MissionFundraising.com/JimWaltersOnline.com

Technorati Tags: 501(c)3 ministry, mission fundraising, missionary fundraising, missionary support, missions support, nonprofit ministry, short term missions, support fundraising

My family and I used to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) in Papua New Guinea (PNG, just north of Australia). We lived in-country for a total of six years. My role was as a missionary pilot. The role of WBT is to translate the New Testament (or more, if able) into the viable languages that have no written scriptures in their own langauge.

Whenever a Bible Translation Project reaches its “completion”, there is a large celebration by the people-group receiving the published scriptures. One item that many people in “sending nations” find peculiar is that the receiving people are asked to buy the scriptures that have just been translated into their language. “We’re talking about the scriptures here, and salvation…and, you’re a ‘missionary’. Why are you charging for the work of the ministry?”

Meanwhile, there is an interesting website called “Business as Mission Network“, and it promotes exactly what its title implies, “Using businesses as an opportunity for spreading the Gospel.” Some of their tenets are:

• Committed to The Local Church: The business supports partnership with the indigenous church in the community.
• Glorifying to God: The name of God is the ultimate object of praise, not the name of the business.

One of these opportunities is providing business loans to people in developing countries. To the chagrin of some, the lenders charge interest for their loans. But, there is an interesting dynamic when it comes to money and certain types of product, including “christian product”. This same dynamic also appears in PNG regarding translated New Testaments: “If it’s free, it must not have much value. It isn’t worth much, otherwise you wouldn’t be “giving” it to me.”

Hope International is a non-profit Christian-based organization which has the goal of alleviating poverty via holistic means, including providing the business loans mentioned above…and again, they charge interest. But listen to a question they sometimes receive: “Why do you charge interest to the poor? Why not just offer interest-free loans or grants?” In reply, a woman who has her own counseling business directed at the poor stated:

• “It actually makes a lot of sense why they charge interest.” She shared that when her practice first opened, decades ago, she provided free counsel to underprivileged women—single mothers, former inmates, etc. “They rarely showed up for our scheduled sessions. If they did show up, they kind of blew it off.” She went on to discuss why she now charges these at-risk clients. While she discounts her service significantly, she still charges a fee. The change, as she described it, has been remarkable. “Now these women value my services. They come on time, they are invested, and they soak up every minute of their sessions. It’s been a dramatic shift since I’ve started charging a fee.”

Just as “freedom isn’t ‘cheap’ just because it’s ‘free”, neither is the gospel, nor any other commodity of value. Providing “free” money is counter-intuitive; providing free Bibles sometimes “devalues” God’s message; providing free counseling requires no commitment to change…thus, we charge a fee!

Somebody once “tweeted” in Twitter and asked why this website, MissionFundraising.com, charges $12.77 for its eBooks that supposedly help missionaries and church planters spread the Word. The author of these books, Jim Walters, replies:

Technorati Tags: Business As Mission Network, church planting, gospel, Hope International, papua new guinea, wycliffe bible translators

Take a look at this short, 3-minute video. In the beginning you will see an airstrip, and an airplane landing on the airstrip. This is taken in Papua New Guinea, where I used to be a missionary pilot with Wycliffe Bible Translators. While this video may not necessarily be of me, I have literally and personally flown the plane shown, landed on the airstrip shown, and flown this gentleman and his family in and out of the village shown.

Bible Translation is a lengthy and very worth-while task. Many translators work on a language project for 15-20 years, just to provide the New Testament to a people group, so that they could read with their own eyes, and understand with their own heart, what God has to say to them.

Whatever your role in missions, whether evangelism, church planting, technical support, accounting, carpentry or plumbing, furthering the Gospel is the greatest and most significant task you could undertake here on earth.

There are many roles you could play in your short term mission trip, not all of which are directly linked to “sharing the message.” My family served in a support role for over 7 years while we worked in Haiti and Papua New Guinea. We supported and assisted those who were more directly involved in Bible Translation.

Take whatever skill you have, and use it. You can either directly or indirectly impact the Work. God “needs” and uses both.

