Building Healthy Missions Ministries - Step 3

Step #3 - Structural Soundness

“I just wish I could put you all on an airplane so you could meet the people that have come to know the Lord because of your support.” – Ron Frietas

I can’t tell you how many times I heard Ron Frietas say this to the Alameda church in Norman, Oklahoma, back in the ‘90’s when he and his wife Georgia were our missionaries to Curitiba, Brazil. It almost physically hurt them that they couldn’t personally introduce the church that supported them from the U.S. and the church they helped plant and develop in Brazil. But because the Frietases loved the Brazilians and told their stories well, our church in Oklahoma felt like we knew them also. We had great love and confidence in Ron and Georgia, but well beyond that, we felt called to see the Kingdom established and thriving in Brazil. So, when the Frietases returned, it only seemed logical to send another couple we loved and trusted, Gordon and Ila Dabbs, to be part of a team to plant a church in Rio de Janeiro. 

I learned from this, and other experiences that healthy, stable missions ministries rest on three pillars. I like to think of them as a three-legged stool that ensures structural soundness.  

People/Place

For a mission’s ministry to be resilient, your church needs to feel a strong calling to the people your ministry is designed to serve and the place or places they live. You need to know something of their story, their culture, their struggles, their art and music, and how God is working among them. You can’t love “humanity” in the abstract well. You can’t be committed to “missions” as a mere concept. Ultimately, love must take on concrete form with real people in real places.  

If we don’t know and love the people we are called to reach, we may discover that we are just committed to our brand and our own success. Americans tend to view mission as a task to achieve rather than relationships to enjoy. When the task is over, we tend to disappear. This is hurtful to our global partners who expected we would be forever family in Christ. If you have a missionary family coming home and you drop all concern for the people and place where they served, that is a bad sign. If, rather, you ask how you can continue to be connected with those people to extend the gospel through them to yet others, you are resting on something good and stable. Even if the financial support ends, the relationships shouldn’t. 

Partners

It is important to feel a call to the people you are reaching, but you also need to trust and respect those you are sending to reach them. The relationship with a missionary family or national workers should never just be an employee relationship. It can’t be reduced to a transaction and be healthy. It is a profound shared mission rooted in a joint call by God with family united in the blood of Jesus. Missionaries need more than money. They need prayer support, care support, and a nurturing family ready to stand with them, take them in, and renew them when they are on home assignment or return. Without this, the entire project is at constant risk. 

This means there needs to be a deep trust. Missionaries should be viewed as comparable to ministers in your congregation. They are part of you, and their stories are your stories. Mission reports are not about what “they” are doing, but about what “we” are doing. Read Philippians 4:10-20 and notice the intimacy Paul felt with his sending church. Missionaries are not a line item in a budget or a contribution to an outside ministry, they are family we link arms with to help us fulfill the commission Jesus gave to us. Trust is essential. 

The church needs to trust and love the workers who are carrying out the ministry.  This requires a clear covenant with healthy communication and support systems in place and operating well. When the commission is fulfilled, the relationship isn’t over. It may lead to partnering again in another work, or it may mean ensuring the missionaries are set up to thrive in another calling. But it always means that the relationship is not a mere contract, but a loving covenant rooted in trust.  

Plans/Process

The third leg required to stabilize a missions’ ministry may be hardest for American churches to develop and maintain—you need to understand and agree with the ministry plans or strategy your workers are employing. Every worker develops some process for how they work. You can love and trust them, and care deeply about the people they are reaching, but if you think the way they are going about it is wrong, foolish, or wasteful, it will erode everything. 

While not everyone in the sending congregation needs to understand the process, the leadership of the congregation and missions’ ministry does. You should expect to understand the grand strategy and be able to ask questions about it and be able to speak into it, though it may be difficult to fully grasp it without spending time on site in the other culture.

This is probably the most neglected aspect of the three. So here is a test: if the members of your church ask you what your missionaries are doing, and you can’t explain it and show how it advances the kingdom in a few sentences, you need to do work in this area. You likely have a wobbly leg that could cause the whole mission to shake. 

Conclusion

In business, they say you can only get two of three things you want from a vendor: good, fast, and cheap. Going for all three is asking too much. Missions is different. You need all three elements in place. It is surprising to me how many churches settle for only one or two of the three needed aspects of stable missions’ ministries when it is entirely possible to have all three with just a little effort and intention. We don’t have to settle for “okay” or “good enough.” We can experience great and lasting missions’ impact if we just ensure all our missions’ partnership are well grounded in all three areas.