STANDARDS

GCM takes missionary assessment seriously. Ministry leaders are often placed in positions of high visibility and spiritual leadership. Plus, fundraising for ministry is a calling with particular challenges and rewards, and it is not appropriate for every circumstance.

What do we look for when assessing missionaries and church planters?

Local Endorsement

Because we work in ministry partnership with local spiritual leadership, the first assessment is by the local church. The local ministry must be enthusiastically ready and willing to commission and spiritually oversee the candidate. Learn more about this value.

GCM Assessment

We conduct our independent evaluation in the following areas, and then collaborate with our ministry partners to make our assessments:

Confidence in Calling. How confident is the candidate that this is the ministry God has called them to at this time? How confident is the candidate that missionary-support is the way God has called them to do it? Key factors can include: length of time of decision, peer and authority references, confirmations from experience.

Ministry Skill. How skilled is this candidate in relation to the ministry role he or she is hoping to fill? Role matters here: a campus minister may be different than an urban church planter. Key factors can include: evangelism, discipleship, shepherding, administration, leadership, entrepreneurship. Past experience matters. Church planters may be asked to submit other assessment results.

Walk with God and Spiritual Formation. How spiritually and emotionally mature is the candidate? Key factors can include: evidence of scriptural knowledge and regular personal application, prayer habits, spiritual disciplines, response to difficulty, time as a Christian.

Moral Character. Does the candidate meet our standards of Christian conduct? Our formal standards are published here. Christian missionaries must maintain high standards in ethical conduct, sexual purity, substance-dependence, relationship to self and others.

Fundraising Readiness. Is the candidate in an acceptable position to initiate and be successful in the support-raising (we call it “Ministry Team Development”) process? Here we are leveraging our twenty-two years of experience in training and coaching. Key factors can include: financial stability and health, ability to cast vision for others, current base of relational support, realistic timeline and plan.

Spousal and Family Support. Is the candidate’s family support appropriate for success? Support-based missionaries enter a vocation--not simply a job--which affects not only themselves, but also those who depend on them.

International Readiness. Missionaries and church planters working outside the US have additional challenges, and our process adds assessment on cross-cultural flexibility and mental health through our partners at International Personnel Consultants.