We have an opportunity for you to impact the Kingdom of God in a truly significant way, a way that many missions and missionaries are not practicing, to their detriment and the detriment of their ministries.
Many missionaries feel alone and overwhelmed by the number of things they are required to do, and asked to do, to be effective on the field. This is why many people who want to go to the mission field never make it, and why many missionaries don’t make it past their first term of service.
We believe there is a more biblical way that recognizes the truth from Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 that we are a body, and we all have an important role to play in the fulfillment of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.
We call it Mission SHIELD: Specific Help Intentionally Encouraging Loving Discipleship.
We are seeking to find people who are able and willing to help us in our mission efforts, by serving in roles that directly support and help us fulfill our mission to make disciples of all nations. These roles include helping to coordinate finances, prayer, pastoral care, administration and logistics, journalism and story-writing, information technology, security, morale support, hospitality, and re-entry.
We believe by doing this missionaries will be more effective in accomplishing their mission, and we will see not only more effective mission work, but less missionary attrition.
One of the most powerful military weapons in the world is an aircraft carrier, which houses 6,000 crew, in order to support about 100 pilots who have a mission to accomplish. That’s about 60 people for every pilot.
If these pilots were not accompanied by these additional people, they would not be able to accomplish their mission.
We are looking for people who want to use their skills and time to help us as missionaries be more effective at making disciples of all nations.
This is also the model that we require all of our missionaries to implement, and a big part of our role as a mission agency is to help our missionaries build and train their Mission SHIELD. We believe this is a primary distinctive of the Zinzendorf Mission.
We find that those missionaries who apply themselves consistently to find and build and maintain their SHIELD tend to be far happier and tend to bear more fruit in their ministry than those who do not. That is why it has become a requirement that any missionary seeking to join the Zinzendorf Mission must first put together a SHIELD, and that group of people is part of the decision-making body for finally becoming a part of the Zinzendorf Mission family.
If you are interested in playing one of these key roles, we would like to connect with you. Please contact us using the Contact Us page, and we look forward to helping you find a place of important service in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Many missionaries feel alone and overwhelmed by the number of things they are required to do, and asked to do, to be effective on the field. This is why many people who want to go to the mission field never make it, and why many missionaries don’t make it past their first term of service.
We believe there is a more biblical way that recognizes the truth from Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 that we are a body, and we all have an important role to play in the fulfillment of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.
We call it Mission SHIELD: Specific Help Intentionally Encouraging Loving Discipleship.
We are seeking to find people who are able and willing to help us in our mission efforts, by serving in roles that directly support and help us fulfill our mission to make disciples of all nations. These roles include helping to coordinate finances, prayer, pastoral care, administration and logistics, journalism and story-writing, information technology, security, morale support, hospitality, and re-entry.
We believe by doing this missionaries will be more effective in accomplishing their mission, and we will see not only more effective mission work, but less missionary attrition.
One of the most powerful military weapons in the world is an aircraft carrier, which houses 6,000 crew, in order to support about 100 pilots who have a mission to accomplish. That’s about 60 people for every pilot.
If these pilots were not accompanied by these additional people, they would not be able to accomplish their mission.
We are looking for people who want to use their skills and time to help us as missionaries be more effective at making disciples of all nations.
This is also the model that we require all of our missionaries to implement, and a big part of our role as a mission agency is to help our missionaries build and train their Mission SHIELD. We believe this is a primary distinctive of the Zinzendorf Mission.
We find that those missionaries who apply themselves consistently to find and build and maintain their SHIELD tend to be far happier and tend to bear more fruit in their ministry than those who do not. That is why it has become a requirement that any missionary seeking to join the Zinzendorf Mission must first put together a SHIELD, and that group of people is part of the decision-making body for finally becoming a part of the Zinzendorf Mission family.
