Josh McQuaid, Author at TEAM Christian Missions Blog

Why Limiting Your Missions Strategy Won’t Limit You

Will creating a long-term missions strategy keep you from hearing God's voice? Check out these 3 tips to stay firm but flexible in your church's plan for missions! Photo by TEAM

Mar 13 2018

We’re firm believers that every church should have a long-term strategy for its global missions work — one that provides focus and clarity on where to invest your resources and people. But having a strategy isn’t without its challenges. For example, what happens if your church decides to focus on missions in Asia… and then someone in your church senses a call to go to Kenya? Do you refuse to support them because they don’t fit with the bigger strategy? Or do you toss aside the strategy every time someone comes with a new idea? How do you know if…

How does an "us vs. them" mentality limit our call to missions? Keep reading to find out. Photo by TEAM

Nov 27 2017

In Luke 10, Jesus calls the crowds to “[love] your neighbor as yourself,” prompting a religious leader to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” Luke tells us the lawyer intended the question to “justify himself.” How does the question justify the questioner? By limiting those he was responsible to love. In an earlier post, I shared my belief that, when it comes to mobilizing people toward global missions, we often fail because we tend to wield the law instead of meeting people with the Gospel. The religious ruler of Luke 10 asks a question that naturally rises out of law-based…

When you think about your involvement in missions, are you motivated by the law — by a sense of duty — or by the grace of the Gospel? Photo by TEAM

Oct 26 2017

In our Sending Church Training events, I often lead a session about “embracing spiritual conviction.” Every time I facilitate this session, I knowingly disappoint the attendees. Here’s why. In a room full of church missions leaders, everyone thinks “embracing spiritual conviction” means they’ll learn ways to motivate their congregations toward missions. In that environment, I let everyone down by refusing to talk about behaviors and focusing instead on affections. When it comes to mission motivators, it doesn’t really work to only think about behaviors — what people do — without also thinking about affections — why they do what they…

Having a clear church missions strategy leads to more meaningful and effective ministry. So why don’t 40 percent of churches have one? Photo by TEAM

Nov 23 2016

A recent survey suggested that 40 percent of evangelical churches in America don’t have a written strategy guiding their missions work. The survey also suggested that the 60 percent of churches that do have a written strategy are markedly more engaged in international work than those without a written strategy. This shouldn’t surprise us. A vision doesn’t always spark action, but it’s still true that action nearly always follows vision. If you need help developing a mission strategy, these pointers might be helpful, or you could subscribe to our monthly missions resource for churches. But before you get there, it’s worth…

Building a global missions strategy is not about a bigger budget. It's about greater intention. Read five ways to your church can create a successful missions strategy. Photo by TEAM

Jun 08 2016

Your church probably doesn’t have a global missions strategy. And sadly, you aren’t alone. The truth is that most churches don’t have a strategy for their global involvement. As a result, many simply aren’t engaged overseas. Those who are are more likely to answer a question about their strategy by telling you how big their “missions budget” is. Whether your church gives $500 or $1 million per year to missions, the real question isn’t how much you’re giving, but how you’re giving it. There are lots of ways to build a great global missions strategy. For now, I’d like to…

We are desperately in need of a more nuanced conversation around the topics of local and global mission. Photo courtesy of Melissa Barber

Sep 04 2015

Mission agencies like TEAM exist because of our conviction that mission is incomplete if it ignores those beyond our immediate geographic reach. A critical aspect of the agency’s task within the church is to remind the larger community of far-flung needs that might otherwise be forgotten. We have beaten this drum loudly and persistently. In our passion to keep the global unreached in the North American church’s vision, however, we have sometimes encouraged the belief that international mission is of a higher order than domestic mission. We have inadvertently created the belief that international missionaries are the hardcore, the totally committed,…

Photo by Giorgio Raffaelli, Copyright Creative Commons License 2.0.

Jun 23 2015

Prospective missionaries often get the impression that mission agencies are looking for perfect people. They can certainly be forgiven for this feeling. After all, we require forms to be completed, essays to be written, references to vouch for you and tests to be passed — all before we even let new members into the organization. There are good reasons for all of these steps in the assessment process, and they ultimately lead to healthier mission agencies, healthier individuals serving overseas and healthier ministry itself. Even so, I am yet to find a mission agency that isn’t deeply aware of the…

God often calls the entire family to service, and missionary kids play a vital role in their parents’ ministries. Photo by Robert Johnson/TEAM

Oct 16 2014

We asked Josh McQuaid, TEAM’s Director of Organizational Engagement, to share about his experience growing up as a missionary kid (MK) in South America. Today, Josh discusses some tangible ways you can support and help raise up a generation of healthy and happy missionary kids. For missions-minded churches and savvy individual ministry partners, the notion of caring for your missionary will be nothing new. It may be second nature for you to pray, write encouraging notes, send care packages or even visit in person. But even if you’re doing all of this, you might be overlooking one of the most…

Young man learns how to prepare for missionary service.

Discover three simple ways to help you prepare for missionary service. Photo by TEAM

Jun 23 2014

Do you have your sights set on exploring that missionary calling you’ve been feeling? Do you want to start talking with some missions agencies and take the first steps toward missionary service? Or maybe you’ve just resolved to be a more globally-minded Christian? At TEAM, we meet a lot of people interested in missions. A lot. Some of them are truly prepared for overseas service. Others think they are but haven’t quite gotten there yet, And still others just want to know how they can best get involved in missions without leaving their “day jobs” as students, professionals, or stay-at-home…

Millennials are changing the missions landscape and taking on challenges in ways previous generations have not.

May 20 2014

The highways of online media are strewn with attempts to explain millennials, my hard-to-pin-down generation that’s currently somewhere between the ages of 14 and 34 — and even that range is a little squishy. Churches, marketers and, yes, missions agencies, would love to know exactly what makes millennials tick. But most attempts to put us in a box fall short. Millennials — even millennial Christians — are not monolithic. They defy unifying definitions, aside from superficial observations (“Those millennials and their iPhones!”) that often apply as much to other generations as they do to 20-somethings. There is little doubt, however,…

Author - Josh McQuaid

Why Limiting Your Missions Strategy Won’t Limit You

Why “Us vs. Them” Won’t Reach a Lost World

Why Guilting People into Missions Ultimately Fails

4 Myths That Keep Your Church From Having a Missions Strategy

How to Develop a Church Missions Strategy That Works

Why Local and Global Missions Need Each Other

How Broken is Too Broken?

Raising Up Healthy Missionary Kids

Want to Do Missions? Begin Preparing Now.

3 Ways Millennials See Missions Differently