USA (MNN) — Apathy is the best way to describe the attitude of many Christians as it relates to missions in the United States. Unfortunately, that seems to be a growing trend. There are many organizations who consider this a problem. One organization is doing something about it and helping churches with their missions program.
Vice President of Ministry Operations at The Mission Society is Dick McClain. He says mission agencies kind of "cherry-pick" the local church. "We go in with our handouts, and in one way or another say, 'If you'll give us your best people and your money, we'll go do the job.' You don't really find our mission agency in the concordance of your Bible, but you do find the local church there. And what we realized was that it was their mission primarily and not ours."
McClain says that's why the relationship had to change. "Today we're trying to become a resource to congregations that understand mission as theirs and are working real hard to encourage them and help provide them with tools and resources that can enable them as a local church to be more personally engaged in mission."
While The Mission Society is helping local church accomplish their call to global outreach, they're also sending people abroad. McClain says, "We have missionaries in about 30 countries around the world doing a variety of ministries. We've got folks in Central and South America, several countries in Africa, in Asia, and the Far East, so we're pretty spread out."
The work is diverse, says McClain. "We've been involved in pioneer evangelism and church planting. And in other places we're working at the invitation of already-established churches who were looking for partnership, looking for assistance in one area of ministry or another."
McClain says one thing is certain: their work isn't the same everywhere. "Our approach to ministry, cross-culturally, is so focused on learning the culture and entering the culture and discovering what's appropriate in that culture. We don't have any kind of a cookie cutter (approach to ministry)."
The Mission Society is a non-denominational mission organization that's dedicated to helping individuals and churches to fulfill their call to participate in the Great Commission.
Click here to get more information about The Mission Society.
