(1) Buy your children passports: I believe this could be a practical way to move missions to the forefront of your family’s conversations, even if you don’t have a trip planned.
(2) Use your Family Devotion time to walk through the book Operation World as a family: This book highlights a different people group every day, sharing national statistics, cultural norms, spiritual needs, and specific prayer requests. If Family Missions includes opening our doors to the nations and the Gospel, we first need to cultivate a heart for the nations and an awareness of the needs of other peoples. Show me a family who prays for the nations and I will show you a family likely to engage the nations with the Gospel.
(3) Invite close friends and relatives over for dinner: It is easy to be selfish with our family time. It is easy to guard our nights and weekends to the point that we never share life with others. We come home from work or school, run into the house, lock the door, and pray the phone and doorbell don’t ring. When we make time for others and invite extended family, friends, and neighbors over for meals, we often enjoy spiritual conversations and evangelistic opportunities. It is far easier to share the Gospel with those with whom we share life (see 1 Thessalonians 2:8).
(4) Invite the lost to your church: In Acts 10, a man named Cornelius put his friends and family in a position to hear about Jesus. For many of us, an easy, practical way to do this is to invite those in our spheres of influence to the church house where they will hear the Word of God proclaimed. There was probably a time before you knew Christ when someone was inviting you to places where they knew you would hear the Gospel. Now it’s your turn.
(5) Display Bible verses about missions around your home: Scripture (Deuteronomy 6) puts forth the model of putting God’s Word in our home, giving us a wonderful example. What if some of these verses highlighted the Great Commission and God’s heart for the nations? We don’t put these verses up just for decoration or because they look a certain way or make our families appear a certain way. We can put these verses up around the house, though, to keep God’s missional heart at the forefront of our minds, to remind us of the call to be Great Commission Families, and to further cultivate Family Missions in our home.
(6) Pray for missionaries: There are missionaries all over the world sharing the Gospel. They, like Peter in Acts 10, walk into homes and story through the life, death, resurrection, and salvation of Jesus. Find a missionary family and begin praying for them. Put their prayer card on your refrigerator. Print out their prayer updates they email and read them to your family during your Family Devotion. Mark their country on the map. Send them care packages and emails of encouragement. Let every member of the family get involved in praying for this missionary family.
(7) Sponsor a child through a ministry like Compassion International: Allow your children the chance to get to know this child living on the other side of the world. Let them become pen pals who exchange letters and coloring pages with one another.
(8) Go on a family mission trip or serve together in your own community: Whether it’s a local opportunity or an international mission trip, seek a way to engage another culture with the Gospel as a family. My favorite mission trips have been the ones that I shared with my wife, Julia. There aren’t many blessings in ministry that compare with the joy of seeing your spouse, firsthand, use his or her spiritual gifts to love the nations.
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