Setting up a church missions programme

Last month, NZBMS talked about the six roles of a missions committee. Some churches don’t have a missions committee, or have one that is in need of revitalising. Here are some practical steps to take to establish a missions programme as part of your church life.

1. Make sure you're convinced about missions yourself.
2. Evaluate the current situation. Identify key people within your church who are interested in mission and invite those people to meet together to pray for missions.
3. Begin to draw up a strategy of where you want to go. This should include things like:

• Priorities for the mission team. What areas of missions will the church seek to be involved in—unreached, education, social needs, local, foreign, other faiths, etc.?
• What type of missionaries will be supported—just church members, denominational missionaries, etc.?
• How will this be funded—giving, budgeted, faith promise?
• How will levels of support be determined?
• How will the team motivate the congregation?

1. Provide studies about missions for your small groups and ask your pastor to preach about missions.
2. If you don’t already have contacts, choose one or two suitable mission workers and introduce them to the congregation. Start by learning about their work and regularly praying for them.
3. Launch your missions programme with a focused week or weekend.
4. Determine how much regular support you can afford (by faith) and build it into your church finances.
5. Never stop communicating the missions vision with your congregation, and encouraging them to be involved.
6. Keep promoting your mission workers. Remember, not all missionaries are good preachers. Find creative ways of allowing the non-communicators to share with the church. In larger congregations, it may be necessary to form smaller interest groups for individual missionaries.
7. Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of the fact that mission was God’s idea. That, through Jesus, he has challenged us to take the gospel to all corners of our world. Good stewardship demands that we are organised to do just that.