Gary Skrobot

Technorati Tags: bible translation, jaars, maf, mission aviation, wycliffe bible translators

This is a reprint from CalebResources.org and MissionCatalyst, which can be found here.

MissionFundraising.com is dedicated to providing resources for short-term mission support, church planting support, and other nonprofit ministries. We hope you find this article useful.

Sorting It Out: Simple Questions for Debriefing Short-termers

Source: Marti Smith, Caleb Resources

As a mission mobilizer I’m both pleased and a bit worried at what Steve Moore calls “the punkification of missions.” You know: here’s a chord, here’s another chord, now form a band! Or here’s an idea, here’s an opportunity, form your own mission.

The more I think about it, it the more I see the value of keeping things simple and easy to pass on to others. Maybe those who have been doing this sort of thing a little longer should just try to share the chords they’ve learned along the way.

When it comes to short-term mission trips, one essential chord is debriefing. The debriefing process is often skipped, slighted, or squeezed. Even teams that meet weekly for months before the trip may confine debriefing to a Saturday morning with donuts, but no follow-up or accountability. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Anyone who is willing to listen can help debrief a short-termer or short-term team.

Asking the Basic Questions

If you have just one debriefing session, try this. On paper or in person, in a big group or one on one, ask your short-termers 3-6 basic questions:

- How was your trip?
- What was the best thing about it?
- What was the hardest part for you?
- What did God teach you?
- What are you going to do about it, and when?
- Share an answered prayer.

Taking the time to think through these questions and topics will help short-termers process what happened. Plus, they will be better able to give a meaningful answer when others ask the same questions. It pays to be prepared. A good goal: be able to effectively describe the experience in a sentence or two.

Add a few more sessions to your debriefing plan if you can, especially if you’re debriefing a whole team.

Remembering What God Has Done

Have each team member spend 20 minutes journaling:

“What have you seen God do for you on this trip? Think about the miracles, answers to prayer, and the ways God worked above and beyond your expectations. Don’t forget how he got you here, prepared you, and brought in your support.”

Ask team members to share their answers with the group so everyone can thank and glorify God for what he has done.

Working through the Hard Stuff

Many troubling things can come to the surface on a short-term mission trip. Short-termers may come face to face with their own weaknesses and failures. They may feel disappointed or disillusioned about their team or their hosts.

Try to provide a safe environment to discuss things that were difficult, especially if these struggles reinforce lies they may believe about themselves, the world, God, or other people. One-on-one “debriefing interviews,” conducted by someone who was not part of the team, can also help identify conflicts and relationship problems that still need resolution.

Locking in the Lessons

Use this handy worksheet to help short-termers identify and “lock in” the lessons they are learning and prepare to share them with others. It’s a simple, step-by-step process that any of us might find helpful for making sense of a potentially overwhelming experience.

Staying Connected

Chances are good that the ministry your short-termers were involved in did not begin and end with them. So take a long-term view and ask: “What are the ongoing needs and opportunities? How can you, your family, or your church continue to contribute or stay connected with this ministry?” If you spend time talking about next steps, make sure to include an invitation to stay connected with the field.

Other debriefing sessions might focus on reentry and reverse culture stress, team affirmation and prayer, mobilizing others, preparing a presentation, evaluating the program, or having short-termers write themselves letters to be mailed in six months.

>> Shorttermmissions.com has several articles on debriefing, including Coming Home: Debriefing Exercises to Help You Process Re-entry Shock, by Lisa Espinelli Chinn.

>> The STEM International online store has a great collection of resources about every aspect of short-term missions, including training and debriefing materials.

NOTE: Thanks to Jen, Gretchen, David, Eric, and Mark for help with this article.

ShortTermMissions.com published an interesting article on how to stay safe on mission trips. I will highlight a few of the items listed, but if you wish, you can read the whole article here.

