Kontaktmission USA Director Blog

Missional "hunting" for missionaries

I love the word "missional" and what it emphasizes.  We're not supposed to "do" missionary and evangelistic work, we're supposed to "be" it all the time.  The phrase "missional church" sounds just about perfect to me, and in my opinion it's a great catchword for churches and for Christians. 

But I'm a missionary organization leadership guy, and today, right now, I'm getting ready for a missionary conference which begins in two days.  So the office team and I are packing up all the banners and brochures and application forms we use to meet others who are in the process of searching for God's place for them.  Another leader on our team, Rob Marmion, is traveling today to be at another separate large event tonight, where he'll tell people about our GoConnect trips, which are designed to take Christians to visit and briefly participate in mission projects.  Sometimes it seems strange to me that we are expending such effort - and expense - to meet other Christians, and to take these other Christians around the world. The logic would most naturally dictate that since we're a mission organization, we should be expending our resources exclusively among the unreached, or at least among the unchurched.  Right?

But of course it's much more complex than that, and it always has been.  There's the model of Jesus to be considered.  He was very specific and very intentional about the twelve men he chose.  And then he spent significant ministry time investing in them.  "Recruiting?"  "Training?"

And there's the teaching of Jesus in the Great Commission to be considered, yet again.  It always comes back to that; if there is to be a "go to all nations," then there is sending to be done, and sending is simply a tremendously complex process if you want to do it right.  Kontaktmission has recognized something which has too frequently been forgotten, that the one who is sent can use lots of help when he or she arrives in the host country and culture.  Being ready to receive a missionary on the "business end" of the missionary trip is possibly even more complex than the sending part back home. 

Eventually it comes down to this: the Great Commission calls for missionaries.  Oh yeah, in the real world it does.  If nobody is going internationally and intentionally, then the Great Commission is not being carried out as Jesus intended it.  Just waiting for people to eventually take the Gospel around "as they go" is not as effective, and not as in-line with the practice of the first disciples, as the sending of missionaries with strategy aforethought.  The very first Christians did it, and they did it carefully, setting aside those men, those teams, to go, then supplying them with what they needed to do so.  A simple glance at statistics will show that mission efforts in the last couple centuries have had a very positive effect.  The gates of hell are not prevailing in those places where mission work has been done well - with intentionality and excellence.

So today we're packing, and tomorrow we're off on our missionally-motivated "hunt" for the next missionaries we can help send.  It's a very intentional activity, at every step along the way.  And when I consider the enormity of what God has allowed us to do and called us to do, I know in my heart that preparing to hunt for missionaries is the most missional thing I can do on a Tuesday morning.  Pray with me, please, that some more will be found who will actually go live missionally in Europe. 

An Open Door in Europe for American Missionaries

It shouldn’t surprise me after all this time, but it still does:  most American Christians still don’t realize the need for missionary work in Europe.  The urgent need is certainly very real there (meaning there aren’t many Christians or churches), and the door is open.  And of course the command of the Lord to go and make disciples of all nations hasn’t changed, and that certainly applies to Europe.

Maybe the part that has us confused is the idea that the door is open for mission work in Europe.  But it really is open, even for American missionaries.  We can start by talking about Eastern Europe, where almost all the countries seem to welcome American missionaries with little complication, and where outreach efforts can be very effective, especially when national leaders are involved.  And we can speak of open doors in Western Europe as well.  There is probably more open hostility toward Christians and Christianity in the US than in Western Europe right now.

Kontaktmission has openings for committed servants in multiple Eastern and Western European countries.  We’re sending an American family, the Gainers, to begin their work in Ukraine next month.  Albania remains wide open, and our teams are ready to accept workers.  We have a specific missionary position open for a team doing international ministry in an urban setting in Germany; the German team leader has requested an American couple for the team.  Our Belgium leadership is requesting US missionaries as well, and helping us in the process of bringing them on.

So yes, the door is open.  We’re going through it!  You coming?

Mission trips to Greece and Albania

If you're interested in seeing what God is doing in a part of Europe that feels very different from most of Europe, then Albania and Greece are the perfect countries for a closer look. Kontaktmission has missionaries in both countries, and just happens to have GoConnect trips scheduled for the first half of 2010. GoConnect trips are Kontaktmission's platform for connecting mission-minded Christians with up-and-running European mission projects, giving participants a chance to decide where they would like to invest themselves for God's purposes in the world. 

Even though Greece is home to ancient buildings and some of the earliest Christian sites, it belongs to modern Europe, complete with wealth and everything the world has to offer.  The Kontaktmission church work there is in the city of Thessaloniki - the Thessalonika of the Bible - in a very urban and multi-cultural part of town.  A GoConnect trip here provides an opportunity to interact with Greek people and others from around Europe.  The host missionary is Timotheos Antoniadis, a veteran Greek church planter who knows exactly what you need to understand about mission work in Greece.  You'll visit sites like Philippi of the Bible and the spot of the first Christian baptism of a European believer (Lydia of Acts 16), and you'll put it all in the context of what God is doing NOW in this complex place.

