Finding God’s Plan For Your Life
by Darla Clark
Do you know God’s plan for your life? Are you utilizing your gifts and talents to further His Kingdom?
If you cannot answer a resounding ‘YES!’ to these questions, then this book is just what you need!
Darla went through each step outlined in this book while in a challenging season of a job layoff. The Lord birthed a dynamic ministry, and through it, many realized they were unaware of their calling and even how to discover it! This information became a study, used in seminars, where Darla shares these steps with men and women in retreat settings, churches large and small, and even around her own kitchen table.
To Timbuktu & Beyond, A Guide to Getting Started in Missions
by Marsha Woodard
Missions is the most fulfilling career path you could possibly embark on—not to mention an incredible adventure! But most of us have a host of questions: I think I’m called to missions, but how do I know for sure? What am I supposed to do and where? How do I choose an organization and team? What does spiritual and personal readiness mean for me and my family? How do I build an effective support team? Woodard, an experienced missionary and trainer, helps you address these and other common questions. What you do before you go will have a significant impact on your future success. Timbuktu provides a series of tasks and practical tools to help you avoid common pitfalls and be well equipped for your journey.
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More than Money More Than Faith Paul I. Johnson, Ph.D. In this book, Dr. Johnson shows how God laid down the plan and the principles for missionary support in the Old Testament. He demonstrates from Scripture how Jesus and the apostle Paul picked up on this plan and these principles in their personal experience and through their teaching. Johnson provides biblically based, practical suggestions on how to develop a missionary sending team with the help of friends and churches.
I Want to Make a Difference Now (Your Bridge to Global Impact) Don Parrott You want your life to count…to leave a legacy…to make a difference. For many of us that desire becomes an elusive dream, obscured by the urgency of life’s demands. The great strength of this book is the refreshing message that those “demands” are actually the building blocks of significance. To make a difference our lives need substance and experience. The daily grind, the ups and downs, the successes and failures all work together to form the maturity and wisdom needed to make an eternal impact with our lives. And every chapter in this book is strengthened with the real-life stories of people who are making a difference…now!
Friend Raising: Building a Missionary Support Team That Lasts Betty J. Barnett Strong, godly relationships are the pillars of lasting support raising. Discover the friend-raising principles that are uniting thousands of missionaries and senders in their work for God’s kingdom.Friend Raising brings together God’s plan for missions support with principles proven in the field. In a world swamped with fundraising hype, the author presents a refreshing biblical alternative based on relationship.
Follow Your calling by John Bradley and Nelson Malwitz (Order form: $14.00 includes shipping)
Our research has shown that neither quality of life nor even family considerations stand as the biggest barriers between people and missions. Instead, their greatest concerns are:
1. Is this God’s will for my life?
2. How will the finances work?
This book deals with issue number one. And often, if that is fully settled, issue number two becomes less of a barrier to overcome. God’s call on our lives is to be actively moving forward.
ViewPoints: Fresh Perspectives on Personal Support Raising Steve Shadrach ViewPoints gives fresh perspectives on personal support raising for any Christian worker seeking to fund his/her ministry. With 66 chapters full of biblical and practical advice and resources, this book aims to provide encouragement to you during the support raising process.
Global Mission Handbook: A Guide for Crosscultural Service by Steve Hoke (Author), Bill Taylor (Author) Considering a career in crosscultural ministry? Veteran mission professionals Steve Hoke and Bill Taylor offer a practical guide for preparing for intercultural missions. They provide resources for personal spiritual preparation as well as crosscultural skills and hands-on missionary training. They outline the process for finding actual placement with a sending church, mission agency or organization, with key questions you should be asking along the way.
The God Ask Steve Shadrach and Scott Morton As a ministry worker, raising support can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. It isn’t about money or asking people to give. It’s about looking to God to provide for you. He has given you a vision for ministry, and now you get to invite others into that vision. Your job is to pray and work hard to discover those whom the Lord has already prepared to invest in you and your ministry. God has done His work. Now it’s time for you to do yours.
Spiritual Equipping for Mission: Thriving as God’s Message Bearers
Ryan Shaw God calls his people to mission. But the demands of crosscultural ministry can be overwhelming and draining, leading to discouragement and burnout. All of our strategies and methodologies for reaching others are useless if we are incapable of living the holy, faithful lives God intends for us. Yet God does not leave us on our own. The Holy Spirit equips us to succeed and thrive spiritually in preparation of becoming God’s message bearers in the world. Spiritual formation and discipleship are at the core of effective and fruitful mission.
The Millennials, How to Engage Them in Missional Giving Steve Steddom and Thomas Harvey This online article considers the largest subset of American society, the Millennials. This generation will receive the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in American history, according to Pew Research, but is less likely than previous generations to believe in God or associate with religion. How Millennials give and to whom is a growing issue for evangelical leaders.
