Church Partner Process

A distinctive of Upstream Sending is that we partner with the church first and then the missionary. This means that before a meaningful relationship can happen with pre-field missionaries, the relationship needs to be established with sending churches. As we seek to partner deeply with local churches, we want to make sure that we have alignment around our theology, values, mission practices, and commitments. We accomplish this through our church partner process.

What is the church partner process?

The church partner process is the steps a local church would go through to become an Upstream Sending church, be welcomed into the Sending Network, and be able to send missionaries through our structures. 

The church partner process centers around two core ideas: a commitment to sending cross-cultural missionaries well and a commitment to an ongoing relationship between the organization and the sending church.

The onboarding process walks churches through the chart above and centers on the following areas:

  • After having an initial conversation with Upstream Sending leaders, churches seeking to partner with Upstream Sending will go through a sending church assessment. This assessment includes a written application, a face to face or virtual meeting, an evaluation of sending church engagement and philosophy, along with an alignment around theology, missiology, and mission practice.

    This assessment is less of an interview and more of a coaching session, helping church leaders know where they are as a sending church and ways they can grow toward greater effectiveness. We assess and coach churches based on the Sending Church Elements created by the Upstream Collective.

    The product of this assessment is a sending church growth plan created by leaders from Upstream Sending and Upstream Collective. This growth plan provides an overall evaluation of missions and sending health, strengths, areas of growth, and practical pathways toward development. We will also make a recommendation to the church whether or not Upstream Sending would be a good ministry partner.

    The sending church growth plan is provided to church leaders free of charge, even if the church, or agency, decides not to partner together in sending.

  • Theological and missiological alignment are important for healthy partnership. Although we seek to serve a broad spectrum of gospel-centered evangelical churches, we know that we won’t be a fit for every church, church leader, or missionary.

    We ask churches going through the church partner process to read and sign our theological statements and accompanying creeds and statements, as well as our missiological values. We will also ask questions related to theology, missiology, sending philosophy, and missions practice in the interview process.

  • Upstream Sending is what is referred to as a “memorandum of understanding” organization. This means that we base our ministry partnerships with churches, missionaries, and field teams on written documents of agreement. The MOU model, or what we call partner agreement, allows for both clarity in partnership and flexibility in how we work together.

    After a church goes through the sending church assessment and approval process, we ask church leaders to work with Upstream Sending leaders to draft and sign a partner agreement, a written document of how our organizations, and leaders, will work together. This MOU will be reviewed and revised periodically.