Our Processes

Cherrydale seeks to communicate clearly about our global missions policies and procedures. If you’re seeking to partner with Cherrydale Baptist Church in global missions or simply want to learn more about our processes, this page is your next step!

Cherrydale’s Statement of Faith Our Constitution

Our Bylaws

Organizational Structure

  • The Global Missions ministry vision, goals, philosophy are led by our Elder Council.
  • The budget allocation is led by our Missions Committee.
  • Defining roles, and appointing people to those roles, is led by our Elder Council and highly influenced by our Missions Committee.
  • The implementation plan is led by our elders and highly influenced by our Missions Committee.
  • Sending missionaries is led by our Elder Council, while parts are delegated to our Missions Committee.
  • Caring (pastoring, counseling, overseeing) for missionaries is led by the elders at the missionary’s local church.
  • Supporting (resources, prayer, check-ins) missionaries is led by our Missions Committee.
  • Reviewing the missionary’s work is largely led by our Missions Committee.

Missionary Candidate Application

To apply to be a supported overseas worker, please complete our Missionary Candidate Application. PLEASE NOTE: With over 20 missionaries already, we are full for the foreseeable future and not accepting new applications.

Download Application

Missions Partner Organization

To apply to be a supported partner organization, please fill out our Missions Partner Organization Application. PLEASE NOTE: With over five overseas partners already, we are full for the foreseeable future and not accepting new applications. 

Download Application

Caring for Missionaries: Church

Cherrydale fosters partnerships in which the new local church provides primary care of CBC’s supported missionary when reasonably possible. If there is no local church that the overseas worker can become a member of and reasonably thrive in, then we build a tailored care plan with the parties involved.

Since Cherrydale’s aim is to send workers to unreached people groups where there is no church yet, there are some other church membership scenarios to explore:

  • SCENARIO 1: Join an existing local church on the field. Though we strives to send workers to unreached people groups where there is no church yet, most of CBC’s workers are located among unreached people groups where there is already at least one local evangelical, gospel-centered church that the worker could join. This is most commonly the case.
  • SCENARIO 2: If there is no local church where the worker is going that they can reasonably thrive in, then the team (Cherrydale, the worker, the worker’s agency, the team leader, etc.) might form a small church with the workers who are in the same location on the field, who are not in a church yet. Sometimes this could involve bringing in a pastor to lead the new church for a season until local leaders are raised up to lead.
  • SCENARIO 3: If there is no local church where the worker is going that they can reasonably thrive, Cherrydale serves as the worker’s church until a local church can be established. In this case, Cherrydale remains the spiritual shepherd and spiritual authority over the worker.

Regardless of which scenario the worker falls into, our aim is to make disciples and plant churches that will one day be led by local indigenous converts.

A big part of the preparation and sending process is forming a strong working relationship between the worker, the sending church, the worker’s agency, and the team leader.

Caring for Missionaries: Roles

The following describes the roles of churches who are involved in the missionary partnership. All of these principles are not prescribed in Scripture. Rather, Cherrydale is attempting to help the worker and other parties to consider the expectations that each party has to minimize gaps and to minimize redundant overlaps. A simple way to think about this is:

  • The missionary’s new local church functions like the parents.
  • The missionary’s sending church functions like the grandparents.
  • The missionary’s supporting churches function like the aunts and uncles.
  • The missionary’s agency is largely focused on the ministry work and logistics, but this varies depending on many factors.

A simple way to think about this is – the missionary’s church is largely asking, “How are you doing?” The missionary’s agency is largely asking, “What are you doing?”

Church Membership for Workers

When a Cherrydale worker moves to a new location (sent to the mission field), we approach the situation similarly as when a Cherrydale member moves to a new location; Cherrydale asks the member to become a member of a new local church as quickly as reasonably possible and resign their membership at CBC.

Similarly, Cherrydale asks the worker to become a member of a new local church as quickly as reasonably possible and resign their membership with Cherrydale. In addition, we do everything can to help that worker to “leave and cleave” to a new church, encouraging them be open to thriving in a wide variety of local church contexts.

That said, there are unique challenges on the mission field, so Cherrydale typically stays relationally-connected with the worker to help them thrive in their new local church and mission. We plan to rarely send a worker without a new local church that is reasonably healthy, or committed to becoming healthy, unless it is a frontier situation.

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