Today I want to talk about something that you rarely hear about on Team Swap, and that is foreign missions. It is not that we are against foreign missions, and in fact we support them personally, but honestly this ministry is just more home ministry focused. With that said, our personal home church (which only has about 200 members) supports a church / minister / sister church in Central America. By doing that we are personally aware of what can be, and is, done every month in at least one part of the third world. It is amazing what a few hundred dollars a month can do in a third world country, especially when it is sent consistently and with love. To me the heart behind the gift is just as important as the gift. We should not support others with the idea that “Well those poor people need us”, but with a heart that is in it’s correct place. For me that means a heart that desires to both our blessings and God with the world out of love and compassion, not out of sympathy.
I bring this up topic - foreign missions and having the right heart - because for me this is a good time of year to start thinking about Samaritan’s Purse / Operation Christmas Child. It is easy to go out this time of year (with school just starting up and things being on sale) and get all the supplies you need to equip several shoe boxes for just a few dollars. Personally I know that most of the kids that get the shoe boxes at Christmas can always use crayons, regular pencils, colored pencils, paper, notebooks, a small toy, etc. Those are easy to get and easy to add to the basket while we are already at the store. I think, that the ability to so easily and effectively share Christ with so many at such a inexpensive cost should motivate every Christian to prepare and send several shoe box’s themselves.
With that said and out of the way though I want to move as Samaritans purse is not the true focus on what I want to talk about today. The real heart of the issue for me today is what are you and I doing personally the rest of the year. Now understand, I am fully behind Samaritans purse, and their Operation Christmas Child, and I think both are GREAT. I just am personally saying that we as the modern church need to figure out ways to do similar things year round and directly as well.
From what I have personal experienced, and heard from others, it is likely that similar things and ideas are on your heart as well So, all I am saying is that it is simply time that you allow those ideas to perk out into the real world / church wide actions and activities. Simply, I think we need to come up with ways to share our blessings with our the world regularly, not just when it is a special campaign (no matter how great that campaign is).
The task of reaching the world is made a bit easier if your local body has a sister or mission church elsewhere already. If that is the case it is easy to find out what they need and help provide it. If your church has a sister church, it is very likely that there is something that you personally do to help support the world via your home church.
Not all are in that situation though. If your local church, association, or denomination, does not have a direct link to a specific foreign church, minister, ministry or group then look around locally. It is very likely that there is a church in or near your home town that does have such a link. Understand, I am telling you to switch churches, or that all should attend such and such a type of church, no I am saying the exact opposite. I am saying stay where God has placed you, even if there is no direct link, and help another church do their ministry. God does allow His people to work together, even if they go to different churches, no matter what you may have heard or think on such matters. Many times such cooperation between churches will do even more to strengthen the body and you can be a facilitator of strengthening the church both locally and internationally.
Basically what is on my heart is to urge you, and me, to find out what we can do to support a specific foreign work of God year round. Some possibilities are sending supplies, sending money, and even sending some members of your church there in the coming months. Could we all not send our own verison of a shoe box Christmas to specific person or place every quarter in a church wide organized "mail out" campaign that could have clothes (you know the ones that you do not need or want), school supplies, foreign language Bibles, etc. Just think how much impact just a few hundred such boxes coming every three months (i.e. showing that there is a regular commitment not just a special project) could have in the world.
I guess, I am saying there is nothing wrong with sharing our blessings with strangers all over the world, and I am fully for that, but I think we need to do more. I think we need to personally care for some international group, congregation or individual directly and specifically. If the task is too big for us individually, or our church collectively, we need to look to broaden the base of support and accomplish something for God. Understand the goal is not for us to be honored or praised, but for God to be. We all need to personally care about, know about, and be involved in supporting a specific church, individual, region, or ministry internationally. Again I am not saying this to reduce our commitment to things like Samaritans Purse, but to say that we should come up with ways to do that, plus other similar things year round.
Fundamentally, I am talking about continuing down the path of earning the right to be heard. As most of us know - No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care. We say we are committed to the world, to foreigners, to the down trodden, etc, so I think we need to come up with a way to show the people of some specific area in the world how much we care. Again this can and does take many forms, including, but not limited too, supporting / paying the salary of a pastor, sending supplies, regularly including specific foreign needs in church wide prayer and sending some local people every year to help.
Though my heart and soul is focused on home missions, I truly love the idea of supporting a church and the work of God in a place thousands of miles away. It would be wonderful if 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1000 churches sprung up nationwide to take the lead in REGULARLY taking the love of Christ to a place that is a world away from their local world.
Once we take such a commitment on, that minister, that ministry, that church, that work becomes a extension of our home mission field. They are part of us, we become part of them, and that makes us closer as one body in Christ. That means their needs, though physically distant, are the same as our needs that are physically local. Sure we need to be make sure that our "home" church family is all carried for, but we also need to prioritize taking care of something or someone that is not under our own roof.
I hope today that you are encouraged to launch out, not shirk back by this post. It is not meant to wear you down, guilt you, or say how bad you, there is enough of that already in most churches. My goal is the exact opposite. My goal is to tell you that you were created and gifted for greatness, and God has place of service for you both locally and internationally. We are mighty not because of ourselves, our deeds, or our habits, but because of God. He is blessing us, He is opening doors, and He is showing us needs that we can meet, we just need to be bold enough to step up to the plate and accept the challenges He is sending us.
