The pastoral leadership of Stonecreek Church in Milton, Georgia, was troubled that missions involvement historically had been reserved for a church’s faithful core. They asked, “How do we engage a broader audience with opportunities for personal, global ministry?” This question led Stonecreek to begin a strategic partnership with Compassion International.

“Child sponsorship through Compassion International has been the perfect introduction to global ministry for the broader audience of regular attenders as well as our engaged ministry partners,” explains Ken Murphy, one of the church’s pastors. “We love our partnership with Compassion International because we are confident that behind every child sponsorship is a holistic development program supported through that child’s local evangelical church. For an investment of $38 per month, sponsors are introduced to personal ministry with their sponsored child through letter-writing correspondence, and opportunities to pray for their sponsor child’s family and learn about the cultural practices and challenges their sponsored child faces.

“Child sponsorship through Compassion empowers local international congregations to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name and minister to the child’s extended family and relationships within the community. It is an effective strategy to build the local church and minister to the poorest of the poor. Child sponsorship places the sponsor (and their family) at the center of this missional endeavor.”

Missions no longer is reserved for a select few, but is accessible and possible for anyone who attends Stonecreek through its partnership with Compassion International.

Murphy continues, “Our desire is to see the personal ministry of child sponsorship change the heart of the sponsor and awaken a desire to engage further in global ministry. Compassion provides consistent communication and better follow-up than we could ever do on our own.

“We are finding that engaging our people personally in the life of a specific child makes missions accessible and possible. It is our ‘front door’ to missions. It’s personal and transformational.”

Stonecreek Church is a 10-year-old congregation located in the sprawling suburbs of North Atlanta. Its mission is to lead people to pursue life in Jesus as their greatest passion. For more information, visit their Web site at www.stonecreekchurch.org. For more on how your church can partner with Compassion International, visit www.compassion.com or call (800) 336-7676 and request the Church Relations office.

I wonder if this would work. I have never tried it and I am sure someone has so I would be interested in how did it work?

Instead of you bringing your church to “do” a basketball camp or soccer camp that you could bring a group of people to “attend” a soccer camp in Europe? What if you were able to equip your participants to come and live life side by side with a European and be able to share your faith with them in some natural ways? Not to mention learn some pretty good soccer skills.

You see most of the time we want to go on a mission trip and and “Do” something so that someone can attend it and thus hear the gospel. What if we simply get involved in something that is already going on and find ways to tell our story in that way? To me this is the more natural way to share our faith. It is being the salt and light to a group of people.

From Larry McCrary, with permission

Want to try something different?

Each year we always have friends here in Europe who wants to send their students to the states to be immersed in English and the US culture. It is really a ready-made opportunity to be salt and light to young people from an unreached population. I have also had business people who have asked me if they knew of a family that they could live with for a month in order to learn English. If you cannot go on a trip why not try this way?

There are some really good inter-cultural exchange programs and organizations out there. We recommend Summer In the USA, a program that focuses on students from the Basque region of northern Spain. We do not always need to recreate something. Many programs, such as those found in local universities, even help offset the costs of hosting a student with a weekly stipend. Pray about whether the Lord might be leading you to a certain people or place. If you know of a worker in a particular place that you support or your church does why not start there? Do a google search on the topic and see what you find out. Then find a good match for your family.

Better yet, collaborate with other members of your church to make this a “reverse mission trip.” Prepare as through you were going on a trip to whatever place you feel led. Learn what you can about culture, history, language, and geography. Make contact with nationals, believers, missionaries, and expats living in that place. Ask for insights, ideas, and warnings. Then, instead of going on a trip, prepare your homes to host an exchange student.

You could work together to handle things like local transportation, excursions, and events. Be intentional. Share life. Teach. Learn. Love whoever God brings to you.

Many times, you’ll find that the relationships built through this sort of program turn into lifelong friendships. After the student returns to her home, follow through with emails, letters, and phone calls. You may be able to visit them in their home country someday.

We’ve seen lives transformed through the power of personal interactions like this. People have come to faith, and churches have been planted overseas as a result of this sort of intentional engagement.

Let us know how your experience goes!

Adapted from Larry McCrary, with permission

Like a big, virtual hug!

A few years ago, our church sent out a young family to plant churches in Glasgow, Scotland. Their departure left a void in the gatherings, but sending people out has been a natural part of who we are. Since then, they’ve kept up with emails, newsletters, and on our church’s online forum. Nevertheless, it can be hard to keep up. They get busy with their life, we get busy with ours. New people have since joined us that have never met our missionaries. Last Sunday, this couple joined us for worship- without ever leaving their apartment in Glasgow. We spoke to them via Skype video call.

Most of you are already familiar with Skype, the free software that allows you to chat, talk, and make video calls for free over the internet. All you need is a computer with internet access, a projector, and something to amplify the audio. Why not incorporate a video call with a missionary into your worship time?

First, be sure both parties (you and the missionary) have Skype installed. Next, insure that both locations have a relatively stable internet connection. Don’t forget to arrange the call beforehand. 11:00 Sunday morning your time could be 4:00 in the morning in Eastern Europe!

We recommend that you set parameters for the conversation. How long do you want to chat?(Missionaries are notoriously long-winded.) What do you want your church to learn? Do you want the missionary to share needs (and maybe ask for financial support?) It would be helpful to establish these things in advance.

Some churches use these calls to keep up with missionaries they’ve sent out. Others have enjoyed using video calls to connect with new missionaries and people groups around the world. Either way, be sure your church hears about what God is doing in another part of the world, and spend some time in Skype-prayer for those involved in the work and for the unreached. This can be a great way to encourage missionaries, educate and involve your church members, and speak into strategy on the mission field.

