We’re tired of the church being relegated to “pray, give, or go” when it comes to participation in missions. For too long, missions has been reduced to either the family that moves to another country, a trip the youth take in the summer, or money sent to who-knows-where to do who-knows-what. We think there are more (better?) ways for the church to do missions.
Enter: The Upstream Collective Idea List. We’re beginning a series of posts offering creative ideas for mission. We’ll explore everything from raising awareness to engaging unreached populations in your town and around the world.
The first three posts of the series are already up- The Reverse Mission Trip, pt.1 introduces the idea of bringing the nations to you by hosting nationals in your own home. The Reverse Mission Trip, pt.2 proposes an on-site mission trip that puts us into a learning role instead of the traditional “we’re here to help these poor people” sort of thing. Missions 2.0 outlines an accessible (and cheap!) way to engage people in redemptive relationships over the internet.
You’ll notice that these ideas come from a range of sources. We believe that everyone from pastors and church planters to missionaries on the field and national believers has something to add to this conversation. If you have any ideas for mission- whether they’ve been tested or not- we’d love for you to share them in the comments thread.
One more thing- we’re organizing the Idea List using keywords. If your church is exploring options for involvement but you’re pretty sure you need to rule out an international trip at this time, look for the ideas labeled “Stay-at-home.” If money is tight, check out the ideas under the “Low-cost” category. If you feel compelled to impact real lostness in the virtual world, explore our “Online” ideas category.
We look forward to sharing ideas with you. We hope you find them useful, intriguing, or at least mildly entertaining. If you have questions, comments, or concerns about a particular idea, please post them in that idea’s comment section.
Thanks for reading. Blessings on your journey!
