Tag: Missions

Sermons About Missions

A sermon about missions can be very instrumental in encouraging the listeners to engage with spreading the gospel.  They may feel a desire to become a missionary.  They might feel led to donate money to a specific person or project. They might be inspired to pray more diligently for a missionary. One never knows how each listener will respond.

For a sermon or talk about missions to be effective, I believe it should include the following things:

  • A link to the Bible and the call to spread the Gospel – include verses about the Great Commission in Matthew or verses about the nations praising God like in Psalm 67
  • An explanation of why the listener should be involved – this can be in depth or something simple explaining how we are all called to do the work of making disciples among the nations.  Some might choose to emphasize the fact that “some go as missionaries and the rest of us have the responsibility to support them”.
  • Practical applications for how the listener can actually participate in missions – If they are called to go, there should be an invitation to come talk in more detail with members of the staff.  If they are planning to stay put and not move overseas to work in missions, the talk should include practical ideas of how they can help spread the gospel and support missionaries.  I do not think that overwhelming the listener with huge lists of ideas is ideal, but giving a handful of well-thought-out ideas can be very useful.  Recommending a book like “How to Bless a Missionary: Practical Ideas for Your Church and Family” can help, too. 😉
  • An invitation – Depending on your church and denomination, some will choose to have an invitation where people are invited to come forward in response to the challenge they have heard.  Others will not be as comfortable with this, but I believe that they should still issue a challenge to the listener and an invitation to act.  The listener should leave with a conviction to act and an idea for a plan about what they will do.  Encourage them to think this way.  A sermon about missions without an invitation to respond is missing the boat.

A fun missionary story is also something that many people choose to include in their talk, but probably is not a vital element.  It could serve to engage the listener and make a point, though. 

Have you attended a great sermon or talk about missions?  I’d love to hear what you think should be included!  Leave a comment and let me know.

It is HERE! How to Bless a Missionary: Practical Advice for Your Church and Family

I am so excited to announce that my new book (How to Bless a Missionary: Practical Advice for Your Church and Family) is now available on Amazon in paperback and eBook formats!  I truly believe that this book will be valuable to anyone involved in missions and missionary care.

I also think that this is something that every pastor and ministry leader will be able to use to deepen and strengthen the care they give to missionaries.  But it is not just for pastors!  It will help families become more involved in missions by giving them practical ideas that they can put into practice in their everyday lives.

You can find the entire book on Amazon in both paperback and eBook formats.  You can also read it for free right now with Kindle Unlimited.  The link can be found Here or by clicking on the picture above.  (This is an affiliate link which means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, familiesformissions will earn a small commission at no expense to you.)

I would love to hear any feedback from you – whether directly to me by responding to this post or by leaving a review for the book online. I would also love for you to share this with others!

 

 

