Missionary Confidential

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Has this been true for you?  It has for us: “For Many Missionaries, More Tech Means Shorter Furloughs”

A good perspective for those concerned about misuse of money donated to ministry. (HT: Assume the Best)

Are we really running out of new missionaries to replace those retiring from the field?

Ernest Goodman feels that the mission has an image problem.

The Very Worst Missionary asks if you’ve dropped an awkward missionary bomb lately.

Happy new year! While new posts to Missionary Confidential are brewing, I thought I’d list my Favourite Posts of 2010 for those of you who have just recently found the blog:

“Doing Ministry at Arm’s Distance”
“Perhaps it’s the Western concept of compartmentalisation of our lives that shapes our definition of reaching out to others during ‘church events’ or when ministry is scheduled to happen—but that stops when the prescribed time over.  Maybe the few months or years the missionaries were scheduled to spend in the mission field made developing relationships with nationals seem moot if they planned to return permanently to the States.  Western Europeans can be much slower to ‘warm up’ than most Americans are used to.  Whatever the reason was, it gave the impression to the nationals that the missionaries were primarily concerned with completing ministry tasks and nothing more.”

“Programme Overload”
“It gives me the impression that ministry, whether local or foreign missionary, has become an industrialised commodity.  Grab the package of books/DVDs, send it over, get results, rinse, repeat.  Hey, it’s in the same language, what’s to change?  Yet even with translated literature, a lack of cultural understanding could really impede rather than impact a people group for Christ.”

“Missionary? Not My Kid: When Your Parents Don’t Approve”
“While my parents’ long-term reaction may be on the extreme side of things, I was surprised to hear over the years from so many missionaries how many of their parents, sometimes one or the other or both, were so upset at their decision.  It’s not something that is talked about very often, understandably.  But I think it should be addressed because it is a serious issue.”

“Being There”
“Many missionaries have abandoned this field with plaintive cries of, ‘They just don’t want to hear the Gospel!’  What I’ve found is that people here do actually want to hear the Gospel and speak about spiritual matters (more so than my experience growing up on the West Coast of the States, oddly enough).  They just want to get to know you first, feel that you’re a contributing part of the social fabric, and know that you care for not only their eternal life but about the life they’re living right now.  The best way we can convey that is by being there, not just when it’s time to address spiritual matters but when the benign, everyday things happen, too.  And that takes time, loads of time, before they’re at that point.”

“What Are You Doing There? Justifying Your Call”
“It’s hurtful when people lob the follow up questions, ‘Why’d you pick an easy place to live?  Couldn’t handle Africa?  Wanted a vacation?’ Easy?  Since when do we start comparing fields amongst missionaries?  Who has the master list of Difficult Mission Areas in descending order?  Must all missionaries live in the very worst of physical conditions to qualify?  Right now, I think the hardest place for me to live would be back in the States!”

“When Sympathy Turns Demeaning”
“When we serve “for, not with”, when our sympathy is really a mask for our feelings of superiority, it makes the recipient feel that ‘I am a project, not a person’.  By breaking Christianity into tasks and agendas, methods and numbers, it’s scary how much of the humanity is stripped out of it.”

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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.