December 6, 2024

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Author: Ken Guenther

Director of SEND U
The source of resilience – grace
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
God, Resilience, Hardship, Stress Management, Prayer, Pre-field Training

The source of resilience – grace

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series "Missionary resilience". What is missional resilience? In a nutshell, it’s grace not grit. We must receive Jesus’ resilience to join him in his mission as we turn toward the triune God, others, and ourselves for loving support.Geoff Whiteman, Resilient Global Worker Study: Persevering with Joy, March 2021. In my previous blog post, I talked about the need for resilience in cross-cultural work and particularly now in the pandemic. I mentioned Geoff Whiteman’s research. He surveyed more than 1000 missionaries to find out what contributes to making global workers more resilient. What was his overall conclusion? It can be found in the quote above – resilience in mission work is rooted in God’s grace. In a workshop at the 2021 Missio Nexus Mission Leaders Conference, Whiteman presented various recommendations for mission organizations to support missional resilience. Based on his research, he… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Resilience: the need
Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash
Cross-Cultural Living, Hardship, Stress Management, Resilience

Resilience: the need

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series "Missionary resilience". Resilience is a critical topic How do Christian global workers become resilient? This is the question that Geoff Whiteman posed to over 1000 missionaries.1 See ResilientGlobalWorker.org for information about this survey. It is a question that concerns anyone involved with member care for global workers. To illustrate, the title of Laura Mae Gardner’s highly-recommended book on member care is “Healthy, Resilient, & Effective in Cross-Cultural Ministry.” From the title itself, one can see the central and crucial role of resilience in productive mission workers. Kelly O’Donnell, CEO of Member Care Associates also highlights the importance of resilience in his book on global member care. Member care, I have learned over and over again, is not about creating a comfortable lifestyle. Nor is it about trusting people instead of trusting God. Rather, it is about further developing the resiliency… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Should we go to the most receptive?
Photo by Paz Arando on Unsplash
Disciple-making, Christ, Contextualization, Evangelism, Gospel

Should we go to the most receptive?

As a young missionary candidate about 40 years ago, I considered various countries as possible destinations for my future ministry. One of the main criteria I used was receptivity. I wanted to go to a place where the church was growing rapidly. I was attracted to the harvest. In a harvest field, I reasoned, there would be a greater need for training of national workers, which was the area of missions I was most interested in. So, I chose the Philippines and the lowland work among Roman Catholics in particular. Experiencing the harvest Given that I was still in my early 20’s when I arrived in the Philippines, I realized that I first needed some experience and credibility before I could begin training others. My wife and I enjoyed ten years of wonderfully fruitful years in church planting and training in the Philippines. We were part of the harvest. The… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
What makes an organizational culture effective?
LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash
Leadership, Lifelong Learning, Book Reviews, Cultural learning

What makes an organizational culture effective?

Cross-cultural workers spend a lot of time thinking about, discussing, and examining cultures. Ethnography is a foundational skill for missionaries. But I have found that we are much less adept at understanding and describing organizational cultures, even the cultures of the organizations in which we serve. What does an effective organizational culture look like? What kind of organizational culture would lead to greater fruitfulness and well-being of our members? Even more mysterious is how leaders can nurture the organizational culture they would like to prevail. Or can we even change or develop our organizational culture? I have just finished “The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups” by Daniel Coyle. I believe that this book begins to answer some of these questions, at least for me. Coyle set out to discover the reasons why some groups, teams, or organizations accomplish far more than what we would expect of them… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Vacation and Soul Rest
Photo by S Migaj on Unsplash
Spiritual Formation, Stress Management

Vacation and Soul Rest

Vacation time August is vacation time for many of us serving in cross-cultural missions. Whereas July is often busy with various camps and short-term teams, August is more often focused on spending time with family and enjoying the warm weather before classes and the fall ministry schedule begin again. As expected, in the last few weeks, I have received innumerable “out-of-office” notifications from my colleagues. This morning, I had only a couple of new emails and messages to which I need to respond. This is the predictable pause in August while colleagues take a break from ministry. It almost causes us to forget how very unpredictable and disrupted our lives have been in the last 18 months. Finding rest for your soul But a break from ministry while taking some vacation time does not always result in soul rest. Some people seem to need a vacation to recover from their… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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