Initial Interest Questions with a Missionary Candidate

What do you do when a member of your church shows interest in missions? The way we answer this question can either help or harm healthy sending in our churches. It is important to use wisdom in the initial interest conversations to gain a foundational understanding of the individual and help them envision the pathway forward. This resource will provide questions and guidelines for that initial meeting.

As you work to cultivate awareness of global missions and the sentness of every member, it is likely that members will approach you about becoming a missionary. This is an awesome feeling as a missions leader when: a) you have a plan and pathway in place for interested missionaries; b) it is someone you would be excited about becoming a missionary.

However, it can be tricky when: a) you do not have a plan and pathway in place for interested missionaries; b) when it is someone that you do not know already.

Answering a member’s question about their calling into missions is too important to answer in the church hallway, after small group, via email, or text. When initially approached about an interest in global missions, the most valuable thing you can do for that person is to reciprocate their excitement and invite them into a space where you can discuss their interest and potential calling further.

In this resource, we want to provide you with some tools to give you confidence and direction in those initial missions interest meetings with the following tools and steps:

1. Developing an initial interest questionnaire for a missionary candidate to fill out prior to a first meeting with you.

2. Questions to ask a new missionary candidate in an initial interest meeting.

3. How to communicate your sending pathway to them.

Interest Questionnaire

An initial interest questionnaire can be a valuable step in between the missionary candidate showing some interest and the initial interest meeting itself. This is for a number of reasons:

1. If you send the questionnaire before setting up the meeting, it can be a helpful proactive step for them to take to show ownership and responsibility of their process.

2. You can save some time in your first meeting with them by knowing the answers in the questionnaire.

3. You can go into the meeting with some understanding of their situation and what their interest is. If it’s a complicated situation, you’ll have time to consider your response beforehand.

Utilize your church’s data management platform, or some sort of eform maker and put together a short questionnaire. Topics and questions to consider adding would include, but are not limited to:

1. Name and Contact Information

2. Church Involvement 

   1. How long have you been a part (member) of our church? 

   2. In what ways are you participating in the life of our church? (You could ask more specific questions here if helpful to your context. Small groups, baptism, classes, service opportunities, etc.)

3. Missions Trajectory 

   1. How did your interest in global missions start?

   2. Do you have a team, locations, missions organization, or strategy in mind that you would like to be a part of?

   3. How long would you like to go cross-culturally?

4. Referrals

   1. Who in your life has affirmed this idea of doing cross-cultural missions?

There are certainly a lot more questions that could be included. Keep in mind that this is just the initial interest questionnaire. Not the first meeting, or an application with your church or with a missions organization. Feel free to add questions you think are relevant and needed at this point, but remember to keep it short. You’re gathering information for your initial interest meeting, not an official interview.

At this step I have found that some missionary candidates filter out with this simple call to fill out a questionnaire. While our goal is not to weed out candidates, part of the assessment process has to be how well they take responsibility for what they are asked to do and how they respond to leadership. This simple process of requiring a questionnaire response can be a helpful tool for gathering initial information about a person and their character.

You might also want to ask yourself how you feel about your readiness to help someone walk through their calling. A couple of resources that can be helpful in assessing the readiness of missionary candidates, found on the Upstream website include:

1. How to Help Potential Missionaries Discern Calling 

2. 12 Essential Traits for Developing Healthy Missionaries

3. Why Your Church Should Count the Cost Before Sending

Before meeting with your first candidate, consider checking out these resources.

Initial Interest Meeting

With the initial questionnaire completed, the missionary candidate can schedule a time with you to have an initial interest meeting. As you go into this initial interest meeting I want you to have an encouraging, and listening posture. While there will be times to challenge and push missionary candidates, in the initial interest meeting,  you want to flame the fire of what God is doing through encouragement, not douse it with challenges and pushing right off the bat. Challenges can come as you’ve built rapport with the missionary candidate.

Now, you may run into a few situations where a candidate has already made all their decisions as to where they want to go and what they want to do. In those situations, you may need to have a more challenging posture. Generally speaking, you should have an encouraging and listening disposition.

Prior to this meeting, you’ll want to review the initial interest questionnaire to see their responses and generate specific questions that you want to ask them. 

Some questions that may come up because of the initial interest questionnaire could be:

1. If they have not been very involved in the church “What has kept you from being more involved in our church?”

2. If they are coming with a set plan in place: “Would you be open to your plans changing?”

Some further questions that can be helpful to ask in this meeting are:

1. Testimony - You could ask them to write out their testimony in the initial interest form, share their testimony verbally, or share it through a church application. Your choice. At some point, this is a must. Some questions could include:

   1. How did you become a Christian?

   2. In your own words, what is the gospel?

2. Missions Trajectory

   1. Tell me more about how you became interested in the team, location, and opportunity you are involved with

   2. Most likely there are gaps in their process or timeline. You could ask them, “Have you thought of…? How would that affect your timeline?”

