Global Missions Resources Online

       Mission: Equip  

            An Online Missions Toolkit

 
Frank Johnson is very knowledgeable, innovative and well-respected.  I thought we met online until he reminded me that we've known each other for many years.  Among other things, Frank is the author of Strategic Digital Outreach and co-proprietor of Christian Cruz, an online portal for believers living in the Santa Cruz, California area.  I appreciate Frank's enthusiasm for using online technology to extend our opportunities for ministry, while at the same time balancing it with a faithful commitment to the local church. 

Recently, Frank let me know that he's involved in a team that has put together a new online resource for those who are interested in missions.  It's called Mission:Equip.

The purpose of the website is to provide valuable resources to short-term mission team members, long-term missionaries, missions pastors, missions agencies, and denominational mission boards.

Here’s some detailed information Frank provided me about the new site:

• Prepare

This section of the site includes links to various resources which we feel will be helpful to long-term missionaries and short-term mission team members as they prepare to travel overseas. From travel documents to overseas medical insurance to information on vaccines, we’re compiling a growing list of valuable tools to help overseas workers plan ahead for their travel needs. 

• Go

Through links to a trip planning module, a helpful travel checklist, a printable emergency contact card and more, we are striving to equip the worldwide missions community with the tools they need to travel safely and effectively.

• Connect

Once long-term missionaries and short-term mission team members have reached their field of service, how can they keep in touch with their family, friends, church, and supporters? This section of our site aims to provide links to several communications resources which will serve to improve contacts between overseas workers and their support structure back home.

• Share

This area of the site consists of 228 country-specific blogs and 228 country-specific wikis. The idea is that long-term missionaries, short-term mission team members, missions pastors, missions agencies, and those with a heart for missions can all gather in a common place to tell and hear the stories of God’s work among the nations. Our hope is that as missionaries and short-term team members tell their stories and those with a heart for missions hear those stories, an excitement for God’s work will build in all our hearts.

Also, through telling their stories in our Share section, missionaries can broaden their exposure and: a) widen the extent of their personal contacts; b) solicit prayer support; and, c) raise funds (through the automatic inclusion of their online donation link in the footer of all articles they submit).

We also have the ability to aggregate stories from existing missionary blogs (with permission of course!) to broaden an individual missionary’s exposure within the worldwide missions community.

All I can say is, I've been hoping someone would put up a site like this - 228 country-specific blogs and wikis.  What a resource.