August 25, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Books

Church Planting, Disciple-making, Book Reviews, Leadership Training

Are We Reading All of Matthew 28:18-20?

A review of M. David Sills, Reaching and Teaching: a Call to Great Commission Obedience, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010. This book has sought to bring awareness to those who have been lulled into thinking that God wants us to simply reach them. He doesn’t. He wants us to reach and teach – reaching them with the saving gospel message and teaching them to observe everything that He has commanded. (220). So ends Sills’ book.… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Spiritual Formation, Book Reviews

Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People So That You Experience “The Life You’ve Always Wanted”

As a SEND missionary, do you ever feel lagging in spiritual power or genuine transformation? How about those you have the privilege of leading to Christ or discipling – do you observe them experiencing consistent growth into Christ-likeness? If you’re feeling discouraged in either of these areas, I encourage you to read John Ortberg’s book The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. It provides a fresh, practical, and biblical challenge towards growing in Christ-likeness through the practice of spiritual disciplines. A sad commentary on the state of today’s church is that “by and large we do not expect people to experience ongoing transformation.” Ortberg however believes that genuine transformation — being changed into Christ-likeness — should be the norm for Christian life. A problem often occurs, though, in that believers who desire transformation try harder and harder until they are exhausted but still not experiencing the transformation… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Mission Leadership, Book Reviews, Multicultural Teams, Team Leadership

Leading multicultural teams

Just a few years ago, we could find very little that had been written about multicultural mission teams.  The subject has been of great interest in our mission organization, since our membership is becoming increasingly international, and many, if not the majority of our teams, already include members from countries other than the USA or Canada.   But very few resources for guiding the team leaders of such teams were readily available. A few would know of Lianne Roembke’s work, Building Credible Multicultural Teams.. Unfortunately, Roembke’s book has still not been released in digital form, and I cannot seem to find anyone who has written a review of it.  Then in 2011, Sheryl Silzer of SIL published her book, Biblical Multicultural Teams: Applying Biblical Truth to Cultural Differences. Silzer’s work focused on the formative nature of one’s childhood home and how that experience has impacted one’s view of what is right… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Books, Growth Plans, Learning Attitude

How do I Choose Which Books to Read?

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Harry S. Truman. Reading has always been a hobby of mine.   One of my most memorable Christmases as a child was the one where my brother and I each were given 12 books by our parents.   I believe all of them were used books, but that made no difference at all to me.  The anticipation of being able to read as much as I wanted to read throughout the Christmas holidays overshadowed any other gifts that year.   For not only did I have 12 books to read; I had 24 for my brother’s books were fair game as well, once he had read them.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Church Planting, Islam, Book Reviews, Covenant Community, Evangelism

Critical Issues for the Cross-Cultural Church Planter

This summer I read The Messenger, The Message and the Community: Three Critical Issues for the Cross-cultural Church Planter by Roland Muller.  It was a read that was long overdue.  You see, the author is a friend of mine, and I have followed his ministry closely for about 25 years. About 14 years ago, as the first edition of some parts of this book was being written, Roland Muller asked me to read it and give some feedback.  To my regret, and with some degree of embarrassment now, I admit that I did not finish reading the manuscript, although I did give some thoughts on the part of the book that I did read.   As a result, the author used some of my graduate study research to support one of his arguments and somewhat undeservedly, included my name in the acknowledgments. About seven years later, Roland combined three books he… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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