One of the ways Webster defines niche is “a specialized market”

I think there are 100′s of what I call mission niches. These are specialized ministries that are a vital part of missions.

We tend to think of people involved in missions as being on the front lines or in support roles. I know that seems black and white but it is what I hear a lot. Are you involved in strategy or support? Both are equally  important.  If you serve in a support role you are not “less important” than someone who is in a hard to get to place working with hard to connect with people.

When is the last time you read about a support role in missions?  Not as many stories are written about support roles in missions. Not as glamorous? A worker in a support role once shared with that me they were told to be sure and talk about “the real work” when giving the mission talk at church. They wanted to hear “front line” stories. Another person was having a conversations with a mission intern  at their home church regarding this intern’s potential future service overseas. As the missionary talked about what their role was, this intern piped up and said. ” I do not believe I am being called into ‘baby missions’ “.

These are some unfortunate extremes to the problem. But if you ever have served in a support role you probably can relate to this at some level. If this is not the case with you, then you have a great group of people who have a good understanding of the kingdom. Count yourself blessed!

I have run into some pretty cool people who have a unique niche in the mission world. I want you to meet some of them this year. Stay tuned for our first one who is involved in a mission niche where they maintain and repair airplanes for missionaries.  I hope you will be able to see the hearts of the people involved and understand that God calls all of us to play different parts.

What about you? If you’ve ever served as a vocational missionary, how were the people in support roles a blessing to the work God was doing in your area?

Recently I was having a conversation with a Skybridge Community member (www.skybridgecommunity.net) who served effectively with a mission organization in Europe. This person transitioned from being a full time Christian ministry worker to a marketplace worker. Here is what they said that really stuck with me.

“I  am part of Skybridge because I  am completely sold on encouraging and empowering this kind of “non-missionary missionary.” Marketplace professionals who are fulfilling their call to missions through their careers and choose to live in Europe, on purpose.”

I believe there are thousands of marketplace workers like this. People whom God has strategically placed in this world.

In her book, Tentmakers, author Ruth Siemens writes this about life on the mission field:

”The secular job is not an inconvenience, but the God-given context in which tentmakers live out the gospel in a winsome, wholesome, nonjudgmental way, demonstrating personal integrity, doing quality work and developing caring relationships.” (Siemens, Tentmakers, D-247)

Turks moving to Germany
Algerians to France
Moroccans to Spain
Chinese students to the USA
Iranians to Sweden

The list could go on and on and on.

This year one of my blog themes will be to discover people like this and tell their story. I hope my readers will do a few things with these post.

- Share these stories with their pastors. Pastors need to hear stories like this so they can empower and release their congregation to the marketplace here and abroad. They need to see how these marketplace workers are a strategic part of proclaiming the gospel to the nations.

- Most importantly I hope these will be an encouragement and challenge to you as the reader that as a follower of Christ you can be salt and light as this worker is, and you can do it in a any where in the world.  As we process a call to missions, we often think that we have to quit our day jobs. What if we first thought about how we can keep our jobs and get a transfer?

Due to the nature of my job I am traveling constantly. I feel like I actually live between two continents. So as I read the news and listen to people talk I am troubled by something. I know that illegal immigration is an issue. I am all for being legal. It is something that I highly value as I live overseas. We go to great lengths to stay current and legal. It is important for a lot of reasons.

Here is a thought though. I feel like I need to love our immigrant population just as much as I am concerned about their legal status here.

Silence fell in the room but I think the point was taken. If we let the media influence us we can become dangerously close to having hatred stir up in our hearts against foreigners who live among us. I do not think this is something that should happen. If we do then we miss opportunities to live out the Great Commission in our own neighborhood.

I always learn a lot when I am involved in this interaction. Two quick thoughts that stick out to me as I listen to their stories.

These guys really desire partners that will be willing to commit to the long haul. They have seen more success when churches send teams to work along side of them over and over again.  Most workers do not desire a  one-off type trip. They want sustaining partnerships.

