Pick one: Ten starter questions for missions council meetings

Icebreaker questions and conversation starters for world missions committee meetings

At the beginning of a meeting of your missions council or committee, use one of the following questions, asking for short responses. This instant participation by everybody will be helpful in drawing in shy members. Another benefit of the responses is that they help group members understand a little better what makes each other tick.

  1. What first awakened your interest in world missions?
  2. When someone says "missionary," whose name comes to your mind first?
  3. What one word would describe your dream for the ideal world missions convention?
  4. At what age do you first remember something about world missions?
  5. What is one exciting thing happening in your world?
  6. If you were offered a free ticket to a global mission field of your choice, where would you go?
  7. What three words described the last missions convention you experienced?
  8. If you could entertain or host a global missionary or a global missionary couple in your home who would it be? Why?
  9. Complete this sentence. "If I had $100,000 to contribute to one world mission field, it would be . . ." Tell why.
  10. Describe a global missionary in one word.

Thought-provoking questions like these will encourage conversations about the task of world evangelism. It will help people on the council or committee open up and voice their motivations and passion for the cause of ends-of-the-earth outreach.

Adapted from "Suggestions for roll call" by Evelyn Sutton

"Your site is great! You have restored my hope for the future of Nazarene World Missions!" -- Kristi S.

Want to motivate your missions council or committee?

Give them candy gifts.

Candy rewards for global mission council members -- ideas from Bev Borbe and Susan Day

Use individually as listed. Or, use a quantity of any one candy for all the council members. Give as a thank-you for a job well done. Give as holiday or birthday gifts. Give as an end-of-the year award, or simply to say thanks for coming to a council meeting.

Every bit of appreciation you give will create an abundance of goodwill and subsequent hard work. Don't neglect rewards. Michael Leboeuf, author of The Greatest Management Principle in the World was right when he wrote, "Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated."

1 Program in which local churches "adopt" a Nazarene missionary family. The was originally an acronym standing for Loving and Interested Nazarenes Knowing and Serving. As an acronym, links does not work in other languages. So, with the Nazarene global mission force now coming from about 60 different countries, just the word links or its equivalent translation is used. [ more info ]
2Short term mission teams (most often to meet construction needs) [ more info ]

    -- Howard Culbertson,

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