Daily Message

Creative Ideas for Sharing Your Ministry Books

Tell A Friend

Tell a friend is designed to enlarge the circle of blessing and giving toward the support of the Lord's work. The principle is simple: Each of your friends and relatives who are supporting you is encouraged to share their joy in being a part of your ministry with one other person (or couple). Normally, we are anxious to share good news with friends or family. Why not share this joy?

Through networking with your friends and family you can develop this circle of support to the ministry. Share your news through a telephone call , Email, fax or a handwritten note to any of your immediate friends or family. Have them share this news with one other person or friend(s). Incorporated in this circle activity is the opportunity for prayer. The result could well be a great increase in the amount of prayer and financial support as more and more people join our efforts.

Great Get-Togethers

Invite your friends and relatives for a "get acquainted" time (tea, lunch, dinner, barbecue, etc.). The purpose of this time is to personally acquaint your friends and relatives with the work of Mission to Unreached Peoples, and specifically your ministry overseas.

You Provide: A place to meet, postage for mailings, food or refreshments, personal testimony / sharing about your call to the mission field.

Mission to Unreached Peoples Provides: A display or a representative if possible, brochures, and general information. A friend might like to do the same with others whom they feel would be interested in getting involved and acquainted with a personal ministry overseas.

Sharing at Church

Sunday School: Do not forget to involve yourself in the Sunday school department. Children are an excellent resource of prayer support and often love to have a project for a month of offerings. Be creative in your presentation with any artifacts you can use, pictures (from library or elsewhere), and some kind of a "reminder" given to them to remember to pray for you.

For example, if you are going to China, give out chopsticks wrapped inside a piece of paper with your prayer requests. Learn "hello" or a phrase or song in the particular language and teach it to them by repetition. Encourage the children by sharing why you are going and the possibility and excitement of their going as missionaries when they are older. Educate and inform them about children their age in your destination country.

Youth-College Age: They are an excellent group as they too should start considering missions for their future. Again, use slides, brochures, a map, etc., so they can visualize where you are going. Pass out your prayer requests or your introductory letter as a reminder for them to pray for you. They may also want to have a fund raising activity to help support you.

Senior Citizens: Don't forget this vital group of people. Profit from their expertise and prayer power. Use slides and other visuals to share with them. Leave them with a prayer reminder.

Home Fellowships: Many of our workers have found this to be the most effective overall way to raise their needed prayer and financial support. If your home church and others you have ties with have home Bible studies or fellowship groups, meeting with each of them and sharing about your vision and heart for ministry, what God's been doing in you, what you'll be doing overseas, and finally, what your needs for prayer and financial support are, can be very powerful. It gives people an opportunity to interact with you on a more personal basis, ask questions, and usually results in more people praying seriously about if and how they can/should support you.

Bring copies of your prayer letters, mailing list sign-up sheets, prayer cards, response envelopes, and some MUP brochures. It's very important that people know how to respond if they sense the Spirit's leading. Many of our workers have multiplied many times their prayer and financial supporters over what they were receiving from churches' missions or general funds, or raised in faith pledge drives, by taking the time to meet with as many of the small groups as possible! Churches which do not have money in their budget to made available will many times still be willing to give permission to meet with all or some of their small groups.

Network, network, network!

Many candidates go through their own relationship network and find that they have not yet raised enough support. To help keep this from happening to you, think "networking" right from the beginning. Talk to friends who attend different churches, or who attend Bible studies or fellowships elsewhere, or independent groups. Ask if they could help you come talk to that group or church. Then, when and if you do speak there, again, ask if anyone there knows of another group or individual that might be interested in learning about this ministry.

Always specifically ask your pastor and missions committee head if they would help you network with other churches and groups they're aware of. Consider asking your pastor/committee to write a letter of endorsement to them. Basically, the idea here is that you should just concentrate and make it a habit to always ask for referrals every time you communicate with anyone about your ministry and then always follow-up the referrals you get!

The Most Important "Creative Idea" - Pray Faithfully!

Now that's really obvious, isn't it? But most of us would have to admit that this is the area which can be the most difficult. Recently missionaries who were in the process of raising support were asked how much time they spent every day praying for their support and supporters. Most said they thought they averaged 10 minutes a day. Then they were asked to actually keep track and log the time they actually spent in prayer every day for their future ministry and support. The results were startling and instructive: most missionaries only spent an average of 3 minutes a day, an average of 3 times a week in prayer for their ministry - or less! Most also reported that they were struggling "somewhat" or "a great deal" raising enough financial support. However, there was another group that reported that they were raising what they needed on schedule or ahead of schedule. These missionaries' logs showed that they were praying an average of 8 minutes a day, an average of 5 times a week for their support process. Although statisticians would warn us that "correlation does not necessarily equal cause," the lesson here should be obvious. Consult God continually. Lift up every detail of your deputation process to Him!

Make it your goal to do something concrete and positive to help you gather support every day. Make a couple of phone calls, write a personal note to a supporter or potential supporter. Make an appointment to share about your ministry at a home group, Bible study, Sunday School class or church. Jot down some ideas for your next prayer letter. Spending just 30 -60 minutes every day doing something specifically focused on helping you discover the support base the Lord has for you is incredibly powerful, and though it might seem like an obvious thing to do, most don't do it. If you are having trouble raising the support you need, look to see if you've really been faithful in this area. If you haven't been, make a commitment before the Lord to be more faithful, and ask Him to help you keep with it!

Book Suggestions

• "More Than Money, More Than Faith: Succesfully Raising Missionary Support in the Twenty-first Century" by Paul Johnson
• "Friend Raising" by Betty Barnett
• "Funding Your Ministry? Whether You're Gift or Not!" by Scott Morton
• "Getting Sent: A Relational Approach" by Neal Pirol
• "Serving as Senders" by Neal Pirol