either long-term or short-term? Or could you provide evangelistic opportunities for Bible College students requiring summer placements? What impact would a group of young Ugandan evangelists have on your town? What impact would they have on your church?

I have no question that running such a project would be very hard work. Nor do I discount the expense (flights and accommodation, etc) that may preclude many potential missionaries from coming.

In many towns now, there is a significant Eastern European presence. Is your church geared up to meet them, bearing in mind the inordinately long hours they work? Could you engage the services of a Polish or Lithuanian Christian (for example) with the specific target of meeting people from their own people groups?

7. Invite experts

It’s pretty hard to ‘sell’ missions in the twenty first century.

• Many people have undertaken ‘voluntourism’ on a gap year and are loyal to that original agency.
• The needs of the UK are vast
• Who really has the up-to-date knowledge in your home church to present the needs of so many countries around the world?

Mission agencies have a constant stream home assignees (missionaries back home for a short period) with exciting stories to tell of how God is (or sometimes doesn’t seem to be) moving. There is a practically inexhaustible knowledge base waiting to be tapped.

Why not make a commitment to have one ‘missions’ prayer meeting a quarter in which you invite representatives to bring a presentation from different parts of the world. Of course, some presentations will not hit the mark, but persevere, some will. And then, once or twice a year, run a missions Sunday. Make use of your own missionaries if you have them, but otherwise why not take a risk and invite in the unknown. But don’t just stick with a regular sermon on a Sunday morning. See if they can stick around all day, do something more informal in the evening, and then speak to the youth group after the evening service. You’re going to have to pay them an honorarium, you may as well get your money’s worth.

8. Support mobilisation

Every mission agency has a ‘homeside team’. Many of these are staffed by missionaries too, who have to raise support and live by faith. They struggle to get their finances together. Churches will generally pick between street children in Rio over a Personnel manager in Reading.

If you can dedicate some of your missions giving every year into the general fund of a mission agency, this could make a big difference. The homeside team is dedicated full time to the job of raising the profile of their missionaries and of the needs in the part of the world they are advocating for.

You will also benefit because you will receive up-to-date information about missions work through magazines, online, and with visiting speakers. This could not be achieved without a homeside team. Moreover, homeside often takes a significant role in the pastoral care of workers on the field. Without this care, workers will and do come home.

In your congregation there may be skills that could be of use to the homeside team (and the field). Graphic design, journalism, photography, etc, are always much in demand. OMF (for example) has one young wedding photographer who donates time to make regular trips to Asia in order to produce photo libraries for use in prayer guides/posters/flyers/etc. At the same time, he produces a live portfolio useful for his own career advancement.

9. Conference attendance

Many pastors are overworked and stressed out. They have too much to do managing the church and caring for the sick and needy. Their time and resources to look into missions is limited. What a treat it could be to give them a weekend off. Retreats for pastors are great, and should be encouraged. They give a chance to refresh batteries and chill out. On the other hand, sending your pastor to a missions conference where they learn how the church is developing on the other side of the world may be physically tiring, but it could be spiritually energising. The pastor will come back with fresh ideas and renewed vigour to see a church thrive, rather than merely survive. (Pay for his wife to go too!)

Sending young people off to conferences can be a fine way to help them explore a missionary call. Why not offer to pay half? After all, a weekend residential conference will probably cost around £150-£200. One year in Japan (say) will cost upwards of £8000. Going to a conference may be just what they need for God to give them greater direction to go (or not). After all, you don’t want to commit £8000 a year on a graduation whim. Much better to do it with God’s clear direction. Either way, they will come back inspired and you will probably find their commitment to their home church in the short-term will increase.

10. Support your own missionaries.

To be fair this is the ‘sine qua non’ of mission. The previous nine strategies are great, but if you have sent missionaries out that the church fails to support, there is something awfully wrong. You should be advocating for them in prayer meetings, in AGMs, on Sunday mornings. People should write to them to keep them in touch. Christmas and birthdays should not go unnoticed. Wherever in the world they are, whichever agency they have gone with, they still represent and belong to your church.