Media Missionary Focus

The Beginning Is A Good Place To Start...

Everything has to start somewhere, and this is as good a time and place as any.

I have been looking at starting a blog on and off for the last year or two, but like so many things, I just kept putting it off. But over the last week or so I have been talking through some different issues with people regarding communication and I decided it was time to get this going. Eventually I will go to a different host (I think) but for now this service provides a convienient starting point.

OK, so what are those issues I was talking about? For starters there is support. As a missionary with Assemblies of God World Missions we are supported by churches and individuals who pledge to give financially to our work over a period of time (ussually 4 years at a time). So before we ever leave the USA for our field of service (Cambodia in our case) we have to raise a certian amount of pledges. Churches ussually make pledges based on commitments made by church members to give monthly to the church's missionary program. This has escentially been the way the Assemblies of God has worked their missions program since it was started. The challenge that is imerging today has to do with generational issues. The regular monthly missions supporter in the church is becoming more scarce. People who have grown up with an understanding of long term missions support are becoming older, and the younger generation, say those under 40, are much less likely to regualarly support a long term missions program. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons that people talk about, but one of the reasons is that this younger generation wants to feel connected and have an immediate method of feedback, and the the church's missions program has been slow to repond.

Now, I realize this greatly simplifies the issues involved, and I will come back to discuss these issues in detail as time goes by, but everyone needs to start somewhere. So this blog is largely an attempted to make a connection. And not just a one way connection; I want this to become more of a two way street to allow for feedback and dialogue on us, our missionary work, and missions in general.

Reading over what I have written, it occurs to me that I haven't said anything about who I am or what I do. Let's cover that later.

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 3:31 AM