Editor's note: This is an excerpt from was our download entitled "Assessment Questions for Marketplace Worker Candidates." You can purchase the complete download here, or become a site member for access to our file share.
Do you have members of your congregation who are exploring alternative pathways to mission? If so, do you know how to assess these workers to see if they are ready to go?
Here are some of the typical alternative pathways sent ones may choose:
• Finding a job overseas or getting a transfer from their company • Creating a job or company overseas • Studying overseas (college or masters level) • Retiring overseas • Finding ways to do contract or remote work abroad
As a pastor, it is wise to assess members of your church who want to live and work overseas with intentionality. In most cases, their full-time workday will be in the marketplace. The work itself can create a great access point to the people.
We also like to see a person link up with a national church, international church, or a missionary team to provide accountability, community, and strategic engagement.
Usually, they will not be able to be devoted to the church or missionary team full time, so they rarely run point in a church or missionary team setting. But, they can play an important role in engagement and support.
In the book, The MarketSpace: Essential Relationships between the Sending Church, Marketplace Worker and Missionary Team, we provide a list of qualities you want to see in your marketplace sent out ones. When the church sends people overseas as vocational missionaries, you normally ask them to fill out an application that gives you a good amount of information about their character, theological formation, and mission skills. Sending churches do this to help them develop as they prepare to go.
We find that these elements are also important in a marketplace worker’s preparation. However, we also feel there are some common themes that we want to see currently demonstrated in their lives. When you sit down to assess your marketplace workers, you want to ask questions that give you a good picture of their lives.
Find out more here.