Missionary Confidential

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What’s the difference between Horizontal and Vertical Missions?

Why we would all benefit from gaining an understanding of the basic principles of cross-cultural communication.

A good description of spiritual warfare in leadership on the mission field.

Missions Misunderstood gives a good example of Being There in missions.

Assume the Best asks what is the most awkward thing you can possibly do when fundraising?

Editor’s Note: Karl Dahlfred, missionary to Thailand, wrote our Guest Post for today. You can follow him on his blog, “Gleanings From the Field” (click on title to visit his website).

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By Karl Dahlfred

I thought I was prepared for most of the questions that would come at us as we returned to the U.S.  We had been planning to start a year of home assignment in the U.S. in December but because of my father’s death we hurriedly moved it up to the beginning of October.  I knew that there would be questions about how long we’d be in the area, where we are staying, and when we’d be going back.

But there was one question that totally blindsided me.  Some people have asked, “Are you going back to Thailand?”  Are we going back to Thailand?!  In my mind, the answer was obvious.  “Of course we are going back to Thailand!”  Why would anyone think that we are not going back? » Read the rest of this entry «

CNN asks, “Why are there so few minority missionaries?”

Surprise! Missionaries aren’t perfect (and we have bad days, too).

After all these years, has mission from the Western culture become toxic?

Sometimes fundraising your support can make you feel like a cheesy television minister.

And, speaking of fundraising, Assume the Best is a new blog with a humourous take on raising support.

The other night I was talking with one of my national friends, and he was relating his busy last few weeks, most of which was taking a visiting missionary around the country on furlough.  When asked how long my friend had been hosting missionaries from this particular mission organisation, I was amazed to hear that it was before I was born (and I’m not young, either.)  His lengthy dedication was impressive, not just because of longevity, but because the hospitality also included shuttling the missionary to many places around a country not known for the best public transportation or infrastructure.

“Oh, but I’m not the first one to host here in this country,” he divulged.  “I actually inherited the responsibility from another man.”  My friend went on to explain that this man had hosted for quite a few years, and it was ageing (and a subsequent illness) that caused the man to pass the responsibility to my friend.  “When I visited him for the last time in hospital,” my friend recounted, “he personally asked me to ‘please take good care of my missionaries’.  Then he leaned closer to me and whispered, ‘Just don’t spoil them’.”

At this point, my long-term readers will probably be expecting me to start off with a politely-worded form of, “Just who does he think he is?  What in the world was that man thinking?!  We’re people too, yada yada yada, etc.”  But I’m not, because it’s what my friend said next that helped illustrate that standards of all sorts are quite relative, even for us missionaries. » Read the rest of this entry «

Has the death knell sounded for the Traditional Missions Conference?

Five reasons that missional churches don’t do global missions—and how to fix it.

TIME magazine asks, “Has God Left Europe for Good?” (A better title would have been, “Has Europe Left God for Good?”)

Thoughts on when to call short-term missions “voluntourism” and when to call it a “missionary journey”.

The Very Worst Missionary asks you not to judge them for going to Disney World.