One of the saddest situations I come across in mission is when I ask a mission worker “Is your church supporting you?”  Too often the answer is a short pause, a wry smile, and “Kinda”.

This response often indicates that the church is happy for them to go, may give them a bit of money occasionally, and remembers to pray for them from time to time.  Unfortunately, many churches do not have a significant vision for global mission and think that this level of support is quite adequate.  Yet it is clear from the response that the mission worker doesn’t feel fully supported.  In fact for some of them it feels like abseiling without being confident that somebody is holding the other end of the rope.  And the only way you find out whether anyone’s holding it, is when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Syzygy and Oscar are joining forces to address this issue.  Both agencies are more than willing to visit churches, talk with their leadership or missions teams, and provide training and encouragement for the entire church.  If you’d like to get a feel for what this might look like, we are running an introductory evening in Birmingham on the evening of 8^th October at Rowheath Pavilion at 7.30.

Get Out More! is a free event for church leaders and others supporting mission workers.  We’ll tell some stories of how bad it can get on the mission field, and how we can help to put it right.  We’ll provide some tips on what you can do to help.  All in an informal atmosphere which may even include a drink in the Pavilion bar afterwards.

Churches which wish to get a bigger vision for supporting their missionaries effectively can also refer to our  Guide to Doing Mission Well.  There are also other resources listed on that page.  We’d particularly like to draw your attention to Neal Pirolo’s two excellent books Serving as Senders and The Re-entry Team, which are ideal resources for helping churches.  And our page 101 things to do to support your mission partners.  Our friends at Oscar also do a particularly effective day course for churches called Serving as Senders.

We hope to see you at the Pavilion!