Getting Started

Thoughts on how to get started:

  • Read/learn how the IMB is doing missions these days, especially the place of volunteer teams.
  • Participate on a vision trip that will expose you to one or more people groups.
  • Prayerfully as a church or leadership group, ask God to lead you to select a people group who needs the gospel.
  • Learn from a missionary basics of what to do and what not to do in building relationships and sharing the gospel. Special attention should be given to learning the culture. You must learn the culturally appropriate way to make and maintain contact.
  • Devise a plan of ministry and get some feedback from experienced missionaries.
  • In my opinion the order of these first steps may vary. We did the third after the fourth.

The plan of ministry should include:

  • where and how to build relationships with the people group
  • how to get there
  • where to stay
  • how to get meals
  • ultimate goal (reproducing church, possible cpm)
  • how to share the gospel
  • how to communicate in the language of the people group to whom you desire to minister

Our plan of ministry included:

  • We visit in the villages- men visiting men, women visiting women and children.
  • We rent a bush taxi and hire a driver for the week for transportation.
  • We seek opportunities to tell chronological Bible stories (kindly received). We have tried new techniques almost every time including: the Bible story cloth (a real winner at times), testimonies, the Jesus video, a Nigerian evangelistic DVD, a local believer speaking, discussion/discipleship, and worship services for believers.
  • We stay one night in a village each trip to West Africa. Our team opted to do the opposite of the journeymen. Rather than focus on staying at one village and becoming part of the fabric of village life, we visit more villages. Perhaps that way our visits may be more special. Just like the other techniques, each team needs to prayerfully find what God will use with your team in your area. During other nights we have stayed in three different homes and one motel. We are currently in conversation to possibly become renters of a house the IMB currently rents if no other units (missionaries) show interest when the current journeyman resident finishes her two years. This would preserve a place for our teams to stay if we ever find the IMB missionary or journeyman move on.
  • Thus far we have always had someone’s kitchen to use. We buy the food and offer to do all the cooking to sweeten the deal. We have prepositioned two footlockers of kitchen supplies (pots, plates, etc.) and a small kerosene cooker just in case. We use some when we stay in a village overnight.
  • We are clear on working toward a reproducing church and trying to avoid anything that would hinder a cpm. We stay in contact with experienced missionaries to compare notes and make sure any new ideas are workable and helpful.
  • How to share the gospel is dealt with in the third bullet.
  • We communicate using one or two translators. We hire a talented local Muslim who has been a tremendous asset. He is like family to us. He also is the one who lines up our driver. It was his superior suggestion to hire the bush taxi to pick us up at the airport instead of taking taxis. That keeps the team together instead of splitting them up in taxis. We have often had a journeyman able to translate for the women. We cannot locate a female translator who is available when we need them. In the absence of a female translator, the men and women take turns having a translator. The part of the team that does not have the translator builds relationships by working with the children playing games.

Our church has 120 members, and average 105 in SS, 153 in worship last year. You do not need to become a mega church to make a difference in this world. Jesus did it with 12 and one of them quit early.