If you’ve ever visited a mission agency’s website, you’ve likely seen the words, “Pray, Give, Go” offered as your options for involvement in missions. Most of the people who consider themselves to be “missions-minded” have decided to either pray, give, or go.

The pray-ers tend to be diligent, watching the various prayer request channels (CompassionNet, Wycliffe Prayer Focus, etc.) like a broker watches a stock ticker. The givers are usually anonymous benefactors who somehow connect with a particular ministry or worker. The go-ers are either kids on a mission trip, or the strange ones we don’t know what else t do with. For the most part, missions is done by the pray-ers, the givers and the go-ers.

But what about the missional believers who see themselves as missionaries in their everyday lives? Must we make such a sharp distinction between doing (praying, giving, going) and, well, just being?

Churches are starting to get more directly involved in missions by creating their own options, according to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Here are some examples:

• Churches are doing “reverse mission trips,” where they study language and culture before hosting exchange students in their homes for a week, month, semester, year, or longer. The students become members of their host families, and both can be profoundly influenced by the experience. (For the record, we know of churches that have been planted in very closed places by young nationals who came to faith while studying abroad.)
• Virtual Mission trips. Churches are sending cybernauts with a purpose as missionaries to the virtual world. There are full-time internet missionary church planting teams operating among hundreds of internet-connected people groups around the world.They connect through social networking websites, and use tools like message boards, Skype, instant messenger, and Twitter to share the gospel.
• Strategy Coordinator Churches. Churches across the country (and around the world) are doing the work of the missionary by developing and implementing the strategies needed for missionary engagement. This tends to make many professional missionaries quite nervous, but it shouldn’t. The local church is designed for missions: a variety of gifting and experiences, spiritual leadership, accountability, community, discipleship.
• Real people with real jobs. Okay, so technically this one might fall under the “going” catagory, but it’s not the same. Mature believers everywhere are deciding to relocate for the purpose of kingdom-building. These aren’t “missionaries” in the traditional sense; they work real jobs that put them in constant interaction with unbelieving nationals. (By the way, these are the folks who acquire language better and faster, and integrate into the community better than any missionary might.)

In the end, missions is about obedience- going where God leads you to go and doing what He leads you to do. The Upstream Collective is about encouraging one another as we do just that. But we must never allow others to relegate us to limited (and unbiblical!) options that keep us on the sidelines when it comes to the Great Commission.