How to Develop an Effective Missions Ministry

I'm JJ alderman and this is Jimmy Smith and we're so thankful that you've come here today and we get to talk and share some thoughts and kind of tell people what God is doing around the world let me tell you a little bit about my story I moved to Togo when I was six years old my parents are missionaries my dad's a bush planting Paillard a church planting bush pilot and my mom is a nurse and so I moved there as an ER as a young guy and lived there all the way through the end of my high school until I came back to the States and I watched God do amazing things in my early life growing up I look back and I watched my dad's story my dad is a first generation Christian and was sent to the mission field as one of those one of those guys that packed up his container moved to Africa with a family of four kids and had never been out of the country himself and so that's when I look back and think a couple generations back that's not at all the reality of what we live in today and the world that we're experiencing especially when we're coming when we're talking about building missions programs and onboarding full-time missionaries I've had the privilege of listening to Ivan a couple weeks ago when we were in Togo and he was continuing to cast vision of where we're going and what's going on in the future and how we believe that we must have at least 300 new missionaries and just eight next eight years now and so as we look at growing and expanding the reach of the gospel into other areas of the world we have to ask the question where are these missionaries coming from and what does it look like to get them from where they are today to where they need to be in just a few years so I have to think of our ministry in Togo and the more and more that I get to see the US ministry and at the same time lived the majority of my life in West Africa I'm seeing a lot more similarities than I see differences when it comes to ministry I'm seeing more and more that our American churches have to operate more like the mission field than they ever have we can't continue to do status quo ministry in the same way that we did before it did work yesterday but it doesn't necessarily work today and so as we look forward to what's going to happen that means we might need to recalibrate or realign like we heard about this morning and make some differences in some adjustments to be able to hit that goal so the week and continue to project the gospel to those unreached people groups I think about our first church plant in Annie Hall where every single one of our church members has become a believer in the last eight years out of that church plant we now have two pastors that have come out of there and have planted or one is one has planted in one plants in about 30 days he'll have a launch and then they also have house churches that are going in the area so that Pastor is also leading those guys as well so we do have to understand I live in the 11th poorest nation of the world and so because of that you have to understand the development of society in the way in a room that's broad where our contexts are from left to right and we understand that and so what we're gonna try to do today is bring this back to some principles that were able to use and some pieces that were able to use to assist us to go farther together so as I look at this church each one of these pastors that have come out of this first church plant have become believers in the last seven or eight years which means they have very little biblical understanding we have to disciple them and help them to lead themselves at home before they can start leading a group as well and from there launch them out to be able to do the exact same thing this church that's almost a year old now pastor Ben who's pastoring that church and I made mention of a couple people in that the baptism picture last night when I look around and he and I are having a conversation I think we have five future pastors coming out of that church to probably as brick and mortar and three of them as house church pastors just looking at them on their socio-economical level on their educational level and where they fit in and have influence in society and so the question we're asking right now is how do we get these new believers that have walked with Jesus for less than six months how do we get them to grow to be able to release them to multiply as well my dad always tells me I'm gonna be able to know if I'm a successful dad when I see how you raise your kids and so what we're watching for is generational growth and generational multiplication when it comes to planting and expansion and so my dream is for us to be able to walk into a church and someone say hey who's that guy because we've been dreaming and begging God for something amazing to happen a movement among people groups and yet they've reproduced a couple generations and they have no clue who pastor Jonas is who discipled pastor ben who launched out someone else who launched out someone else they don't even they couldn't trace it back to the very beginning of where it starts and so I have to bring that back to us as a movement to converge to 1400 or so churches right now and say what's next for us how do we reach this next mark of 300 new missionaries in the next eight years and I have to come back and say it has to be from us from our movement were the very ones that produce that when I went to college about a decade or so ago I used to think that colleges produced great missionaries and great pastors it didn't take me very long to figure out it's great churches they produce great missionaries and great pastors and so we have to come back to the very beginning of the process and yet at the same time look into the future and say five years out ten years out we're asking God that He will give us like he tells us to pray for that further Labor's for the harvest field that God will give us the right people that we can equip and send out to be able to do so and so I'm very excited about a goal of 300 new missionaries and I'm also pretty confident that we can do that a whole lot faster than the next eight years with our 1,400 churches within our movement I believe that we can and I believe that we should so what we're going to be talking about the next couple minutes and Jimmy especially is going to lay out some helping points and an opportunity for people to come alongside or converge churches as a movement to make sure that we're more efficient and we're able to help people move forward in this pipeline and in this process and so while this is a breakout session this is also kind of a dreaming session this is the point for us to be able to say God how many you give me how many people can I pour my life into and send them out to go somewhere else on the around the world because I only have one life and so when I see these other missionaries if I had another or a hundred I definitely give a couple where they serve too but I only have one and this is where God sent me just like each one of your stories and where God sent you right now and so asking God over the next 75 or so minutes say God what is the next ten years of ministry look like so that we can have a reach somewhere else in another people group somewhere else around the world so let me turn it over to Jimmy and we'll have him start sharing a little bit of the details on how we're able to apply some of these principles sure all right well welcome my name's Jimmy Smith and I'm based in Denver Colorado and just a little bit about myself I started working in a converted Church ten years ago in 2008 and quickly fell in love with converge converge people to church planting converge missions and just always been a group of people that I love to serve and be a part of and what I'd been doing in the church before that and then up to that time was I've been doing a lot of administrative work in the church to support my missions habit because that's what I really like to do but the administrative work paid the bills right that's right how I got a paycheck and you know you got to be part of a significant kind of church they can afford to hire a missions pastor and anyway lots of subsequent events happened over the 10 years that I've been at at Stapleton Church in Denver Colorado but a couple years ago I stepped out of the ministry there I'm still at that church I love that place my heart is there my base is there it's my sending church but I stepped out into some some missions opportunities that were in front of me and I worked for an organization did Muslim ministry