SUGGESTIONS FOR

MISSIONS COMMITTEES

1. God blesses in many ways the churches who are committed to missions.  This includes prayer, financial support, and personal involvement through short term outreaches and/or sending your own people long term.

2. It would be better to choose to support missionaries who come from or work in your general geographic area.  This enables churches to have more personal contact with missionaries when they are home on furlough.

3. It would be better to support fewer people with more money than to support more people with less money (for example, it is better to one person $500 than to give five people $100).   Having fewer supporters cuts down on contact work and travel for the missionary.

4. Churches could have a goal of taking on one mission project or missionary a year while keeping the previous commitments going.

5. It would be good for a church to start with a goal of 10% of the church budget for missions,  and when that is reached to set new goals of 25%, 50%, or even 90% of the budget over a long term of 10 to 25 years.

6. Offer the congregation opportunities to get personally involved in missions.  Missionaries the church supports can be listed in Church bulletins and prayers can be said regularly during worship services. Missionaries could be “commissioned” or “adopted” at a Sunday morning Worship service (one suggested service order is included in this booklet). Letters from the missionary can be read at Sunday Worship or printed in church newsletter.  The pastor or members of the church can visit missionaries on the field for encouragement or project help.  (Be sure to pre-arrange this!!)

7. When you decide to support a missionary, be faithful in your giving and praying. 

8. Missions committees can pray for all the Mission Renewal Network missionaries whether or not they support them financially.  Children’s classes can adopt missionaries or missionary children as pen pals.  Birthday cards and other letters show caring and give missionaries great encouragement.

9. Sunday School classes or other church groups can do short term projects or can take mission trips (several groups in the notebook offer these for adults and youth).

10. It is good to keep educated about what God is doing in the world and about the current trends and thrusts of missions work.  A list of some recommended resources, books and periodicals is available from the Mission Renewal Network office.  Also helpful is attending ACMC conferences and missions classes like the U.S. Center for World Missions course called “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.”

11. A good way to educate and excite the congregation about God’s global cause is to have an annual missions emphasis (like a missions fair) which highlights what the church does and challenges the congregation to greater commitment.

12. Missions committees could get together with other church missions committees in their area to do a joint project or short-term trip, exchange ideas (such as caring for missionaries), share a good speaker, or even run a regional missions conference or fair.  This can be an exciting venture for each church as its vision of the world expands beyond its own walls.