Dear Pastors and Mission Leaders,

Greetings in Christ.  How is your mission team doing?  Do you need more members?  Do you even have a mission team?  Do you know the purpose for your mission team?  What are you supposed do to as a mission team?  Are you too busy with life to even think about missions?  What might be missing with your mission team?  Where do you turn for help?  Books have been written for mission teams.  Maybe, today you might need a little help or encouragement.  Here are some ideas to help you move forward.

• Gather your mission team for a time of prayer. Pray for each other.  Pray for your missionaries.  Pray for your church.  Focus on thanksgiving during the month of November.  We all have much to be thankful for this year.
• Ask yourself, what is good about your mission team? What are you doing well as a mission team?  Focus on the positive aspects of your team and on what you do.
• What is missing from your mission team? Do you need a leader?  Do you need more members?  Do you need direction?  Pray about what you need to add.
• What one step do you need to do now as a team? One church mission team recently said that they need to add mission moments during the morning service.
• What next step(s) do you need to take in the next six months? Here you should be creative in your prayers, planning and dreaming of what you’d like to do.  Take one or two steps that are manageable for your team.
• What about the next year? Plan for early in 2022 to have a time of discussion on your team about longer range goals and plans.  Talk with the church leadership about what they would like to see come from the mission team.  Maybe, it is highlighting your missionaries, adding new missionaries, adding new team members, doing a short-term mission, increasing your mission budget, having a mission focused worship service, reaching out into your community, getting better connected with ReachGlobal, inviting your missionaries to come for a visit, having more prayer focused on your missionaries, starting a mission partnership, or writing a mission policy.
• Find a mission book that your team can read together. Here are a few suggestions:

–The Mission Leadership Team by David Mays

–Today’s All Star Mission Churches by Tom Telford

Blessings,

Steve Austvold