The Sagemont Missions Council is dedicated to the vision set by our church leadership to be a Living Proof of a Loving God to a Watching World. As part of this vision, our Mission Team, using the Holy Bible as our standard, will follow the command of Jesus Christ to make disciples of the Nations, known as The Great Commission. In Acts 1:8, Jesus commands the apostles to "be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

At Sagemont, the Missions team has implemented Christ’s command as follows:

• "Jerusalem": Interpreted as supporting ministries in the greater Houston metropolitan and surrounding areas.
• "Judea": Missions enables new evangelical church plantings within the United States, This area is defined as areas outside of the Houston metro area, but within the United States.
• "Samaria": These are under-evangelized areas outside of the United States, including South America, Europe, and most of Africa.
• "Ends of the Earth": This area includes people groups with little or no access to the Gospel. These areas are generally in North Africa, the Middle East, Northern India, and Asia, an area often called "The Resistant Belt" or "The Last Frontier". This area is also frequently referred to as the "10-40 window" because it falls between 10 and 40 degrees north of the Equator. It contains the largest population of non-Christians in the world.
• Our Missions Council will equip its members to fulfill the biblical mandate of going into the entire world, will support its members both prayerfully and financially, and will deploy them to engage in the ministry to which God has called them.

The Sagemont Missions Council has defined the processes, procedures, and concepts that we will use to fulfill God’s requirement to "… go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…" Our approach will employ several strategies:

Prayer

Only with prayer is it possible to please God or accomplish His purpose and will. The Sagemont Missions Team believes strongly in the power of prayer and will first seek God’s will and direction on every mission endeavor, which includes determining and defining each objective and undertaking, as well as planning, implementing, and assessing each completed venture. For every mission activity that occurs, our mission team will encourage our church and team members to enlist prayer partners to support them and to employ a prayer journal from which to pray during the mission activity.

Awareness

The Sagemont Missions Council will provide awareness to church members of the various mission projects available to our church members so that they have an opportunity to participate in each mission activity during the church year.

Our team publicizes Mission events and endeavors through bulletin inserts, articles in Sagemont Life, photographs, and video presentations. Annually, we create a brochure to describe each local activity and trip, and make that widely available to our members. This information is also posted on our website.

We also host venues, including a quarterly Sagemont Missions Coffee House, in which participants may share their experiences. In addition, our Missions team promotes missions giving through the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and designated international mission offerings, such as the Lottie Moon International offering, Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the State Mission Offering.

Equipping

The Sagemont Church Missions Council supports training prior to any church member who participates in a mission endeavor. The Missions team strongly supports this concept, and encourages each church member who plans to participate in a trip to receive special instruction.

Prior to any mission trip or activity, each team member will be instructed on requirements for participating on the team. These topics include how to write and share one’s testimony, how to verbally share with someone and to evangelize, disciple, and minister, including prayer walking.

In addition, training classes will be available for Team Leaders chosen to lead a mission trip. Specific training will include how to plan, create cost estimates, prepare, and lead as well as train members to go on a mission trip.

Financial

Sagemont Missions Council will generate budgets for each mission endeavor and with the approval of the Finance Team will administer the budget to fulfill our church’s strategy for accomplishing God’s purposes for missions at Sagemont Church. The Mission Team will be accountable to ensure the return on investment is achieved with success.

Membership Involvement

The Missions Council seeks to identify and enlist Sagemont church members to participate in mission endeavors. We believe that involvement in missions enhances and strengthens the faith of church members, as well as reaching the unsaved through evangelism.

Partnerships

Sagemont Missions Council understands that the most effective and efficient means of reaching the lost is to form partnerships with other like-minded organizations and churches. We partner with missionaries, para-mission organizations, Great Commission agencies, and national pastors to plant new churches, strengthen existing churches, and revitalize declining churches in Houston, Texas, the United States, and the world. As part of every mission endeavor and enterprise, whenever and wherever possible, The Missions Team emphasizes evangelism. More specifically, Sagemont currently, primarily through its Missions Team performs the following activities:

• We identify and take advantage of mission opportunities in the Metro Houston area. For instance, we currently work with Medical Bridges, Mission Centers of Houston, and several Crisis Pregnancy Centers in the area.
• We identify strategic and geographic church planting opportunities in all areas of North America.
• We establish mission partnerships that are like-minded in under-evangelized places outside of the United States.
• We establish partnerships that are like-minded in areas of the world where the Gospel is restricted or the area is inaccessible.

Reaching Unreached People Groups

Working in harmony with Sagemont Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the IMB, the Sagemont Mission Team will develop or adopt strategies to develop and to implement methods to reach several of the 3800 unreached people groups of the world.

The Missions Council and Mission Staff will focus and ensure that evangelism will be a part of each mission endeavor. Evangelism will include the following definitions:

Intercessory Evangelism

• Intercessory prayer (praying for others). Intercession has been defined as "holy, believing, persevering prayer whereby someone pleads with God on behalf of another or others who desperately need God's intervention."
• Prayer Walking is the practice of praying on location - a type of intercessory prayer that involves walking to or near a particular place while praying.
• Other events - Prayer events or gatherings that are intentioned specifically for praying, as in James 5: "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."

