Would the real me please stand up…

I’ve got layers. So much of my life has been spent playing this role or that role. I love learning, so I have a propensity to read a book, watch a lecture, scroll an article, and get passionately attached to that idea. Then low and behold, without realizing, I pick up another set of demands. Demands that clothe me in a whole new way. Like a never ending Halloween of costume changes.

Most of the time, I don’t mind the variety of roles. Some, I even enjoyed for a season. Even now, I write with a pen name because my last role had me living life overseas in the depths of a society that wouldn’t be happy hearing that my covert role was as a  missionary. The roles clothed me with a sense of identity and purpose. But deep down, I’m never truly satisfied. So, I played the parts and lived split. Oh, I tried to be real. I tried to bring those two-halves together. But it’s darn near impossible. Because like Voldomort, once you start soul-splitting, you leave bloody chunks of your personhood littered on the ground.

Now back in America, it’s like I’m looking into a whole new world and I am confused. I see my brothers and sisters torn asunder in hurt and pain and for the first time in my life, I understand at least somewhat, how they got there. It’s my fault. Along with everyone else that sat next to me in the pew. We brought our babies and they grew up there. We placated one another with casseroles and fake “how are you’s.” We wore “color-blind” glasses and talked about our perfectly balanced theological lives. We spoke of diversity and were proud to shake the hands of the one “token” African American in the congregation. We talked about unity and preached from the old dead guys.

But inside, we loathed it when we saw the poverty moving in next door to our flawless white neighborhood. We glanced down into our purses when we approached the door to Nordstrom as the homeless guy opened the door and extended his dirty palm open. We expected “them” to conform to “our” cultural norm and made inappropriate judgements when “they” said things like “aks.” When we watch the news, we aren’t incensed by police violence because it’s just another “bad one” messing it up for the lot. We even try to put our white Christian spin on it by placating it’s #alllivesmatter. Or we say things like, “I’m not responsible for what my grandpa did. I just want to love people.” But let’s be honest for a minute. We don’t really want to love people like “that.”  Because at the end of the day, we still believe our culture is better. Our people make the right choices.

I left the states wearing the blinders of white privilege. Then you see war and poverty. Dirty hands reach inside your car windows begging for food. You fall in love with people that are oppressed, used and abused everyday by their societal caste system. Refugees sleep outside your gate on a piece of cardboard dreaming about washing your car in the morning for pennies You hug the necks as they weep in pain, grasping to give answers you can’t provide. You hear the stories of abuse. How every time she steps out of the house, some man grabs her even though she’s fully covered from head to toe. Or how her dad sold her off to a 40 year old man in marriage at the age of 12. And just like that, your eyes are opened. Like a crowded church where everyone is wearing blindfolds, praising Jesus like he died only for you. Then you look up, the blindfold is removed and the church is full of people of every color, from all walks of life. Some are bleeding. Some are crying. Some can’t even get off the ground and stand up because their crippled legs are bent and twisted. But your standing and you never even realized they had been there along. Suffering beside you while you sang “Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Red, and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…”

And I need to own up to the fact that all the roles I’ve played, contributed to my own blind arrogance. It’s easy to stand behind a polemic that makes you feel as strong and powerful as the one preaching the message. But the truth is, that’s not real power. Attaching ourselves to their celebrity-like status, gives us the sense that we do have an audience. That someone cares and we are part of something bigger. Except it’s not real. We can chain ourselves to someone else’s theology or “biblical precedent” and then arrogantly think it doesn’t affect who we are or how we love. And the costumes keep rolling out. And our soul divides further and further into cavernous strongholds.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just get real for a minute and strip down to the raw visceral part of ourselves and face the reality? Throw away the list of demands that dictate how we act and who we are on the outside. The days of our own self-protected, fake vulnerability, costume-wearing, blind judgment have got to stop. Because we can’t really ever love another human being if we never fully understand ourselves. And own up to the bad parts. The ugly parts. The parts we hide with layers of costumes.

