Missions Month!

[DaveW]

For Miss Daisy, but not wanting to dilute brother Markle's thread.

We are about to start our missions month here and I had not planned to speak about giving at all.
I figure that if I show the people here what God's Word says about (the Great com) MISSION, and about missionaries we know and love and their work, then people will be moved to give to the Lord's work in those places too.

If you dread missions preaching for financial reasons, then I think maybe your preacher has a slightly wrong missions emphasis.
Yes money is part of it, but if your heart is not for it, the Lord does not want your money anyway.
But if your heart is for missions then you will find a way to be a blessing to good missionaries even if you don't have the money.
There are other ways you can be a blessing to them.
Emails of encouragement, letters of encouragement, and prayer. Lots of prayer.
And tell them you are praying for them.

I can tell you personally that to have someone send money is nice and most of the time it is timely relief of a need, but it is an unexpected note of prayer and encouragement that brings a tear to my eye.

Tell the Lord you have no more money to give, and ask Him to show you how to be a blessing to a missionary.

Don't dread it - talk to Him about it, and look forward to finding a different way to be a blessing to a missionary.

[John81]

Good words but sadly many don't follow such. Too often missionary conferences are filled with emotionalism designed to get people to give more. In these cases, the focus upon what missions are supposed to be about is lost as men attempt to "help God" fund certain missionary efforts. Some of these are nearly as bad as those commercials where they tell sad tales about animal abuse while showing little kittens and dogs with sad looks on their faces as they continually plead for money.

 

Mission events such as these are not edifying.

 

True, Scripture centered mission events, where the focus is upon Christ and spreading the Gospel, are a great blessing and don't lead folks to feel dread, guilt, shame or drained. Praise God for all such!

 

Thank you for the encouraging post Dave!

[1Timothy115]

God gives a pastor a burden for world wide missions through that pastor's daily walk with the Lord; in the study of God's word and through prayer for missionaries. God gives that pastor a message based on this close daily walk with God through his word. The pastor shares that message with the local flock God gave him to under shepherd. The pastor is as passionate as God gives him the grace to be and he pours his heart into this message, because he knows God is in missions. No one should feel shame for hearing what God wants you to hear. Feel encouraged God spoke to someone's heart through missions messages to provide for the work of world wide missions. 

 

Everyone is not given the finances to monetarily support missions but, woe to those who God gave money and they hold back. If God moves people to increase (or begin) prayer, increase (or begin) giving to missions/missionaries, or to take mission trip/s to help with mission effort. Amen! 

[Steve Schwenke]

A few comments:

Everybody can give something for missions - God can take the little we have and multiply it many times over to meet somebody's needs.  Many giving $10 a month to missions does not seem like much, but God does not count the number behind the dollar sign - He looks to see if you gave what you could give to HIS WORK.

Thus, I always encourage our people to pray about what God would have them to give, and then give according to what God has given them, regardless of the dollar amount.  And there is absolutely no pressure whatsoever - no emotionalism - no "pledges" - it is between them and the Lord.

 

The high-handed emotionalism that goes into many missions conferences is rather sickening.  Why must men resort to worldly emotional and psychological manipulation in order to get "results?"  Why does these men not rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to work on people's hearts through the preaching of the word?  Those who walk with the Lord KNOW what God wants them to do - they do not need somebody else taking advantage of the opportunity to twist their arms into doing something.   I say that a preacher should preach the word, and leave the results up to the Lord!

 

I agree with Dave - we should try to do more along the way of encouraging our missionaries through letters and gifts.  It lets them know we genuinely care for them. 

 

The largest prOBlem I see with modern missionaries is that many of them are not truly Biblical missionaries.  They don't want to work in the secular world.  They want to be "full time" in the ministry, so they find some kooky "field" to be a "missionary" to.  Further, many of these "missionaries" are not doing the Biblical jOB of training the natives to take care of their own churches.  So much of what passes off as "missions" is junk.  Our pastors need to do a better jOB of "weeding" the charlatans out.  Our pastors and schools need to do a better jOB of teaching what Biblical missions is all about.  And our pastors and schools need to stop making "the ministry" out to be something glamorous.  Some of these kids coming out of school think that if they cannot be "full time in the ministry" that they will just sit and do nothing....like a spoiled brat who doesn't get his way!

 

More OBservations from the semi-arid plains of the Texas Panhandle!

 

In Christ,

[John81]

There is indeed a prOBlem with many today who get into missionary work (too many view it as work, not a service and not a call to service) or even into other Christian ministry fields, including pastorates, as what they consider an easy career path.

 

I agree we need to be diligent in checking these people out, getting to know them as best we can, and weeding out those called to the ministry from those who are just trying this as a career path.

