Tips for Your Team: Frugal, Resourceful Innovation

Source: Jon Hirst, Innovation in Missions

Article: When Tennis Balls Will Do

Innovation doesn’t have to cost a lot to deliver significant learning and change. Sometimes the resourceful, frugal solution is the one we should be aiming for. But in a world full of venture capital and big dreams, we can forget that spending $100 dollars strategically can lead to more innovation than $10,000 without discipline.

Read When Tennis Balls Will Do. Love it!

Resource: 10 Activities to Generate Better Ideas

We all want better brainstorming sessions, but the challenge is how to design creative spaces where your team can think in new ways. This is harder than it seems and so its always good to be on the lookout for new tools. Here is a list of 10 ideas that may give you some new places to start.

Read 10 Activities to Generate Better Ideas. I think you’ll find more than one your ministry team can use.

Read the whole newsletter and consider subscribing.

Resource Roundup: Celebrating St. Patrick and the Great Commission

Source: Various

Did you know Patrick was one of the earliest Christian leaders to think deeply and write clearly about completing the Great Commission? You might read the chapter about Patrick in the book Missionary Monks, watch the docudrama I Am Patrick, or follow links from a resource list by missiologist J.D. Payne.

Via Family (formerly Weave) has suggestions you can use to help your kids learn more about the real St. Patrick. Read Beyond Shamrocks and Leprechauns. It includes an activity you can do with your family.

See also The Real Story of St. Patrick (Voice of the Martyrs). Looks like it’s from their series of books for kids highlighting courageous Christians from Scripture (Paul, Stephen, Thomas) and early church history (Saints Patrick, Valentine, and Nicholas). Praise God that many more have come after them. May we, too, be faithful in lifting up Jesus and introducing others to him, despite the obstacles and challenges.

Article: Why Easter Matters for Missions

Source: Radical, April 6, 2023

The needs of the world can quickly overwhelm us. The Lord will send his church to countries ravaged by war, camps filled with refugees, villages living in abject poverty, and trauma-laden communities right next door. As they go, members of his church will meet the physical needs around them, just like their Lord. And this is but the beginning.

Jesus came to give his people abundant life, but he didn’t stop there. Jesus came to bring us back to God. The resurrection ensures that the message that missionaries bring to the lost offers them a path to eternal joy, not just relief from temporal suffering.

Read Why Easter Matters for Missions. And thanks to OSCAR for highlighting this article.

For more to help you refocus on things that matter most, read Why Spiritual Formation Is Central in God’s Mission (Bradley Bell).

Missions Podcasts: Find Your New Favorite

Sources: Various

Looking for a missions-oriented audio soundtrack for your workout or road trip? Missio Nexus has got your covered. Thanks to Brigada for reminding us of this resource.

Browse the Missions Podcast Directory. You may find a new favorite.

See also He Who Has Earbuds, Let Him Hear: Audio Bibles on the Rise, which reports that Gen Z is the first cohort to prefer digital over print, according to American Bible Society research (Christianity Today).

Practical Mobilization: Three Personal Challenges for 2024

You likely know that January gets its name from Janus, the Roman god of transitions. Roman mythology says he had two faces: one looking back, one looking forward. In the same way, January gives us a Janus-like moment to consider what happened last year and what’s coming next.

Of course, if New Year’s Day took you by surprise, without a resolution or a “word” for the year, fear not. Looks like Chinese/Lunar New Year rolls around on February 10 and Persian New Year, Nowruz, is March 20. In the liturgical calendar, February 14 will launch us into Lent, and that might be a good time to turn over a new leaf or lay aside a distraction. And then there’s the ultimate resurrection day, Easter Sunday, which most of us will celebrate on March 31.

Face it. Any day is a good day to start anew and embrace new life. We walk with a God whose steadfast love never ceases and whose mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Might one of these gospel-inspired challenges shape your 2024?

1. Make a Different Kind of Resolution

Here’s something thought-provoking from East-West Ministries.

They wrote,

“The Apostle Paul was certainly a proponent of becoming more like Christ every day (Romans 12:2). But Paul also had a different kind of resolution that was not focused on improving himself. In fact, his resolution embraced his shortcomings.”

They’re referring to what he told the church in Corinth after hearing complaints that he wasn’t an impressive performer (1 Corinthians 2:1-5):

“When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

Is there something here for us?

“As you contemplate your resolutions this year, consider whether your supposed area of improvement might be an opportunity to display God’s power in your life. Perhaps your weakness is the very thing God will use to draw many people to him.”

Read A Different Kind of Resolution.

