mobilization: praying/giving/going
Responding to the Acts 1:8 Challenge

You might have heard of the Acts 1:8 Challengean emphasis to assist churches to be on mission in partnership with associations, state conventions, the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. The two missions agencies came together May 19 to show support for churches accepting the challenge of Acts 1:8 as they reach their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth.

But, what does the Acts 1:8 Challenge mean to you as a leader or layperson with an on mission lifestyle? The Challenge is a biblical emphasis designed to help your church respond to Gods command to make disciples of all nations. These responses shouldnt be treated as a checklist but as vital signs of churches growing under the leadership and power of the Holy Spirit.

Here are eight biblical responses of churches who want to reach their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.  Plus, on page 37 read what some folks say about fulfilling their purpose in Gods eternal work. Find information at www.ActsOne8.com.

Prepare empowering a designated leader of missions and developing mission teams, strategies and plans to take the gospel to our community, state, continent and world.

Learn bringing mission awareness and interaction to the entire church body, training members for service and connecting them to missionaries and mission needs.

Pray asking God for Kingdom perspective and worldwide vision, interceding for Christian workers and unevangelized peoples.

Give increasing the financial support of the Cooperative Program and SBC cooperative missions.

Go enabling a growing number of members to participate directly in short-term, long-term and marketplace opportunities to minister and spread the gospel beyond our churchs walls.

Tell involving an increasing number of members in intentional, culturally relevant evangelism.

Send providing members with opportunities to hear Gods call to vocational mission service.

Multiply participating in church planting, and facilitating church planting movements, to reach people that existing churches do not.

For the first time in 50 years our church understands how to reach the local housing communities. Now we have two permanent residents in one of the communities who are working with children and helping other members to find their calling in the community. John Vaughn pastor, Kalihi Baptist Church, Honolulu, Hawaii

Five years ago I stood up in the pulpit and said Im going on a mission trip. I dont know where, but Im going somewhere. I wanted us to get outside the four walls of the church. Since then weve had regular trips to Idaho, New Mexico and parts of Canada. Our missions giving has tripled for Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon, and we just began hosting a Japanese congregation at our church in January.

Rickey Scott
pastor, Riviera Baptist Church, Eugene, Oregon

Since 1998 weve planted four churches: one on a First Nations reserve and one thats already planting its own churches. Getting members of the church involved in these projects has been a matter of preaching through the book of Acts and sharing Christs vision for the world.

Gerri Wortman
pastor, Scarborough Baptist Church
Prince Albert, Sasketchewan

Our church has decided to become that boy with two fish and five loaves. Members are working to meet the financial needs of the North American mission. This past Easter we gave our entire Easter offering, money that could go toward our own building and projects, to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, because we know Gods projects and vision are bigger and that He will multiply beyond our wildest dreams. Randy White pastor, First Baptist Church, Katy, Texas

When I came six years ago we had a WMU director, and we now have a missions chairman. This church has been for years and continues to be a missions-minded church. Its through our WMU and programs such as Royal Ambassadors that the missions message continues to be conveyed, and our missions giving continues to grow.

Dan Coker
pastor, Love Baptist Church, Phoenix, Arizona

communicating missions
Make em want to go on mission with you next year!!

So youve returned from a trip to Alaska where you spent 10 days sharing Christ in Eskimo villages, and you want to paint a picture, excite people about your trip and motivate them to pray, give and go.

As a communication consultant for businesses and organizations for more than 10 years, Reva Daniel of Clinton, Mississippi, notes that an effective missions presentation will focus on the broader audience in your church, not just those faithful who are already missions-minded. So how do you get their attention and motivate them to become missions-active?  Lets say you led a mission team and youve been asked to tell about your trip during a service. Ask yourself: what information will compel my audience to try going on a mission trip themselves someday, and how much time are they willing to sit and listen to me?

