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Congratulations, you have crossed the finish line of producing a new (or improved) Church Missions Handbook. Now it's time to roll out the implementation of the Handbook. Take some time to celebrate with your Missions Team or Missions Committee. Make sure everyone understands its content. Then progressively roll it out to the Elders, the congregation at large, and your supported missionaries and ministries. Use the Handbook for orientation for onboarding new Missions Team members.

Sometimes it is challenging to discuss measuring "performance," especially in spiritual things. Yet, information is a friend to effectiveness. Why you measure is essential. You want to have the right attitude about using metrics to better achieve your goals to mobilize the congregation in missions. What you measure may be obvious, less obvious, or even least obvious. It all works together to build a larger vision for what your Missions Team and your church can do to fulfill God's great purposes for His glory in Christ through the local church.

This episode could be used by every ministry group in the church! Here we'll look at key principles to having effective Missions Team meetings, decision-making processes, and the subtle dynamics that make for genuine unity.

Beyond the usual mechanical functions of a Missions Team, the deeper efforts of mobilizing the whole congregation for missions, missionary candidate development and sending, and larger partnerships come into play. Go the extra mile to become a Propempo-minded church in your role and functions.

Finding the right people on the Missions Team can be a minefield! Sometimes people with strange ideas want to be on the Team to leverage their agenda. How do you avoid that? Who and how do you get the right people on the Team to do this great ministry? Build a good foundation for qualifications, expectations, and team spirit as you serve the church in this vital ministry of world missions.

Structure, specialization, and delegation are keys to effectiveness, both short-term and long-term. This episode walks through 9 key areas for specialization in structure in order to have maximum impact on mobilizing the congregation for missions and for effectiveness with your field workers.

Few churches really think, pray, and lead their church in adopting a world missions focus and strategy. Those that do so, excel in missions ministry and launch their congregation to a higher level of understanding and involvement in missions. It takes work and time to pray through to the right focus for your church. But, it is worth it!

Building Your Church Missions Handbook will require you to think about key definitions which will guide your church for years to come. A side benefit is that good definitions, accepted by all in leadership, prevent a lot of misunderstandings and future wrangling over the same issues. Think well about these key definitions. Then, communicate them well to all concerned.

The first two keys for defining the Scope of Authority for Your Missions Handbook or Your Missions Team are: clarifying the differences between local outreach ministries and overseas, cross-cultural missions; and, getting your Elders or highest board of authority to conceptually mark the Guiding Principles or Guiding Values within which the Missions Team ministries will operate. This helps all concerned. Then move on to the standard questions of chain-of-command, scope of authority, reporting, and approval of key decisions.  Let's write or review our Missions Handbook together!

As we begin building our Church Missions Handbook, the very first major element should be the biblical basis. We always start with the Scripture as our authority for life and ministry. Remember your audience: keep it simple and relatively short. It isn't a theological treatise or comprehensive. It is representative and builds a case for the priority of missions and the local church's role in missions.  Blessings! Hey, if you want more resources, check out the Propempo Guidebook on Missions Policy.

Missions issues, problems, misunderstandings, and conflict can be avoided by developing a "handbook" or "manual" that establishes the pattern for missions in your church. Church leaders regularly encounter questions about tough situations or from people sincerely seeking support for their ministry or some ministry to which they are related. Every church is unique. But every church should have guidelines for the biblical basis for missions, philosophy and policies guiding missions in your church, and the basis "nuts and bolts" for how it operates. Taking time to think about it, having good reasons, and focusing on priorities pays off in satisfaction, higher level of ownership, and freedom. Saying "no" to many good things allows us to say "yes" to the best things. Check out the Propempo Guidebook on Missions Policy and the Church Missions Profile on SendForward.org

This is a rare personal view of Propempo new dynamic partnership with MissioServe - the Why, How, and When. As of Jan. 1, 2023, Propempo and MissioServe have merged and blended God-given strengths to better focus on a biblical, local-church-centered philosophy of missions. We're trusting God for great things. This vision includes having an impact on the entire evangelical church and missions complex of the West to step up to a stronger biblical view of the local church as the heart and harvest of our Great Commission ministries.

This episode reflects on the basis of the biblical concept of the centrality of the local church in missions and muses about the potential results if all stakeholders apply it together. It would be radical! It would also be a massive boost to missions effectiveness on all sides.  It seems obvious, but why wouldn't we obey and apply this foundational principle?

Bible schools, seminaries, and missions specialty schools also need to be consistent in understanding and teaching the centrality of the local church in missions. Yes, even making practical the church's centrality for fulfilling God's purposes. If and when this happens, the schools and the missionaries they produce will be more effective, stay on the field longer, and bear more lasting spiritual fruit for their labor. We can do this together!

This is a sensitive topic. We hope to inform and guide your thinking towards being a more effective and satisfied donor to missions. We'll present six areas of thought and practical questions to help you be better biblically and strategically focused in your giving. May the Lord be pleased to use this for His glory.

This is a tough one! Missions agencies have developed a thick hide protecting their independence. It's hard to consider changing their mindset to allow the rightful biblical place of the local sending church in their enterprise. If done well, it promises incredible benefits to their administration, their missionaries, and the fruit of their ministries on the field. May God give overwhelming grace for missions agencies to understand, embrace, and change to become fully "Propempo certified."

Wow, I wish I had heard this episode before I went to the mission field decades ago! I wish that every missionary candidate could have heard this when they first started preparing for the field. This concept put into practice by missionaries and sending churches could lift the joy and effectiveness of missionary work worldwide! Having a biblical "propempo perspective" will encourage and sustain solid missions work as much as anything other factors. Prayerfully affirm and implement it for God's glory.

Propempo Certification for the local church missions Leader means understanding, accepting, and practically implementing the primary biblical and church principles of local-church-centered missiology. There are crucial, paradigm-shifting insights that will make your church and your leadership more effective in your role. This episode crystallized key concepts and foci to enable you to become that "Propempo Certified" kind of local church missions leader.

"Propempo Certification"? What is Propempo? What is certification? This series is a concept series on what it takes to be biblically local-church-centered in understanding the role of the local church in missions. It will rock your world! Understanding the biblical basis and the practical application could, Lord willing, revolutionize your church, your participation in missions, and your understanding of how to get the Great Commission done!

This is one of the most difficult issues to deal with emotionally for the church. The tangled web of relationships and motivations is hard to untangle. The intentionality of circumstances and diligence press us to do a good job of evaluation, prayer, and communication to get through to the best answer on the other side of the tough decisions. There are lots of legitimate reasons to reevaluate the level of support given to a particular missionary. Let's be realistic, gracious, and generous of spirit in the process while honoring the missionary, as well.