Love is a verb. But it’s not one that acts by putting on another costume label. It’s a verb that touches reality. That sings softly into a hurting ear. It wraps its arms around beauty and ugliness as if those words don’t exist. It spits in the dust and makes mud, then smears it onto eyes. It grabs the bloody wounds with bare hands and presses in deep to stop the bleeding. It’s not afraid to stand up against the political giants or kneel down beside others in support. It’s real and vulnerable and asks for help. It confesses what is known and speaks the truth of the gospel.

The real me is standing. I’m choosing love. I’m choosing Christ.

 

Thoughts on strategy and the refugee crisis…

Watching the devastating floods in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, reminds me of the thousands of refugees pouring into Europe. Germany alone received almost 300,000 refugees in 2016. The current number  living in Germany is staggering considering they received over 1,000,000 in 2015! I recently completed a strategy analysis of a major city in Germany and at the time, there were almost 14,000 refugees in this one city! We only met one small team that was trying to work with a variety of people groups and refugees were one of them.

In contrast, from within my organization, the IMB, the number of missionaries deployed to Germany to work specifically among refugees is less than 10 families and singles! That doesn’t take into consideration partner churches or other sending organizations working specifically with refugees. But the numbers are still few and far between. However, compare this to the numbers of missionaries deployed within the refugee’s home countries. How many missionaries work among Arabic speakers in Arab countries? Something doesn’t add up. Especially in light of the fact that agencies are reporting a preparedness among refugees to not only hear the gospel message but receive Christ.

Reading a section from C. Peter Wagner’s article, “The Fourth Dimension of Missions: Strategy,” he illustrates the concept of working in “ripe and green fields.” He gives the example of an apple orchard.

“In field A, a worker could harvest five bushels in an hour. In field B, it would take him five hours to harvest just one bushel. In field C, he couldn’t harvest anything because the apples are still green. If you had thirty workers today, where would you send them? I think I would send twenty-nine of them to field A so as not to lose the fruit there. I would send the other one to do what he could in field B and also keep his eye on field C. His job would be to let me know when those fields were ripe so I could redeploy the personnel.”

As missionary strategists, we have to take this field approach into consideration as we seek to apply our strategies. The current trend on the field is that we flip-flop the fields. Why do we need so many feet on the ground in our “hard-soiled” locations while only a smattering throughout Europe?

We’ve all heard the amazing stories. Many refugees are ready and waiting to hear the gospel. They are having dreams. They are seeking out Christ. Shouldn’t we go where the fruit is ready to be harvested?

 

Figuring out limitless pathways…Problem #2 Solutions…

Professional missionaries and career Christians don’t know where to start for successful teaming.

In my last post, I gave a list of where we went wrong the first time in trying to team a professional missionary team and a career Christian on the field. The buzz in missiology right now centers around partnering these two together, to enable are larger missionary force. I coined the term “career Christian” to mean a person who has a normal everyday non-ministry job, called, sent out to the nations, in order to participate in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Others are calling them “missionary Christians.” Either way, the definition is the same. Non-professional ministry types in the market place sent out to partner alongside professional missionaries.

The idea is kind of brilliant and definitely answers a ton of globalization issues we missionaries are still failing to address. Things like restricted access nations, legitimate platform presence, low funding, or too small of a force to handle the remaining 6,000+ UPG’s.

The problem is that though it’s super visionary, it’s not totally realistic. Speaking about this blending, Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert declare in their book, The Gospel at Work, “Career missionaries who are already in many of these cities will be deeply encouraged by other Christians moving to their cities and putting their hands to the plow.” When I first read that statement as a professional missionary neck deep in the mess of our first screw-up, I laughed at how unrealistic that statement was. Then I cried. Because the lack of hard data from actual missionaries on the field was missing from their point.

All the mistakes we made the first-time, explain why we need to slow down and really work towards unity. Our worlds are just too far apart right now to handle easy intimate teaming. Our first failed experience isn’t even the only one out there. We have heard story after story of similar heartbreak, teams splitting up, and career Christians heading back to the U.S. after as little as a year on the field because of pre-existent false expectations.  We are never going to be successful if our career Christians leave the field early, thinking all professional missionaries are idiots who don’t understand real work. While professional missionaries are thinking all career Christians are work-a-holics who can’t share the gospel.