As a practice, says Reva, try disciplining yourself to five minutes and request to do your talk during the offering when people can give you their attention. It would be easier to get many more opportunities to put the message of millions before our churches if our messages were short but powerful, says Reva. Often one of the biggest challenges to good church-wide communication is getting the time scheduled.

While five minutes may seem like an impossibly short time to show Gods work around the continent, the five-minute format will force you to hit the high points and carefully choose your words and images. Instead of having a mission-trip marathon, you give your congregation just a taste, though a meaty one, of the awesome experiences they could have if they committed to missions involvement.

Heres a five-minute presentation model that could turn your talk into a motivating experience:

1. Lead with a one-minute anecdote from your mission trip. Get your listeners attention right away with a story thats humorous or exciting or other-wise creates emotion in your listeners. Its helpful if it illustrates one of the main lessons learned on the mission trip, but if it only serves to get your listeners interested in what you might say next, thats good enough.

2. Give a two- to five- sentence explanation of your mission tripwhere you went, who attended, what were your objectives in going there, etc. Practice your explanation so you can fit it into one minute. Dont tell the results yet to keep your listeners interested and wanting more info.

3. Spend one minute telling of a struggle you had to overcome, either personally or as a group. Tell how you succeeded.

4. Tell of at least one lesson learned from the mission tripwhat you would do differently next time or how the experience clarified some spiritual truth for you. Dont be afraid to be vulnerable. You want to hook your listeners with your story, and a credible telling of the impact this mission experience had on you will make them want to go on one too. Your lesson learned doesnt have to be overly profound or even spiritual maybe you just share how fun it was to be in the fellowship of other church members in a new setting or that you enjoyed seeing how the people live in the area you visited. Or maybe you want to go deeper and say how this experience impacted your understanding of evangelism and made you fine-tune your people and communication skills. Practice the lesson-learned point until you have it down to (you guessed it!) one minute.

5. Now for the best part! End with the results of your mission trip, using both stats and anecdotal informationhow many people heard about the Lord, how they hugged you so tight when you left, in other words, the sort of info that illustrates success and makes your listeners enthusiastic about missions. Try to keep this to one minute or a maximum of two, if youre really on a roll and your audience is responding. End with a big, ol contagious smile!

mission education
Turning fathers to their children

How can you help the men in your church take their jobs as fathers and mentors to a new level? Encourage them to walk their sons, or other boys in the church, through Sons of Virtue, a 10-week study on biblical virtues. Boys will learn the importance of loyalty, friendship, courage, responsibility, honesty, faith, compassion, perseverance, teamwork and self-discipline. Most important, Sons of Virtue is an opportunity to help you lead that boy in your life to Christ and to a life of living on mission for Him.

Sons of Virtue is a tool that will help fathers do what they want to do anyway, which is to spend more time with their sons. The book also can be a tremendous resource for mentors to be father figures in the lives of boys who dont have fathers at home, says Joe Conway, manager of Mission Education Organizations at the North American Mission Board.

We can leave a legacy for generations of boys who will be the men and fathers to carry on His purpose.

Hold a Sons of Virtue event. The Saturday before Fathers Day, encourage the men in your church to make commitments to use Sons of Virtue with their sons or fatherless boys in your church. 

Make the commitments public. On Fathers Day recognize the men in your church who have made the commitment to use Sons of Virtue.

Commit to support. Commit to prayerfully support the men in your church as they fulfill their commitments.

Take it a step further. Organize your men to form a Baptist Men (BMEN) organization. BMEN is the umbrella group for other mission education organizations such as Challengers (grades 7-12), Royal Ambassadors (grades 1-6), effective strategies for equipping the boys in your church to live out the on mission lifestyle.

resources
Whats on your nightstand?

Bert Fersner, singles pastor of Summerville Baptist Church in Summerville, South Carolina, gives a list of must-reads that have helped him in his ministry.

