Missions Sunday: The day when churches honor the missionaries they support. The day when flags of two dozen nations are paraded into the sanctuary. The day of the interminable slideshows. And, at my (Jim’s) church, the day of the ethnic costumes—most notably, African robes and headdress worn by middle-aged Scandinavians.

At least that was how I looked at it. Sometimes it still is, unfortunately. These foreign missionaries were good people doing great things, serving God and bringing people to Christ. But they couldn’t show or tell an interesting story to save their lives. I know I wasn’t the only one in the congregation who sat there semi-comatose, thinking about that afternoon’s Bears game or whether I should get the oil changed.

I’m not proud to admit that I have used Missions Sunday as an excuse to sleep late, reasoning that I would have been doing that in church anyway. When I did go, I’d sit there counting bald heads or ceiling lights as some missionary droned on about life in some country where people use wildebeest dung as money.

At other times and at various churches, I’ve sat through presentations from teams sent on short-term mission trips. It usually goes something like this:

“We had an awesome time! God really showed up. Look, you can tell from these Facebook pictures of me and my friends having fun together.”

“I can’t describe how amazing it was.”

(Team members weep and hug each other.)

Great things indeed may have happened on this trip. But this kind of presentation doesn’t do the job. Why? Because they used Christianese clichés and spoke in generalities. They made the presentation about themselves rather than grabbing the opportunity to tell real stories about real people—people with real names and real challenges who have experienced real transformation.

Meanwhile, people in the pews—people who went to work and lugged kids to orthodontist appointments and paid the mortgage while this team jetted to some exotic locale—responded with suppressed yawns. Or worse yet, with raised eyebrows, and the sentiment that they had just sent these people on a really expensive vacation. And if people inside the church are uninspired by all this, how will it ever connect with anyone outside?

I was, and am, one of the many skeptics who look at a short-term trip presentation while doing the math on how much money this cost vs. the perceived return on investment. And like many, I still glaze over during those slideshows. God has a fantastic sense of irony, though. Today, Lincoln and I are among those who tell congregations what missionaries do and why everyone should care. We do it with a sense of urgency. Too many people have been too bored for too long.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Consider this story from Brazil:
About midnight, the team heads out, almost 100 of them.

They walk single-file down a narrow road leading into a steamy Rio de Janeiro slum called Arará. They head toward the baile funk music pounding through giant speakers in the town square.

Suddenly the music cuts out. Traffickers whip out their cellphones, quickly scanning texts. Motorcycles rev up and bolt out of the square.

Then, gunshots. Lots of them.

If that story’s opening didn’t make you want more, you might need medical attention. The people caught in the gunfight that night regularly share their faith with drug dealers, and have seen many come to faith in Christ.

Not every great missions story reads like a Bruce Willis movie. It doesn’t have to. Try these heroic tales:

In India, a Hindu accepts Christ and launches a Christian house church movement in one of Hinduism’s holiest cities. In the southern Philippines, a Muslim radical and murderer accepts Jesus and goes back to serve as a Christian missionary in his wife’s all-Muslim village. In central England, a Christian ministry works to keep Muslim youths off the streets and out of crime—with the hearty consent of the boys’ parents.

The common denominator: God is working. So why aren’t those stories being told? Or if they are being told, why aren’t they going viral? Missions stories should be energizing the church about the Great Commission. Yet, missionaries and their stories and their display booths and their ceremonial outfits often evoke a collective yawn from so many sincerely devoted believers. Why?

When did the Great Commission become passé? Why does giving to missions keep declining? Why have so many missions pastors been laid off in the past decade? And why aren’t young adults filling the ranks of the older missionaries who are retiring?

Certainly part of the problem is that American churches are so relatively safe, affluent, and comfortable. The prospect of throwing all of that away is so, um, foreign that we can’t begin to relate, other than to say, “I could never do that.”

But part of the problem rests with missionaries, too. It’s poor storytelling. It costs time, money, and, worst of all, opportunity for wider engagement in the Great Commission. Ever read a missionary’s newsletter and cringe at the overly emotional churchy language?

“We saw the Lord work in so many wonderful ways!!!! It was AWESOME! We just wanted to love on people!!”

Really? How? Who? Why? And where are the details? It’s like looking underneath five inches of frosting and not finding any cake. Imagine yourself reading a sports story and finding this:
It was the best baseball game EVER!! The pitchers were amazing. The batters were even more amazing!!!!

This one player hit the ball, and everyone was so excited. When the manager came out and changed pitchers, we were like, “No way!”

The music was LOUD! And the food. It was, like, indescribable.

Included with this riveting account is a photo, taken from about 50 feet away, of a group of people posing and smiling in front of the stadium.

No newspaper would dare run that. It offers no meaningful story, characters, plot, or details. At the risk of stepping on toes, we’ll suggest that this is not far from the kinds of stories that too many career missionaries and short-term team members foist on their audiences. The result is the same: people stop reading and listening. They’ve been given a hundred exclamation points and zero reasons to care.

We both spent significant time in the newspaper industry, where grabbing the reader’s attention is like trying to get a 10-year-old to eat broccoli. You know it’s good for him. He might even agree it would be good for him. But c’mon. Broccoli? So you have to make it more palatable—maybe cover it with cheese sauce or bake it into a casserole where the flavors blend into something great.

When missionary stories are seen as saccharine, dull—or worse, as thinly veiled fund-raising efforts—people never engage. In fact, they willfully disengage. They perceive a missionary as just another salesman trying to get their money. But, when those stories are well-crafted, told as the great adventures they truly are, people listen. They keep reading. God might even give them a burden for a particular group of people.

“God is doing great, miraculous things right under my nose that I was not aware of.”
—Missionary and news-reporting class member, Costa Rica

For all of the dull missionary stories we’ve read and forgotten, others left an indelible mark. Author David Aikman points to the way powerful missions stories have influenced revival. In the 1970s, David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade told about how God transformed a New York street gang member. In 2005, Brother Yun’s The Heavenly Man inspired millions of readers with eye-popping stories of the tremendous faith of the Chinese house church movement—and the persecution that still dogs it.

Aikman believes revival will happen again as a worldwide audience learns of what God is doing. We agree. In fact, we believe that every person who becomes a believer in Jesus Christ has been influenced by a compelling story. Likewise, every person who decides to serve him as a missionary also is influenced by compelling stories. What greater motivation could there be to tell these stories?

One of the tenets of evangelism is to share the gospel at all opportunities, and then leave the results to God. What if missionaries adopted a similar approach: learn to tell powerful stories of what God is doing around the world—simply “brag on God,” as a friend of mine puts it—and then leave the results to Him? Would people need a sales pitch after that?

This book is directed at anyone who wants to see the American church increase its engagement in the Great Commission around the world. It’s for anyone working in and around missions who wants to learn a few basic techniques for telling better stories via the written word, photography, and video. It’s especially for anyone who wants to pose two questions that can change lives: What is God up to? How can I get in on it?

We believe God can use that kind of storytelling to infuse energy into local congregations…to motivate long-term relationships with missions work worldwide…to inspire a new generation of missionaries…in short, to make disciples.

So, if you’re looking for practical training that could help advance the kingdom of God, grab your reporter’s notebook and come along.