 

Some missionaries demand they only work in areas of their own choosing; some demand they be given enough money so they are able to live well above the means of those they are to work with; some demand to be cared for and pampered while visiting churches in search of funding or as they await their other demands to be met.

 

Sadly, many pastors (and others in the ministry) continually hop from church to church chasing that bigger and better salary and benefits package. There may be a dozen pastors looking for a church and if it's a good day one of those will be seeking the Lord's will while the rest are sure it's God's will (or they expect God to agree with them) they get into the biggest, best paying church the can.

 

God called and Christ honouring missionaries deserve our best support; which goes beyond just what we can give financially, they need our prayers, encouragement, friendship and fellowship. The same is true of such pastors and other ministry workers.

 

May we be cautious and seek and follow the Lord's guidance with regards to what missionaries we support.

[prophet1]

Praise God, I now have 4 young Ojibwe working with me, being discipled in a trade and ministry.

I am in the States, at the Reservation, so I am not restricted from working, so I gladly work, and teach the next gen.

[Calvary]

A few comments:

Everybody can give something for missions - God can take the little we have and multiply it many times over to meet somebody's needs.  Many giving $10 a month to missions does not seem like much, but God does not count the number behind the dollar sign - He looks to see if you gave what you could give to HIS WORK.

Thus, I always encourage our people to pray about what God would have them to give, and then give according to what God has given them, regardless of the dollar amount.  And there is absolutely no pressure whatsoever - no emotionalism - no "pledges" - it is between them and the Lord.

 

The high-handed emotionalism that goes into many missions conferences is rather sickening.  Why must men resort to worldly emotional and psychological manipulation in order to get "results?"  Why does these men not rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to work on people's hearts through the preaching of the word?  Those who walk with the Lord KNOW what God wants them to do - they do not need somebody else taking advantage of the opportunity to twist their arms into doing something.   I say that a preacher should preach the word, and leave the results up to the Lord!

 

I agree with Dave - we should try to do more along the way of encouraging our missionaries through letters and gifts.  It lets them know we genuinely care for them. 

 

The largest prOBlem I see with modern missionaries is that many of them are not truly Biblical missionaries.  They don't want to work in the secular world.  They want to be "full time" in the ministry, so they find some kooky "field" to be a "missionary" to.  Further, many of these "missionaries" are not doing the Biblical jOB of training the natives to take care of their own churches.  So much of what passes off as "missions" is junk.  Our pastors need to do a better jOB of "weeding" the charlatans out.  Our pastors and schools need to do a better jOB of teaching what Biblical missions is all about.  And our pastors and schools need to stop making "the ministry" out to be something glamorous.  Some of these kids coming out of school think that if they cannot be "full time in the ministry" that they will just sit and do nothing....like a spoiled brat who doesn't get his way!

 

More OBservations from the semi-arid plains of the Texas Panhandle!

 

In Chrst

 

Having served in Mexico for 15 years and by God´s grace started 7 different churches and trained about a dozen men in full time service, we had to come home to care for my wife´s mother. We have plans on starting a spanish speaking church in Corona, Ca, where there are 43% latino.

If I need to get a jOB, I will. Whatever it takes to keep serving the Lord.

 

Many missionaries are in reality just pastors serving in a foreign field.

They do not train men to take their place, they do not plan on ever leaving their flock, they do not do the work of an evangelist.

 

Thank God for them, they win souls to our Saviour, but they are not missionaries.

 

Just asking for some prayer for us as we are looking at a new start in September, Lord willing. We have lost support just by way of returning tot he states, but we are trusting the Lord to provide. He has never let us down.

 

God bless,

calvary

[John81]

I pray the Lord will send forth needed funding.

 

You do bring up a good point in that what we often call missionaries today aren't actually missionaries.

 

Besides what was mentioned above, I've noticed that some who go to foreign lands to study a tribal or localized language so they can develop a written language in order so those people may eventually have a Bible in their own language, are called missionaries. These go about various churches seeking funding as missionaries and some churches fund them as part of their church missionary efforts. However, they are not missionaries. Missionary funding should go to actual missionaries.

 

If someone needs financial support to study languages so Bibles may be printed in various native languages, that's fine, but they should be funded for what they are actually doing, not as a part of missionary funding.

 

When it comes to actual missionaries we really need to support the biblically sounds ones as best we are able. Currently the largest and most successful missionary efforts around the world are being carried out by Charismatics and Pentecostals. Their missionaries tend to be very well funded. Surely we could give up a few Big Macs or Starbucks coffees in order to boost our support of biblically sound Baptist missionaries.