SEVEN GUIDELINES FOR CHURCH MISSIONS LEADERSHIP DESIGN

BY ELLEN LIVINGOOD, Original post here

1. Divide leadership into smaller pieces built around gifts and passion

Even if your church is small, divide leadership responsibilities into several smaller groups so that you can recruit people to focus on doing what they most enjoy. Begin by separating missions program administration, missionary care, and missions event planning. Each of these attracts people with very different gifts. For example, asking a person who loves to organize missionary hospitality to sit in meetings developing the annual missions budget quickly drains their energy. But asking them to help organize a baby shower for a missionary on home assignment gets an enthusiastic, “Yes!”

Recruit people to do what they most enjoy.

2. Choose group names carefully

Survey a few younger adults in your church. What is their immediate reaction to the terms, “committee,” “team,” and “task force”? You may also want to measure preferences for “missions” vs. “global outreach.” Ask them to name a job title they would find attractive. Be ready to replace older terms if they sound boring, difficult, or simply unclear to your younger audience.

3. Build around vision not task

Remember the story of the three stonemasons? When asked what they were doing, the first said, “I am making a living.” The second said, “I am building a wall.” The third said, “I am creating a cathedral.” Do you describe the job of your missions leaders in terms that point toward life transformation? Adopting visionary language has the added benefit of facilitating the evaluation of your impact. For example, is your missionary development team just tasked with vetting missionary candidates or with seeking to intentionally disciple every believer to fulfill the role God has created them to play in His mission?

4. Create clear strategy and policy guidelines

Too many leadership teams are bogged down discussing the same type of problems and decisions in every meeting. No one wants to be part of that kind of a leadership group. The solution is to invest the time to adopt clear priorities and strategies, and then develop policies that predetermine many decisions, eliminating the need for laborious consideration of each individual situation while acknowledging that there may be occasional exceptions.

Too many leadership teams are bogged down discussing the same type of problems and decisions in every meeting.

5. Begin with trial size

When recruiting a new team member, ask them to begin by serving a six-month trial period to determine if the role is a good fit for them. At the end of this time, sit down and discuss honestly how they feel about continuing. Often there are ways to customize the role to be the best possible fit. Job sharing may be a great option, especially for a couple or moms of younger children.

6. Always include celebration

Too often missions leadership teams get bogged down in lengthy agendas. Meetings run long and late. Everyone loses if leaders leave a meeting with a sense of frustration or discouragement. Plan ahead in order to end every meeting with celebration. Some ideas: Ahead of time, record a two-minute clip where one of your global workers shares something they appreciate about your church’s support of their family and/or ministry; invite a member of a recent short-term team to come and share how the trip changed them; read a couple of quotes from members of the congregation who loved their involvement in a recent missions project. Remind your leaders how their work made this possible.

7. Publicly commend the team’s impact

Don’t let your missions leaders be unsung heroes. Here are some practical ideas: (1) Give your pastor a written list of illustrations of how members of your leadership teams have used specific gifts or passions to impact your missions engagement. Suggest that one or more of these be included as an illustration the next time they preach a sermon on service. (2) When you write your global workers (you do write them, don’t you?!) highlight one of your leaders and a specific way they serve, copying the letter to your whole leadership team. (3) Annually, call all of your missions leaders to the platform during a worship service and recommission them for service, briefly noting how their work has transformational impact around the world through long- and short-term ministries.

Catalyst Services provides excellent tools and resources for church missions. Check them out at https://catalystservices.org.

Short-Term Missions that Avoid Long-Term Harm—Part 1

Original Post by Chalmers Center, May 10, 2022

Adapted from Helping Without Hurting in Short-Term Missions: Leaders’ Guide, 29-31.

Much international travel, particularly to and from countries with limited healthcare infrastructure, has been on hold for the past 2 years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As short-term trips begin to become a possibility again, it’s important to remember some best practices for short-term missions that should be followed to protect and encourage the missionaries and local ministries that teams want to support.

What If…

Imagine for a moment that your phone rings. It’s a friend of a friend calling from Thailand. After a few minutes of small talk the caller explains that his church in Thailand would like to send twenty-five people—about half of them under the age of eighteen—to your church for two weeks next summer.

They understand you are ministering in low-income apartment complexes around your church, and they want to come help. The only time they can come is the first two weeks of July, the peak of your church’s ministry season. 

