For Pastors and Church Leaders
What can GLOBE Europe - UK do f
or you?
As pastors of local churches we clearly reach out to people in our general locality and seek to build community. But we're also called to the world. We feel the weight of the Great Commission given by the Lord Jesus. Anything less than a focus on the world falls short of this Commission.
How can one local church, or a group of local churches, be world focused? How can their people grow to be world Christians?
GLOBE Europe - UK can help by connecting even a small local church with world missions.
Do you have a missions programme?
GLOBE Europe - UK can help you involve your Church in world missions. This takes place particularly through:
- Conducting workshops and missions conferences in local churches
- Promoting missionaries and missions projects
- Distributing information, leaflets and books that focus on world missions
- Operating as a secure means of conveying funds to the intended missionaries and missions projects
- Helping churches develop a missions policy
This last point is a key to effectiveness and motivation. Some churches may want to be in support of a missions interest on all five continents. Others may seek a missions focus that reflects the strengths of the Church, perhaps in teaching, or children, or working with the poor. With missionary contacts of all kinds and most parts of the world, GLOBE can help. A Church Missions Policy is worked out in consultation with you and your team.
Do you have people called to missions work?
Once the call to missions has been confirmed, GLOBE Europe - UK can further partner with churches by helping with many specialised tasks, such as:
- Assisting new missionaries to transition to the mission field
- Possibly arranging on-location training under experienced missionaries
- Training missionaries for cross-cultural ministry
- Advising missionaries regarding insurances, social security, taxation, and other vital practical matters
- Assuming financial responsibility and accountability to donors and to missionaries
- Distributing the missionaries' newsletters
- Supporting missionaries in legal matters
- Providing missionary care
Why use a missions agency? Why can't the local church send its own missionaries?
The local church could send its own missionaries. But there are some pitfalls, and a lot to learn, to do, and to sustain. Why re-invent the wheel? Some, no doubt, enjoy re-inventing wheels. But the problem is that the new missionaries can suffer in the re-inventing process!
GLOBE Europe provides many services that can be difficult for an individual local church to give consistently, such as: a standardised candidate approval process; cross-cultural orientation; financial, legal and tax consultancy services; promotion of missionary projects to an international audience; information resources to missionaries about new trends, services, and other things related to missions; assistance in printing and distributing monthly newsletters; and, of course, the monthly receiving and distributing of financial support from individuals, churches, businesses, and other organisations nationwide.
It is affiliation with an agency such as GLOBE Europe that gives the missionary the possibility of support from those in other churches. Put simply, if a local church by itself sends out and seeks to support a missionary, those from other churches are unlikely to send their financial support, since it feels like giving to another church. But they will support the missionary through a neutral missions agency, which seeks to serve the whole church. This "broadening of the base" is a vital safety factor in cushioning the missionary against the fluctuations, changes, or temporary problems that can affect any one local church from time to time.
Relationally, GLOBE Europe gives missionaries a sense of belonging to a "family" of international missionary colleagues, in addition to the family of their own local church. It means they can be in contact with others who understand the special challenges and pressures of being on the foreign mission field, in a way that those back home in the Church simply cannot.
What is GLOBE Europe's relationship with the local church?
GLOBE Europe is primarily a facilitator in mission, partnering with local churches in their missionary outreach, and jointly sending out missionaries. GLOBE Europe expects church leaders to maintain strong pastoral ties with their missionaries. Pastors are encouraged to give regular input to the missionaries they support.
Without the involvement of local churches, GLOBE Europe would not exist. Local churches provide the support base for GLOBE Europe missionaries. Every new GLOBE Europe missionary applicant must be a member-in-good-standing of a local church.
In terms of oversight and authority, GLOBE Europe oversees many of the business aspects of missions, while the local church assists in giving pastoral care to missionaries. In practice, missionaries often request input from both pastors and GLOBE Europe directors. Major decisions are usually made in consultation with the missionary and church leadership. As a rule, GLOBE Europe does not make decisions without consulting with appropriate church leaders.
Relationally, churches are encouraged to maintain strong ties with the missionaries they support. Through letters, phone calls, and e-mail messages, relationships can be nurtured across the miles. Pastoral counsel, ministry to the family, support for special events, assistance with furloughs, visits to the field, involvement with projects on the field, and dialogue with GLOBE Europe directors about special needs are all encouraged.