MissionEquip.com
A couple of months ago, in this article, I mentioned that I had stopped designing and coding websites for churches and ministries in favor of consulting regarding web strategy issues and also in favor of some personal projects.
One of the websites I was thinking of when I mentioned “personal projects” was actually a team effort by some friends of mine and myself. And today, I’m happy and excited to announce the launch of MissionEquip.com, a virtual toolkit of services to assist in preparation for missions trips, both short-term and long-term. The site is divided into four main sections: Prepare, Go, Connect, and Share.
Prepare
This section of the site includes links to various resources which we feel will be helpful to long-term missionaries and short-term mission team members as they prepare to travel overseas. From travel documents to overseas medical insurance to information on vaccines, we’re compiling a growing list of valuable tools to help overseas workers plan ahead for their travel needs.
Go
Through links to a trip planning module, a helpful travel checklist, a printable emergency contact card and more, we are striving to equip the worldwide missions community with the tools they need to travel safely and effectively.
Connect
Once long-term missionaries and short-term mission team members have reached their field of service, how can they keep in touch with their family, friends, church, and supporters? This section of our site aims to provide links to several communications resources which will serve to improve contacts between overseas workers and their support structure back home.
Share
Easily my favorite part of the site (and the section which ignited my passion to help with the project), this area of the site consists of 228 country-specific blogs and 228 country-specific wikis. The idea is that long-term missionaries, short-term mission team members, missions pastors, missions agencies, and those with a heart for missions can all gather in a common place to tell and hear the stories of God’s work among the nations. Our hope is that as missionaries and short-term team members tell their stories and those with a heart for missions hear those stories, an excitement for God’s work will build in all our hearts.
Also, through telling their stories in our Share section, missionaries can broaden their exposure and: a) widen the extent of their personal contacts; b) solicit prayer support; and, c) raise funds (through the automatic inclusion of their online donation link in the footer of all articles they submit).
We also have the ability to aggregate stories from existing missionary blogs (with permission of course!) to broaden an individual missionary’s exposure within the worldwide missions community.
A Request
We would invite you to review the Mission:Equip website and tell us what you think. We are definitely open to suggestions regarding any part of the site. If you notice problems, please don’t hesitate to let us know. If you have suggestions for additional resources, we would love to hear about them. If you have a heart for missions, register as a member and begin participating in this fledgling community of like-minded believers. It’s an exciting day for us, and we would love to have you share in our excitement!
Also, if you like what you see, why not tell your friends?
I believe that the internet provides today's church with a historic opportunity .... to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love in ways which could only have been imagined in times past. The objective of this website is to explore the various ways in which today's technology can be used to spread the gospel around the world.
