IDEAS THAT WORK - Christianity Today

GETTING ADULTS EXCITED ABOUT MISSIONS

After the commissioning service for our summer mission youth teams, an elder was asking about the group bound for Kenya. “Is that the capital of Africa?” He was completely serious, so I gently tried to explain that Nairobi was the capital of Kenya, but that Africa, being a continent and not a country, had no capital. He retreated, a little embarrassed.

The incident got me thinking about our church’s vision for, and understanding of, world missions. We were doing a satisfactory job educating our young people; our adults needed some schooling as well.

Formulating our rationale

That summer we began planning mission trips for adults. I knew the first question people would ask: “Why should we do this?” Based on my experience, both personal and with our youth teams, I generated three reasons:

1. The church benefits. Giving, prayer, and a sense of partnership with missionaries had already increased in our youth groups. I knew the same harvest of benefits would be reaped by the church at large if adults got involved in missions firsthand.

2. Our missionaries benefit. Missionaries in a rather remote outpost once welcomed our youth team with these words: “In our thirty years of missionary service, you are the first people from a supporting church that have visited us on the field.” Personal visits from a supporting church greatly encourage foreign missionaries who sometimes wonder, Does anyone know I’m here?

3. The pastor or other team leader benefits. When our minister of Christian education visited Haiti, he brought back mental pictures and personal experiences that affected not only his own life but the entire missions vision of the Christian education department.

Getting there

First, we needed a place to go. We wrote various missionaries we were supporting to inquire about the possibilities. Some were too busy to host a group. Others would have loved the visit but had nothing for the group to do other than tour, and we wanted our group to contribute something to the ministry. Finally, a positive response came from missionaries in Spain. They offered a good work assignment—painting a mission hospitality house. Better still, we would be working with missionaries who were from our own church and committed to educating others about missions.

Next came the question of finances. Between some lodging the missionaries helped arrange, a cooperative travel agency, and a little flexibility (like flying midweek rather than at peak times), we were able to establish a cost within the reach of most of our people. In addition, our missions committee earmarked funds for those needing aid.

Six months before the trip, we began recruiting team leaders. We looked for people who had overseas travel experience, administrative ability, and the willingness to go through a leader-training program. They, in turn, recruited team members, and after weeks of preparation, the team of ten adults left for Spain. The trip’s nine days (to accommodate those who could not take off two full weeks) broadly exposed the team to the missionaries and their work. Time was allocated for visits to local churches, a trip across the Straits of Gibraltar for exposure to Islamic culture in Tangier, Morocco, and lots of fellowship with the missionaries. The team found out what it is really like to work cross-culturally.

The team, motivated by the vast array of new experiences, worked hard to paint the hospitality buildings. And the missionaries were encouraged beyond our expectations.

Overcoming obstacles

This glowing report does not imply, however, that there were no problems. Team members worried about terrorist hijackings. They put up some resistance to receiving the same rigorous training as the youth teams (see LEADERSHIP, Fall 1984, “Ideas That Work”), and some pushed for more freedom to travel on their own.

(We did allow our adults to travel on their own following the team project, though we don’t allow youth to do this. On many trips, however, travel arrangements require a complete group on the return flight and thus rule out additional personal travel.)

Others at home objected, “Wouldn’t it be better to just send the money, rather than spend so much to visit?”

“Perhaps,” we countered, “but the individuals’ increased involvement in missions is hard to price.” Of the Spain team of ten, two are now involved on our missions committee, three are actively pursuing missions service, and one is helping to coordinate a program for international students.

“Are we hurting or helping the missionary’s effectiveness?” another person asked. A good question. The answer depends on the missionary’s job on the field, his or her willingness to impart a vision for missions, and the commitment of the visitors not to be a burden. We did burden our missionaries with administrative details (coordinating food and lodging), but we paid for all our food, helped offset the price of materials we used, and funded our own travel and touring.

Our commitment (for youth or adult teams) is to work so hard and encourage so much that our missionaries feel genuinely glad we came. This occurred in Spain and in the other places we have sent adult teams:

France, Jamaica, and Honduras.

Maximizing the trip

Nine days pass quickly. How could we make sure these days contributed to the team members’ growth as Christians committed to the Great Commission?

Upon its return, the team went through debriefings to help members better understand their experience. Team members completed a follow-up evaluation and held a reunion. And the church visibly affirmed them by featuring them in a service and viewing their display booth in our fellowship hall. The team understood that as a church, we were proud of their work and interested in what they had learned. This affirmation enhanced their personal commitments to missions.

David wrote that following the Lord would enlarge our hearts (Ps. 119:32). Taking our adults overseas has resulted in “enlarged hearts” for both participants and observers. According to Mark Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, all foes of real understanding.” How true for our adults. And because of our good experiences, we’ll continue planning mission trips for them.

Paul Borthwick is minister of youth and missions at Grace Chapel, Lexington, Massachusetts.