If you are interested in playing one of these key roles, we would like to connect with you. Please contact us using the Contact Us page, and we look forward to helping you find a place of important service in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Mission SHIELD – Key Roles
(adapted from SERVING AS SENDERS, by NEAL PIROLO)
A Word to our Missionaries
One of the most critical and important things you can do to help ensure an effective ministry begins right now, by seeking God and asking God to raise up the following members of your Mission SHIELD. I cannot overemphasize how critical this is, and you must take responsibility to carefully and prayerfully seek God and ask others if they would be willing to fill one of these roles. This can have a long-lasting impact on your ministry now and for years to come. The sooner you can see these roles raised up, the sooner you can begin to gain the benefits.
Your Mission SHIELD is a group of people who help you be fruitful in your ministry through:
Specific Help Intentionally [done to] Encourage Loving Discipleship
There are probably many people who want to see you succeed in your mission work, and they want to know how they can help. By inviting them to consider playing one of these roles gives them practical ways that they can be involved beyond giving and praying. Here are some details about some of the roles. I encourage you to purchase the book “Serving As Senders” by Neal Pirolo for more information behind the idea of a Mission SHIELD.
1. Prayer Coordinator – This is perhaps the most critical role, and one which should be filled as soon as possible. The prayer coordinator is responsible for ensuring that your work receives regular prayer. They can do this in any number of ways. One way of supporting you would be to host a weekly or monthly prayer meeting on your behalf and the work you are doing. Another way would be to actively recruit people to commit to praying for you on a daily or weekly basis. This person also needs to work closely with the Communication Coordinator (see below), to ensure people are receiving regular prayer updates to guide their prayers. I suggest you find someone who is committed to prayer personally, a person who believes in prayer, and loves to pray.
2. Financial Coordinator - The financial coordinator is responsible for overseeing your fund-raising efforts, and helping to ensure that you have the financial support you need to carry out your work. The financial coordinator can be creative in how to help you raise your support, such as hosting an event and inviting people to come, and then explaining to them your plans, that they believe your work is worthy of support, and then allowing you to present your plans in more detail. This is usually a very effective way of raising support. It also allows you to connect with people that you may not already know. Our required reading is “The God Ask”, and your financial coordinator can help you in various ways with implementing that approach.
3. Communication Coordinator - This person ensures that all interested parties receive a regular prayer update from you (ideally once per month, or whenever you send something out). Some people may not have e-mail, and would need to be sent something by regular mail. This can be the person that you send any communication to, and they keep an updated distribution list (so you don't have to do it), and make sure people are informed of your prayer needs, etc. Some missionaries spend long hours (even days or weeks) formatting prayer letters, which often hinders them from even trying to get a prayer letter done. This can all be handled by the Communication Coordinator, to whom you can send your prayer material. They can then help get it to those who are praying, giving, and helping in other ways with your fruitful ministry.
4. Logistics Coordinator - This is the person responsible for overseeing all of your logistical details, making sure that things are handled that must be taken care of from an administrative point of view, particular details such as making sure that any business mail in your home country is taken care of, bills paid, insurance premiums paid, etc. This is someone who probably processes all your home-country mail for you, and knows how to make sure administrative details are taken care of that you might have difficulty handling from outside your home country.
5.Pastoral Care Coordinator - This person is responsible for monitoring your morale, and someone who has the capability to help you maintain a healthy emotional and spiritual state during your time overseas. There are usually many unexpected stresses in a foreign culture, no matter how long you've been there (even years). There may be relational conflicts with other staff members, personal spiritual battles that you face, etc. This person is explicitly tasked with regularly staying in contact with you to ensure that you have the emotional support you need to stay healthy on the field (which also includes monitoring your physical health, which can directly impact your emotional health). This should be someone who you know well and who is committed to your emotional and spiritual welfare, who can talk with you about what could be intimate details of struggles you are facing.
6. Morale Coordinator - This person is responsible for helping you stay cheerful and feel loved and remembered. They may pursue this in many ways, and they may be creative in how to go about it. For example, they could make sure people remember your birthday, holidays, and remind people to send cards, emails, care packages, make phone calls to you, and otherwise help you know you are remembered and loved.
