The work of missions is primarily about long-term relationships, so it’s best to be thinking that way early. You will need to establish patterns of relating well with other people and engaging in community as a lifestyle if you want to serve well in cross-cultural church-planting ministry among the least-reached people groups. Ministry is about opening your heart to God and other people and being close enough to be shaped, or even vulnerable enough to be hurt as you grow together toward God’s eternal purposes. Giving of yourself to God and other people in committed, intentional relationships is where spiritual life and growth thrive.

• Relationship/Fellowship with God – Your fellowship with God will be your biggest lifelong battle as a missionary: cultivating your personal intimacy with God through the disciplines of reading His written word and devoting time to pray. Work to establish patterns that will sustain your growth over a lifetime. Attending a school such as Ethnos360 Bible Institute can help you understand why and how to lay good foundations for persevering in faith. The good relationships, skills, and thought patterns you develop will serve you for the rest of your life.

• Home Church Relationships – The Biblical model is that people who are already ministering in the local church community are marked as having integrity and ministry capability at home before they are recognized by the congregation, the church leadership, and the Holy Spirit to be sent out as representatives and messengers from the local church to proclaim Christ where He is unknown. The local churches have a responsibility before God to send qualified people and they will not be as ready to lay hands on someone they do not know to represent the Church at the ends of the earth. Knowing people and being known by them is one of the ways God sets apart people for His purposes. Work to develop relationships as if these people will be your partners in a lifetime of ministry.

• Sending Relationships – Once recognized as people to be sent, missionaries engage other people in their local churches to join the team in faithful prayer, practical assistance, finances, accountability, and leadership. The local church cannot accomplish ministry in faraway places without the missionary, and the missionary cannot accomplish the mission of the local church in a faraway place without the teamwork and partnership of the people in the sending churches. Again, people usually support people they know and trust. That means cultivating relationships, imparting vision, building trust, and reporting what God has done. 

• Sending Agency Relationships – Mission agencies, as part of the Church at large, have a responsibility to guard the integrity and unity of the missionary teams, the message they propagate, and the churches that are established through their work. Accountability, direction, teamwork, and growth toward maturity occur within the context of loving relationships that glorify God. Building long-term relationships with your sending agency team is a huge part of being effective in ministry in the difficult circumstances where you desire to engage. It’s a good idea to begin early in communicating with your intended sending agency and developing relationships with the coaching team that allow you to give or receive input as you move in the direction of ministry.

• Church-Planting Team Relationships – Ethnos360 missionaries usually work in teams of two, three, or more families. Those relationships are where the enemy and the people you serve will try to cause division and get you working against one another. 

• Ethnolinguistic People Group Relationship – Do you think people who speak an unwritten language will share with you the deep secrets of their language if they do not trust you? Attaining a high level of language fluency will require developing relationships of trust. (Someone has to tell you their words and what they mean.) Those relationships of trust will enable you to speak the truth of God’s word into the lives of the people you serve, leading toward evangelism, discipleship, and spiritual maturity.

• Support Team Relationships – When you live near the ends of the earth, it really helps to have an aircraft to get there. You can spend your time being independent and self-sufficient – and maybe never accomplish your objectives – or you can work as a member of a larger team of people who serve each other to establish thriving churches more quickly. Some people are very gifted at teaching the Bible, translating the Bible, analyzing languages linguistically, and church planting strategies.  Other people are not. But God. God gives some individuals impressive skills in building houses, managing accounts, handling information technology, teaching children, or purchasing and shipping supplies. If each member of the team uses their best skills to serve each other, then the whole team can be more effective and more efficient, resulting in more people coming to faith in Christ and joining us as co-laborers in ministry. Many of these people live in very stressful and challenging circumstances in the process of establishing thriving churches among remote people groups. As a result, it is easy for high expectations to develop and for conflicts to arise when expectations are not met. There are lots of opportunities to extend grace to one another and to serve one another to meet needs that become apparent. Cultivating an attitude to serve and assist one another in love as unto the Lord is vital for effective ministry in a community. (Ephesians 4 & 5)