- Caring for Vulnerable Children: Caring for children through financial contributions and mission trips is a major focus for many congregations, with orphanages and child sponsorship programs representing two of the most popular mission strategies. U.S. Christians contribute $4 billion each year to child sponsorship programs alone, yet little research has been done to assess the impacts—positive and negative—of sponsorships on the children these programs seek to help. We have critically assessed these strategies and propose a model that builds up the circle God created to nurture and form the child—the child’s family.
- Leading Missions: The mission of God calls for leaders, not managers because mission is a movement, not a committee. Yet local churches find it hard to find ways to engage their members’ passion for local and global mission using committee structures. Committees meet to disburse money, rather than discern on how to connect their people with what God is doing in our world. Freeing Congregational Mission looks at specific strategies to form missional leaders in the congregation through experiential learning and to engage their leadership of others.
In a world that feels increasingly complex and changing, God’s mission is too important for us to attempt to engage in it as mere cruise ship social directors—we can do so much better! We argue that it is congregational mission leaders who are well-placed to move the Church toward more faithful and effective mission.
Hunter Farrell is the author of “Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility, and Co-Development,” published by InterVarsity Press Academic in January 2022.
