Not a “Missionary”? Here’s How You Can Use Your Skills in Missions

At the end of Matthew 28, Jesus commands his disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations—the Great Commission.

Since then, God has called thousands of people to become missionaries across the world with the mandate to spread the gospel message to the ends of the earth.

God has given us a specific vision to engage, transform, and mobilize waves of young people into the greatest missions movement we’ve ever seen. We’ve been part of making disciples in Mazatlan since 2004, mainly through our gateway missionary training program, Discipleship Training School.

To send out more missionaries, however, we have to have the systems and facilities in place to accomplish this mission. We don’t want to just send out a few more—we want to grow exponentially to send out up to 5000 missionaries every year.

All great visions come with many challenges. For us, one barrier we have to break through is the perception people often have of what a missionary actually does.

For example, missionaries don’t only “do ministry” in the traditional sense—they also use their God-given skills and talents to serve and support the system that allows us to continue to function and expand.

Missionaries can be engineers, doctors, artists, lawyers, masons, politicians, you name it. God has a plan for everyone he’s ever created, and we believe that no matter what career you’ve been called to, you can use it for missions!

This is why we believe it’s really important to understand the gifts God has given us individually.

Oftentimes people think their gift isn’t “spiritual enough” to be used at a missionary base. But we believe God makes no distinction between “religious” and “non-religious” skills.

With God, all skills are to be used for his glory and furthering his purpose of bringing the gospel of Jesus to the nations.

Expansion

We believe God is calling us to expand our campus in Mazatlan in order to train and equip many more missionaries. To do this, we need to make sure that we have our campus organized and our facilities ready to support the influx of many more people.

This is in the spirit of James and John, who before the miraculous catch of fish, or even knowing Jesus would call them, they had a boat and nets prepared for fishing:

“When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.” (Mark 1:19 NIV)

We also know that before Jesus called them, he told them to cast out their nets (Luke 5). This resulted in a miraculous catch of many fish, so much so that their boat began to sink!

If the fishermen would not have been ready with their sails, nets, and boat, they wouldn’t have been prepared for this miracle God performed.

We believe our campus facility will be used for a miracle—if we are prepared. To be prepared, we have to have the team, expertise, and skills necessary for what we believe God is calling us to do.

We need godly men and women who are willing to voluntarily lend their skills for a short period of time to help enable us to mobilize the coming waves of missionaries.

So if you’re reading this and thinking you don’t have anything to offer because you’re not a “missionary” in the traditional sense of the word, you’re wrong!

We want to invite you to join us in this endeavor. Below are some specific professional skills we are looking for, as well as a few other ways you can get involved.

Construction workers

Since we are expanding, we are looking for skilled construction volunteers who can help with the brunt of our campus expansion. This includes surveyors, masons, machine operators, general workers, and construction managers.

These volunteers will work to develop the land we’ve acquired around our current property into a full-fledged campus to house, train, and support many more students.

The landscape will need lots of development: walking paths, building renovations, tearing down walls, and new buildings erected. If you can operate machinery, are skilled in topography, or just have general construction experience, we’d love for you to consider joining us as a volunteer.

Engineers

Engineers are needed to develop processes and systems on a much larger scale than what we currently have in place. These people will work with engineering drawings, building plans, electronic circuits, Autocad, etc.

This includes engineers of all kinds: industrial, systems, electromechanical, civil, and interns from engineering universities. As we grow, these types of skills only become more necessary because engineers look at how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Technicians

We are looking for help from multiple different types of technicians.

First, automotive mechanics are needed to help maintain our fleet of vehicles. Second, maintenance mechanics who can work to fix things on our base such as water purification systems or air conditioning units.

We also need other people who have experience as refrigeration technicians, electricians, and plumbers.

Administrators

We are looking for help from administrators to organize and take care of office work, paperwork, handle phone calls, scheduling appointments, etc. These people just need to have good organization skills and a good heart to serve.

Teams

Teams of people are welcome to come from churches, organizations, or businesses to help with development of our property. These teams can come for a week or two at a time to help with demolition, renovation, construction, painting, etc.

Donations

If you can’t volunteer your time, you can always help financially or donate machinery such as skid-loaders, excavators, surveying equipment, or just general tools. Click here to make a donation to our Build Beyond Expansion Project.

If you can think of any other type of help to offer, drop us a line and explain how you think you might be able to help us!

Prayer

All moves of God are based on the foundation of prayer. We hope you will join us in praying for God’s will to be done with our campus and our property:

“Our father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done…” (Matthew 6:9-10)

Conclusion

In all of this, we want to be as ready for what God is going to do with our base and the mission he has given us.

The more we have in order with the expertise that we need, the easier we’ll be able to facilitate and support the training of many more students and missionaries.

We hope you’ll consider joining us by using your God-given skills to expand the work of his kingdom!