Missions March

Part of my responsibility in my role at my local church is to lead partnership with local, national, and global mission partners. In March of every year, we spend a portion of each week’s church service to highlight and update the congregation on these mission partners. We conclude the month by making a faith promise to the mission fund that is then committed to the mission partners over the coming year.

We just finished our Missions March 2021, and I wanted to take a minute to reflect on a few recurring themes I saw through the presentations.

1. The world has changed a lot over the last year. Successful ministries, churches, organizations are able to recognize that the what of their mission will not change but how they do the mission might change. Flexibility and adaptive leadership are necessary now more than ever to share the love of God with a changing world.
2. Wholistic evangelism and discipleship has the greatest impact. People all over the world are dealing with more than ever before. People need others to be present with them and willing to work through thoughts, emotions, physical and spiritual needs. Each of us is a whole person and need a wholistic approach. When some aspects of a person’s life are ignored, often the whole approach is discounted. A wholistic approach is part of the needed pivot in our changing world.  
3. Relationships built over time grow in trust, benefiting all involved. I always believed this was true between our mission partners and their communities, but this month I also saw the benefit of the growing trust between us as a church and our partners. Time allows us to see the growing fruit of God’s grace. Some seeds take longer to germinate and grow than others. When we invest in long -term relationships, we create a safe environment for growth at God’s pace rather than ours.
4. True development is when both givers and receivers grow. I saw that in trusting relationships, resources flow both directions. While we in the U.S. may have financial resources that our partners are lacking, our partners around the world have spiritual resources that we are lacking.  The trusting relationship allows the exchange of resources – financial, spiritual, encouragement- to flow both ways.

Do any of these themes speak to you and your experience? Is there something that gives you pause and a desire to learn more about? Do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance!