Serving the Sent: Using the Calendar

In a previous column, we discussed using space to benefit our sent ones. Now we are going to talk about time. Most specifically, we will talk about the church calendar and how it is important to carve out time for missions. I don’t want to talk about “Missions minutes” in front of the church in this column. Nor about what the church does to honor and give time to a visiting missionary. As important as those things are, previous columns have addressed these areas. I am thinking of the yearly calendar and the 52 Sundays in a year. 

When you are on a mission team or are otherwise focused on missions, it is easy to forget that most people in the church do not think about missions often and are not familiar with the details of the church’s missions efforts. This is not necessarily a failing of the church members. Different people play different roles in the church and have different emphases. Called to missions as a sender and supporter means that part of the job is to raise the awareness of the church body to the worldwide mission of God. Especially in the local context of your church.

There are two main objectives here: one is to make the church aware of the mission efforts and missionaries of the church they attend. We will not focus on that option here because opportunities to raise awareness of these efforts come organically from missionary visits and church-led missions events like a missions conference. The second objective is to increase the attention in the church for the reason we do missions at all and the role of the local church in missions. Why does the church support the missionaries they support? Why should the church be looking to recruit missionaries from the congregation? Why should Christians, in general, be aware of their persecuted brothers and sisters worldwide and be in prayer for unreached people groups, and why should a small local church even concern themselves with such a big mission?

These two themes are not mutually exclusive and should be pursued in tandem, but the second objective needs some time to shine and get the attention of your church as a whole. One way to do that is to look to the Christian calendar and find a Sunday, perhaps pegged to a day like the National Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church or Reformation Sunday, or declare one Sunday on the calendar "World Missions Sunday" for your church. Use that once a year to paint the big picture, answer the why questions, and exhort the congregation to think and pray about being missionaries or supporters and senders of missionaries. Connect the mission to the local church and remind them in the words of Emil Brunner, “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning.”