Mission Smart: 15 Critical Questions To Ask Before Launching Overseas
David Frazier It costs a lot to train, send out, support and care for people in cross-cultural ministry; however, the costs are immeasurable when these workers don’t learn the language and culture well, fail to be effective and return home in trouble spiritually and emotionally. Mission Smart addresses serious gaps in the mission mobilization process and offers fresh solutions for seeing less missionary attrition. Mission Smart is for overseas ministry candidates, church leaders, and mission agency staff. The goal is to send the right people who know their callings, can thrive overseas and be effective in cross-cultural ministry.
Never Do Fundraising Again: A Paradigm Shift from Donors to Life-Long Partners Gaylyn R Williams, Ken Williams In this practical, biblical book you will discover how to: • Convert one time gifts into lifetime support • Experience the amazing power of gratitude to motivate people • Employ effective communication skills—both written and verbal • Transform the stress and drudgery of fundraising into a joyful ministry • Utilize proven strategies to spend less time, effort and money to maintain full support • Cultivate life-long ministry partners and close friends • Inspire your partners to become your best recruiters for more support • Enjoy freedom from worry about your financial needs How to Never Have to do Fundraising Again! contains over 200 pages of proven strategies and skills for building and maintaining your support. It is filled with powerful stories from the author’s lives and others who are using the biblical principles.
Spiritual Survival Handbook for Cross-Cultural Workers Robert S. Miller The fight for survival is real. You serve-or are preparing to serve-in the spiritually desolate areas of our world. The elements you face each day are intense. What can you do to prepare for the challenges? Dr. Robert Miller presents a preparedness strategy for surviving the “wilderness” of ministry that is helpful for the new and the experienced alike.
Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence
David A. Livermore Become a more effective cross-cultural minister by opening your eyes to global realities and Western assumptions about short-term missions. Updated throughout.
Trauma and Resilience, A Handbook
Charles A Schaefer Are you looking for resources to come alongside people who are suffering as they serve God? This book brings together theological perspectives; personal stories; and spiritual, psychological, community, and medical resources. It is research-based and at the same time practical. This is a handbook for church and mission leaders, peer supporters, counselors, those in personnel and member care roles, as well as those who suffer. It is also an excellent resource for training courses about the topic.
Essentials for Fundraising and Development
A Collection of Best Practices, Ideas, and Strategies
Edited by Michael R. VanHuis and Heather Pubols
As Missio Nexus engages with mission agency leaders, one of their greatest expressed needs is for fundraising and development training and tools. It has been said that the right activities lead to the right outcomes. We believe this to be true, but that begs the question, what are the right activities? In this book, you will discover what a few of these right fundraising and development activities are.
Support Raising Solutions-Bootcamp
Fun, Interactive, team-driven training. Get to your ministry assignment quickly and fully funded! SRS will guide you into a spiritually healthy, vision-driven approach to fully funding your ministry.
Kingdom Come Training
KCT/APD exists in part by connecting believers with the joy, the blessings and the eternal reward of becoming the expression of Christ to the nations. KCT/APD’s vision is to help faith ministry workers become fully funded and maintain full funding as a way of life.
People Raising
People Raising is a website and complete suite of tools – Biblical, practical, and effective tools – designed to reduce the fear and time it takes to raise needed funds. In a variety of ways and formats, Bill Dillon offers his expertise from over 40 years of ministry and fundraising.
Concerned about raising finances? 
Originally developed for educators, this video will encourage anyone interested in learning more about raising financing and prayer support called Partnership Development.
Other related articles of interest …
Opening Doors – The Secret of Jesus
Why Are You and I Needed in Missions?
Raising Support for Your Mission Trip
Provide a Way, Lord
Questions? Contact journey-guide-service@missionnext.org
Talent Discovery Guide Everyone has natural inherent talents and abilities. The IDAK Online Talent Discovery Guide™ leads you through the highlights of your life to evaluate your most consistent patterns of natural talent behavior. This is a four-step self-assessment exercise which is valuable for personal awareness and as a tool for future career and volunteer service decisions. This service is based upon the talent assessment approach described in IDAK founder, John Bradley’s groundbreaking book, Discovering Your Natural Talents (www.IDAKgroup.com). Try It Now! (external website)
CliftonStrengths Assessment Gallup’s CliftonStrengths Assessment assists in discovering a person’s top 5 strengths and behaviors. The results of the CliftonStrengths Assessment provide the ability to understand a person’s unique combination of strengths – skills, talents, and knowledge – and to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands and expectations of daily life, family and careers. The results also offer valuable insight to how these strengths impact various aspects of work, communication, performance, and relationships. Gallup’s CliftonStrengths Assessment is available online and takes approximately 60 minutes to complete. Try It Now! (external website)
Spiritual Gifts Survey – If you have not determined your Spiritual Gifts, this survey is highly recommended as you discern God’s call. Knowing your Spiritual Gifts will confirm you in your ministry calling, and in future relationships. You can complete the survey online, with no financial cost. Try It Now! (external website download)
Communication Style Assessment – Learning your style of communication, and how to communicate effectively with those who have other communication styles, is very valuable for cross-cultural interaction. Duane Elmer’s Communication Style Assessment is available to you online. This assessment is available at Communication Style Assessment, and can be completed with no financial cost. Get It Now! (external website download)