O’FALLON – The local church is “the foundation” of training overseas missionaries for the International Mission Board (IMB) said the organization’s vice-president of field personnel, Zane Pratt, at the annual Global Missions Celebration at First O’Fallon, Oct. 10-13.
Speaking as the mid-week conference kickoff speaker, then echoing his remarks during the church’s Sunday morning worship service, Pratt said, “The local church is the heart of missionary training.”
Local churches, he said, provide the initial training and assessment for IMB missionary candidates.
Citing the Bible’s first account of missionary selection by the church of Antioch in Acts 13, Pratt said, “There were no missionary agencies in the ancient world. We see the sending by the (local) church.”
“The church had leaders that taught and prayed and worshipped in prayer and fasting. The result was missions.”
He said that, when the Holy Spirit works in churches, they exhibit the fruits of the spirit, and the “task of taking the gospel to the nations goes hand in hand.”
“The local church is the foundation of missions.”
He said individual congregations have several roles in developing missionaries, including:
• Churches are where missionary training begins. “Discipleship happens in the local churches.” It’s also where potential missionaries develop the necessary skills and habits they’ll need in the field, such as conflict resolution, perseverance, evangelism training, emotional strength, and the ability to work through discouragement.
• Potential missionaries also first understand their calling in local churches, so that’s where missions recruitment starts.
• Missionary assessment begins with the local body, which discerns and confirms the candidate’s call, knowledge of Scripture and theological soundness.
• Local churches continue their missions role by providing financial and prayer support, as well as pastoral care, when missionaries enter their field assignments.
Another very important, but often overlooked, role of local churches, he said, is stateside support when missionaries return from overseas assignments or retirement.
“Coming back is not easy,” Pratt said. When missionaries have spent years working in overseas cultures, those places become home. Returning to the United States means returning to a different culture.
“The transition back is difficult when another place becomes home.”
He encouraged the congregation to learn about missions, give to missions, and to send missionaries. “There are four billion people (in the world) with zero access to the gospel. The need is vast; the command is clear.”