Missionary Confidential

Are Short-Term Missions Sabotaging the Conversion to Long-Term Missionaries?

As I’ve mentioned before, “short-term missions” continues to be one of the most popular search terms that Missionary Confidential receives. And further evidence are the sheer number of inquiries we receive at our personal blog. 97% ask about mission possibilities spanning from one week to a year and are usually to take place in between college breaks or as a filler while the person “figures things out”.

I’ve already stated my feelings in “How Effective Are Short-Term Mission Trips?”, more from the perspective of the long-termer dealing with the short-termer, but I recently stumbled upon an article that put into words something that I hadn’t quite put my finger on yet. While the article is mainly about how missionaries choose their field (another topic for another time), I was very interested to read the very last section which dealt with the assertion that short-term mission mentality is a huge deterrent to people becoming long-term missionaries.

While it sounded a bit shocking at first, especially the section on “Anti-Long-Term Sentiment”, I started to replay what many other Christians said to us as we were preparing a few years ago for full-time mission work. “What will you do when you come back?” came up a lot, usually wanting a detailed agenda of work and living circumstances in the States. We hadn’t even gone to the field at that point! “You’re only going for a year or two, right?” or “You will come back because America needs you to serve here,” also were stated frequently. Read More…

The Search Terms I Get…

If you write a blog, run a website or are some form of IT professional, then you already know that you have access to a staggering amount of statistics about your website. While these can vary, nowadays you usually can view how many people viewed your blog or site from certain countries or see which search engines (such as Google) they used to find you. Additionally, you can also see what search term or phrase they used right before they clicked on your site address.

You can probably figure out what most of the search terms/phrases would be for Missionary Confidential, but as I reviewed the list from the entire life of this blog thus far, I started noticing trends. Some are good points, some are confusing, some cause concern, and a few even made me laugh, though I doubt they were meant that way.

I’ve grouped the most interesting ones for your review: Read More…

Question Week: Is a Re-education Necessary About Missions Today?

Last one for Question Week:

Is a re-education necessary in churches and amongst evangelical Christians about modern missions?

I say this because of all the odd statements I’ve received over the years in missions ministry. If you’ve read even half of this blog so far, you’ll understand what I mean. From statements I’ve heard about missions only being valid in the 10/40 window, or enforced prayer at Christian schools for missionaries, peoples’ perceptions that the missionary actually does very little, to thoughts conveyed to me that missionary living equals impoverished, yet our pastor can’t be seen to live like that—I just wonder if churches are missing the boat when explaining the concept of being a missionary, especially what that means in today’s world.

Question Week: Tentmaking v. Fundraising?

Next up in Question Week:

Are you completely fundraised or are you a “tentmaker” (do you support yourself with an income or form of work outside of ministry or missions)?

We’re an odd breed on this one, as we are actually both. Sometimes the mix of each changes, but it’s been this way the whole time here. A huge part of why we need the income from our business back in the States is the exchange rate from the Dollar is brutal, so we’re shaving a third to one-half of our value when we use it over here, hence the need for a huge amount of money despite living modestly. However, because we rely on the fundraised part of our income as well, we still get to do all the communication, interaction, and “dog and pony” show to supporting churches.

Question Week: Sent By a Mission Agency or By Your Home Church?

This week is Question Week.

Are you sent by a mission agency or by your home church?

I ask this purely out of curiosity.  We are sent by our home church, but in our mission field we find that most missionaries are sent by a mission agency.  What’s interesting to me is that when we were doing our research and trying to figure out how we’d get to Western Europe, we had an almost impossible time finding mission organisations that were willing to send anyone (not just us) to our field, claiming that the “lack of return” on the money needed to live in one of the most expensive countries in Europe was the issue.

Interested in Short-Term Missions? Some Good Thoughts

One of the more popular search terms that this blog receives is “short-term missions”. I recently stumbled across a very well-written article in the online publication Wrecked For The Ordinary that candidly addresses some of the reasons that issues arise during short-term missions, diplomatically terming it “missions mismatch”.  The article also offers three steps that one should review, including questions to honestly answer.

Selecting a Short-Term Missions Experience

Missionary Presentation Training

Editor’s Note: Please welcome our new contributor, D. Simon, to the blog. If you have a written piece about general missions issues and would like to be considered for a Guest Blog Post to the site, please contact us on our About page.

Being sent to the mission field by my home church, I don’t have the mission agency experience that most missionaries probably have. So I have a question, do mission agencies train their missionaries on how to deliver a fundraising presentation?

Perhaps I should back up for a moment to explain why I ask. I am called a missionary by many because I am serving in a foreign field, sent by my home church, and supported by churches and individuals in my home country. However my role is essentially the same as it would be if I was still in my home country; I am a pastor. The church I serve was started over a hundred years ago by a national and from what I can discern, I am the first person to pastor it from the States.

Last Sunday morning I had an interesting experience. We had a national who is on furlough from his mission field speaking at our church. Here I am the foreign pastor, listening to the “pitch” being given by a local in my mission field who is heading back to his mission field. That in itself was an odd experience.

I was looking forward to his presentation and was very interested in learning more. While I wish I could say it was informative and captivating, I’m afraid it was neither, but it was a very long fifty minutes. There were stats, stats, and more stats, but no personal stories from this family that had already spent four years in their field. After fifty minutes I knew very little about what he does, and absolutely nothing about his needs, financial or otherwise.

This experience made me wonder, did his mission agency prepare him for this?   Read More…