Missions on Point

Your Church Missions Profile series walks through the 12-category self-assessment of your church's missions ministries. We'll talk you through how to think about and assess your church's implementation and effectiveness. Our online CMP is available at https://propempo.com/church-missions-profile . "Follow" or "Subscribe" to help evaluate your church missions profile and get help to improve your mi...

Your Church Missions Profile series walks through the 12-category self-assessment of your church's missions ministries. We'll talk you through how to think about and assess your church's implementation and effectiveness. Our online CMP is available at https://propempo.com/church-missions-profile . "Follow" or "Subscribe" to help evaluate your church missions profile and get help to improve your mi...

Your Church Missions Profile series walks through the 12-category self-assessment of your church's missions ministries. We'll talk you through how to think about and assess your church's implementation and effectiveness. Our online CMP is available at https://propempo.com/church-missions-profile . "Follow" or "Subscribe" to help evaluate your church missions profile and get help to improve your mi...

Many times we've received a panicked call from a Pastor who was approached by "George" (our hypothetical missionary wannabe), who thinks God is calling him to be a missionary. What do we do? How do we train him? Should we just refer him to a mission-sending agency? How can we be sure he has the right qualifications? Listen in. Don't freak out! It's OK; God will help you train up missionaries from...

It's painful to realize that the church needs to reduce or completely cut support for a missionary previously heralded and highly regarded by the church family. Emotionally difficult, it can have land mines with big repercussions. Good communication with both the missionary and the congregation is key. Whether for economic reasons, sinful patterns, strategic focus, failure at some level, or other...

Another common question posed to Propempo by many churches: "How can we get our church to be more actively involved in missions?" The basics start at the top with the pastor and continue with reevaluating the role of the Missions Team in mobilizing the whole congregation. Relationship and experience, paired with good information and opportunities will turn the tide. Don't abrogate responsibility f...

One of the top urgent calls for help we get is this: Help, we just realized that our missions ministry has no focus, no common thread, no strategic purpose. The things we support seem to be a random collection of people, places, purposes, etc. How can we work toward having a focus? What questions should we ask to get us on track? Rifle target instead of a shotgun blast? This episode will not give...

More books! Not the dry, academic, brainiac type, but the warm, personable, practical type. This episode highlights some of my favorite resources, the tip of the iceberg, the frosting on the cake, for helping missionary candidates, some biographies, and some practical books helping families get involved in missions. Curl up or recline with a cuppa and enjoy!

There are lots of times we are asked for recommendations of essential missions books. Here's my latest line-up. Hopefully, these will prove to be friends to you and your church to grow a stronger, more biblical, and more effective mission trajectory.  Today's episode is aimed primarily at church missions leaders. But everyone can benefit and learn from these books. Then, you can use them to encour...

Discovering Missions Throughout the Bible begs us to consider the practical applications. Knowing these things should find us seeing missions in our Bible reading (and listening, and study)! We should have our understanding tuned to better grasp things of Christ and the Gospel throughout the inspired Word. We see God's heart for the nations through the Gospel even in normal information and scenes...

Way too often, we minimize and marginalize the Great Commission! We think we hear about it too much. We think we know all we need to know about it. We feel that it only applies to a few zealots in the church. How sad to learn that, if we pause and think deeply about what it is, what it means, and how important it is to Christ, to the Gospel, our church, and our world, we find our preconceived noti...

Knowing how to look and see "the nations" and equivalent terms throughout the Bible will reignite and revolutionize your missions insights. God has left us clues throughout the Scriptures to see His heart for the nations for His glory. It is comprehensive in scope and intent. God alone is God. He alone is worthy of awe and worship and loving obedience. He makes His purpose known through all His in...

One of the joys of understanding how to recognize Christ, the Gospel, and Missions throughout the Bible is that, as we read the Scriptures, these gems of insight jump off the page and illumine the pathway to see them all connected in God's great plan for His glory. With just a little insight, we can fuel our eagerness to read and understand God's passion for His glory in all of human history. We l...

As a beginning point, it is important for us to discover and realize that God is the hero of the Bible. The Bible was written by Him for His purposes. And His overarching purpose in all of creation and history is His own glory. God's glory is the end goal and common thread behind all of Scripture. It's also an essential component of our understanding of missions throughout the Bible. Seeing God's...

How can you measure Missions Team effectiveness? Use the Church Missions Profile self-assessment diagnostic tool on Propempo.com.  Your church should plan for growing missionaries from your church body. Regularly teach and preach biblical missions. Expose your church to missionary heroes and practical understanding of their role and of "how we do missions in our church." Don't forget to keep God a...

Ah, the essentials include the necessary considerations of the values behind missions direction, relationships, and values. These things keep everyone on the same page heading in the same direction. Then there is the broad scope of Missions Team meetings and operations. How do we do that? Lastly, we'll talk just a bit about building real local church ownership of your missions personnel and minist...

Every church should have an effective, functional Missions Committee. We prefer you call it a "Missions Team" - not to be confused with a Short Term Missions Team. Whether you call it a Committee, or Board, or Task Force, or Team, whether you call it Missions, or Global Outreach (GO), or Cross-cultural Ministries, the main purpose is to mobilize the whole congregation to do their part in the Great...

Sorry for the technical glitch on this episode. It mysteriously disappeared upon update. I've had to repost it.  The Gospel is so essential to missions and the local church's message. It is the exclusive message of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is simple, profound, and the only basis for the transformation of men and women from the inside out. Proclamation of the Gospel is necessary and God-empowe...

The ministry of missions is, in essence, the reason for the church on earth. Keeping that passion for outreach central in the heart of the local churches maintains a healthy biblical balance. "Mission," without the "s," can be selfish and inward-focused.  People often think of missions in inaccurate or misguided terms. Local churches dare not allow external Christian organizations to eclipse their...

The centrality of the local church in God's purposes is too often eclipsed by our skewed cultural values of independence and resistance to vulnerability to others. The Bible makes it clear that the local church is God's agent for His work in the world - not just for missions, but for local ministry to each of us and through each of us to our community. The New Testament repudiates a "Lone Ranger"...

This series has highlighted 13 Keys to Effectiveness as a Missionary. Every one of them could also be applied to our local church and to ourselves in our spiritual life. This wrap-up episode gives two other simple concepts for evaluation of missionary candidates, in particular: a battery of straightforward questions, and what Propempo calls the "Six C-s". The over-arching concept of all of this is...

We've touched on the importance of the missionary knowing the Word and of demonstrating the authority of the Word. This key deals with the practice of teaching the Bible as the central message and source of teaching and training in the missionary's ministry.  References to the content and teaching of God's Word should naturally ooze out of the missionary from informal settings and conversations to...

Frightening attrition of missionaries permanently coming off the field highlight this key to effectiveness: stay on the field! Life on the mission field is tough. Longevity and staying power are key to fruitfulness. There are ways we can help enable this key, through doing our part as sending and through encouraging our missionaries to do their part to trust God through the suffering and challenge...

Praying in times of crisis comes naturally. Making prayer a priority in normal daily life does not. The most effective missionaries make prayer for the work in all its aspects a clear practice and priority. Studies show the most effective church planters commit 30 minutes per day to pray for the people and the work of the ministry.  It is taught, modeled, encouraged, and commanded in Scripture. Wh...

This series gives emphasis to the importance of the Bible in missions ministry in three of the keys to effectiveness. The first deals with basic Bible knowledge and the ability to know and find answers from the Bible. This one deals with applying the Bible to practical life, ministry, church, culture, and personal roles and issues on the field. The third will come soon, that is the priority to tea...