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MISSIONS FOUNDATIONS
Missions and Missionaries:
Are We Speaking the Same Language?
Local churches send missionaries, who are faithful followers of Jesus, to the nations. They cross significant cultural barriers, such as language or geography, in obedience to and fulfillment of the Great Commission. Missionaries make disciples through evangelism and teaching new believers to obey all that Jesus taught, starting with baptism. A missionary’s ultimate goal is to plant and strengthen healthy local indigenous churches to God’s praise and glory.
Read ArticleReclaiming Gospel-Centered Missions
Missionary practice today evidences gospel confusion by locating the goal of missions in the power and will of man. From cultural transformation to decisionism, a wrong understanding of salvation will lead to work that falls short of robustly biblical gospel-centered missions. Therefore, faithful gospel-centered mission chiefly aims to glorify God by upholding God’s salvation in Christ.
Gospel-centered missions prioritize the verbal proclamation of the Triune God’s redemptive work through Christ’s work on the cross. It is concerned with temporal needs but prioritizes eternal needs.
Gospel-centered missions is inseparably connected to the biblical doctrine of conversion. Biblical conversion is wholly the supernatural work of the Spirit, who regenerates the sinner, grants repentance and faith, and thereby raises the sinner from spiritual death to life. It evidences itself in the fruits of repentance and faith, affirmed by the risen Jesus’ disciples gathered in the church.
Read ArticleField Churches: The Missing Link in Missions
A field church is nothing less than a true church, a biblical assembly of believers bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. The field church possesses God-given privilege, authority, and responsibility to hold the missionary accountable as a follower of Christ and a church member and to send and support missionaries of its own. We use the term ‘field’ from a missionary’s perspective to refer to a local church on the mission field to which the missionary is committed and accountable. Together, they labor in the cause of the Great Commission.
Read ArticleThe Priority of Proclamation
Proclamation is the priority of the missionary task because the gospel message is the power of God for salvation. The priority of preaching, teaching, and personal evangelism was modeled and commanded by our Lord and the Apostles. Therefore, proclamation is the biblically mandated central task of the church and missions (Mark 1:38, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:13–15, Matthew 28:16–20).
Read ArticleMotivating the Missionaries You Send:
Walking the Tightrope
Churches should motivate missionary service through sound biblical teaching and thoughtful assessment and training of candidates, which undergird wise decisions and faithfulness on the field. They should not rely on emotional or pragmatic appeals that may lead to unwise decisions.
Read ArticleCulture Through a Biblical Lens
All people are rooted in various overlapping cultures, which are outward expressions of inner beliefs and values. Churches, too, exist within these cultures–influencing them and being influenced by them. A culture deeply affects the missionary and indigenous people’s interpretation of cultural practices, so neither can claim ultimate interpretive authority. Instead, all cultural practices must be considered and evaluated by Scripture. Christians must work together on bringing Scripture to bear on cultural practices within the church and the individual lives of believers to discern whether such practices conform to or diverge from Scripture. This work requires patience, care, humility, understanding, and a commitment to Christian liberty on matters Scripture doesn’t address.
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BEING SENT: THE ROLE OF SENDING CHURCHES & AGENCIES
Why Do Good Churches Send Bad Missionaries?
Churches should take the lead in global missions by properly assessing and equipping prospective missionaries instead of deferring this responsibility solely to mission agencies. In this task, churches should emphasize a candidate’s qualification, vision, and preparation over and above subjective call.
Read ArticleMissions Policies Matter: A Key to Missionary Effectiveness
Sending churches should have robust policies for partnerships with missionaries on the field, guided by the following principles:
1. Known and affirmed by the congregation
2. Strategic placement
3. Faithful ministry
4. Fruitful ministry
5. Intentional end of service
Read ArticleSmall Churches Can Make a Big Difference
Churches, regardless of the size of their membership or budget, are commanded by Christ to joyfully participate in the Great Commission. Smaller churches have a unique opportunity to prioritize partnerships with other like-minded churches in assessing, sending, and supporting missionaries. The strength of such partnerships is that they commend the gospel and are also a source of deep joy for those sending and being sent.
Read ArticleWho Decides? Issues of Authority on the Field
The need exists for partnership in authority between sending churches, mission agencies, and the field church. Where a field church exists, however, it should provide the primary spiritual and doctrinal authority for missionaries.