for about a year and a half and then convergence came knocking and I was very compelled by the vision that the International Ministries team had especially through Ivan and Gary hunter and I really wanted to be a part of it I wanted to be a part of this 310 years I wanted to be a part of using the things that God has gifted me with in the church and mobilizing people and getting people out of the pew and into the field and seeing people we had a girl hauled out of our church serving in Estonia Mandy view no Beth and Eriksson it was such an amazing thing to watch and see and be a part of in my life in ministry and so I've really captivated by the vision and captivated about how I could be a part of that and so I've just finished raising my support praise the Lord yeah 95 percent so if you're looking for a missionary nosed kid I learned that from Dan now I'm super excited be where I'm at in August we're really gonna get going and jump for full bore into this role but my role is a church mobilization specialist so I'm here to help you I'm here to serve you I want to help your churches do a better job at doing cross-cultural ministry in any way that I can some of you're doing a great job and maybe you can help some others some of you may be your Ground Zero and you're you're trying to figure out how to do this some of you passengers going I got enough going on in my church how am I supposed to do it maybe it's a bandwidth issue maybe there's just not enough people resources to go around you're trying to think about how can I do this this is where converge as an organization wants to come alongside you and serve you I'm a fully support based missionary I don't want anything from you okay I want to come into your church don't want to serve I don't need a love offering I only in on the room I want to come serve you and any way that I can help Shepherd people in your church help talk strategy help vision help give resources ways that I can help you find this vision in your church and help see missionaries called out of your church to go serve the Great Commission somewhere else and I'm excited about that role that's a little bit about me and I hope I'm not giving away too much of the the message here but this right here this document I want to go over real quick first J JJ's laid out the vision I want to give you tools ok I want to show you some of the things that are in our toolbox some of the ways that we can serve you maybe wet your whistle a little bit so that you have some things to take back and start working on processing with your team processing with your leadership that might help you as you move down this journey together with us as converge when I first had the question asked him or told to me we're gonna try to have 300 missionaries in the next ten years well the next logical question is where are those missionaries going to come from where those missionaries gonna come from what do you think the logical answer is our churches you know most of our missionaries are not coming out of our churches they just weren't there was not enough emphasis through the organization to breed that type of culture and structure but it's a new day and we're working on this we want to see our churches be a missionary sending force to get the gospel to the least reached peoples of the world so if our missionaries are gonna come out of our churches what if our churches aren't doing anything for missions should we expect a church that's not doing anything towards cross-cultural work should we expect that missionaries we're gonna get called out of that well God can do anything of course but you know probably as well as I do most missionaries you know on the field serve there at some point in their life they went there on a short term team they experienced that culture here in the u.s. they served there in the military somehow they had engagement with that culture and they saw God working in that culture they saw themselves working in that culture and they said hmm I wonder I wonder if God wants to use me here to help people find and follow Jesus so if our churches aren't giving people opportunities to taste and see what God is doing around the world why would we expect that people would be drawn to that vision and drawn to that passion we want to help our churches do missions well do cross cultural ministry well because out of that I believe people will be called into service I've heard Ivan say that there's thousands of people sitting in our churches and no one's calling them I want to call them I want you to call them I want you to Shepherd them want you to disciple them help ready them for the field so what that looks like initially I think for churches is really good and solid Church missionary partnerships church mission force that's the first document you have in your hand some of this might be wrote and some of us might be kind of basic for you maybe there's gonna be one or two ideas that jump out of you jump out of this towards you that you could implement we've got to move beyond the day of just sending a check to our missionaries okay I like getting checks okay all of our missionaries like getting checks that's a piece of the puzzle we also like to know that there's people praying for us we also like to know that there's support there when we need it we also like to know that when we come back on fur that there's going to be a church that wants to welcome us and see us and and we also want to know that churches want to come visit and serve alongside us there's lots of pieces to a partnership puzzle so with each and every missionary there are some basics that I think each church needs to look at and see if you've got some of these basics involved in your program okay so those of you that have a program evaluate so those of you that might be thinking about starting some stuff up there's some good stuff to consider regular planned prayer for our partners in their work okay 101 we're praying for our missionaries all right educated people here Church people we're not going to delve into that too much but we're praying for our missionaries consistent regular communications to our partners when is the last time you emailed your missionaries when's the last time you put a note in the mail for him okay I'm not trying to feel guilty I got a battle this same thing right I was managing the missions at our church and that weighed on me sometimes like I've even talked to that guy in a year you know how are we communicating with them secret they want to hear from you don't you like it when you get an email from a supporting Church don't you Dan don't you like that when there's a little note that pops in just says I'm praying for you yeah that's encouraging that needs that sometimes they're gonna get that at just the right time you know how are we how are we doing consistent Reagan communication one way is to plan for it hope is not a strategy right what's the plan we have in place to help communicate with our mission financial resources of the missionary and their projects okay monthly support is great guarantee you every missionary support will supporters going to have a project to count because they got big vision for something they need to build a school they need to build a church they need to buy a vehicle to get to remote places in the in the community because I got to get four-wheel drive to make that happen there's some project I think are you thinking about their projects are you putting all outside resources to help with project funding as well short term team sending and receiving I'm old school I'm still the big believer in short term mission trips I just am I think they can be done poorly you've probably seen them done poorly but I think they can be done very very well one of my roles to help our churches know how to do short-term trips really well how we support missionaries the very best way that we can through discipleship I it for me mission trips for bait-and-switch I tell people you're gonna go to Mexico you're gonna have a good timing any lots of tacos you're gonna serving and play with kids Dana Melinda they're a lot of fun and you know you build it up because it's it's this great wonderful thing that you experience and then I get them on the team and that's all about discipleship I don't take anybody out of the country without training we walk people through multiple training meetings teaching them how to share their testimony practicing sharing their testimony teaching them what they're gonna experience in the culture working as a team together before we ever step off the plane and into the field we've