Dan Betzer is a very well-known minister in the Assemblies of God. One thing he is famous for is his passion for missions. Growing up, Betzer wanted to be a missionary. As he began his ministry, he longed for God to explain to him what mission field he should head off to; however, after years of seeking, God revealed to him that he was called to be a missions giver. In his 50+ years as a pastor, evangelist, and church planter, he has inspired people and churches to give millions of dollars to missions.
To help clarify the job description of missionaries, let’s compare missions to a large company.
Major companies have management teams, accounting offices, marketing departments, sales departments, and many other departments; they hire people to research, answer phones, make coffee, make the hard decisions, or vacuum. Each one of those job duties is crucial to the overall success of that company.
Missions is kind of like a large company. People are needed to lead, manage and raise funds, promote ministries, teach and train, make Web sites and maintain technical services, translate Bibles, offer guidance to foreign churches and inform their home churches, and even offer child care. Notice that I didn’t mention preaching, evangelizing, or church planting? A whole team of nontraditional missionaries is needed to enable a missionary to perform necessary and traditional ministry roles.
Let’s take a look at Faith Academy as an example. Faith Academy is a school in the Philippines which primarily serves the children of missionaries. To operate this school, missionaries serve as teachers, administrators, assistants, coaches, laborers, dorm supervisors, and many other roles. The dorms allow the missionaries to send their kids to a God-honoring boarding school so that parents can serve in the most remote villages of Asia without worrying if their child is being taken care of.
In addition to the many missionaries I know serving traditional ministry roles, I personally have friends who are missionary teachers, technology specialists, secretaries, media specialists, construction managers, humanitarian project leaders, sex slave advocates, Bible smugglers, and even one friend who is a missionary surfer!
The Missionary’s Job Description
A missionary is someone who fulfills a role in the purpose of reaching the world for Christ. Sometimes the missionary is the person who is doing the evangelism and sometimes the missionary is the one who makes other missionaries more strategic and efficient in their roles. Typically, the missionary will need to raise their own funds and will do their ministry far away from their home.
I have heard people say, “I’d like to be a missionary, but I’m not a pastor.” The truth is, you don’t have to be. There are lots of pastors in the world who would be willing to be missionaries--if God is calling you instead of one of those many pastors, doesn’t it make sense that He might need you to do something else? Who is the coolest missionary you’ve ever met or heard speak? What was their missions role? What skills do you have that could be effectively used in missions (hint: any of them!)?
