Missions and Outreach Department

St James the Less Church

 

 

Department Direction

 

To bring together all aspects of missions and outreach at St. James the Less under one umbrella for consistency of value, purpose and function.

 

To educate the congregation of St. James the Less toward a biblical worldview, bringing them to an awareness of God’s intentions and our responsibilities.

 

To provide opportunities for the congregation of St. James the Less to actively participate in completing the Great Commission.

 

 

Background and Context

 

The whole of Holy Scriptures declares God to be a missionary God.

 

The church of Jesus Christ exists for God’s glory and the greatest instrument of His glory is the church. If God is to be glorified and known in all the nations, it must be through the Church.

 

Missions exists because worship doesn’t. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their face before the throne of God, missions will be no more. Worship, therefore is the fuel and goal of missions.

 

Scope of Activities

 

The activities will involve:

·        The financial management of all missions and outreach giving and grants.

·        Bringing missions awareness and education to the congregation.

·        Providing a variety of missions and outreach opportunities for the congregation.

 

 

 

 

 

Missions Grid

 

Same, Similar, Different describes the cultural distance.

Local, Near, Far describes the geographic distance for missions.

 

Our goal is to be working in at least half of the grid.

 

  1. Local/Same
  2. Local/Similar
  3. Local/Different
  4. Near/Same
  5. Near/ Similar 
  6. Near/ Different
  7. Far/Same
  8. Far/ Similar
  9. Far/ Different

 

 

 

Cultural

Difference

Local

Near

Far

Same

 

 

e.g. English speaking Filipinos living in the Philippines.

Similar

e.g. English speaking First Nation people in your city.

e.g. English speaking Honduran refugees in a nearby community.

e.g. Bangkok university students who have learned to speak English but still live in Bangkok, Thailand.

Different

e.g. East Indian Sikhs in your community who do not speak English.

e.g. Korean speaking immigrants in a nearby community who do not speak English, or Mexicans in Mexico who you reach out to.

e.g. Mandarin speaking Chinese in rural China.

 

Geographic Distance 

 

 

 

 

Human Resources

 

The Missions Department Head should be a paid staff position.  It is estimated that 10 hours a week could manage the oversight and direction of the department at a cost of $10,000 per year.

 

 

Job Descriptions

 

Missions Department Head:

·        To recruit a Missions Management Team

·        To envision and train the Missions Management Team

·        To create a long-range vision and guidelines for the Missions and Outreach Department at SJL

·        To maintain a close working relationship with the Rector and Vestry

·        To initiate missions awareness events at SJL

·        To initiate outreach training events at SJL

·        To build and maintain a relationship between the congregation and the mission/ministries that SJL’s mission-giving supports

·        To resource and/or receive missions support requests

·        To resource outreach opportunities

·        To recruit and support the FOI (Go Network) director

·        To maintain the integrity of the Outreach Fund

·        To promote missions giving at SJL

·        To promote outreach participation from SJL

 

Missions Management Team:

·        To assist and work in team with the Missions Department Head

·        To commit to serve for a one-year term

·        To meet quarterly for the purpose of disbursing the Missions Fund

·        To help organize and run missions awareness events

·        To help organize and run outreach training events

·        To be aware of and cooperate with FOI events

·        To review requests to the Outreach Fund and release grants

·        To organize fund-raising events for the Outreach Fund

Ministry Plan

 

Transitional Stage    May-August 2003

·        Petersons will choose a core of people (Missions Management Team), who already have a heart and call for missions, to serve the minimal needs of this ministry until April 2004 when they return from overseas.

·        The Team will meet as soon as possible to review and revise our current relationship to ministries for missions giving for the upcoming year, and to disburse the first quarter’s giving.

·        Petersons will provide initial education for the Team, plus any primary leaders in the church, in the form of ‘Perspectives Exposure,’ a six-week study course on Biblical Worldview.

·        Petersons will meet with the Team on a monthly basis to pray and get a plan in place for the months they will be gone.

·        Each member of the Team will be asked to be responsible to cover or relate to a specific aspect of current missions and outreach activities.

·        One of the Team members will be asked to be the point person for communication to and from the Rector and Vestry.

 

Pioneering Stage   April 2004-Sept 2005

 

·        Take the month of April to get updated on what has transpired during Peterson’s absence.

·        Verify that the existing Team is willing to continue to the end of 2005. Make adjustments or add new members as required.

·        Provide the ‘Perspectives Exposure’ course for new team members, with the goal to eventually offer it on a regular basis each year for anyone in the congregation who would like to take it.

·        Explore the area of missions education/awareness for all ages and start to implement some new strategies.

·        Examine what outreach/missions we are now involved in (Missions Grid), and survey where our growth needs are.

·        Start a monthly prayer meeting to pray for the missionaries we have partnered with and support.

·        Create policies and procedures on how to support our own missionaries that the Lord may call from our congregation.

·        Train, equip and mobilize all ages into local outreach on a regular basis.

·        Continue to encourage and provide cross-cultural missions opportunities both for discipleship purposes and for evangelism.

·        Explore ways to identify and connect with different ethic groups in our own city/region.

 

 

Future Stage   Beyond Sept 2005

 

·        Explore how we can adopt an unreached people group somewhere in the world and start to pray, give and go to see the gospel established among them and to see a self supporting indigenous church evolve.

·        Partner with other churches and missions organizations to see the above happen.

·        Set some goals of seeing 100% involvement from our congregation in participating directly in missions through sending and going.  It is not optional to the church of Jesus Christ.

·        Explore ways that we can form “Sending Teams” within the congregation to pray and support our own future missionaries

·        Pray and strategize to see God raise up church planters from our congregation to plant new churches near and far

·        Partner with other churches and missions organization to see a missions training center raised up in our area.

·        Pray and strategize to see how we can multiply our missions giving so we can bless more families in many nations.

·        Pray and strategize as to how we can impact the growing Muslim population at home and abroad with the gospel

·        Prepare a booklet with our missions vision, purpose, policy and procedures in it for each member of the congregation

·        Provide many short term cross-cultural missions opportunities for our congregation to go and serve missionaries we have partnered with

·        Provide a yearly opportunity for our congregation to go to Israel to bless the Jewish people and to be blessed