Our Criteria for Sending

By Rosie Fyfe, NZCMS National Director

Kia ora. As we get closer to Easter Weekend, we prepare to remem­ber the agony of Christ’s death on Friday, the despair and empti­ness of Holy Sat­urday, and Sunday’s joy of Christ’s resur­rec­tion. As we re-tell this ancient story, we remem­ber that it is not just a story, but the ulti­mate source of our hope.

This hope is to be shared. We have a mandate to ‘preach Christ and him cru­ci­fied’ to the world. NZCMS con­tin­ues to send out Mission Part­ners to share and live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And while we know that the gospel does not change, we also know that the global mission context has changed dra­mat­ic­ally in recent decades.

NZCMS lead­er­ship has spent some time looking at the shift­ing context of global mission. Out of this we have defined two cri­teria to ensure that we are stra­tegic in our sending of mis­sion­ar­ies. These two cri­teria outline why we send Mission Part­ners and to what con­texts we send people to.

Reach Gospel-Poor Peoples for Christ
Where witness to Christ is limited or restric­ted, we pro­claim the Gospel in an incarn­a­tional way, part­ner­ing wherever pos­sible, par­tic­u­larly with the local church.

Evan­gel­ism and sharing the Gospel is always at the heart of mis­sions. We have used the term Gospel-poor to describe con­texts where people have had limited or no oppor­tun­ity to hear the Gospel in their own lan­guage and cul­tural context without outside help.

Gospel-poor contexts include places where Scripture is not yet translated into the local language, places where there are few churches or Christians, and even places where the church was formerly thriving but no longer is.

Our Mission Part­ners pro­claim the Gospel in an incarn­a­tional way. Incarn­a­tional means fol­low­ing Christ’s example by enter­ing into the reality of others—truly being present, authen­tic, and engaged in their lives and contexts.

This is not just sharing the Gospel with words; it’s about embody­ing Christ’s love through genuine rela­tion­ship and shared life.

Living incarn­a­tion­ally means meeting people where they are, rather than expect­ing them to come to us. It means immer­sion in local cul­tures and com­munit­ies with humil­ity and respect, and living out faith in tan­gible and visible ways that witness to God’s love.

Strength­en­ing the Global Church
We strengthen churches and Chris­tian organ­isa­tions through provid­ing needed skills and encour­aging local lead­er­ship. We serve at the invit­a­tion of the local church, joining in their exist­ing work and vision rather than impos­ing our agenda.

Whereas the first cri­teria emphas­ises con­texts that are Gospel-poor, in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Chris­tian­ity has grown rapidly. Around 2/​3rds of the global church lives in these three ‘non-Western’ con­tin­ents. This change has many implic­a­tions for mission sending organ­isa­tions like NZCMS.

Places that used to solely receive missionaries are now thriving centres of Christianity. Mission is no longer ‘from the West to the rest’ but ‘from everywhere to everywhere’. The very same countries that once had missionaries come to them are sending out their own missionaries around the world.

Even in these con­texts, there are still sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­it­ies for Mission Part­ners from NZ to strengthen the global church. For these con­texts, it is vital for NZCMS to send people who have skill­sets that are needed and roles which have a focus on encour­aging local leadership.

Addi­tion­ally, there needs to be an invit­a­tion from a church leader to serve. We serve at the invit­a­tion of the local church, and we avoid impos­ing our own agenda.

The range of skills that are useful in these con­texts are wide, and includes areas such as theo­lo­gical edu­ca­tion, health care, and com­munity development.

Rev John and Connie Sher­lock, who were recently appoin­ted as Mission Part­ners to serve in Rwanda, fit in this cat­egory. They will be using their pro­fes­sional skills as an Anglican priest and primary school teacher. This matches the needs, espe­cially an urgent need for more theo­lo­gical edu­ca­tion. They have had a formal invit­a­tion from the Province of the Anglican Church in Rwanda

Is God calling you overseas? Found out about NZCMS partnership opportunities here.