What I Read – Books About Missions

I have been working really hard on my new book, and it is going to be released soon. 🙂 It will be titled How to Bless a Missionary. I am so excited that it will be released and ready for everyone to be a blessing to the missionaries that they know for the holiday season. I can’t wait to tell you more about it!
Today, though, I’m going to let you know about a few of the books about missions that I have read in the last few months. I’m going to share my opinions and an honest review of the books so that you can choose whether or not they might be helpful to your interest in missions.  These links are affiliate links to Amazon (which means that if you click them and then purchase something, familiesformissions.com will receive a small commission at no expense to you.)
One book I read was called Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global by Andy Johnson, and it’s part of the 9Marks series of books for Building Healthy Churches. This book talks about how the local church can have the vision for World Wide missions, and it also talks about how your local church can send and support missionaries well. The author of this book really emphasizes that the local church should invest deeply in a few missionaries and not widely in many, many missionaries supported at low rates. He advocates for the church to get to know their missionaries on a more personal level, and he also encourages the local church to consider themselves as the primary source of support for the missionaries. He also talks about the benefits or detriments of short-term mission trips. He emphasizes the need for pastors and elders to visit missionaries, which I fully support. This was a great, short little book, and it is easy to read in one afternoon. It would be great to pass on to your pastor or local Mission leader.
One of the next books that I read is called The Reentry Team: Caring for Your Returning Missionaries by Neil Pirolo. This is a really great book about learning about the returning missionary and the challenges each may face. I highly recommend this to anyone who has a missionary that they support overseas. This is a great book for mission committees and Mission leaders to read as well.
The beginning of the book is written as an introduction and then the remainder of the book is written as a compilation of notes, letters, and first hand accounts of missionaries or missionary kids who returned from serving overseas to their home country (or their parent’s home country). The author then gives some commentary after each short story, and tries to help the reader see the downfalls, errors, and problems the missionaries experienced.  He addresses how the missionary could have had a better reentry into their home society.
Another book written by the same author, Neil Pirolo, is called Serving as Senders Today: How to Care for your Missionaries as they Prepare to Go, Are on the Field and Return Home. Written years ago, it talks about the need for churches and individuals to send missionaries well. It describes the missionary who is going overseas and talks about what they need from their team at home (moral support, the logistics that they will need help with, the financial support, communications support, and then reentry support). Churches and small groups are encouraged to invest in a missionary family and to help them no matter what the need. While it has some great information and good points, I did not enjoy the writing style. I feel like the editing could have been tightened up a little bit. One good thing in this book is that it gives action steps and ideas for your personal involvement at the end of each chapter. This will help you as the reader if you have gotten lost during the chapters to really hone in and focus on what’s important.
   Dispatches from the Front Boxed Set: Episodes 1-5
Another book that I recently read was called Dispatches from the Front: Stories of Gospel Advance in the World’s Difficult Places. This book was written by Tim Keesee, and there is also a video series that can be purchased separately from the book. This book and video series document this man’s journey as the person from the mission agency that went to visit workers overseas in difficult or hard-to-reach areas. The book is written as a journal along his journey, so you read short snippets from each step along the way as if you’re reading his journal or diary. But it gave me a big-picture view of what it would be like to try to spread the gospel in places like China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and India. You can see firsthand from his writings the challenges that the mission workers in those areas are facing and the dangers they confront every day. I would highly recommend this book to mission leaders as well as those who feel that they are interested in serving God in hard-to-reach and dangerous places.
Well, I think this post is long-enough for my first installment of books about missions.  I’ll pick other books for me next update on what I have read and what you might like to read.  What books have you read?  Can you recommend some to me?

Missions Class Ideas for Kids – Mission Aviation

In the previous post I talked about how my husband and I helped with a summer missions class for the grade-school kids in our church. It was great fun to help plan activities and crafts for each week…the kids enjoyed it so much and learned a lot! Go here to read more.

For the week that we featured mission aviation, we talked about current Mission Aviation Fellowship missionaries that our church supports in Africa. My husband did a presentation using pictures from that missionary family, as well as pictures that he took on a mission trip to Brazil. The kids loved seeing pictures of airplanes and the runways where they land.  They learned why airplanes fly and who they help.  If you want more information on mission aviation pilots, you can look here.

During craft time, we used the kid’s activity book that MAF has on their website. You can download it here. Kids can pick from mazes, word finds, decoding, or just color in some of the airplanes. We had ages from kindergarten to fifth grade and everyone was able to find something to do. If you want some more activities and coloring pages, you can find them here.

The missionary from the past that we talked about was Betty Greene, the first pilot that flew the first MAF flight.  She was able to transport two Wycliffe missionaries that needed to reach Mexico.  You can read about her here.

Of course, we finished out the time by praying and singing our song, Be a Missionary Everyday.  🙂

 

Vacation Bible School Ideas About Missions

Do you wish that your church had a Vacation Bible School about missions? It may be easier than you think! In this post you’ll find some ideas that you can use to plan a VBS or to use in missions classes for kids.

First, you’ll need to decide the format of your VBS or classes. One format that has worked at our church is to have different rooms or stations set up that children rotate through. This helps the flow of children to keep moving, but also allows a teacher to prepare for just one thing each day or Sunday.  I would recommend focusing on one country each day, discussing missionaries that have served there.

Ideas for stations or classrooms could include:

  1. Craft room – Try to find a craft from the country you are discussing. Look online to find ideas or look at Wycliffe.org where you can download a free VBS program! 
  2. Story room – Have an adult read a short story about a missionary. There are many options (these are affiliate links which means that if you make a purchase through these links, familiesformissions will make a small commission at no additional cost to you!).  While there are other missions books out there, these all have short stories that can be read in a short session.
  3. Activity room – having something where the kids move around is a good idea. This breaks up the monotony of the morning sitting. Try things like:
    • a scavenger hunt
    • a trip around the world with different children leading around the room
    • a game from another country
    • a puzzle of the world, jungle animals, the desert (age appropriate)
  4. Time Machine room – pretend that you are suddenly transported to the country or area where the missionary serves. This one could involve some extra work in decorating, but it can be very fun for children. You can use ideas like:
    • a medical clinic
    • a school room
    • a jungle
    • a hut
    • the desert
    • an airplane cabin
  5. Missionary sharing room – Have a “real live” missionary share with the children. If you do not have a full-time missionary in your area, you can have people from your church that have gone on a short-term missions trip share. Using a map and a few pictures, as well as a prop or two can really make this a special time.