MORE IDEAS

An Eye for Evangelism

Newcomers to a community are often especially receptive to the gospel. Uprooted from friends and still out of place in their new surroundings, they usually welcome friendly gestures from a church.

The problem for many churches is how to identify newcomers and get their names and addresses. Village Green Baptist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, has found a creative solution.

“The idea came to me while I was jogging past a house with a real estate ‘SOLD’ sign planted in the front yard,” says associate pastor Gordon Bauslaugh. “We encouraged everyone in the church to start looking for (1) “SOLD” signs, (2) unloading moving vans, or (3) new homes being built.”

The church dubbed people who reported sightings the “Spotters Association,” or SPA for short. A printed form was distributed for spotters to record the addresses of their spottings, the dates when found, and their names.

The forms, collected in a box at church, are given to a visitation team that calls on the new residents. During the brief welcoming visit, the team expresses the church’s desire to minister to the newcomers and encourages them to call the church office with any questions or needs as they settle in. Often newcomers visit the church on the basis of this visit alone.

“The biggest reward of the program, though, is when the team writes its report of the visit,” Bauslaugh says, “and one copy is given to the person who made the original spotting. If a ten-year-old spotted a moving van, he gets affirmation that he or she is helping the church.”

The church newsletter reports how many addresses have been spotted, who has submitted sightings, and how many visits have taken place. Bauslaugh reports: “The program has sparked an ongoing interest in outreach among the entire congregation.”

Bulletins for Kids

Keeping children quiet during a worship service is one thing. Actually involving them in the worship and helping them understand the service’s theme is quite another.

Overisel (Michigan) Christian Reformed Church has taken a sizable leap in both directions by creating bulletins specifically for the children. The children’s version contains word searches, dot-to-dots, stories, mazes, crossword puzzles—all centered around the theme of the service and sermon.

“We’ve been doing this for three or four years now,” reports Pastor Leslie Kuiper, “and it’s amazing how much the children gain from the bulletins. At a coffee get-together after one of our services, some parents asked their kids what the service was about. An eleven-year-old who hadn’t used the children’s bulletin had a difficult time identifying the main theme. But two children ages six and seven hit it right on the nose.”

Each Tuesday morning, Kuiper’s wife, Marlene, and other mothers from the congregation meet to plan the bulletins. They begin with the Scripture passage and theme statement for the coming Sunday (Pastor Kuiper provides these about two months in advance) and discuss how the concepts can be made accessible to children. Each person is assigned responsibility for a portion of the bulletin, which usually breaks down this way:

page 1—activities appropriate for four-year-olds and other nonreaders;

pages 2-3—activities appropriate for five- and six-year-olds and other beginning readers;

page 4—activities appropriate for seven- through ten-year-olds and other more advanced readers.

“In each bulletin, we also mention any children who are having birthdays that week or are sick,” Marlene reports.

“We lighten our load by gleaning ideas from Bible activity books and illustrations from ad-picture books donated by the local newspaper. We keep our printed bulletins on file and even swap them with other churches who’ve begun doing the same thing.”

Pastor Kuiper adds, “At first, some adult members didn’t like the children writing in their bulletins during the service. But now people are used to them. We even find some of our adults taking them home.”

Bulletins for Seniors

While experimenting with the church’s new photocopier, Pastor R. Keith Corum of Willows (California) Christian Church came up with a simple, yet clever way to help some of his senior citizens.

The copier had the capability to enlarge (or reduce) print, and Corum knew some of the older members of the congregation were struggling to read the regular bulletins. So for the coming Sunday he made several large-print bulletins by copying the regular church bulletin onto 11″ x 17″ sheets of paper using the photocopier’s enlargement mode. The regular bulletin’s full-color cover could be reproduced only in black and white in the large-print size, but in every other way the larger bulletins were the same, simply easier to read.

“I thought, Let’s at least see how they go over,” Corum says. “And at first, some of the seniors were hesitant to admit they needed larger print. But now, if I forget to put the large-print bulletins out, some seniors ask, ‘Hey, where are our bulletins?’ “

Visualizing World Communion Day

First United Methodist Church of Reedley, California, has found a meaningful way to celebrate World Communion Sunday, the day each October when churches worldwide celebrate Communion.

In September, the church’s Sunday school teachers center their lessons on Christian missionary work around the world. As part of the lessons, the children make construction-paper flags representing various nations.

Then, on World Communion Sunday, the children distribute the flags to the congregation. Each flag (approximately 5″ x 9″) has the name of the country it represents printed on the back. As part of the prayers of intercession, each person prays silently for the country whose flag he or she is holding—for Christian ministries there and the general welfare of the people. Not everyone knows specific information about his or her country, of course, but many do, based on the recent Sunday school and sermon instruction. Following the prayer, Communion is celebrated.

“Many of our adults found this meaningful,” says Pastor Mark Moon. “Some admitted they had never even heard of the country whose flag they got. And few were aware we were supporting missionaries in so many countries.”

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