In missions we talk about goers and senders. Goers are people on the field planting churches, facilitating community development, training nationals or even working in administrative roles. Senders are people who pray, mobilize, work out logistics and give money so that the goers can stay gone and finish their work.

The purpose of this brief article is to encourage Christians to take ownership of the giving aspect of mission involvement. Giving money to missions may be less public, less glamorous, than actually going overseas, but it is no less important than physically being on the field.

Rarely are Christians discipled to be disciplined and intentional missional givers, whether that giving is directly to missionaries or through church mission committees. So, then, what can we do to train ourselves to take our role as givers seriously?

• Begin by remembering that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21). With this in mind, think of how you can mold your heart to become more generous. Practice disciplines to align your heart with God’s.
• Next, give regularly, whether that’s monthly, every other month or quarterly. Whether or not you believe the principal of a tithe carried over from the Old Testament to New Testament times, God still deserves our first-fruits.

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By Peter Armstrong

We finalized the name for the new internet resource center for aspiring missionaries. Can I have a drum roll please? The name of the website will be… PreparingToGo.com.

Although we tentatively used that domain name to refer to the project for awhile, we did not know if it would go over well with the intended audience. On our quest to make a final name selection, we brainstormed 200+ alternate names, eliminated all but five, and made a survey. Fifty aspiring missionaries gave us their input. The result? PreparingToGo.com emerged as the leader. We think it is a good name to work with—a solid name that relates well to the content of the website, has few negatives, and is easy to remember and spell.

A good name only goes so far though. Ultimately the content on the website supersedes the name. We are happy to report progress on the content the front!

In May, an intern from JBU edited down the footage from several missionary interviews and our pilot run of an organization headquarter tour. In July, we set up the ability to post the videos on PreparingToGo.com. That brings us to beta version 0.6 for the website! Hurray for progress! You can watch these first samples at http://PreparingToGo.com/videos/ . Or watch them via our YouTube channel. If you have a YouTube account please subscribe to the channel and add us as a friend.

Although we have made progress, we also encountered a few setbacks. Unable to figure out a satisfactory method to get around closed country issues for the mission field reports we envisioned, we decided to put production of these video clips on hold indefinitely. Also, our week long mission trip to produce a series of mission agency headquarter tours fell through. Between staff training, travel, and office remodeling projects, summer is not a good time to schedule these tours for the mission agencies. In fact, it may be pretty near impossible to coordinate producing a series of tours in a one week time frame. Lining up the schedules of multiple organizations is tricky! We’re not abandoning the idea though. We will just have to work out a different way of accomplishing the goal.

The next few pieces of the website we are working on are a directory of mission organizations, a logo for the website, and producing more video clips. Content. Content. Content!

Prayer: Test video shoot — At the end of this month Peter will be at Operation Mobilization’s headquarters in Atlanta to shoot some video for the upcoming long-term missions website. Pray that equipment will work well and the footage he gets will be helpful.

Prayer: Summer Mission Team — In July a small team comprised of a cameraman, video editor and M-DAT staff member will take what Peter learns in Atlanta and put it to use. Pray for a few qualified volunteers to help out this project.

Praise and prayer: Volunteer video editors — We’ve begun recruiting volunteer video editors to help out with the long-term missions website. So far we have six willing volunteers, but we need at least six more. If you or someone you know possesses video editing skills and equipment, let them know we need their help!

The website called Generous Giving is aptly self-described. I’ve referred to it numerous times over the last five years, since my wife and I began a support-based lifestyle. It contains an incredible wealth of information from stories to statistics. One of my favorite anecdotes on the site is a story about two doctors living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The first time the IRS audited the couple it did so thinking that no one could give as much of their income away as the Finchers. Read their story via this link.

Prayer: Radio Spot - We wrapped up production of a 30 second radio spot for ShortTermMissions.com. Building on a landscape of sounds from around the world, the spot informs believers of how they can find a mission trip on which to serve. Pray that God would open the door for five to ten Christian radio stations to play the spot late Fall or early Spring as a public service announcement for their listners.

News: Mission Trip Search Widgets Available – Do you have a website or blog? Consider adding a ShortTermMissions.com search widget in the side bar. Now available in tall or wide.

Prayer: Volunteers and Staff – As we grow into offering a new web resource for aspiring missionaries, our biggest prayer need is for God to expand M-DAT’s capacity for ministry by providing additional volunteers and staff. We are especially praying for a volunteer coordinator, volunteer video editors and a website project manager.

News: Report Published – In September we released a search summary report to the missions community. It examines the roughly 80,000 “basic” searches made on ShortTermMissions.com from January through April of 2007 and shows the top search criteria people use when looking for short-term mission trips. Nothing like this has ever been available before now, and this information has been well-received.

Praise: God’s Provision – We were surprised this month with a very large donation that will enable one our staff members to continue working full-time with the ministry! It was a huge answer to prayer and blessing to the ministry. Praise the Lord for His goodness.