This is NOT my friend; Brazilian missionary baptizing.
A friend of mine is looking for partners in ministry as she prepares to return to the mission field.
What are partners in ministry?
She’s spent quite a bit of time focusing on finding folks to pray for her, because, as Oswald Chambers pointed out, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works— prayer is the greater work.”
Once she filled out her calendar of people to pray for her 1/2 hour once a month, she felt more comfortable seeking other types of partners in ministry.
Partner, of course, means “a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits.”
Ministry is “a person or thing through which something is accomplished.”
My friend works with a Christian ministry in a foreign country–she spend a lot of time talking about the Gospel with people who don’t know anything about Christianity. To go there requires training on her part: she’s spent years leading Bible studies; she has a degree in Bible from Multnomah College; she’s learned a foreign language and visited her country several times. One of her relatively recent ancestors was born in the country and she loves their native foods.
She’s worked hard to free herself from local entanglements–given away most of her belongings, for example, and funded trips to her country. She’s spoken to church groups far and wide about her “calling” (a strong desire to spend your life doing a certain kind of work ) and funded and raised sufficient funds to go. She’s attended courses, conferences, and spent a considerable amount of time taking the Perspectives on the World Missions classes.
Her home church supports her, with prayer and finances; many of her friends and relatives do the same. She’s worked hard to earn their trust, be diligent with her finances and time and prays a great deal.
Working in another country requires stamina and an openness to new ideas. It also requires a visa. She’s worked through the requirements, been honest, and got a visa to return to her country.
An international missions organization watches out for her–she’s accountable–and a missions organization in her country has extended an invitation for her to work with them. She’s got colleagues in that nation desperate for her return.
She’s studied the lives of missionaries and while she doesn’t anticipate physical persecution in her country, knows its part of the job.
She’s prepared to spend the rest of her life far from friends and family.
What is her motivation?
Love and thankfulness for Jesus: the way, the truth and the light.
Praying for her, that greater work, is what she needs most.
But as the time draws near for her to return, she also needs more financial backing for that international missions organization to feel comfortable authorizing her return.
In the New Testament, Christians are reminded of a key fact about those who work: “A workman is worthy of his/her hire.” People who work in ministry, should be provided for by those whom God has called to a different service.
Its an Old Testatment concept as well. The Levites, the priests, were supported by the community so they could devote themselves to the spiritual welfare of the temple. They didn’t own land, their sustenance was supplied by those who benefited from their spiritual counsel.
That’s not true for missionaries in foreign countries, though it can become true if they plant a church and live their long enough.
I’m not called to move to another country and present the Gospel. I am called, however, to support my sister in Christ. I, therefore, am a partner in ministry.
Are you? Click to Tweet
It’s not just about money and prayer. I asked several people to define the term for me. One wrote from Papua New Guinea, where she’s a missionary.
“To be a partner in ministry involves giving, of my time and my prayers, and my finances. It also involves looking for ways to be involved or to support them. I will be having someone to dinner next week here that I support. I want to hear and listen to what they have been doing and ask questions.
The same is true of my supporters, they are the ones that ask questions and want to know. They go out of their way to greet me when I am home. I appreciate those who send a brief response when they get my email newsletter – it shows that they care and that they are interested, and even, that they read it!”
Partners in ministry include folks on prayer chains, or in our church eprayer lists (our church prayer requests go out via email).
My missionary friend knows she has people to pray if she asks, which is very important to the need, but also to her peace of mind.
A local friend had a similar definition:
Ministry partner for me means supporting in prayer, with financial gifts, volunteering to help out the ministry with one’s areas of gifting, promoting the ministry to others who may choose someday to become partners, too, and making an effort, if feasible, to visit the ministry to help alongside.
Because I love to travel, I like that idea of visiting the missionary in her country. Maybe someday . . .
I’ve known people over the years who have visited children they’ve sponsored through World Vision or Save the Children (my godson works for Save the Children), and while they may have started out to visit for the exotic excitement, they’ve returned humbled and awed by how little money has impacted children in such an enormous way.
What else should we expect when God’s power is at work? Click to Tweet
Which takes me back to those original definitions. Partner implies I feel a type of responsibility for the work–emotional, spiritual, financial–and I’m willing to share the risks and the profits.
For a Christian ministry the profits are clear: souls freed by Jesus’ death on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit to worship God. Freedom from sin and death.
Sitting in my comfortable English-speaking home in safe, clean-watered, healthy California, what risks are involved?
None in the physical; but in the spiritual?
I’m waiting for one word: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your rest.”
As partners in ministry, that means supporting, helping, aiding, providing resources and, most importantly, praying for my missionary friends.
How about you?
For those who live in Sonoma County, Perspectives will have a class session beginning this fall. You can check it out here.
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?