Resilience Archives

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The kingdom of God – in clay pots

On March 13, 2023

The weakness of the kingdom

In the past couple of blog posts, I have talked about the weakness of the kingdom of God. By this I mean, the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and inaugurated was a kingdom that was not impressive or powerful. Jesus came to an inconsequential Jewish backwater province as an itinerant preacher, without status, money or military might. He saw the need of the people, and sought to address it, but his kingdom was sorely understaffed. To the disappointment of his little band of followers, the movement he started did not expel the Roman conquerors. Instead, this humble king was arrested and executed as a criminal by these Romans. His poor, uneducated and apparently unreliable disciples, were deemed incapable of carrying on the vision of this upstart king.

But Jesus’ kingdom proved to be remarkably resilient and defied all expectations. Crucifying the King did not destroy the kingdom. In fact, the King’s power to save his people was actually expressed in his moment of greatest weakness.

The cross is not contrary to this King and kingdom, but the center of it. This King has power, but it is a paradoxical power, one of suffering and weakness.
Patrick Schreiner, The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, p. 153.

But this principle of paradoxical power expressed through weakness is not only seen in Jesus. For many years, I have marveled at Paul’s characterization of his own ministry. On the one hand, he describes his apostolic calling and ministry in the most glorious terms. He compares what he is doing by the Spirit with what Moses did – and Moses comes in a distant second! See 2 Corinthians 3:6-11.

On the other hand, he describes himself as coming in weakness.

I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.
1 Corinthians 2:3

In the same vein, Paul frequently and at some length talks about the trials and hardships of his ministry (2 Cor 4:8-11, 6:4-10, 11:23-29). They almost overwhelm him at times (2 Cor 1:8). His thorn in the flesh will not go away, despite his fervent prayers.

I am a refugee: reflections of a missionary leaving Ukraine

By Ken Guenther

On March 7, 2022

In Cross-Cultural Living, Hardship, Resilience

I am a missionary who is also a war refugee. I came to that realization a couple of days ago. My wife and I are Canadian citizens but residents of Ukraine. Or at least we were until about a month ago. We have our Ukraine temporary residency cards, recently renewed. Our home for the past 12 and a half years has been in the city of Kyiv. This has been the longest we have lived in any country or in any home since we got married and left for the Philippines almost 35 years ago. Now we are “back” in Canada. Because of the current war in Ukraine, we do not know for how long.

In the past week, I have experienced many different and sometimes conflicting emotions. I am thankful to God that we were given sufficient warning and were able to leave Ukraine before the fighting began. But I am also shocked and deeply saddened by the devastation and death that the war in Ukraine has caused. I feel a great sense of loss as I think about the possibility that we may never return to our home, friends and ministry base in Ukraine. At the same time, I am proud of and admire the courage, resilience and resourcefulness of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters. Fervently and continually, I pray for peace in Ukraine – and wonder what this all means for us.

What is a refugee?

But am I really a refugee? After all, we were born and raised in Canada. This is where our parents, brothers and sisters, our daughter and son-in-law, and three of our grandchildren make their home.

Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country.
UNHCR – What is a refugee?

Resilience and fruitfulness

By Ken Guenther

On February 21, 2022

In Finishing Well, Resilience, Success in ministry

In my first blog post on this topic of resilience, I said that understanding resilience is not primarily about minimizing attrition. Our goal is not simply to prevent missionaries prematurely returning to their sending countries. We want our colleagues and ourselves to thrive. Our desire is that they bear much fruit and grow and develop in their ministry gifts and skills. In this post, let’s explore the relationship of resilience to fruitfulness.

Rewards come at the end

This morning, I received another email encouraging me to watch a training webinar. It included a familiar incentive:

Additionally, as a ‘Thank You’ to our loyal KLS members, we will be giving away a $10 Starbucks gift card to a random attendee at the end of each of our February webinars. Make sure you stick around until the end of the webinar to be eligible to win!
Email from KnowledgeWave.com, February 15, 2022

To receive a reward, you have to stay to the end. This reminds me of similar promises in the letter to the Hebrews.

Resilience in community

By Ken Guenther

On February 14, 2022

In Hardship, Resilience, Teaming

In a supportive community, it is easier to remain resilient. Thus far in our series on resilience for cross-cultural workers, we have talked primarily about the resilience of individuals facing adversity and stress. But we all realize that we are more resilient when we face that adversity together with others.

