MISSIONS POLICIES MATTER: A Key to Missionary Effectiveness

STATEMENT

Sending churches should have robust policies for partnerships with missionaries on the field, guided by the following principles: 

1. Known to and affirmed by the congregation

2. Strategic placement

3. Faithful ministry

4. Fruitful ministry

5. Intentional end of service

Article Written by Blaine Boyd

My friend, the newly installed pastor of a dying downtown church, faced so many withering problems that he wondered if he had signed on just to go down with the ship. Yet my friend committed to stay; he preached the gospel, prayed fervently, and loved the (elderly) congregation with all he had. By God's grace, the congregation turned from what seemed to be a shipwreck into the vibrant, healthy church it is today.

Early in this church revitalization, the pastor pressed the church leaders about their supported missionaries. This raised some uncomfortable questions. Who were these people? Did anybody from the church visit them on the field? Why were we supporting them? What are they doing? Do they agree with the aims of our church in missions? Come to think of it, what are our aims in missions? Nobody seemed to know. The fact that the missionaries were willing to go and willing to stay seemed like enough reason to keep supporting them.

We can sympathize with this church. They want to honor these missionaries’ sacrifices without quenching their zeal for the nations, so they avoid asking difficult questions. After all, isn’t there a mission agency overseeing things? 

Unfortunately, this posture has led churches to continue supporting missionaries regardless of gospel impact, mission alignment, or even meaningful relationships. They support these missionaries simply because they have historically done so.

In many cases, a church will support a missionary because the missionary has a relationship with a pastor or church member. But pastors take new jobs, members move, and meaningful relationships are lost, too.  Other times, churches support missionaries who no longer serve in a place the church considers strategic.

Yes, mission agencies can be helpful in missionary partnerships, but they do not relieve a church of its stewardship. Churches must make wise and sometimes hard decisions about existing partnerships.

To that end, churches will be helped by straightforward and robust policies that govern their ongoing partnerships.

A church that spends time developing mission policies will direct new missionaries to strategic places that are aligned with the church’s priorities. Once on the field, the missionary will clearly understand what is required for an ongoing relationship with the church. When the day comes for the missionary to return from the field, the church will have laid out a clear pathway for helping the missionary’s end of service.

The following five areas should shape a church’s missionary policies.  They are general guidelines; expectations should be shaped by the amount of support.  So, if the church gives a major percentage of the missionaries budget you should base your expectations accordingly.

1. Known and Affirmed by the Congregation

The first order is to establish clear “partnership policies” that ensure the missionary remains known to the congregation, which will allow a congregation to continue to affirm the missionary’s ongoing work.

This is best accomplished in four ways.

Involvement in the Church

The best way for a congregation to know a future missionary is for that person to be a part of the church staff or a church internship. If a church is unwilling to put a person on their staff, it’s likely they should not send them to the mission field. If this strategy is impractical (perhaps the church is too small), then it’s wise to look for other ways to involve a missionary candidate in the life of your church.

Reporting

Policies should ensure that missionary partnerships are regularly assessed. Regular missionary prayer letters are helpful. Annual reports do not burden the missionary but can encourage the missionary to take time to reflect on what God has done over the year. Zoom calls with church members and committees can also be helpful for relationship building.

Visits to the Field

It’s hugely encouraging for missionaries to receive visits from their sending church’s leaders or members. Even short-term visits can build strong relational bonds. But these visits should have a clear goal: to serve the missionary and build relationships. First make sure to ask the missionary what needs they have.  Make sure to ask what is a good timing for a visit.  Make sure these trips are “field driven” and not for the missionary to serve the church’s discipleship goals. Visits to the field are the most valuable way to maintain trust and to assess the missionary's work.

Missionary Furloughs

Much of this depends on the support a church offers its missionaries. But if your church is a key financial partner or sending church, then it would not be unreasonable to expect the missionary to visit regularly with a focus on rest and strengthening relationships.  