Read ArticleMissions Agencies, For Better or Worse
Missions agencies are parachurch organizations that partner with local churches to send and support qualified missionaries. They arose out of the biblical pattern to coordinate support for gospel workers and have proven useful when they come alongside churches. Agencies can be catalysts for collaboration and strategy among like-minded churches. They can also assist with logistics, training, and care for missionaries on the field. Nonetheless, the local church is the leading partner and should not abdicate its primary responsibility for missions. A well-intentioned but misguided agency can jeopardize the work of biblical missions. However, an agency that rightly understands missions and the role of the local church can provide crucial support.
Read ArticleHow to Choose an Agency
A mission agency should be chosen that is as closely aligned as possible with a missionary and their sending church in theological and methodological convictions, vision for the work, ministry relationships, and practical needs. The leadership of the sending church should be closely involved in choosing an agency and missionary team rather than a missionary candidate making a unilateral decision. Missionaries should consider changing agencies when it’s clear to them and their field and sending churches that earlier alignment no longer exists.
Read ArticleUnderstanding Church and
Mission Agency Partnerships
Churches have the primary responsibility to send and support missionaries. Agencies can be fruitful partners in that task. Churches may enlist the help of agencies in areas such as financial management, field logistics, training, care, and facilitating partnerships. Churches should help missionaries partner carefully with agencies to ensure that biblical convictions and proper church authority are not at risk. A healthy partnership necessitates clear communication and agreements between the sending church, agency, and missionary.
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MISSIONARY BASICS
Who Makes a Good Prospective Missionary?
A good prospective missionary is someone who firmly believes, lives out, and can articulate sound doctrine, including a biblical understanding of the church. They should demonstrate faithful and fruitful ministry in their church, teachability, and the ability to persevere amidst change and hardship with sober mindedness. They should be people their church would trust and endorse to do the role they plan to do on the field.
Read ArticleAre They Ready?
Train and Test Your Missionaries Before They’re Sent
Membership in a biblically-ordered local church is the primary context for missionary training. Sending churches should ensure that aspiring missionaries receive adequate training and testing in character, confession, and competency prior to being commissioned and deployed. The qualifications in 1 Timothy 3:1–13 and Titus 1:5–9 serve as guidelines for training and assessment.
Read ArticleWho’s Your Team?
Navigating the Surprising Struggle For Missionaries
When establishing or joining a missionary team, the sending church and the missionary must prioritize clarity on the team’s purpose and agreement on theology, missiology, and methodology. This helps to maintain unity and encourage longevity.
Integrating new missionaries into a team requires particular care and thought. It is essential to foster a culture of spiritual discipleship and friendship among workers. This builds trust among different backgrounds and personalities and avoids conflict, especially in cross-cultural settings. Clearly defined roles and expectations minimize misunderstandings and provide clarity on how the team can contribute to the ultimate goal of establishing and serving local churches.
Mission agencies should consider policies and practices that help missionary teams be more aligned in these areas. Sending churches must continually evaluate the ongoing health of missionary teams.
Read ArticleDo You Know What Your Missionary is Doing?
Churches should support biblically qualified missionaries by understanding the missionary’s ministry goals and philosophy and by partnering with them in the ongoing challenges and joys of the work.
Read ArticleMissionaries Who Stay For the Long-Haul
A good long-term missionary is someone who is elder- or deacon-qualified*, who joyfully submits to the oversight of a local church, and whose ongoing service contributes to the work of planting or strengthening churches in a cross-cultural context. (*1 Peter 5:1-5, Titus 1:6-9, 1 Timothy 3:1-13)
Read ArticleOngoing Training for Missionaries
Missionaries need ongoing training to safeguard their faithfulness on the field, especially as their needs and ministry context change. Sending churches should value and explore ongoing training needs on the field and facilitate appropriate training in cooperation with other relevant partners. The content and frequency of training should protect and promote rather than hinder work on the field.
Read ArticleOn Leaving Well
When a missionary is leaving a particular field, all parties—including the sending church, the field church, the mission agency, and the missionary—should work together to minimize disruption for ministry on the field and coordinate efforts to support the missionary throughout their transition. Open communication is key to assessing the wisdom and timing of the move before a decision is made.