“But don’t worry—we are there to help. We’ve prepared a series of skits, crafts, and lessons to present in VBS classes. We will hold them in the apartment complex’s courtyard,” the voice reassures you. “We are bringing gifts for the children to make sure they will attend the VBS, and one of our team members is an electrician who can fix anything in your building while we are there.”

A few details must be worked out. The group will have to be picked up from the nearest major airport—a two-hour trip—and they will need places to stay. And they’ll expect to be fed three meals a day throughout their visit (nothing too far out of what they’re comfortable with—what is a casserole, exactly?). Oh, and one other thing: most of them do not speak English well, if at all. Please arrange translators to accompany them during their stay.

Meanwhile, your church members have spent the past three years gradually developing relationships with the apartment residents and building their trust. These residents are mostly low-income families, and it has taken a long time for them to feel comfortable with your church’s presence in their neighborhood.

While you consider the pros and cons of this offer, the voice continues: “We are just so excited about this opportunity to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. Our church members are ready and willing to raise $40,000 to come. We are invested in supporting your work, and depending on how things go, we might explore other opportunities to work together.” 

You know what that last phrase really means: If we like what we see, we would be willing to give your church ongoing financial support.

Your church could certainly use the money to purchase new AV equipment and refurbish its nursery. But at what cost? Housing, feeding, and supervising twenty-five people with limited English skills? And what about the relationships at the apartment complex? How will the residents respond to a group of people they’ve never met passing out candy and leading VBS sessions?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It sounds so simple. Until it isn’t.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

These types of short-term mission trips present very high opportunity costs. As seen in the hypothetical example above, hosting teams requires incredible amounts of work and coordination from the receiving community and host. 

In addition, they also come at a high financial cost. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow estimated—as far back as 2005—that U.S. spending on short-term mission trips totaled more than 1.6 billion dollars. For perspective, at the time, that was enough to pay the annual average wages of roughly 4 million people in material poverty!1

What if there was a better way for congregations and organizations to invest in building connections with ministries around the world, using trips wisely to maximize the value and minimize the disruption to long-term, relational ministry?

The Chalmers Center’s book and video series Helping Without Hurting in Short-Term Missions casts a vision for how short-term trips can be used as part of long-term process of engagement. 

How Travel and Insurance Agents Can Help in Times of Crisis

Provided by SOE- read original post here

By Tory Ruark, Chief Operations Officer and STM coach at Standards of Excellence

I have worked in short-term missions for nearly 20 years and I have two confessions to make:

1. I hate booking airfare
2. Insurance policy language confuses me

One of the reasons I dislike booking airfare is that I almost always wonder if I could have obtained a better price. It’s interesting how focused we are on price. If you’re like me, you know you need to work through a travel agent but deciding which one among the many is hard. How can you determine who will give you the best price when the nature of the pricing structure keeps you from being able to compare agents?

The answer is simple, compare other areas that are important. What could be important besides price? Here’s a short list of things to consider when choosing a travel agent:

1. Do they have 24/7 service?

2. What is the change fee they have negotiated with the airline?

3. What is the cancellation fee they have negotiated with the airline?

4. What baggage allowances have they negotiated?

5. How quickly does an agent respond when you send in a request?

Travel agencies have unique contracts with airlines so it can be difficult to compare apples to apples. My advice is to meet with a few travel agents to discuss your needs and concerns and ask how they can address them. Then give two or three of the best a try on the next few trips. One will probably naturally rise to the top.

Now for insurance. What should you do about it? First, YOU NEED TO BUY INSURANCE. If you’re sending teams without insurance, you are at best negligent and at worst criminal. One heart attack, appendectomy, seizure, or any other unexpected health condition could leave you or your team member literally bankrupt. A nightmare that could have been avoided with an insurance policy that costs as little as $2-$3 per day. For roughly 1% of your mission trip cost, you can protect yourself from financial ruin or even the death of a team member because it took you too long to figure out what to do in an emergency compared to an insurance agent who is trained to quickly respond.

Extreme case scenarios aren’t the only ones to think about. What about the traveler who gets sick at the end of the trip and ends up being hospitalized to treat an infection induced high fever upon return? Wouldn’t it be a blessing to have your $30 insurance policy pay the $2500 deductible for that family?!

As you consider insurance policies, be bold. Ask your agent to explain the policy thoroughly and be sure you understand terms like:
• Trip Interruption
• Trip cancellation
• Repatriation of remains
• Emergency medical evacuation (to where? how much is the benefit?)
• Lost Bag
• Adventure sports/activities rider
• and more…

I’m convinced most of us don’t take full advantage of the travel and insurance agents who are eager and willing to work for us simply because we don’t have a good understanding of how and when they can help. So take some time to review what you have in place if you haven’t done so recently. Small changes can make a big difference.

