{"id":3309,"date":"2013-11-21T20:49:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T18:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2020-02-17T11:44:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T09:44:22","slug":"is-missions-hurting-your-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/is-missions-hurting-your-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Missions Hurting Your Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you want your church to grow then missions isn&#8217;t the first department you&#8217;d think about. In the church growth books I&#8217;ve read you might not think about missions at all!<\/p>\n<p>Why is it that missions is so blatantly absent from the advice of many church growth gurus?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s because missions isn&#8217;t really that good for the local church!<\/p>\n<p>My first trip to Ukraine was in 1994. It was at a time when our own church, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.discoverybaptist.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Discovery Baptist<\/a> in Gig Harbor, Washington was not doing well. We were in a rented facility and had just learned that the owner was going to sell the building. We had nowhere to go and no money to buy anything, attendance was down, things were looking bleak!<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when my dad and I decided to leave behind the struggling church to serve for a month in Ukraine! We had never done anything like this before but it seemed the Lord was leading us in that direction.<\/p>\n<p>Some, however, resisted. They asked,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t we focus on fixing our problems first?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>They believed that missions was hurting our church.<\/p>\n<p>From a practical and business perspective missions really does hurt the church.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Missions takes money.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Missions takes time.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Missions takes the best people away.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those are all resources that seem to be in short supply in nearly every church, not to mention small struggling church plants!<\/p>\n<p>We decided to go to Ukraine despite these things. Then we went again about 9 months later! I continued to travel back and forth until moving there full time in 2007.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Did missions kill our church? Not by a long shot!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>After we got back from our first trip in 1994 things started to come together for our home church. Attendance increased, we found a new facility, purchased it and the church took off!<\/p>\n<p>We learned some important lessons from that experience.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The church is much more than a business. Certain business practices can be helpful to the church but ultimately it is Jesus who builds the church not man! Matthew 16:18<\/li>\n<li>God has called the church to do missions, it is an inextricable part of her DNA! Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8<\/li>\n<li>The Church that serves and sacrifices will thrive! Serving the larger Body of Christ is part of this and will ultimately help bring greater spiritual health and life to the church. 2 Corinthians 8:1-4<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4>Question: How have you seen missions worked out in your church? What lessons have you learned through missions?<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you want your church to grow then missions isn&#8217;t the first department you&#8217;d think about. In the church growth books I&#8217;ve read you might not think about missions at all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[99,64],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-church-growth","tag-missions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/DSC01049-001.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3izZc-Rn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":435,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/missions-roundtable-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":0},"title":"Missions Roundtable","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"November 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Around 50 participants from over 14 countries: Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Albania, Israel, Croatia, Bosnia, -----stan, Hungary, USA, Canada, Moldova and Romania. I really appreciated hearing how God is sending out missionaries from unexpected places like Moldova and ------stan. Pastor Eduard from Moldova shares his missions experience with church leaders\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/DSC04340.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/DSC04340.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/DSC04340.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":442,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/november-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":1},"title":"November Update","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"November 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Thanksgiving in Suffering This month started out on a sad note for us. I got the news that Pastor Peter had died just as we were starting our Missions roundtable. We had to leave the roundtable a little early to make it back to Odessa in time for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6862,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/our-churchs-1st-missions-conference\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":2},"title":"Our Church&#8217;s 1st Missions Conference","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"August 29, 2016","format":"video","excerpt":"I'll admit, planning our church's first missions conference made me both a bit anxious and excited. \u00a0 We weren't sure how people would respond and who would show up. Nevertheless we decided to push forward knowing that one of the best things we can do for our church and other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/DSC03328.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/DSC03328.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/DSC03328.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2542,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/what-is-missions-book-giveaway\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":3},"title":"What is Missions? Book Giveaway!","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"May 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"(This giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Elpida on winning the book! ) How do you define \"Missions\"? What do you have to do to do missions? What do you have to be a missionary? The answer to these questions will determine many of the choices you make in your life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/may13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/may13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/may13.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6924,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/why-this-church-is-trying-to-get-rid-of-its-youth\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":4},"title":"Why This Church Is Trying to Get Rid of Its Youth","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"October 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I often hear pastors complaining about how so many youth leave the Church after they graduate from high school. Youth pastors especially seem to live in fear that a diploma in the hands of their once vibrant young disciples will turn them into hard and fast sceptics who can no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Youth-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Youth-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Youth-001.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Youth-001.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Youth-001.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2720,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/what-is-a-missionaries-job\/","url_meta":{"origin":3309,"position":5},"title":"What Do Missionaries Do?","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"June 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently I asked you \"What is missions?\" and I received some great answers! Now I have another question for you. What are missionaries supposed to do? There are many good missions books which can tell you how to work in another culture or what are the most effective tools for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/DSC04173-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/DSC04173-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/DSC04173-001.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12262,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions\/12262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}