If you are raising support for your work as a missionary –

or are trying to maintain your support — PLEASE take heed!  In this day and age you cannot afford to be IMPERSONAL when you communicate!

I just received a newsletter from a missionary that started, as so many do, with “Dear ministry partners…”  Arrrggghhh!  With all of the tools available for communications today, why oh why can’t we use a personal salutation??  ”Dear Jack and Mary” would get attention so much more powerfully than the generic “partners…”  It would show the reader that you care enough about her to remember her name — and that you really intended for HER to read this newsletter.

Being “personal” with your partners DOES make a difference.  When you address them by name, you immediately draw them into your communications.  Think of the difference between going to a cafeteria for dinner and having a personal chef preparing your meal right at your table.  Is the second experience superior to the first?  You bet!

Or, for another way of looking at it, suppose your partner simply sent their monthly check to your sending organization and designated it “missionaries” rather than to your account!  Hits home, doesn’t it?

You want desperately for your partners to remember you, to send support checks faithfully, to pray for your ministry and personal prayer requests, etc., etc.  In other words, to treat you as a valued partner.  Then doesn’t it make sense that YOU do the SAME for them?

Remember that partnership is a two-way street.

Tags: how to write a support letter, missionary communications, missions newsletters