2. Do Your Devos (or Discipleship) Differently

“We would love for our team to grow,” a Pioneers worker serving in Eurasia said in a recent newsletter. “When we’re in the U.S., we enjoy meeting folks considering overseas life. We join interview committees to listen to peoples’ stories and help direct their next steps. In the summer, we host interns to give them a look at long-term life.

“Dialoging with potential coworkers gives us a glimpse into trends. Those currently looking to move internationally want to join teams that will disciple them not just in language and culture but in the Word. During interviews, we ask, ‘How do you commune with God? Have you ever taught the Word?’

“More and more candidates are saying they use devotional books and book/video studies; they have never learned to study or teach on their own.

“So, if those we send have never been discipled, how can they make disciples? We’re kind of scratching our heads. We definitely want to disciple others. That’s the command: Make disciples. And we definitely will sharpen one another as coworkers. But our intent in moving overseas was not to disciple coworkers from fellowships in our home country. It is to teach new brothers and sisters from the people we now live among.”

Rather than bemoaning how hard it is to find qualified candidates, this cross-cultural worker invited his supporters and other readers to be part of the solution:

“Can you help? As the new year comes, if you know how to study the Bible on your own, pray about inviting two or three others to study with you straight from the Word so they can learn, too. Then, in 2025, ask them to pass on their new skills to two or three more people. If you’ve never learned to study or teach, be willing to learn and find someone to help you.

“If you’re a leader, can we ask you to evaluate the teaching methods in your fellowship? We know that it’s easy to have people lead book/video studies, but it can become a crutch and hurt in the long run. Are you teaching people how to feed themselves? Who are people in your fellowship who possibly have the gift of teaching that you could develop?

“We’re thankful that people are following the command to go. And we’re grateful for you standing behind us to get and keep us here. We look forward to receiving some of those you’re sending. We’ll work together to build up the kingdom on both sides of the ocean!”

3. Prioritize Funding Ministry to the Unreached

Recently, Justin Long of Beyond published an article revisiting the oft-quoted statistic, based on data from a few decades ago, that less than one percent of all money given to missions goes to reaching unreached people and places. Is it true? Still?

After explaining where the number came from, why it’s more difficult than ever to measure, and why he believes the imbalance is not as severe as it once was, Justin concluded:

“The percentage spent on mission to the unreached is almost certainly less than half of the total spent on foreign mission (which is itself 5% of total Christian ministry funds)—very probably less than a third of it. I would go so far as to guess, I think very reasonably, that it’s less than a quarter. If correct, then 25% of 5% would mean about 1.25% of total giving to Christian ministry is spent on mission to the unreached. It’s probably safe to say that 1% or less is given to mission to the unreached.”

But here’s the takeaway:

“Those who’d like to make a difference might look at their own giving and consider how they might give their own personal 1%, 2%, 10% or more to this ministry. It might not jar the global numbers very much, but it could make a very strategic difference in specific works.”

Consider looking at your own budget through this lens. How would you like to see churches and believers using their resources? Could it start with you?

Want to dig deeper in the data? Read the article (at the end of the email).

For more from Justin, subscribe to one of his newsletters: the Weekly Roundup, free or premium edition (this article was in the premium edition) or to the free, weekly prayer-guide based on the Roundup.

Practical Mobilization: Remembering Those Who Came Before Us

Youth With a Mission founder Loren Cunningham saw waves of young people sharing the gospel in every nation (Mark 15:16).

A Morbid Confession

It may be strange to admit it. But I do enjoy a good funeral. What about you? It’s not the music, flowers, or stained glass that gets me. And the death of a child or someone who died prematurely can be brutal.

But I love to see people gather to celebrate a long life well lived, especially when it’s the life of someone who stayed focused on honoring God and loving people their whole life long, not giving up or hindered long by the setbacks and struggles they faced or their own hang-ups and handicaps.

Maybe they made a big splash in the world. Maybe not. But they lived for what matters, and when they’re gone—and probably before that, too—people saw it and said, “Yes, that’s right.”

The death of such a saint, now at rest, calls me to question my habits and refocus on things that count more than killing time or meeting deadlines.

Losses and Legacies

The mission community and the Church have lost many senior leaders in the last few years. Some of those deaths have brought an outpouring of articles celebrating that person’s legacy in the lives of others. Think Billy Graham, George Verwer, and Tim Keller.

Last week, the mission community lost another, Youth with a Mission founder Loren Cunningham. He died October 6 at the age of 88.

Into All the World and Now Beyond

A YWAM press release reports, “Loren was the first person in history to travel to every sovereign nation on earth, all dependent countries, and more than 100 territories and islands for the sake of Christ and the Great Commission (Mark 16:15). Now he has added one more “stamp” to his well-worn passport: HEAVEN!”