7. Re-entry / Hospitality Coordinator - This person ensures that when you come home you have everything you need, such as a car, a place to stay, and perhaps hosts a gathering of friends and supporters so that you can inform everyone of your ministry status, plans, prayer needs, etc. This person is responsible to track with you for at least six months to a year after you return home to ensure you have everything you need, including help finding a job, a place to stay, a car, and that you remain emotionally supported during what can be the most stressful phase of overseas work - returning home. When you come home, you will not be the same person, and yet most everyone will think you are still the same person. Your perspectives will have changed, your view of your home culture will have changed, you may feel critical towards cultural practices you never questioned before. You may feel very alone and misunderstood, and as if you are an outsider (knowing that you aren't a member of the foreign culture you just left, and yet now feeling you are not really a part of what you thought was your home culture - this is known as the third culture syndrome which only those who have experienced it really can understand). This is often a time of great strain and confusion for people coming home, and it is very important that both the Re-Entry coordinator and Morale Coordinator stay in close contact with you. It is also important that you are given the chance regularly to share your experiences with others, explain your work, and know that people are interested in hearing of your experiences.
SUPPORT SUMMARY
It may be apparent that some of the above coordinator roles overlap in some ways. That is OK. It is better to have more support rather than less support, and it is better that some issues have more than one person watching out for you than no-one in specific areas of needed support. This is a tremendous way for others to take an active role in participating with your ministry.
These people form your Mission SHIELD. It is good to encourage these coordinators to build their own little team of people to participate in their area of support for you. They can recruit people to help them fulfill their coordinating responsibilities. It is just important that for each area, one person has the primary responsibility to make sure you are getting what you need in that area of support.
It could be that the Mission SHIELD would meet once a month at someone's home or by Skype to pray for you, and discuss each area of support, to make sure everything is being taken care of in the most efficient way possible. Or a monthly conference call could be sufficient. Ideally, you (the missionary) can be a part of those meetings by phone or by Skype.
This also gives you a fantastic sense of stability knowing that others are behind you and you are not out there trying to forge your way on your own. A Powerpoint presentation is available if you would like to present these ideas to your church or friends to explain how this all works, and why it is important. I am also available to present this material to your church(es) and friends if you would like me to.
How to Go About Putting together a Support Team
Here are a few questions to help us put together a strong team for you.
Q: Is there one person who you think of as your “Champion”, a person who thinks highly of you and really believes in you and your calling and mission? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone who is a strong prayer warrior and supports your faithfully in prayer? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone who is strongly committed to your emotional health and spiritual welfare, someone who has demonstrated a real pastor-heart towards you? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone you know who seems to always remember your birthday or other important days or seems to go out of their way to be sure you know they are thinking of you? This might help you find your morale support coordinator. Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone you know who likes to write stories or letters or is good with communicating via the Internet, such as with a blog or email, that you think might be willing to help others know what is going on with you? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there anyone you know who is very good at organizing details, who you think might be willing to help you with logistics, just anything that might come up that you need help with such as handling mail, bills, or other practical issues that come up? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Can you think of anyone who seems to have a gift of hospitality, and has demonstrated that they want to be sure you are well-cared for in terms of your comfort, having your needs met, hosting groups? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Do you know anyone who has shown interest in helping to meet your financial needs? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Who do you know who is good at putting together web pages and FaceBook pages? This might be a help in finding an information technology coordinator. The focus here is more on the technical details and not content. Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Who do you know who is concerned about your safety and who has training in information and physical security? If you are not sure who might fit this description, we may be able to help you find someone to help in this area.
Now take the names that you listed above, and pray that the Lord will raise up someone to take on the following roles. A person might take on more than one role if needed.
It is especially important to find your Champion, as they could play a very important role in helping bring all this together.
Pray the Lord will help you build this vital part of your ministry.
