Mission & Evangelism

Mission & Evangelism equips Christians and churches to share the gospel and make disciples locally and globally. Explore Bible-based articles on evangelism, outreach, disciple-making, missions strategy, church planting partnerships, and engaging your community with compassion and clarity. You’ll find practical guidance for building a missional culture, telling the story of Jesus well, and reaching people across cultures and generations. Whether you’re serving in your neighborhood, supporting missionaries, or leading a church on mission, these resources help you live sent and invite others to follow Christ.

November 30, 2018

Christian Standard

Give Your Church an International Flair this Christmas

By Emily Drayne   Have you ever wondered how Christmas is celebrated in other countries? Do they bake cookies and set them out for Santa? Do they hang stockings from mantles and have Christmas trees full of ornaments and lights? Many Americans could benefit from learning the traditions of other countries. Incorporating an international flair into your end-of-year services is easy. Here are five ways to expose your church family to missions during “the most wonderful time of the year.” 1. Host an “International Christmas Week” at your church. December is not a normal time for a missions emphasis, but

November 13, 2018

Christian Standard

Mix, Weigh, Seal, Ship: Packing Meals and Sharing Jesus’ Love

Lifeline Christian Mission partners with churches, schools, and others to provide the supplies—and opportunities—to serve people locally and globally through food-packing events.   By Ben Simms Mix. Weigh. Seal. Ship. These four simple steps involve several generations, as participants gather to package shelf-stable meals for the hungry. A meal-packing event is one of the easiest and most popular ways to engage a group of people, whether large or small, in a service project together. The fun begins as you bring your group together, whether it’s your church, school, or employees. You host the meal-packing event at your location across the

November 8, 2018

Christian Standard

Catalyst Community: An Interview with Jessie Vaca

An Interview with Jessie Vaca about the Changing Landscape of Global Church Planting   By David Dummitt When I consider all of the great things happening in the church around the world, one that really excites me is an initiative led by NewThing called “Catalyst Community.” Simply put, Catalyst Communities bring local leaders together to pray, dream, and strategize how to work together to grow God’s kingdom right where they are. I spoke with Jessie Vaca, NewThing’s global reproducing catalyst, to learn more about how Catalyst Communities are changing the landscape of church planting around the world.   What exactly

November 6, 2018

Christian Standard

Rethinking Short-Term Missions

3 Practices to Help (and Not Hurt) the People We Seek to Serve   By Josh Rouse Scenario 1: A short-term team paints three buildings on a nongovernmental organization’s campus and hosts a VBS for more than 200 so-called “street kids.” They go home proud of what they were able to achieve. The problem (aside from “street kids” being a derogatory term)? They don’t realize those same buildings had already been painted by other short-term teams twice that summer, and those same kids had attended more than a dozen similar VBS programs in the last two months. Either the host

November 1, 2018

Christian Standard

The Pocket Superhero

How to share Scripture with immigrants in their language   By Greg Pruett Weary from a long trip, I was tempted to ignore the Uber driver on my way home from the airport, but then I remembered missionaries are supposed to share the gospel. (Actually, we’re all supposed to do that!) A little reluctantly, I asked the man, “Where are you from?” “I’m from Dallas,” he responded. I could tell the story was more nuanced than that, so I probed a bit more: “Where are your parents from?” His answer intrigued me: “Ethiopia.” “What languages do you speak?” “I speak

October 30, 2018

Christian Standard

Transforming Communities through Business as Mission

By Fenton Lewis More than 20 years ago, I found myself wrestling with a desire to serve God beyond teaching Sunday school or giving to the church. The advice I received—as have many others—was to quit my job, go to seminary, and become a pastor. But I questioned that. God had given me a unique combination of education, work experience, and spiritual gifting, and I believed he had done that for a reason. I thought my unique skill-set could be used to help fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. So, I began an adventure that took me around

October 29, 2018

Kent E. Fillinger

Kent E. Fillinger

Survey Sheds Light on Our Missionaries

By Kent Fillinger To coincide with this issue’s focus on global missions, I partnered with the International Conference on Missions to conduct a survey to learn more about our Restoration Movement missionaries. The survey was sent out via ICOM’s email distribution network in August and a total of 118 people completed it. While the sample size is small, the focus of the survey is significant. To my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has gathered this type of information about our missionaries. I hope we can build on this foundation as more and more missionaries participate in the future.

October 25, 2018

Gary L. Johnson

Living as Missionaries

By Gary L. Johnson  “Clean your room.” Do you remember saying that to your child or being told that by a parent? It’s straightforward. Clear. Easily understood. A parent simply expects the child to clean his or her room. Nothing more. As a dad, I remember telling my sons to “clean your room” over and over again. Yet, instead of actually cleaning their rooms, what if my sons gathered their friends together and discussed what “cleaning your room” means, or they spoke of various cleaning methods, or even memorized the phrase, “Clean your room.” As a dad, all I wanted

October 1, 2018

Christian Standard

Mission-Driven Success

By TR Robertson   Rocky Fork Fellowship in tiny Hallsville, Missouri—population 1,500—grew from 40 to more than 400 in its first 10 years while meeting in the local middle school cafeteria. On March 4, 2018—11 years after the church’s founding—Rocky Fork gathered for their first Sunday together in a new building just south of town. A combined 841 worshippers attended two services. The following week, three Easter services brought in a total attendance of 977. Not surprisingly, the founders and leaders of the congregation have grown used to fielding questions about the secret to their success. “We try to pinpoint

