1. Chapter 15:
Relating to Churches
and Other Shareholders

2. Chapter Outline
• Introduction
• The Churches
• The Others
• The Challenges
• Missionary Care
• Conclusion

3. Introduction
• Shareholders are those entities with a serious share in the
mission enterprise: taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to all
peoples and making disciples of them.
• Shareholders may come from the supply side, the recipient
side, or both. Those from the recipient side include
indigenous churches, Christian leaders, unreached peoples,
and agencies working in the area.
• To the extent that any city, nation, region, or continent is
participating in the sending function, shareholders are
likely to include churches, agencies, trainers, and
mobilizers.

4. The Churches
• Churches, of course, are the primary senders. This wasn’t
determined by chance or by a vote. God made the church,
the “bride of Christ,” his primary instrument for
accomplishing his purposes on earth (Matt. 16:17–19).
• Foremost among the roles churches play as local
manifestations of the universal church is to prepare
members for Great Commission work (Matt. 28:19–20).
• Churches do this by
• teaching the full counsel of God regarding the global task,
• by preparing all members to find and perform their particular part
in it, and
• by sending out those called to go (Acts 13:1–3; 3 John 5–8).

5. The Others
• The other primary sending shareholders—agencies,
trainers, and mobilizers—can be sorted according to the
nature of the relationship they usually have with churches.
• Each of these “other” shareholders has a unique role to
play in the sending function, which is the primary
responsibility and purview of the churches.
• Increasingly, their effectiveness in playing that role
depends not only on the quality of their services, but also
on their ability to work amicably and in genuine
partnership with and under churches.

6. Agencies
• Agencies generally have the longest lasting
and most interconnected relationships with
the churches because they share common
members over a long period. This has
declined somewhat in recent years with the
surging of short-term missions and the
simultaneous decline of long-term recruits,
but it still distinguishes the relationship
between these two groups.

7. Trainers
• Trainers, especially when they are academic
institutions, are given a lower priority by the
churches as far as the sending function is
concerned.
• This is so for two reasons:
• The period in which they have “members” in common
with the churches is not as long (usually four years or
less).
• The stakes of failure are not understood to be as high
(either financially or for the individuals involved).

8. Mobilizers
• Mobilizers generally have a very different kind of
relationship with the churches altogether.
• Depending on their particular mission and purpose, they
may provide awareness seminars for whole congregations,
consultancy for church missions committees, or resources
and services that address particular felt needs in the local
church context.
• They tend to be viewed by the churches much more like a
consumer outlet, where distinct services may be procured
for a price. Their credibility, however, is often assessed on
the basis of multiple years of consistent quality service.

9. The Challenges
• Rallying the Troops
• Balancing the Portfolio
• Geography and Peoples
• Frontline and Support Personnel
• Ministry Areas
• Short-Term and Long-Term Efforts

10. Rallying the Troops
• No task related to the sending function is
more important or foundational in the local
church setting than keeping the vision of
outreach and missions before the
congregation. Unless there is zeal fed by
knowledge in the hearts of the people, you
can say good-bye to the vision of being an
effective sending church.

11. Rallying the Troops
around Worship
• It takes a right balance of information with
inspiration.
• It takes good pathways for gaining
experience in service to the task.
• It takes the reinforcement of targeted and
effective teaching and training.
• It takes resources that make a difference.

12. Balancing the Portfolio
The twin realities of the church’s particular vision
and giftedness, together with the global strategic
needs of the gospel task, need to be regularly
overlaid and reflected upon. Where major change is
needed, it should be accomplished in a way that still
values continuity. This is both for the overall sake of
the work and for the welfare of those who have
faithfully given of themselves in the task. Abrupt and
careless change does a great disservice to both.

13. Geography and Peoples
The real need is for churches to ask, “Without
limiting ourselves to whatever commitments
we have currently, among which of the least-
reached people groups of the world can we
make a significant difference by investing our
prayer, personnel, and financial resources
over the long haul?”

14. Frontline and
Support Personnel
• It is crucial that resource providers, and
especially local churches, which are chief
among them, not lose sight of the fact that it
takes a multitude of “behind the scenes”
workers to support those on the frontlines.
They should get behind them.
• Balance is not possible, just as the task is
not possible, without support personnel.
While their roles may not be as exciting,
they are every bit as essential.

15. Ministry Areas
• Church Planting
• Church Nurture and Leadership Training
• Translation and Media
• Mercy

16. Church Planting
• Church planting ought to occupy the central place in any
church’s mission planning. Some key questions any church
should ask include:
• Do our church-planting plans have a strategic focus emphasizing
the needs of those peoples with least access to the gospel?
• Do our church-planting plans take into account the church as it
already exists in an area, even if the tradition or theology of that
church is very different from ours?
• Is the church-planting methodology to be employed one that holds
promise for the establishment of a self-sustaining indigenous
movement, or is it the imported kind that is totally dependent on
the foreigners?

17. Church Nurture
and Leadership Training
• Wherever there are churches, whether
newly planted or long-rooted, there is need
for godly, effective leaders. Helping to
provide and multiply them through training
and mentoring has been, and undoubtedly
will always be, a major focus of mission
work.

18. Translation and Media
• A bit farther out on the spectrum from church ministries
per se are ministries of translation and media, which to
about an equal degree have both an inward and an outward
focus.
• Translating the Scriptures, for example, clearly is on the
inward side in terms of its importance to the functioning of
healthy churches and effective believers.
• In a less dramatic way the same is true of media ministry.
Whatever the medium (literature, radio, satellite TV, audio
and video tapes, etc.), there is almost always an application
to strengthen and build up believers, as well as one of
outreach evangelism.