got a team that knows what they're doing and then on the field that's the best part you're praying for them you're watching them you're encouraging them you're helping them process the things that they're working with you're taking them through Scripture along the way you're helping them engage in conversations with the missionary because eventually somebody's gonna get called out of that somebody's going to get the bug somebody's gonna see God working in them you see God working in that culture they're gonna put the two together I think I could probably do that and at the very least they're going to come back as better servants in your church back home so to me mission trips are all about discipleship so I'm being on short term team sending and receiving genuine relationships I have a pretty good relationship with all the missionaries that we support Dan's in the room dan and I go back about 10 years now and danzel my favorite people in the world Melinda to see you over there and I just loved one who served with him they know that our church is a place where they have relationship do your churches know are your missionaries know that when they come to your church that it's a place of relationship it's a place of safety it's a place of friendship where they know faces that are there how are you cultivating those genuine relationships and then partner care are you able to stand in the gap at the times when they need significant help deaths and the family back in the States can you come alongside and serve them while they're making transition to get back you know all those kinds of things that happen how is it Church can you step in with partner care are you planned for that are you ready for that so those are things we want to consider with each and every missionary as an individual that we work with but then the next kind of part of this and this could probably organized a little bit better is what are we doing as a team in our church okay some churches have a staff member that maybe oversee the mission stuff some people may have a volunteer I encourage you to have a team I really appreciate your proverb you know to to go quickly we go alone to go far we go together okay you're gonna have a much broader impact you're going to much broader reach in your church when you build a team around this so what does emissions ministry team look like well first of all having a team to strategic missions budgeting that team needs to be talking with the powers that be whoever's controlling the pur springs in the church to make sure they've got they've got some influence in there right and that they're part of those conversations that you're strategically budgeting for your missions here's the here's it here's a quick little tip maybe something you want to do don't budget every dollar and commit it at budget time we have a few thousand dollars in there for the missionary that comes in three months before your budgets up and needs some support then so you don't have to wait 15 months to get that guy on that's strategic missions budgeting we're planning that God's gonna bring someone else to us we know who it is yet but we're planning or go find a missionary and say hey we'd like to support you wouldn't that be cool missionary started getting phone calls I know what to do with this that's strategic budgeting how are you putting those dollars into place for your missions work following partnership basics number four Church wide involvement inclusion and promotions you want the people in your church to know who your missionaries are what are you doing how are you planning for this can you get two-minute snippets to show every quarter you know to highlight a missionary can you what can you do to put things in people's hands so that they know what the prayer needs are yes missionaries send out their their prayer letters and emails that doesn't always get down to the grassroots level right how can we take that stuff and put it in a different package to put in people's hands so that people see faces and you know what's going on they know who we're supporting so church wide involvement inclusion promotion when you do short term trips it's a great time to do church wide inclusion okay how do you do that well for instance we're going to Mexico I keep bringing up Danny's sitting over here we're going to Mexico in a few weeks instead of budgeting to buy vitamins I said hey how about we have people in our church donate vitamins that we can take down with us right something as simple so everybody is now and the church is involved in the mission strip because they're bringing vitamins and we'll make a little video when we give out vitamins that damn we'll send it back to the church so the people in the church that didn't get to go had a part you can help them by you know they're supporting people that are going on the trips there's lots of ways through prayer inclusion ways you can bring everything everyone together around short term emphasis okay six local and international focuses it's got hit on this today a little bit about local focuses one of the things I envision for our converged churches is not only that every church would be involved in cross-cultural overseas type missions but you've got at least one project one ministry one cross-cultural opportunity that you're working on right in your own backyard okay we live in a different day than we did 20 25 years ago okay the the nations have come to us you know back when I was in college um long time ago there was this thing called the 1040 window right and you weren't a real missionary unless you were going to the 1040 window you know if you were going to Mexico you were just kind of a b-level missionary but you know the real ones they were going into the 1040 window and the hard parts and over the last 20 years what has God done in the 1040 window one of the most spectacular things that he's brought them to us all this craziness going on the world it's God's fingerprints all over it there's some horrific things obviously that we don't like seeing happening our world but even those things God is using for his glory to move people out of countries that they would have never ever had the opportunity here about Jesus and all of a sudden they find themselves in the US and Australia and Europe somewhere where there's freedom to see the gospel I worked in Muslim ministry with horizons international for about 18 months and they would find people that had come to the u.s. and that were from Islamic backgrounds and all of a sudden they would say oh now I'm a Christian and it wasn't because they'd made some conversion to Christ is it I live in a Christian country so so now I'm a Christian this is way better than what I dealt with you know back in Saudi so why not and so a lot of times you have those conversations well let me tell you what a real relationship with Jesus is about but I'm telling you Christi hey it's very attractive to people who've been under body's in entire life and so God has brought people out of those nations to us and I'll guarantee every one of you do five minutes of research on Google you will find very large demographics around your major cities around the places where you live that you can engage in cross-cultural ministry right where you're at 365 days a year not just in a two-week mission strip over the summer you got to find it you got to go after it and those people will oftentimes be the ones that get called to go back to their people and do a lot better job sharing the gospel because it's their people their language their heart and we can find them right here in the states what are you doing as a church for local cross-cultural involvement I'm spending way more than 10 minutes on this document all right so local and international focuses to emphasis to send interns and career missionaries from your church to join missionary teams I've gotten ojj a little bit guys blowing me away with the pipeline that he is creating inside of churches to send missionaries to him okay how many are in the pipeline right now about 20 about 20 yeah just a few but that's cuz he's out there slinging it he's making it happen he's getting out there working with churches finding people that know missionaries and know these young people that are coming up looking for those opportunities and building those pipelines that send them our churches need to be that pipeline for our missions projects if our missionaries that are already serving if you've got if you've got a work list that you know we've got a missionary contact in Estonia with Crick and Mindy Poyer and we started sending teams