Why Missions Does Not Take-Off

To some this does not apply, but for those to whom it does...

Who would volunteer to dedicate their life to four years of dragging themselves and their family all across the country to beg at churches and hopefully not give any pastors an excuse for not supporting them?
 
Who would want to do that?

That is what we expect our missionaries and their families to do...

Are local, independent, fundamental Baptists able to send their own young men and women out and say, 

"Don't worry, we'll take better care of you than that. In fact, we've planned for God to use you so we saved our money as a church and waited for this day to come."

That seems so foreign to us doesn't it?

We wonder why so many young people grow up and wander away from God's will for their lives.
Imagine with me for just a minute as you think of the last time you watched a rocket or a shuttle launch into the atmosphere. Was it alone standing there on the launchpad? No. There is a launch tower (supplying guidance) or at least a service tower or "gantry" (supplying fuel and and support cargo). Very few of us would sell everything and travel with the Gospel to a people group speaking a foreign language. We would feel stranded and lost the moment we arrived. Why then do we send missionaries (if at all) to fend for themselves. Would you agree that they would need more than a little pocket change from each of us to get the job done?
We may have to give up the Sea-doo, the deer stand, or the beach condo idol that keeps us from serving in and through our local church. But that shouldn't be a problem, right, since we are not our own, but rather bought with a price?


To send some soldiers off to fight overseas in the Great Cause that affects us all, yet do nothing to push the front line back where you live is counterproductive. It has been said that in regards to missions, there are three options, "Go, Send, or Disobey." Surely, we must go when called and support those we send.

We must send in five main parts:

First, we must prepare the children in our churches from the earliest of ages. Sunday school must be taught by prepared and Holy Spirit-controlled teachers. Sunday School is only a reinforcement though for the devotional time that each family has together around God's Word. Each father and mother must be sensitive to God's plan and direction for their child and willing to let that child serve God how and where the Lord decides.  
Second, each church should budget its money in order to save toward sending those future young men and women to Bible college and for what God calls them to do. Bible college should simply be a reinforcement of what the pastor teaches and should encourage that young man or woman to serve in his or her local church.
Next, with a new wave of trained young men and women, the local church can use their pre-established ministries and capacity to start new ministries as a training ground to give their young adults practical ministry training. The pastor should take time each week and train the young men interning part-time for future ministry.
Then, with a good amount saved for God's work through that generation, the pastor and church can send out those who will start new churches both domestic and foreign. With term of internship work bringing in new people who have been converted and discipled, the local church will have a greater capacity to send, the supported young men and women will have proven themselves, and those whom they have converted and discipled will be additional members to the dedicated prayer base for them.
(If one young couple is going to the foreign field, it would be best to have them intern with an independent, fundamental Baptist among that people group or culture. This will provide them an opportunity to adjust to the culture, learn the language, and learn missionary techniques. It is important that the missionary training your young missionary couple has a strong position on the authority of the local/sending church and will support that concerning your new missionary couple.)
Lastly, it will be necessary for the sending church pastor to visit the new domestic and foreign field churches as well. This will keep the vision of church reproduction alive and real in the mind and heart of both the pastor and the home/sending church. 

This is the philosophy of the Gospel Lilypad Project.
Each church is required to reproduce itself. If a church does not strive to accomplish that, then there is a great need to revolutionize its thinking. Once a church grabs hold of their Biblical mandate to replicate in other parts of their country and world, then it will be ready to start with the readying process. When a local church is ready to send their missionaries to the foreign field, it is best to reinforce that which already remains abroad in order that the first-term missionaries can begin relating with and respond to the culture and language before leaping straight into service completely alienated from everything. New missionaries who have acclimated to the culture and language group in the foreign country God has called them to have a much higher success-and-stay rate than those who pioneer with their only support being the knowledge of a monthly check. Please consider helping us help others.

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