(adapted from SERVING AS SENDERS, by NEAL PIROLO)
A Word to our Missionaries
One of the most critical and important things you can do to help ensure an effective ministry begins right now, by seeking God and asking God to raise up the following members of your Mission SHIELD. I cannot overemphasize how critical this is, and you must take responsibility to carefully and prayerfully seek God and ask others if they would be willing to fill one of these roles. This can have a long-lasting impact on your ministry now and for years to come. The sooner you can see these roles raised up, the sooner you can begin to gain the benefits.
Your Mission SHIELD is a group of people who help you be fruitful in your ministry through:
Specific Help Intentionally [done to] Encourage Loving Discipleship
There are probably many people who want to see you succeed in your mission work, and they want to know how they can help. By inviting them to consider playing one of these roles gives them practical ways that they can be involved beyond giving and praying. Here are some details about some of the roles. I encourage you to purchase the book “Serving As Senders” by Neal Pirolo for more information behind the idea of a Mission SHIELD.
1. Prayer Coordinator – This is perhaps the most critical role, and one which should be filled as soon as possible. The prayer coordinator is responsible for ensuring that your work receives regular prayer. They can do this in any number of ways. One way of supporting you would be to host a weekly or monthly prayer meeting on your behalf and the work you are doing. Another way would be to actively recruit people to commit to praying for you on a daily or weekly basis. This person also needs to work closely with the Communication Coordinator (see below), to ensure people are receiving regular prayer updates to guide their prayers. I suggest you find someone who is committed to prayer personally, a person who believes in prayer, and loves to pray.
2. Financial Coordinator - The financial coordinator is responsible for overseeing your fund-raising efforts, and helping to ensure that you have the financial support you need to carry out your work. The financial coordinator can be creative in how to help you raise your support, such as hosting an event and inviting people to come, and then explaining to them your plans, that they believe your work is worthy of support, and then allowing you to present your plans in more detail. This is usually a very effective way of raising support. It also allows you to connect with people that you may not already know. Our required reading is “The God Ask”, and your financial coordinator can help you in various ways with implementing that approach.
3. Communication Coordinator - This person ensures that all interested parties receive a regular prayer update from you (ideally once per month, or whenever you send something out). Some people may not have e-mail, and would need to be sent something by regular mail. This can be the person that you send any communication to, and they keep an updated distribution list (so you don't have to do it), and make sure people are informed of your prayer needs, etc. Some missionaries spend long hours (even days or weeks) formatting prayer letters, which often hinders them from even trying to get a prayer letter done. This can all be handled by the Communication Coordinator, to whom you can send your prayer material. They can then help get it to those who are praying, giving, and helping in other ways with your fruitful ministry.
4. Logistics Coordinator - This is the person responsible for overseeing all of your logistical details, making sure that things are handled that must be taken care of from an administrative point of view, particular details such as making sure that any business mail in your home country is taken care of, bills paid, insurance premiums paid, etc. This is someone who probably processes all your home-country mail for you, and knows how to make sure administrative details are taken care of that you might have difficulty handling from outside your home country.
5.Pastoral Care Coordinator - This person is responsible for monitoring your morale, and someone who has the capability to help you maintain a healthy emotional and spiritual state during your time overseas. There are usually many unexpected stresses in a foreign culture, no matter how long you've been there (even years). There may be relational conflicts with other staff members, personal spiritual battles that you face, etc. This person is explicitly tasked with regularly staying in contact with you to ensure that you have the emotional support you need to stay healthy on the field (which also includes monitoring your physical health, which can directly impact your emotional health). This should be someone who you know well and who is committed to your emotional and spiritual welfare, who can talk with you about what could be intimate details of struggles you are facing.
6. Morale Coordinator - This person is responsible for helping you stay cheerful and feel loved and remembered. They may pursue this in many ways, and they may be creative in how to go about it. For example, they could make sure people remember your birthday, holidays, and remind people to send cards, emails, care packages, make phone calls to you, and otherwise help you know you are remembered and loved.