Here are some variations on the idea:

• Find a national believer online. Ask them to allow you to interview them in front of your church.
• If timing is difficult, connections are unreliable, or you’ve got multiple worship services, you can pre-record the Skype call using a  free recorder plugin for Skype.
• For a more personal and interactive experience, allow participants to ask questions. One at a time, though!
• You may want to include several different missionaries from multiple regions of the world in a sort of missions conference call. This would be a great way to compare and contrast the different approaches to missions.
• Rather than just hanging up after the call, offer missionaries the option of staying on the line throughout the worship time. For many overseas workers this can be a refreshing experience.
• If your church (or any of its members) is planning an international trip, Skype calls can be a great way for your team to prepare. Missionaries on the ground can be excellent sources of travel tips, cultural insight, and spiritual orientation.
• Don’t forget to follow through- most missionaries return to the States every once in a while; why not have them visit you in person to help make the relationship personal?

If you’re a church looking for a missionary to Skype into your worship service, please post what you’d be looking for in the comment stream. If your a missionary or believer overseas and you’d be interested in a Skype call to a church, feel free to post your contact info/place of service below.If your church has done something like this, we’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, ideas on how to make the most of a Skype video call.

In missiological terms, it’s called a “platform.” It’s how you enter into the community, what you do, how you present yourself, in order to make a connection. Many missionaries aren’t “missionaries” at all, but doctors, teachers, businessmen, artists, social activists. A good platform allows for natural interaction with the people to whom you’re ministering while leaving you with enough time to connect socially. Everyone in ministry needs a platform.

Apartment Life is an example of a great platform. Millions of people, especially in unchurched urban areas, live in apartments and multi-unit housing. The owners of these properties stand to make lots of money, but only if they can retain their tenants. Studies have shown that building a sense of community among residents can raise the level of retention. In other words, people will stay in an apartment complex if they have friends there. They may even be inclined to pay more in monthly rent, take better care of the property, and actively recruit potential tenants.

Enter Apartment Life. They place believers into apartment complexes in order to build a sense of community among residents. In exchange for welcoming new tenants, organizing community events, and making friends in the complex, you get to live there for free. Kind of like a property manager, but with relationships. It turns out that the cost of fixing trashed apartments, finding new tenants, kicking out deadbeats, and making people feel safe adds up to a lot more than what you would pay in rent each month. Apartment Life brokers a deal with property owners based on the idea that your presence adds value to their business.

This is one of the most creative and promising endeavors I’ve ever heard about. If you’re in any sort of incarnational ministry, whether it’s to urban professionals, immigrants, or the working poor, odds are they live in apartments. A great way to incarnate the gospel is to move into the neighborhood. Church planters could easily make this their platform for planting a church. (For a great example of apartment complex church planting, check out Mission Arlington.) You’ve got natural access to people, total property owner permission to throw parties and interact with tenants, and you don’t have to pay rent. You’re not limited to existing Apartment Life opportunities, either. If you need a place to live and you can proactively build community, send them an email requesting that they set something up in your area. Already living in an apartment? They might be able to broker a deal where you already live.

Brilliant.

From Missions Misunderstood, with permission

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!

I’d like to invite you to a fourth way to participate in what God is doing around the world. You may not be aware of this, but there is a way for you to build a personal relationship with an unbelieving person from an unreached people group that is free, requires no training or time off work, and doesn’t require you to learn another language.

You can be a pen pal.

Thankfully, the internet has taken the old idea of corresponding with a complete stranger on another continent and made it, well, faster, cheaper, and more fun. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Visit an international classifieds website like kijiji.com, craigslist.org, or tribe.net
or a social networking site like facebook.com, myspace.com, or any of the hundreds of similar sites listed here.
Classified sites tend to be a bit easier to manage (London’s gumtree.com, for example, actually has a section titled “pen pals.”) and are especially good if you already have an idea of what people group or city you’d like to connect with. For now, let’s assume you’re using kijiji.com.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the site, and select the local site of your desired country. Many countries have classified ad sites, but it people in Western Europe are so web-connected, these countries are a great place to find someone who is likely to correspond with you.

3. Register a username and password, if necessary.

4. Search through the classified ads to find someone with whom you have something in common. Amateur authors in Wales? A guitar player in Spain? How about moms in Dublin?

5. Post a response to an ad. Or, post an ad of your own. Maybe you’d like to swap recipes with someone in Basel or find a pen pal in Berlin who likes NASCAR. (Good luck with that one). Just be yourself! Remember: for you, this may be a strange and frightening way to make friends, but for them, meeting people online is a pretty normal thing to do.

6. Wait for someone to answer your ad. Many of theses sites will email you when you receive a response. Be sure to keep security in mind as you introduce yourself and get to know the person. Don’t make promises you won’t be able to keep.

7. Share life with your new friend. Don’t treat this as a confrontational evangelism tool- let the person get to know you. For many Western Europeans, you may be the only practicing believer with whom they’ve had contact. Even those who know about Jesus are unlikely to have seen life in Christ lived out before them. They need to hear what a follower of Jesus thinks about all sorts of things. Tell your stories. Listen to theirs. Send photos. Have a voice conversation on Skype. You may eventually get to meet your pen pal in person some day.

Now, this isn’t for everyone. If you’re the type who can’t stand to talk with someone with whom you disagree, please don’t bother. If you’re not willing or able to personally invest in a “virtual friend,” this isn’t for you.

I think there are a lot of believers out there who didn’t even know this is an option. I imagine many of you that don’t have the time or money or desire to go on a mission trip may be intrigued my the idea of meeting someone online for the sake of sharing life intentionally.

Who knows? God may use you to start an online church planting movement.

From Missions Misunderstood, with permission