DEEPENING DISCIPLESHIP THROUGH SHORT-TERM MISSIONS

Short-Term Missions can be life-changing!

Short-term Missions (STM) give God’s people an opportunity to grow as they serve Him and serve others (Luke 10:27-28). The GoJournal is designed to help deepen discipleship and relationships through STM. We want to use short-term missions to cultivate long-term fruit!

The GoJournal has three key elements:

The Journey Book provides participants with daily journaling templates including reflections on God’s Word and thought-provoking questions.

The Leader Guide helps one or more Team Leaders coordinate the effective use of the Journey Books and a thorough debriefing process.

The Mentor Guide enables a caring member of the home church to be personally involved with a STM worker through hospitality and prayer.

Whether you will serve as a STM worker, a Team Leader or a Mentor, get started with GoJournal today!

21 Tips for Traveling With Diabetes

Traveling to new places gets you out of your routine—that’s a big part of the adventure. But delayed meals, unfamiliar food, being more active than usual, and different time zones can all disrupt diabetes management. Plan ahead so you can count on a more fruitful trip and less worry on the way and when you get to your destination. Read more . . .

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/traveling-with-diabetes.html

5 Steps to Better Mission Trips

Short-term trips can be exciting, challenging and rewarding. It’s a big job leading a group into a new place with different cultures, customs, laws, food, religions and germs. Here are 5 steps to better mission trips:

1. RECRUIT: having the right team members can make or break a trip. Great team members are: disciples, learners, humble, teachable, curious, compassionate, competent and flexible.

2. TEAM: healthy teams typically lead to better trips. Tension, conflict and confusion will distract from the main purposes of the trip.

3. TRAIN: there is a direct correlation between training and the effectiveness of trips. Prepared team members are trained to be sensitive to the new culture, to be a good teammate, how to share the gospel, understand the religions context, how to travel safe, and how to disciple.

4. SUPPORT: ensure every team member has support in prayer and finances. It’s great for each team member to have at least 5 partners who are praying and/or giving to support the trip.

5. DEBRIEF: cross-cultural experiences provide a unique opportunity for your team members to grow and to be discipled. Debriefs should happen at the end of each day on the trip and upon return. Returning members can become excellent mobilizers for future mission activities and discipleship opportunities locally and globally.

Three Objectives for a Short-Term Missions Trip

By Scott Logsdon, original post at LifeWay Leadership

When it comes to an international missions trip, there are all kinds of objectives for which you could plan. To start, work under the direction of your church and in partnership with the gospel ministers who serve in the area where your team will be going. Ultimately, the best short-term trips accomplish three objectives.

1. Short-term trips grow the heart of the church for the plight of the lost and for the spread of God’s greatness in the world. 

This is what you want to fan into flame as you create a culture of mission in your church. You want God’s people to be gripped with the needs of others so that they will be moved to pray for your team while you are there and continue to pray when you return. The more that God’s people are considering the needs of the lost, the more they will be moved by the Holy Spirit to sacrifice much so that God’s fame will spread in the world. 

Lead the team members to give a report to the church both before and after they return. Highlight your activities. Pray specifically for the names of people who may have heard the gospel during the trip. Also pray for all the gospel ministers and churches you supported on the trip.

2. Short-term trips support gospel ministers, whether individuals or churches. 

There are many ways that your team can support gospel ministers on short-term trips. Your team could watch the children of gospel ministers so that they can attend a strategy meeting or retreat. You could walk through their local neighborhoods and pray for the gospel to advance through their efforts. Whatever your team does, do something that makes the gospel ministers in that area feel that your church values them as a trusted, supporting partner in the ongoing spread of the gospel in that area of the world.

3. Good short-term trips engage those who need to hear the gospel. 

As you plan for your short-term trip, find ways that you can actively engage the lost with the gospel. If you are going to serve in a place where the local people do not speak English, follow the lead of your hosts about sharing the gospel through their translation. Make sure every member of the team is prepared to share the gospel, that they both know and can share it with those who live in that particular ministry context. 

Spend time studying the culture, beliefs, and values of the residents in that area and lead your team to practice tailoring their gospel conversations to the specific needs and questions of the residents they might encounter. If language is going to be a significant barrier, ask your hosts whether there is a way you and your team could appropriately hand out Bibles, even as gifts to individuals they meet. But follow the lead of your hosts to ensure both their and your team’s safety. 

