By Linda Edwards Olson
The keys to integrating missions into your chapter are: repetition, creativity, and involvement. Repetition — one missions meeting a semester will never do! Creativity — more dynamic and well-planned ideas that are short and to the point will grab people. Involvement — dishing out information won’t do. Actively involve people in little consistent ways.
Large Group Ideas
- Develop a policy of three-minute missions spots in every large group meeting. Fill them with creative, carefully thought-out skits, news briefs, prayer times, singing, sharing, etc. KEEP IT DYNAMIC!
- Invite an international student to come and talk about — their view of and adjustments to the U.S., their culture, religion, and family.
- Have a cultural exchange meal with the International Students Club.
- Invite a missionary to speak. Ask them to speak about some area of discipleship and weave their missionary experience into the message.
- Assign each small group to come to share news, prayer items, and missionary names to pray for in unreached people groups. Tell them to be creative.
- Have an Around-the-World Prayer Night. Use a world map, specific information in several areas, guidelines for praying, and variety.
- Have a morning prayer breakfast with a featured missionary. Print tickets with a country and people group on them. Ask people to pray in twos or threes with others who have the same group on their tickets.
- Ask all STIM and OTC alumni in your chapter to show slides of their experience and share foods from the countries they visited. Give each one an area of the room and allow students to roam from area to area.
- Use cross-cultural case studies or games for discussion on missions issues. (Christianity Confronts Culture has lots of case studies and The Kampei Game by Olgy Gary is useful.)
- Commit the chapter to raising a certain percentage of a STIM or OTC student’s budget.
- Ask some internationals and STIM students to share games from their country and play them as icebreakers.
Small Group Ideas
- Appoint a missions representative to meet regularly with the chapter missions coordinator.
- Adopt a people group or country. Gather information, pray, and give to a missionary or national working in that culture. Exchange letters with that missionary or national.
- Adopt several international students, serve and befriend them, invite them to social events.
- Visit a Hindu temple or Moslem mosque together. (Call ahead and let them know you are coming.) Prepare for what you will see and hear.
- Adopt your IV staff worker as a missionary. Pray and give financial support, if possible.
- Have an international meal with some international friends.
- Invite a STIM or OTC student to come and share about their summer experience.
- Adopt a STIM or OTC student and follow them through the preparation time and coming home adjustment time.
- Study In the Gap.
- Send helpful books to your adopted missionary.
- Have an all-night missions prayer meeting.
- Adopt an underprivileged group in your city. Develop a ministry like tutoring children or Teaching English as a Second Language to refugees.
- Form a Frontier Fellowship prayer and support group.
- Have your small group go overseas together on STIM or OTC.