over there and now we've got a girl out of our church that's serving in Estonia right I would love to see that happen all over our churches that the places were already working we try to send our best and brightest to go along and assist and then we're disciple in our young people that we're disciple the adults in our church the young people in our church to see how they could go serve in some of these places how are you creating that pipeline for career missionaries and interns to come out of your church and join what God is doing cross culturally annual emphasis have a time every year where you can celebrate these things number 9 evaluate potential partnerships and assess ongoing partnerships okay so if you're in the room today and you've already got some things going on again we've talked about the sword recalibrate might be time to just evaluate look at some things clarify the vision what are we focusing on where do we need to to add where do we need to subtract where do we need to stop doing things that aren't working and where do we need to start emphasizing things that are working how are we working with converge I'm telling you it's sad I see so many converts churches that don't support a single converge missionary I'm not trying to be guilt driven here we haven't done a good job from the top of making this happen as well but we want to see the primary driver for converged missionaries be converged churches all right doesn't this make sense and we can do this God has given us a strong organization with lots of great churches this is something we can do number 10 strategic missions exposure to youth and young adults how are we communicating this vision to our teenagers to our young adults are we being strategic about that are we making a plan again hope is not a strategy I took my very first mission trip as a junior in high school and went to Monterrey Mexico we worked with a lady that was working with a deaf church down there I talked to my youth pastor the dance that I blame you for all of this if you're the one that got all this started my home church was a little Church of a hundred people and I'm sorry two hundred people and little collinsville Oklahoma our little Church of 200 people supported a hundred missionaries I grew up in a missions culture because those people never just salt-of-the-earth people either farmers ranchers there weren't any heavy hitters in this church that just loved jesus love missions and they gave they took a faith promise offering who's heard of a faith promise offering before right and so his annual offering they take every year and all those dollars hundred thousand dollars we go out the door of this little church to go support one hundred missionaries around the world and so I saw missionaries all the time and then I went on a missions trip and my heart got my heart was grabbed and I could see that happening in our churches the more we emphasize this the more we get behind it the more young people see leaders passionate about this stuff okay people are looking at you listen leaders I've said this in negative context and positive context your way your words weigh a thousand pounds when you're the leader of your church and organization your family whatever your words weigh a thousand pounds they have way more emphasis than other people that aren't in leadership so the things you emphasize positively and negatively have so much weight let's use that to our advantage okay so it's Region Commission exposures to youth and young adults partner care how do we how do we take care of our partners I'm just going to blow through this list real quick special date communication birthdays anniversaries and we're remembering those things specific families a scientific each partner that's a great idea fine mind a group of families that can be this couples this missionary partners support groups holiday blessings we think and of them around the holiday time stateside assistance while on furlough vacation you have a family that can loan them a vehicle or a place to stay when they're in town can you take their kids to Disneyland when they when they show up in your tent you know what can you do to help bless your missionaries whether on furlough urgent need backing do your missionaries know that they can call you at a moment's notice and say we just threw an axle and we can't get to where we need to go we need two thousand dollars replace the axle can you help you have those kind of things ready to go strategic prayer caring for em caves sometimes the Forgotten ones right how are we helping our missionaries with that stuff is are there ways that we can invest in those families that help them with their missionary kids and the development that they have all kinds of unique needs for missionary kids right and we want to help bless in those areas as well okay expectations of missionary partners I'm not going to be too rigid about this but there should be expectations that we have when we're partnering with someone regular communication we want to make sure we're partnered with someone who knows how to communicate with us and special urgent need communication that they know they can do that that they're willing to visit when they're stateside so come report build that relationship come recruit from our church you know as you share tell people that you're looking for people willingness to host teams you know short term teams when appropriate congruence division theology and practice now some of the basics and a common desire to invest in the relationship with the church okay you want a missionary that's coming to build a relationship not just get a paycheck okay and don't fault them for coming in wanting to paycheck okay that's a big piece of the puzzle but that there is that desire for ongoing partnership and relationship helping create a pipeline to what they're doing overseas any questions on this document real quick JJ some to add please yeah if we can jump it in hover I think there was a point seven or eight we were talking about short term teams and getting them into the pipeline because what we're seeing is there's a large disconnect between someone who is a junior in high school or a senior in high school who says I'm really considering spending a portion of my life abroad if we look at these Millennials they're not ready to commit 30 or 40 years and say I'm going to do an entire career and you know what that's okay that's okay we're okay with that they're gonna do the same thing in the American workforce if they're gonna work in a in a job and so to take a portion or a season of their life we need to thank them applaud them and help them to be able to do so and so what we look at I think the big word that I'm gonna come back or that I'm gonna take away from what I just heard is word intentionality if we're intentional about all that we do I tell our young guys in Togo we're okay if we're wrong on something if at least we knew why we did it and we made the best possible decision we could at that point with the information we had and so as long as we're intentional in helping young people and people transition throughout all stages of life to be able to spend a season abroad let's make sure that we have a couple steps for them and that they don't get lost in the shuffle along the way that's probably one of the the easiest ways to lose them and so we love having short term treat teams that come to our house or come to our come to see the ministry I say to our house because we have a guest house right beside our house the reason we do that people could stay in hotels that we have to understand our context our context is not the same as everyone else's so we just have to be true to where we are we have a guest house beside our house we have Melissa does all the cooking there for the team and we live life together the reason why we live life together is so they can see what our life looks like and say maybe I could do that too that's the question we want them to ask God can I have my part in this too what would it look like if I had my piece in this puzzle somewhere somehow from that short-term trip which is normally about 10 days it's just different with every single person the next thing we're going to do is start asking people especially with young people would you be willing to come back and do an internship with us with about 35 days you can normally show and share enough of what life and ministry looks like to where they're ready to make a very educated decision on if they want to pursue that and maybe is it even somewhere in that region of the world some people have an