That Mark 16 verse (“go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”) was part of the bedrock of Loren’s life and had been since 1948 when he was 13, and it rang in his ears at an altar call. Then, at age 20, Loren heard the call confirmed. In prayer, he saw a picture of a world map with waves crashing on every coast, waves of young people from all over who would go share the gospel all across the globe. In the early 1960s, Loren’s vision led to the launch of Youth With a Mission.

YWAM and the Short-Term Mission Movement

Loren had a gift to mobilize young people to respond to the gospel and offer themselves up in service. Yet, he saw the years of schooling they’d have to complete to become missionaries as an unnecessary barrier to unleashing them on the world. Loren was ready to disrupt traditions and remove obstacles. So he looked for new pathways. Created them, really.

His early experiments with sending short-term missionaries (like some of his later efforts) had mixed results. There were controversies and failures. But Loren and those who joined him learned as they went. By 1985, YWAM was discipling and sending out more than 15,000 young people every year. The impact of these trips on their lives and the lives of those who received them and served alongside them was significant.

YWAM went on to become one of the world’s largest mission organizations. Loren always brushed off that claim lest it take away from God’s glory, the urgency of the task remaining, or the great work done by others. Yet, through YWAM, millions have been discipled and shared the love of Jesus with people everywhere.

That’s no small thing. And it started with a man who listened to and was led by God and who wouldn’t give up.

“Remember your leaders,
who spoke the word of God to you.
Consider the outcome of their way of life
and imitate their faith.”
– Hebrews 13:7

Practical Mobilization Takeaways

  1. Think about leaders who have impacted you, directly or indirectly. Is there a parent, grandparent, pastor, mentor, or ministry leader whose influence helped set the trajectory of your life? If you can, thank them for their faithfulness. Ask God to help you recognize opportunities to pour into someone else’s life like that.
  2. Life verses have fallen from fashion, but maybe you have a favorite passage (or a few) that you hang your hat on in the way Loren Cunningham held onto Mark 15:16. If not, ask God to show you a Bible verse, story, or principle that might help you set your course or make sense of how he’s led you so far.
  3. How would God have you encourage the next generation and walk with them through the challenges and obstacles they face in following God’s plans for them, close to home or across the world? What would help you persevere as a sender, mentor, or mobilizer?

Links for Learning More

The Dog Ate My Passport and 10 Other Ways to Avoid Becoming a Missionary

By Amanda, Pioneers UK

Read or share the email edition of this article.

I’d always thought the excuse of a dog eating one’s homework was laughable (having been an overachieving child myself). Imagine, then, my slightly misplaced delight when I arrived at the office one day to find one of my colleagues—who had been due to fly to South America the day before—inexplicably sitting at his desk.

“But you’re meant to be in Brazil,” I stated quizzically. He said very little, just presented me with a plastic bag. The contents looked like shredded paper at first. That is, until I noticed the remnants of a photograph and the distinctive red of a British passport cover.

“The dog ate my passport,” he said. “I couldn’t go to Brazil because the dog ate my passport.”

I confess that I laughed long and heartily. It wasn’t particularly kind of me, but thankfully my colleague saw the humor in the situation too and we had a good laugh together.

We make small, insignificant decisions every day—decisions we would never imagine could make any difference to our lives. But sometimes they do. (For instance, leaving your passport on the dining table unattended could result in a missed week-long trip to the other side of the world.) In fact, our insignificant, everyday decisions often set the course of our lives more than the major, more dramatic decisions we make.

Howard Culbertson, former missionary and professor of missions at Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma wrote a checklist for anyone hoping to avoid missionary service. Although it leaves out feeding your passport to your dog, it lists some of the other everyday choices and attitudes that could affect our willingness to say, “Here am I, send me.” The list applies primarily to Goers, but those of us who are Senders, Givers, and Pray-ers will certainly find that it applies to us too!

And now, without further ado, for a good giggle (with just a little sting), I present to you:

10 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Missionary

By Howard Culbertson

1. Ignore Jesus’s request in John 4:35 that we take a long hard look at the fields.

Seeing the needs of people can be depressing and very unsettling. It could lead to genuine missionary concern.

2. Focus your energies on socially legitimate targets.

Go after a bigger salary. Focus on getting a job promotion, a bigger home, a more luxurious car, or future financial security. Along the way, run up some big credit card debts.

3. Get married to somebody who thinks the “Great Commission” is what your employer gives you after you make a big sale.

After marriage, embrace the socially accepted norms of settling down, establishing a respectable career trajectory, and raising a picture-perfect family.

