It may be a missionary’s slide show you saw, an article you read or a story someone told you, but regardless of how it happened, a new reality has set in.
You know you have to go. And others in your church feel the same way.
So when the rubber meets the road, how do you and your church start to plan a missions trip? Do you want to go overseas or somewhere within driving distance? What kind of work do you want to do? How much money do you want to spend?
And who in the world is going to help plan all this?
Reggie Quimby, director of the office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said he’s definitely got the answer to that question, not to mention the contacts and resources to help with all the others.
"When churches call our office to start planning a missions trip, we begin to talk through the basics of what they are looking for in a missions project," Quimby said.
And from that point on, he’s there to assist the church with any or all of the details.
The office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions can help churches at two points of entry, Quimby said.
"[I]f you don’t already have in mind the location you are going to go to, you can contact us and we can assist you with direction in choosing a project through our partnerships with Guatemala, Ukraine, Michigan or the Northeast," he said.
According to Quimby, factors to consider when choosing the type and location of the project include:
– the size group a church wants to take,
– how much the church wants to invest in the project,
– what type of work the team wishes to perform (medical, evangelistic, construction, etc.),
– who is qualified to lead the team and
– how much lead time is available to work toward that project.
For international projects, he said churches need at least nine months to a year of planning time in order to get everything squared away and ready.
"Having this much time to plan can help ensure that it will be a good experience for the leader and for the team," Quimby said.
Once the project location and time frame are nailed down, let the planning begin.
"For Alabama Baptist churches, I can offer to come meet with the leader and the group to go over the steps of planning and packing and do orientation.
"We can also sit down and project a time line of how the missions trip and planning will go," he said.
Quimby’s office can also help those churches that have already picked a location or project.
"And if churches want a jumping-off point for thinking about preplanning their 2008 missions trips, our missions summits are great ways to glean ideas," he said.
The summits, each planned as identical events, are designed to help Alabama Baptists "understand how the State Board of Missions can assist in missions trip logistics."
This year, seven summits are being offered during the month of September:
– First Baptist Church, Montgomery — Sept. 6
– Lakeside Baptist Church, Birmingham — Sept. 10
– Jackson Way Baptist Church, Huntsville — Sept. 11
– Woodward Avenue Baptist Church, Muscle Shoals — Sept. 13
– West Mobile Baptist Church, Mobile — Sept. 17
– First Baptist Church, Enterprise — Sept. 18
– Indian Lake Baptist Church, Northport — Sept. 20.
All of these preplanning services are provided to Alabama Baptist churches through Cooperative Program funds.
For more information, call Quimby’s office at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 239, or e-mail rquimby@alsbom.org.
Other organizations such as Church Starts International also help churches with missions trip preplanning.
Church Starts International (CSI), a Texas-based missions organization, has developed a church-starting program coordinated on the field by International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries all over the world.
After CSI coordinates the work with IMB missionaries and sends out teams from the United States to jump-start the church-starting effort, the discipleship is turned over to the nationals.
And according to Ed Wright, it works.
Wright, associate senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Dothan, in Columbia Baptist Association, has been involved with the organization since 1996 and has taken groups from Calvary Baptist to Guatemala five times to help start churches.
"At least 15 other missions have started out of the four churches we’ve started," said Wright, who also serves as a CSI board member.
These type results are fairly typical with these church plants, called MegaMissions, according to Ted Lindwall, CSI MegaDiscipleship coordinator.
"Why have MegaMissions become church starters while still being ‘missions’ themselves? The answer is simple — when these workers discover that they can go anywhere in their community and disciple and win others (as they do with the help of visiting missions teams), they quickly realize that the same power is theirs in neighboring and distant communities … as in their own back yard," he said.
Those interested in CSI’s work can learn more through the organization’s new book, "MegaDiscipleship, A New Day for Evangelism, Church Starts and Church Growth," which is available from CSI.
CSI offers its services for a modest fee in addition to the costs of the trip.
For more information, call 940-538-5665 or visit www.churchstarts.com.
Another ministry with Alabama ties is e3 Partners Ministry, which stands for "Equip. Evangelize. Establish."
e3 is an interdenominational missions organization that helps plant churches, bring people to salvation in Christ and disciple them and encourage local churches around the world.
It’s a "one-stop missions shop," according to Don Jones, e3 medical church planter and a member of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, in Birmingham Baptist Association.
The staff of e3 — some of whom, including Jones, are Alabama Baptists — is scattered nationwide.
"We train nationals around the world in church-planting and evangelism strategies, then we bring in missions teams (from the United States) on short-term missions trips to do saturation evangelism," Jones said.
"The mission points they establish on the trip then grow into churches led by the nationals," he explained.
In the first 18 years of its existence, e3 saw 4,459 new churches established and 491,499 accept Christ as Savior, according to Jones. But in the last 24 months alone, the organization has seen 5,937 more churches established and 528,859 more come to Christ.
"It just shows that this is really taking off," Jones said.
He added the goal of e3 is to see a church planted within walking distance of every person on the planet.
e3 doesn’t charge a fee for its services, other than the cost of travel.
For more information, call Jones at 205-410-3014 or visit www.e3partners.org.
10-2 Missions is an Alabama-based organization that helps churches find needs on the field.
Founded by Greg Johnson, a member of The Brook, Madison, 10-2 Missions is based on Luke 10:2 and has two primary areas of focus — the Bahamas and the Mississippi Gulf Coast hit by Hurricane Katrina.
10-2 Missions is sponsored by several churches in the Madison area including The Brook; Summit Crossing Community, Madison; and Jackson Way Baptist, Huntsville — all in Madison Association — and several individuals.
The organization’s leaders search out areas of need and partner churches from all over the United States with a church in the area of need or help plant a church in that area.
Much of the work of 10-2 Missions is construction and disaster relief, but a good deal is also pastoral training and discipleship, mainly done by pastors from the United States.
10-2 Missions offers its services to churches at an affordable rate, according to its Web site.
For more information, call Johnson at 256-325-6627 or visit www.10-2missions.com.
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