Staying on Mission: How Restoration Movement Churches Are Supporting Global Ministry

By James Thompson

Over the past decade, the Barna Group has released a steady drumbeat of survey results that point to an unfortunate conclusion: the American church is increasingly ambivalent about missions work. One study found that a majority of U.S. churchgoers see participation in missions as “a calling for some Christians” rather than “a mandate for all.” Another poll revealed that over half of American Christians have not heard of the Great Commission. Yet another report suggested that a sizable percentage of younger adult believers think evangelistically sharing their faith is wrong. We seem to be witnessing a worrying decline in witnessing.  

It would be easy for the more evangelical segments of the American church to distance themselves from these statistics. After all, these surveys reflect the attitudes of U.S. Christians more broadly. While other corners of the church may have lost their missional edge, not so with us! Specifically regarding independent Christian churches and churches of Christ, we have a record of missionary activity and advocacy that stretches back to the earliest chapters of Restoration history. Our many contemporary missions organizations, programs, and conferences show that this commitment to making disciples around the globe is still a key characteristic of our movement.  

We should not assume, however, that we are immune from this problematic trend. It’s possible for any congregation to find itself slipping into Great Commission complacency. Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. There are a variety of dynamic approaches being modeled in Restoration Movement churches that can encourage other congregations to initiate or reinvigorate their own engagement with missions.  

Faith Promise  

Each fall, Compassion Christian Church in Savannah, Georgia, dedicates two “Faith Promise” Sundays to highlighting and supporting the work of the congregation’s global ministry partners. These partners include American missionaries as well as ministers of other nationalities working in their home countries. Many of these workers temporarily leave their ministry contexts to join the Faith Promise events in person. On the first Sunday, they are often interviewed on stage at one of Compassion’s seven campuses. They also participate in other gatherings, like dinners and cookouts, that give the church’s members an opportunity to build relationships with the global workers they support. John-Mark Romans, Compassion’s global engagement pastor, cannot contain a wide grin while describing what he calls “the greatest two weeks of our church.”  

On the second Sunday, the focus shifts to what the church will do to support global ministry in the coming year. Senior Pastor Cam Huxford preaches a missions-focused sermon before asking church members to pledge a specific amount to support missions in addition to their regular tithing. In the weeks leading up to Faith Promise, Compassion’s leadership encourages each person to pray about what God would have them commit.  

“The concept is, when God provides that commitment that you have made, you promise that you will give that back to the Lord specifically through missions,” explained Romans. “It is a commitment you have made in faith, and you promise that you will give this back to the Lord when he provides it.”  

Faith Promise is an approach to supporting missions with a long history in Restoration Movement churches. Over the years, many congregations have surprised themselves by giving above and beyond their original goals. However, multiple leaders interviewed for this article said that many churches have moved away from Faith Promise, often in favor of a budget-based approach, meaning that a certain percentage of the church’s general fund is dedicated to missions. Romans believes that this can also be a very effective strategy and says that one model is not better than the other. However, he appreciates how Faith Promise requires Compassion to have “a consistent plan for communication” about missions throughout the year to ensure the congregation’s giving keeps pace with its commitment, which this year was over $2.5 million.  

As the name implies, this approach is an exercise in faith, both for the members who make commitments and for church leaders who develop a missions budget based on dollars that have been promised but not yet received. At Compassion, God has consistently provided, and the church has exceeded its Faith Promise goal each year for well over a decade. 

Regional Church Cooperation  

While megachurches like Compassion are blessed with sufficient financial resources to fund missionaries’ travel to events like Faith Promise, this sort of engagement would not be realistic for congregations with more limited budgets. It would have been easy for the small, rural, and in some cases struggling churches that make up the Hi-Plains School of Missions to resign themselves to participating in global ministry by simply sending checks. Not satisfied with this, these believers band together to do more. Five churches in Oklahoma formed the school in 1984. The partnership grew quickly, and soon also included churches in Kansas and Texas. Seventeen congregations are signed up for this year’s program.  

Vic Peterson, who took over as the Hi-Plains school’s director earlier this year when longtime chairman Marvin Garrison retired, says that the groups purpose is two-fold: First, “to show these small churches in this remote area what God is doing on the other side of the world,” and to show “churches on the other side of the world . . . what God could do with a handful of small churches in a very remote part of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.”  