4. Stay away from missionaries.

Their testimonies can be disturbing. The situations they describe will distract you from embracing wholeheartedly the materialistic lifestyle of your home country.

5. If you happen to think about missions, restrict your attention to countries where it’s impossible to openly do missionary work.

Think only about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, and other closed countries. Forget the vast areas of our globe open to missionaries. Never, never listen to talk about creative access countries.

6. Think how bad a missionary you would be based on your own past failures.

It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. Don’t even think about Moses, David, Jonah, Peter, or Mark, all of whom overcame failures.

7. Always imagine missionaries as talented, super-spiritual people who stand on lofty pedestals.

Maintaining this image of missionaries will heighten your own sense of inadequacy. Convincing yourself that God does not use ordinary people as missionaries will smother any guilt you may feel about refusing to even listen for a call from God.

8. Agree with the people who tell you that you are indispensable where you are.

Listen when they tell you that your local church or home country can’t do without you.

9. Worry incessantly about money.

10. If you still feel you must go, go out right away without any preparation or training.

You’ll soon be home again and no one can ever blame you for not trying!

And just for good measure, let’s add:

11. Leave your passport on the kitchen table.

Maybe the dog will eat it and then you’ll be off the hook.

Adapted from The Dog Ate My Passport (and Other Ways to Avoid Becoming a Missionary), from Pioneers UK, and How Not to Become a Missionary, by Howard Culbertson.

Dog photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash.

How to Spread Mission Vision in the Local Church (Barna Reports on Sale Through Friday)

Source: Barna Group

“When we surveyed our readers to identify areas where leaders are looking for more support, the #1 response was helping churches reach their full missions potential,” says Barna. The email caught my eye because that came out in our last survey of Missions Catalyst readers, too. This week only, you can save 40% on three Barna research reports that will help you reimagine missions in your church.

Purchase the Missions Bundle before midnight [Pacific time?] this Friday, June 16, to get all three reports at a 40% discount.

1. The Great Disconnect (published in 2022 with Mission India) is designed to both equip and challenge church leaders to build an expanded, global view of missions within their churches and to evaluate how God is uniquely calling their congregations to reach the unreached.

2. The Future of Missions (published in 2020 with the SBC International Mission Board) reveals how young Christians’ perspectives on missions are different from older believers’—and includes profiles of current missionaries in various parts of the world.

3. Translating the Great Commission (published in 2018 with the Seed Company) details how the American Church really feels about the Great Commission, as well as the many opinions about how to accomplish it.

Looks like the total is US$52. Such prices still seem steep? Search for free online articles that reference these reports and their findings.

Practical Mobilization: Messiology 101

Five Practical Principles for Mission Mobilizers From OM’s George Verwer

By Shane Bennett

Read or share the email edition.

Since mission mobilizer, leader, and author George Verwer died on April 14, we’ve seen many tributes. Read a short but strong one from OM USA’s President and CEO Andrew Scott (Christian Post). In his final video on YouTube, just a week before he died, George said he hoped he’d be remembered for what he called “messiology.” So let’s remember. Here’s what Shane wrote for Missions Catalyst a few years back when the “Messiology” book came out. Scroll down for how you can get a free copy. ~ MW


You know those people you really wish you could hang out with? Heroes beyond your reach? Maybe you’ll shake their hand or get a picture with them, but there’s no way they’re going to be weekly-get-together, maybe-go-camping-in-the-fall kind of friends. George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilization, is like that for me. We go way back: I can literally remember stuff he told me (and 17,000 others) at Urbana in 1983. Later talks and books of his have shaped me in significant ways.

Right now I’m really jealous of the guy. I just read a book he wrote called Messiology, and I so wish I’d come up with that term! I love it! I wonder if I was sleeping or deep in a must-watch episode of The Office when God was handing out “messiology” and I missed it. More likely he knew George would hit it out of the park. And so he has.

“Where two or three are gathered together in His Name, sooner or later there will be a mess.” 

– George Verwer

I love this little book and want to point out some of the ways the book speaks particularly to mobilizers—and why you might want a few physical copies on hand to share.

What Is Messiology?

George says, “Put simply, messiology is the idea that God in his patience, mercy, and passion to bring men and women to himself often does great things in the midst of a mess… Over the course of 57 years in over 90 countries and thousands of churches and other organizations, I have often observed some kind of mess with them. Sometimes clear sin is involved that needs to be repented of. Other times it’s just silly stuff. I have said, and I feel it strongly, that no matter how filled we are with the Holy Spirit, we are still human. Our humanness has its beautiful side and its messy side.”

