When I ask pastors, average Christians, and missionaries what missions is all about, I often hear three very different kinds of answers. Pastors use words such as strategic, global outreach, and extension of the church. The average Christian may use words such as exciting, courageous, and spiritual. Missionaries, however, often use words such as hard, lonely, and sacrifice.
In 2011, my family and I stepped out of the pastorate and entered this branch of the ministry tree called missions. Before becoming a missionary, I had served in two churches as an associate pastor for a total of eleven years. During that time, I met many of the missionaries our churches supported. It was always exciting to hear their stories of challenge and adventure. I loved hearing about their latest encounter with a six-foot-long snake or their travels deep into the jungle. When they left, I usually felt that I had a better understanding of their ministry and a better idea of how to pray for them.
Then we became missionaries, and our world was turned upside down. We sold what we owned, said goodbye to friends and family and to the life we knew and loved, loaded our four children onto a plane, and took off into the unknown.
Adventure is one word to describe it. Scary is probably a better one. Moving away from everything we knew as normal and everyone we loved began one of the hardest and loneliest periods in the life of our family. It was then that I realized something I had missed as a pastor: I may have known a great deal about our missionaries’ ministries, but I knew far less about their lives and what they were actually going through.
The relationship between the local church and its missionaries should therefore be much more than financial support. Acts 13 gives us a picture of missionaries going out from a local church rather than operating as isolated individuals. That relationship provides a vital framework for encouragement, accountability, prayer, and partnership. The following eight principles can help missionaries and sending churches build a relationship that is healthier, more effective, and more biblical.
Principle #1: A missionary needs a sending church
A common trend in missions is for missionaries to have many individual supporters but relatively few churches as part of their support team. There may be several reasons for this. Some people may lack confidence in a local church’s ability to distribute missions funds wisely. Our increasingly individualistic culture also encourages people to want direct involvement with “their” missionaries. In other cases, churches may be struggling financially, forcing missionaries to depend more heavily on individuals in order to reach the field.
Whatever the reason, there is at least one relationship that cannot be neglected: a missionary needs a church to send him or her. This is the pattern we see in Scripture. A sending church commissions, supports, encourages, and maintains a meaningful relationship with its missionaries. It should be one of the first places a struggling missionary turns for encouragement and one of the first places that celebrates what God is doing through the missionary’s ministry. Ideally, the sending church should also be one of the most stable relationships on a missionary’s support team.
Principle #2: A missionary needs to communicate
It is remarkable how many churches know very little about what their missionaries actually do. What does a normal week look like? Where are they struggling? What needs are they facing? How can the church pray intelligently for them? When churches cannot answer those questions, the problem is often a lack of communication.
Missionaries have a responsibility to communicate with their churches and support teams. That may happen through newsletters, e-mails, social media, video updates, or personal conversations. The particular method matters less than the consistency. Communication should be regular, honest, and substantive. Churches cannot meaningfully pray for, encourage, or support missionaries if they rarely hear from them.
Principle #3: A missionary needs to be vulnerable with his or her church’s leadership
Many people assume vulnerability demonstrates weakness, and missionaries may be especially reluctant to show weakness to the pastors and churches investing in their ministry. But appropriate vulnerability does not demonstrate failure; it demonstrates reality. It allows pastors and church leaders to understand what their missionary is actually experiencing and to pray and counsel accordingly.
Pastors are sinful human beings just like missionaries. They understand the difficulty of balancing ministry and family. They know what it is like to struggle spiritually, become frustrated, face discouragement, and carry the pressures of ministry. A missionary does not need to pretend that everything is going well. When church leaders are allowed to see an honest picture of life and ministry on the field, they are better equipped to pray, encourage, counsel, and support.
Principle #4: A missionary needs authority and accountability
Missionaries tend to be independent people. In many ways, they have to be. It takes initiative and courage to leave family, friends, and familiar surroundings to minister in another part of the world. But that independent, pioneering spirit can become a double-edged sword. Independence can slowly become isolation, and isolation can weaken accountability.
Missionaries need appropriate authority in their lives. I know the tension from personal experience. Healthy authority, however, is not merely restrictive. It strengthens communication and accountability and can actually relieve some of the pressure a missionary feels when facing difficult decisions alone. A good pastor does not attempt to control every decision on the field. He knows the missionary well enough to ask difficult questions, offer counsel, and help think through the more complicated decisions of life and ministry.
