How do you say it? Part Three
Let’s be honest.
When you hear that a missionary is coming to speak at your church what is the first thing that comes to your mind? “It would be a good day to volunteer in the nursery?”
Do you have mental images from your childhood of missionaries wearing interesting clothing and bringing their slides and some unusual food?
Do you automatically tune out?
Do you get excited to hear what God is doing in another part of the world?
One challenge that we face as missionaries is that we are not living in the states anymore. It does not take long to be out of touch? It is also quite possible when we re-enter a church that we are in extreme culture shock ourselves. For better or for worse our lives are different.
In most cases the churches that we are involved in internationally look and feel quite different than the churches we come from in North America.
So how do we communicate once we get a chance?
Here are 10 things that we can do that may help us prepare to speak.
- Spend some time online researching the church where you are speaking.
- Listen to a few of their sermons online or via podcast. Get to know them.
- Talk with some people or the pastor of the church to get an idea of where they are regarding missions and partnerships.
- Talk with the person who set up your talk regarding clear expectations of your time and talk.
- Use less time than you are given.
- Do not feel that you need to razzle and dazzle them with your power points and stuff. Keep it simple.
- If you do have something that you can hand them at the end it can serve as a good reminder for them to pray for you.
- Use current stories of your work.
- I think that slides and videos can be great ways to communicate your story but be sure to get there in enough time to give it a test run and make sure it all works. How many times have I seen it fall a part on this one!
- Ask some of your supporters whom you communicate with on a regular basis about ideas of what they would want to hear.
Feel free to add to this list.
