Starting our Restarting a Missions Team, Part III

We thank God for your church's desire to start or restart a Missions Team. If you have made it this far, you already have a strong commitment to form an effective Missions Team, some foundational documents and definitions, and a core group of pioneering team members to get started. Now, we will begin to get into the nitty-gritty of doing the work of the Missions Team.

We have a large library of articles for the operation of the Missions Team, along with recommended resources with links on the Propempo website. You can find it on the Internet here.

What would be the typical agenda for the Missions Team?

We recommend that the Missions Team meets nine or ten times per year. Once per month, with a break sometime in the summer and another break through the year-end holiday season.

1. Welcome and prayer of invocation.
2. Devotional or group discussion of a team reading assignment, e.g., one chapter or section of a relevant missions book or article per meeting.
3. Updates from Missions Team sub-team leaders:
1. Missions Finances
2. Annual Missions Conference or event planning
3. Short Term Missions (STM) planning and execution
4. Missionary candidate development or training
5. Congregation teaching opportunities or promotion of missions
6. Local cross-cultural outreach efforts
4. Updates from supported missionaries or missions ministries.
5. Any personal report from a supported missionary or STM leader requested to visit the Missions Team meeting.
6. Discussion and decisions arising from reports.
7. Prayer for known needs and every missionary, missions ministry, and candidate by name. If there are too many to do this in a timely way as a whole group, then divide the prayer items into two or more groups to pray.
8. Dismiss with prayer.

Among the first tasks for the new or renewed Missions Team is to initiate regular communication with your supported missionaries. Included in that conversation should be eliciting whether the missionary or ministry your church supports meets the criteria you’ve chosen to define alignment with your church and your definition of missions. If, as we suggest, missions aims to plant and strengthen indigenous local churches, then you would ask them how their ministry meets that goal. Regular communication should be two-way; that is, the church desires to develop a strong relationship with the missionary, their family, and their ministry, as well as have the missionary feel a sense of love and belonging in the church.

A strong commitment to recruiting, equipping, and sending people from your own congregation should be communicated early and often to the congregation. Your church sending your own into cross-cultural missions is a game-changer for your church family's general attitude and ownership. If you already have someone interested in becoming a missionary, it can fuel your creation of a clear development pipeline for qualification in character, convictions, and ministry competencies.

Begin to start or restart an annual missions ministry highlight event. Most churches do it over a weekend: Friday evening through Sunday evening. Other churches have a special emphasis quarterly coordinated with events and a special Sunday every three months.

The process and policy decisions will come naturally over time. If you want a preview and suggestions, click here for the Propempo Guidebook on Missions Policy Handbook.

MissioSERVE’s Church Engagement ministry would love to assist you with consultation and training to grow your church in missions! Contact us here.