affinity somewhere else God's calling him leading him somewhere else that's awesome they're coming they shared part of their story with us and they move on and they're released to succeed somewhere else and that's that that's a huge huge win for us I think me and Roma on the front row who came in as an internship last year but at that point did not have a college future or track decided for him and so he was in that 35 days that got kind of used that time to redirect a little bit and he's now considered he's now in college and pursuing full-time ministry and so the reason why was it so important that we have intentionality and all that we do is that as we help people move from step to step just a couple of those from a short-term trip to probably some sort of internship getting them prepared and onboarding we're gonna see that they're going to stay connected throughout the entire time we look at our young generation they're connected at all times all right through one way or another all around the world that's what they want to continue to do I think of you just cuz you brought it up to me yesterday you said hey did you call me from Togo last week no it wasn't me it had to been somebody else from last summer that you met I I still don't know who it was but someone somehow stayed connected and that's what young people are looking for that's what our future missionaries are looking for is to stay connected and intentional and if we are intentional as we go through saying how do we build a partnership between our churches and our missionaries there's one thing that I'm experiencing and we're experiencing and I'm standing in front of a group of people who love God and love ministry if we love people it's not as hard to remember to reach out to him to care for him love to bless them but we have to do is love people that we connect with love people in our partnerships partner with missionaries or for missionaries partner with churches where we connect at more than just a surface level but at an intentionality at a yes we believe this is what God is leading us and sending us towards in the future and then we do have to come back around with these tools and remember to make sure because we do all lead live busy lives but let's continue to work to be intentional which is something we're striving to do as we invite people don't be scared to walk up to somebody and say he'd be a really good missionary just tell him you'd be a really good missionary sometimes God will use that little phrase to start working in their life say wow my pastor somebody in my church told me that I'd be really good at something I could really use that it's amazing when I look back to the mission when I talk to missionaries today and I look back in their path when it passed and I hear their stories many times they had someone tell them something like that and then they had people that help them and coach them along the way we all should be sending missionaries and the reason why we're talking about today is because that's our job on the other side of the world - and we're we're attempting to do the exact same thing and so let's continue to fight and work for that so intentionality is what I took from that point but number eight great brother you asked for questions any other questions on that document sir awesome I've we have some brochures right up here to the right send me an email for us we take applications and all the way until October 1st we start giving our yeses there so they have about 8 months or so to plan and prepare for that it's not just about someone in the missionary but for us it's a partnership with the church and so I rely very heavily on our pastors or whoever's leading missions in that department to say what do you think and how can we make sure that they're best prepared that they know how to show the gospel they're gonna be reading between six and eight books before they come and that's kind of a non-negotiable for us to make sure that they're prepared and able to do that and growing and ready and if the church has poured into them like we're asking and we have a partnership together when they get to the field god really works and leads in their lives and so I'd loved out that conversation at the end it'd be great okay ya know coming up next coming up right now all right on the docket one more about that document did you say yes sir yes sir all right we'll have more time for questions at the end we'll go ahead and keep moving here so we get through all this okay so as I mentioned earlier my role is to come alongside and help our churches all right what does that look like how can I serve you what are some different ways that I can do that okay and and it might be me we've got lots of other people organization that might come alongside you as well but right now this is what I'm looking forward to doing with most of my life at this point all right how can we help your church one coaching coaching to help and this is probably hard to read so I'll go and read everything off here coaching to help your church determine its calling and focus for cross-cultural missions involvement okay so this could be either of those levels where you might have a really good thing going already or maybe you're starting from the ground up we have some tools in our toolbox we're calling it where we can help come alongside your church and help you determine what that focus is Kevin McGee who's the director of u.s. engagement has a great contact with another lady that we're partnering with that has some of these really great tools to bring into your church so this could be something that might take some weeks some time together as we process those kind of things together maybe there's pieces of that we can bring to play for you but we are willing we are ready we are able to come alongside your church and coach you up in these areas and I said earlier sometimes the the missions thing get lost because of a bandwidth issue lead pastor if you're overwhelmed that's okay we're here to come alongside take this off your plate for you not subvert you we want it we want to join with your vision of helping people grow in your church and serve so now I'm going to subvert that but we can come help take a little bit of this off your plate you give us the right people in the right volunteers and we'll take it from there and work with them and teach them how to work well with you inside your church to make these things happen and so if that's one of those things it's like man I just can't do this kind of bandwidth we want to take away that I don't know if I'll call it an excuse but we want to take that away help you in serve you in that so coaching how do we come alongside help your church determine what that focuses where are your natural relationships where are you already supporting missionaries where are people in your church passionate about you know where are some of those things at already working with the leadership in your church maybe the leadership of your missions team figuring out what that calling and purpose is for your church and put that in play for the years to come okay number two personal guidance and assistance to individuals in your church considering missionary work as a career an internship or anything in between okay as I'm working with churches if any of those people pop up and I'm able to talk with them I pretty quickly hand them over to our mobilization department I've got some great people in there so you know Roger Peterson there's a new guy named Jeff Lowery Jess Jessica pan says in there we've got all kinds of people that want that know what to do and know how to help have those conversations to walk people in this path what are your questions what is this gonna look like what is this gonna cost what's the timeframe how do I know I'm ready we've got the the missionary assessment center the Mac assessment that people come into how long is the Mac is it about a week four days come in so we've got lots of great programming for that but we want to help give that personal guidance along the way okay so as lead pastor or leader in your church if someone pops up their head and says I'm interested in missions I want you to pray with them I want you to encourage them and then maybe think about transitioning over to someone that can move them out move them along further again not to subvert you but to serve you in a way that we can work on this together and partner together a sending church in home church and missionary going out okay personal guidance and assistance in helping people considering that assistance assistance in connecting