2. Strategic Placement

Policies for strategic areas of missionary work can also help a church steward missionary resources. No church can support missionaries everywhere doing everything. Focusing on strategic places can ensure churches have the right relationships with missionaries they support even before they leave for the field. 

A church should think through questions like:

• Is the missionary’s placement strategic for the unreached or the unengaged? 

• Will their specific focus serve to advance work or merely duplicate what’s already been done in an area?

• How will this placement help strengthen or plant local churches?

• Can this missionary partner with other supported missionaries already on the field?

Every church should consider the places in the world that have the greatest need for the gospel. They should consider how a prospective missionary’s gifts, opportunities, and desires align with serving a portion of that need. A strategic placement policy will help a church decide where the majority of its support and sending energy should go.

3. Faithful Ministry

Personal Fidelity

Missionaries are often given hero status in the church. We want to recognize and honor men and women whose lives reflect Christlike sacrifice and love, but we also must be careful not to assume all missionaries deserve this kind of honor. Unfortunately, it’s far too common for churches to honor missionaries even if they’re no longer faithful or fruitful. Sometimes, this happens to a missionary simply because they’re burnt out. Work on the field is hard, and they’ve lost their gospel zeal. Sometimes, missionaries fall into patterns of sin that compromise their witness. In other, more tragic times, missionaries walk away from the faith because like Demas, they loved the world (2 Timothy 4:10).

It might seem strange that unfaithful missionaries would remain on the field. But there are many reasons for this. Some will stay because they don’t want to disrupt their children’s school. Many simply don’t know what else they would do; they don’t have the education or the skills that would translate into an attractive resumé back home. They don’t know how they could provide for themselves if they ever left the field. We should have great sympathy for such people; they often have sacrificed careers and opportunities for mission work. And yet, God calls us to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us (Matthew 25:14-30). Financially supporting people who have lost their way is simply not good stewardship. 

Biblical Fidelity

Churches should never abdicate their responsibility to hold missionaries to biblical fidelity.  

For example, is the missionary using strategies that build on wood, hay, or straw? In the end, will their work go up in smoke and prove worthless, or is it a work of pure gold that will last (1 Corinthians 3:10–15)?

One might think that a good initial vetting process will prevent supporting unfaithful ministries and strategies, but that isn’t always true. Churches must guard the Great Commission by encouraging missionaries to remain faithful to gospel-centered mission work, especially as many missionaries are tempted to trade theologically-informed methods for more anthropologically-driven ones.

Like good practitioners in any field, missionaries are keen to continue learning and trying new things. But often, the new shiny strategies that seem to bring the most fruit are the ones that compromise on biblical doctrine and practice. Impressive numbers cannot trump faithfulness to Scripture, and a church is responsible for helping its missionaries remember this. Too often, churches allow missionaries to do things a church would never do in its local context.

Partnerships with good mission agencies will help churches assess the faithfulness of their missionaries. But again, they cannot replace their own relationship and assessment. Sadly, many mission agencies are over-encumbered, while others do not carefully prohibit unbiblical methods. Sometimes, mission agencies themselves are complicit in leaving people on the mission field well beyond their time. For all these reasons and more, churches need robust policies that define faithful ministry and explain how that faithfulness can be assessed.

4. Fruitful Ministry

A missionary family had spent years in the Middle East attempting to find their long-term ministry. They moved between countries. They tried engaging different people groups and developing new strategies. They threw lots of things at the wall, but nothing stuck. Their overseas ministry showed little direction and even less fruit. Fellow missionaries questioned the family’s helpfulness to the cause, and some were concerned about their presence. And yet, they stayed because churches continued to support them. 

Missionaries occasionally change location and ministry focus. That’s fine. A church should seek to encourage and care for missionaries during stressful and potentially disheartening transitions. But a church should not feel required to transition with them. One missionary couple left an unreached location in Asia during Covid to settle into a European city where they hoped to connect with expats from their previous mission field. The cost of living increased significantly, and access to the people they hoped to minister among became more difficult. Further, they moved to a city with many healthy churches and ministry resources. A change like this is much easier to assess when policies exist. 

