ENGAGE:The Future of Missions
I’m not a theologian or a missiologist, but I am an experienced observer.
Almost 20 years ago I made my first trip into China. Until that time I was a mission’s “supporter” . I tried to understand the need and look for ways to support the work. I gave money, attended services where missionarys shared their stories and I even opened my home a few times to some missionary families. I was ahead of the curve by my generation’s standards.
But I have watched the paradigm shift and it’s picking up steam.
The next generation isn’t “supporting” missions.
Rarely will you find a young family that just sends a check and occaisionally comes to a service for a slide show of a missionarie’s work.
The next generation isn’t “supporting” missions.
They’re “engaging” in missions.
They are taking short term trips in record numbers. They are financially adopting orphans and corresponding with them. They are building habitat houses, serving in hot meal programs, collecting can goods, donating clothing to clothing banks, skyping across the globe, emailing international friends and opening their homes to foreign exchange students from local universities. They are committing their careers and leveraging their education, skills and talents to serve in mission roles all over the world.
I sat in a global medical conference at Southeast Christian in Lousville a couple of years ago surrounded by hundreds of medical students who were not trying to calculate their six digit income out of medical school, but they were trying to find the best place to pour their lives into an under served medical need outside of the US. It’s the best and the brightest and their stepping up to the need in record numbers.
If you are a church, a mission agency, a missionary or a even a denomination and you are trying to get the next generation to “support” your mission’s program…your chasing the old paradigm.
They want to “engage”.
We know the needs are huge, but we had better provide massive numbers of “engaging” opportunities because they are going to out number the “supporter” generation in numbers that will change the world.
Hi Bob,
I am not questioning God about when I was born, just wondering why I was born into the “support” generation when my heart has, and is, in the “engage” generation. I’m sure He has a perfect answer. Just wondering????? However…..He made me and therefore knows my heart, and my desires, even better than I do, and ……”Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
[...] address this issue of cultural engagement a little in my post called Engage: the future of missions, but Phil has me thinking about this whole thing from several [...]