churches with similar cross-cultural focuses to expand impact and influence the word we're using for this is consortiums or consortium however you want to do the plural of that but consortiums so Kevin gives us great example of a church in San Diego that's working my in my n Mar and a church on the East Coast that's working in my n Mar and they've never talked to each other about the work they're both doing in my n mark okay and then in that process he discovered three other churches converge churches that are also productive in my in mark so we want to be able to take this national look and bring together people that are working in common areas to pull together resources I know it's cliche but we're better together right putting our resources together putting our thoughts together bring our people together maybe you're going in June to take a team and they're going in November well you got people that might not be able to make your trip but could make their trip you know there's all kinds of ways we can partner together in the things we're trying to make happen in these countries partner together on resourcing special projects that the missionaries might need coming alongside to help just support financially those missionaries so we're gonna build those contortionists so we want to find out where converged churches are actually investing their missions dollars and investing their missions resources and where they have focus and help bring together those things through consortiums of areas that have similar focus next connecting churches regionally for the purpose of prayer cooperation encouragement and strength and fulfilling cross cultural endeavors so a brainchild that Ivan had a few years ago was this idea of the champion church network okay and champion churches would be churches in a regional area that are already doing a pretty good job with missions and then kind of have things under control we want to use those churches to build cohorts of churches regionally around them that can gather together to pray together to plan together equip together put our strengths together so that we can serve together I take one of the things that's not happening right now is the conversation if you don't have the conversation you're never going to have action steps you're never going to move to that next level if the conversation isn't even happening the champion Church Network is a way to get churches together to have the conversation and pray together find each other's hearts encourage keep each other accountable with what we're doing cross culturally I know it might sound simple that we're just gathering but again if the conversation never starts it's never going to go anywhere so we want to get together build these relationships build these partnerships so that we can be more effective as an organization and as individual churches on what we're doing with our missions initiatives and work and lastly training JJ I'll have you hand this one out I am NOT going to go over this document it's simply a sample I want to give you just an idea of something you can take back with you of some of the types of training that we might be able to bring into your church and this is just one example of a lesson that you know we could cover with your team or with your church but training we want to cover many areas of need around the issues of church missions ministry short term team support development creating a missions culture etc however we can come in and serve your church you might say you know we we just don't do short term teams because we just don't have the funding floor and we can never raise the support okay I've done 26 plus mission trips in my life I've never had someone not be able to go on a trip because they couldn't raise the money if they follow what I ask them to do never had a person not be able to go because they couldn't raise the support okay so that excuse is no good to me alright and it's not because I'm such a whiz I just I've got some tools that I can help share with you to help make that a reality in your church and not just me but others no organization we've got ways to help train and coach things in your church that are hurdles for you that you might need to get over maybe it's just coming alongside your newly foreign mission team and we talk about what partnership looks like and we ask questions and we interact together and we build that relationship with one another organization to church leaders to churches to help find the things that you need to move to the next level with what you have and again you know it's just like marriage counseling just because you go to marriage counseling doesn't mean you have a terrible marriage okay just because you need some coaching mission it doesn't mean you're bad Church right it's just we want to help you we want to serve and if we can help move forward with you in this together that's we're here for that's what we're called to do and so if you look at this document that's going around this one just says short term missions goals of the church for short-term mission teams so this document becomes important to me because we don't just want to send teams we want to send effective teams that are able to share the gospel that our disciple appeal that are on those trips helping maybe put them in a pipeline for internships or career missionary service so if we set up our trips right if we train them right if we have the right things in place we're not going to come home where people just felt like they had a glorified vacation right and listen I'm the first one to tell you that mr. ships are blessed I love it right but what I really love is seeing lives changed and people's hearts moved towards Jesus and so this is you know this is the kind of stuff that we can come alongside and work with your your leadership or even with your teams of what we're trying to create and there's countless topics we could cover if I don't have it written up already all right one for right so whatever you need help with in coaching it's available to you you just have to ask we want to be there to serve in any way we can in the area of training okay so let me go to the next slide so next steps so today if we wrap up we'll go through some next steps here know have some more time for QA and JJ you could go ahead and hand out these if you wouldn't mind buddy so we got a little response card coming around but let me kind of cover what we're talking about here day so today is your processing all this I know you're getting a lot of stuff this week at conference and conferences are great for that and it's going to take you a while and you know week later you're going to find your notes and you're gonna you know think what you might want to work on you know and then the coming weeks and months but what number one begin engaging in true church missionary partnerships start to reevaluate just from the basic level how we're working with our partnerships with our missionaries you might surprise your missionary by sending them an email I'm praying for you this week and you know what one thing I'm really praying for is that we can be a better job at being a partner with you you know so just start with that what are we doing currently to that we can improve on when it comes to these areas of church missionary partnerships you've got some tools in front of you some things that already start thinking about to evaluate your current missions objectives and vision determine areas of realignment you can start that as a team again we've got those tools to start helping you with that right now as well and there's a way to respond on this card you can give us your information we can follow up with you on that but so one partnerships evaluate your current status where things are realign your vision to request training from converge International Ministries short-term help partnership development discovering your focus we want to help right there on the thing it says interested in okay Church missions cohort gatherings okay that would be next gather with the converge I am regional missions cohort will help put you in place with the people that are in your area we already know who those folks are tentatively there's some good plans in place for that we know how to make those connections we want to help you do that that segment on interested in missions ministry training assistance it doesn't even matter what it is at this point just mark it we'll follow up we'll figure out what that is certainly I know individuals considering a call to missions friend in the back if you know some people like that in your church