3. Calling: Passion

   1. What motivates your interest in cross-cultural missions?

   2. If they do not give an answer from the Bible, ask them, “What motivates you from the Bible to do cross-cultural missions?” It is important to look out for improper motivations (See chapter 7 of The Sending Church Applied for examples of these improper motivations.)

4. Calling: Gifting

   1. What gifting or personality traits line up with a cross-cultural missions calling?

   2. What cross-cultural experiences have you had either at home or abroad?

   3. What personality traits or sin issues do you think you’d have to work on to be ready for cross-cultural missions?

5. Calling: Circumstances

   1. What is your current life circumstances around: education, finances, family, dating relationships, etc?

   2. How would these affect  your timeline, your preparation, or your ability to do cross-cultural missions?

6. If you were not able to do cross-cultural missions, how would you feel?

7. Sending Church Connection

   1. Share your church’s sending process with them (we will talk about this more in the next section).

   2. What is the role of the local church in sending in your own words?

   3. Are you willing to follow this process? 

      1. If yes, “What questions do you have about the process?”

      2. If  maybe or no, “Would you consider taking some time to understand the role of the sending church more deeply?”

For a resource directed toward missionary candidates on the role of the local church in sending, download “How to Have a Healthy Posture Towards Your Sending Church as a Missionary” and send it on to potential missionary candidates.

This is once again, not an exhaustive list of questions. You might have an hour in this initial interest meeting. The goal through the initial questionnaire and the first meeting is to gain a general feel and understanding of the person. Coming out of the meeting, you will take further steps to assess their calling and readiness. This first meeting is to gather a “baseline” for that individual, not to decide the entirety of their life.

Clarity on the Sending Process of Your Church

One of the important things to communicate in this first initial interest meeting is your church’s sending process and why you value missionaries from your church going through this process. Each church will have its own sending process. Some important things to include are:

1. How long do you want them to have been a part of your church prior to launching? This often sets the timeline for being sent.

2. What aspects of the church do you want them to be involved in prior to moving forward in the sending process? Small group? Certain equipping classes? Cross-cultural outreach?

3. What are the specific assessment steps they need to take in order to be cleared to be sent from your church? List out items like:

   1. Application with church and/or missions organization.

   2. Classes they need to take at your church or through third-party organizations.

   3. Ministries in which they need to serve.

   4. Trip(s) they need to go on.

   5. Counseling

   6. Trainings

4. Are there particular strategies, locations, or missions organizations they can partner with that would increase your tier of partnership with them?

Find a way to write your sending process in a visual way. One in which they can clearly see the main steps, but also the timeline for assessment and development. See “Church Examples of a Sending Pipeline” for ways church have displayed this visually.  

Next Steps Coming Out of the Initial Interest Meeting

As you finish the initial interest meeting, take time to pray for them in that moment. Pray with optimism. Pray for specific needs they have. Pray that the Lord would send laborers into the harvest field. Pray for that person to be developed into a cross-cultural laborer (even if you aren’t sure that’s going to happen).

If you have any initial thoughts on their timeline, their hopes for global missions, items you would like to add to their personal development plan, share those. Give them a realistic idea of what is to come. You will have to tow the line of optimism and realism depending on the candidate.

Some simple action steps that can be helpful coming out of the initial interest meeting are:

1. Start a Personal Development Plan for each applicant that you meet with. Check out How to Write a Personal Development Plan Overview and Template on the Upstream website. Write it on a collaborative platform like Google Drive or Microsoft SharePoint so that they can access and update it as you do.

2. If they are ready for some next steps and amenable to following the sending church process, assign them a more formal application for the missions sending process of your church. You can find an example of this on the Upstream website called, “Missionary Assessment and Interview Guide.”

Give them some clear next steps to do with your church. If there’s a group or ministry they should join, communicate that clearly to them as an expectation. Many times people will respond well to that. Those that do not, you have the opportunity to recast vision, challenge, and admonish them. Many people who go through the sending process do not end up in cross-cultural missions. But if we lead them well through these initial meetings, we may have the opportunity to shepherd them towards better character and clearer alignment with God’s calling on their life.

Trust the Process

Once you have developed a clear missionary sending pathway and pipeline you will be ready to react well to those who show interest in global missions. You will gain confidence going into those initial meeting as to how you will guide the missionary candidate through their next steps. You will validate your role as a missions leader and your church’s role as the sending church by having a clear process that is explained clearly. Most importantly you can be both proactive and responsive to what God is doing in the developing story he is writing in the life of that missionary candidate.

Next Steps

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

1. What questions would you add to this list for your context?

2. Download Upstream’s “Missionary Assessment and Interview Guide” if you would like potential missionaries to do a written assessment early in the sending process.

3. Who are others in the church, whether on staff, former missionaries, or other global missions advocates that you could train in doing these initial interviews as well?