What makes a successful missionary event? That depends on what the local church sees as its goal for hosting that event. Essentially, missionary visits fall into two categories. The first is a formal event (such as a Sunday morning service) that achieves maximum exposure for the missionary. The second are the more informal events where there may be fewer people, but there is maximum opportunity for interaction with the missionary.

Each has is purpose and value.

The Sunday morning service allows the majority of the people of the congregation to put a name with a face and acquire some understanding of the work that the missionary is doing. This can be valuable for raising the awareness of the need for missions. The down side is that it provides very little opportunity for the missionary to get to know people or for the people to get to really know the missionary, a key to building lasting relationships.

Informal events, while not involving as many people, are more likely to create lasting relationships between church and missionary. These are the kind of relationships that will lead to the church becoming involved in the mission in many practical ways and creates an atmosphere where the missionary is much more conscious of the support from the folks at home.

About a year ago a missionary visited one of our Region churches. The time was used to meet small groups over meals. (Very often a noon and evening meal will fit the schedule—just don't expect the missionary to sample everyone's dish twice a day! Plan meals that will respect the needs of the missionary.) Out of the relationships that were developed several things happened.

First, those few people have covenanted to share the emails they receive from the missionary and have built a strong prayer network to support the missionary. Over the year that missionary has begun to share more and more of her heart because she has felt the support that is there.

Second, the missionary has come to know the people and the church. She regularly prays for the church and the people are blessed by the knowledge of her interest in them.

Third, the missionary has struggled with some difficult tasks confronting her on the field. Through the correspondence she finally felt comfortable enough to ask the church if they had people who would contribute their expertise on a short term mission trip to assist with those tasks. The church is now beginning to search out people who could provide that support and planning for ways to support those people on a short term mission.

Sunday morning or a weekday informal? Many of the closest relationships have been built between churches and missionaries where the missionary has never spoken to the congregation on a Sunday morning. In fact, most missionaries would prefer the informal opportunities to get to know people over the formal events where they are constantly "on stage." Realistically, when the missionary is on home assignment only a relatively few churches will see them on Sunday morning. Six times that many churches can see them during the week. Figuring out how to get maximum benefit from those weekday events is more rewarding than might be first expected.