17. The Opportunities of Serving the Globally Mobile VI (MICN Missiology Series by Andrew Lupton)
Proximity to Missionaries
Most of us dream of shepherding congregations in which our people leave the building every Sunday ready to roll up their sleeves on God’s mission for the week ahead. Thanks to proximity to local missionaries, that dream is a reality in the international church. International churches serve as an oasis for those in the missions community who are ministering to the host city and country.
Many international churches were started though an informal gathering of missionaries seeking some sort of familiar refuge within which to recharge, worship, and fellowship. UCB has always been a church home for missionaries serving throughout Colombia and has had a direct and indirect impact on Colombia accordingly. Church planters, Bible translators, Christian school educators, those involved in orphan care, ministry to children on the streets, and theological education are nourished and equipped for the mission at our church. I am careful to clarify to these missionaries that our church is a place to receive. We expect very little in terms of their time, talent, and money. In fact, I said that afresh just this week to a new missionary family leading a wide-reaching university ministry.
In this way, international churches can serve as a resource for missions agencies. The emotional and relational health of missionary teams is often cited as the main reason missionaries leave the field. Warren Reeve notes that missions agencies whose missionaries are connected to healthy international churches may even receive better member care through their international church than from their sending agency.1 International churches can provide a level of tangible and genuine pastoral care for missionaries that is harder to receive from a missions agency located countries away. Additionally, international churches are often invited in to mediate conflict or provide care without fear of their involvement affecting a missionary’s employment status. This degree of separation is freeing for missionaries and their teams.
In terms of our own engagement in missions, we have a commitment as an international church to spend at least ten percent of our budget on missions work that will be a blessing to our city and country. We are privileged to reinvest the resources of the nations toward reaching our host culture in ways we personally cannot as an international church. One benefit of the close proximity to the ministries of those we support is that we and our people can have increased involvement in those ministries. Accordingly, our building, our time, our talents are frequently deployed.
For example, Colombia is host to many indigenous communities that are often overlooked. One missionary family who are members of our church serves these communities in vital ways as the gospel takes root among these indigenous communities. Pastors need to be trained, literacy needs to spread, denominations and other networks of accountability need to form and our church members and sponsored missionaries are on the front lines of it all. The proximity to the missionaries and their ministry has meant that our involvement and impact goes much deeper than just financial support. We are able to visit, encourage, and personally help resource the indigenous church.
In terms of pastorally supporting these missionaries in particular, their children attend our youth ministries, their teammates receive individual counseling from our counseling center, we are able to visit when they’re sick and personally comfort when they’re in crisis. We were even asked to speak to a gathering of their missionaries throughout South America. This was a privilege we were extended because of our proximity physically and relationally to these missionaries and their mission.
Missionary Incubation
Another way international churches can serve as a resource for missions agencies is by serving as an incubator for new missionaries. The fluctuating and fast pace of international church means constantly revolving ministry roles. Often the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. These roles can be filled effectively by short-term missionaries in an international church because almost everyone in that church already identifies as short-term. What better scenario is there for a new missionary to discover his/her unique gifting and calling on mission than in the context of an international church?
They can practice ministry and sharpen their evangelism abilities in their native tongue while serving in a multicultural and multigenerational context. Meanwhile, they also learn the local language and experience culture shock within a support system where many members can relate. One word of caution is needed, though. Cross-cultural ministry within an international church may come more naturally than the missionary’s eventual landing point. Thus, expectations, boundaries, and end dates for the incubation period should be clearly communicated and enforced so that the missionary can be effectively launched into his/her long-term calling.
For example, our church leadership is eager to make our counseling center one such incubator that will serve as a blessing to the nations by preparing and training licensed Christian counselors to serve in cross-cultural settings. We plan to recruit recently graduated counselors who will commit to serve within our counseling center for two to three years. During this time, they will complete the requirements for licensure while counseling members of our community under supervision. During their stay they will learn Spanish, be fully integrated into our church and ministry team, all the while experiencing the blessings, challenges, and nuances of serving in a counseling center within a multicultural church. Our prayer is that they will finish this incubation period with the qualifications, passion, and experience for replicating this ministry in other cross-cultural settings. Ideally some even land in Latin America, which is under-resourced in this regard.
How is your international church impacting God’s mission by impacting God’s missionaries? Tune in next week as we wrap up the opportunities of serving the global mobile and the mission of God through church planting.
Andrew Lupton
1 Sadiri Joy Tira & Tetsunao Yamamori, Scattered and Gathered: A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology (Chapter 11: Unleashing Great Commission Potential through International Churches by Warren Reeve, section: Denominational Resourcing.