you're not sure quite what to do with them or you want to help move them forward we'd love to have a chance to talk to them we would love our churches and we're unashamed about this for our converged churches to think converged first when it comes to missionary work I just we believe that we're not the only organization out there reached in the world there are lots of great people serving around the world to reach Jesus and I am great with that I'll work with non converged churches that want training I don't care I'm just trying to get people on the field right but would you give converge a chance let us have a chance to talk with those folks in your church that are considering missions work and then this is just kind of the catch-all you just want to talk in the coming weeks about missions when I get back from Estonia and Mexico I'll be on the phone following up with folks and if you'd like to just have a conversation in the coming weeks we'll get that scheduled we can talk more about your personal situation what it is that you need it's not like I'm your personal shopper right you tell me what you need we'll figure out how to make it happen and work with you in this area of coaching and getting things set up in your church to move forward in the next several years to get those 300 people in the field and do much better job at our initiatives and work okay so the document that we handed out a minute ago that we didn't quite hit it's just a resource doc the one that says converging ion resources and information not every leader is on here not every individual but most of them are so first of all we've got our action I'm gonna do this backwards go to page two of that document the back side first this is contact information for lots of people in the organization okay yes we want to talk to you even so much that we're giving you I mean Ivan's email address I did that without his permission but I did it anyway if you know one email address you know everybody's because it's Jimmy s is yours jja know oh yeah so those are all those different pieces of contact communication stuff maybe there's some specific you want on that on the front I have help list our global initiatives how do you before this conference really were unaware of our global a few of you yeah we've got some things going on there's some cool stuff happening out there and I haven't detailed all the the information about that but in Africa we've got the the one that JJ's working with called the six degree you can scratch off the S there six degree initiative full Bay initiative wolof initiative and in the state site stuff we've got diaspora things happening in twin cities Portland Seattle Dan down in Latin America some strong projects going with Latin American Church strengthening Bahia initiative is that the one we're going to work on in the spring hopefully that's one we're talking about doing in the spring as a vision trip so I'm working with Dan on a vision trip that's nothing I didn't mention I'd love to connect regional groups of pastors and help lead you guys on vision trips to some of our initiatives okay I'm gonna tell you it can be a lot of fun but what am I trying to do and a moving forward capture your heart so you come back and be the leader for that in your church pass that down if you go and taste and see I promise you'll come back different so Southern Cone initiative Johnathan Matthews those guys down in uh he just got done with a backpacking trip where they went to work with the key to a people up in the Andes and it was like a five night backpacking trip where they carried all their gear and went around they they had to carry something come on help me out here [Laughter] yeah and they show the Jesus film and some other crazy stuff and they do it all backpacking it's cool stuff in Asia Thai Buddhist initiative Japan initiative Spice Islands Europe Middle East Poland what's CPM Church church planting Nordic Baltic I love that one I'll be there in two weeks Great Sea initiative mr. Jeff right there if you want to talk about stuff around the Mediterranean he's your man so those are some of the people in the contacts and things that converge is working on as you start to think about your focuses in your vision refer to this document maybe there's some alignment with what you're already doing with what we're doing as well and we can get together and be better together alright so that response cards you want to fill that out for us we'd love to have that I know you hate filling out response cards I'm not gonna put you on some spam email list but if you'd like to give us some information ways that we can get contacted with you and even if there's nothing you need contact about there's a quick little survey that will help us out we're trying to figure some things out get some data points that will help us do our job better my church currently has a missions focus my church has a paid staff person my church as a volunteer person how many partnerships you have how many of those are converged partnerships number of cross-cultural short-term teams you've been that you've sent from your church in the past three years if you've got a specific focus what is that that will help us maybe help you partner with somebody that's on the other side of the u.s. that might be working in the same area that you are and then also I like this question what's the greatest difficult what's the thing that's holding you back what's the hurdle that is the strongest in your church right now that we could help you get over how I'll bet likely we've got some tools to help you along that that path and that sense JJ closing thoughts before we do some QA no let's go straight straight to some questions we got if they have any yes ma'am [Music] yes ma'am so that's that champion Church Network so around each champion Church will build a cohort is the word we're using of churches around there so there might be 8 to 12 churches regionally around a cohort that you know they're within an hour 2 of each other so they can get together break bread together pray together you know have some meetings we're encouraging those groups to meet at least three times a year you know potentially more but getting together at least three times a year to get together talk shop and see what each other's doing build that relationship so you know that you've got some friends and other churches and you might find out a lot of things about work and you know another thing that's great about those cohorts is you can talk with other people that might have experienced an area that you don't have ok we've never taken a team to toga what's that like and then you know these folks have and if we're gathering together and having those conversations and then figuring out ways we might be able to tackle some of these things together you know JJ needs a new vehicle it's $30,000 we can't do all of it you guys do half we'll do that you know whether that you know those kind of conversations can happen if we're getting together to me so that's what the cohort thing is kind of the bounce off the initiative the other side that we're looking to build and this is kind of a new idea that has not been fully developed yet as the consortium and so as we have partnered churches that are really spread all throughout the u.s. we have expertise from multiple areas and so we're also looking more than just to be geographically aligned but also to be mission Aliyah lined and so that's something we're asking our churches to come together whether it be through one time of year conversation if it needs to be face-to-face or an ongoing through a virtual contact one way or another you know like for instance I just had a contact from Washington State with the gentleman who says I can find water for you well one of our projects right now is Togo Palms a camp and we need water to be able to resource an entire camp and so we're not talking about a shallow well and he's saying I can save you a whole lot of money by me coming over with my tool and so now the next question is do I have somebody else in another church that has expertise in actually drilling it to be able to do so and so that's kind of the next step as we continue to be intentional with our missions program and we have some alignment while one church might have a few different focuses that they have to be able to come together to that same table and exchange some thoughts for us at times a medical outreach is very very helpful but you don't always have six doctors in one and so it's much easier to be able to come back and share those those thoughts and that vision together