Principle #5: A sending church needs to be careful how it selects missionaries
During my years as both a pastor and a missionary, I have met many excellent missionaries—hard-working men and women who love the Lord, love the church, and faithfully serve others. Unfortunately, I have also encountered missionaries who were undisciplined, unmotivated, or poorly suited for the responsibilities they had been given. That raises an important question: How should a sending church evaluate potential missionaries?
Churches may use different processes. Some develop a formal grid for evaluating missionary candidates. Others concentrate on particular regions or ministry strategies. Some primarily send missionaries who have grown and served within their own congregation. Those approaches may differ, but one practical test is especially helpful: if you would not trust someone to serve faithfully on the staff or ministry leadership of your church, you should think very carefully before sending that person across the world as your missionary.
Missionaries need to work well with others. They must maintain a schedule when no one is watching, take initiative, follow through on responsibilities, handle conflict, and remain self-motivated. Crossing an ocean does not suddenly create maturity, discipline, or character. Missionaries represent Christ, but they also represent the churches that send them. Churches therefore need to evaluate character and proven faithfulness at home before commissioning someone for ministry abroad.
Principle #6: A sending church needs to provide the support it promised
The process often begins with great enthusiasm. A church member approaches the pastor about becoming a missionary. The pastor is excited. The church hears about the calling and commits to pray, give, encourage, and help along the way. The missionary eventually leaves for the field, and then the real test begins: will the church continue doing what it promised?
Some churches do this exceptionally well. Others gradually lose contact. The missionary becomes a photograph on a missions wall and a line in the church budget. But sending is not completed when the missionary boards an airplane. If a church says it will pray, it should pray. If it promises encouragement, it should intentionally encourage. Send a card. Write an e-mail. Ask specific questions. Remember important transitions. Check on the missionary’s spouse and children. Financial support matters, but faithful support is broader than a monthly check. A sending church should seek to remain meaningfully involved in the life of the missionary it has commissioned.
Principle #7: A sending church needs to communicate with its missionaries
Communication is a two-way street. Missionaries have a responsibility to communicate regularly with their sending churches, but sending churches also need to communicate with their missionaries. E-mails, phone calls, video calls, church updates, and even brief personal messages help missionaries remain connected to the congregation that sent them. Missionaries should not have to learn about major changes in their sending church through social media or from someone else. They should hear from their church.
This matters because missionaries can easily become disconnected from life back home. While they are serving thousands of miles away, people join the church, pastors and leaders change, ministries begin and end, and significant events take place in the lives of people they know and love. Regular communication reminds missionaries that although they may be serving somewhere else in the world, they are still part of the church family that sent them.
Communication does not need to be formal or lengthy. Sometimes a short e-mail from a pastor, a video from a Sunday School class, or a message saying, “We prayed for you this morning,” can provide tremendous encouragement. The goal is not merely to exchange information. The goal is to maintain a relationship. If a church calls someone “our missionary,” that relationship should continue long after the missionary gets on the airplane.
Principle #8: A sending church needs to “go to bat” for its missionaries
Mission agencies provide valuable services to missionaries and churches. Depending on the agency, these may include administrative support, field leadership, financial services, training, accountability, security, and decades of accumulated experience. Most local churches cannot easily reproduce all of those services on their own. A good mission agency can therefore be an important partner between a missionary and the sending church.
But mission agencies are not infallible. Disagreements occur. Policies can create difficulties. Leadership decisions may need to be questioned. Situations may arise in which a missionary needs someone who knows him or her personally and is willing to listen carefully and advocate when appropriate.
That is one of the responsibilities of the sending church. A church should not surrender its responsibility for a missionary simply because a mission agency is involved. The agency has an important role, but it does not replace the local church. When serious questions arise concerning a missionary’s ministry, family, doctrine, conduct, or future, the sending church should be appropriately involved rather than standing at a distance and assuming someone else will handle the situation.
Going to bat for a missionary does not mean automatically taking the missionary’s side. Sometimes the missionary may be wrong and need correction. Biblical accountability requires the church to be willing to say that as well. Advocacy without accountability is not healthy partnership. But the church should know its missionary well enough to listen, ask questions, communicate with the agency when necessary, and help pursue a wise and biblical resolution. A missionary should know that when difficult circumstances arise, the leaders of the sending church will not simply disappear.
This brings us back to the relationship described at the beginning. The local church should be more than a name printed on a missionary’s prayer card or an account from which a monthly support check arrives. A sending church should know its missionaries, pray for them, communicate with them, encourage them, hold them accountable, and stand beside them when ministry becomes difficult.
Missions is not simply about sending people away. It is about churches sending people into the work of the gospel and continuing to walk with them as they serve.