January is a great time to look back on how God had worked through your church in missions and look forward to how your church can take the next steps in fulfilling the great commission. Here are some ideas to consider as your church looks to support missions and raise up missionaries from you congregation.

• Raise mission awareness in your church. Highlight a missionary every month in your church. Update your missions display, or, if you do not have one yet, set one up to promote missions. Share newsletters from missionaries (with their permission). Review and update the missions page of your church web site.
• Consider sending a team. Short-term teams can be a great way to connect with your missionaries. They allow your church to see the ministries of your missionaries firsthand, promote prayer, and can lead to recruitment of new missionaries.
• Missionary Reports. Ask your missionaries for a report on their ministry. How have things been going? What have been some challenges? What have been some successes? How is their family? How can you better support them?
• Financial support. It is surprising how often missionaries are underfunded. It is not uncommon for ministry workers to take less than their full salary in order to remain in ministry. Consider sending one-time gifts, increasing regular giving, or taking on a new missionary.
• Video call with missionaries. Zoom, Teams, Skype, and so many other services offer ways to connect with your missionaries face to face. It is inexpensive and a great way to keep in contact with them. (Just remember that they are in a different time zone and plan appropriately.)
• Host a prayer event. It could be a day, a week or a month-long time of promoting prayer for missions. When churches pray for missionaries they are not only supporting their ministry, they are engaging in ministry with them.
• Host a mission weekend. Week-long mission conferences are rarely done anymore. Instead, plan a weekend for missions in your church. Invite a mission speaker, host some of your missionaries, plan a dinner where you serve foods from the locations where your missionaries serve.
• Review your mission policy. Do you have a mission policy? If so, now would be a great time to review it to see if it needs updating. If not, now would be a great time to start developing one. Either way, Dave Bliss or Steve Austvold would be happy to visit your church and help work through policy development with you.
• Check out the North Central District Church Missions Involvement Quick Guide. It is a great place to go to give your church missions teams ideas on possible next steps in ministry.
• Support the North Central District Foundation. Consider adding the NCD Foundation to your mission budget.  This money will go to revitalizing NCD churches and starting new churches in our district.  Contact Paul Anderson for information.

Blessings,

Dave Bliss