One thing that I hear too often are marketplace workers from North America who live and work abroad but their home church does not see this as an mission endeavor. They believe somehow that unless they are sent by an agency then they are not true missionaries. What an incredible opportunity for the church to extend it’s mission reach through their marketplace people.

We need more marketplace people living intentional abroad.  How can you as a church mobilize, equip and commission your members?

Look beyond people who sense a calling to vocational missionary service. We need these people as well.

But, look at the possibilities of your college study abroad students, artists, teachers, second career people to live abroad in a strategic way. These people need to be seen as missionaries without using that title. They may not be able to be put on the church’s website or on the church’s wall of fame but they can be prayed for, supported in a variety of ways. They can be involved in your church’s mission strategy. They can partner with on the ground workers as opportunities present themselves. I believe it is going to take a shift in thinking of many pastors to see this pathway develop. It is going to take a shift in mission agencies and their leadership to make clear avenues for marketplace ventures to develop.

Just last week I had a great phone conversation with a young man who works for a global company. He and his wife are talking with their church about overseas service. They are praying about where that could be. Their church is walking with them in this process of sending. They are not looking towards the traditional mission sending route. He is asking for a transfer. Awesome!

If your church has marketplace people living and working overseas and being the salt and light then please remember them also!

At Upstream we are often asked by churches to help them think through how they can be more globally involved. With a large number of churches moving into urban centers, a common concern we hear is that there are glaring needs in their community. They want to know how they can invest even more time, money and energy into something across the globe when there are so many problems at their door step. While we hope all churches are living on mission right where they are, we also believe that a church who sees it’s self as a missionary will always be engaged both locally and globally. Caleb Crider, one of the co-founders of Upstream has some good thoughts on this subject. I asked him to speak into this topic as we are all preparing for our Jet Sets to Tokyo and Europe this month and next. Our jet sets are a time where we help church leaders see just how important it is that their local church is engaged globally:

Being a church in the center of the city has nothing to do with the church’s responsibility to be on mission across cultures. Acts 1:8 (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Ends of the Earth) is not a chronological progression- churches need to be local, regional, national, and international at the same time.

The church that buries itself in the local context is like the consumer who buys “local” without regard to where the product comes from or how it’s made. Sure, you’re not mindlessly buying stuff from those mega-stores, but you’re still not taking the global perspective required to be a responsible consumer. We have a responsibility that extends beyond our own city. We live in an interconnected world and we have been commanded to be salt and light to the world and make disciples across cultures. Real Christians are global Christians.

The reality is that the best way to learn to think and act like a missionary in the city is to do it in a foreign context. That’s the reason we do our Jet Set Vision Trips- when you’re clearly an outsider, you approach mission, evangelism, discipleship, and church very differently than someone who sees himself as an insider. (We hope you will follow along on my twitter @larrymccrary or Upstream’s website at www.theupstreamcollective.org and like our Upstream Collective page.)

And that’s the key: as Christ-followers, we are necessarily outsiders. That’s why the Bible says so much about our citizenship being in another Kingdom. That’s why Paul and Peter both admonish the church “as strangers and pilgrims…” When you start as an outsider, you understand the need to adjust your language, appearances, and preferences for the sake of incarnating the gospel.

As long as missions is only one thing that a church does (as opposed to everything that a church does), it really doesn’t matter that you meet in the center of the city. The real value of being a city-centered church, is that the opportunities for international mission may be in your neighborhood. It could be that the ends-of-the-earth connection your church needs is right next door. This is one of the strategic advantages of being a church in the city.

This is probably why the apostle Paul depended so heavily on the prayers of the church Family!

Overseas missionaries leave their home churches joyfully, enthusiastically, and with a great deal of encouragement and support from their “Family”. We get to the field, and we look at the great spiritual bondage and poverty around us and, like Jesus in Matthew 9:36, we are “moved with compassion” for the people God has called us to. And we begin to work to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ with full confidence that our Family back home is praying for us. We gratefully receive emails, phone calls and, yes, sometimes letters or packages from people back home who call down God’s power in our lives through prayer. And we regularly report back to those who support us at home so that they can rejoice at the victories God is winning and participate through prayer in the ongoing struggles.

