On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I attended a missions conference at Avant Ministries, in Kansas City.  The conference was called C.A.N., meaning Church. Agency. Now.

They partnered with sixteen:fifteen, a coaching ministry that partners with churches to discover and implement a strategic missions mindset.

I attended the CAN conference this week with another guy from our missions team.  We took away a great deal of information about how to structure and implement our missions strategy more effectively.

The best thing about the CAN conference?  It’s free.

That’s right.  No cost.  They provide two days of workshops for free.  And materials.  And a book or two.  And meals.  And overnight lodging in their guest house.  All of this… for free.

My first thought was why.  Why would they do this?  There has to be a catch.  There has to be a sales pitch.

No catch.  No pitch.  Just sincere concern about reaching the unreached peoples of the world.

Wow!

So, here are a few thoughts that I took away from this two day event:

1. There was a great morning devotion by Jack Elwood, president of Avant. He directed our attention to the passage in Matthew 16, where Jesus states that “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
    
   Jack pointed out that Jesus did not say “I will build your church…”  Nor did he say, “You will build my church…” No, he said “I will build my church…”
    
   I think this is a significant point.  All too often, we act like we are building our church, not Christ’s.  But when we focus on the fact that it is his church, not ours, we set aside our petty desires and serve him more effectively.
2. Matthew Ellison, of sixteen:fifteen, helped us see the need for a strategic missions mindset. We are too lackadaisical in our approach to missions.  Too many “pet projects.”  Too many yes answers to people seeking support.  And we don’t understand the difference between missions and outreach.
    
   For example, we have several ministries that we support that are not missions.  They are outreach ministries.  But we call them missions and then say that we are giving a certain percentage of our income to missions.  These are great ministries, and deserving of our support. But we need to start calling them what they are, not what they aren’t.
    
   A pretty good definition of missions is “taking the Gospel where it isn’t.”  I like that.
3. I heard a great quote by Brennan Manning. I really like this:  “When ‘doing’ becomes divorced from ‘being’, pious thoughts become a poor substitute for washing dirty feet.”
4. Another great quote, this time from David Penman. “No local church can afford to go without the encouragement and nourishment that will come to it by sending away its best people.”
5. We received some excellent biblical teaching on giving and generosity. While most of the people in attendance were solid members of their churches, or even leaders in their churches, they gave us a great session on giving anyway.  This material will be a great resource to use to freshen up my teaching on giving and generosity to our teens.  In fact, I think some of it might even end up in a blog post, after I have a chance to process through it all in my mind.  Look for that in the near future.
6. The guys from sixteen:fifteen took me out for frozen custard. What could make the weekend better?

Avant has already determined the dates for the 2012 CAN Conference:  May 15 and 16, 2012.  Registration info will be posted on the Avant website in January.

I would recommend that you take advantage of this opportunity.  Whether or not you partner with Avant missionaries isn’t important.  Nor are you committed to working with sixteen:fifteen.  But you will walk away with a wealth of information about strategizing your missions for maximum effect.  You will see the need to take your missions strategy to the next level.  And you will feel the sense of urgency that Avant and sixteen:fifteen have to reach all the people groups around the world with the message of Christ.

We did.  And I believe our next step is to partner with sixteen:fifteen to see how to do so effectively.

Does your church have an effective missions strategy?  If so, please give a brief description.  If not, do you think you need one?  You can leave your thoughts in the comments.