One of our mission support groups will attend a popular market in our city this weekend. They will offer for sale the unique crafts made by the people group in one of our overseas mission areas.
We will have three or four people staffing the stall and the market, with its dozens of other stalls will attract probably thousands of people.
In my schema, this stall has a few purposes: encourage the people group that produces the craft good, cement their connection with the mission team, make Christian 'contact' with the general community, and provide a setting for conversations with un-believers about our faith and its foundation.
In the team's view, it is to make money for the producers, and perhaps represent the church's mission. I'm not sure if this is articulated into a strategy, though.
The people on the stall are 'front-line' missioners themselves. This is not a 'doddle' but a deployment at the point. These people are our crack 'special forces' people.
They need to be able to calmly conduct conversations that deal with our faith and its foundation, handle the 5 (or 7) main challenges to Christian faith that pagans make, and be able to discuss matters with people conversationally. They also need a cache of bibles, suitable booklets (not corny 'tracts') in a magazine format, to give away, and QR codes for a matching website. Maybe even trinkets they can hand out to all visitors to the stall. An explanatory leaflet given with each sale could be good too.
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