Don’t forget to present the good news about Jesus dying for our sin and tell the kids how they can pray to accept Jesus as their personal Savior!  (Otherwise, missions is pointless!)

If you are really looking for some great ideas without having to do a ton of work and planning, check out Wycliffe.org and their VBS plans.

These ideas would be great additions to a children’s program at a missions conference at your church! Or use them to supplement your homeschool curriculum!

What ideas have you tried?

 

 

Want to Host a Missions Conference at Your Church?

Missions conferences or a time for missions focus at your local church are great ways to help educate people about missions and try to get them interested in becoming more involved in missions. If your church has one of these, you are lucky. It seems they are less and less frequent now, as people are branding them as old-fashioned or outdated. I argue that they still have value.

In my younger childhood years (before my parents became missionaries), we attended a church that was very missions-minded. Each year they had a “Missions Month”. There were missionary speakers each Sunday morning and evening (yes, we still had evening services back then 😊). In addition, there was a focus in each service on talking about missions. I still remember the phone calls with mission partners on the other side of the world; they were live with the pastor and broadcast so the entire church could hear. I also remember a parade of flags where many children carried a flag forward in a procession. Some, including myself, spoke a few words from the country’s flag they carried. I remember my dad helping me learn John 3:16 to recite in Spanish (even though I didn’t know any Spanish at the time). The women invited the missionary wives to speak at a luncheon.

With my mom’s help, a women’s ministry to help missionaries was started. It was called L.A.M.P. (Ladies Applying Missions Personally). They started a “Mission Closet” and requested donated new items to stock it. Each missionary that visited was taken through this room filled with supplies: toiletries, small gifts, handmade bags for traveling with shoes, snacks, blankets, etc. I really do not even remember everything that was there.

Here are some thoughts and ideas as you think about starting or improving a missions focus or conference at your church.

    1. Decide what length of time will work for your church with your church leadership. You may choose to have only one Sunday to start with or you might be able to have a whole week or month dedicated to missions.
    2. Choose dates for your missions focus.
    3. Find out who is willing to help. You cannot pull this off by yourself. You will need volunteers to help (the longer the time and the more activities mean more volunteers are needed!)
    4. Choose activities or plans. Here are some possibilities:
      • Missionary speaker to give the sermon at services. (Keep in mind that not all missionaries are pastors and evangelists. Giving a sermon may not be their spiritual gift. Some might prefer a different role.)
      • Missionary update during the service with prayer to follow.
      • Ladies meeting, Bible Study, or luncheon. You could have a missionary wife speak (again, remember not all ladies are gifted as public speakers) or have a missionary wife panel answer preplanned questions with time for Q and A at the end.
      • Skype or phone call with missionary during the service.
      • Lunch with a missionary update after services. This would require people to sign up if the lunch was provided or to bring a dish if you choose a potluck-style lunch.
      • Church banquet. This can be catered or potluck-style. You could require the purchase of tickets in order to encourage RSVPs and help plan for how many would come. You can plan an international theme or just choose something easy and crowd-pleasing.
      • Walk-through rooms decorated like different countries where you have a missionary or member of the church share about their ministry. Kids can even have passports to get stamped as they complete each one.
      • Create a missionary map in the entryway of the church with a map of the world and a picture of each missionary with a blurb about where they serve and what their ministry is.
      • Get involved with a specific project. Raise money for a specific need that week, or help compile a New Testament in a new language to prepare it for printing. Shower a local ministry with needed supplies or manpower for a renovation/remodel/repairs. Hold a car wash or bake sale somewhere local to raise funds, if needed.
      • Prepare a children’s program for a church service. This could require more time, but could have a lasting impact. Having children participate by carrying and waving flags for missionary partners of your church is a great idea. You could encourage kids to dress up like someone from that country. Kids could sing a song about missions or in another language.
      • Provide ideas for children’s Sunday School teachers to use: coloring sheets, books about missionaries, websites, videos, and letters from missionaries are all possibilities.
      • Make postcards with a missionary picture and ministry description. Ask people in the church to choose one or two and commit to praying for that missionary for the following year.
    5. Contact missionaries to find out their availability and willingness to participate. Many times, they are only able to attend if they are on home assignment or furlough. If they are not able to attend, ask them about updates, Skype, or phone calls.
    6. Plan housing for visiting missionaries. Decide if your church can afford hotel accommodations or if there are members of the church that can host them. Ensure that there is a bed for each family member and that they do not have to sleep with a stranger!
    7. Plan special activities for the missionaries. Can your church take them shopping one day to the local mall? Can you provide a makeover, massage, or haircut for missionary wives? Can you provide babysitting for the missionary couple to go on a date night together? Can you offer to pay for car repairs for the visiting missionaries? Can you gift them with gift cards to use on their travels or for fun? Check with businesses of church members and see if they would be willing to donate services or provide them at a discount.
    8. Advertise the event! Let your church family know that you are planning a missions event. You definitely need to create some interest around the event and try to hype it up! You might even get more volunteers. 😊

