While on an itinerating trip in the United States, I was invited to speak at the RHEMA Bible Training Center School of World Missions. I thought that was a bit comical...although I'd been in ministry for over 15 years, I'd only been a missionary for one year.

Nevertheless, the director of the missions program encouraged me to tell the students what I had learned in my first year of missions work. So I set about the task of preparing for this opportunity.

I tried to be very practical when coming up with this list. What follows are some of my thoughts.

Keep the Vision Before You
Keeping the vision before you is probably the most important thing I can tell you. It will keep you from getting burned out and from becoming weary in well doing.

It will keep you from looking at your calling as a chore. It will enable you to pursue God's plan for the long haul.

Everything God asks us to do always begins with a vision. God meets our need for significance by attaching purpose to any task He asks us to accomplish.

Whether He asks us to serve in leadership or in a helps position, we need to stay on our face in prayer until we discover why.

Why are you there? What did God say to you? Always write down anything God tells you. Get the plan from God before you try to run with the vision.

Habakkuk was told to "Write the vision and make it plain..." (Hab. 2:2). Moses received the plan and was told to "build everything according to the pattern" that God had shown him (Ex. 26:30).

You don't want to just "run aimlessly..." (1 Cor. 9:27). Run with a purpose!

Spy Out the Land
In Numbers 13:1, God instructed Moses to send out twelve men to explore the land. You need to remember that He had already promised them this land as their inheritance. But He still wanted them to go into it with their eyes open.

Notice the type of information that Moses told them to gather...in essence he told them to:

1. Find out what the land is like. Is it good or bad? What is the condition of the soil?
2. Size up the inhabitants of the land. How many and how strong are they? What are their towns like? What obstacles will we face with them?
3. Discover what type of vegetation the land has. As a matter of fact, bring some fruit back for the people to see.

It is the same with anything new that you feel God is calling you to do. You don't want to just jump out there and hope that everything works out, especially in missions work.

It helps to see the land and the people, experiencing the spiritual and cultural climate. This also allows the burden for the people to build in your heart (which is of enormous value when you're fundraising! But we'll talk about that later...).

When we felt God calling us to join the RHEMA Germany team, we had already been invited to teach for a week at the school; and would be going there in a few months.

As my wife and I were praying together one night about our trip, God began to speak to both of us separately. When we finished praying, we compared notes and discovered that God had been telling us the same thing.

We decided it would be best not to tell anyone for a time - especially anyone at RHEMA Germany. Instead, we would just pray it out and spy out the land when we went to teach in a few months.

It enabled us to see behind the scenes, to experience the culture and the team we would be working with. Being in Germany for that week of teaching only solidified the vision in our hearts. And it helped to prepare us for what we had been called to do.

Copyright © Perrin Ministries
All rights reserved. Used by permission.