The second thought  is that the North American church should seek to find ways to engage the same people group here.  I believe the Great Commission is both here and there.  Thanks to globalization many of the people groups throughout the world live here in North America. What an awesome opportunity.  Read this post about what we call “reverse mission trips”. If you are engaging a people group 5000 miles away why not seek ways to do the same here?

We are headed to this part of the world next year. Please check out www.jetset.theupstreamcollective.org

Let us know if you can come along.

HOUSES, CARS, CLOSETS, SIZE OF SERVINGS AT RESTAURANTS, ETC..

I must admit in some cases it does not always take a long time to readjust.

In fact some of these make it quite easy. Here are a few.

The size of parking spaces seem so much larger here. I like the extra room to park.

It is much easier to clean the kitchen with such a large dishwasher. Easy to hide the dirty dishes. Out of sight out of mind.

The large refrigerators  and cupboards allow you to buy a week’s worth of groceries and store them.

It is much easier to do all of the clothes in one load with the large washing machines. At least that is what my wife tells me. grin.

Not to mention taking a nap on a large couch. I personally like that.

Beds in hotel rooms are larger so that makes travel a little more comfortable. As much as I travel that is a nice change.

Granted I have not found the extra large cup of Hot Chocolate that I found near Brussels but I will continue to search.

more re-entry issues later.

As I watched this one transpire I had a thought.

The pastor was talking about their future. He was talking about how these kids could just be the next Billy Graham or Lottie Moon. Okay, it was a Southern Baptist Church. Lottie Moon was a famous missionary to China, The pastor told how “how we need people like that in the generations to come.”

I hope some of those kids do just that.

But we also need godly, Christ following, Holy Spirit obedient business people, teachers, athletes, artists, engineers, scientists, etc.. We need to raise our kids to be salt and light in whatever they do and wherever they happen to live. Both are vitally important. We need to be sure in the church that we empower our students to think about mission in this way as well.

I do not think you need to be a fully funded Christian worker to live overseas. God can use you in a variety of ways vocationally in a global way.

I want to try to do some posts on this topic but I need to start out with one that is just funny to me and really is not that profound. One of the first things we did when we returned  back to the states for this 12 month sentence was to join the cheapest gym around. The one we joined had a great deal so we joined. It also has a steam room, sauna and whirlpool. That for sure was a plus. My favorite part of the work out is rewarding myself with some steam room time and whirlpool time. So over these last three months I have made some interesting observations about the steam room.

Three of my list of five I would have never thought belonged in a steam bath but I see this all of the time. These things make me go “hmm”

1. One guy always wears his eyeglasses in the steam room. Should I be surprised when he tripped on the way out the door last time?

2. Another guy (this is not the same guy with the glasses) brings his paperback novel into the steam room. I guess it is a steamy novel (bad joke). It seems to me the life of that book will not be very long.  I sure would not want to buy that book used on Amazon. Do they have a special category for that? Used and in poor condition due to the steam bath? I keep wondering if it gets to be hard turning the pages after 10 minutes in the steam room but he keeps on reading. Speaking of, how can one read in a steam room? Is it not too steamy to read?

3. I see all kinds of people texting and listening to the iphones in the steam room. Are iPhones really made for that kind of use? Will       Applecare cover steam room use?

The next two are a bit more cultural.

4. Clothes seem to be required in the steam room here in the states. I must admit that is a little different than Europe.

5. People do not seem to say “hola”, “guten tag” or even “hello” or “hey” when they enter. They never say “goodbye” either.  It did take a little getting use to in Europe to always say hello and good bye in a sauna but they do it there.  “Hellos” and “goodbyes” are important culturally there even in a private space. I am learning here that maybe I do not need to talk to everyone who comes in.

More soon.

It is a good book especially for existing  churches exploring becoming more missional in their orientation. One of the conversations we have been having as a family this summer has to do with blessings.

How do you bless a person?