The author tells us he was on a business trip in China, and decided to venture into the jungle, on his own, just for fun. He was quite thrilled with the sites, including the monkeys. After he returned, his national co-worker was appalled that the author did this, because “this is June!”, which is when the “cobras” are out in number. Therefore, one should be aware of the following:

• Know the Rules: Don’t act like a giggling tourist. Find out from local people what is safe to do, where it is safe to go, and what to avoid.
• Situational Awareness: Be on the alert of what is happening around you. Make yourself a “tough target”; know where to go if trouble finds you; be alert to people who are paying “undue attention” to you; listen to your inner survival signals.
• Practice Security Behavior: don’t read your city map in public areas because you just announced to everybody that you’re a newbie, and unfamiliar; don’t count or display your money in public; don’t let vendors know that you’re unfamiliar with their currency by asking them to “take what they need” from your hand. If you’re American, remember that many are not currently pleased with Americans-so only display your passport when absolutely necessary.

My own final commentary and addendum: don’t say to yourself, “We’re on a mission trip for God, He’ll protect us.” Yes, God may very well protect you, but He may also say you ought to use a whole lot more wisdom than you’re currently portraying. Proverbs tells us a “prudent person sees the evil coming, and hides from it.” Prov 22:3. We live in a fallen world, and the affects of the fallen are on the “just and the unjust.” Graves are full of Christians who were doing “God’s work”, and still befell accidental or intentional harm. Pray as if all of the “protection” depends upon God, and act as if all the protection depends upon you!

May God bless your work, whether it’s a short term mission trip or a career mission move. If you need help in knowing how to raise financial support, we can help. Just go to our Products Page.

Gary Skrobot

Technorati Tags: mission trip safety

CBN has published an article discussing whether or not short term missions are effective for the kingdom. You can click here to read the full article “Are Short-Term Mission Trips Effective? - Christian World News - CBN Here are a few highlights:

• A Burden Instead of Helping: The articles highlights a couple instances where the short term mission team actually created more of a burden for the full-time missionaries there. Not all full-timers are able to effectively use a short-term team. “There have been teams of young people that have come down, their hearts are in the right place, they love God, but a team of 125 people, the logistics are huge on the missionary family.”
• Amazing costs: “The money that they spent on food alone was enough to pay for one of our week trainings for the Kuna on the island,” he explained.
• But what about evangelism? “I’ve seen someone show the Jesus film over three nights and a handful of people got saved,” Brummett responded. “And the last night they let a Kuna pastor that preached and thirty five people got saved. He preached to his own people in his own language with his own heart, and that had a tremendous impact.”
• Do short-terms missions help generate full-time missionaries? “Because the expense the church is going through yearly to send people overseas, we should be seeing more career missionaries,” he continued. “In fact, the opposite of that is true: we’re seeing less and less long term missionaries.”
• Should short-term missionaries stop going? None of the missionaries CBN News interviewed said that churches should stop their short-term programs, but rather need to re-think their focus and make sure missions dollars are being spent wisely - and not neglecting those who have given their lives to full-time service.

This website and blog, MissionFundraising.com, is dedicated to helping people raise financial support for short term missions, upgrading the support level for full time missionaries, and providing necessary resources for church planters. The points raised in the above article are worth discussing. We continue to support those going on short term mission trips, yet feel it’s important that the trip be well though-out with specific, achievable goals. As someone who has been both a short term, and a full time, missionary, I agree that evangelizing in a foreign country by short term-ers may not be very effective, and may even cause “damage” in the eyes of the local church, or the resident full time missionary. Providing for specific physical needs (medical, building, sanitation) may be a better choice for short term trips.

What’s your view? Please make your own comments by clicking on the “comment” link.

Gary Skrobot
Info@MissionFundraising.com

Technorati Tags: effective short term missions

This is a copy of an article posted by Mr. George Verwer. I do not know this gentleman, but I found this article interesting, so I’m re-positing it here.

