Missions Launch

Looking for a great opportunity with a great team and a wonderful missions organization?  How about serving with OMF International on the Northeast Thailand (called Isaan) team.

Isaan is the Northeast of Thailand. Over 20 million people are living there, forming a distinct ethnic group, the Isaan. Among them are approximately 32,000 protestant Christians, or 0.16% of the population.

In the whole of Isaan there are less than 100 missionaries. Almost half of them are working in just one city. Several provinces with hundreds of thousands of people do not have any missionary at all. Isaan needs people to proclaim the Gospel!

Here is what they have to say:

We are an OMF-International team working among the Isaan people. The OMF is an interdenominational mission agency that accepts candidates from countries all over the world. Do you passionately love Jesus, and do you passionately want others to experience His love as well, than you could be our new team member!

Our vision:

Christ-honouring churches all over Isaan.

The churches that we envision

• Worship God using Isaan cultural forms

• Are built up in the faith through careful study of the Word of God

• Often will be led by unpaid leaders

• Often will be house churches

• Have an impact on their community through social service

• Multiply themselves

Our strategy

• Evangelizing and church planting in districts without churches

• Using the bridges that God gives (often relatives) to enter unchurched districts

• Reaching whole families

• Chronological Bible teaching

• Using the Isaan language and cultural forms, especially in rural areas

• Facilitating new Christians to start leading house groups

• Using methods that are reproducible by Isaan people

• Creativity in building self-supporting churches and church leaders

Your opportunity

All of our team members need to share the desire to plant churches. Within that framework, there is a wide range of possibilities:

• Rural church planting in the thousands of villages without a church

• Urban church planting in lower class neighbourhoods, in flat apartments, in slums.

• Development work in a church planting context: e.g. micro enterprise development, agricultural development.

• Developing contextual ways of evangelism and being church

• Training Isaan Christians to be church planters

• Networking with churches and missions to find bridge-people into unreached districts of Isaan

• Itinerant evangelist-church planters, who follow up promising contacts in a wide area in Isaan 

With this wide range of possibilities, we are confident that we can find a place where your gifts can make a valuable contribution to reaching the over 20 million Isaan who are not Christian yet! Normally, we expect team members to have had a Bible school training in addition to their other education.

We are mainly looking for team members who will join us for the long run. If you are interested, please contact us. We will be more than happy to discuss the possibilities with you. If you can come for a short-term visit to Thailand, we will be happy to receive you.

Second-career missionaries are particularly suited for the role of networking with churches and missions to find strategic people to work with in Isaan. We are very open for applications of senior Christians who want to serve as missionaries for at least three years.

To find out more visit out Isaan website.

Also, for those of you who follow Twitter, Marten Visser (Twitter @martenvissereng) is the team leader.

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If you want us to feature YOUR missions opportunity, just send an email with info and how to get involved to editor@missionslaunch.com

What you may know is that Hudson Taylor was a famous missionary to China. He once got so upset that his own church was singing about their own salvation while there were still others who had never heard that he got up and left. Once in China he wanted so much to relate to the people that he even dyed his hair.

What you might not know, is the missions organization he founded is still around and strong today.  Here is what they have to say:

OMF International

We are OMF International (formerly the China Inland Mission and Overseas Missionary Fellowship), founded by James Hudson Taylor in 1865.

We serve the church and bring the gospel to many of the countries in East Asia, and we have a pioneering ministry in the rest. We help place Christians with professional skills in China and other Asian countries, and share the love of Christ with East Asians worldwide.

Our Vision

Through God’s grace, we aim to see an indigenous, biblical church movement in each people group of East Asia, evangelizing their own people and reaching out in mission to other peoples.

Our Mission 

To Glorify God by the urgent evangelization of East Asia’s Millions.

 AND HOW TO GET INVOLVED…

Mission Opportunities 

OMF sends Christians to serve the Church in East Asia. Like Hudson Taylor, is God calling you to to take the gospel to those who wouldn’t otherwise get to hear it? 

Short-Term missions to East Asia

If you’re prepared to move out of your comfort zone, expand your horizons and make a difference, we’ll find the right short-term programme for you, for the appropriate length of time.

All programmes provide teams and individuals with the opportunity to spend time in East Asia and to find out what it’s like to take the gospel to those who wouldn’t otherwise get to hear it.

Long Term service in East Asia

OMF look for members who will learn the language and get stuck in to the culture of the peoples of Asia. To understand first; then to seek to be understood. People who will keep going when the going gets tough. Persevering because God has called them, not depending on “results” for their sense of God’s leading. Building churches that will stand on their own with their own leadership.  

So, if you have a heart for the unreached and want to get involved, contact OMF and visit their website to start the adventure of a lifetime.

Photo by davidthiel
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If you want YOUR missions organization to be featured on MissionsLaunch, just email your information and how to get involved to editor@missionslaunch.com.

This is a video taken at a Jesus film showing in Murdoch, Cameroon.  It was the premiere in Murdoch of the film in the Gizega language.  If you want to find out more information on Jesus Film Mission Trips, visit www.JesusFilm.org.  Trips are usually 2 weeks long and are available in a wide variety of countries.

Many people don’t realize the wealth of easily-accessible resources that connect people into missions and often give up because they simply can’t find a starting point. Here are some places that can help you get connected.

1. Start at the Church

Many churches have missions programs they can link you to, which may include local opportunities as well as ones abroad. Even if your church doesn’t have anything currently established, they will most likely have the names of any missionaries connected with the church. That leads us to door number two…

2. Long-Term Missionaries

If you know of anyone who is ministering long-term in another country, you should try contacting them. Let them know you are wanting to get involved in some way. Missionaries can almost always use a little more help in one way or another, and even if they don’t need the extra hands at the moment, they will greatly appreciate your desire and might be able to give you another lead.

3. Missions Organizations

Missions organizations are non-profit groups, usually unconnected with a single church, whose vision is to see people go to the nations. There are nearly unlimited opportunities found within these types of organizations. Many will have trips designed to fit certain gifts that you may have. For example, I lived in Perth, Australia on the base of a missions organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). They offer schools of worship, media, visual art, and evangelism just to name a few, in bases around the world. Each of this schools involved a short term (2-3 month) outreach that taught students how to use their skills in ministry. There are many organizations, like YWAM, that provide amazing opportunities to go to the nations.

Photo by jeremyfoo