September 22, 2018

Christian Standard

The Phenomenon of Disciple-Making Movements

Rural areas in the U.S. may be the best places for rapid multiplication of disciples and churches!   By Doug Lucas Over the past two decades, God has been working mightily through an approach commonly referred to as disciple-making movements (or DMMs. Some use the term CPM, short for church-planting movements, while others use T4T, meaning Training for Trainers. These three acronyms are, in many ways, synonymous, with only slight differences between them.) David Garrison was the first to write a book about this phenomenon, and his definition has become somewhat of the standard. In Church Planting Movements (2004), he

September 19, 2018

Christian Standard

Missions and Outreach in a Rural Setting

By Emily Drayne Growing up in a small town, it was easy to look beyond the borders of my community and dream of big cities and far-off places. I never considered my town to be a mission field. Missionaries who came to talk and put up displays at our church were always from a foreign country; I never thought of reaching out to people of my hometown to talk about Christ. But, in reality, there are many outreach opportunities specifically beneficial for rural churches. Here are some ideas for how rural churches can engage in outreach.   Look Around You

September 12, 2018

Mark A. Taylor

A California Hindu Discovers Christ Online

By Mark A. Taylor It all started on an airplane. Rajiv Badha was flying home to Fremont, California, sitting beside Nic Chumney who lives in Ohio. Chumney is a member of Christ’s Church in Mason, Ohio. As their conversation continued, talk turned to spiritual matters, and Chumney told Badha about the online campus of Christ’s Church, ccmasonlive.churchonline.org. Badha, who grew up in a Hindu family, decided to check out the congregation’s worship services broadcast live over the Internet every Sunday. But he didn’t log on the first time on a Sunday; instead, he viewed a Sunday service on a Tuesday (Christ’s

August 27, 2018

Christian Standard

How to Help Students Prepare for a Missions Trip

By Emily Drayne Many people mistakenly think an internship or short-term trip with a missions organization will require that they stand on a soapbox and talk to passersby about Jesus. That is not true. Vocational degrees such as business, agriculture, engineering, and cosmetology are among the fastest-growing ways to get into some of the more closed-off places on earth to spread the Word of God. In 2011, during my senior year of college, advisers started to ask me what I planned to do once I left campus. I quickly realized I had no plans. Fast-forward two months, I was talking

August 27, 2018

Christian Standard

Encounter Church, Washington D.C.—An Urban Mission Field

By Steve Carr A stretch of the famed Massachusetts Avenue in the District of Columbia is known as Embassy Row. This portion of the street is lined with more than 175 foreign embassies and diplomatic missions. Here in our country’s capital is a road representing the nations of the world coming together. A mere two miles from Embassy Row, a community of believers is dedicated to bringing the nations together for Christ. Nestled in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Encounter Church was planted last year by Joel Pazmino and his wife, Meghan. On a recent trip through D.C.,

July 30, 2018

Christian Standard

BikeMasters Ministry Takes Show on Road in California

By Jim Nieman Volunteers from CrossCity Christian Church, Fresno, Calif., started repairing bikes as a small part of a big ministry event about 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until three years ago that the church began throwing significant financial resources behind the bike-repair effort and made it a full-fledged ministry. BikeMasters now repairs bikes at about 10 events a year, focusing its efforts and peddling good feelings mainly in poorer neighborhoods. “It’s taken on a life of its own,” says Jim Corrao, CrossCity’s chief financial officer and missions pastor for the past five years (and, before that, executive pastor

July 21, 2018

Christian Standard

RISE

How You Can Engage Refugee and International Students in Your Community   By Emily Drayne Did you know there are more than 1 million foreign students on the campuses of American colleges? These students come from more than 200 countries around the world. The five countries that send the most students to the United States are China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. Many times, these international guests don’t even see the inside of an American home during their time here. It’s estimated about half the world’s future leaders will study on American campuses. Did you also know that

July 11, 2018

Christian Standard

Project Mañana: Working Together Today for an Eternal Tomorrow

By Emily Drayne I’ve seen it happen time and again in my ministry with the International Conference on Missions. Whether committing to go on a short-term trip or enter full-time service, when people simply open themselves up to God’s plan, he guides them every step of the way.   Brian and Nebraska’s Story After his first short-term mission trip to the Dominican Republic in 2007, Brian Berman felt an urge to get involved. He fell in love with the culture and people, but he also saw a physical and spiritual need there. After leaving corporate America, he and his wife,

June 29, 2018

Tyler McKenzie

Love Is the End

By Tyler McKenzie   “If we never become Christians, will you still be our friends?” I was shocked by the question. Even a little angry. Did the last year of our friendship mean nothing? My wife, Lindsay, and I had met Joe and Amy at our church. We were leading a group for skeptics designed to answer tough questions. It was my favorite hour of the week (secretly, because their questions have always been mine). When I walked in, the two of them were huddled on a black leather couch we retired from the church lobby to one of the

June 13, 2018

Christian Standard

Generations in Missions: Don’t Count Me Out!

By Emily Drayne  An older missionary might say, “They’ll never understand how we did it.” A younger missionary might complain, “They’re so old school.” It’s a generational issue that’s probably been around forever. Leaders err, however, when they count out those from other generations simply because of age, style of doing the job, or lack of “experience.” In missions and in ministry, it seems, there are two ways to do the job. There’s the way it’s been done for years, and then there’s the way new leaders with new ideas are doing it. So how can we carry out our

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