Missions Catalyst has published an interesting first-person “letter” from a/an (unmobilized) pastor.
In summary, here’s how to be sure we never mobilize our pastors for missions:

  1. Present all your requests as though they were crises
  2. Use jargon that I should probably know, but don’t
  3. By all means, go to my wife if you’re disappointed in how I’m responding to your requests
  4. Give me books I don’t ask for, the context for which I lack, and the content I’m not interested in
  5. Leave me out of the process
  6. Don’t pray for me, just give me more work to do
  7. Inundate me with information, but don’t ask me questions
  8. Don’t serve what we’re currently doing; just tell me how our church isn’t doing all it could
  9. Ask me if your missionary friend can speak to whole church
  10. Ask me to go with you on a 3-week-trip to the craziest parts of the world
  11. When you email me about the cool thing you’d like us to invest in, be sure to bad-mouth 8 other similar things
  12. Tell me missions is what’s really on the heart of God