 

So, you are probably reading this and thinking, “There is no way we could pull this off at my church.” I would encourage you to give it some more thought and talk to your pastor. You may need to start small – just a “Missions Sunday” may be all your church can handle to start off with. Don’t choose to do everything on the list. It is only meant to give you ideas and a place to start brainstorming. You will probably have your own ideas, too. Do what you can and encourage others to pitch in. You may be surprised at what you will accomplish.

What other ideas can you think of?

 

 

 

Types of Missionaries – Medical Missionaries

Imagine… people lined up before dawn, waiting for their turn to see a doctor. Some of them standing in line for hours on end. By noon, those able to see the doctor that day have been signed up and the rest are sent away to try again tomorrow. Some have simple problems like a skin disease or ingrown toenail. Some have large hernias or female problems that require surgical correction.

I have participated in several short-term, medical mission trips, and I am always amazed at the amount of people that come for help. I also am amazed by how “simple” some of the “cures” are.

There are millions of people around the world that have medical needs that are not fixable in the area where they live. There may be a lack of doctors in their area or they may not have money or transportation to get to one. Many people suffer pain or disability with no relief in sight. Sometimes this interferes with their ability to make a living and work.

One important type of missionary that requires some training ahead of time is a medical missionary. All different kinds of people can do medical missions.  Some are full-time missionaries and some do short-term mission trips:

  • Doctors (surgeons, pediatricians, family doctors, ob/gyn, ophthalmologists, plastic surgeons, etc)
  • Physician’s Assistants
  • Nurse Practitioners
  • Nurses
  • Medical assistants
  • Pharmacists
  • Physical therapists

Many of these people have spent years in training to learn how to diagnose and treat patients well. Medical missions can also use people without training, though. Many people can be trained to weigh and measure a person and take a blood pressure. This can be vital for checking a patient in.

In my opinion, for a medical mission trip to be the most successful it can be, it needs to have two main components:

  • A team of people, some of whom are not medical. People are needed to manage people in line or waiting to see the doctor, entertain children, fix food for the medical team, clean the operating room, organize supplies, and count medications in the pharmacy.
  • A local missionary or local church as a partner. Healing and fixing medical problems is very rewarding, but unless it is combined with telling the people about how Jesus can be their Savior it is missing the most important part of missions.

There are many medical mission organizations, but not all of them have a goal of telling others about Jesus.  You can go to the following websites to read more about some that do:

Want ideas for how to get your kids involved?

  • Get out the toy medical kit and help them play doctor or nurse with their stuffed animals or dolls. Let them “doctor” you. Pretend you live somewhere where there are no doctors.
  • Read stories (age appropriate) from missionary blogs or websites about doctors and medical professionals overseas.
  • Find some books to read about medical missionaries.  Check out: Ida Scudder, David Livingstone, or On Call (for older kids).  Here are some images to help you as you search.  (This is not an exhaustive list…there are many more books available as well.)
  • On Call (Jaffray Collection of Missionary Portraits) by [Thompson M.D., David C.]    Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts (Christian Heroes: Then & Now) by [Benge, Janet, Benge, Geoff]        David Livingstone: Africa's Trailblazer (Christian Heroes: Then & Now) by [Benge, Janet, Benge, Geoff]

 

(This post contains some affiliate links.  If you click on some links and make a purchase, familiesformissions may receive a small compensation.)