Unfortunately, we become so involved in the ministry around us that we often neglect a vital part of our work which is letting people back home know what’s going on. At first, everything is new and different and fresh and we have many things to report as we see God moving. But after awhile, it becomes our everyday life and many of us find it difficult to describe the same situations over and over again so we stop. That’s our side of the problem.

But there’s another side of the problem, too. Our churches sent us to represent our Lord by extending the Body of Christ from local work into global work. We are still a member of that Body who sent us out, and we desperately need their support. As the saying goes, though, “out of sight, out of mind”. Soon our churches lose sight of the great opportunity God has given them to fully participate in spreading the Good News throughout the world. And the prayer, support and encouragement we once received from them like a thirsty person receives water in the desert, dries up.

When we take a break from the field and return to our home churches, we often find it difficult to connect with the dear Family we left. People don’t seem to know us any more. We feel disconnected and even unnecessary as far as our home church is concerned. The result is that we become emotional and spiritual “orphans” no longer attached to our home churches.

So what can sending churches do to help?

First, find someone in the Family who will be willing to stay in touch with your missionaries. Ask them to be proactive in contacting missionaries you’ve sent out by contacting them regularly even when (and maybe, especially when!) the missionary doesn’t report back.

And PRAY! Be sure your missionaries are listed on your weekly prayer calendars so that their names are , at least weekly, called to the attention of the Body. T. W Hunt in “Disciples Prayer Life” suggests an easy way to remember how to pray for missionaries.

A: Acceptance.
Romans 15:31b records Paul’s request that his service would be “favorably received by the Lord’s people”

B: Boldness
We want to “fearlessly make known the mysteries of the Gospel” just like Paul did in Ephesians 6:19

C: Clarity
Paul wanted to “proclaim the message clearly” as he says in Colossians 4:4. Today’s missionaries need that too!

D: Deliverance
Paul asked for prayer that he would be “kept safe from the unbelievers”. For missionaries in many parts of the world, this is essential!

E: Extension
Pray for us that “God may open a door for our message” (Colossians 4:2-3). Opportunities to share Christ abound in most mission fields, but only God can provide meaningful encounters!

F: Fruitfulness
Oh, how desperately we need and want your prayers “that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly”! (2 Thessalonians 3:1) For many missionaries, converts come slowly. In my part of the world, the statistics show that a person must hear the message THIRTY times before making a decision!

And, so, we pray as Jesus instructed us in Matthew 9:38 for “workers” to come into the harvest field. In addition to praying for missionaries, you can support us by coming to the field we work in day after day and participating in evangelistic outreach that’s appropriate in the culture we serve. Every time a Christian comes from overseas into my city, I thank God that He has sent yet another “worker” into the harvest field He’s given me to work in.

Please don’t miss the opportunity God has given you to serve, through prayer and encouragement, alongside the missionaries you have sent out from your church! We need you to help us increase God’s harvest and finish the race well!

Written by Becky, a Skybridge member living in Asia.

Copenhagen is a modern city known for design and creativity. One American couple living there understands this so well that they have created an entire missional strategy around it. They are engaging creatives through a missional lifestyle using their combined skills of photography and creativity.

When asked what some of their needs are, here is what they said:

“There are several ways people/churches can partner with us.  We need people to come and help us dream on behalf of the creatives.  We need people to come and use their creative skills and talents to help us engage various creative segments around the city.  We also need people to serve as patrons for the arts here.  We have a need for various gear, websites and other tools for our creativity.  We need modern patrons of the arts to partner with us in order to help creatives in our city discover the role their to play in the greatest story of all.”

Is this something you or your church could get involved in? If so leave me a comment or send me an email and I’d be happy to get you in contact with this worker.

What does sixteen:fifteen stand for? Why did you create it?

16:15 is named after the Great Commission reference found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 16, verse 15.  We created the ministry in response to a growing wave of local churches across America who were desiring to move away from simply being request driven in missions to becoming more strategy driven.  For the last 15 years, wherever I have traveled, I have encountered churches that are no longer content to serve only in support roles in global missions, they want to be actively and  personally involved.  I guess you could say that we launched the ministry in response to something we saw the Holy Spirit doing, namely, awakening churches to their God-ordained role in finishing the Great Commission task given by Christ.