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MISSIONARY CARE FOR LIFE ON THE FIELD
Specific Challenges of Women on the Field
Women on the field, both single and married, have important God-given roles, and they face unique challenges that need to be understood and tended to. These challenges pertain to issues like cultural differences and pressures, care of home and household, balance of ministry responsibilities, cultivation of meaningful relationships, and a desire for further training and spiritual development.
Read ArticleHelping Women Thrive on the Field
Women are valued co-laborers whose contributions are vital to the spread of the gospel among the nations. Sending churches and agencies should intentionally work to understand and tend to their specific needs through intentional communication, resourcing and training, and encouraging their unique contributions to the mission of the church.
Read ArticleSingle but Not Alone: Supporting Singles on the Field
Sending churches, field churches, and mission agencies should honor single brothers and sisters as image bearers and members of the family of God. The Holy Spirit gifts married and single missionaries for the building up of the church. Single missionaries may have unique needs that vary by individual, role, and season. Single missionaries and the church are served well by seeking to care for these brothers and sisters by intentionally asking questions and seeking understanding. God uses the gift of singleness for His glory and to be a blessing to the family of God.
Read ArticleFamilies on the Field
A family on the mission field will encounter both opportunities and challenges unique to their ministry assignment. In addition to being equipped and qualified, it is necessary to have a strong foundation of dependence on the Lord and a growing trust in his kind providence. With this foundation in mind, a family can better navigate expectations, attitudes, and responses to issues such as community, cross-cultural living, healthcare, education, and security.
Read ArticleMental Health and the Missionary:
Dealing with a Hidden Problem
Missionary life can be mentally and emotionally demanding, often leading to depression, anxiety, loneliness, and burnout. Mental health should be approached with confidence in God’s Word, hope in God’s work, and openness with God’s people. The primary way to prevent and address mental health challenges is through the ordinary means of grace and intentional discipleship within a local church. Sending churches, mission agencies, and, at times, medical professionals can also offer support through counseling and care, especially when there is no healthy field church. Sometimes, leaving the field (for a season or permanently) may be necessary. Sending churches should be ready to receive and care for missionaries returning from the field. Mental health challenges should always be addressed with compassion and discernment.
Read ArticleIn the Face of Suffering
Suffering is a universal reality because of sin. God’s Word tells us that Christians suffer with Jesus and that God uses suffering in the life of Christians for their good. While all of God’s people suffer, those on the mission field face unique challenges.
God empowers missionaries to suffer with joy and hope. While the current age is fleeting and full of afflictions, glory, and eternal life are yet to come. God regularly uses suffering to conform missionaries to the image of Christ and to strengthen Christian witness. As missionaries share in Christ’s suffering, they display Christ’s redemptive suffering to the church and the nations. They proclaim with their lives that God will use all suffering for his purposes to the glory of Christ.
Read ArticleMissionary Risk: Counting the Cost
The Great Commission involves taking up our cross and following Jesus in laying down our lives so that others might be saved. Preaching the gospel to the hardest to reach often requires sacrifice. While being willing to incur risk, we need to exercise biblical wisdom. Biblical wisdom includes counting the cost, Christian freedom, and confidence in the sovereignty of God. As we live in an age that idolizes comfort and safety, we should remember the biblical honor due to those who suffer for the Name and be willing to follow their Christ-like example.
Sending churches, agencies, field churches, and missionaries should have a robust theology of risk developed before the moment of crisis. In crisis management, priority should be given to the integrity of the field ministry.
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ISSUES OF MODERN MISSIONS
What Does Hermeneutics Have to Do with Missions?
Hermeneutical principles derived from a firm commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture should drive faithful missions. Poor hermeneutics lead to the poor exegesis of Scripture that has fueled common, unbiblical practices in modern missions. Most missionaries want to be guided by Scripture, yet bad hermeneutics can lead to careless evangelistic methods, unbiblical understandings of conversion, and unhealthy churches. Poor hermeneutics ultimately does damage to disciple-making among the nations. Missionaries should master sound hermeneutical principles and exegetical skills before and throughout their service to continuously evaluate their methods and goals against Scripture.
Read ArticlePragmatism in Missions
The Bible alone is sufficient for defining missions and evaluating missionary methods. Many missionaries, even with a good and biblical desire to spread the gospel, become susceptible to pragmatic missionary methods. These methods prioritize results or rapidity over biblical faithfulness, cultural analysis and experience over Scripture. They are rooted in poor hermeneutics. Such methods undermine biblical authority and lead to confusion of the gospel, conversion, and the local church.
