Three Reasons Your Church Should (Drastically) Increase its Involvement in Global Missions.

1. Your vision is greater than what you see before you.

The dreams in your heart are greater than the realities in your face. You have more inside than is getting out.

You want to help more people. You want to see more lives transformed. You want to deal with something greater than disgruntled church folks.

You want your church to be relevant, to make a difference.

If this resonates you need to increase your involvement on global missions. You may find some of those dreams coming to pass in ways and in places you never imagined.

2. Your church will grow.

While I cannot promise your church will grow numerically, I can promise you your church will grow in faith, hope, and love.

Your church will sense a renewed purpose and an increased influence in the world. You church will rally around something greater than itself.

I bet your church would have a revival if you stood in the pulpit on Sunday and said,

 “Folks, I don’t know how we are going to do it, but by God’s grace this church will give half of all we have to serve those outside ourselves. We will stop consuming on ourselves all the resources God has blessed us with.

 “Jesus gave us a Great Commandment and a Great Commission. Our budget will reflect this. Half of our budget will go to building up a strong, healthy local church, and half of our budget will go to reaching those who have not yet been reached with the Gospel.”

I bet there are long-standing problems that have paralyzed your church for years that will finally get dealt with because your church is “on mission.”

I bet you will be amazed at how your people respond.

Do it. I dare you.

3. The harvest is ripe.

We hear it all the time, “The Church is in decline.” We have tried many solutions to fix this: Seeker-sensitive, contemporary worship, relevant teaching, trendy styles, support groups: You name it we have tried it.

But nothing has stemmed the tide of the church’s decline. Why? It’s a simple really:

We will never stem the church’s decline in the world until we stop the church’s retreat from the world.

Look at how we spend our money. The average church spends:

• 3% on local outreach and evangelism

• 1% on local benevolence

• 2% on international benevolence

• A whopping 94% is spent on itself!

No wonder we are in such a mess. We are not just in decline we are in retreat.

Jesus Christ did not die so that Christians can have nice buildings and pastors can have good careers.

He died to upright a world that has fallen over and he has assigned to his church the task of getting the message out.

Let us not hold anything back, let us not waste any resource, let us with wise and reckless abandon give our all to our two-fold calling of “Going into All the World” and “Building Up the Body of Christ.”

Some Suggestions for Getting Started (I am writing from The Foursquare Church context, apply accordingly):

1. Set aside one Sunday a month as “Missions Sunday.” Highlight global missions, pray for missions, and receive an offering for the Global Missions Fund. (This fund supports about 25 catalytic leaders, most of whom are pioneering church planting movements in multiple nations.)

2. Set aside a portion of your monthly budget to support individual missionaries and projects that reflect your church’s specific assignment in the global harvest.

3. Connect with the Foursquare Missions Area Missionary for the region of the world you want to get involved in. The Area Missionary will have the contacts and perspective to maximize your involvement. (Click here to connect.)

4. Invite missionaries to connect with you and your church.

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