In recent years, though, there are several fields of Gospel labor where a new vehicle is needed. Whereas Creative Access Nations used to be counted on one hand, more and more nations are difficult to enter long-term with an explicitly religious purpose. What vehicle can get us into some of those fields?

Are you interested in missions but don’t fit the traditional missions model? Baptist Mid-Missions’ Global Fit service option allows more people to find their place in missions, whether through creative funding and ministry engagement or in the strategic setting of Creative Access locations. Perhaps you have or are gaining a specialized skill useful to missions or you are simply approaching missions in a creative way outside the norm; we want to see you involved. Life is short, and time is running out. As a Global Fit worker, you can enhance the efforts of existing missionary teams worldwide putting more boots on the ground to advance the cause. Global Fit expands the possibilities for more people to engage in more ministry in more places around the world.

As I reflect on the years God has allowed me to be involved in church-planting, I believe a similar principle applies. There are truckloads of books on the market that offer this new method or that new approach to planting a church. Some of these may be useful in certain contexts, others would find better use as paperweights or doorstops. But as I look back on our church-planting endeavors over the years, I find myself returning to the same basic tools, tools that are essential for the toolbox of anyone setting out to start a church from the ground up.

Here are two realities of life on the mission field: Your theology will be tested, and you will often wonder why the theological truths you so eloquently communicate are not resulting in growing maturity and life change in those you are reaching.

How will I know I’m ready to go? The question is quite philosophical. But does it need to be? When we look for the Lord’s leading as to where and how we should serve Him, it can get frustrating when there is no clear path. Do I go with my instincts? Do I step out in faith? How do I know I’m making the right decision? I need to pray about this more. And on it goes. The questioning … second guessing—it can paralyze a person and keep them from acting because they’re not sure if it’s what God wants. Or is it realizing that they’re not completely ready? There are still things to prepare, to buy, to do.

This month's serve was originally feature in the December 2018 Serve and is a great reminder of Christ birth and the reason to serve this holiay season.

It has been said that an American college campus represents the very microcosm of global culture. Statistics show that approximately a million international students from nearly 200 countries are currently studying in the United States, with China and India making up approximately half of those students. “You could almost say that every tribe from every nation, speaking every tongue, can be found on the world’s university campuses.” —Vernon Rosenau, BMM president 2016–2020.

Selecting a mission agency is one of the most important decisions missionaries make as they begin their missionary journey. “But wait,” you might interject, “doesn’t a mission agency just provide logistical support for the missionary, like making sure I get my support and making arrangements if I need to evacuate the country?” While that is true to an extent, there is much more that a mission agency does.

Many missionary biographies and stories mention the missionaries knowing since they were little children where they wanted to serve.

What if that doesn’t describe you? Can you still be a missionary?

Have you ever tried to learn a foreigner’s name? If you’ve tried to show kindness to someone who speaks a different language, you’ve probably struggled to learn their name. You can’t even visualize how it would be spelled. The same struggle would probably arise if you try to learn a Scripture verse in another language. It just doesn’t stick!

We live in a culture that overthinks everything. One of those things is discipleship.

Prayer is one of the hardest things in the Christian life because it is all about dependency. We’re saying to God, “I need you, and I need something from you.” It can be easier to ask other people to meet our needs than to admit our utter dependence on God. Jesus’ disciples once made an interesting request: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).

BMM’s North America Administrator Steve Anderson is on a mission to bring vitality back to North America’s churches. He has detailed his passion and plan more in a past issue of Serve here.

Any of us with a little life experience know that obstacles often turn into opportunities. The same is true in your path toward missions. Now consider some ways you can meet these obstacles with God’s help and wisdom.

Perhaps you stand ready to serve in missions yet find yourself hindered from moving forward. Obstacles often stand in a person’s path and cause hesitancy toward going. What are those obstacles? What can be done about them? While not an exhaustive list, consider six obstacles on the path to missions. Which ones stand in your path?

The Scriptures make the missionary task clear: make disciples. But how does that look day-by-day? What about the normal tasks of life as a citizen living in a community? Do missionaries simply speak the gospel from the time they get up in the morning till they go to bed?

The Christmas message is good news because it promises peace, a promise you and I need and a promise every one of earth’s eight billion souls needs.

Today's secular college campuses are the frontlines of culture. And that makes them the frontlines of the missionary effort.

