Wellspring Missions Beliefs and Principles
Last updated: 4.2.24
An excerpt from our Missions AT Charter:
“AT Desired Outcomes:
Establish, develop, and oversee effective systems of interviewing, onboarding, and training congregants onto the service teams.
Service team leaders and members feel well-equipped to perform their ministry with excellence.
Spiritual growth is happening among team members.
New leaders for the ministry are prayerfully being identified and developed.
Young adult leaders are raised up to reach the nations.
Defining Area of Ministry: The role of the Missions Advisory Team is to strategically and prayerfully oversee and equip the service teams and Wellspring members related to these following areas of ministry:
This team will establish and develop avenues for Wellspring members to become engaged in the Great Commission around the world.
This team will have a decided emphasis both financially and prayerfully on reaching unreached peoples. Unreached peoples are defined broadly as those ethnic groups who have never had a consistent witness of the Gospel in their language and/or geographic region.
This team will be the primary team that engages in prayerful support and care for missionaries supported by the Missions Fund at Wellspring.
This team will identify and help equip those members of Wellspring who are discerning a call to reach the nations.
This team will focus principally on missions engagement outside of the United States.
This team will be the primary decision-making team for which missionaries and Gospel-workers Wellspring supports for both one-time and ongoing financial needs. With this, this team also has the authority to cease financial support to various missionaries and Gospel-workers should they be led by the Spirit to do so.
This team will largely emphasize giving to missionaries, Gospel-workers, and organizations that promote the preaching of the Gospel, the making of disciples, and the planting of churches. That being said, we will remain prayerfully open to supporting humanitarian aid organizations, especially those that proclaim the Gospel as a part of their aid.”
Excerpt Finished
Missions Team Beliefs and Principles
We believe that God desires all nations to be reached with the good news of the Gospel.
We believe the Church of Jesus Christ is commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations” in order to see God’s desire be realized. The fulfillment of this command to make disciples of all nations is the Great Commission.
We believe that the glory of God among all nations and the salvation of the lost are our two most important motivations for accomplishing the Great Commission.
We believe that those who hear the gospel, repent of their sins, and place their faith in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins, are saved from bondage to sin and from the wrath of God. We believe that those who do not repent of their sins suffer just punishment from God forever in Hell. Therefore, it is urgently important that we work diligently in order to bring about the completion of the Great Commission.
We believe the entire church, not just the Missions Advisory Team, should have a passion for reaching the nations. We believe we are the primary team tasked with growing an awareness of how God is moving around the world to advance His gospel as well as with growing a passion in our church for reaching the nations.
We believe that funding missionaries, missions organizations, and gospel workers around the world aid in accomplishing the Great Commission. Therefore, we will seek to form strategic “support partnerships” that enable the gospel to be proclaimed around the world, especially in areas where it has not been proclaimed before.
We believe there is a strategic priority for reaching unengaged unreached people groups (UUPGs) that should be reflected in some way by the totality of people we build missionary support partnerships with.
We believe that it is essential that the missionaries, missions organizations, and gospel workers we support be in alignment with our general beliefs and practices as a church. This means we believe that those we support should be largely in agreement with our doctrinal statement. If there are disagreements, we believe we should be aware of them before making a final decision on supporting them. Some disagreements (such as affirming female elders) are grounds for not supporting partners or discontinuing current support.
We believe that the primary work of those we support should be in proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, and planting churches.
We believe that if we support someone or some organization, that we should have the means to follow up with and care for them. In addition, we should have some form of accountability as well, making sure that they remain faithful to the gospel and the principles we believe in. This may limit the number of people and organizations we support, even if it doesn’t lower our overall financial support as a church.
We believe that a regular rhythm of follow up and accountability with our support partners is good stewardship.
We believe that the depth of someone’s financial need should play a role in our financial support of them. For example, if a support partner has many children, we are open to this circumstance influencing how much we support them. Not all support partners will be equally supported.
We believe that God’s Church should be built God’s way—through the faithful and prayerful proclamation of God’s Word. We believe the Word of God and prayer should be a primary way in which our support partners go about their ministry.
We believe it is vital for support partners to competently learn the language of those to whom they are ministering. We are committed to process of language learning because we believe it will bear the most gospel fruit in the long run.
We believe that the speed at which evangelistic fruitfulness is displayed is up to God’s sovereign plan. We do not believe evangelistic fruitfulness is always an indication of a better or more strategic way of sharing the gospel. We desire the faithful preaching of God’s Word, and we trust God with the timing and the results.
We believe that fruitfulness and effectiveness often come after long seasons of faithfulness. Though the future is always unknown, we most desire to partner with those who are currently committed to a long-term view of gospel work in a particular area or among a particular people.
We believe that we are not only called to partner with other churches and missions organizations to fulfill the Great Commission but are called to – as a church – develop opportunities and pipelines for new leaders to grow at Wellspring before being launched into the mission field.
We believe it is important to communicate with the entire church in such a way to create awareness of who are support partners are and how our membership can become connected to individual and organizational partners.