Mission Training Essentials

This new online publication is geared at those that love Christ and are called according to His purpose. Those of us that joyfully have accepted that call and further found great satisfaction in Mission work (both long and short term) are a growing percentage of the Christian population. But I fear that while our work may be quantitatively growing that the essence and the actual magnitude of the work with any genuine eternal effects is in reality decreasing. Much of what the Southern Baptists and others are doing with short term mission teams is a two edged sword that has much good attached to it but also has the great potential of bringing more “adventurers” than “missionaries,” and more “hammer swingers” than “evangelists” to the mission field.

The term “missiology” is used to describe the philosophy of ministry with regards to what we call missions. In reality missions is just the end result of many ministry pieces coming together, but we tend to see ministry done in a different environment as “missions” and the Christian stuff we do inside the church walls and within our own culture as “ministry.” For the purposes of this article and publication we will tend to use these terms in the former way rather than the latter.

The philosophy of ministry, or missiology, within many of our mission organizations has changed dramatically over the last several years. Many of these changes and our missiology in general has been a struggle between head and heart. At times missiology decisions have appeared more socially political issues than issues of faith, and perhaps this is both true and healthy given historically how we Christians have put heart ahead of reason and common sense in mission work.

Missiology has nearly always been focused on the recipients of the efforts made by missionaries, but I believe that we have also used little reason with regard to careful selection of short term missionaries. For many of us in the early years, we were glad to get anyone that would be willing to go with us to help, but what we may have gained in hands, we unwittingly lost in many other more important factors. I have personally seen one person rob the hearts and attitudes of nearly everyone else on the team and further effect the receptiveness of those the team had gone to serve to such a degree that their negative input was more memorable to all concerned than any other event or success for the kingdom. The crime here is that in many cases these mistakes were avoidable and might have easily been headed off, IF appropriate due diligence and pre-mission work had been done by those who had the leadership responsibilities. We must take these responsibilities seriously and understand that when we ask someone to step off a team that has no business on a mission team, we have done both the team and the exiting team member, a great favor. THIS is good missiology and essential to good and healthy ministry being done once you arrive on the mission field.

Now that I have also been on the other end of receiving mission teams, I see the critical nature of this screening in a totally different light. The issues are magnified and those of us that continue the work after these teams are gone will either see foundations laid and discipleship done that can be built on, OR we will find ourselves undoing for many months damage done by a wrongly placed team member. Sometimes entire teams can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. IF teams are trained properly for very specific work that fits into a larger well made ministry plan, they understand how each person working in the field fit into the total plan, and are prepared to work together in order to accomplish their small part of big picture plan, THEN the team and each of its members can benefit and be of benefit in the overall kingdom plan.

Earlier I mentioned “hammer swinging.” It should be said here that there is nothing wrong with building projects, repair teams or teams that focus on disaster relief, IF it results in evangelism and/or discipleship taking place. As Christians, Missions is about kingdom work and that means work that ends in results that are eternal. IF this does not happen, it may be excellent charitable work and may even have Christ like methods, but unless a mission ends in eternity, it has not been a Christian mission. The truth is that we in the Christian community have gravitated to the easy temporal work of building and rebuilding material things, claiming it as “missions projects,” and left the real work of missions unaddressed. These we do in order to provide each other with back patting and a sense of guilt relief when it comes to our reports at missions nights and justification for money spent on trips for our “mission teams.”

When we in the church get ready to get real about our call and the true meaning of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18 – 19), we can move from just being a Habitat for Humanity type Christianized organization, to becoming a great commission Christian organism that live out lives as their proper part of the whole body of Christ. So prepare yourselves for kingdom work. Lay foundations in temporal things if you must or certainly if the need demands, but remember to prepare yourself and the entire team for THE most important work that you will do. Kingdom work!