In This Issue: A sure-fire trick to look smarter than you are
- FEATURE: Look Smarter Than You Are – Ten Things You Need to Plan Ahead
- SUBVERSIVE MOBILIZATION: Summer Opportunity in Madrid
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Look Smarter Than You Are: Ten Things You Need to Plan Ahead
By Shane Bennett
Maybe you’re so smart that looking smarter than you are would be a really bad idea. More invitations to play pick-up chess games with grandmasters. Insistent requests to sit on think tanks. Cover shoots for Super Smart People Magazine. Really, who has time for all that?
I actually don’t have that problem. If you don’t either, let me share a sure-fire trick to look smarter than you are, particularly as you advocate for God’s blessing to extend to the ends of the earth.
Here it is: think 18 months ahead. Shocked? But you’d be surprised at how frequently people fail at this. (And by people, I mean, of course, me!) Talk to your pastor about things you want to do later. Pitch proposals to the missions committee this week for projects next year. Here are ten things you just can’t do tomorrow.
1. The missions conference at your church
One key to a successful missions emphasis is guarding the calendar leading up to and following it. And trust me, if you’re going to ask your pastor to keep anything special off the schedule for a month prior to your big splash, you’d better ask early.
2. The mission speaker for your church or event
Oh sure, you can successfully book some people to speak this coming Sunday. And I did once bag Doug Lucas on two weeks’ notice, but that required the donation of two major organs and a permission slip from God! Usually though, if you want a great speaker who will make your pastor smile, you’d better book early. Thinking ahead will also allow you to budget sufficiently to pay them well.
3. Taking leaders overseas
If the elders at your church are not into unreached peoples it may be because they’re carnal, tightfisted, parochial curmudgeons. Before you nail down that diagnosis, consider they might be as they are largely because of where they have and have not been. So it would be good to take them to hang out with the unreached. But they probably didn’t get on the elder board because they were the ones with the most free time. If you’re going to find a nine-day window to take a handful of busy, smart people to the other side of the planet, you’re going to have to flip ahead on the calendar.
4. International student care
Don’t do what I do, and only start thinking about international students when you see them on campus! You could plan now to amass furniture at this spring’s yard sales. Find a place to store your trove until new students arrive in the fall. Identify and schmooze with both the school employees who work with international students and the angels who do it simply because Jesus would.
5. Setting up a fund to respond to natural disasters
How cool would it be to have ten percent of your annual budget – or your church’s budget – banked to respond to unanticipated natural disasters? As I write, early reports roll in of a sizable earthquake in southern Iran. If this fund was in place, we could hop on a plane, buy blankets, cell phones, and water in Tehran and go care for people who’ve never seen a Christian do something nice.
6. Leading Bridges
If you can’t find anyone to go to Tehran with you because, you know, Muslims live there (yes, I’m being cheeky!), maybe you’d be wise to host a Bridges training course at your church. And because it might take some convincing, plan ahead. Asking to host the class in a year will give you time to get both more people to take it and maybe get some staff and leaders to add their influence.
7. Hosting a Perspectives or Pathways class
A perennial winner in the category, “It took a ton of work, but it was worth it,” Perspectives courses take a lot more than simply starting early. But if you don’t start early, you will die! Also, if you look far enough down the road, you might be able to get your church to provide an ample start-up fund. This has saved my bacon more than once.
8. Bringing back a missionary for an event
How fun would it be to ask one of your missionaries, “Is there a time, event, or occasion next year when you’d like to be back here? We’d like to fly you home for that and to share with us how things are going.” If your worker is laboring a really hard place, they might be willing to fly home tomorrow! But most of your people are doing serious stuff, and if they’re going to pull away, they will need to plan ahead.
9. Family mission trip to a nearby city
One of my favorite things in the world is taking families to hang out with immigrants and refugees. Well planned, it offers a lot of bang for your buck. Here’s the rub, though: most kids, even Christian kids (!) go to school. So right at the start, you’re pretty much limited to school breaks to do this. And then, you’re competing against things like Disneyland. Eat goat with Somali refugees or hang out with Cinderella in the “happiest place on Earth”? You’re going to need time to make your case for the former.
10. Focusing your global efforts
I’m a big advocate for groups that do a few things well. I think churches are smart to focus on a particular people group, and I love to help them do that. In that process, I’m tempted to say, “Let’s do this. Let’s think about what people groups we could focus on and decide at the next global outreach team meeting! Oh, that meeting is this Thursday? No problem. That gives us two and a half days!”
Usually this takes longer. Your church does what it does for generally good reasons. Adding to what you do or shifting resources from old to new, it takes time. What if you asked, “Can we look toward deciding on a focus by our next mission conference?”
See item number one. That’s a year and a half from now.
SUBVERSIVE MOBILIZATION: Summer Opportunity in Madrid
What if you said, “I hear what you’re saying here, Bud, but I’m hoping to do something cool and worthwhile a lot sooner than that, like, this summer.” I’d say, “Welcome to the club, brother. And here’s what you can do: join Robby in Madrid.”
My good friend and his family will spend the summer working with others to share the love of Jesus with North African immigrants there. They’re asking God to use their efforts to catalyze church-planting movements and would love you to join them from June 23 to July 2, July 24 to August 2, or another time that would fit your schedule. You’ll need to scramble to make it happen, though. Contact Robby.
Shane Bennett writes and speaks for a great organization called Frontiers. Lately he’s wondering about how Muslim immigrants in Europe might fully experience God’s blessing.
He’s also working with some buds to leverage a $49 a month smart phone plan to raise a ton of money for cross-cultural workers. Email him for info on the plan or the vision.