Pastors, I challenge you to invite your missionaries to take over your Easter service. They are only in the states every few years, and if they are worth supporting they are worth GIVING UP AN EASTER SERVICE! In all their years of serving in missions, my missionaries said WE WERE THE ONLY CHURCH THEY EVER HEARD OF WHO INVITED MISSIONARIES ON EASTER! That is a shame. The resurrection isn’t about us, pastors. I ask you to seriously pray about stepping aside on one of the best attended Sunday’s of the year and letting the limelight shine on your missionary and the great work they are doing.
Now that I am on a roll, let me continue. We send a special Christmas offering to our missionaries. We are one of a very few churches who do. Shame.
We asked our missionaries how we could give to them personally when they come to our church. They expect a special offering going to World Missions, but we wanted to do something for the family. They said they don’t hear that question from other too many other churches. This breaks my heart.
I want my missionaries to share with the best crowd my church will see all year, and that is Easter Sunday. Therefore, unless some other pastor has the nerve to invite them on Easter when they return to the states in three years, I’ve already booked them. And what a blessing to them, and to us, that will be!
Having said that, I believe there are a couple of reasons pastors may not be sharing the pulpit with their missionaries:
- It never occured to them and now that they’ve been challenged, they will endeavor to do so.
- The missionary they support isn’t good enough to preach at an Easter service. If your missionary cannot connect their missionary calling with the Resurrection of Jesus, you need to support a different missionary.
- No matter how much the pastor says they are building the Kingdom of God, they are really building their own “ministry.” This is why they cannot give away the year’s most attended service.
- They are hirelings and need to find another vocation.