What Does a Barnabas Support Team Do?

The specific ways in which a Barnabas Support Team goes about meeting their missionaries' needs will vary depending on the specific personality and needs of the missionary, as well as the personality (creativity) of the support team. Ask your missionary how you can best assist him; learn from the example of other teams; be creative; pray about it. This doesn't mean that the Barnabas Support Team does everything but they do take personal responsibility to serve as that missionary's advocate at Fellowship Church.

Fellowship church doesn't just want to "have" missionaries, but we want to "send" missionaries in a manner worthy of the Name. How can this happen? The homegroups are the primary place in our church where intimate relationships are developed that help foster and nurture growth in our life. We believe these same relationships should form the continued support and care for a person as they go out into the foreign missions field. A Barnabas Support Team brings this group of friends together around this goal that they can stay committed to.

At Fellowship Church our Barnabas Teams are primarily homegroup based with a team facilitator. If you are interested in being a part of an existing or future team, contact our missions department atmissions@fellowshipbcs.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. You learn more abour our exisitng missionaries here.

Minimally, every Barnabas Support Team member should make a commitment to:

• A specific term length. Commit to being on the team for at least one year or preferably the length of the missionary’s term.
• Meet together on a monthly or bimonthly basis or as special needs arise.
• PRAY for your missionary often, individually as well as corporately.
• Correspond regularly with your missionary.
• Work to create an atmosphere where your missionary feels safe and comfortable to share himself very personally with the team -- keeping confidential concerns confidential.
• Be available to provide practical care for your missionary.
• Various Barnabas Support Teams have organized themselves differently, depending on the gifts of the individuals involved. Many support teams have found it helpful to have the following roles assigned to various people on the team, leaving other members of the team open to volunteer for other specific, occasional duties.
• BBC Contact Person. If Fellowship Church needs information about a missionary, or if they need to request a Barnabas Teams’ involvement in church activities (Missions Sunday, Missions Moment, etc.) they will contact this individual on the missionaries' Barnabas Support Team.
• Meeting Facilitator. This individual will be responsible to call meetings to order, keep meetings focused on the missionary and help the team's discussion to keep moving.
• Team Organizer. Many Barnabas Support Teams have found it helpful to have someone on the team organize a number of details that will assist the team to better support their missionary. These include keeping track of missionary prayer requests and answers, keeping track of money given by team members for gifts, making up a calendar of team member letter writing assignments, etc.
• Communication Person. In case of emergency, it may be helpful for the Barnabas Support Team to be organized into an information chain with a contact person at the head of the list. If anyone on the team hears of an emergency that their missionary is facing, they should contact that individual so that information can be passed on quickly and accurately.
• Other teams have found it more helpful to divide the work further by assigning each specific role (care package, meeting treats, sermon tapes, missionary displays, article writer, etc.) to one person on the team so that each member is always responsible for making sure that their role always gets taken care of, whether they do it themselves or assign it to someone else.
• Members of a Barnabas Support Team are prayerfully chosen by the individual missionary. Our desire is that teams primarily come from the missionaries’ homegroup, specifically the missionaries’ homegroup. Everyone on the team does not have to be from Bethlehem, but the majority should and the designated leader must be. The key for the missionary is to choose people with whom they have already established a level of trust and with whom they can be "real".

Why does Fellowship Church require Barnabas Support Teams for each missionary?

Missionaries don't go out for adventure, they don't go out for material profit, they don't go out for prestige, nor do they go out merely for humanitarian purposes. They go out for the sake of the Name! (3 John 5-8). We want the missionaries that we financially support to deeply feel that they are genuinely cared for, that they are more than just names on the back of our worship folders, or that they are more than just line items in our budget.