Classics. I read Oswald Chamberss My Utmost for His Highest (Barbour & Co., 2003) fairly regularly for truth and inspiration. This book meets me where I am. Also a book I plan to teach from is F. F. Bruces The Acts of the Apostles (IVP, 1990). This is a classic that provides great depth and clarity for understanding how we can live like those in the early church.

Table top. For Bible study and preparation I recently read Twelve Ordinary Men by John McArthur (W, 2002). I plan to read The Unchurched Next Door by Thom Rainer (Zondervan, 2003) and Refining Your Style: Learning from Respected Communicators by Dave Stone, (Group Publishing, May 2004), which targets 13 communication styles from expository preaching and writing to storying.

On the web. To stay up-to-date on whats new in Single Adult Ministry I refer to the SAM journal online at www.samjournal.com where you can find tips on starting ministries, ministry tools and other info even for lay leaders. I also log onto www.preaching.com for sermon notes and other preaching tools.

For the future. The books I plan to read for my personal journey are Waking the Dead by John Eldridge (Thomas Nelson, 2003) and The New Birth Order Book by Kevin Leman (Baker Books, 1998) because we are about to have a third child and this book will help me understand how birth order affects personality and what we can expect as parents.

Now thats an idea!

No more What did he say? The city of Damascus, Maryland, is almost four percent Hispanic in a county thats nearly 12 percent of the same, but First Baptist Church Damascus is making it easier for a growing people group that could be reached more effectively with the aid of on mission churches and some high-tech help. Enter headset translators, a technological advance FBC Damascus started offering last summer for its Spanish-speaking attenders. Now Hispanics sitting in the pews will only have to turn up the volume to understand the sermons more clearly.

A waterproof way to pray. The childrens ministry of West Ridge Church in west Atlanta gave its kids a waterproof way to pray for the Jamaica missions teama plastic snap-on bracelet with team members names written with a Sharpie marker. Two weeks leading up to the trip, first through fifth graders donned these neon-green reminders and began praying for the name written in black ink. Not only does it teach the importance of prayer for missions, but it gets kids praying and excited about missions, says Paul Richardson, childrens pastor at West Ridge Church. Hopefully, itll get them excited enough to go on trips when theyre a little older. To get your wristbands, call Wristband Resources at 800-481-2263 or email maura@wristband.com.

Dont keep it to yourself! If you have a missions or ministry idea youd like to share with other readers, send us a brief description of how its worked for you and your church. If we publish it, expect a free gift!

On Mission magazine
4200 North Point Parkway
Alpharetta, GA 30022-4176
onmission@namb.net

Be sure to include your mailing and email addresses.

you and your kids
More on The Passion of the Christvisit passionChrist.org

Are your kids old enough?

While Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ has proved to be a powerful tool for evangelism, the same elements that make it compelling might make it inappropriate for some ages. We spoke with Dr. Mary Manz Simon, practical parenting consultant and host of Front Porch Parenting which is carried on more than 300 radio stations. She gave On Mission insight on seeing the movie with your young ones:

Maturity, not age, needs to be the guide. No matter what age your children are, if they dont have the mental tools to process certain images, movies with violence, whether gratuitous or not, could have a negative effect.

Parents need to preview the movie. Because a parent is the only expert on his or her own children, I recommend that parents see the movie and determine whether its appropriate. Parents should ask: How can the film experience relate to my childs journey with Jesus?

A child or youth should not be forced to see the film or sent on a guilt trip if he or she chooses not to see the movie. A walk outside on a beautiful spring day can be an equally teachable moment for growing in faith.

Is it a good evangelism tool?

Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church in Riverside, California, rented out three showings of The Passion of the Christ at a local theater. People made decisions for Christ at the theater after each showing, and more have made decisions since. Examples of the power of this outreach are a married couple named Patricia and John, a Riverside couple who hadnt entered a church since infancy. Their neighbor had invited them. Patricias exact words after seeing the movie? I never knew Jesus did all that for me! 