So, second time around, praise the Lord, we did things a little differently and surprise, it created a firmer foundation for what we hope will ultimately be long-term success.

1. We entered into a long-term mentoring relationship before the career Christian hit the field. Beforehand, we did a ton of work in preparation. Setting a realistic time-frame, developing a training plan, setting up meeting times, scheduled field visits etc. More importantly, we looked at this relationship in a covenantal manner. We expected from the beginning to hold each other mutually accountable to each of these aspects. When problems arose or meetings were cancelled for unforeseen issues, it never tempted us to abandon team. We continued moving forward.
2. We met together regularly (even long-distance) for prayer, encouragement, and training. For the first six months we met every week over Skype to train, talk, and pray together. These meetings formed a foundation to grow together as a team and build community intimacy. We cared about each other’s lives and prayed for each other daily. We were real and didn’t shy away from pain, hurt, or mess. But rather, clung side-by-side through the thick and thin.
3. We discussed and worked through all the pre-field expectations together. Both of us brought our real expectations to the table from day one. Not all the ooey-gooey, “how do I survive without my pastor?” and “what should I bring in my suitcase.” But the harder things like “I expect to work x hours a week.” “This is what I expect you to do.” “This is what I think our leadership structure looks like.” “What does team really mean to you?” “How can I truly contribute?” “Will you accept me for me?” What we uncovered were more similarities than differences and our honest communication and grace through each held us even more tightly together.  
4. We focused on previous lessons learned; good, bad, and ugly, as well as the advice from other really smart people who aren’t afraid to question everything.  We basically shared all our previous failures and what was learned from each one. We also dove into other resources together that gave us a better ideal to work towards instead of solely relying on our own vision. We read hard stuff and questioned together. When the lessons were hard to hear, we still focused on evaluation in order to improve.
5. We set out on a specific time-structured training plan that handled both the work/ministry balance and intentional church planting strategy. Our mentoring relationship wasn’t formed around a willy-nilly set of possibilities but rather set forth a specific action plan to provide a framework for full work/ministry integration. We discussed and studied church planting, incarnational global evangelism, teaming, business tactics and structures, specific work centered training, international adaptation, contextualization, and navigating life together as professional missionary and career Christian overseas. We also talked about the issues and problems we see on the field among some of our missionary colleagues and about both successful and failed attempts at work/ministry integration through the marketplace. Overall, we tried to cover as much as we could in order to both critically assess and plan for the future.
6. When we had blips in our relationship, we immediately addressed them and communicated freely and openly. There was a time when our career Christian had some serious doubts and began exploring other paths of quick access. He brought those to us and instead of shy away, we dove in together. We prayed and held hands through the doubt and stopped living afraid of losing. Instead we focused on unity even in indecision.
7. We invited leadership from our sending churches to constantly provide a barometer of discernment. We kept both of our sending churches informed every step of the way of our relationship and progress. Further, we welcomed their help and viewpoint. Sometimes this meant that we had to silence the nay-sayers even from within our own organization by simply ignoring their contradictory voices and reminding ourselves who was actually in the ring with us and who wasn’t.
8. We pursued Christ together. Bringing glory to Christ became the center of everything we focused on. We kept each other accountable to our own walk with God. We asked hard questions of each other and confessed when we didn’t have it all together. We also pushed into the non-comfort zone when things needed to be addressed in each other’s lives.
9. We discussed hard things and gave enough grace to explore without judgment. There were inevitably times we disagreed either on some strategy or trying to figure out what would work where. But this time, we allowed those differences to drive us closer together as we intentionally listened. Slowing the pace of our response and removing the typical labels, greatly helped us to see each other as teammates rather than rivals, vying for the same target. Our methods, though varied sometimes, bloomed from a spirit of unity.
10. We allowed each other to grow as uniquely designed individuals created with differing sets of gifts. Aside from fostering our personal relationship with Christ, this point probably made the greatest difference in success. At that start, we removed any boxed-in set of parameters for what a “real missionary” should look like. Instead, we evaluated each other based on our spiritual gifts, talents, skills, and life stage. We did not force each other into a tiny box, trying to mold them into something different. We gave each other space to be unique and individual. We didn’t move each other around a chess board, trying to use the other for our own gain. But instead, in love, we gave space for the Spirit to work in and around each of us.

