A 100 Year Plan for World Missions

Every mission agency, every church and every Christian should have a 100-year plan to ensure the continuation of world missions.

Some people may object to such a wild idea. How can anyone plan even one year ahead when the world is so changing so rapidly? How in the world can a church make plans for the next 100 years when the global, political and economic future is so uncertain? In an unpredictable world, we need a new kind of strategy to keep the missionary vision alive until the Lord returns.

I believe that the most important strategy for long-range planning is to focus on children. We need to do everything we can to challenge children with Christ’s world-wide commission.

The teen years are a good time for teaching missions through short-term mission trips, but younger children can learn about missions too. I made a solid commitment to be a missionary when I was ten years old. I was deeply moved by a film showing the problems of leprosy in China and I began to have a concern for the needs of the whole world. A missionary to Africa, Don McClure, stayed at our house when I was a child. This man, who was later martyred, had a passion for life and for the needs of the world. I wanted to be like him. Since my parents were also enthusiastic about world missions there was really nothing else I wanted to do when I grew up. My childhood decision affected all the decisions I made as a young adult–what to study in college, who to marry and what to do when I graduated.

I have always been challenged by the world-changing potential of children. This motivated me to teach a Sunday School for 10-12 year old boys for many years. The boys called themselves the FBI Class or the “Faithful Bible Investigators.” One Sunday a missionary came to the class and told how he was working with needy children in Honduras and why he needed prayer and financial support. The boys took the rest of the class asking probing questions. The FBI class decided to adopt this missionary. Every Sunday they insisted we pray for the missionary and carefully read every prayer letter he wrote. When the missionary was successful they felt a part of his success. When he faced trials, they prayed even more. They gave sacrificially from their allowance money and from job earnings. They did extra baby-sitting and worked hard at mowing lawns in the summer. They put so much money in the Sunday School envelope that they insisted I write a note to the treasurer saying, “All the money in this envelope came from the boys. The teacher did not put in any money.”

Children are the future of missions. Parents need to read missionary biographies to their children, watch mission videos together and pray through books such as Operation World or You Can Make a Difference to pray about help their children to be aware of what God is doing in the world.

Many churches have a strong missions program for children. Churches can build up a strong children’s missions library and schedule the best missionary speakers for children’s classes. Sunday School classes can adopt a missionary family with children about the same age as class members. Children should be encouraged to make friends with children from other cultures in their neighborhood or school.

Nothing is more important for long-range planning in world missions than children who are well informed, challenged and enthusiastic about God’s plan for the nations. The hand that leads children is the hand that will change the world.