As best you can, plan to accomplish these three objectives on your short-term missions trip. Sometimes, you may only be able to accomplish one or two objectives, and that’s okay. It will still be a good trip. Follow the lead of your church leadership and local hosts to grow the heart of the congregation for the lost and for the spread of God’s greatness in the world, to support gospel ministers, and to engage those who haven’t yet heard the gospel.

The Journey to Becoming a Church on Mission

Four milestones of the journey:

AWAKEN—to God’s heart that all people may know and worship Him.

Where are we going?  AWAKEN is the process of God revealing himself to us and transforming the way that we think about our lives and the role of the church.  As we are awakened, we realize that our primary task is fulfilling the mission of making disciples and that the primary motivation is worship.  We will be motivated to proclaim the Gospel to the darkest corners of the earth crossing both geographical and cultural barriers until the Gospel is available to all people.

What will we do?

• Seek God’s Heart

• Embrace God’s Heart

• Share God’s Heart

EXPLORE—God’s specific plan for our church.

Where are we going?  Driven by God’s heart, we seek for God’s specific direction for our church.  For the sake of defining our local and global involvement, we will explore existing relationships and identify where and to whom we are sent.

 What will we do?

• Identify our Existing Relationships with Missionaries, Mission organizations, affinities, networks, etc.

• Identify to whom you have been sent, locally and globally

• Know and Love our those to whom we have been sent.

EQUIP—our church to fulfill the mission.

Where are we going?  After we identify God’s specific direction for our church, we will respond by developing an intentional plan to educate, equip and organize the congregation. This is an ongoing process of engaging people where they are and moving them to the next level of equipping so that they can be personally involved in the mission of the church.

What will we do?

• Educate our Church in the Vision

• Equip our Church for the Mission

• Organize Our Church to fulfill the Mission

ENGAGE—in God’s specific plan for our church.

Where are we going?  Responding to God’s direction, we will develop an ongoing process of mobilizing the whole body to carry out His calling.  We will have a “whatever it takes” approach even to the point of mobilizing other communities of believers for the sake of all peoples knowing Him.  

What will we do?

•  Go and send to the People and Places God has Led You

• Do Whatever it Takes to See Disciples Made

• Focus on Actions and Activities that are Sustainable, Reproducible and Long Term

• Evaluate the Progress Continuously

• Mentor Others

10 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Missionary

Some sure-fire ways to avoid becoming a missionary

1.  Ignore Jesus' request in John 4:35 that we take a long hard look at the fields.Seeing the needs of people can be depressing and very unsettling. It could lead to genuine missionary concern.
(John 4:35 "Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest."

2.  Focus your energies on socially legitimate targets.Go after a bigger salary. Focus on getting a job promotion, a bigger home, a more luxurious car, or future financial security. Along the way, run up some big credit card debts. 

3.  Get married to somebody who thinks the "Great Commission"is what your employer gives you after you make a big sale.After marriage, embrace the socially accepted norms of settling down, establishing a respectable career trajectory and raising a picture-perfect family. 

4.  Stay away from missionaries.Their testimonies can be disturbing. The situations they describe will distract you from embracing whole-heartedly the materialistic lifestyle of your home country.  

5.  If you happen to think about missions, restrict your attention to countries where it's impossible to openly do missionary work.Think only about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China and other closed countries. Forget the vast areas of our globe open to missionaries. Never, never listen to talk about creative access countries. 

6.  Think how bad a missionary you would be based on your own past failures.It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. Don't even think about Moses, David, Jonah, Peter or Mark, all of whom overcame failures. 

7.  Always imagine missionaries as talented, super-spiritual people who stand on lofty pedestals.Maintaining this image of missionaries will heighten your own sense of inadequacy. Convincing yourself that God does not use ordinary people as missionaries will smother any guilt you may feel about refusing to even listen for a call from God. 

8.  Agree with the people who tell you that you are indispensable where you are.Listen when they tell you that your local church or home country can't do without you. 

9.  Worry incessantly about money.

10. If you still feel you must go, go out right away without any preparation or training.You'll soon be home again and no one can ever blame you for not trying!

Consider These 5 Things Before Your Church Plans a Short-Term Mission Trip

by John Kimbell (original post on imb.org)

Short-term mission trips are a strategic way to involve church members directly in making disciples of all nations. Trips have great potential to help churches cultivate meaningful partnerships with career missionaries and expand opportunities for every member of a church to participate in the Great Commission.