The journey is ongoing and praise God this story has a much better ending then the first. As those focused on the future of missiological advance, we can’t keep going at our current pace in ignorance, not banking on a ton of casualties. I know the old adage about eggs and omelets. But really, these are human lives created in the image of God. True teaming will never happen unless we slow down and begin to apply that truth. Someone once said ministry is messy and that is so true. But it is arrogant and disobedient for us to use that as an excuse and fail to even try. For Jesus’ name and honor, we must be people of excellence and it only begins with honest evaluation about where the holes are.

*If you are interested in some of our resources, want a rough outline of the training plan we used, shoot me an email. Some of our go-to resources are listed on my resource page.

 

Figuring out limitless pathways…Problem #2

Professional missionaries and career Christians don’t know where to start for successful teaming.

In his book, The Evangelism Handbook, Dr. Alvin Reid uses Aristotle’s “three types of friendship” to define the best kind of mentoring relationships. “1. Friendship of utility, based on usefulness. 2. Friendship based on pleasure, based on pleasure in each other’s company. 3. Friendship of virtue, derived from mutual admiration.”

To enable limitless pathways, professional missionaries and career Christians have to link arms in effective teams. But too many gaps exist between the two for teaming to truly be successful right now. Long-term mentorship is the key starting point in building bridges between professional missionaries and career Christians.

We’ve had two experiences on the field that really led to this conclusion. Both started with trying to blend together a professional missionary team and career Christian through a community-centered business. The first one, failed miserably. Our own lack of understanding, planning, and humility greatly contributed to the relationship breaking apart. The second one, succeeded. Learning the hard way, we slowed down the pace and planned our walk together through a strategic goal-oriented mentorship.

What did we do wrong the first time?

1. We focused solely on fast-paced, hit-the-ground running, integration. Within the first seven days of arrival to the field, we already had the guy working. No language, no culture, no preparatory training. Just get in there and start getting your hands dirty. Oh yeah, and make sure you are sharing the gospel too.
2. We did not cultivate team life outside of work. We were too busy with ministry inside that there was no time left for team building outside. This left everyone feeling disconnected and isolated.
3. We did not create common goals based on what we all brought to the table. There were huge misunderstandings between who was doing the “real” work and who was “wasting time.” We spent way to long fighting for labels and misconceptions rather than accepting our true identities and learning to build bridges of trust.
4. We listened to the naysayers on both sides instead of trust our Spirit convictions. On the missionary side, we battled against the old-school methods that said business as mission is doomed to fail. On the business side, we struggled to give equal precedent to both gospel witness and running the business. We never successfully balanced these because there was a constant power struggle between which strategy should dominate, business or church planting. In the end, our failure to stand firm on our convictions led us to fight a battle destined to lose. This concession led to hurt and broken relationships.
5. We failed to train the career Christian and expected him to automatically know how to connect a church planting strategy with a “real job”. He wanted to be a “real” missionary just like us and he was passionate about sharing the gospel. But he had no idea how to carry this out from within the context of his job. He felt intimidated by our cultural knowledge and his own lack of work experience. What’s worse is that we completely botched his chances of truly integrating faith and work because we did not provide him a framework of operation.
6. When things started to go south, we pushed further away in relationship instead of drawing closer together. There were numerous times we could have sat down together, discussed all these issues, and exercised quite a bit more humility in hearing each other. But instead, we all stood with our heels dug in, convinced that each one had the right way. The day we stopped listening to each other, we lost any possibility of connecting as a team.
7. We didn’t go to our leadership and ask for help sooner. Even if we knocked on one organizational door and no one answered, we should have sought guidance earlier on when the struggles became real. Instead, we remained isolated from the greater team and our accountability sending churches which reinforced the false belief that we were all alone.
8. We stopped pursuing Christ daily both as individuals and a team. The heavier the ministry work-load became, the further apart we grew. This opened the door to quench the Spirit’s work in our personal lives which led to hard-hearts, anger, fighting, concessions, and spiritual manipulation.
9. We fought against each other instead of prayerfully seeking restoration. There were so many “hands in the pot” wanting and pushing for our success, the water became too muddled. Personal ambition took hold throughout the entire team and lines were drawn in the sand that had devastating results.
10. We had too many unmet expectations and furthermore we never discussed them until it was too late. On both sides, we each had a clear thought process to how we would team together as professional missionaries and career Christians. But we didn’t bring those to the table at the beginning and figure out how to effectively team together. So every time an expectation was left unmet it pushed us further from any mutual goal or successful teaming.

