7 Tips for Helping Your Church Prioritize Missions
This article is part of the 7 Tips series.
Keep Missions Forefront
Every church wants to prioritize missions. Whether you live in India or America, Russia or Venezuela, if you are a Christian, you are eager for your church to engage faithfully in the Great Commission. Sadly, it’s easy to prioritize everything but missions. We can put the numerical growth of our church above missions. We can put caring for the poor above missions. We can even put theological depth above missions. Of course, this need not be the case! Faithful churches can simultaneously care about growth, mercy ministry, and doctrinal fidelity while still prioritizing missions. I urge you and your church to always keep missions in the crosshairs of your ministry.
But how? Here are seven tips for helping your church prioritize missions:
1. Have a biblical definition of missions.
Missions is church planting across significant barriers. In this sense, missions differs from evangelism and, in one way, is more difficult. You should evangelize family members, which can be extremely challenging. Nonetheless, in most cases, there are no significant barriers to evangelizing an unbelieving spouse, parent, or child. You speak the same language, live in the same region (or at least country), and enjoy a shared history.
In contrast, Paul and Barnabas made a dangerous trek to Asia when they began their first missionary journey. Though they spoke the same language, thanks to the prevalence of Greek, they faced steep opposition (Acts 14:19–23). Later, Paul planned to go to Spain where he would have had to learn a new dialect (Rom. 15:20, 28).
When you consider the New Testament commands and examples together, I agree with Jonathan Leeman, Brooks Buser, and Scott Logdson who argue that “missions involves churches sending qualified workers across linguistic, geographic, or cultural barriers to start or strengthen churches, especially in places where Christ has not been named.” Before making it a priority, your church needs to know what missions is.
Prioritizing Missions in the Church
Aaron Menikoff, Harshit Singh
In this brief, insightful guide, pastors Aaron Menikoff from Atlanta, Georgia, and Harshit Singh from Lucknow, India, share their journeys leading their churches to be more missions-centered by taking the gospel across geographic, cultural, and linguistic barriers.
2. See missions as strengthening churches.
It is striking that Paul both started and strengthened churches during his missionary travels. This is important. It means missionaries (and the churches that send them) need to commit to ensuring the churches they start are equipped to withstand the test of time. This may make missionary endeavors slower initially, but in the long run, healthy churches will send out more and better missionaries.
It is instructive that the apostle chose to revisit the churches he and Barnabas started (Acts 14:21–23). Paul knew these young congregations needed encouragement and strengthening in the faith. Missions is not only about starting churches but also about supporting established congregations in strategic parts of the world that need assistance.
3. Be a faithful church.
We all know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Fathers who play cricket raise sons who play cricket. Mothers who sew raise daughters who sew. The exceptions only prove the rule—our children are a lot like us!
So it is with missions. Churches send out pastors and missionaries committed to “doing” the ministry they’ve witnessed. Therefore, the churches that prioritize missions most effectively are those with a ministry worthy of reproduction. In other words, the DNA of the church must be strong and faithful.
At minimum, a church ready to send missionaries will be governed by Scripture, have a heartbeat for God’s glory, be led by wise and careful elders, prize spiritual growth as much as numerical growth, and be full of members who are willing to carry their cross and follow Christ.
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4. Preach, pray, and sing the Bible.
It’s one thing to prioritize missions for one week a year, but it’s another thing altogether for missions to be woven into the fabric of your congregation. A focus on missions shouldn’t be a fad. It needs to be part of the very essence of the congregation.
Churches that prioritize missions consistently keep the Bible’s storyline front and center. From children’s and adult education to the weekly sermon, from corporate prayer to the songs sung, churches must emphasize God’s grand plan to make a name for himself among all nations. This demands a proper understanding—from the pastor to the nursery worker—of the Bible’s overarching narrative.
Because missions is a central theme of the Bible—from the call of Abram in Genesis to people from every tribe, language, people, and nation gathered around the Lamb in Revelation—missions will be prioritized as the Bible is proclaimed.
5. Be thoughtful in the little things.
Your church, big or small, has many opportunities to beat the drumbeat of the Great Commission. Small decisions add up to a church that wholeheartedly prioritizes missions.
For example, when missionaries visit, take excellent care of them—do everything you can to, spiritually speaking, put wind in their sails. Gain a reputation for loving missionaries well. Work to allocate an increasing percentage of your budget to Great Commission ministry, since “where your treasure is, there your heart will be” (Matt. 6:21). Finally, organize meaningful short-term trips. Not all short-term mission trips serve the same purpose, but the overarching goal should be to support the long-term missionaries in the field.
Churches that prioritize missions consistently keep the Bible’s storyline front and center.
6. Send ordinary Christians to the mission field.
In one sense, missionaries really do need to be extraordinary. This is why I so appreciate Elliot Clark’s book, Missionary Affirmed, which raises the bar of excellence.
By “ordinary” I simply mean that those you send should exemplify the basics of the Christian life—basics that, sadly, are often overlooked. Find members who model a love for God, his word, people, hospitality, holiness, and the church. As simple as this sounds, these are the men and women who can persevere for decades on the mission field.
7. Be patient.
Dear reader, this is crucial. We live in an impatient age. We want to microwave our meals, read our news in bullet points, and use AI to write our emails. When it comes to missions, quality cannot be fast-tracked. William Carey’s church told him to pause before they were willing to send him out as a pastor. He needed time to grow and mature.
To be sure, everyone is different. But churches that prioritize missions care more about sending the right missionary than sending many missionaries. We believe the parable of the mustard seed applies to mobilizing Christians for Great Commission work: “Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches” (Matt. 13:32). Send mustard seeds overseas and trust the Lord to grow trees!
We pray that churches worldwide, from all faithful denominations, would prioritize missions, and that through their faithfulness, the twenty-first century would experience a glorious, God-given revival.
Aaron Menikoff is the coauthor with Harshit Singh of Prioritizing Missions in the Church.
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