How to Help Missionaries Identify with Their Sending Church

This resource equips church leaders to foster in their missionary candidates a strong, biblical identification with their sending church—a sent identity. While many aspiring missionaries are stirred to go through books, podcasts, or conferences, this resource helps churches ensure that their people are not just called to go but are sent by a local body that knows them, disciples them, and stands with them. It provides practical steps for cultivating a sending culture that shapes missionaries long before they leave and sustains them long after they arrive on the field.

I have had the privilege of serving both overseas as a missionary from a local church and as a sending pastor of a local church. Both roles have allowed me to speak with hundreds of missionaries serving worldwide. When I meet a new missionary, I always ask this question: “Who sent you?” 

Until a few years ago, most missionaries would answer the question by telling me about their missions organization. However, a few years ago, I started hearing a different answer. Missionaries began answering with the name of their sending church, and then, if they had one, the name of the missions organization that facilitated their sending. 

I loved that answer, but I was curious about the reason for this change. Why did the missionaries begin to identify more with their local church than with their mission organization? 

To put it simply, missionaries identify themselves as sent from their local church because it is the local church that sends them. While missions organizations continue to play a vital role in sending—helping the church send out its members and complementing the church by providing strategic direction, training, and care—the local church is at the center of God’s global mission. 

In Spirituality for the Sent, Susan Booth writes, “a renewed vision for mission recovers the understanding that the Great Commission is the responsibility of the local church.” The heroes of the story are the churches that send out their members to the nations so that the gospel can be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. Missiologist Eric Wright writes, “In reality, missionary vision and nurture are meant to develop in the womb of the church. Missionaries are sent out from local churches.”²

Why Is a Sending Church So Important? 

The Great Commission was given to the global church, which is expressed as local congregations. Obviously, missions organizations did not exist when the Gospels and the Book of Acts were being written. While missions organizations have stepped in over the years to provide needed assistance with strategy and structure, sending remains the church’s responsibility. It should never be outsourced simply because a missions organization can do it better or more efficiently. 

Sending is an integral part of the church's identity. According to theologian Eckhard Schnabel, “The directive to ‘make disciples’ demonstrates the ecclesiological dimension of the mission of the Twelve: missionary work and the church must not be separated, since the very goal and purpose of missionary work is the creation of a community of disciples.” 

One of the best places to see this pattern is the church at Antioch. Acts 11 describes how the gospel continued to progress outwardly, not only to the Jewish people, but also to the Gentiles: 

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. Acts 11:19–21

The gospel was planted among the people of Antioch. God opened their hearts, and many believed. This must have been exciting yet intriguing news to the church leaders in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas to investigate. Barnabas saw this genuine faith community in action and decided Saul—whom we later know as Paul—would be the one who could help shape and form this new community. Discipleship was the next step for these believers after they accepted the gospel. 

Luke continued to write in Acts: 

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Acts 11:25–26

I have always been interested in what Barnabas and Saul taught during that year. Whatever it was, the church caught on, as illustrated later in Acts 11 when the church took up a collection for believers in a place affected by famine. God had given them generous hearts.

Then, in Act 13, while the church was fasting and praying, the Holy Spirit spoke to them and said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Even though Antioch was a young church, it became a sending church. 

There was something about how that young church was discipled that created an outward-focused ethos. I believe that a key can be found in Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

The apostles’ teaching contained eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life from the mouths of the apostles. The early church leaders told the story of Jesus. They saw him perform miracles. They saw him put on trial, tortured, put to death on a cross, buried, and then resurrected. They were with him in the days after his resurrection. They learned from him—how he loved people, how he provided nourishment to the hungry, how he cared for the poor, how he gave himself away. They saw him ascend to heaven. Then, they poured his teachings into the young church. 

The church of Antioch likely followed that example. Believers were even first called “Christians,” or “little Christs,” at Antioch. Many scholars believe the designation of “little Christs” was not a description the believers gave to each other during that time period, but rather how the community in which they lived viewed them. They saw these followers of Jesus as “little Christs.” 

I believe the discipleship those believers received in the first days of their church was vitally important to how they lived as a community of Christ-followers. With such a focus on prayer, the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and the breaking of bread, they instinctively knew that obedience to the Great Commission was part of their identity. Antioch was a church that understood that mission was a regular part of their day—in their city and to the world around them. 

Paul’s missionary journeys continued in Acts 13 and 14, and it’s clear that he and his fellow workers followed a pattern. There was a rhythm of planting the gospel, making disciples, and forming churches. But there’s one significant aspect that can easily be overlooked. When they finished their journey, Paul and his companions returned to their sending church, Antioch, and gathered with them to recount all that God had done. The concluding verse of chapter 14 sums it up, saying, “And they remained no little time with the disciples” (Acts 14:28). Because of their deep relationship with the local church, they were able to return and speak back into the life of the church. 

What Do Sending Churches Do Differently? 

I began talking with the leaders of the churches that sent out my missionary colleagues, and I realized that each had a strong sending identity. I also noticed some standard components of their sending process that enabled them to have such an identity. 

