1. Short-Term Mission Trips
Not only do short-term mission trips invigorate you spiritually in terms of sharing your faith, they also can energize the missionaries you are aiding. Short-term trips are extremely beneficial in the context of helping church planting movements. Don’t balk at an opportunity to participate in a trip of this nature.
In 1974, I had been a Christian for the grand sum of four months and I found myself in the country of Brazil sharing what the Lord had shown me. I had very little training. As a matter of fact, I had no training at all. All I could do was share the story of what God had done in my life. I had no idea that God was beginning to mold me into the man I was to be for my whole life. That trip in 1974 set into motion an adventure that is beyond description. But I am talking about the adventure with missional God.
[bctt tweet=”People ask me when I received my call to the nations. I don’t feel like I did. Most times, I feel like I got ambushed” quote=”People ask me when I received my ‘call’ to the nations. I don’t feel like I ever did. Most times, I feel like I got ambushed. “]
Early in my first few trips, I realized God was always bringing us into situations He had prepared ahead of time. And it set me on a course in life that stimulated my sense of expectancy, satisfying my desire to walk with the Lord. A way to get involved with missions is to consider going on a short-term trip to sow the seeds for desire of expectancy in your life.
2. Prayer Tours Or Prayer Walks
You don’t even have to know another language to participate in a trip like this. Just being a participant in laying the groundwork for prayer covering for the people who will be working in a certain area is of great importance. Prayer is a large part of God’s mission.
Though participation in a venture of this magnitude may seem like an overwhelming task, ask yourself a simple question: Can I pray? The story I told earlier about Joe and his involvement in praying for future churches in Spain demonstrates that anyone can do this. On the teams that we have sent to Spain, none of them are comprised of famous people. They are made up of common people who take their vacation time and raise the money to go and pray through those countries and cities. As a result, we have a few church plants that are growing in Spain that probably would not have happened if these people had not been praying. I suspect these people would not have had a place on many mission agencies’ list defining what a missionary is. But they could pray, so they went.
3. Prayer Groups For Targeted Areas
Whenever God begins to move on the heart of a local church for a certain area, a groundwork of prayer must be laid, much like that of going overseas and planting churches. Along the same lines as those groups, you can form prayer groups for areas in your city that you desire to reach.
In the early 1980s, I gathered early each morning with a group of my fellow Bible college students to march around the courtyard traffic circle for about an hour praying for the people of the nations and the languages we would have to learn upon graduation because we believed God was going to thrust us out all over the globe. This commitment to prayer took place in the harsh cold of New England winters. Following our time together, we would gather in the cafeteria, grab a cup of coffee, and talk about the direction we felt God was moving in our lives. Week after week, we walked around that circle asking God for favor, asking God to raise up churches in lands that had so few.
What were we doing? We always pictured it as laying railroad tracks, like those men and women who worked their way across the United States, connecting the east with the west by pounding rail ties into the ground one at a time. The trains could only go as far as the tracks had been laid. That’s how we imagined what we were doing. Now, as I look back almost a quarter of a century later, many of us who walked in that circle have literally been spread around the globe. That’s why I’m so convinced that paving the way with prayer really is the battle. We were not yet graduates. We were not ordained. In fact, we were quite naïve. But because we asked, God allowed us to walk out some of his mission around the world.
4. Supporting The Work Financially
In order to afford a missionary the opportunity to pour his or her heart and soul into reaching the people group they are involved with, they need finances. What an amazing opportunity you have as a believer to partner with missionaries in this way. It excites me to no end to know that I can invest in the advancement of God’s Kingdom. And if you draw a paycheck, that same opportunity is available to you.
While I am now in the position to be able to invest in the lives of those God has called to other countries, there was a time when I was the one living in a country far from home, hoping God would stir people’s hearts to invest in what he was doing where I lived. How people can really make a difference became a reality for me while living in Chile.
One afternoon I received a phone call from a young man in the United States, telling me he wanted to come and work with us. I thought the first thing I should ask him was his name. He said he was an engineer by profession and had just graduated from Bible school. So, I invited him to come down and visit just to see if our situation in Chile was something that he wanted to join. Upon his arrival, I remember thinking this young man was pretty intense and was ready to get started almost the moment he stepped off the plane. What unfolded was one of the sweetest stories I know in mission support.
After he went out and landed a job in Chile, he said he felt the way he could support our church the most was to make some money and use that money for the planting of churches. Working as an engineer, he lived off the most minimal part of his salary that he could and gave the rest to help the Kingdom grow.
At one of our prayer services, he was face down on the ground in prayer and I noticed the poor condition of his shoes. When I told him to go buy some more shoes, he explained that he would have to wait until his next paycheck. He held nothing back. For a number of years, he lived this way – donating the lion’s share of his income for events, training, and, eventually, multiplication of our church. He is one of my heroes. He has never written a book or put his story on tape, but he used the resources he had. A man from India once told me it really doesn’t matter how much money you have, but only what you do with what you have. A little is a lot when it is given to the Lord. It sounds trite, but it’s a Kingdom principle.
[bctt tweet=”Seed is powerful when it is surrendered to the divine sower.” quote=”Seed is powerful when it is surrendered to the divine sower.”]
5. Tent-Making Opportunities
Have you ever thought that the work skills you possess could enable you access to another country where you could share the Gospel? This type of mission work is often referred to as “tent making” because it was how Paul earned some of his support on the mission field. “And because [Paul] was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent-makers” (Acts 18:3).
In many countries that were once part of the former Soviet bloc, churches are sending “missionaries” there to teach business owners about the concepts of running a business. During this process of sharing knowledge of a trade, the people begin asking questions and the opportunity to share the Gospel truth inevitably arises. These men and women who go to share their business knowledge are not the typical missionary types, but they are participating in God’s mission by using their talents in a different way.
6. Local Outreaches
Throughout the years, I have met many people who have declared openly their fear about sharing their faith with others. Yet when it comes to getting involved in local outreaches, they jump at the opportunity. They may be too timid to talk, but not too timid to demonstrate the love of Christ in a practical way.
Steve Sjogren, the founding pastor of the Vineyard Church in Cincinnati, has explained the “conspiracy of kindness.” He has encouraged the people of the church to express kindness, even if they are too scared to share. Sjogren’s ideas for local outreaches are simple (i.e., free car washes, giving away sodas on a hot day, giving out smoke detector batteries).
Whether it is a local outreach with low risk or an outreach to a particular people group in a city near you, or a country far away, you can be missional without being a professional missionary. Missional God is at work and you can witness to his works everywhere you go.