Read ArticleMissionary Methods: Speed vs. Sovereignty - A Case Study
We think biblically rather than pragmatically about our ministry methodology by aiming to be chiefly motivated by the glory of God among the nations. God-centered motivation leads to methods that rely on God’s sovereign power rather than innovative practice. Therefore, we rely on the sufficiency of Scripture—rightly interpreted—to form and judge our ministry practice. As we set our confidence in God and his word, we begin with “What does Scripture teach?” rather than “What will work?” By this, we mean clear gospel proclamation that leads to the formation of robustly biblical local churches that evangelize the world.
Read ArticleContextualization
The missionary's task is to share Christ across geographical, cultural, and linguistic barriers. Contextualization involves presenting the gospel in an understandable and relatable manner (1 Cor. 9:19–23). Such contextualization is vital so the hearer might believe the gospel unto salvation and grow in grace. Proper contextualization displays courage, humility, respect, and sensitivity. Improper contextualization distorts, corrupts, and compromises the timeless truths of Scripture.
Read ArticleUnreached People Groups or Unreached Language Groups?
The terms unreached people group (UPG) and unreached language group (ULG) can focus a church’s mission strategy on those with little or no gospel access. ULG distinguishes people based on language alone, whereas UPG distinguishes people based on additional factors such as national borders and cultural and ethnic differences. ULGs are only groups with no churches or scripture available in their languages. In contrast, UPGs are broader and include groups with too few Christians to evangelize their people without outside help. While UPG and ULG offer wisdom for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, neither are biblically mandated categories. Ministry to both UPGs and ULGs are legitimate parts of the missionary task.
Read ArticleTrade Language or Local Language?
Effectively communicating the gospel and, ultimately, the whole counsel of God should be the goal of every missionary. This governs whether a mother tongue or trade language should be acquired or used according to the linguistic needs and abilities of the focus population. In a healthy gospel ecosystem, many missionaries must continue to learn local languages effectively, despite the difficulty, alongside other missionaries who serve in trade languages.
Read ArticleBible Translation
Christ commanded us to make disciples of all peoples and teach them to obey all that he commanded. Therefore, the goal of Bible translation should be for every person to have access to a Bible in a language they understand in order to establish mature disciples and churches to fulfill this commission. The desire of any church to have the whole Bible in its language, dialect, or form to better facilitate the life of the church should be encouraged whenever possible. For various complex reasons, a complete Bible translation isn’t always possible or necessary for every language.
Bible translations should be accurate, clear, natural, and acceptable, using a translation process that consults the original biblical languages and adheres to the meaning of the original text. They should be done hand-in-hand with the work of planting and edifying local churches. While new advances in methods and technology offer significant help for Bible translation projects, Bible translation remains a complex task, requiring a high investment of time, finances, training, and expertise. History shows that the endeavor of Bible translation requires great sacrifices and is of incalculable value.
Read ArticleReaching the Least Reached People and Language Groups
Reaching the Least Reached People and Language Groups refers to churches sending missionaries to isolated communities with little or no access to the gospel and no established church in their own language, with the goal of making disciples who gather as healthy, indigenous, reproducing churches.
Work among the least reached is essential to fulfilling the Great Commission. Though it continues to be underprioritized, we affirm its importance and urgency. These contexts involve significant linguistic, cultural, geopolitical, and geographic barriers, and require long-term investment in church planting and often Bible translation. Therefore, this mission demands careful preparation, a willingness to endure hardship, adaptability, and sustained commitment from missionaries and senders.
Missionaries in least reached contexts still need the fellowship of a local church. Whenever possible, they should not go alone, but join or work to establish a church as soon as possible, even if it begins with fellow missionaries. While maintaining their pioneering focus, they should also seek partnership with nearby churches across cultures or language groups.
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STRATEGIC MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITIES
What is Non-Traditional Missions?
Non-traditional missions (stateside outreach to refugees, mercy ministries, sports ministries, business as missions, etc.) can advance the Great Commission by providing gospel access, commending the gospel, modeling Christlikeness, and promoting church partnerships. Non-traditional missions should always seek to protect the church’s mission. Non-traditional missions strengthen the local church when they prioritize gospel proclamation and church membership, seek the counsel of church leaders, and function in a supportive role to the church. Non-traditional missions greatly benefit Christ’s Bride if these principles are in place.