It’s taken over a year of deep prayerful introspection, to admit how much we all really screwed up. It can be scary to look back and really try to figure out what went wrong and then take ownership of our own sin. But in order for this to really work, we have to critically assess both our successes and our failures. Thankfully, the Lord gave us another opportunity to grow and team with a career Christian. And what we discovered is that the solution begins with a solid long-term mentoring relationship that focuses on building intimate community together, training, clear expectations, and strategic planning…more on that later.

 

 

Figuring out limitless pathways…Problem #1

Professional missionaries don’t know how to handle Christians coming to the field with a “real job”.

You’re either a missionary or a career Christian.  A missionary gives up everything, moves overseas, and evangelizes the lost. A career Christian has a job and makes money.  You can’t be both or so we’ve been told. But modern missionaries can and should be be both. This isn’t an easy thing to just simply figure out. Especially when traditional engagement strategies still largely pervade the missions world. At least now, there is a buzz of excitement surrounding rethinking pathways. And it is awesome to see!

Focusing on enabling career Christians to engage through their work, overseas, joining already established missionaries teams, is a brilliant idea! But there are a few things that need to happen for these two to link arms and be effective together. Let’s be realistic. They are coming from different places, different mentalities, and different points of view. When we bow to the Christian caste system, working together becomes a huge problem. When we still use labels for each other, we set ourselves up for failure because we haven’t destroyed the hierarchy of who’s working harder or who’s getting the job done better.

It doesn’t mean we don’t have different roles or jobs. We are learning to become a team together. In order for missionaries and career Christians to move closer together, we should just define both, as modern missionaries. Both require skills that empower a united team and joint effort to facilitate an authentic engagement strategy. Here are a couple possible solutions to consider.

Modern missionaries are required to be globalized entrepreneurs. More and more, people are moving from rural to urban. It’s not as easy to land in a city and figure out how to engage, if all you have is an antiquated access plan in your back pocket. Sitting around in a coffee shop all day, hoping to engage a lost person in conversation is not realistic. People are living life all around us. They work. They have sick families. They are sinking in debt. They need a real friend who walks beside them daily in authentic community. Before arriving, missionaries need to think through what will give them real presence and strategic viability. I’m not talking a pretend job either so you can focus your time on the “real work.” It’s western-arrogant to think lost people will be fooled by our fake life and then fall in love with a very real Jesus.

Modern missionaries need to learn how to exegete culture and then contextualize quickly. That means, figure out what society needs and then become a part of it. Too often missionaries jump on a plane with big ideas of what is needed and how they are going to give it, without even considering all the cultural norms, or how their presence could even affect a community. It also means we need to expand beyond our go-to methods i.e. English teaching and really explore other feasible options.

Modern missionaries must learn how to build communities around everyday life. For most people, this means through a job. Think about it. How many relationships could I make by sitting around the coffee shop for a month? 3? 4? Maybe 5? But what if I ran the coffee shop? And I made great coffee that people came back for everyday. And they told all their friends about the coffee shop because not only do they love the coffee but you know their name and their order. And all their friends started coming because they love to sit around the coffee shop together and this place has become a center of hospitality for them. You get my point…Communities are places where relationships thrive.

