Funding and Training the First Martian Mission Team

1. The Simple Beginning: God’s Work, God’s People, God’s Provision

Every great mission in Scripture begins with a calling and a people willing to go, but also with the means to get there.

Noah was called to build an ark, but God also gave him the materials and the knowledge. Paul was called to plant churches across the Roman world, but God also stirred the hearts of believers to give generously, pray faithfully, and send boldly. In every age, the pattern is the same: God calls, God equips, and God provides.

The first Martian mission team will need oxygen tanks and space suits, yes, but they will also need training in resilience, cross-cultural ministry, and technical survival skills. They will require transport on rockets that cost billions, but also a sending church that counts the cost in prayer, finances, and faith.

It’s easy to imagine the price tag of such an endeavor and feel overwhelmed. Yet the God who “owns the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps. 50:10) is not intimidated by launch costs or life-support budgets. The question is not whether He can provide, but whether we will position ourselves as faithful stewards and generous senders.

2. Going Deeper: Theology Meets Logistics

The Biblical Logic for Resourcing Mission

The Creation Mandate (Gen. 1:28) and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19) do not operate in separate spheres. Together, they call us to steward all of creation for God’s glory while filling it with disciples of Christ. That stewardship includes stewarding our finances, skills, and partnerships to make off-world mission possible.

In the early church, believers pooled resources to meet both spiritual and physical needs (Acts 4:32-35). The same principle applies whether the need is feeding widows in Jerusalem or sustaining a worshipping community in the thin air of Mars.

The apostle Paul’s missionary journeys were undergirded by networks of sending churches, Philippi, Antioch, Corinth, who gave regularly and sacrificially. Their gifts weren’t “extras” but an essential part of the mission itself. Today, churches can do for a Martian team what those first-century believers did for Paul: pray, fund, and encourage.

Strategic Funding Models for a Martian Mission Team

From our experience on Earth, three funding streams will likely be necessary:

1. Church-Based Support. Congregations, denominations, and mission networks pooling resources to sponsor team members, equipment, and spiritual infrastructure (Bibles, communion supplies, worship tech).
2. Partnership with Space Agencies and Private Companies. As Chapter 31 showed, churches can integrate with mission logistics. Space agencies may cover transport, habitat construction, or life-support costs, while the Church covers ministry needs.
3. Bi-vocational and Self-Funding Models. Drawing from global church planting movements, team members may combine technical work (engineering, agriculture, medical care) with ministry roles, reducing dependency on a single funding source.

The key is diversification. A mission this complex cannot rely on one donor or one church; it must be a coalition.

Training: Beyond Astronaut School

Funding alone cannot send a Martian team; they must be ready for the realities of the Red Planet.

Here, our theology informs our training priorities:

• Obedience-Based Discipleship. Every team member, regardless of role, must be equipped to make disciples in a harsh, resource-limited environment.
• Technical Proficiency. Survival on Mars will require skills in habitat maintenance, hydroponics, medical care, and systems repair.
• Cultural Fluency. Early Mars crews will be multinational and multi-belief. Training must prepare believers to share the gospel with humility and respect in a diverse, high-stress community.
• Resilience and Self-Leadership. With communication delays of up to 24 minutes each way, team members must be spiritually and operationally autonomous.

Drawing on the Church Planting Movement (CPM) principle of indigenous leadership, the goal is not to send a team that must call “home” for every answer, but to send people who can lead, serve, and multiply disciples on-site.

Academic and Practical Training Streams

A complete preparation program should weave together three strands:

1. Spiritual Formation. Scripture memorization, prayer habits, theological grounding, worship in daily routines.
2. Technical Training. Space agency survival courses, engineering labs, agricultural systems, medical certification.
3. Missional Skills. CPM/DMM methods, cross-cultural communication, conflict resolution, holistic ministry in confined communities.

Partnerships between seminaries, engineering schools, and space agencies could create integrated training pipelines where future team members graduate fluent in both Scripture and space systems.

3. The Call to Action: Building the Launch Pad Now

We do not wait to start funding and training until a launch date is announced. As with Paul’s journeys, the groundwork must be laid years in advance.

Here is what that can look like today:

• Churches Establish “Mars Mission Funds”. Dedicated accounts for supporting future off-world missionaries, with regular giving encouraged as part of worship.
• Student and Young Adult Training Tracks. Mission-minded believers enrolled in programs that combine theology with STEM, preparing them for bi-vocational service.
• Partnerships with Space Industry. Formal agreements that recognize the value of moral, spiritual, and community leadership alongside technical excellence.
• Prayer and Advocacy Networks. Congregations interceding specifically for the advancement of gospel presence in space exploration.

The first Martian mission team will not appear out of nowhere; they will be the fruit of deliberate investment, prayer, and preparation by the global Church.

The handshake between churches and space agencies (Chapter 31) is only the beginning. Now we must add our hands, hands that give, teach, build, and bless, so that when the first human steps onto Mars, the first song sung and the first story told there will be to the glory of Christ.

We may never see that moment with our own eyes. But if we fund faithfully, train diligently, and send boldly, we will be part of the chain that stretches from Jerusalem to Antioch to Mars, and, one day, to the stars.