The school has both an educational and a fund-raising component. Each year, several missionaries are invited to be the program’s featured speakers. They come to Oklahoma in October for an orientation weekend before splitting up and heading to their first church visit. Each missionary attends a participating church’s Sunday morning gathering. Depending on the church, a missionary might get to know the congregation during a meet and greet time, give a presentation about their ministry during the Sunday school hour, preach the sermon during the worship service, or all three. After lunch, they set off again to share about their ministry with another church that evening. This continues for three weeks, with the missionaries sleeping in a different town almost every night as they travel the school’s circuit.  

Each participating church devotes one week to the school. During their week on the schedule, they host and house the missionaries that come to visit. They also take up an offering for the school, which is divided between the participating missionaries to support their work. (Since its founding, the school has raised over $1.5 million.) It’s a big commitment for a small church, but Peterson says the congregations reap significant spiritual benefits. He describes the experience as “about as good as any revival meeting you can have.”  

This face-to-face engagement has often led to strong bonds forming between the congregations and the missionaries who visit them. Some, such as Carrie McKean, have even decided to become global workers themselves. As a child, she looked forward each year to the week when the school’s speakers would visit Hi-Land Christian Church in Pampa, Texas.  

“I’d lean forward in my pew, each click of the slide projector taking me further and further away from home . . . [and] closer to a new and wondrous corner of God’s heart as I was introduced to more of his beloved children,” McKean recalled.  

This exposure to international ministry during childhood “planted the seeds” that eventually led McKean to spend four years serving at an orphanage in China. Now back in Texas, she continues to look for opportunities to build relationships with people from other cultures.  

Living Link  

While cooperative groups like the Hi-Plains school give churches the opportunity to spend time with several missionaries each year, some congregations opt to put a special emphasis on their connection with one missionary individual or family. In this close relationship, often referred to as a “living link,” a single church becomes the primary financial and spiritual supporter of a missionary. Often, this person was an active member of the same church before perceiving a call to missions. The church helps them discern and prepare to follow this calling, equipping them for the journey ahead. After settling in a new country, the missionary links the American congregation with the kingdom work happening abroad.  

First Christian Church of Seminole, Florida, has supported missions using the living link model for almost 30 years. During that time, they have sent out three families to serve internationally. Even while thousands of miles away, the missionaries are considered staff members of the church. The congregation stays informed about their work through newsletters, virtual calls, and “missions moment” updates during Sunday worship. When back in the States on furlough, the missionaries are based in Seminole and work at the church.  

In addition to linking First Christian to ministry in the wider world, the missionaries are also linked to each other. Larry Renfro was serving as an elder when the church’s first living link missionaries, Don and Alita Hulsey, requested that someone from the congregation visit them in Mozambique. Renfro went and was deeply affected by the experience. Seeing the Hulseys’ ministry up close awakened a desire in him to serve internationally as well. He wondered how his wife, Mandy, would respond to this, but he need not have worried. Back in Seminole, she was experiencing a similar feeling after listening to a missions-focused sermon. The couple eventually became Seminole’s second living link family and served for 12 years in Malawi.  

“We both got the call half a world apart,” Renfro recalled with a laugh.  

The church’s current living link missionaries, Ken and Sheila Nelson, serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea. The congregation supports other cross-cultural work as well, but the special bond with living link missionaries has been especially important in connecting the church to missions and helping more members discover a passion for global service. Reflecting on how each living link couple has helped inspire the next, Renfro is excited about the church’s future.  

“Who else is thinking about going to the mission field from this congregation?” he wondered. “Who’s next?”  

Many Approaches, One Goal  

Examining even just three of the many approaches to supporting cross-cultural ministry found in the Restoration Movement illustrates an important point: there’s no one-size-fits-all model for churches wanting to participate in God’s global mission. The specific approach that a church takes may be influenced by its size, resources, location, and leadership. While the strategies may be different, the goal is the same: to join in Christ’s work to “draw all people” to himself (John 12:32) and to express our gratitude for his saving grace.  

James Thompson is a missionary with CMF International and a freelance journalist.