So, those thinking through the future of missiology, have to address the realistic dichotomy that exists between career Christians and missionaries. How do we legitimately bring them closer and help them engage together? If the gospel to the nations is the goal, then let’s be serious about dealing with the issues.

 

The Christian Caste System and Spiritual Gifts…

“The Christian business community has been effectively minimized, or even marginalized, by what Dr. R. Paul Stevens has described as the unbiblical spiritual hierarchy of vocations.”–Lausanne Occasional Paper No. 59

My years on the field and working in Christian ministry can verify this mentality. The “ultra-holy” or “elite” sit at the top of the pyramid while all the other “normal” Christians languish at the bottom of their less-than-worthy professions. It saddens me to hear stories of young people surrendering their lives to Christ while in secular university and immediately jumping ship on their chosen degree program to head straight off to bible college. Why shouldn’t they continue pursuing a vocation in order to better engage the world one day?

I’m not saying theological education isn’t important. It is. It equips us to better fulfill the Great Commission through an intense season of study, gaining deeper theological understanding. It also provides practical application for developing our faith and using our spiritual gifts in order to share the gospel to a lost world. So a better approach might look like vocational training + seminary.

I am afraid that too many seek after theological education only, thoroughly convinced that a calling to a ministry position is the Christian person’s equivalent of climbing the vocational ladder of success.

Darren Shearer  makes a really valid point. “Approximately 85% of Christians work in a for-profit company. Because all of these born-again Christians have spiritual gifts, it follows that 85% of the Church’s spiritual gifts are intended to be used primarily in the marketplace.”

A great example of this is my husband. As a young man, it was easy to see that he was extremely compassionate and merciful. Even before he became a believer, he knew he was supposed to be in the medical field. Caring for others in times of pain and suffering. And after coming to faith, his ability to love and serve the sick and wounded grew by marrying his caring ministry with spiritual nurturing. He is also gifted spiritually as a teacher/shepherd. Through his work, he could share the gospel freely as people responded to Christ’s love through him. At some point along the way after several years however, we too were swayed by the idea of a higher calling. So he went off to seminary to become equipped for overseas service as a missionary. But it wasn’t necessarily a higher calling. Nothing about his role, skill set, or spiritual gifting changed.

All the theological training was invaluable and added to who he was vocationally. When he arrived overseas, he began operating once again from his spiritual giftings in the workplace, but now better able to contextualize and focus through his vocation, sharing Christ strategically, building up believers, and shepherding the lost towards a relationship in Christ.

It would be great to get rid of this caste system in the church and instead focus on equipping everyone. All believers can and should use their spiritual gifts not just in the church, but for the church and for her mission. Our amazing privilege as believers is to fulfill the Great Commission. How can we do that in a globalized world by continuing to hide behind the doors of a church building in pursuit of an elite ministry calling?

I’m also not saying we don’t need pastors. We do! But we need more spiritually gifted shepherds who would surrender a pulpit position to go to the nations! A shepherd and teacher can do more work than stand and preach on Sunday mornings. A shepherd builds and cares for a community. A teacher shares the good news of Christ and preaches the word of God. How great would it be to take those spiritual giftings along with a specific skill set and do it among a lost people group?

A gifted, trained pastor/shepherd could also be a godly community-centered business man. A fiery apologist could also be a hard-working engineer. A Spirit-filled administrator could also be a secretary.  A discerning prophet could also be social worker.

Instead of using our spiritual gifts in exclusivity, maybe we should begin exploring other ways God may be leading.

 

 

 

A Missing Component Why Missionaries Leave the Field…

Recently, Paul Akin shined a light on a subject often ignored. One of the main reasons missionaries go home. His points are spot-on. And as a missionary, I have both worked on teams and experienced the kind of conflict he talks about. He gives three solutions to help missionaries navigate the waters of conflict with grace and longevity.

