Missions Mentoring: Ending your Presentation on Time

This short under 2 minute talk is about missionaries ending their presentations on time. While what this fellow says is true, it can give the wrong idea. Just because you end on time doesn’t mean that the church will give you support. The opposite may be truer though. If you go over your allowed time, your chances greatly decrease with the more time you go over. Ask the pastor, and try to stay within that time limit. I would also point out that you need to clarify what time you are to stop speaking, and what time the service is over. Many pastors stop before 12 AM and have an invitation and closing hymn, so you only have until like 11:50. Good ole U.S.A., getting at the beginning of the feed-line at the restaurant after Sunday morning church is more important than getting anything spiritual from the message. Yep! That’s about it!

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I found this wonderful website for missionaries, http://raiseyoursupport.com/

I have no idea who put this out, but some of the suggestions are just great for missionaries.

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First of all, these principles are basic art class principles. Color is extremely useful in presentations, but note that there are some rules to observe.

Most missionary presentations use very few title slides, but some use a background kind of effect with an image within that “frame”, and a title. The frame and title would be where you would apply the principles in this post.

There is a very useful and nice program called VideoScribe that allows you to make a whiteboard type video, where a hand actually draws the image. These color balancing tips come from their website (you don’t have to use their program to follow this tip). I will use there images and add logos of companies to illustrate what they say.

http://www.sparkol.com/blog/captivate-your-audience-with-these-pro-colour-tips/

I will summarize the rules here.

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10 Steps to Processing a Call into the Ministry

1. Spend adequate time evaluating what you are sensing.

2. Be patient. Clarity takes time.

3. Seek the counsel of a pastor or professional minister that you respect. Seek honest impressions about the ministry, and your dealing with it.

4. Get involved in ministry right now where you are.

5. Seek affirmation of your calling from others around you.

6. Involve your family in the discussion and the decision.

7. Consult books that can assist you. Books on the philosophy of the ministry. Biographies of respected ministers.

8. Face the tough questions. What are your deepest motives? Why are you really in this?

9. Meet regularly with a mentor. Choose a good trustworthy mentor that believes in you, that knows what you are going to do, and believes in you.

10. Embrace it with everything you’ve got!

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In this brief video, Tara Sophia Mohr (not identified as a Christian) speaks in general about identifying your calling in life.

See video at end of this post…

I would note that this is just a simple motivation type talk where Tara speaks in general to anybody about their calling in life. What I took away from this is that this is exactly what you as a missionary need to understand and present to your potential missionary partners so that they understand your calling. One thing is that you are called (not all missionary candidates are called by the way), and another thing is to communicate that calling to others, especially those that support you, and those that potentially are considering supporting you. This means that you need to highly persuade them of your calling. The elements that Tara presents are very useful in this task.

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