Solutions:
world missions
Increased Vineyard Columbus participation in
world missions
1.
Why give to world missions?
The scope of God's love is the whole world
and inevitably He will establish his reign
and glory over all the earth. As such, God
is passionately seeking worshippers from every
nation, people, tribe, and tongue–everyone
for whom Jesus died. God first chose the nation of
Israel to help carry out His plan. In Genesis 12:1-3,
God chose Abraham to be the father of a great nation
and declared that through this nation “all the families
on the earth shall be blessed.” God wants everyone
to have a chance to respond to His invitation of adoption
into His family. All the families of the earth must
have a chance to become part of God's family.
Simply put, missions is God's invitation to
the Church to partner with Him in crossing
geographical, cultural, or linguistic boundaries
to bring the gospel to those who have yet to
hear about Jesus. So, whether it is in our
own neighborhoods or across the globe, at Vineyard
Columbus we are committed to invest our best
resources in reaching those with little or
no access to the gospel.
2. What could God do in missions through VCC?
God
has lavishly blessed VCC, and thus we have
the responsibility to share this blessing with
others.
God has made Vineyard Columbus a launching
pad to send out missionaries and church
planters both domestically and worldwide.
Pastors around the world look to us to
equip themselves in ministry with kingdom
values by either moving here to be trained
at VLI or by taking VLI-at-a-Distance.
God has made VCC a flagship church in
the Vineyard movement. We thus want to set
an example for other churches in the area
of missions.
God has sent many nations to our church
from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe
, China, and South America. These people
can resource us to reach the nations here
and abroad.
God has gifted us in the area of worship,
ministry, and leadership development and
we should share this with the church universal.
God has blessed us in the area of wealth
and we should use this to promote church
planting efforts and acts of charity around
the world.
God has given us many young people who
have a heart for the nations. We have a responsibility
to train them and prepare them to be sent
wherever the Lord leads them.
3. What are we currently doing in world missions?
Over
the years, world missions have been an important
and growing focus of Vineyard Columbus. For
the past several years, hundreds have been
impacted by participating in Short Term Missions
(STM) trips to Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, China,
Costa Rica, India, Central Asia, Zambia, Tanzania,
and an Indian Reservation in Ontario, Canada.
Several of these STM locations represent long-term,
ongoing ministries of VCC, such as in Zambia
where we have partnered with local Zambian
Vineyard Churches in training, outreach, and
mercy ministries to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
Regarding longer-term missions, we have sent
and continue to support two families that are
church-planting in Central Asia, two families
serving with the Xingu Mission in Brazil (the
Wilsons & the Dolans), as well as Janette
Ryan who is a medical missionary with Project
Amazon, Brazil. In addition to these overseas
works, we also have a number of ministries
to the growing international and ethnic community
right here in Central Ohio.
The focus of long-term missionaries in these
areas is to establish reproducing church planting
movements in their locations. The teams in
Central Asia are focusing upon unreached, Muslim-background
people groups, while those in Brazil are focusing
upon less-reached, remote Brazilian villages
along the Amazon River.
4. How much are we currently spending and
investing in world missions?
Naturally, as our
involvement in world missions has grown significantly
over the past several years, our financial
commitment has increased as well. In the last
fiscal year (2003-2004), VCC's investment in
world missions reached $712,666. This represented
8.6% of the total church budget and a growth
in missions spending of 44% over the previous
year.
As missions spending grows in the years to
come, we are committed to keeping administrative
costs relatively low so that the largest share
of our budget is directly applied towards meeting
needs on the field.
Also, short term ministry trips currently
represent the bulk of our missions spending.
In the future, if we are able to realize our
goals for the giving campaign, investment in
long-term church-planting teams and projects
will take the lion's share of our budget.
5. What are our future goals in world missions?
Although
involvement in world missions has been a strong
value in our church, we sense that God is asking
us to take some bolder and significantly larger
steps in missions in the coming years. As a
result, we are believing God to:
Form and send three complete teams from
Vineyard Columbus to plant churches in
three unreached urban areas by the end of
2009. (We are at this time targeting urban
areas in Central Asia and Africa.)
Strengthen and expand our existing ministries
and fields ( Brazil, Central Asia, Africa
relief, etc.)
Develop ITM service opportunities (Intermediate
Term Missions ministries anywhere from
3 months to 2 years in length).
Increase effective participation
in important missions projects & opportunities
such as relief, community development, mercy
ministries, leadership training, etc.
6. How will the capital campaign help us reach
our goals in world missions?
Rather than relying
solely on the incremental growth of our missions
budget, we believe a capital campaign will
supply the significant ‘boost'
necessary to meet our aggressive goals in world
missions over the next five years, while at
the same time continuing to support and expand
all our current missions ministries.
7. How will we sustain the new missions ministries
started with the capital campaign funding?
The
capital campaign fund for missions will finance
new missions ministries through the end of
the 2009/2010 fiscal year. At that time, we
anticipate our church should be in a position
to absorb the new projects into the regular
annual missions budget. Based on our projections,
this would mean absorbing an additional $390,000
into the 2010/2011 budget.
8. Is this an endowment?
No. The 2,000,000
dollars raised in our capital campaign will
immediately go to achieve the four missions
priorities listed in question # 5.
9. What is our philosophy of missionary support?
Historically
VCC has financed its missionaries through a
combination of regular support through the
church's budget as well as personal pledges
from individuals both inside and outside the
church. The benefit of this approach is that
it allows the missionary to receive a substantial
portion of their support needs from one church
while at the same time leaving room for individuals
who would like to have a more direct connection
with a missionary's work through designated
giving.