 

Need Reading Ideas?

I recently saw a great post with some reading ideas for parents that want to read more books about missions to their kids.  Many of us have this as a goal, but we don’t know where to start.  Hopefully this post will give you some ideas!

Check out this post on the IMB website for some great ideas:

A Reading List for Missional Parents Raising Globally Minded Kids 

One of the books they mention is Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time.

I own this book and find it to be a great resource.  It gives descriptions and summaries of many different books based on the part of the world they are written about and the age of the child you will be getting the book for.  If you are teaching about a region or country, you can look for books from South America or Brazil, specifically.  Take this with you to your local library or request books online ahead of time. This can be a huge time-saver for homeschooling families or moms with small children! One bonus of this book is that the books are not all about missions… many are just about life in different countries and cultures.  This will broaden your child’s idea of what the world is like.

Don’t be overwhelmed with the idea of needing to read tons of books or follow a specific program!  Just start….get one book.  If your kids aren’t excited about the first one you try, keep trying.  You will eventually find a book that piques their interest!

 

(This post contains affiliate links.  If you click on one and then make a purchase, familiesformissions.com will get a small commission.  I only recommend products that I am familiar with and would recommend to others!)

Why I Wrote a Children’s Book – Missionary Kid Stories

first-copy-selfie

(This post contains affiliate links.)

As a former Missionary Kid (MK), missions has played an important role in my life. I now live in the United States, and I want my kids to be exposed to missions, too. But this is hard to accomplish when you don’t live in another country.

I have implemented many of the things that I write about on this blog with my family, but I wanted something that would be very interesting for the kids and that would help me with other ideas of how to teach them.  Let me tell you about how Missionary Kid Stories came into existence.

My kids and I tend to read lots of books together, so I started looking for books about missions to read to the kids. I wanted one that had information on different countries and types of ministries, but from a kid’s perspective. In searching for a book like this for my children, I could not find one that talked about different ministry strategies from the missionary child’s point of view. The closest book that I found was: Around the World With Kate and Mack by Melissa Paredes (published by Wycliffe), which has a missionary child traveling around and focusing on different languages, cultures, and people groups. I also found several other books written for children about true missionaries from history, like Amy Carmichael and Hudson Taylor.

So, I set out to write a fun, educational, and informative way for children to learn two main things about missions. The result is Missionary Kid Stories . In it, kids learn:

  1. What life is like for different missionary kids in other countries (Mexico, Brazil, Zimbabwe, France, Indonesia, and the Philippines)
    • where they live
    • what languages they speak
    • where they go to school
    • their favorite foods
    • the weather
    • local arts and crafts
    • important landmarks or interesting topography
  2. Different types of ministries in which missionaries serve
    • printing Biblical literature
    • Bible translation
    • teaching in a seminary for local pastors
    • church planting
    • piloting planes to reach remote locations
    • teaching in an international school

Each chapter focuses on a different missionary kid, each in a different country, each with a different ministry focus. The characters are fictional (for security reasons in some countries), but are based, largely, on real missionary families serving around the world.

This book is intended to plant ideas into children’s minds that will hopefully grow into a desire to serve God in missions. I know that my kids have enjoyed reading this book (or having it read to them), and it has sparked many conversations about things they read about. I have been able to use this book to teach them about the countries included. For example, you can read about ideas to use when learning about Brazil here.

I the coming months, I plan to include more ideas for activities you can do with your children based on the book. I hope that families will use this to help broaden their children’s horizons. I also hope that it will be useful in homeschooling, Sunday Schools, and Vacation Bible Schools.  If you would like to purchase the paper or Ebook version of “Missionary Kid Stories”, click here!

If you have activity ideas that coordinate with the countries or ministries in the book, comment and share! I’d love to know!

Find a Great Local Experience for Your Family

Have you heard of Compassion Experience?  I recently learned about this event that happens in cities all across the United States.  This is a great way to let your family see what it would be like to live as a child in another country.   It is free and open to all ages.  I plan to attend with my family, and I would love to know if you have been and what you thought about it?  Leave some comments!

Want to see where you might find a Compassion Experience near you?  Look here:  Compassion Experience