Caring for those we send

And so and then when we have, you know, membership meetings, we you pray for them. So you're just kind of constantly reminding the people so they don't forget. And then when the couple comes home, they're being embraced in smaller settings so people can ask. You have them in between services so people can ask. You're just going out of your way for them to feel like they're still connected and that the church is also still connected to them.

Eric Burns: keeping sent couples connected, in prayer and when they come home.

Clarity that this brings to the whole question of sending. It brings clarity to those who are sent to missionaries. Who has sent you? To whom are you accountable? Yes, ultimately to God, but to whom are you accountable in the way in which God uses the means of the church? You're accountable to the church of Jesus Christ.

To whom are missionaries accountable?

This must be a priority for churches. If you're doing well as a church, one of the key metrics should be how well your exercise oversight, not just on your on-site pastoral staff, but of those you're supporting who have been sent out.

A key metric: how well a church oversees those it has sent.

This is what you're signing up for. Churches can so often mistake writing checks for exercising responsibility and oversight and care. This biblical conclusion that we see, this biblical picture isn't hostile towards agencies and the wonderful good things they do, but it does reorient us to the proper order. Sending remains the church's responsibility.

Checks are not oversight and care.

And I fear that many churches have too many missionaries today. They are but a face on a prayer card. I do not know your denomination. I don't know your church style of missions. but if you cannot hear and speak in this way, if you do not have sorrow upon sorrow when your missionaries are hurting, if you do not have anxiety when they are in danger, and if you do not have over-the-moon joy in their success, then you do not know your missionaries and you're doing something wrong.

When does a church have too many missionaries?

With regard to this particular subject. "But we're going to send you out to do the hardest thing on earth, in the hardest place on earth. and by the way, unlike our pastor, who gets a salary, you go raise your money. We don't send the pastor out to raise his money. So can, I commend to pastors, if you really believe this person ought to be sent, help them raise the money. Your elders, your deacons, your church, step up and help. Help them. Don't just send them out there to do it all by themselves.

Don't make missionaries raise all their own money.

And so it's it's lamentable that you may need to be part of the teaching and shaping of their expectations. You you may need to both model and some sense articulate what what biblical evangelism and church planting looks like in your context so that they can understand it better and ask better questions. But the reason I say everyone in the room needs to hear this because ideally ideally those who are sending you and those who are supporting you would would understand that and would and would wouldn't be putting that kind of pressure on you for results that that aren't yours to provide.

Master to a missionary under pressure from supporters.

We have teams in our church that are assigned to contact them monthly. um we try to do pastoral visits to them. So that wouldn't just be me, but um other elders um or missions team leaders who will go in to the field to visit. um And and so we're trying to care for them in a number of ways, but I think the single biggest focus that keeps that in front of us is we haven't sent them out there and now it's time that they're doing their thing, we're doing our thing out of sight, out of mind. It's constantly keeping it before us. So we pray for them in every corporate worship service. um We pray for them in our prayer meeting our Sunday evening prayer meeting once once a month it's just for our missionaries.

How Chad's church cares for its missionaries.

We have teams in our church that are assigned to contact them monthly. um we try to do pastoral visits to them. So that wouldn't just be me, but um other elders um or missions team leaders who will go in to the field to visit. um And and so we're trying to care for them in a number of ways, but I think the single biggest focus that keeps that in front of us is we haven't sent them out there and now it's time that they're doing their thing, we're doing our thing out of sight, out of mind. It's constantly keeping it before us. So we pray for them in every corporate worship service. um We pray for them in our prayer meeting our Sunday evening prayer meeting once once a month it's just for our missionaries.

Praying for them and introducing them to every new member.