What do you do at 16:15? We do church missions coaching.  In a nutshell we help churches unleash their missions power and potential to reach the nations by coaching them into a strategic missions focus that fulfills the Biblical missions mandate while taking into account their unique gifts, talents and passions as local bodies of Christ. We call the coaching process 3-D, which stands for DISCOVER – DESIGN -DEPLOY, this also carries with it the idea that the coaching process will help a church bring her unique missions vision to life.  The process is highly personalized because we have a conviction that every church is unique, therefore an endemic process is required to effectively mobilize her people and deploy her vision.  This is not “open package, mix ingredients” mobilization.

In what ways has God used you and 16:15 for kingdom impact?

The impact, by God’s grace has been truly more than we could have imagined.  Let me give you some “before mission coaching and after missions coaching” highlights that churches have experienced:

Missions Approach Before Coaching: Shotgun
Missions Approach After Coaching: Focused and strategic

Church Leadership Before Coaching: No common vision for missions
Church Leadership After Coaching: Unified vision for missions

Short-term Missions Before Coaching: Reactive, random
Short-term Missions After Coaching:  Deliberate and part of larger missions vision

Understanding of and involvement in missions Before Coaching: Minimal and marginalized
Understanding of involvement in missions After Coaching: Significant and church-wide

It is also not uncommon to see missions giving grow exponentially.  When a missions vision is clear, heart-grabbing and it allows for church members to participate in it, they are compelled to be a part of it.  And the best kingdom impact I can share is how God is using churches mobilized through the mission coaching process to shine the light of Christ among hidden, forgotten and marginalized peoples all across the planet.

How do you work with/come alongside churches?  The process I described above usually occurs over a 5-9 month period of time but because it is tailored to each church, this can vary.  Typically there is a coaching workshop every 4-6 weeks during the 5-9 month period.  We also assist churches during the implementation phase of their missions vision as they work to bring that vision to life in partnership with carefully selected, like-minded, and synergistic missions agencies and/or churches.  So we remain engaged and available to assist even after the intensive portion of the coaching has tapered off.

For more information about Sixteen:Fifteen check out their site at www.1615.org

Another aspect of their church is that they are involved in missions locally. Veritas has a ministry with an immigrant population group in Columbus and they are also involved with international students at Ohio State. Besides being involved in local chuch planting, Veritas is a member of the Sojourn Church Planting network which is a network based out of Sojourn Church in Louisville, KY. Veritas is also involved locally from a social standpoint. They started an initiative called “She Has a Name” that is a ministry dealing with human trafficking injustice.

So here is a church, in my opinion, that though they are young, they have decided to intentionally be about their community, their nation and the world. At Upstream we love helping other churches do this very thing. Our passion is to see all churches, both young and old, engaging their world with the Gospel on both the local and global level. If you know of another young church who does this well, please let me know. I would love to feature them.

Once I felt God leading me to pursue a teaching job, I learned I needed a masters in education in order to qualify for the job and I had my eye on one specific school. I began working on my masters online before my term ended and knew I would have to go back to the states for 6 months for classes. I had the idea of asking if I could do my required student teaching in the targeted school in Milan. This would be a benefit to both them and me and would also allow me to get my foot in the door for a position next year. Three days before my term ended and I got on a plane to go back to the states the school accepted me as a student teacher and prepared everything for my visa to come back. During my 6 months in the states I took intensive classes and raised support for the first year as an unpaid student teacher. I came back to Milan in August of 2011 absolutely stunned by the faithfulness of the Lord and the ways he provided for my every need. After a very difficult first year of teaching, I found myself not only facing the challenges of the first year and learning a completely different system but also being thrown into an entirely Italian environment in which I had to operate all day long as a professional in another language. I can say I have seen yet another depth of the Lord’s sustaining faithfulness. I was told several months ago that they are happy with my work and want me to stay. They are giving me a work contract with a sustaining salary and are taking care of all of the requirements for the work visa!

Because of all of this, I have loved my life as a “normal person.” It has changed everything both for me personally and in my ministry. For me personally, being legitimately and authentically on the same “rhythm” as everyone else has completely changed my view of “contextualization.” Contextualization is no longer something that I have to be intentional in doing I AM part of the context. I feel their pain and joy. I am one of them — not just pretending to be or trying to be.