Now new believers, they continue to ask questions of GROW, Magnolia Avenues evangelism follow-up team. In addition, as part of a three-week, 19-church ecumenical outreach effort, Magnolia Avenue worked with evangelicals from other denominations during which 55,535 people (one-tenth of Riversides population) saw The Passion, many accepting Christ, or recommitting their lives to Him. The Riverside Passion site (www.riversidepassion.com) received more than 20,000 hits.

campers on mission
Building faith

Seven miles northwest of Ocala, Florida, and nestled in the rolling hills and horse farms of Marion County off state highway 27 sits the community of Fellowship, a segment of land defined by interspersed housing, a Masonic Lodge, a Kwik King jiffy store and Fellowship Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist church in the county and the seventeenth oldest in the state.

Aletha and Bob King, and 28 other couples and individuals, arrived at Fellowship Baptist last year to help build a 6,800 square-foot worship and fellowship center designed to hold 275 people and provide them with a kitchen, nursery, choir room and conference room. The older sanctuary had become too small for the number of people who had moved to the scenic area.

Members of the Campers On Mission (COM) group stayed from a few days to several weeks digging footers, framing, installing plumbing, hanging and finishing drywall, plus performing other tasks and making sure the building met local codes and the needs of the congregation.

We normally come on a construction site at the framing stage, but with this project we built it from the ground up, says Bob King, project coordinator for region five of the Florida COM. This is what our mission is as Campers On Mission. We go where the needs are and do what needs to be done to meet those needs.

Now more than a year later, Fellowship Baptist Church is a thriving community of believers with a building where they can share burdens, learn about God and reach out to the residents of Fellowship community and other areas in that part of Florida.

To learn more about Campers on Mission and how you and your church can take on some of the many ministries COM provides, visit www.thebridge.namb.net, email COM organizers Martha and Wintford Haynes at com@namb.net or call 800-462-8657.

church outreach
New Members: drawing them in with your media

If youve spent any time surfing church websites, youll probably agree that they inspire little more than a yawn. They may describe features of the church but not the benefitswhat they will mean to visitors and potential members. Descriptors like First-class student ministry or Bible studies for all ages make the eyes glaze over, rather than entice the web surfer.

What is first-class and how can the Bible be broken into age-sensitive lessons? If youve never set foot in a church and youre looking for a place that can teach you the basics of the spiritual life, terms like median adult or expository preaching will only work if your spiritual seeker has attended seminary courses or a church workshop on terminology.

The bottom line is that people dont want programs; they want their needs met. If you want your audience to respond, show them what they can expect to gain and experience when they involve themselves with your church. Consider some of these suggestions next time you print up a brochure or make changes to your web page.

If you were trying to sell cars, your selling point wouldnt be we have great cars of all colors nor would you be drawn to take your blouse or slacks to a dry cleaner who boasted that we use advanced chemicals to clean your clothes. The product or service must be connected to the need of the consumer. Instead of colors and chemicals, you would want to assure your audience that theyll get a reliable car to enjoy or freshly cleaned and pressed clothes to dress up their appearance.

If you want to reach your audience, find out what needs they have, and determine what benefits you can provide. Then, instead of balking at expository messages from Gods Word, your audience will be drawn to a church where they can find real truth for real life.

For more effective tips on reaching your community with church media, watch for future issues of On Mission.

Eric Ramsey, church enlistment manager at the
North American Mission Board, eramsey@namb.net.

Did you know?  Disaster Relief sites soon will be accessible to chaplains thanks to something newa Disaster Relief training program for chaplains who have a concern for victims of disaster. Training is under way, and the first endorsed Disaster Relief chaplains should be ready by the end of summer. You can understand and reach your Jehovahs Witness friends more effectively with the soon-to-be released resource In the Name of Jehovah. Scheduled for release Fall 2004, In the Name of Jehovah will help you understand and share the true gospel with the Jehovahs Witnesses in your life and neighborhood.