Missions on Point

After 5-1/2 years of weekly Friday podcasts, we are bringing the Missions on Point podcast to the next stage. Lord willing, it has been and will continue to be a source of challenge, encouragement, and information for church leaders, their missionaries, and mission-sending organizations. We may add more to the Missions on Point podcasts, but it won't be every Friday; episodes may be longer and more focused on issues in local-church-centered missions sending. I'll be launching another issue-focused media outlet titled "A Drop of Meade" on my channel at DavidCMeade.substack.com. Find me there. Thank you all, dear listeners, for your loyalty and encouragement. David Meade [email protected]

This introduction to the biblical principle of the centrality of the Church and missions was actually published as Missions on Point. You can get it through Amazon.com. This is the fire in the engine and the main thrust of all of our teaching and ministry over the last 30 years. Please go back to the Missions on Point episodes and find the entire list, which this episode is just the beginning of. Please also let your friends and fellow Church leaders know that this biblical principle can change your church missions for the better in the long term. In fact, for eternity.

A good Missions Handbook resolves many debates and provides context for the direction and strategic development of missions in your church by grounding decisions in Scripture. Start with the simplest nuts and bolts, ensuring each policy and procedure aligns with biblical principles and clear scriptural definitions. This biblical foundation provides the framework for your missions team's decision-making process. Go to Propempo.com or listen to the entire series on Missions on Point podcast. SendForward.org has a reference book for Church Missions Policy that could save you a lot of time and effort.

I love this topic. I've not found anyone else who talks about it. We've all met missions junkies. You probably have at least one in your church. They are people who love to talk about missions, love it when people pay for them to go "do" missions (but only short-term). They don't have the focus and intensity to become a long-term missionary. It's about THEIR experience, THEIR selfies, THEIR "calling" to be an encourager of missions and missionaries, but never a long-term do-er of missions. What can we do with missions junkies? Let's turn their direction into something really useful for the church.

Visiting your missionary on the field is one of the sweetest blessings as a church leader. You get to see them in context, feel, hear, smell, taste, and touch their world. Yet it is also an earnest endeavor to shepherd them well, even to delve into the hard things in their life. Plan well. Let them know that your visit is not as a tourist, not as a dignitary or featured guest, but simply as a shepherd wanting to care for them. This episode will help you sort of the issues.

Business As Missions (BAM) has been the darling and the bane of attempts to reach "closed" countries with the Gospel. As Greg Livingstone has said, "You are either a job taker, a job maker, or a job faker." Most BAM out in the wild is job faking. While there is good work to be done by sincere Christians creating God-honoring businesses, they are rarely aimed at the end goal of establishing and strengthening indigenous local churches. However, we all need to understand BAM to interact with it. We've got more in Missions on Point and Propempo.com on BAM.

Church-based missionary training is a huge, paradigm-shifting undertaking. But, if you don't want your sent-ones to be cannon fodder, you'd better wake up and take note. Sound church-based, guided missionary training will make the difference between burnout and longevity, between frustration and effectiveness, between being crushed and thriving. Listen and learn.

Imagine you had to train someone from your church to become your associate pastor. Then add layers of training in church planting, cross-cultural exposure, leadership training, and becoming an elder. There you have it, in a simple form; that's how you train a church member to become a missionary. This episode will guide your thinking. Look for lots more on Propempo.com, SendForward.org, and the Missions on Point episodes' history.

We actually address the issue of candidate identification in other series of the Missions on Point podcast. This one is the first of four in an overview of sending, equipping, and shepherding missionaries. I maintain that having a constant stream of equipping and leadership training in your church is absent in most churches. That's why it's so important to begin to address it. The answers to finding and equipping missionaries from your Church are parallel to those for leaders in your Church, whether elders, pastors, or deacons. We need a thoughtful, well-known process for identifying and training, and putting in place, those leaders. Missions on Point will help you do that.

This episode, featuring The Best of Missions on Point, looks at episode 79. The "Missiology You Need to Know" series continues with The Missionary Must Reproduce Himself. This seems as obvious as the nose on your face. However, missionaries tend to copy the forms of the churches in which they grew up and don't learn because of the absence of emphasizing this in ministry training schools. This principle is essential for achieving the desired result of indigenous local churches. BTW, a church plant is not indigenous if the missionary is the lead pastor. The fact that this principle is so little or poorly practiced is damning to our Western missiology.

