The old model was a missions committee supporting multiple missionaries or organizations.
The missions secretary sent letters; the treasurer sent checks; every quarter a missionary visited and gave a report ending with a sunset scene.
This model engaged perhaps 5% of the congregation - those "recruited" (aka press-ganged) into the missions committee, family members of those recruited and the group of hardworking ladies who knit shawls for the natives.
It worked. But no longer.
In a flat world; a fully accessible world; a post colonial world; an anti-western world to persist with a 20th century model in a 21st century new world
Now the hard, but rewarding, work begins.
21st century global partnerships.
Let me summarize how Redeemer's Church does 21st century global missions.
- Abolish the Missions Committee.
- Begin creating 21st century global partnerships - pray, visit, analyse, link. [Redeemer's Church began with one partner in Kenya, Africa and now has four - Kenya, Guatemala, Haiti & Mexico.}
- Create a new missions vehicle - enter When I Grow Up Children's Charity (an independent 501c3). www.whenigrowup-global.com
- Move Global Missions from a committee in the church to the front of the church - regular media and partner reports.
- Arrange and lead teams to partners. [Redeemer's Church sends 5-6 teams per year to partners.]
- Invite all of church to be participants in the global partnerships through giving and volunteering in the children's charity. [Redeemer's Church has around 50% of church involved in its When I Grow Up Charity.]
- Keep it centre stage on a weekly basis. Talk it into being core not fringe, being what we do not what some do, being who we are not just what we do. Become great global storytellers.
- And do this over and over and over and over.
It's hard work trying to lead a church to outwork a global perspective - I'm at 160,000 miles stuck on an airplane already!