7. Re-entry / Hospitality Coordinator - This person ensures that when you come home you have everything you need, such as a car, a place to stay, and perhaps hosts a gathering of friends and supporters so that you can inform everyone of your ministry status, plans, prayer needs, etc. This person is responsible to track with you for at least six months to a year after you return home to ensure you have everything you need, including help finding a job, a place to stay, a car, and that you remain emotionally supported during what can be the most stressful phase of overseas work - returning home. When you come home, you will not be the same person, and yet most everyone will think you are still the same person. Your perspectives will have changed, your view of your home culture will have changed, you may feel critical towards cultural practices you never questioned before. You may feel very alone and misunderstood, and as if you are an outsider (knowing that you aren't a member of the foreign culture you just left, and yet now feeling you are not really a part of what you thought was your home culture - this is known as the third culture syndrome which only those who have experienced it really can understand). This is often a time of great strain and confusion for people coming home, and it is very important that both the Re-Entry coordinator and Morale Coordinator stay in close contact with you. It is also important that you are given the chance regularly to share your experiences with others, explain your work, and know that people are interested in hearing of your experiences.
SUPPORT SUMMARY
It may be apparent that some of the above coordinator roles overlap in some ways. That is OK. It is better to have more support rather than less support, and it is better that some issues have more than one person watching out for you than no-one in specific areas of needed support. This is a tremendous way for others to take an active role in participating with your ministry.
These people form your Mission SHIELD. It is good to encourage these coordinators to build their own little team of people to participate in their area of support for you. They can recruit people to help them fulfill their coordinating responsibilities. It is just important that for each area, one person has the primary responsibility to make sure you are getting what you need in that area of support.
It could be that the Mission SHIELD would meet once a month at someone's home or by Skype to pray for you, and discuss each area of support, to make sure everything is being taken care of in the most efficient way possible. Or a monthly conference call could be sufficient. Ideally, you (the missionary) can be a part of those meetings by phone or by Skype.
This also gives you a fantastic sense of stability knowing that others are behind you and you are not out there trying to forge your way on your own. A Powerpoint presentation is available if you would like to present these ideas to your church or friends to explain how this all works, and why it is important. I am also available to present this material to your church(es) and friends if you would like me to.
How to Go About Putting together a Support Team
Here are a few questions to help us put together a strong team for you.
Q: Is there one person who you think of as your “Champion”, a person who thinks highly of you and really believes in you and your calling and mission? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone who is a strong prayer warrior and supports your faithfully in prayer? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone who is strongly committed to your emotional health and spiritual welfare, someone who has demonstrated a real pastor-heart towards you? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone you know who seems to always remember your birthday or other important days or seems to go out of their way to be sure you know they are thinking of you? This might help you find your morale support coordinator. Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there someone you know who likes to write stories or letters or is good with communicating via the Internet, such as with a blog or email, that you think might be willing to help others know what is going on with you? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Is there anyone you know who is very good at organizing details, who you think might be willing to help you with logistics, just anything that might come up that you need help with such as handling mail, bills, or other practical issues that come up? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Can you think of anyone who seems to have a gift of hospitality, and has demonstrated that they want to be sure you are well-cared for in terms of your comfort, having your needs met, hosting groups? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Do you know anyone who has shown interest in helping to meet your financial needs? Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Who do you know who is good at putting together web pages and FaceBook pages? This might be a help in finding an information technology coordinator. The focus here is more on the technical details and not content. Put any names that come to mind here:
Q: Who do you know who is concerned about your safety and who has training in information and physical security? If you are not sure who might fit this description, we may be able to help you find someone to help in this area.
Now take the names that you listed above, and pray that the Lord will raise up someone to take on the following roles. A person might take on more than one role if needed.
- Prayer Coordinator
- Pastoral Care Coordinator
- Morale Coordinator
- Information Technology (IT) Coordinator
- Journalism / Communications Coordinator
- Financial Coordinator
- Security Coordinator
- Logistics Coordinator
- Hospitality Coordinator
- Re-Entry Coordinator
It is especially important to find your Champion, as they could play a very important role in helping bring all this together.
Pray the Lord will help you build this vital part of your ministry.