“Adopt-a-Missionary” Ministry Idea for You and Your Church
Several years ago, we implemented a programme at our church in Northern Ireland during our missions conference called “Adopt-a-Missionary.” Though this idea was definitely not new to us, I wanted to pass along some information about the programme. It might be something you would want to consider introducing to your church at your next conference or doing personally to be a better support and encouragement to your missionaries
The purposes of the Adopt-a-Missionary programme are these:
- To encourage greater prayer support for the missionary
- To keep the specific needs and requests of the missionary before the church
- To help individuals get more personally involved with an specific individual
- To raise greater awareness of the needs of a missionary’s field and ministry
- To give people in the church an opportunity to be directly involved with missions work
Basically, we handed out the attached brochure to our church along with a list of potential missionaries to adopt. We asked people to pray about adopting a missionary and then fill out on their faith promise card what missionary they were going to adopt for the year. If more than one person adopts a specific missionary, that is fine.
I hope this is a help to you. If you have any questions or comments, just let me know.
Our church in NC has a missions conference each year. For each missionary family attending, a ‘team leader’ is assigned. The leaders recruit church members to their teams and contact the missionaries about specific needs, as well as clothing sizes, etc. for all family members. The team then has a great time shopping for the missionary families. On the night that missionary gives their presentation, the team presents their gifts. This sometimes might include a microscope or laptop, gas or restaurant gift cards, bibles or English dictionaries, and almost always clothing, snacks, and other goodies. It helps make the people feel connected to ‘their’ missionary!
That is a great idea. Thank you for sharing what your church is doing. That is very exciting.