But there is a missing component that he doesn’t address. Many times the conflict comes from other things outside an individual’s team. We can be just as affected by obstinate or biased leadership. And because we are talking about this within the context of “Christian” organizations, we are often terrified to admit that corporate bullying can be just as much a reality for the missionary as team conflict.

Certainly, we as individuals are responsible for our own actions; how we respond to our own shortcomings, the sin of others, or our own unmet expectations. But is it fair to make it completely incumbent on the missionary alone to deal with the realities of conflict on the field? Especially when the heart of the conflict could be negligent leadership. Shouldn’t we also address the breakdown in the organizational structure itself?

I myself have been at the mercy of leadership that created conflict, leaving me to make an intensely difficult decision, either to go along with my convictions or concede. When we see leaders placed outside the structure of team, bullying the teams they lead, making decisions based on their own bias, or using spiritual-psychological coercion in order to press their own agenda, this too breaks down missionary longevity.

Is it possible that as leaders move up the ladder and deeper into the organizational structure, they lose the ability or outright stop holding themselves accountable to the same self-reflection principals Akin points out? This self analysis and heart discernment is vital to shepherding healthy teams. Which is part of a leader’s responsibility. Without it, leaders can easily succumb to pride-centered decisions. And what results are hurt missionaries and torn apart teams. At the end of the day, the greatest loss is how this breakdown affects the gospel witness to a lost world.

Let us not be too quick to judge a missionary’s decision to leave the field as simply their inability to deal with team in a godly and healthy manner. There are plenty of examples of truly Spirit-driven and surrendered missionaries that were simply blindsided by decisions outside of their control.

In order to keep moving forward as practitioners, we have to address and deal with the harsh realities.

1. Individually, we can’t be afraid to call sin for what it is and deal with it.
2. As sending churches, we can’t shy away from helping missionaries overcome conflict on the field and help them better prepare for when it comes.
3. Corporately, we can’t ignore greater organizational problems. The good ‘ol boy club will not carry us into the future.
4. Organizationally, we need to assess properly through broad spectrum, independent consultation. Further, leaders should be better trained and more qualified.

In all cases, we are fighting for no less than God’s glory in order to see him exalted among the nations.

Send the Light, Don’t Stifle It…

In just a little over 20 years of professional life, I have worked in a variety of roles and environments: US Navy Hospital Corpsman, Administrator, Paralegal, Division Petty Officer-In-Charge, Training Program Supervisor, Curriculum Developer, Wife, Stay-at-Home Mom, Homeschool Teacher, Women’s Bible Study Leader, Book keeper, Writer, and Missionary. I don’t share that out of pride or to garner applause.

Rather, I struggle as I look at that list noticing that in each and every one of those roles EXCEPT missionary, I have been accepted by my peers, coworkers, and, let’s just be frank, the men around me, as a hard working, driven, and an equal contributor to the work. It upsets me greatly to know that by and large, I am not viewed as an equal, am under-utilized, and not even respected enough to even be considered for a job where I have actual skill and experience.

I wrote a paper* a couple of years ago looking at the roles of missionary women as seen from the both the biblical and historical perspectives. I further conducted my own informal research project from among my own women missionary coworkers. The historical examples [shown], with the exception of Lottie Moon, were sent out at a time when women were not even appointed separately to missionary service by sending organizations. The husband was the single employee of the organization and appointed as such. Yet, they valiantly shared the gospel through the variety of roles and their work was instrumental in long-term strategic engagement.

Though the paradigm has shifted slightly and I was appointed as part of a “missionary unit”, paradoxically, I am still not viewed as a completely independent employee. (Just take a look at my nonexistent W2 or my Social Security benefits…) More than ever, I feel misunderstood and outright ignored many days by the men in my own organization. How easy it was to be labeled a “trouble-maker” rather than invited to the round-table discussions on strategy development or training. Places I actually have experience, gifting, and skill. I can’t remember one time where I have been given an “equal voice in missionary affairs” as Diana Lynn Severance refers to it.