I feel like it has been an answer to prayer for me spiritually as well. Though I do see a place for vocational ministry and know that God calls us to different things, I noticed in my personal walk with Christ as a missionary that the gospel became my job. It tragically became something I “sold.” If I were a banana salesmen who focused all day on selling bananas, the last thing I would want to do at night would be to sit down and eat a plate of bananas. Though I knew it should not be like this for a missionary — and with many I know it is not — I found that the lines between my categories of work and the truth that changed everything in me often got blurred. Now I live in Milan, Italy as a person who has been radically changed and transformed by the gospel of Christ, placed in community with others, and has the privilege of being part of God’s mission to glorify himself on the earth. I cannot help but testify, NOT because it is my job, but because it is my life.

My work is a means in which I can pursue excellence and glorify my creator who does all things well. It is a place where I have both influence and connection with many people on a daily basis. I cannot express how much easier building relationships has been. The first question someone asks you after “what is your name” is almost always “where do you work.” When I say I teach high school history and philosophy at a Collegio they immediately understand, identify, and connect with me. My relationships have easily doubled both in number and in depth since becoming a tentmaker. God is also moving inside my school as I have two colleagues specifically that I am having intense conversations with on a daily basis and in whom I see a deep hunger. One of them is very close to coming to the Lord!

With my free summer this year I will be taking a group of 5 young people from my Church back to the states to do an internship in my Church. We are going to use the time to glean, be encouraged, and grow both individually and as a group. We will also be discussing how we want to implement what we learn for the project of a daughter plant that will come out of our Church here in Milan.

By his grace and not my own merit, abilities, or strength, God has given me the blessing of living a transformed life that is daily dependent on the cross amongst the Milanese.

If you are like Amber and want to be in community with people in the global marketplace, consider joining the Skybridge Community. It’s a great place to talk about common issues one faces as they work abroad and live for the Kingdom.

In 2008 I was a college graduate who had studied History of Ideas at the College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Though I had some ideas of what I wanted to do when I grew up, I wasn’t entirely sure what the Lord had in store for my future. For the short-term, I felt lead to pursue going overseas for two years with a missions sending organization. I did not have a specific place in mind of where I felt lead to serve but because of my love for post-moderns, I remember stating on the application that I would be interested in either Western or Eastern Europe. One thing led to another and I was sent a job description for a job in Italy.

I arrived in Milan in March of 2009. From the very beginning I had a sense that this was not a short-term deal. Thus, my perspective as I began learning the culture and language was to dive in head first. Being young and single gave me the freedom to spend lots of time out with my Italian friends.

Over the course of my 2 year term, I had several Italian believers who took me by the hand, helped me with the language, taught me how to build relationships with other Italians, introduced me to their friends, and, most importantly, let me see how they shared the gospel in their culture. For the first six months of my term, I mostly just observed and learned from them. One of my observations was the ease they had in building relationships. Even though I was on a “platform” I still found some difficulty relating to others in that I didn’t live life exactly as they did. I did not have to leave my house and get onto a crowded metro at 7:30 in the morning. I didn’t feel the same level of  stress and work fatigue they felt. I wasn’t on their rhythm. As a result, even though I loved them and was all about “contextualization,” it only went so far as I did not completely and authentically live like them. I also saw that they were able to express a deeper incarnational testimony and model what a normal life “on mission” looks like.

One day a “crazy” thought entered my head. “What if I was to get a job and just stay here on my own? No paid rent, no insurance. A normal job with a normal salary just like everyone else.” This thought scared me to death! Around that time I was introduced to Skybridge and learned that it was not an original thought. This was a huge comfort to me and was a major way in which the Lord confirmed that he wanted me to begin pursuing this path.

For the rest of my term I kept the idea of “tentmaking” in the back of my mind. In my personal career counseling on myself I wrote down in my prayer journal the following 6 questions:
1) What type of job would I like to do that would be in accordance with my giftings?
2) What type of job would financially sustain me in one of the most expensive cities in the world?
3) What type of job would integrate me into the Italian culture rather than locking me into the expatriate subculture?
4) What type of job would give me ministry opportunities internally?
5) What type of job would give me enough free time to minister to relationships outside of work and in my church?
6) What type of job would be a means for me to love the city of Milan. (aka: knowing the economic crisis and the difficulty of Italian young people finding work themselves, I did not want to take a job away from one of them or in any way be competition for them.)

