Great Churches Use Holy Spirit Model of Missions

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http://markwoodward.org/2010/04/26/great-churches-use-holy-spirit-model-of-missions/

Great Churches Use Holy Spirit Model of Missions

April 26, 2010 by Mark Woodward

In our fellowship, fulfilling the Great Commission is the responsibility of local congregations, not a large sending agency or mission board. Let me put it another way: for the most part, men (elders and missions committees) who have never done foreign missions nor received special training of any sort are deciding who goes to the field, how they will work when they get there, how long they will stay, how much they will receive for personal support and for working funds, and if they are doing a effective work. Does this make sense to you?

These good men—all volunteers who can be commended for their willingness and the best intentions—are put in untenable positions of controlling large amounts of money, the lives of numerous individuals whom they may or may not know, and are answering to a congregation that usually knows even less about both the people and the mission efforts.

What these men naturally do is fall back on a model they are familiar with from their own experiences. Most are business people so they use one of the following models:

• Business model: you hire a person that convinces you they can do the job, you pay them enough, but not too much, you give them time to prove themselves, and if they don’t produce, you let them go and look for somebody else.
• Investment model: You invest in either a person or a site! You put what you can afford into the investment (which changes often with your priorities), you watch it for a while, and if it produces good results, you hold onto it—until a better investment comes along
• Venture Capital Model: You find a young entrepreneur who has a good business plan, you decide whether you like the person or the plan enough to put money into it. You establish timetables and benchmarks to evaluate the work, and if you are displeased with the person or they do not meet the pre-established conditions, then you simply stop funding them.

Granted, some better congregations actually attempt to educate themselves about missions, usually by either attending missions conferences or bringing in missions consultants. No doubt these churches do missions better—for a while, but what I see is that there is such high turnover in missions committees and/or elderships that all it takes is one new person on a committee or one experienced person dropping off for the whole mission program of that congregation to be tossed into the air and reinvented.

Here are some positive suggestions for great churches:

1. Search out people in church (men and/or women) who have mission experience—the longer the better–and give them the mandate to coordinate your mission program.
2. If no one in your congregation has mission experience, then give up the desire to control some mission work until God gives your church someone with the gift of missions. Instead, send some of your members to the field on short-term mission projects to work with established missionaries and contribute directly to works that you have experienced and trust—with no strings attached.
3. When looking at new mission work, consider creating a spiritual relationship with this work instead of a financial relationship! The two key words here are spiritual andrelationship. When your church figures out what it means to have a spiritual relationship with a missionary or site first, then the financial side of it will be framed completely differently. Completely rid yourself of the employer/employee relationship model. That one does not work well.
4. Base the length of your congregation’s spiritual/financial commitment on something other than results. If you believe that “God gives the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6), then are you not trying to evaluate God’s own work. The planting and watering are all your missionaries can do, and for that they should be evaluated.

We need a new model for missions! I don’t have this worked out, but I believe it is probably the Acts 13 model:

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Let me just put this verse into my own words:

As the Antioch church was together, worshipping the Lord and fasting, it became clear to them that two of their leaders Barnabas and Saul were called by God’s Spirit to go out from them to deliver the Good News to others. They knew these men, one who had been their mentor at the establishment of the congregation and the other who was a fairly new convert from Judaism, but had been gifted by God to work with non-Jews. The both wanted to go to their home regions, but they didn’t really have a specific schedule, route, or cost estimate for the time afterwards. After further prayer and fasting, the church still recognized these as God’s plans, so they sent them with all they needed that the church could gather, they put their hands on them as a symbol of their relationship, and with great love and anticipation, they sent them off.

Great churches will use the Holy Spirit Model for missions. I cannot fill in the details of this model for you, but I believe God will—if you will!