In order to help your church accomplish these goals through short-term missions, here are five things to consider before you plan a trip.

• Incorporate Short-Term Missions into a Long-Term Relationship

• Recognize the Value of Caring for Career Missionaries and Their Families

• Ask a Missionary to Help You Plan Your Activities

• Leverage Church Partnerships for Training and Opportunities

• Invite Church-Wide Involvement

Read full article here.

SETTING EXPECTATIONS FOR SHORT-TERM MISSION TRIPS

BY TERRY L. BROWN original post Upstream Collective

Short-term mission trips can be exciting and life changing.

From navigating treacherous mountain roads to hearing the joyful sound of children singing, you never know what might be around the next corner.

This type of adventure may sound like just the thing you’re looking for. However, for others, the frequent changes and challenges can prove to be too much. Many who start out with good intentions quickly find themselves off track.

If you happen to be a team leader, you can help to ensure everyone fully appreciates their experience by discussing proper expectations. Do this early in the planning process by setting a preliminary meeting with your group.

TALKING TO YOUR GROUP

Once you have determined where your team is going (and why), the next step is to assemble people with an interest. These will not be everyone who will go. Some are there to determine if this trip is for them.

You should make several things clear at this meeting:

• Why are we going? Let the group know if they’re going to construct a building, help with vacation bible school, disaster relief, etc.

• Where are we going? Let them know where they are going, with dates of departure and return - simple enough.

• What are the total costs? Share the total costs involved with a timeline of initial deposits and final payment due dates. It's helpful to show costs of travel, food, lodging, etc.

• What documents are necessary? Gather the documents necessary for the trip: passports, visa, birth certificates, etc. Make sure this meeting is far enough in advance to procure passports and visas. Always make sure documents extend past your departure date. I learned this the hard way when my visa in Moscow had to be renewed in an emergency with two days left - the cost was $150 to make sure I could leave as scheduled.

• What’s your personal information? Submit trip applications to everyone. Include full contact information with emergency names and important numbers, including any prescription meds and physical limitations.

• What will the conditions be like? Give a brief overview of the conditions you will be in. Some people cannot tolerate heat/humidity, or the lack of electricity or air conditioning. Some will not be able to eat local fare such as goat, snake, etc. I did not want to eat a fish with the head on (and eyes looking at me) while in Haiti. The family serving us did so at great cost and sacrifice. To decline would have hurt them, so I put on my big boys pants and thanked them for a great meal.

• Are there any cultural differences? Explain any cultural difference. Offending your hosts unintentionally is not a good way to start. However, they will appreciate any sensitivity you extend to them by doing your homework ahead of time. The first time I entered an Orthodox church, I was not aware it was offensive to leave the church by turning around and walking out with my back to the icons. I did not make that mistake twice.

• How do we stay in contact? Communication may be difficult or non-existent in the part of the world you are going. If you are one who will suffocate without a text or e-mail for a few days, then you may want to go on a different trip

READ MORE. . .

Travel Checklist

This is not your typical, “pack three shorts, two pair of pants, and sunscreen” type of travel checklist, but a travel checklist to ESSENTIALS if you are traveling internationally.

Photocopy it. Use it. Distribute it.

And help your friends be safe and better prepared!

https://www.gninsurance.com/documents/GNI-Free-Travel-Checklist.pdf

Thanks to Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission for the tool. https://soe.org/about/

Short-term Trip Audit

Take a few minutes to reflect on your mission program and how it can improve. SOE provided this process to proved you with a tool designed to help you identify strengths and weaknesses, and to know where to start addressing change.

The assessment is a set of True/False questions for each Standard. Answer each question and total the “true” and “false” answers for each section. As you read the questions, take time to consider them but don’t overthink. Often your first instinct is the correct one.

https://soe.org/wp-content/uploads/STM-Quick-Audit.pdf

Thanks to Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission for the tool. https://soe.org/about/

Could Online Training Work For Your Mission Trips?

By Josiah Holland, Co-Founder and President of XPCulture.com

Underlying this article is an assumption that you’ve already bought into the need for training and debriefing to go along with your mission trips — you’re just struggling to get it into your process.

The question is two-fold then; will online training work for me? And how do I go about doing it? Online training might be the perfect solution for you if: Read more. . .

Original article posted https://soe.org/articles/could-online-training-work-for-your-mission-trips/