Sending church: What, and why, is it?

In my line of ministry I receive quite a few e-mails and calls from people interested in leaving their home cultures and moving to new ones, either in the marketplace or with a mission sending organization. I love it. I celebrate what God may be doing in their lives. Yet regardless of each person’s specific situation, I think I always end up talking about his/her “sending” church.

Sending churches are greatly involved in the life of a missionary and his/her family from even before he/she makes steps toward international mission involvement. They are different from churches in partnership with a missionary or cross-cultural church-planting team.

Gordon MacDonald says many churches exist, but few of them may qualify as “sending.”

“Let me define a sending church. We can do it by way of a historical model, the church in Acts 13 in which the Holy Spirit was free to speak because he would be heard. That church called Saul and Barnabas and sent them out to the uttermost parts of the earth. That was a sending church. It was a church marked by intercession for world evangelization, marked with caring for the needs of hurting people, marked with a hunger for the teaching of the Word of God. It was a church marked with leaders who really believed the mandate of Acts 1:8. Into that sort of atmosphere the Holy Spirit can quickly move. So when he said, “Set apart these men,” the church laid hands on them and “sent them off” (v. 3). It was a sending church.”

Often a person will hear a compelling message in a worship service, read a text from Scripture or sense through prayer that they are supposed to serve God in an international context. All of these are ways I believe the Lord speaks to us regarding missions. However, I also believe one’s call is in the context of community.

Acts 13 is my favorite example of a sending church. Here I see a church devoted to the Word, prayer, fellowship and the Lord’s Supper, as Acts 2 describes. Out of this church we see the Holy Spirit calling Saul and Barnabas. Next we see the church returning to prayer and fasting, and then laying hands on these two men and sending them out. The Bible says between the time they heard from the Holy Spirit and sent Saul and Barnabas on their way, they prayed and fasted again. Could the church have been affirming this call on these men’s lives?

We do not have access to all of the details surrounding those days, but I believe conversations were taking place among brothers and sisters in Christ about their sending of Saul and Barnabas. We can read about how they prayed and fasted, and then sent the men on their way. We also see an on-going relationship between the church at Antioch and their missionaries throughout Acts. In fact, after Saul and Barnabas went on their trip, they came back to the church for a time (Acts 14:27).

Just as Saul and Barnabas were, every cross-cultural worker needs to be “sent” from a church. One’s steps toward international missions needs to be in community and not simply an individual’s calling. Often it begins in a person’s heart, but it then needs to be shared, prayed through and confirmed within a family of believers.

The importance of having a sending church is paramount to the success of cross-cultural workers.

Far too often the church has outsourced this role to mission agencies or denominational entities. However, the Great Commission was given to the church, not to sending organizations. The church should never simply hand over the missionary to its group of choice and feel like its work is done. Instead, if a sending agency is involved in a missionary’s work, the sending church should strive to have a solid relationship with that agency, in order to most effectively walk alongside the worker after he/she arrives on the field. The mission organization cannot take the place of the worker’s church.

The church needs to have an active role in the sending of its people.

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Next: Larry suggests practical and specific roles of a sending church.

Written by Larry McCrary. Larry and his family have lived in Europe since 2001, and have been involved in church planting both in the United States and in Europe. Larry is co-founder of The Upstream Collective, and is passionate about seeing the church think and act as a missionary both in its community and internationally. Larry blogs and tweets as part of an effort to influence the conversation of missions.