November 11, 2025

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Author: Ken Guenther

Director of SEND U
Training, Team Leadership

Finding Assignments for Missionaries

What responsibility do mission field leaders have in finding suitable ministry assignments and opportunities for other missionaries?  In the last few weeks, this question has been asked in a number of different contexts. These missionaries needing a ministry placement could either be missionaries on the leader’s own team, or new missionaries who are finishing language school or missionaries returning to the field after a period of home service or “furlough”.    Sometimes missionaries returning to their home countries after completing their overseas assignment are open to a continuing ministry with the mission if a suitable assignment could be found.   Who bears the responsibility for identifying potential ministry placements? To some, this may seem to be a strange question.   There are so many acute needs on the mission field.   Aren’t mission organizations always looking for more missionaries?   Why is there ever a need to “find” a ministry assignment for a missionary?   Isn’t… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Leadership

Getting Things Done and Avoiding Death by E-mail

Getting Things Done by David Allen is a popular book on personal productivity, and I personally have benefited much from reading and applying the system and principles in this book.   We are in the process of packing up and moving to another apartment this week, so my organizational system is not particularly evident in my home office these days. Nevertheless, despite external evidence to the contrary, the system is working and has made preparing for this move significantly less worrisome. Although I have not followed Allen’s GTD system as thoroughly as I should have or could have, my life and work have become easier to manage and I am not nearly as stressed about the possibility that I may have forgotten an important assignment or meeting.    Believe it or not, my e-mail inbox is empty, and it gets to empty most days. Others in SEND have also profited from studying… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Pre-field Training

What Does a New missionary Need to Learn Before They Leave for the Field?

One of the projects we are working on these days is determining the objectives for MOP (SEND’s Member Orientation Program).   The facilitators for the various sessions at MOP have submitted their objectives for their individual sessions, but it seems to us that just as important, if not more important, are SEND’s overall objectives for this entire pre-field orientation program.   So we are asking the following questions: What does a new missionary appointee need to know as they prepare to engage a new culture,  language and missionary team in their chosen country of service? Of all the things that an missionary appointee needs to know, what do we in the International Office want new missionary appointees to learn in the 2 weeks that they are with us in MOP? Is it realistic to expect that an appointee will learn these things in the two weeks that they are on the Farmington… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Adult Education

Teaching Children and Training Adults – There is a Difference

My daughter, a junior at Kiev Christian Academy, tells me that she is taking a course in “Government” this semester.   What kind of a course is that?  It has been a long time, but I was pretty sure that I had never taken anything by that name when I was in high school.  I discover that it is focused on the government and constitution of the United States of America, and by all reports, despite the valiant efforts of their gifted teacher, is a pretty boring course.   Why a Canadian living in Ukraine needs to take a course in US government is beyond me.  But it is part of the KCA curriculum, and so Rachel is required to take it.   What puzzles me is that Rachel is getting fairly high marks in this course, and seems to be motivated to study hard for tests and do her homework.  I am,… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Character, Spiritual Formation, Covenant Community

Community and Character

During the last 10 days, I have been in Japan, getting to know our SEND missionaries and their ministries in this beautiful, yet spiritually unresponsive country.   Over the years, I have heard much about the challenges and discouragements faced by our church planters here, but one thing I had not realized is the challenge of creating a real sense of “authentic community” within a Japanese church.   Japanese people are very committed to their work, and with long commutes to work and long hours at work, they often are only available for meetings on Sundays.    As a people, they are also committed to preserving the forms and conforming to the expectations of their culture.   They find it difficult to leave the safety of this prescribed tradition and truly become transparent with one another.   Even believers who share a bond in Christ struggle to get back the polite forms and to allow… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther3 mins read
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