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TL;DR: An accurate account of a church's global missions involvement requires research. Interview leaders, document giving and prayer opportunities, and identify how the congregation is mobilized. These two reports about the same church show how research can reveal activities that personal observation misses.
"Understanding our church's involvement and how we execute world missions in our churches is a great topic." -- T.W., NBC student
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"The most effective aspect of this class was the purposeful introspective look at my own church's support of global missions." -- student on course evaluation
Could good academic research produce such different reports?
The following two "An Accurate Picture of My Local Church's Involvement in Global Evangelism" reports were turned in on the same day. Both students were reporting on the same church. These historical examples describe the church at the time the assignments were submitted, rather than its current activities. The reports have been edited for clarity and grammar while preserving their original content.
What a difference! One student interviewed church leaders and documented the church's involvement; the other relied on personal observations and provided little information about global missions.
Windsor Hills is a small inner-city church that, for its size, is involved in a considerable amount of missions activity. The church does not have a very large worldwide missions program and supports that cause only through financial contributions. It focuses more on evangelism in its community.
Their Angel Food Ministries program helps attract families that normally would not attend a church event. They also hold a Southern gospel outreach on the last Saturday of every month. The church also organizes prayer circles, sends cards, and makes hospital and nursing home visits. Compared to a lot of churches, this isn't very much, but for a church that averages fewer than 100 people in attendance, it is fairly impressive.
That was brief. Sounds like not much was going on in terms of global involvement. Indeed, the first paragraph has the only information relevant to what the student was supposed to research. No bibliography of people interviewed for the report was included.
Now, take a look at this second report. Remember, these two reports on the same church were submitted to me on the same day.
I attend Windsor Hills Church of the Nazarene and serve as the director of the college and career class. We have been attending Windsor Hills Nazarene for two and a half years. I interviewed the Nazarene Missions International (NMI) president at the church to get a better glimpse of how our church participates in world missions. Even though my husband and I are on staff, I realize that there are sometimes things that go on behind the scenes that we are unaware of. I was greatly surprised at some of the things that I learned.
Every once in a while, posters and flyers are posted on bulletin boards throughout the church building, but this is not the major way of advertising for missions promotions. Generally, skits are presented at the beginning of a Sunday morning service to shine a light on world missions. I think that this is a great idea. It engages the congregation more directly than expecting people to notice announcements on bulletin boards and decide to participate. I think that people, in general, will respond more positively to skits that are done live. First, people cannot predict exactly what will happen. Second, skits allow them to step briefly into someone else's shoes.
Our church does give financially to missions through various means. We participate in Faith Promise giving, the Easter Offering, and the Thanksgiving Offering, as well as the Memorial Roll program. Even though I have been in a leadership position for almost three years at this church, I did not even realize that all of these offerings went to world missions. The sad truth is that most believers don't give much to missions. One drawback for my church is that we are so far behind on paying district budgets that it seems hard to raise funds for other areas.
Once a month -- normally the third Wednesday -- the midweek service is focused on world missions. Our NMI president told me that she wished that she could do more for this service, such as preparing foods from other countries, as the church had done in the past, but she just doesn't have the time. She runs our women's ministries. Her husband is in charge of Angel Food Ministries, and she heads up NMI on top of her full-time job and commuting to church from Riverview to Windsor Hills. I felt bad when she said she wanted to do more, but I appreciated that she herself acknowledged that more could be done in these areas. The church also brings in three to four missionary speakers a year to help nourish a global worldview.
One thing that our NMI president wants to do differently is to hold the missions service on Sunday evening instead of Wednesday. She feels that one of the biggest hindrances to the fruitfulness of missions promotions is simply that people are interested but don't want to be involved. She thinks that this is the case because most people don't think that they are a part of missions. They just don't feel a connection between themselves and the missionaries serving around the world.
I do see areas where my church could be more active in missions, but I also believe that the congregation is doing as much as it can. I now feel that it is time for the pastoral staff to step up to the challenge and find a way to help with promoting world missions. I think that a big part of that simply begins with our own attitude toward missions.
[Attached was a bibliography of three or four people who had been interviewed for the report.]
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
"This course has practical assignments that involve what is happening in the local church!" -- Lynda B., Nazarene Bible College student
What kind of online student are you? Do others think of you as Busy or Wordy or Disconnected Dan? Do you sometimes come off to others as Oblivious or Trite-ly or even End-times Edith? [ more ]
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"This is a great course that opened my eyes to the struggles Christians face around the globe. It gave me an understanding of the real need for missionaries around the world." -- student on course evaluation