August 15, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Author: Ken Guenther

Director of SEND U
Why did Jesus prohibit his disciples from going to the least reached?
Training, Contextualization, Evangelism

Why did Jesus prohibit his disciples from going to the least reached?

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. – Matthew 10:5–6 Why did Jesus not send his disciples to Gentiles and Samaritans? The Gentiles were the people who knew the least about the true God. From a missiological standpoint, they were the least reached. The Samaritans knew something of the Law but were not accepted as genuine worshippers of the God of Israel. They were also unreached and proved to be among the most responsive to Jesus’ message. Among them, Jesus saw one of his greatest harvests (John 4:35-42). The Jews, on the other hand, had already received many opportunities to hear about God’s grace over the centuries past through the prophets and the Law of Moses. Many of them were very resistant to any message that would… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther6 mins read
Not OUR disciples
Disciple-making, Training

Not OUR disciples

Who are your disciples? Whom have you discipled? While these questions are helpful in directing our focus on the importance of disciple-making and encouraging us to be intentionally investing in other believers, I think there is an inherent danger as well in these well-intentioned questions. During my sabbatical last year, I spent a lot of time thinking and reading about discipleship and disciple-making. I became increasingly convinced that in order to be a disciple-maker, we first need to be a disciple. In other words, to learn how to be a disciple-maker, we need to be learning from Jesus. As Dallas Willard so aptly said,… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Two-sided writing
Disciple-making, Training

Two-sided writing

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. – 2 Corinthians 3:1–3 I have a grey SEND T-shirt with the words, “Be Disciples, Make Disciples.” It communicates a central idea, key to our calling as missionaries, but also to every Christian. Each of us has been called to be both a disciple and a disciple-maker. We need to be learning and growing disciples of Christ who are multiplying ourselves in the lives of others so that they also become learning and growing disciples of Christ.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Book Reviews, Disciple-making

How do we disciple those of other cultures?

A book review of Walking together on the Jesus Road: Intercultural Discipling by Evelyn & Richard Hibbert Evelyn and Richard Hibbert believe that core to the missionary task is discipling those of other cultures. But they note that most of the books on disciple-making are written for the Western church context, and even those books which talk about cross-cultural disciple-making seem to assume that the methodology used in the West can also be used in non-Western contexts. I would concur with their observation. Discipling others to maturity in Christ when those disciples are from a different culture than yours is a significant challenge, and many mistakes can be made if one just follows a programmatic approach to disciple-making used in Western churches.  Their new book, “Walking Together on the Jesus Road” is an excellent book helping to address that challenge and showing us how to avoid the mistakes.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Book review: Stubborn Perseverance
Books, Church Planting, DMM, Hardship, Islam, Training, Book Reviews

Book review: Stubborn Perseverance

Stubborn Perseverance: How to launch multiplying movements of disciples and churches among Muslims and others (a story based on real events) by James Nyman with Robby Butler. How-to manuals are generally difficult to read, and those who purchase them are not often motivated to read them from start to finish. Stubborn Perseverance is a different sort of how-to manual. Now in a second edition, the book explains a step-by-step process of starting a church planting movement among an unreached Muslim people group. But it is presented as a story, a novel that walks through the experience of a small group of Indonesian believers who work together to start such a movement among their own people group. The story is based on real events.  The characters and their experiences were created by combining various people and their situations, both to protect their identity and to better illustrate a number of principles… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Back To Top