19. Mercy
• This area is distinguished by the many ways in which
acting mercifully and promoting justice are fleshed out.
• It may be educational, medical, well-drilling, fish-farming,
famine relief, microloans, agricultural development, desert
reclamation, advocacy on behalf of oppressed peoples,
ministering among political leaders for legislative reform,
and a whole host of other things too numerous to mention.
• Perhaps never are God’s people more Christlike than when
they engage in these ministries, loving others as they love
themselves (Matt. 22:39), and doing good unto others as if
they were doing it unto Christ himself (Matt. 25:40).

20. Short-Term
and Long-Term Efforts
• Short-Term Mission Trips:
• The majority of them go directly from churches.
• Their typical length is one to two weeks.
• The median age of the participants probably is under
twenty.
• Their primary purpose is focused on what they will do
for the spiritual growth and worldview of the
participants rather than on their strategic contribution.
• Because congregational experience tends to trump
strategic impact as the reason for these trips, a lot of
sound missiological principles are being violated, and
vast sums of money for mission are being spent without
much to show for it.

21. Churches with Effective
Short-Term Programs
• These churches are distinguished from the
majority by the following:
• A commitment to relate effectively to what is already
happening in an area
• A commitment to go back to the same places year after
year so that strong relationships can be developed and
contributions can be targeted to real felt needs
• A commitment to doing the hard work of learning
sound missiology so that unnecessary errors can be
avoided

22. Short-Term
Web Resources
• MisLinks
• Network for Strategic Missions articles
• ShortTermMissions

23. Missionary Care
Inescapable among the many responsibilities
all senders have to deal with is the care of the
missionaries they send. It is part and parcel of
the unwritten contract between the senders
and the sent. It is also the clear instruction of
Scripture (3 John 5–8)—senders are to
perform this duty with diligence, but also with
joy.

24. Missionary Care
• The Challenge of Maintaining Wholeness
• The Particular Roles of Senders
• Avoiding Attrition and Assisting the
Broken
• Resources for Missionary Care

25. The Challenge of
Maintaining Wholeness
• Burnout:
• The state of emotional, physical, and/or
spiritual exhaustion that makes the
missionary unable to carry out his or her
work. While it is not normally terminal in
life-and-death terms, it is often fatal to
missionary effectiveness.

26. Missionary Families
• They tend to be more closely knit and unified in
their focus.
• They tend to be more out of touch than most with
the cultural cues, fads, and fashions of their home
culture.
• They seem to produce a higher percentage of
exceptional and gifted children than their own
numbers would justify.

27. Missionary Families (cont.)
• Needs unique to missionary families:
• They tend to face the challenge of transitions much
more frequently and to a greater degree than do most
families.
• Home tends to be an elusive concept, and while a sense
of loss may be the dominant feeling this may engender
for oneself and one's spouse, a sense of guilt may
accompany it with regard to children.
• Financial issues tend to be a bigger deal for missionary
families than for others.

28. Missionary Families (cont.)
• The steps missionaries, their agencies, and
their supporting churches can take to
strengthen missionary families include:
• Take full advantage of books, seminars, and
other resources available in the Christian
community to strengthen families.

29. Missionary Families (cont.)
• Agencies can create an atmosphere that communicates
not only that it is okay, but also that it is essential and
expected, that couples and whole families spend
periodic time apart from their assignments—time to
recharge their batteries, enjoy some privacy, and pursue
hobbies or other recreation.
• Successful marriages always require hard work,
patience, and commitment. Successful missionary
marriages are no exception, but they do require
something more: recognition that there are additional
stresses that will have to be faced.

30. The Particular Roles
of Senders
• The agency challenge corporately is to create an
atmosphere in which missionary care can flourish and to
ensure that it is actually happening at a healthy and
sustainable level.
• The church’s challenge is to stay fully engaged with the
missionaries they have sent and to make sure that effective
missionary care is actually taking place.
• The latter may require them to give a series of nudges—asking
tough questions until what needs to be done is actually done.
• Among more regular duties, they should focus on the kinds of
communication and home-assignment encouragement that convey
the sense of love and concern that all missionaries need.

31. Avoiding Attrition and
Assisting the Broken
“Let’s take a look at one of the prime findings
of the ReMAP research: In terms of the global
missions force, it is estimated that 1 career
missionary in 20 (5.1% of the mission force)
leaves the mission field to return home every
year. Of those who leave, 71% leave for
preventable reasons.” (Taylor 1997, 13)

32. Avoiding Attrition and
Assisting the Broken
• Who are the broken?
• They are those who leave ministry prematurely for
preventable reasons. It may be their body, mind, or
spirit that is broken, but they share a common need for
healing.
• The conditions needing healing cover the same gamut
of afflictions, addictions, and maladies that inflict the
population generally.
• This population simply has more pressures and
occasions for wounds from living cross-culturally and
as missionaries.

33. Avoiding Attrition and
Assisting the Broken
Well-informed and compassionate churches
can play a strategic role in ensuring that
neither a lack of funds nor a lack of moral
support and encouragement will keep
wounded missionaries from the healing
resources they need.

34. Resources for
Missionary Care
• MisLinks member care page
• Asbury: Mental Health and Missionary Care
• Member Care Resources
• Evangelical Missions Quarterly articles:
• “Crisis Intervention for Missionaries”
• “Beauty for Ashes: Redeeming Premature
Field Departure”
• “Boomers, Busters, and Missions”
• Mental Healthcare papers