One Question that Sparked a Sending Movement

It began with a question: How do we help pastors disciple someone who says, “I think I’m called to missions. Now what?” 

We knew we could do more than just point those God is calling to the International Mission Board website. It’s not a bad place to begin. We just knew that, with all the missional resources we have in Houston, we could do more.

We dove right in and immediately encountered several challenges.

1. We needed more than a missionary destination. Sending members out without developing other leaders to take their place depletes the overall missional health of churches. We needed a fuller sending pathway that included leadership development.

2. Not all churches have the resources to equip from within. However, all churches, no matter their size, have people who can go. To equip everyone God would call, churches would have to work together. Collaborative sending puts missional health within reach of all churches, no matter their size. We needed a collaborative pathway.

3. We need to send across the street as much as we need to send around the world. Houston’s diversity index means that the chances of you living next to someone radically different from you are higher here than any other city in the US. It’s missional malpractice to have so many churches strategically placed to engage the lost and woefully ill-equipped to do it. 

4. The need to send is so much more than international missionaries. We need to work together to develop and deploy missionally healthy pastors, church planters, church replanters, as well as those who will reach diaspora peoples living in Houston. 

The challenge in developing a sending path is that we didn’t need one sending pathway; we needed 5 sending pathways.

From one simple question, Sending Pathways was born.

Sending Pathways is a work in progress. We’ve come a long way in developing the international pathway, but we’re working towards seeing other lanes develop more clearly.

The International Sending Pathway

In 2022, work began to build a collaborative equipping process for international missionaries. We centered the training around the 6 elements of the core missionary task: entry, evangelism, discipleship, church formation, leadership development, and entering new fields. We added two modules to complement the six: abiding in Christ and serving on international teams. 

Each module includes a heavy emphasis on Scripture as well as missionary theory and practice. We ran a beta test of the first four modules with Houston’s First in 2023, and made adjustments as needed.

Following the success of the beta test, Houston’s First and Sagemont stepped up to serve as equipping centers for other churches in the area. In 2024, we offered the first full run of the training: one module each month over the course of two semesters. 

One of the greatest surprises came from our Hispanic churches. Iglesia Cristiana Cypress heard what we were doing, and wanted to take part. They sent three bilingual members to the cohort. By the end of two semesters, they had translated the missionary training into Spanish and began leading the training in their own church!

Since that time, things have accelerated quickly. Now, we have:

• 3 cohorts in 3 locations: 2 in English, 1 in Spanish

• Trained 72 people from a dozen UBA churches

• 1 participant appointed as a missionary to an unreached/unengaged people group in South Asia.

• 2 participants nearing appointment to an unreached people group in South Asia

• 1 participant nearing a 2-year appointment to unreached people groups in the Philippines.

• 2 participants beginning the appointment process to Central Asia.

• 2 participants beginning the appointment process to unreached immigrants in Europe

This local traction has attracted national attention as well. Our team has presented this local cohort model to:

• International Mission Board Sender's Summit on 2 different occasions to about 200 church mission leaders from churches around the US. We’ll present again this fall.

• IMB Missions College with about 20 participants attending

• 50 church leaders from Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina at a special missions workshop in Florida.

Training begins again this fall. You can see a full schedule here for those who want to explore or prepare for international missions. Contact cris@ubahouston.org for more information. 

As the Senior Consultant for Sending Pathways, Cris Alley helps support the local church in thinking and acting like missionaries