Read ArticleWhat About Short-Terms?
Short-term trips are valuable additions in fulfilling the Great Commission when they have a long-term perspective, are field-driven, and partner with field churches and missionaries. Short-term trips done well can connect senders to missions they support, encourage field workers, meet practical field needs, and expose team members to missions, inspiring further involvement in the Great Commission. Short-term trips done poorly can squander resources and disrupt or destroy the long-term work of missions.
Read ArticleStrategic University Student Ministry
University student ministry plays a vital role in missions by reaching and mobilizing the next generation with the gospel. Students are a diverse group of people who have availability during a formative stage of life. Students reached with the gospel during these years have often become leaders and laborers for the church. Key elements of healthy student ministry include bold evangelism and faithful discipleship.
Student ministry leaders should promote the primacy of the local church through practices such as serving as members in a local church and discipling believing students toward meaningful church membership. Student ministries should not act as a substitute of the local church and refrain from carrying out practices exclusively given to the church (e.g. baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Churches would be wise to fully embrace student members as important co-laborers in the ministry of the church.
Read ArticlePastoral Internships: A Driving Force for Missions
Central to the Great Commission is the training of new leaders who will be able to advance the gospel farther afield. Pastoral internships are one key strategy for equipping future generations of qualified leaders, whether in sending churches at home or in churches already deployed on the field.
Read ArticleMissions in an Urban Context
With more than half of the world’s population living in cities and urbanization increasing, churches should give consideration to the unique opportunities in the world’s urban centers. The diversity and accessibility found in cities provide the opportunity for multicultural ministry using majority and trade languages, in addition to other ministries focusing on specific people groups.
Read ArticleHealthy Churches in Hard Places:
Church Planting Among the Urban Poor
Over a billion people live in extreme poverty. They are deprived of basic resources. Their lives are exceedingly difficult, marked by high rates of crime, widespread addiction, physical and mental health challenges, abuse, and neglect. Well-intentioned Christians tend to focus relief efforts primarily on the physical and temporal needs of those in poverty, addressing only the symptoms. However, the end goal of missions is not to alleviate poverty but to reconcile mankind to God. Only the gospel holds the power to transform lives eternally. A healthy church clarifies the gospel, engages in long-term discipleship, contributes wisely to the relief of the poor, and offers enduring hope amid earthly trials. Healthy churches that proclaim, display, and live out the gospel in the hardest places are a witness to the power of God to transform communities and provide true and lasting joy.
Read ArticleImmigrant Churches
An immigrant church is a local church composed of those who operate in a language other than the trade or national language. A shared language is recognized in God’s Word as necessary for clear gospel understanding and the ongoing life of the church. These language-specific churches are crucial for serving many first-generation immigrants and their children. Unlike language, cultural differences themselves are never sufficient cause for planting separate churches. Yet immigrants are a valuable part of the body of Christ that face unique barriers. Immigrant churches also serve their members as they navigate the obstacles of their host country. Planting immigrant churches is, therefore, a vital way to serve an often-overlooked community and the broader kingdom by removing barriers to the advance of the gospel. Like any church, the long-term goal of immigrant churches should be to reflect the diversity of heaven.
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PLANTING CHURCHES ON THE FIELD
What is Church Planting?
Churches planting churches is the aim of missions. Church planting is gathering a new body of baptized believers in Christ who commit to one another, rightly administer the ordinances, and regularly sit under the preaching of the Word. Missionaries and churches should not stop at this bare minimum for church but should work to cultivate all the biblical characteristics of healthy churches. Missionaries should prioritize biblical principles even as they give serious attention to contextualization. Missionaries play a valuable role in the churches they plant as they teach and model faithful discipleship, leadership, and membership.
Read ArticleA Biblical Blueprint for Global Churches:
Same Ecclesiology, Different Expressions
Biblically faithful churches should look more alike than different regardless of cultural context because every church should obey the same Scriptures and glorify the same Lord Jesus. There are structures and characteristics prescribed by Scripture that apply to churches in every context. It is, therefore, crucial for churches not only to proclaim biblical doctrine but also order their congregational lives biblically in order to fulfill the Great Commission.
Read ArticleHow Should the Church Look in this Culture?
