Missions Blog for Churches

One of the comments I regularly hear as I meet with missions leaders in the PCA, regards the concern over the disconnect between going to “do” missions across a border somewhere, and living out our mission here, at home. The desire, of course, is that we (and our people) would see the relevance of missional living both here (neighbor) and there (foreigner). And that we would see that missions goes beyond sending money, an annual trip, or hosting a missionary. That said, PCA pastor Matt Adair wrote a provocative article on this subject which can be read by clicking here.

The Church Resourcing Department at MTW is hosting the 2nd Missions Pastors’ Forum for full-time missions pastors and directors in PCA churches. The meeting will be in Atlanta, September 22-23, 2008. We’re still getting to know some missions leaders, so if you are or know someone who is employed by a PCA church as the missions director, pastor, (or some other title), please have them contact us at cr@mtw.org.

The first meeting, last year in November, was a great success even though it was a small group. We now have an expanded list of these people and expect this year’s meeting to be especially fruitful as we gather to learn about each other’s ministries, tackle some specific issues, and look for ways to work better together for the glory of Christ.

Some 40 interns and mentors gathered at MTW in Atlanta recently to debrief their summer experience on fields from Acapulco to Ukraine.

“We go through this debriefing process at the end of each summer to help our interns process their experience and adjust back to their home culture,” said MTW’s Opal Hardgrove. “In addition to serving them, it helps us assess their experience on the field and learn how to improve next year’s program.”

The debriefing process includes a number of components: interns share their testimonies with one another, discuss what they gained and lost through their experience on the field, are prompted to think about what they want to remember from their experience, and explain what they learned about themselves.

And this year marked MTW’s first official internship mentoring program. Roughly one-fourth of this summer’s 100 interns participated in that program, which involved Bible study, group mentoring, and one-on-one mentoring in addition to the normal intern field experience.  (Click here to continue reading this article)