Pause for a second. Any messes in your life and work right now? If you’re at all like me, this probably doesn’t require a lot of mulling over. Likely a few popped into your head instantly. George is right when he says, “Where two or three are gathered together in His Name, sooner or later there will be a mess.”

Here are five things from this little book that I think are particularly helpful for us as we advocate for God’s purposes among the nations, work in the roles he has given us, and deal with the messes we—and sometimes others—have made.

1. We’ll never fully “get” God.

That God works despite and sometimes through the messes in our lives rests on the mystery and mercy of a great God. Verwer says,

“The last verses of Romans 11 have helped me again and again: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.”

The stamp of God on creation, on every bit of life we’re connected to, is both broader, deeper, and more subtle than we imagine. In a way that is both stunning and uncomfortable, I’m reminded that I comprehend only the tiniest slice of the great work of God at any moment. I pray for the grace to be duly humble.

2. God didn’t ask me to sign off on who he uses.

Joel Osteen? Pope Francis? Nigerians? Hard-core Calvinists? Americans? Apparently, God doesn’t feel the need to have me vet everyone he chooses to work in and through. I don’t get this: How can perhaps mistaken people be used by a good God to raise up honest disciples? It boggles the mind!

But clearly, the circle God draws and labels, “these are building my kingdom” is bigger than the one I’d draw, and I tend to think I’m pretty open in this area. I once nearly lost a long-term worker I was recruiting because I was not strong enough on some beliefs. (You’ll have to guess or ask which ones!)

Is it possible we can become so enamored with our view, our dogma, or our history that we assume God does not work outside of it? Is it possible that we waste valuable time writing papers, making videos, and holding meetings all primarily designed to point out how other people are wrong? All the while many of those “wrong” people and “wrong” methods are tools in the hands of a wise and powerful God, so intent on accomplishing his purposes of gathering people to himself, that he can and does use them! And we don’t see it.

Neither George nor I would advocate that we abandon truth, but rather rejoice in the deeper truth, the mystery of a powerful God who accomplishes his purposes through a more diverse set of humanity than we might be comfortable with.

3. Critical people annoy me to no end.

Seems wherever you look, Facebook, online and print publications, public forums, or pulpits and stages, people are constantly being critical. “This ministry isn’t committed to the Bible.” “That church is too extreme.” Really, what is wrong with people? Do they not own a Bible? Maybe they never open it. Don’t they have anything better to do than complain and criticize?

Oh, hang on: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…!”

It is so easy for me to snip and bite, casually pointing out the shortcomings of some and the extravagances of others. In my younger days, I wasn’t even subtle: “No Christian should own a Range Rover. It’s just a ridiculous status symbol.” As I’ve gotten older and put childish ways behind me, I’ve sadly gotten more sophisticated in my criticism. Dang it! But God has mercifully reminded me through the valiant Verwer to ease up on knocking people down.

No church is perfect. Few supporters respond as quickly as we like. Every agency drops the ball. And all of us fall short of what we might be. Thank God his grace abounds.

4. I should say “I’m sorry” much more often.

Want to join me in this? Honestly. Not in an “I’m sorry you felt bad when I did that” way. More of an “I dropped the ball; I failed to respond on time; I lied to you because I was embarrassed about my mistake” way.

There are times when I’m trying to be funny and say things that are not honoring. Other times I’m arrogant and self-aggrandizing because I want to be looked at and liked. And sadly, I sometimes overlook or demean people because I don’t see how they serve my purpose.

I’m sorry.

5. Let’s love more, even when it hurts.

I cannot imagine the criticism and abuse George Verwer and his wife Drena have dealt with over the years. One of my favorite leadership quotes is, “If you want to be a leader, you’d better get used to the sight of your own blood.” I suppose the Verwers know it well.

May God give us the grace to love people when they fail us. When they impugn our motives. When they relentlessly attack, causing pain to us or worse, to ones we hold dear.

Mobilizing others and working to complete the Great Commission is messy. Thank you, George, for the happy reminder that God is big enough, good enough, and intent enough to work out his purposes for us and the world, despite—even through—the messes.

Originally published in Missions Catalyst in 2018; slightly adapted.

Want to read it for yourself? Here’s a publisher’s blurb and a way to get a copy for free.

In his most biographical book, George Verwer exercised his well-loved honesty and refreshing realism, sharing his own failures and looking at how God works through messy situations. Journey with this great man of faith as he explains that although everything we touch has its weaknesses and faults, God works through our fallenness and humanity. Join George in “messiology” and celebrate what our great God is doing and how we can be part of his work.

Download a free PDF (GeorgeVerwer.com) or purchase copies wherever you get books.