When Jesus said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,” in Matthew 28, He didn’t say it as a suggestion. Instead, Jesus commanded that as believers, spreading His message of love (through missions) is our most important job. Wondering how to increase awareness of church missions so that members feel inspired, encouraged, and convicted to prioritize missions in their own lives? We’ve come up with a list of ten ways that you can easily promote church missions so that you can continue to take the Gospel to your community and beyond.
There are numerous ways that you can promote missions at your church, but here are a few ways to get you started.
Don’t assume that just because people go to church that they know the Great Commission, much less live it out. Education is crucial. Consider hosting a “What is missions?” class at your church. Use it to talk about Biblical examples of missions and opportunities to get involved in missions at your church.
Make a place for regular church mission updates in your printed materials. This could be your bulletin, church newsletter, or even flyers and mailings that you send out.
One of the most effective ways to promote church missions is to host actual missionaries who can share about the work they are doing. This could be done via video chat or actually having missionaries come and speak in person.
Creating a church missions webpage will give you the space you need online to provide opportunities for story telling, trip opportunities, engagement and provide information about what God is doing through your church's missions efforts. It’s a good idea to organize this information using a dedicated missions layout such as the one offered by Ekklesia 360. For an example of what this could look like for your church, check out Woodbury Lutheran’s missions page, which launched just after Easter 2019.
Just over two months later, Jon Kuehne, Pastor for Multisite Ministries, is pleased with the layout’s results. “Before, we had a really hard time encompassing what reach and missions actually is on one webpage.”
The page packs a punch, allowing interested congregants to quickly gain a deeper understanding of the missions Woodbury Lutheran supports through the use of an interactive map and sections intended to teach visitors what REACH is and connect them with opportunities. They can learn how to get involved – the page has connected church members to local missions, such as their Feed My Starving Children program and their prison ministry. The page has also enhanced how their church supports 15 field missionaries.
“Interaction with missionaries has greatly increased,” says Kuehne. “I love being able to use this page because it allows us to celebrate missions.” As an added bonus, the layout has prompted internal conversations about new missions.
Next, video is a great way to encourage people to engage with missions. In fact, according to a study done by Hubspot, 78 percent of people watch online videos every week, and 55 percent view online videos every day. Video has the power to inspire and motivate people to action, and promoting missions this way is no exception. Incorporate missions-related videos in your services and on your website.
Social media provides a place to give regular church missions updates, share missions stories, and encourage your social media audience to get involved. Make sure your church missions posts are a regular, creative, and an exciting part of your social media strategy.
Whether your church has a blog, magazine, or some other place for stories, you should share regular missions reports from the field and from your church there. Stories are powerful. Don’t miss this opportunity to promote church missions.
Oftentimes if people can’t go or give their time to missions, they want to give their money. Make sure that you have funds dedicated to special mission projects that people can select when making donations. It’s also important that you make giving to these funds easy through an online giving platform. Along with these funds, encourage people to make pledges to give regularly and consistently to missions projects. If people have made pledges to these funds, provide regular updates as well.
Prayer is vital to the success of church missions. Because of this, make sure you are prioritizing prayer. This could be done through special prayer services, prayer cards for missionaries, or a missions wall in your prayer room.
Finally, to promote church missions, organize short-term mission trips at your church. There’s nothing quite like traveling to engage with another culture and share the good news of Jesus. This helps to get people out of their comfort zone and continue living missionally even when they return.
Hopefully, this has given you some practical ideas you’ll use to promote church missions. In your planning, be sure to check out Ekklesia 360’s mission layout. This new layout was designed to help you spread the word, get more people involved, and raise money more effectively. Learn more here.