Admittedly, it can be tricky to assess a missionary’s fruitfulness. After all, God is the one who gives the growth. We simply sow seeds. But it’s also true that some people are gifted for international ministry, and some are not. Some people are zealous for international ministry, and some are not. Sometimes, we find someone who is zealous for international ministry but not gifted. Such a person probably isn’t going to have a fruitful ministry. As Mack Stiles frequently says, “Buying a plane ticket doesn’t make you a missionary.” Ideally, the initial sending process will screen out an unqualified missionary. But sometimes, they make it to the field, and it is the church's responsibility to continue to assess the fruitfulness or potential fruitfulness of any missionary they send.

As the Apostle Paul makes clear: he planted, but God made it grow (1 Corinthians 3:6). So we must also recognize that sometimes fruit is slow-growing. Some faithful missionaries labor for years in hard places before seeing any fruit. William Carey, the father of modern missions, and a fruitful missionary, worked for seven years in India before baptizing his first convert. Therefore, we must be careful. Demanding instant fruit is unfaithful to Scripture and tempts missionaries to unfaithful methods.

Thankfully, there are times when a lack of fruitfulness is more apparent. A young missionary family moved to a European ghetto because they wanted to see a church planted there. After several years, they had not planted a church nor seen anyone confess Christ. Moreover, they had yet to build any meaningful relationships. They were not learning a language. They had little to report from their time other than the trials they had experienced and the prayer walks they had taken. After some time, their sending church rightly reassessed the partnership—not because they couldn’t show a church or a convert, but because they couldn’t offer any meaningful progress. 

Sometimes, fruitfulness might be assessed by answering questions that have nothing to do with conversions or churches planted. Is the missionary growing in language competency? Can he or she show that they are developing meaningful relationships? Is there some growth to account for the missionary’s time on the field?

5. Intentional End of Service

Finally, it would be unloving to a missionary to have policies that assess faithfulness and fruitfulness but never address end-of-service issues. End-of-service policies help the church know when to end a relationship and how to do so lovingly.

Intentional end-of-service policies begin with policies governing financial support. Missionaries are often unprepared to return from the field because they have not invested in relocation or retirement. Helping missionaries pre-plan financially can avoid many of these issues.  It’s best to gradually reduce support in a set time frame rather than end support suddenly.

Reestablishing life in their home country can be daunting, especially for older missionaries. Churches should have policies that help bring these missionaries home. Usually, these retiring missionaries need more than just relocation funds; they need emotional support for the difficult transition.

End-of-service policies must define how to help missionaries reacclimate to their native country. Often, churches with no plan functionally abandon returning missionaries to fend for themselves. Seemingly overnight, churches that have been in partnership for years are suddenly focused on others. So churches should be prepared to help with policies that spell out what a missionary can expect regarding financial help, housing, counseling, and more.

Ending missionary service can be especially difficult when, on certain occasions, a church must tell a missionary that they will end the partnership due to faithlessness or fruitlessness. These decisions may seem subjective or, even worse, personal. Thankfully, preexisting policies that  establish clear expectations and commitments can soften the blow of these painful conversations. Even struggling missionaries can be brought home in a loving, supportive manner.

Sometimes, even a fruitful missionary needs to be brought home. When is the task complete? When is it better for the local ministry to move on without the influence of the missionary? These questions can be tricky to assess for both the missionary and the church. In many cases, a mission agency will have a voice in such situations, but churches should not neglect their responsibility to help their missionaries with clear policies.

Healthy, biblical missions requires churches to have a meaningful relationship with their missionaries. Those relationships will not develop accidentally. They require intentionality, and this burden rests on churches. It is a matter of brotherly love, financial stewardship, and gospel fidelity. To that end, a robust set of mission policies will help.