But there are voices out there now, that are starting to create small waves of change. Voices like Carolyn McCulley and Kristal Wilson who are speaking out specifically in some of my own denominational circles on the importance and value of women at work. Or take the creation of  the Society for Women in Scholarship at my own university. A place for women to not just feel heard but become equal contributors. As a participant in this year’s southeast regional Evangelical Missions Society meeting, I was thrilled to find out several other presenters were women and in fact a couple of their papers discussed the “missing female voice” in the theological arena.

Speaking for myself and other missionary women, our organizations often confuse women with their designated and stagnant “missionary” roles. And though we have women gifted in leading, administration, strategy, etc, we don’t use them. Leadership micromanages families so much so that over and over I have heard from women who are perplexed, frustrated, angry, and hurt about their inability to choose their own role. This greatly affects their ability to engage community and share truth!

I have spent most of my years on the field buried under the weight of neglect. I’m not a hard-core feminist looking to overturn biblical mandates or create a new anti-scriptural paradigm. I am simply a woman that would love to be valued and respected for the gifts and talents bestowed on me by Christ. More than that, I just want to be a part.

History has often judged some of the determined missionary women who have gone before us as domineering, lacking submissiveness, and forceful in their desire to work and care for their given ministries. They have been misunderstood, under-represented, and redefined from a man’s perspective as less than normal women who do not conform to the natural paradigm. Yet, God used these women in their failings, in their illnesses, in their strong voice, and convictions.

And upon their death, when they met their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ face to face, they were held accountable for how they used the gifts, talents, and skills in their seasons of life. When the men proceeded to damn their work or effectiveness, Jesus presented them with jewels for their ingenuity and steadfastness, the meals they served, the countless hours read to children from His word, the land they tilled, the miles they crossed on foot, the budgets they balanced, their leadership and administrative abilities, the precious children they cared for and buried, their language skills and their lack of language skills, their persistence in sharing the gospel, and their toil and hard work, all in His name.

 

*The full paper I wrote on women’s roles can be read here.

Where to start…

I read once that it is often more difficult to retrain missionaries towards a business model of engagement than career Christians to execute a missions strategy. Martin Short might ask, “Why is that Captain Ron?” Though the loyal Cap’n responded, “Well, nobody knows!”, this question has a pretty simple answer. 

Today’s missionaries by and large are not equipped for globalized engagement through an actual career. 

Before you disagree, think about it. We train missionaries to be “professional ministers.” As one of them, I can attest to my ever-growing tool belt. Chock full of evangelistic tactics, discipleship tools, and engagement plans. But at the end of the day, not once has anyone helped me develop a career outside of this.

Sure, we have spiritual gift inventories, which are of some use. But when was the last time we saw missionary training include things like career assessment tools, skill evaluation, or personal development goal setting? At least in my organization, the overwhelming trend for up-and-coming missionaries is to head to bible college, seminary, missionary training, and then the field. I can’t tell you how many of my colleagues have a degree in something like nursing or engineering. Yet it’s labeled “useless” in the field. Even those that do have actual work experience have no clue how to use it in the field. We have no framework how to integrate work and ministry because we are brainwashed with the idea that our ministry is our only work.

But it shouldn’t be this way. God created us to work. As part of the body, we have gifts and talents that prepare us for a specialized leaning towards a specific career. Even if that career changes numerous times. I myself have been an administrator, teacher/trainer, legal assistant, housewife, homeschool mom, book keeper, and hopeful writer. But none of these jobs have ever really counted in the field to anyone but myself.

I fully believe that in order for us to continue making progress toward the Great Commission, it is going to take all of us. Unless we figure out ways to begin retraining our current missionary force, those career Christians heading overseas to link arms will be sorely disappointed at what they find.

 

Something New…

This blog gives voice to those struggling everyday to live out their Christian faith in the workplace, all over the world. This paper is my attempt to start the conversation.

BAM and the Theology of Work: A Practical Examination of the Integration of Work and Ministry on the Mission Field