In the end, the Lord lead me to the answer he had for me: being a high school teacher in a private, Italian, bilingual school. My love for academics and desire to pour into young people is what lead me to the idea of teaching high school. Teaching in a private school in Italy pays much more than a public school, which would allow me to sustain myself here. Specifically choosing an Italian bilingual school rather than the American school or the International school would keep me fully integrated into the Italian system and avoid the expat world. Furthermore, I knew I would be interacting with students, parents, and colleagues, giving me plenty of opportunities to be on mission in the school. I also knew that having the legitimacy of the job would make it easier for Italians to trust and thus open up. I also knew it would make me live life exactly like they do. Finally, being a teacher would give me free time in the summer to be able to minister in various ways such as summer camps, deepening relationships through traveling, social justice projects, and other ministry opportunities. I would also be free in the evenings giving me time to invest in my Church and other relationships.

Finally, the last key benefit I saw to this job is it’s answer to question number 6. I knew I would be hired as a “mother tongue” history and philosophy teacher to teach the modules taught in English. This is a job that would not be in any way taken away from an Italian, nor would I be competition for them. It is a giving of a specific service that I can offer as a native English speaker that enriches the school and gives me a means in which I can love the community.

God proved himself to be very faithful and did some amazing things in Amber’s life. Check back in a few days when I will post the rest of her story about her switch from vocational missionary to marketplace worker.

Dr. Sager is one of the best bible teachers that I have ever had the privilege to sit under. There are many sayings that I could highlight but one a  few Sundays ago really struck me. It is a message for all of us who pastor, serve in ministry or mission organizations.

“God did not call me to be a superstar.

God did not call me to be successful.

He called me to be a servant.”

Thanks Pastor Doug for being a great model for so many years.

A new church plant is taking place in the Argenta Arts District of downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. Like many urban centers in the US, the Argenta neighborhood has experienced a “white flight” during the past few decades.

Michael Carpenter and his family decided to reverse that trend. They moved into the neighborhood in Oct, 2011. The rest of the leadership team arrived in January, 2012. “The reason we planted our lives in Argenta is because the district is being rapidly redeveloped causing the local population to increase exponentially. Currently, there are no evangelical churches who have an abiding presence in the Argenta Arts District.”

The team of people working to start a church in Argenta fell in love with the mix of housing and businesses in this walkable neighborhood. Argenta offers both a glimpse of the region’s historic urbanism and a way of community building that challenges the socio economic changes of the last half of the twentieth century.

Because of these realities, The Church at Argenta strives to be about these 4 things:

Missional – serving those who are not currently being served by any church.

Incarnational – listening to people and entering the local culture.

Discipling – helping people enter more fully into the life of Christ.

Ecclesial – planting churches.

This team of church planters in the Argenta Arts District have already begun to make real connections with the community. The Carpenter’s home has become the place where neighborhood kids want to be. Whether it’s homework help or building friendship, Michael’s family has made connections. Some of the kids even participate in an AWANA program (a scripture memorization program) run by a church that is sponsoring The Church at Argenta.

Others in the neighborhood have begun to take notice. “We have been approached by a local property owner who has offered one side of a quad-plex she owns for use as an after-school program/Bible study for these kids. We are currently working out the details of what this will look like.”

However, one of the neatest things about this new church is their global focus. As you can see they have already made some great inroads with their local community. Instead of stopping there, The Church at Argenta is also building international mission into their DNA. They have a number of connections with locals from middle eastern countries, and other viable connections for work in Europe and Africa. The families involved in this church plant would say that sometimes the first step is simply getting to know the internationals in your own neighborhood.

Another practical way The Church at Argenta is trying to be more involved globally is by partnering with a sister city. These partnerships are a great way for a local church to get involved with a community half way around the world.

Locally, God is already at work in the Argenta neighborhood through this new church plant. Shortly before Christmas, 12 children made professions of faith. The church planters have been positive links for drug addicts to receive help. And thought it may seem inconsequential, this group of Christ followers threw a party for a local 13 year old and found out later that it was the first birthday party he had ever had. It’s connections like these that give The Church at Argenta opportunities to be authentic examples of how the Gospel truly changes lives.

You can read more about The Church at Argenta here. Michael Carpenter is the social media director for the Upstream Collective and has participated in two of our past jet sets. It’s exciting to see him lead this new church to focus on God’s global plan.