The Regulative Principle and
Cross-Cultural Church Planting
A church that relies upon the ordinary means of grace by following the regulative principle of worship is profoundly relevant for missions and displays God’s wisdom over all cultures. Such a church limits our focus to biblical elements in worship and practice, frees us to express those elements in various cultural forms, unites us with other biblical churches across time and place, and glorifies God as the only Author, Savior, and Lord of the Church.
Read ArticleInternational Churches:
Detour or Another Tool?
An international church should endeavor to be growing in health, pursuing local relationships, and equipping indigenous leaders with the explicit goal of planting and strengthening other local churches.
Read ArticleThe Strategic Role of International Churches
Healthy international churches commend the gospel to the world and are a key missions strategy for the Great Commission; consequently, they are launch pads for gospel ministry throughout the world, worthy of partnership, resources, and support.
Read ArticleWhat is a Healthy Indigenous Church?
A healthy indigenous church submits to the authority of Scripture above all things and is unified by faith in the true gospel, hope in Christ, and love for one another. It should have primarily indigenous elders and deacons, be marked by the biblical principles of a healthy church, and worship in a local language. Further, it should have a biblically contextualized church life with faithful sacrificial giving and service by its members.
Read ArticleHealthy Indigenous Church: How Do We Get There?
These are the critical steps in establishing a healthy indigenous church:
Equip and send a biblically qualified missionary.
Establish a meaningful presence.
Practice biblically faithful, contextually adept evangelism and disciple-making.
Aim to constitute a biblically ordered church with biblically qualified leaders.
Aim for the church to have an outward as well as an inward orientation.
Missionaries should not wait until an indigenous church is established to be meaningfully joined with a church. The missionary’s work reaches a crucial stage but does not end when local leaders are raised, and the congregation takes responsibility to guard the gospel.
A missionary who seeks to plant and establish an indigenous church must be equipped to patiently establish a meaningful presence (ongoing language and culture acquisition), persevere through cultural and ministry difficulties (including isolation and other losses), and persist in sound teaching and practice in the face of temptation to pragmatism.
Read ArticleRaising Up Indigenous Leaders
The Bible commands church leaders to entrust sound doctrine to biblically qualified men who can teach others. For a missionary, this task takes on a particular urgency due to the often temporary nature of their stay in one place and the realization that indigenous leaders may be more effective. There are two pitfalls to avoid when raising indigenous leaders. The first is what Paul addresses when he counsels Timothy not to be hasty in laying on of hands. Many missionaries, in a desire for quick results, need to be more cautious in evaluating the ability to teach sound doctrine and the presence of godly character. The second is over-carefulness, which unnecessarily delays giving young leaders ministry opportunities. Entrusting ministry means providing opportunities to men who may fail. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this tension.
Read ArticleMissionary Membership in Indigenous Churches
As a part of an indigenous local church, the role of a missionary is to be a faithful member. As such, they should aim to support, encourage, and strengthen the church. Furthermore, their role ought to be shaped by the indigenous local church and its leadership, and it will vary according to the needs and health of the church. While sent out as missionaries, they should take the posture of sacrificial servants and humble co-laborers whose primary goal is not their own personal ambition but building Jesus' church.
Read ArticleBe Generous but Avoid Financial Dependence
Indigenous churches must be planted with the aim to exist independently of foreign support and flourish in the grace of giving. Financial independence should be included in our planning, teaching, and methods, recognizing this may be countercultural and take years to achieve. When outside support is deemed wise, it’s best to establish accountable means of giving that strengthen the congregation’s giving. Ongoing foreign support of essential church functions, such as salaries and meeting space expenses can create an unhealthy dependence that inhibits the church’s sustainability.
Read ArticlePassing the Baton:
Handing Off the Ministry to Indigenous Leadership
Jesus commands us to make disciples in the context of local churches until he returns. Missionaries should always prayerfully consider the future and who the Lord might raise as leaders. In the course of discipling local believers, missionaries should look for those who demonstrate both biblical character and competency for ministry. Missionaries should work alongside and train prospective leaders with the aim of entrusting the ongoing work to them; after all, the Lord might providentially redirect their steps. The timing of this process is different in every case and should be carried out with prayer and godly counsel. After handing off the ministry to local leaders, the missionary may or may not stay to serve in other roles. The biblical precedent is maintaining a relationship of encouragement, counsel, and prayer. Ultimately, a missionary should entrust the work to the Lord with confidence that the Lord builds his church.
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