Perhaps you didn't think you needed to know about missiology, but understanding the priorities and foundation of practical missionary missiology is essential to comprehend the process of sending missionaries from your Church and supporting high-quality missionaries. Your understanding of key missiological principles will significantly aid you in grasping and empathizing with the work and ministry of your missionaries. This best-of-episode is the first of six outlining these key concepts.

The "Best of" series is one of my favorites. It deals with subjects that are almost never admitted to or discussed in public. The angst that those "left behind" by their missionary family member or good friend rivals the angst caused by them toward their dear one. Those feelings of loss or abandonment are real. Shortsighted, damaging perhaps, but real to the "sufferer." So, those around them need to step in with loving care, counseling, sympathy, and correction, pointing them to the Lord and His purposes.

This "Best of" episode is a synopsis of six major teaching/training topics we covered in 2-day Propempo seminars for churches seeking to learn how to become a sending church. This first one, V for Vision, is a great starting point for getting leadership on board with the concept of a biblical missions-sending church. Please consider sharing this podcast with others and supporting us to keep us going.

Churches, including the missions ministries, tend to evaluate themselves based on metrics from previous years. The same metrics, without reference to an external objective benchmark. Sound familiar? The Church Missions Profile is your ticket to clearer standards. Visit SendForward.org and click on the Church Missions Profile link to learn more. The episode replays and overview of the first three categories (out of 12) in the CMP: church leaders, missions team, and indvidual participation.

Books are an invaluable resource to us all, especially when you get the right ones! Here's my list of high-impact mission books. Visit SendForward.org/Store to explore some of these resources and others that have proven helpful to many. Email me to let me know your thoughts: ministry (at) Propempo.com Go to Propempo.com to find transcripts of every podcast episode -- https://propempo.com/resources/missions-on-point-podcast/

This is a grand series from the best of Missions on Point. It begins a series on discovering missions through the Bible. This first episode in that series is the glory of God. What could be higher and grander and more noble than that? This episode begins to explore the biblical content, showing how it's easy to see, if you have eyes to see it, the great missions themes throughout the whole Bible. The glory of God is the pinnacle, but many other episodes follow in the Missions on Point history. A very interesting reference in this episode is the story of how John Piper from Bethlehem Baptist Church became aware of and turned to the story of the glory of God in missions in the Bible. A more detailed version of this story is on Propempo.com. Enjoy!

Churches can easily neglect the essential ministry of the Missions Committee or Team. The series on Missions Committee Essentials, beginning from the replay of Episode 43, provides practical guidance to help start or restart an effective Missions Team. If your church wants to be missions-minded, the Missions Committee needs to be reinforced and refocused so that it can be used to effectively mobilize the whole church in missions. More resources can be found on Propempo.com and SendForward.org.

The "Best of" episode features the first of a short series on the most fundamental truths of missions from the Bible for today. This episode works through an overview of key Scriptures that establish the basis for the centrality of the local church in God's purposes. The local church is NOT the universal church. The universal church does not have the same call, commission, or consequence in God's plan for our day. This truth is so significant that it has the power to change our minds and actions, transforming our local churches and their missions to align more closely with God's. Listen well. Find more articles and resources on Propempo.com and the Missions on Point podcast. Tell your friends and church leaders!

Historically, we've battled with the wrong assumption that parachurch missions agencies own world missions ministry. It was true in 1900! It is largely accurate in 2025! This episode calls Pastors to lead their local church to ownership of global missions as the church equips, sends, and shepherds missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission. The Pastor must step up in faithfulness to this biblical focus on the local church as the beginning and end of missions. As the Pastor leads, so goes the church. It means the Pastor will have to learn some new vocabulary, skills, and principles --- because, surprisingly, this is NOT taught in seminary. May God motivate pastors to mobilize their church to such obedience.

Starting with validating the individual missionary candidate's missionary call through hands-on oversight and observation, the church equips him or her to be sent. Character, convictions, and proven competencies to do the work of a missionary are worked out in the laboratory of local church ministry. The local church helps identify the field, the missions agency partner, and other supporting churches and individuals. The local church leads in shepherding the missionary in every aspect of their life and ministry on the field. The church also helps re-entry and reintegration to life "back home" when the missionary returns from the field. Seven characteristics of a good sending church conclude this episode.