Frequently Asked Questions

How does Upstream Sending differ from other sending organizations?

In the current world of missions sending, there are typically two types of sending organizations: ones that provide full-service, taking the lead in the sending process, and organizations that only provide back-end services (donor processing, payroll, etc). Upstream Sending is a paradigm-shifting organization that sits in the middle of these two models. We do provide back-end services, and we are full-service, but only in an interdependent relationship with the sending church.

Is Upstream Sending simply a back-end service for fundraising?

We do provide back-end service, but that’s not all we do. We also provide holistic support to missionaries and sending churches, expecting a deeper level of partnership from those we help send. Upstream Sending is a full-service sending organization, but one that develops interdependent relationships with our sending churches. Together, we share the load of sending and field supervision.

Does Upstream Sending have the experience needed to help churches send?

Yes. Though our full-time staff is intentionally small to keep overhead low, we have a network of Upstream Sending leaders with decades of field experience. Our leaders have served as missionaries, agency leaders, mission pastors, and expat workers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. We also partner with our parent organization, The Upstream Collective, whose leaders have years of experience on the field and in the local church.

Although we have the experience and education to help churches and missionaries, we also know our limitations. If our organization isn’t a good fit for you, or we don’t have the experience needed to help, we’re happy to point you to an organization that does.

What is Upstream Sending’s main focus? Unreached? Church planting? Theological training?

Our focus is empowering the local church to send and engage well globally. This means we don’t have a one-size-fits-all field strategy. Instead, we adapt our strategy to the visions of the sending churches we partner with.

In addition, we have established missiological values and field team practices that provide direction toward healthy missions practice without dictating the strategy our cross-cultural missionaries and sending churches should be engaged in. 

We are also committed to teaching healthy missiology and practice in our sending church coaching, our pre-field training (called Cultivate), and our on-field strategy coaching.

Is Upstream Sending a denominational agency? Who can partner with you?

We are committed to being a gospel-centered, theologically driven organization, but we aren’t connected to any denomination. Instead, we seek to serve local churches from a variety of backgrounds and denominations.

Our partnership philosophy (ministry alignment framework) is both broad and narrow. At the church level we partner with gospel-centered, evangelical churches who align around our theological statement, the Nicene Creed, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and the Lausanne Covenant. Our partner churches also need to agree with our missiological values. On the field level, we ask mission teams to be more specific in their theological and missiological alignment. We ask every field team to have a team covenant that includes a theological statement, missiological values, and team practices. We spell this out more fully in our ministry alignment framework.

What’s our church’s first step toward partnering with Upstream Sending?

We believe that relationship always precedes partnership. So, whether you and your church are sold on Upstream Sending or still have a thousand questions, your first step is to have a conversation with one of our leaders. Jump to our contact form, fill it out, and we’ll get back to you soon. We look forward to connecting!

I want to go to the field, but my church isn’t on board. Will Upstream Sending still send me?

The short answer is no, but we may still be able to help. Our sending process starts and ends with the local church. We partner first with sending churches and then with the missionaries from those churches.

 That being said, we’re more than happy to talk with your church and see if we could help them in global missions. We love helping local churches develop systems and structures for sending well. For more information, connect with our parent organization, The Upstream Collective. They have resources and coaching to help churches of all sizes and levels of missions engagement.

Who makes the final decision to approve a missionary to be sent?

The overall goal is for Upstream Sending to work together with the sending church throughout the process, including the decision on whether the pre-field candidate will be approved as a missionary. When there is disagreement between the church and the agency over this issue, Upstream Sending will seek to defer to the church unless it relates to human resource policy or character issues.

Do you foresee a time when partner churches come together and form joint field teams?

Yes! We would love to see our church mission leaders collaborate and send joint teams to the field. We encourage this practice and are here to help in any way we can.

We have global ministry partners that we love and trust. Could they join the Field Network? 

If your church is already in partnership with Upstream Sending, it is totally possible. We actually encourage our partner churches to tell us about ministry partners they think would be a good fit for our Field Network. We will work with church leaders and the field team to see if we can align around theological, missiological, and field team values. If you are a partner church and have a field team or national ministry you want us to consider, tell them more about us and get the conversation started.

We have people in our church who are preparing to be sent overseas. How do we know what locations or teams they can go to?

Great question. Sending can happen in one of two ways. 1) You can talk with one of our leaders about your specific situation and we can connect with leaders from our Field Network who would be a good fit. You can also look at our approved field teams on our intranet (soon available to partner churches). 2) Second, if you have a place or team you are interested in sending to, let us know and we can begin exploring the possibilities together. We are always open to finding new Field Network locations.

Why does Upstream Sending have a membership cost?

First, we believe that being a part of Upstream Sending is beneficial to churches in more ways than just sending. We resource and support our churches by taking them through an assessment process and providing growth plans, facilitating collaboration with other churches, committing to encourage their missions leaders, and more. All of these benefits are offered through our Sending Network. A church’s monthly membership gift enables us to provide quality resources and support. Secondly, sending missionaries and empowering good ministry overseas costs money. By asking the church to give, we are able to reduce the cost to the missionaries we send.

To learn more about membership costs and administrative fees for missionaries, visit out funding model page.