I have heard  various people talk about ways they do this. One church tries to get their members to bless three people a week. So they break it down:

1) Bless another person in the community,

2) Bless a person who is not yet a believer.

3) Bless someone you do not even know.

It might be a good way for a church to make that a normal behavior.  You need to figure out if that works for you or not. As we talked about this as a family we really tried to dive into how we can bless a person? What does that look like?

• Being generous
• Praying specifically for them
• Doing something meaningful for them

The list could go on but that was a good start for us. We decided it needed to be something that was as natural and normal as possible and that having a list would not be the best way to practice this for us. (I am the main list person in the family, grin)

But something happened along the way…

This summer we have been on home assignment. I am doing my job but doing it from Knoxville, Tennessee instead of Europe. While I miss Europe I am trying my best to get plugged into our community here. An interesting thing has happened to us while here this summer. We have been amazingly  blessed. We have been the recipients of some friends who have intentional decided to bless us in numerous ways.

It was  undeserved. It was a surprise. It felt amazingly good.

Sometimes I have  struggled in  receiving a blessing. I would prefer to give.  But my eyes have been opened at how God uses others to bless us.

Thank you friends.

How do you do at receiving a blessing?

How important is blessing to living a missional life?

Here are some samples.

Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Peruvians, Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, Iranians, Algerians, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Nigerians, Ivorians, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Karen and Chin.

What is so cool about this list? These are not missionaries sent off to a foreign land. These are people here in the states being salt and light and sharing the gospel with the peoples of the world next door. I was blown away by the list and humbled to be amongst people like that. I am praying for them this week. Praying for the opportunities that they will have. Praying that more people will catch that vision.

We often look at the progression of the Great Commission in Acts 1:8 ESV

⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

In today’s world the Great Commission is HERE and THERE.  A church has the nations in their neighborhood but at the same time they need to go to the nations. One does not exclude the other.

Here are some questions we asked him.

Why did you start the SENT Collective?

Chad Vandiver (CV): The SENT Collective is a group of missional networks serving together to implement Luke 10:2-3, “He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few….’” These networks all exist to empower the local church to reach its community. We believe that as churches reach the mission fields around them they will be better equipped to reach mission fields in other parts of the world.

The SENT Collective is also a connection system that will seek to mobilize and equip workers while helping them know where the harvest is throughout Texas, the United States, North America and beyond, and how to share the Gospel in biblically correct and culturally appropriate manners. The SENT Collective can offer training in missiological leadership, research and engagement. This training begins with the SENT Conference continues with SENT Labs and the People Group Champions Project. We also have People Group and Multihousing Missionaries already serving as Jesus experts to people groups throughout Texas. They are available to lead local churches to mission fields in their communities.

Even though you started SENT just this past March, what are some things you’ve already seen God do through it?

CV: God is moving in amazing ways throughout Texas! Our state receives approximately 4,500 refugees each year, providing believers ample opportunities to serve as missionaries in their own backyards. One believer has shared how her boss helped connect her with a Muslim woman who was curious about the Bible. The two women would discuss the Bible weekly via Skype and talk about how the Old Testament prophesies were fulfilled through Jesus Christ. After consistently hearing Truth, the Muslim woman said, “You know, there’s no way around it. I know I’m a sinner, I know my good deeds are not good enough and I know I need a Savior.” She declared she is no longer a Muslim, but a follower of Christ.

Another Christ-follower realized her occupation—in apartment complex management—was her God-given mission field. Even though regulations keep her from openly sharing her faith, she has seen God create thousands of ministries in apartment communities across the United States. Today she is willing to talk with anyone who is interested in reaching out to apartment complexes for the sake of the Gospel. All it requires is committed and willing hearts and hands.

Who is the SENT Collective for?

CV: Anyone who believes Matthew 28:18-20. The SENT Collective is for all Christians looking for opportunities to be trained as missionaries to Texas and beyond. It exists to empower the local church to engage their community with the Gospel.

You can follow Chad on twitter at chadvandiver and their blog www.sentcollective.org.