Albania, although it is a neighbor of Greece, is a completely different place.  It's a largely Muslim country which is still struggling to get completely to its feet after years under a delusional dictator.  The people are warm and the culture is very relaxed and inviting... and very welcoming to Americans.  Missionaries Lorenc and Daniela Ahmet are very effective church planters in the city of Korca (pronounced "Korcha") who will teach the GoConnect trip team about mission work in this country and about the different people groups living the region, which include gypsies, Kosovars, and the majority regular Shqip (Albanian) population. 

Openings are still available for the 2010 GoConnect trips to both countries.  Interested?  You can learn more and sign up at www.kontaktmissionusa.org . 

it all started with a mission trip

Since we're launching our GoConnect trips to Europe in a big way right now, I've been thinking a lot lately about how mission trips have played an enormous role in my life.  To be fair, I guess I'd have to say I was always theoretically, maybe theologically interested in missions.  It's hard to read the Bible without that happening, you know?  But my ministry path led me first to youth ministry in a new church in Arizona.  (Some time I'll have to write about how working in a new, dynamic church plant made church planting so important in my life, but I digress.)

So it happened like this...  As a youth minister, I was always looking for ways to increase the passion level of the kids in the group, and always on the lookout for something interesting and fun to do with them.  Since we were in Arizona, this led pretty easily to some work trips to Ensenada, Mexico, where we built houses for some of the economic refugees who had come from all over Central America to the border region just south of San Diego, CA.  We went with two or three different organizations over the course of a few years.  We didn't do any evangelism, but it definitely got us out of our comfort zones and right into a completely different culture.  And it was also so important for us as Americans to experience the extreme poverty of these people close-up.  I still think every American really needs to experience something like this, for various reasons. 

These trips got everyone in our group talking about missions in general, at least the more spiritually-minded ones among the teenagers and adult helpers.  And it challenged me to think more intensely about missions.  I found a brochure for one trip designed for youth ministers, to Costa Rica and Panama, and after sneaking looks at it for a few days and dreaming, I took this huge leap and CALLED about it.  This was a big moment for me.  That night, I told my wife about it.  That was a big moment for her.  Probably should have talked to her BEFORE calling...

When I look back now at all the things that led me into this life in missions - first serving as church-planting missionary in Germany, then starting Kontaktmission USA a few years ago - and what created this passion that never lets go of me for even a second, I have to confess that this trip with the other youth ministers was the real beginning of all that.  I realized during and after that trip how passionate I was about taking Jesus cross-culturally, and discovered that I loved being out of my comfort zone like that.  I'm sure I didn't realize that before.  I mean, I was the kid who was uncomfortable going to church camp as a teenager.  Anyway, after the trip was over, I couldn't stop talking about Costa Rica and Panama and the churches there.  Seems like everything I said for the next 6 months started out with "In this one church in Panama..." or "At the house where we stayed in Costa Rica..."  It was probably pretty annoying for my wife and everyone else around me.  The fact is, I was actually changed again.  I'd become truly crazy about and committed to Jesus a few years before, one gigantic change, but now it was happening all over again.

I think a life with Jesus should be full of passion, full of surprises, full of the joy of discovery, full of that feeling of falling and then being caught by God's strong hand.  I can not understand those who want a Christian life just because they've understood it's a superior way to live and raise a family or something... It is, of course, but don't they realize what they're missing, what He offers, what He has actually called us to?  I also think for those of us who know we love Jesus, missions is just a natural part of what we do.  It's one of our defining characteristics: Christ-followers do mission work, they just do.  It makes complete sense to me that the experience of missions is going to be full of the best joys and surprises, and my experience has certainly borne that out for me.

It all started with a mission trip.  I keep thinking about Kontaktmission's GoConnect trips (Europe) that are forming now for the coming months.  I hope everyone who reads this will get on one and get changed.

interested in missions, permanently

The jury is pretty much in now, and I think it's fair to say that I'm permanently interested in missions, permanently consumed with reaching Europe with the message of hope in Jesus, permanently fascinated with all that's involved in church planting in the countries of this awe-inspiringly complex continent.  I'm also very interested in travel to these countries as well as in exploring the wonderful peoples and cultures of these countries and their languages.  This blog will be a place to express some of what I'm learning, feeling, experiencing, wanting, and planning as I continue to live out this passion through my work with Kontaktmission.  Since I'm always interested in hearing from someone who is as interested in European missions and church planting as I am, I'm also hoping this blog will provide opportunities to connect with hearts like mine. 

The Lord is truly good to us, letting us work together on something that's simultaneously so mind-bogglingly important and so amazingly interesting.  Working on a meaningful project with others is always great fun, even if it's just building a parade float or the world's largest ice cream sundae.  But when it's for this high a purpose that feeling of joy in cooperation is multiplied by a thousand.  Kontaktmission is creating a community like this, and I really hope and pray we can add lots of people who feel the same pull in their hearts, and maybe haven't yet found a place to plug in with others. 

Well, those are some of my hopes and intentions for this blog.  Asking for wisdom from the Father to keep me from writing anything that displeases Him along the way...