It’s Sunday morning. You’re a pastor looking over your sermon when you see some new faces walk through the front door of your church.
Your greeters shake their hands, yet there seems to be some awkwardness there. Unable to hear from this distance, you walk over and introduce yourself. The father of the new family greets you with words that stop your heart—how could you have forgotten!?
“Hello, Pastor! I’m the missionary that’s preaching this morning.”
Hopefully, this scenario will never happen to you. The previous article in this series, “Scheduling a Missionary Visit,” can help you avoid this embarrassment. Yet now with a missionary visit scheduled, you wonder how else to prepare for their coming. This article provides practical answers to two more common missionary-visit questions.
How Can We Prepare Our Church for a Missionary Visit?
The missionaries visiting your church are both excited and nervous. Will they feel welcome? Will the congregation engage with their field and calling? Is this meeting the first of many or a one-and-done service?
As a missionary blessed to have spoken behind many pulpits, I can tell you these thoughts are going through all our heads the first time around! Sad to say, it’s almost like having a multi-hour job interview week after week after week. We get used to it, yet we never get used to it.
Suggestion #1: Introduce the Missionaries to the Church Long before the Visit.
Don’t let the above scenario play out, where your greeter (or pastor!) doesn’t recognize the missionaries, handing them a visitor card rather than greeting them by name. Prepare your congregation by including their family picture on your ministry slides (begin a month in advance), announcing their visit regularly and getting folks excited about the family and field.
Suggestion #2: Show Your Own Excitement about Their Visit.
Whether you’re a pastor, a missions committee member, or “a normal person,” help prepare your congregation for a missionary visit by stoking the fires with missions messages an conversations. Take five minutes in the weeks prior to their visit to describe their field’s needs. In churches where missionary visits are almost a habit, mix things up and keep the visits fresh and feeling like true “events,” not just the same-old, same-old.
Suggestion #3: Plan Special Events during Their Stay.
To help missionary visits feel like fresh events, try these ideas:
- Potluck dinners (the old standby!) rarely disappoint, but you can take these a step further. Try adding intimacy to the dinner by hosting this meal in a church member’s home.
- Include a Q&A time with the missionaries or panel discussions with the missionary and current or retired missionaries for your area.
- Get the children and youth involved beforehand by having them color and hang posters relating to missions and the field.
- Saturday evening BBQs (our favorite) offer a relaxed atmosphere to interact in real life, not simply formally while in your Sunday best.
How Should We Stock a Missionary Cupboard?
Are missionary cupboards still a thing?1 You’d be surprised at how few churches anymore set aside a room filled with goodies that can help missionaries living on the road. Fewer than 20% of the churches we visited offered us a stroll through their missionary closet, but when they did, we were absolutely thrilled. Set your church apart from most and bless a visiting family by adding this extra consideration to your ministry.
Idea #1: Realize That “Support” Doesn’t Always Equal “Money.”
You simply can’t give every missionary monthly support—but that shouldn’t limit your ability to give in other ways. Run a “Missionary Cupboard Drive” in your church to collect toiletries, kitchen and office supplies, books and toys, gift cards and other fun surprises to stock your missionary cupboard. Money can be tight for missionaries on deputation or furlough, and sometimes they don’t think it important to upgrade their socks or hand lotion. Surprise them with a free shopping spree!
Idea #2: Put Your Hearts into It.
Go beyond “cupboard” and establish a whole room for this purpose, and not the dingy boiler room either! Decorate it. Keep it well lit. Make it an inviting place that mirrors your people’s love for missions. Task your most caring people—the encouragers, the prayers, the ones showing hospitality—to head up your Missionary Cupboard and Drives.
Idea #3: Stock It Well.
While we’ve seen some amazing items in missionary cupboards (brand new crock pots and fancy gift cards), we’ve also seen some less-than-amazing things (half-burned candles and half-used bars of soap—no joke!). Remember that you give gifts to reflect your love, not because missionaries are beggars who’ll take anything that’s free (though admittedly, I hate to let a good half-burned candle go to waste!). Only provide brand new or good-as-new items. Here’s a rough list:
- Daily essentials like hygiene products, towels, snacks, etc.
- Office items like thank you cards, stamps, materials for homeschool, etc.
- Kids items like toys, puzzle books, (clean) crafts, etc.
- Surprises like novels, clothing, gadgets, etc.
- Luxury items like gift cards, homemade preserves, etc.
The only limits to your stock are your church’s creativity and generosity. Whenever you’re stumped, simply apply Jesus’ “golden rule”!
Idea #4: Make It Fun.
Few missionaries will feel comfortable having the run of the place. There’s a fine line between “accepting your generosity” and “appearing greedy,” so they’ll usually not grab as much as you want them too—even when Gertrude is there prodding them to “Get more!” Try one of these creative methods to get your missionaries to shop and shop well:
- Provide grocery bags and “require” they fill at least two
- Give them “Missionary Bucks” (or some variation), and “price” the items in the room (this helps prevent that one oddball missionary from filling his grocery bag with nothing but gift cards)
- Stock the shelves in such a way that they must choose one item from each shelf (but be very loose with your “rules”)
- Include a small bag of “Local Favorites” with your hometown (or state) snacks, coupons, etc.
Idea #5: Update the Cupboard Regularly.
Run the “Missionary Cupboard Drive” seasonally with a new emphasis each week. Avoid using “a sign-up sheet in the back.” Instead, recruit teens to collect items in baskets during the offering time. Allow this to be a cheerful, sacred offering to God which He then uses to bless his servants! Prepare a “Missionary Shower” where you seek to meet the needs of missionaries you’ve contacted in advance. Post the items early and present them as gifts when the missionary visits to speak.
Conclusion
I hope that this short list of practical ideas can help you prepare mentally and physically for blessing a missionary family. In future articles, we’ll talk more about practical ways to host missionaries, support missionaries, and communicate with missionaries. For now though I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on how you’ve prepared for missionary visits in the past and consider what practical things you can do now to improve your welcome in the future.
- Missionary cupboards seem to be more prevalent in the Midwest than in other regions. On the East Coast, some missionaries report that gift cards are the new missionary cupboard. Some churches give gift cards to places like Walmart, Amazon, or restaurants that will help the missionaries as they travel. What ever you do, do it well! ↩︎
