January 2012

Are you interested in a cross cultural ministry?
Perhaps living and working in a foreign country?

Interserve has been sending people to do that for 160 years. We’ve seen tremendous change in how that works, and you should know there’s another huge shift going on right now.

Americans who want to be in the center of what God is doing in the world will have to serve abroad with a commitment to work in and through the church. That’s the church in the US that sends them, but mostly it’s the church they will encounter when they get overseas. Even in the most unreached places the church now exists. Often it is tiny and fragile (and sometimes very robust!), but it is there and that needs to be recognized by foreign workers. God is doing remarkable things and revealing Himself in many ways in many places through His church (Ephesians 3). Accordingly, He seeks people who will first off all serve the church as it exists, and as He wants it to be, in any given place. In this century the driving force for the gospel will more and more be indigenous churches and their leaders, less and less foreign missionaries.

American missionaries still have a role, but success will come to those who are most able to be humble servants to the church, and truly international in their commitments, relationships, and ministries.

Doug Van Bronkhorst
Executive Director