How YOU Can

   IMPACT Africa

You might think this will just be about more missionaries and more money.  Well ... missions is changing.  People and other resources will always be needed, but the picture is so much bigger and more complex than that.

Even the way we think about about missions is changing.  Impacting Africa is much more than what we have traditionally referred as missions.  It’s more than people baptized and churches planted.  Imagine the holistic transformation of a people or nation; a people of God, a people for God.  Imagine yourself being a part of that process!

Another way missions is changing is in the attitude and role of the 'outsider'.  Most Westerners in Africa are outsiders who need to recognize their strengths as well as their limitations.  Insiders, the Africans themselves, are better at doing what we used to think of as the work of a missionary - making it happen on the ground. 

Westerners as outsiders, need to move into roles of service, support and strategy.  They must learn to serve behind the scenes in ways that encourage, empower and enable the 'insiders' to do what they can do better than the outsider can.  Here are some ways you can play a part!

Train Yourself in Warfare Prayer

Some would say the need for prayer goes without saying.  Actually it doesn't.   Nothing of kingdom value happens without God's power and God doesn't get involved directly unless He's asked to.  When we invade the kingdom of Satan, he doesn't take that lightly.  He fights back hard.  So IMPACT-ing Africa requires intentional, aggressive, focused warfare prayer.  It requires people who are prepared to do battle 'on their knees.'  You may not be able to IMPACT Africa any other way, but your prayers and intercessions are absolutely critical to making lasting transformation in Africa a reality. Read The Last of the Giants  by George Otis, Jr.

Challenge and Mobilize Your ...

... class, club, staff, company, church, school or other community where you have influence.  Take on a project that will make a kingdom IMPACT in Africa.  In partnership with a rural community, you can build a school for $60,000 ... or put in clean water systems for 6 communities.  For $100 a month you can make it possible for an orphan to complete her college education ... Yes

Plan to Serve on Short-term Missions

Think about what you have to offer in mission.  Where and what has God put in your life that you can offer him in service.  Are you a teacher? ... teach others to teach.  Are you in business?  Train others in small business or see 'Business as mission' below.  Are you in health-care?  Train others in healthcare skills.  NOTICE: We’re not suggesting you just practice your profession; rather we’re saying invest your skills in others.

Think about the cost.  The money you use in missions is God's money.  Don't spend $3000 to go on a mission and then waste your time sorting and wrapping pills.  That is not good stewardship of kingdom resources.  A local person can be taught to do that in ten minutes for less than $1 an hour ... and you just took their job!!  Offer to do something no one else on that mission can do.  Read How to Get Ready for Short-Term Missions by Anne-Geri Fann and Greg Taylor.

Consider Business as Mission

Business and missions have long been thought of as mutually exclusive.  Missionaries after all, consider business to be essentially unspiritual, right?  Of course, they are most happy to receive support from owners of successful businesses.

Consider what for-profit ‘kingdom’ businesses can do in the underdeveloped world.  They can provide essential services, demonstrate models of economic security and sustainability, provide jobs in economies facing high unemployment rates (35% on average in Africa), demonstrate Christian business ethics, fund compassion ministries and support evangelistic projects.

Be a Non-Residential Missionary

Wow, what is that!?  A non-residential missionary does not live in the area where his or her mission is focused.  To live there may be less effective, unnecessary, too dangerous or impossible.  A non-residential missionary may mentor, strategize, train, gather resources and otherwise promote the mission. They may even visit the location on occasion for purposes of learning and encouraging the forces on the ground.  If you have been an effective long-term missionary, you may be qualified to be a good non-residential missionary.

Do Something Radical...

The church was not founded to keep house.  It’s purpose is not to keep the saved saved until the second coming. The church, your church most likely, has not done all it was designed to do.  It has not demonstrated the good news or proclaimed the good news to all the people for whom Jesus gave his life.  The time has come.  Urgent business calls for radical solutions.

Renounce Retirement ... or Redefine it

Let’s face it, retirement is for sissies.  Most of the world never heard of retirement.  Furthermore, it’s totally unbiblical.  There is no such things as retirement from the Lord’s army.  Only redeployment!    Whoever heard of a slave saying to his master, “Okay, sir.  I’ve had enough.  I’m checking out!!”  Okay, okay, so much for the sermon.  I am just trying to save you from a boring rest-of-your-life.

...So you’ve been working a long, long time.  During that long time you have learned a lot, made and corrected many mistakes, gained experience, improved your skills ... Hey, you have a lot to offer others, to bless others with.  And there are a bunch of people who need that blessing.  Write or call you favorite missionary and tell you have just come out of retirement.  If they don’t respond, write me.

Change Careers

If you decide to give up your career, be sure not to give up your interests, your skills, your spiritual gifts, your experience, your sense of calling or your dreams.  Those are all going to be needed in this new career out there.

Profile of a good cross-cultural worker planning a new career to IMPACT Africa: a God-lover, compassionate, skilled, patient, creative, prayerful, generous, passionate, a people-lover, servant-hearted, a life-long learner.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: 

TEACH. Teach others to teach.  Teach English as a second language.  Teach almost anything at the University level.  Teach in a Christian university.  Teach short courses in the summer in a secular university. Teach literacy.  TESOL.

TRAIN.  Train people in any and all the basic skills needed in a developing country: Construction trades such as masonry, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, plus welding, auto mechanics, mechanical engineering, agriculture, animal husbandry, veterinary science, health-care, environmental sciences, computer science and many other fields.