A necessary corrective to common mistakes people make regarding missions, this month’s Serve is written by former BMM missionary to Cameroon and current BMM Special Representative, Dr. Dan Seely

Taking a trip to a foreign mission field is an experience like no other. It gives you a front row seat to the power of God at work in the world through willing servants. This month’s Serve documents one summer intern’s experiences.

In the August issue of Serve, Travis Gravley (BMM Church Relations & Enlistment) shares a voice from the past offering some profound missions thoughts to consider.

Part Three in our series on The Crucible—missionaries’ critical transition period during their first term on their field.

Service to Missionaries in the Crucible and Beyond

A crucible is a vessel employed for heating substances to very high temperatures and can also be a metaphor for a severe, scorching trial.

Missions internships are a tremendous way to get experience serving on the frontlines of gospel work. Internship opportunities abound in one of BMM’s most diverse fields of service—North America. BMM’s North America ministry team is made up of missionaries in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

The value of “looking” and “seeing” the mission field for yourself is hard to overemphasize. Thus, short-term mission trips or mission internships have tremendous value.

I want to challenge you and me not to allow that uncertainty to drive us in the coming year.

Friend, you are a sent one. You have God’s message of salvation. Are you living today as one who is sent?

These motivations and many others lead some to skip the support-raising process. Don’t do it! Skipping deputation, also called “pre-field ministry,” will rob you of important lessons through which God desires to make you more effective for Him.

This month’s Serve is a conversation between Travis Gravley (Administrator for Church Relations and Enlistment) and Dr. Joy Anglea. A former medical missionary to Micronesia, Dr. Anglea serves as BMM’s Medical Director.

Short term missions as a testing ground for missions—valid idea or not?

After centuries of Christian influence, one may be tempted to believe there are no frontier ministries left in North America because “others have been there before.” I think it wise to remember this when we think of Mission Frontiers for North America

This month’s Serve is a conversation between Travis Gravley (Administrator for Church Relations and Enlistment), Graham Foran (Field Administrator for Brazil), and Steve Gault (Field Administrator for Africa and Europe). This is the third installment on the theme of Missions Frontiers. BMM’s president, Patrick Odle, laid out the vision. Nate Beckman spoke to frontiers in Asia. In this issue, Graham and Steve represent the Global South on this topic.

My hope comes from Revelation 7:9, which states that in heaven there will be believers from “. . . all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues.”

Although the Bible was completed almost 2,000 years ago, it’s been only within the last 200 years that thousands of language groups have received their own Bibles. This is a tremendous accomplishment in modern Bible translation. God is raising up a host of workers to give the remaining people groups direct access to the Bible. It’s an exciting time to be part of Bible translation!

In the coming months, we want to consider frontiers—places of unparalleled opportunity for the church’s mission endeavors. We’ll look close up at regions around the globe. To get us started, BMM President Patrick Odle casts the vision of a new century of BMM strategic teamwork.

God’s promises outlast politics, plagues, and hardships and press us to trust and obey. Consider three examples of God’s faithful promise and man’s trusting response.

Riding backwards is a good analogy for living in these days. We can’t easily see the road ahead. Will work, school, and church life return to some predictable pattern? Will we be able to enjoy life without fear of contracting or passing on a highly contagious and potentially deadly illness? What about travel?

How has COVID-19 affected missions?

This is a question to which we will continue to learn the answer in the coming months. One effect is the increased use of technology. Livestreaming services and meeting for one-on-one discipleship via video platforms is not going away anytime soon.

2020 may seem like a dark year but we have a light that we are called to share with others.

Our mission began in 1920 and faced many challenges that year. 2020 is nothing new and God can handle it all.

In the final installment of our Core Values series, Deb Brammer shares the unseen power that fuels missions: prayer.

From the time that Andrew Comings served as a missionary intern, he saw faith modeled by veteran missionaries. It’s a value he holds tightly to in his own missionary service in Brazil.

Teamwork done in the right spirit accomplishes far more than any missionary can do alone.

From sending church to planting churches, the local church is at the core of missions, as Netherlands missionary Daniel Boyd writes on in this month‘s blog.

Italy missionary Jonathan Whitman learned the value of integrity from his missionary parents. And it’s a trait he’s seen demonstrated throughout BMM.

What are you passionate about? When it comes to missions, passion must permeate all you do.

Mary Amesbury, who reaches the world through Campus Bible Fellowship International, discusses this month’s core value.

Every missions ministry is driven by the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

The first edition of an eight-part series on BMM's core values of missions