The Pastor’s Role in Missions

Kevin Bauder, President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary, shares (PDF) some practical recommendations regarding pastors and their involvement in foreign missions. With foreign missions on the decline—at least in the US, “what can and should a pastor do to foster enthusiasm for missions in his congregation”? Sending teams to foreign countries may not always be worth the cost. There are, however, several things the pastor can do to promote foreign missions, requiring little time and money.

Bauder gives five main recommendations:

1. Know your missionaries.

First, and most obviously, every pastor should know the missionaries whom his church supports. He should know their names, their families, and their situation in life. He should know where they minister and what special challenges they face.

2. Stay in contact with your missionaries.

For a new pastor, getting to know the missionaries takes a while. He may not see all of the church’s missionaries for several years. But he should begin his pastorate with a personal letter to each missionary family, introducing himself and recommitting himself and his congregation to renewed interest in that missionary’s work. Then he should maintain a correspondence with each missionary. In the old days we had to use international mailers to send letters to foreign countries. Now we can use email. There is no excuse for a pastor not to be in touch with every missionary every couple of months.

. . .

At least once each year, the pastor ought to place a telephone call to every missionary. Needless to say, the call should be made at a time that is convenient for the missionary. A voice from home may prove to be very welcome, and a missionary often will discuss issues with a pastor that he does not feel comfortable addressing in a prayer letter.

3. Encourage your people to contact your missionaries.

Furthermore, the pastor should encourage the church to be contacting the missionaries regularly. At minimum, every prayer letter (whether paper or electronic) ought to receive an answering letter from some member of the congregation. The church should also send bulletins, sermon recordings, and other information about church events to its missionaries. Most missionaries of my acquaintance would love to be praying for their sending churches—only they never hear enough to know how to pray.

4. Visit your missionaries.

As easy as travel has become, in most cases a church should send its pastor to visit each of its missionary families in their place of ministry. Most pastors will return from such a trip with renewed missionary vigor, and I know very few missionaries who would not relish a visit from their supporting pastors. Nothing sparks a church’s interest in its missionaries like a pastor who has actually seen what they face.

5. Take care of your missionaries while they are on furlough.

Churches that have commissioned their own missionaries have special obligations toward those missionaries, but they also have special opportunities. The church will have to help the missionary arrange housing and travel every furlough, but it has a tremendous opportunity to have the missionary minister within the congregation. If possible, the church ought to provide an office for the missionary, who should be treated as a member of the pastoral staff. The missionary’s travel schedule ought to be planned in cooperation with the pastor, and under the pastor’s direction the missionary should actively promote the work of missions within the congregation. The missionary’s activity will include preaching and teaching, but it may also involve other ministries within the church and community. Who better to train a youth group in evangelism than a missionary who is home from the field?

Bauder concludes,

In short, missions cannot be an afterthought. The pastor ought to have a vision for where he wants the church’s missions program to go, for how he wants to approach the unique problems of foreign and home missions, and for the church’s involvement in various missionary enterprises. Communicating this vision is part of the pastor’s ongoing ministry in the church. If we do not wish to see missions die, then it is a work that each pastor must take very seriously.

Read the whole article (PDF).

What do you do to promote missions in your church?

Our church has had a very special ministry with our missionaries for a number of years. It’s called “Christmas in October.” All of our missionaries share things they could use that they can’t get in the their various countries. Individuals in the church buy the requested items, and the church gathers on a Wednesday evening in October to package all of the gifts. This has been a huge blessing to our missionaries.

We also have individuals in the congregation who give us updates on Wednesday evenings from our missionaries, enabling us to stay aware of their needs and better pray for them.

Update: See this great post from Chris Anderson and the discussion in the comments.

See also our previous posts on Bauder:

• Thinking About the Gospel
• Bauder on the Use of Scripture in Theology
• Kevin Bauder on Church Organization

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