and so that's something that we're looking at from the 6-degree initiative in the next 12 months to be able to build that with the right people to be able to help us and leverage influence can I give a quick story just to bounce off of that this morning I met a guy that I went to China with 12 years ago so work on a water project in the middle of nowhere Yunnan Province China and it was a great story the chief of the village came to Christ all these things that happened in this this project the reason we teamed up with their church we were down in Temecula California they were up in Big Bear California and we teamed up together because we both had a passion for China and they had a guy in their church that knew a lot about finding water and so they put a team together we put our team you know that we go together to serve we helped in schools and those things wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been in communication with each other and our district at that time had a focus on China and so we were having those conversations so that stuff comes up it's hard to see those things happen if we're not in those conversations you get it anyway it's cool to see that guy again today too and see him 12 years another question we'll start asking you if we have two yes sir but there there are times that we need medical teams to come over and so when we're putting together groups it was an example I was using to be able to get a full medical team in place we'll need a pharmacist or a doctor a few nurses or something else and not every Church is able to resource that team completely and that's where especially when you get into specialized ministry in certain areas or certain missions if you can call it that we need more than one church to be able to so resource to be able to to send that team exactly exactly exactly and that's very helpful for us when we're church planting in certain areas so there's those champion shirts leaders I'll be networked with and JJ might call me and say it's time I need doctors well I've got relationship with all the champion church leaders they're gonna know what's going on in their cohorts it's easy get that information out to find the resource that we might need rather than man I don't know what our churches are doing we've got this built-in network already that we can go find the specifics that we need and get acting much quicker and in situations like that [Music] hey you're the leader your church you do what you think is best but if you want to make the handoff and then we start working together do you want to be a part of the process at the beginning to make sure I'm not some crazy guy trying to do something weird in your church I understand that but you do what you think is best but you know I'm happy to start making that direct concert I just want the contact however I can get in the door to start helping folks however that works if it's we start with coffee and figuring things out or we go straight to that I'm good either way brother whatever you think is best but I'm happy to talk straight to a state but he'd never made the connection oh maybe that professional resource would be useful one of our mission fields so maybe you'd be good for four senior pastors and admission pastors admission chair people is let's let's get together and talk about what resources we have in this congregation or in this lead group lead team one of the resources that we have contact didn't say you know what kind of things do you know and if I don't know I will find out like when you when you get in the conversation that gives us the opportunity you know I've got you know connections of my ears to the ground maybe a little closer than yours is it you know the times when it comes to this stuff so yeah I'm happy to do that and we'll go find the answer with whatever we need yes sir you know every time you build somebody's sure now I'm with you and there are definitely ways that short-term teams can go and and hurt by helping and we understand that my my default position in a way I trained teams is we never go with our own agenda we go with the missionaries agenda what he says she says that we do is what we do and if he says we need to build a house and this is how we're going to do it I trust that guy cuz he's on the ground he lives her all the time he knows the people he knows the financial situation he knows if that's the right call or not and he might say yeah we need to hire locals you know whatever I trust the missionary on the ground to make that decision because they're the experts far as I'm concerned our teams go to serve and if we go with our own agenda if we go with well this is what we're gonna do because these are the people we have on the team or because our church has this type of focus so if we don't do this in country then we're not going to go back with good reporting and that kind of stuff forget that noise we go and we work with the missionaries agenda what they need best and how we serve them yes yes every one of those is focused on a least reached people group or groups of people in those areas yes and I can't speak for all of them but I know in ours in the sixth degree initiative right now we're already targeting four which would which would be within that initiative so we actually have a couple million people that would be involved in that and so within an initiative we're seeing projects that are either in place or being developed and those projects can actually they could have 10 15 20 missionaries and they could be a pretty substantial project to reach major cities or people groups within that initiative but for one reason or another those initiatives have been grouped together because they do work in place and they are helpful with each other and so that's why it's been a focus for that but I would say we're all evaluating our ministries to make sure that we prioritize least reach people groups but teams that yes if we know what's going on and that's part of this is we're developing our champion church network we're having those conversations we're going to start to create a better database of what's going on and where our people are going so that if you do have someone in your church that pops up says I got got you know the church I was out before it was about Africa and I you know what do you have in Africa we don't have anything we're focused on Japan but so we can have those conversations but yeah we would love to help place people around and move stuff around like that for sure and I would say from our end it's absolutely is helpful for us on the field as it is for the churches here in the US and I think in the day and this is just very specific to our location how to tractor and for some reason could not get the thing to start and we did everything we possibly could do on it and I'm not mechanical and I picked up my cell phone and I called a guy in Central Florida who's a firefighter and he walked me through that tractor like he knew the back of his hand and he had told me once along the way that he knew tractors and he was the only guy I could think of and there's nobody in my community anywhere around they could have fixed it and so things like that is extremely helpful for me to be able to say hey do you know anybody that can because they most likely would love to help they just don't know that somewhere on the other side of the world their skillset is extremely valuable in this initiative and in this gospel work maybe a couple more so JJ is gonna know something Jim black right here is our international leader do you want to share about that Jim real quick leader okay because you have to have a leader before you can have an initiative but we have a couple we have one couple working on the wall in Senegal and we have three couples working a month three tofurkey among the full bank and camera right now some of these things are you know the whole restructuring is still a little bit in its infancy stage maybe toddler stage and so there's something pieces still falling together yeah something else all right well I guess we'll pray and dismiss I have a couple prayer cards up here if somebody wants that there's a brochure that tells a little bit more about the church mobilization special stuff that's out there my card is up here if you'd like to grab one of those too but other than that let's pray and be dismissed

Channel: Converge

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Keywords: Converge, #cwbettertogether, Church, bible, Missions, Partnership

Id: K2a-FRqdk3s

Length: 65min 7sec (3907 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018