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Purpose of the Church Guided Research Project

Instructions and resources for completing the country project for Introduction to the Purpose of the Church.

Project Basics

The Purpose of the Church Guided Research Project has two purposes: 

1)      To inform you of the status of world evangelization and

2)      To make you aware of useful information resources about world evangelization which may be helpful in teaching, preaching, and promoting world evangelization.

The Guided Research Project fulfills the above purposes by requiring you to select a country and then to learn as much as possible about the country by using a variety of information resources.

Caution

Completing this assignment may have life changing consequences.  Previous projects have been known to cause the following results: 

  • Student becomes burdened by the spiritual needs of assigned country.
  • Student feels God calling them to be a missionary to the assigned country.
  • Student feels led to further explore missions as a career option.
  • Student is led to give larger portions of their income to world missions.
  • Student begins to pray daily for world evangelization and encourage others to do so as well.
  • Student is asked to serve on church missions committee.

Each student will choose a country and then follow the instructions in the research guide.  These instructions will lead you through locating information on the following topics:

1. World News

2. First Look

3. Current Events

4. Culture

5. Religion

6. What is God Doing?

7. Need to Know

8. Ready to Go

9. Be Involved

  The information gathered in Part 1 will then become the basis of a 3-6 page paper, PowerPoint presentation and accompanying 3 page script, or a video informing your home church about your country’s needs so they may effectively support a missionary to the country, pray for the country’s spiritual needs, and plan a future short-term missions trip to the country.

After completing the entire project, write a ½-1 page reflection paper about the assignment.  The paper should include what you learned from doing this assignment about yourself and what God is doing in the world.  Also include an estimate of how much time you spent working on this project.  After the Table of Contents page, this paper will be the first page of your finished project..

1. Carefully follow and complete all portions of the Guided Research Project as described in this handout and on the corresponding website.  A complete copy of the project is available on reserve in the Library.

2.   Projects must be typed utilizing the Google Drive documents linked below.  No handwritten projects will be accepted.

3.  The only items that may be "cut and paste" or simply printed out from a website are the current events articles, Joshua Project Unreached People lists, a map of the country, and your country's flag. 

4.  All paragraphs unless otherwise noted should be at least four sentences long.

5. Cite all information sources used to complete the missions project using title and date of publication (i.e. CIA World Factbook:  Eritrea 2014).

If no data is available:

  • Carefully check all suggested sources
  • Write “No Data Available” and cite each source checked.

6. The project integration research paper should be structured according to assignment directions.

7.  Every page should be three-hole punched and placed in a three-ring binder.

8.  Neatly number your pages by hand after your project is finished.

9.  Include a Table of Contents page noting the page number of each section and subsection. 

10.  Overall quality and neatness is important.

Note:  You are not limited to the resources suggested here.  You are also encouraged to be as creative as you would like in presenting your project. 

The project is due on Wednesday, April 15.