Missionary Confidential

A Prayer For Missions

Trevin Wax, former long-term missionary to Romania, recently posted this prayer on his blog:

God of truth and love; Father Son and Holy Spirit, Hear our prayer for those who do not know You. We ask that they may come to a saving knowledge of the truth and that Your Name may be praised among all peoples of the world. Sustain, inspire and enlighten Your servants who bring them the Gospel. Bring fresh vigor to wavering faith; sustain our faith when it is still fragile. Continually renew missionary zeal in ourselves and in the Church; raise up new missionaries who will follow You to the ends of the world. Make us witnesses to Your goodness; full of love, strength and faith – for Your glory and the salvation of the entire world.—Kendall Harmon

Question Week: Do We Obsess Too Much About Details in Ministry?

Continuing with Question Week:

Do we obsess too much about details in ministry?

Here’s what I’ve noticed: over the years, both in the States and now in the mission field, there seems to be an attitude of having to do things a certain way to attract people to church/Christ, or it won’t happen at all. For instance, an emphasis on only a certain style of worship, or the way that all churches are now encouraged to join Facebook and constantly Twitter. Or the importance placed upon incredibly high production values on Sunday, such as laser lights, full rock band and video production for the sermon.  There is an underlying attitude that if your church gathering doesn’t tick all the right boxes, there’s no way that people will come to your church—or even come to Christ.

But the reality is that people do on both accounts, even when things don’t seem perfect to us. I remember some of the services in our ministry history that didn’t go right because something electronic broke down were often times the most poignant as there was a simplicity to them. I’m not arguing against excellence, planning or doing a half-baked job (for a great post on how we may be taking excellence too far, see this blog post from Collide Magazine). I just notice the attitude among ministries both in the States and in my mission field that if you can’t do a “big thing” in church service, then don’t do it at all. Yet in unglamourous industrial estates or in peeling, dilapidated stone churches there are people finding Christ for the first time.

Those who are originally from countries other than the States, is this a specific cultural thing coming from America or is it more pervasive in Christianity throughout all cultures?

Question Week: How Much (or What) Should You Communicate Back Home?

Another Question Week:

How much (or what) should you communicate back home to your supporters?

We live in a unique time when we can instantly update or be updated about a number of things, from the trivial to the most important. There’s a lot that we can share with people to educate and update about our missions ministry, including prayer requests and praises. Our communication strategy includes an e-newsletter every other month, a quarterly printed newsletter (for those who don’t have email—yes, those people exist!), and a blog that we update several times a month, trying to include pictures as well. For specific supporters or churches, we’ve sent personal letters, postcards, thank you notes, and even made phone calls to keep the communication flowing. We even maintain a telephone number in the States that forwards to our mission field. If anyone said we were unreachable or weren’t letting supporters know what we’re doing, I would have to laugh.

We try to report what we do, but often times I find that a lot of it is the same sort of thing over and over, so we try to supplement with information about the social changes in our field that could affect peoples’ openness to hearing the Gospel. Sometimes we’ll post photos that aren’t completely related to ministry. I struggle with what to say or how much to reveal because, while I want to make sure our personality comes through, I don’t want to be terribly public with everything in my life.

The other issue that I struggle with is the fact that our nationals do try to research us on the web, and this includes our blog. We’re not in an overly-hostile mission field, yet we quickly found that the blog’s innocent reporting became a lightning rod of hostility from those who do not want us here. Due to some IT magic, our missionary blog is no longer viewable within our mission field, and it’s important we think about safety.

What do you tell your supporters, and how much/often do you communicate?