I am not saying I agree or disagree with every point here; however, I have been both a short term missionary, and a full time missionary. I will soon post my own thoughts on short term missions, but for now, read the article below, and feel free to add comments about your thoughts.
——————————————————————————–

Ten short-termers we don’t want

Short-term mission trips have become very popular and many churches run their own
programs. Some churches want all their members to go on a trip.
Having been involved for 50 years with both short and long-term mission has given me
some very strong convictions about who should go and who should not go. Here are ten
short-termers who really should stay at home.

1. Mr Selfish - the person who mainly cares about themselves and how much they can get out of the trip.
2. Mr Tourist - the person who just wants to see the sights and hear the sounds. Not interested in hard work, serving or presenting the Gospel.
3. Mr Lazy - they will have many reasons each day as to why they cannot get out into the work.
4. Mr Big-Spender - they bring a lot of money/travellers checks and want to spend much of their time shopping.
5. Mr Insensitive - people who push their own country or culture and are insensitive to other people’s culture. They often leave behind a very bad testimony.
6. Mr Critical - These people see everything that is wrong in the church and country, even among their co-workers. It is contrary to the basic message of I Cor. 13.
7. Mr Unteachable - they are often very prejudiced and stubborn and bring hurt and confusion.
8. Mr Prayerless - to me, it is unthinkable to have prayerless people in ministry or service. We are in spiritual warfare and we must use the weapons that God has told and given us to use.
9. Mr Addicted - people, especially with sexual addictions, should not go. They can so quickly bring huge offense and even scandal. People with alcohol and other drug addictions need to get that sorted out at home.
10. Mr Proud - Pride is such a deadly sin and often leads to division and broken relationships. People with heavy national pride easily insult and hurt the very people you are trying to serve.

Yes, short-term mission is a serious ministry and must be done in a way that will honor
God and bless the people we serve. There needs to be serious orientation, interviewing
and training before people go. There should at least be some life, action and godly reality
before a lot of money is spent to travel and serve among people in a different country and
culture.
George Verwer
george@verwer.om.org
George Verwer
PO Box 17
Bromley, Kent
England BR1 3JP
Phone: 44 (0)20 8777 5258
UK Mobile: 44 (0)7860 426426
Email: george@verwer.om.org or georgev@swissmail.org

_________________________________________________________________-

Posted by Gary Skrobot

That’s what the missionary candidate wanted to know, as he was preparing to send out 100 very nicely prepared donation letters.  He said that the local copy place was asking fifty cents per copy more, to do it in color.  His original was in color and looked great. It spoke of competency, confidence, and clarity.

“Let’s do the math on this thing,”  I said.  You’re in the middle of mission support, for a short term mission project (actually it is for two years) so the stakes here are big.   You’ve got 100 prime prospects, with whom you will follow up by phone or personal visit.  The cost of the postage is the same, whether you use color or B/W.  The extra cost for color is $50, for the 100 letters.

Suppose that only ONE person more responds positively, because of the high quality and strong appeal of the full color letter.   That one person contributes $50/ mo for 24months, and you reap a return on investment of 23 times your cost going in — that’s like 2,300% return.  If you can find me that for my retirement funds, I’m “all in,” so to speak.

Jim Walters

Jim@JimWaltersOnline.com

The transition from Winter to Spring is not always pleasant. Here in Colorado, while much of the country is experiencing warm and sunny weather, we are being pummeled with scores of inches of snow in the mountains, and a very wet and heavy snow here in the plains and foothills.

The transition for you, as you move from being a layperson to a full or short term missionary, or even a church planter, can be just as traumatic. You have to deal with humans (who may be opposing you), transitioning from a steady paycheck to inconsistent financial support, and perhaps your own doubts.

Be encouraged! God loves to see you persist. It’s the sluggard who says “there’s a lion in the street”-Prov 26:13; it’s the double-minded person who is unstable-James 1:8; but you, you’re different! You’re like a tree, planted by the waters, and you bear the required fruit!

Persistence matters to God! It’s those who “endure to the end”, not those who get scared and bury whatever they have so that they don’t “lose” it, or don’t take the necessary “risks.”

Be bold! Be persistent! Be watchful! And see what marvelous things He will do for you.

Gary Skrobot