Relational Evangelism

• Lifestyle evangelism is where a person establishes a rapport with a person and over a period of time earns the right to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is much different than "cold turkey" evangelism where we go door to door unannounced and share the gospel.
• Friendship Evangelism creates an environment of friendship and trust, which allow an unbeliever to become receptive and open to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this case, the believer and unbeliever build a trusting relationship, and the unbeliever comes to adopt the belief system of the Christian. We feel that an unbeliever is most likely to give a believer the opportunity to share his or her faith when the believer's life has first proven her/his subsequent words to be truthful and life-changing.

Servant Evangelism:

• Small things done with great love, such as random acts of kindness Meeting the needs of others through service projects These actions tend to soften the hearts of persons who are not yet Christians, with the intent of sharing the gospel with them. They are done with no anticipation of being paid for this service

Proclamation Evangelism is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world:

• By preaching in a revival or on the street corner
• By going door to door and sharing the gospel
• By witnessing as we go through daily life as we encounter people and share the gospel with others
• By distributing gospel tracts in public venues

The Missions Council and Mission Staff will review past year’s mission endeavors, evaluate the accomplishments, and based upon the direction of the Missions Council will define the mission endeavors for any one church year. This will include mission endeavors similar to the following:

General Missions

• Ralph Edwards Scholarships for Mission Trips
• Cooperative Program (SBC)
• Mission Awareness and Communication
• Mission Training
• New Church Plants
• Operating Expenses

 

Jerusalem (Houston Metropolitan Area)

• Mission Centers of Houston
• Act of Life
• Crisis Pregnancy Centers
• Generation One (Third Ward of Houston)
• North American Mission Board (NAMB)
• Retirement Assistance Support
• International Friendship Program
• Union Baptist Association
• Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Houston Baptist University
• Jail Ministry

 

Judea

(outside of the Houston area but within the United States)

• North American Mission Board (NAMB)
• Pastoral Retirement Assistance
• Gideon bibles
• Church Plants in North America
• New Requests

 

Samaria(under-evangelized areas outside the United States)

• Tanzania Medical Facility
• Kenya Churches
• Kenya Partnerships
• New Hope Initiative (Kibera)
• Argentina partnership
• Jews for Jesus
• Honduras Children’s Feeding Program
• Lost Sheep Ministry
• Living Water International

 

Ends of the Earth(the 10-40 window)

• International Mission Board (IMB)
• Ethiopia
• Wycliffe Bible Translators
• North Africa Middle East (NAME)
• Health Outreach to Middle East (HOME)

The Missions Council and Mission Staff will establish processes and guidelines for conducting business to include as a minimum:

• Submitting budgets to church administration for inclusion into the church financial system
• Mission operations and business procedures
• Budget allocation and guidelines for mission trips
• Training classes for preparing individuals to go on a mission trip
• Training classes for selecting and preparing mission trip team leaders for conducting mission trips
• Monitoring and evaluating mission budget expenditures
• Establishing criteria to ensure that mission trips are safe, meaningful, and effective
• Implementing criteria to ensure Mission Team Strategies are effectively carried out

The Missions Council and Mission Staff will establish partnerships with other organizations that believe the Bible to be in accordance with 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work". These partnerships will be for the purpose of maximizing and furthering the gospel throughout the world. Once a partnership is established they will last from 3 to 5, not to exceed 7 years. The strategy will include the following goals:

• Year 1: work with an evangelical organization to evangelize an area
• Year 2: continue to work with the evangelical organization to evangelize an area; assess the evangelical impact and growth in the area; provide any training necessary to enhance the organization; and implement a discipleship training
• Year 3: continue to work with the organization to evangelize the area; continue to assess the evangelical impact and growth in the area; call out potential leaders and provide leadership and pastoral training so as to grow and develop leaders
• Year 4: continue to work with the organization to plant churches in the area; work with the organization to plant a new church in the area; and work with new leaders and pastors to lead the new churches
• Year 5: continue to work with the new church plant, help grow the new church, and evangelize the area; assess the leaders of the new church and provide any training to further prepare them in leading the new church
• Year 6 and 7: repeat the above as required to ensure the new church is fully engaged and thriving. Also assist where possible to begin new church starts in the surrounding area.
• In accordance with the Mission’s overall plan and where possible, lend financial support to these new church early stages.

The assessment phase is perhaps the most critical phase for the Missions Council and the Mission Staff to pursue. It is our desire for ongoing Mission endeavors to facilitate a Mission Plan that meets or exceeds the goals of Sagemont Church in accordance with God’s Great Commission.

• Wherever funds are allocated we will establish measurement criteria in order to assess the performance. In addition, The Missions Council will obtain necessary information to evaluate each organization’s performance and define for them reporting requirements, both frequency and content, to be submitted to the Missions Council. The Missions Council will identify any exceptions to these requirements up front.
• From this assessment we will determine the viability of continuing financial support for organization, The areas where adjustments are required, and Annual review of the partnership to determine whether we will continue to support this endeavor If it is determined that we should terminate our involvement in a particular ministry, the Minister of Missions, with support of the Missions Council, will generate a letter of termination to said organization

The Missions Council will define, evaluate, and implement new Mission Strategies considering the following developments:

• Identify where environmental trends or changes are occurring, or will occur within the next two to five years, that will have an impact on our church.
• Consider economic, technological, educational, sociologic, and religious trends both in the community and in the international environment, in conjunction with the IMB striving to forecast and predict trends and their impact on our Mission endeavors.
• Identify techniques for reaching the lost world both locally and internationally, considering technological advancements.
• Identify and evaluate Mission staff required to meet the changing environment.