What is Creative Missions?

Ultimately, Creative Missions is a community of creatives descending on a targeted region to help churches. Talents are paired with church needs and teams of 4-5 serve each church.

Jon Rogers attended last yearʼs trip and said it best.

No, we didn’t build church buildings or construct orphanages. No, we didn’t run VBS or witness on the streets. We created sustainable solutions for churches to effectively communicate the ultimate message of God’s never-ending love for each community they’re involved in.

We want to help pastors in a way they donʼt have time for, but can help legitimize them in the eyes of outsiders, and advance Godʼs Kingdom. That’s the heart of Creative Missions.

Creative Missions Round 2! Where Will We Be?

From the birthplace of Walmart to a city destroyed by an EF5 tornado, weʼre helping 15-20 churches located between Bentonville, AR and Joplin, MO, and even a funky town in the Ozarks named Eureka Springs. After looking into several regions of the U.S. it was hard to ignore the God stories coming out of Northwestern Arkansas (NWA). Some include Brandon Cox moving from Saddleback Church to plant a church in Bentonville, and Shannon OʼDell rocking rural churches and communities all throughout Arkansas. In addition, being so close to Joplin opens the opportunity to extend our trip their way to serve churches during the one-year anniversary of the tornado.

God is at work and stirring up a revival in this part of the country. We felt it during our initial visits and every pastor we spoke to affirmed it. Also, there are 400,000 people in NWA and three giants employing folks from all around the world – Walmart, Tyson, and J.B. Hunt. Thus, we truly believe that if churches reach this region they can reach the world. We can play a part in that! The churches are blown away by your generosity, and ready for us to be there.

Plan of Attack

Weʼre building five teams to accomplish a three-pronged strategy with 25-30 Creative Missionaries.

• Big Focus Churches: Churches that “get it,” and are just short of knocking it out of the ballpark, but lack resources/budget to get there. These are also the churches that have a big influence over other area churches. They’ll have a dedicated communications/creative team for the whole week. Auditing, coaching, dreaming, and production will all play a part.

• Other churches: Tend to 1-2 top needs. These will be served by roving [MacGuyver] teams.

• Workshops: Several churches will host evening workshops throughout the week and invite volunteers and other churches/businesses to attend. Some of our team members will lead these and go over topics such as social media and general church communications.