July 26, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Year: 2013

Training, Coaching

A Coaching Culture in a Mission Organization?

At the beginning of April Bertha and I, together with Ted Szymczak, traveled to Spain and facilitated another Coaching Workshop. The workshop was full, with 24 participants from six different mission agencies, serving in six different countries.   A large percentage of the coaching workshop is devoted to giving the participants opportunities to practice coaching one another.   And they did so with enthusiasm!   With 12 separate coaching conversations happening at the same time in one room, the noise level regularly reached 90 decibels in our training room.  The aim of the workshop is naturally on practicing skills, not on completing conversations, and so I regularly had to interrupt our eager coaches and ask them to move on to the next learning activity.   At times, I found it very difficult to regain their attention when it was time to switch to another exercise.   At one point, we even tried using a drum… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Spiritual Formation

The Wilderness As a Classroom

In Hosea 2:14-15, God says to the Israelites, “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.” Haleakala Sliding Sands Trail on Maui. Yes, even Maui has places that seem hostile to life.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Lifelong Learning

Do I Still Have Untapped Potential?

This post was written by Elaine Loewen, a SEND missionary in Japan.   Elaine and her husband Joel have served in Japan since 1986 in church planting and discipleship ministries.  Elaine is also the language school coordinator for SEND in Japan.  I am thankful for Elaine’s transparency as she shares how God has renewed her passion after many years of ministry. Last summer I felt in a slump–a general lack of passion for ministry. While at the Yamanaka Chalet, I read the book, “Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion” by Pastor Wayne Cordeiro. It’s his story of how, when he found himself depleted after about 30 years of ministry, he took time to recharge and refocus on what is truly important. Towards the very end of the book, he talks about potential. We usually associate potential with young people. We think of them with their life ahead,… Read the whole post
Elaine Loewen2 mins read
Training, Pre-field Training

How Do We Measure the Impact of Training?

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of our training?  This has been a question that we are still seeking to answer in SEND U. One realization that I have come to in the past few years is that asking the participants how well they liked the training is not enough of a measure. We regularly receive positive comments about the various training initiatives we do for our mission members, either on evaluation sheets hurriedly filled out in the last 5 minutes of the training event, or in conversations with people walking out the door. But while it is gratifying to hear that they enjoyed the workshop, what we want to see happen is for the participants to change their behaviors as result of what they have learned.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Training, Finishing Well

Think Finish

A final post on the topic of life as a marathon from Philip Jackson, a colleague and friend of mine from Macedonia. Phil serves as the field leader and church planting team leader in the city of Skopje.   Phil also runs marathons, and his first full marathon was the Athens Classic Marathon.  Lastly, and appropriately, the final message that hit home from the whole marathon experience was the powerful encouragement provided by imagining the actual finish. While running the weekend-long runs in training for the Athens race, invariably I would imagine myself running into the classic stadium and running under that finish line banner. And invariably my eyes would tear up and powerful emotions would come over me. Note that this was while I was training at a place (along the Vardar River in Skopje) where other runners were running along the same path, and there I was with tears… Read the whole post
Philip Jackson2 mins read
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