The church prayed for and with the missionaries, remembering them in corporate prayer gatherings. They prayed for them as individuals and also for the work they were doing. The church was an active part of their lives, and, whenever possible, they prayed with them via phone, internet, or in-person. 

The church shepherded the missionaries before they left, while they were on the field, and upon their return home. Eric Wright again makes a significant statement about the role of the church in preparing and sending when he writes, “The local church is the place where future missionaries are mentored in a process of one-on-one discipleship.”

These churches were “all in” when it came to discipling their members into mission. They provided opportunities to serve locally and participate in short-term mission trips. They created a space for them to ask questions and to process God’s calling on their lives. They cared for them as covenant members of their church, which went beyond helping them respond to an initial call to go to the nations. 

The church sent them off by laying hands on them, commissioning them, and celebrating their sending as a whole church. These sending churches celebrated what God was doing. They rallied around their missionaries as they prepared to depart. They helped them prepare for this new life—spiritually, emotionally, and logistically. They gathered the church around them, laid hands on them, and sent them off, just like the church at Antioch did for Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13. 

The church sent teams to pray for, care for, and serve alongside their workers. These sending churches placed a high value on maintaining contact with their missionaries. They invested in pastoral visits with their missionaries. They were involved in strategic partnerships with them on the field by frequently sending short-term teams, mid-term workers, and other long-term workers to join them int their work.

The church was accessible and present for their missionaries—before, during, and after their journey. They were highly accessible to their missionaries. They returned emails promptly. They made time for calls. When missionaries returned home, the church welcomed them and helped them reintegrate into the church. They provided opportunities for returned missionaries to debrief about their time overseas and helped them process reverse culture shock. 

Your Church’s Sending Journey 

Below is a list to help your church begin the journey of becoming a healthy sending church. 

1. Begin by writing out your church’s missions convictions. 

What does your church believe about God’s mission? These convictions help you know for sure how your church should be uniquely involved in missions. It is the “why” behind all that you do. Missions convictions help you clarify your vision and set a strategy for sending. Teach them to your church, and especially your missionary candidates. It will help them know not just what it means to be sent, but also what it means to be sent from your church. 

2. Mobilize your entire congregation to be involved. 

Once you have established your strategy and vision, you can begin mobilizing your church to be on mission. Lead them to pray for the nations and enlist people to pray for your missionaries and partnerships. Develop and train members to serve in missionary development and discipleship. Mobilize people to serve in missionary care. Collaborate with your field partners to deploy short-term teams that provide strategic support to missionaries in their work. Find the necessary financial resources to implement your strategies through ongoing missions giving and special mission offerings. All these efforts show your missionary candidates and missionaries that your church truly is the sender. 

3. Disciple your congregation with the nations in mind. 

Work with your church leadership to be sure discipleship includes making global disciples. Encourage your members to engage not just in their neighborhood and city but in the rest of the world as well. Help your members learn and develop key missionary skills that are available to all believers. Doing so will allow your missionary candidates to develop missionary identity while at your church, long before they arrive at the pre-field training of their missions organization. 

4. Invest in and nurture those who are responding to a call to missions. 

When the church invests its time and resources in developing missionary candidates, it makes a significant difference in their sent identity. The candidates experience firsthand the role of the local church in sending. Then, on the field, the missionaries recall how the church nurtured them during the process of calling, assessment, development, and commissioning. This relationship fosters a profound union between the church and the missionary, enabling them to identify with one another in the long term. 

5. Send your missionaries off well. 

When you commission your missionaries, plan a worship celebration that includes the leaders, the missionaries being sent out, and the congregation. Make it a moment to remember for everyone. I have seen some churches give a nice gift to each family member to help them remember their sending church—the body that sent them and who will receive them back someday. 

6. Provide ongoing care for missionaries as they proclaim the gospel to the nations. 

The church is uniquely positioned to care for its missionaries. They are covenant members of your church. To be pastored well from a distance is possible, but only with a great deal of intentionality from both the senders and the missionaries. While they will be involved in a local church overseas, it will most likely look radically different from their home church. They will need prayer and care from their sending church. 

When you provide this care, you enrich their time and experience overseas, while also offering much-needed spiritual accountability and guidance. At some point in the future, they will most likely return home and to your church. While their contract or agreement with their missions organization will end, they will remain members of the church. They will still be connected with your congregation. As you prepare them for service and care for them on the field, you are setting the stage for when they do return. You can help them re-enter the life and ministry of the church, the very church from which they were sent. 

“My Church Sent Me”

As you proactively take these steps, intentionally investing in ongoing, reciprocal relationships with your missionary candidates, missionary partners, and returning missionaries, you will soon see the difference. You too will be delighted to ask the question, “Who sent you?” because more and more often you will hear that sweet, biblical answer, “My church sent me.”

Next Steps

The journey toward sending well happens one step at a time. Here are three ways you can continue moving upstream:

1. Summarize some ways you would want missionaries to relate to the sending church. Begin communicating those in your sending pipeline.

2. Ask missionaries that you know, “Who sent you?” Listen to their perspectives. Ask what it would take for them to answer, “My church sent me.” 

3. Ask another missions leader about how they help their missionaries have a sending church identity before launch. Look for new insights not mentioned in this resource.