How I Became a Missionary, Part 1: My Backstory

Posted by C. Holland on Jan 27, 2009

This week I’ll be posting a series on how I became a full-time missionary to Western Europe.

Because my parents became Christians when I was a toddler, my childhood was rooted in an evangelical Christian upbringing in the States. Making a decision for Jesus at age 10, I was sent to Christian school for the last six years of schooling (in the States, that means Junior High and High School; for those in other parts of the world, Secondary School). My first paid job was working in a Christian bookstore, and I was a member of the Youth Group council at my church. Attendance to various church functions was an enjoyable occurrence for me on Sundays and Wednesdays. I wasn’t “made” to go like a lot of my friends in youth group. And I honestly didn’t get mixed up in all the vices that many teenagers typically pursue.

If you look topically at these facts about my life, some would say it was a given that I’d follow the path to missions work. But scratch beneath the surface and you’d find that, at points, I was heading the furthest away from Christian service that one could get.

The brand of Christianity that my parents taught me was that it was important to become a Christian, belong to a group (or church) and attend, but higher participation or education was not necessary. It’s a lot along the lines of the “Fire Insurance Gospel” (“I’m going to heaven and there’s nothing further I need to do”) with a bit of the “Happiness Gospel” (“God doesn’t want anything bad to ever happen to us again, so we don’t need to seek out opportunities to serve”). While they never said it was wrong, there was a distinct impression that anyone who shared their faith or who was highly committed to Christian ministry was a zealot or fanatic. We’ll show up to church when it suits us, was my parents mantra, and anything more is taking it too seriously.

Once we became Christians, church or religion or even our walk with Christ was not to be discussed. Of course, if we had never made that decision or renounced our faith, that too would have been a problem. Be a Christian, just don’t take it so seriously. And missionaries were something that other people’s children could become. For heaven’s sake, that’s what weird Christians do.

So you can probably tell that, no, I wasn’t raised in the mission field, nor were any of my immediate or extended family members ever missionaries at any time. I got that question a lot when I was fundraising, and it always puzzled me when people sounded disappointed that I didn’t come from missionary stock.

As I approached age 18, choices were before me. After graduation, virtually all my friends in the Christian high school dropped out of church and many spun out of control. Some didn’t really turn “bad,” but they didn’t go to church, either. What was I to do?

Next post: Part 2, Ashes in My Mouth

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How I Became a Missionary, Part 2: Ashes in My Mouth

How I Became a Missionary, Part 4: You’re Nuts

How I Became a Missionary, Part 3: Learning the Ropes