What Criteria Should Churches Use to Determine “Readiness” for Missionaries?

What criteria should churches use to determine “readiness” for someone going to the unreached?

We often hear the fact that missionaries should be the best people that churches have, and they need to be sent after being proven, after being tested. The practice should not be to send out people who still have to go through that discernment, that evaluation, that testing of gifts and ministries, and seasons of approval. That is part of a problem that has taken root in missionary practice.

So the criteria should be that a missionary should be first and foremost tested in the context of a local church. And if he or she is proven to be a faithful man or woman of God, with gifts that the local church has been able to test and appreciate, then more specific training could be required. But the essential criteria are sending people who are mature in the faith. And although we're all on a journey—so we don't expect super Christians or heroes of the faith—we do expect mature Christians who have proven to be of service in the life of the local church and are then willing to take a step further.

And also this criteria should be shared, in one way or another, with the churches that are on the field, so that communication happens between the sending church and the receiving church from the very early stages. The sooner the better, in order to create a partnership that is not a one-directional relationship coming from one place to the other, but instead creates a bi-directional relationship whereby the sending church sends out its missionaries to the receiving church, and the receiving church is also able to contribute in some ways to the sending church. And that creates a missionary context for a healthy missions work.