As Ecclesiastes says,

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12

Jesus relies on his friends

Yes, Jesus is our inspiration as we seek to become more resilient and persevering. He persevered despite great suffering and merciless opposition. He demonstrated unfailing reliance on his heavenly Father. But our Lord also had his small group of close friends and disciples who walked with him through the hardships and rejection he endured. So, it is no surprise that he insisted on bringing Peter, James, and John with him to his place of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matt 26:36-39).

Resilience: What part does the organization play?

By Alfie Mosse

On January 31, 2022

In Missiological Issues, Mission Leadership, Pre-field Training, Resilience

We have been discussing the need for resilience among cross-cultural workers. In the last post, we talked about how God develops resilience through suffering. But what is the mission organization’s responsibility in supporting their workers in these times of crisis and stress? How does the organization determine its level of involvement in caring for its missionaries?

These questions are not easily answered. Cross-cultural workers vary widely in their desire for and expectations of organizational involvement. Some only want their organization to provide receipts to their donors and make sure the missionary receives the support on a regular basis. Others want a full range of services, including health insurance, training, pastoral care, leadership, and supervision, conferences and retreats, risk assessments and security training, and IT support.

SEND International is one mission that has sought to better determine what level of organizational involvement it should provide for its members’ well-being. Here is the story of what one region in SEND has done to find answers to these questions.

A survey of field missionaries

In 2019 SEND International established a workgroup to study the feasibility of designing and implementing a regional “hub” structure for the Eurasia region. SEND had already worked in this part of the world for a couple of decades, but we wanted to strengthen the services we provided to our missionaries serving there. One of the mandates of the workgroup was to protect what works well in Eurasia (strengths) while improving what is not working well (gaps). To learn more about the strengths and gaps of our organization in this region, the workgroup created a questionnaire and a list of possible interviewees.

Suffering: God’s method of developing resilience

By Ken Guenther

On January 24, 2022

In Character, Hardship, Resilience

For several months now, I have been thinking about this topic of resilience in cross-cultural workers. I admit that I have been somewhat troubled by what the Scriptures tell me about God’s method of using suffering to develop resilience. As I have said in previous posts on this topic, the Scriptures do not use the word “resilience”. But the word “perseverance”¹ is found repeatedly in Holy Writ. It seems to capture the idea of resilience.

So what do I find troubling in Scripture? In my thinking, the logical way to strengthen a missionary’s resilience is to:

provide them with good training to prepare them for hard times
ensure that they have excellent member care when they go through hard times.

From a human perspective, I struggle to see how suffering in any way contributes to the development of resilience. Isn’t our goal here to minimize the suffering?

Resilience comes from suffering

But what do the Scriptures say about how God produces perseverance in the believer? Look at what Paul says in Romans chapter 5.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Romans 5:3–4

The inspiration for resilience

By Ken Guenther

On January 10, 2022

In Christ, Hardship, Resilience

This year, as I have thought about planning my growth and development, I have decided that I want to read more biographies. In his great book, Resilient Life, Gordon MacDonald says “deliberating exposing oneself to people who are better and smarter” than we are is part of the process of disciplining our minds and learning resilience. Definitely, we can find amazing and inspiring examples of perseverance and resilience in biographies such as Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and The Imam’s Daughter by Hannah Shah. But the greatest example of perseverance and resilience is found in the Gospels. If we are looking for heroes to emulate in the character quality of resilience, we start with Jesus.

Inspiring them to persevere

In a previous post, I talked about the discouragement and fatigue of the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews. These believers were growing weary under the strain of the ongoing opposition and rejection that they faced as followers of Jesus. This was tempting them to lose heart and to give up. So the author of Hebrews encourages them to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Perseverance is another word for resilience. How does he inspire them to persevere? By pointing to Jesus.

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Hebrews 12:2-3 from “the Message” paraphrase

The writer to the Hebrews asks his readers to consider Jesus as a paragon of resilience from three different perspectives. We need to look back at Jesus’ example of resilience. Then we need to look up to him for his help and grace. Thirdly, we need to look forward with him to his coming reward.

Reflections and resources for lifelong learning for missionaries

Category: Resilience Page 1 of 2

The kingdom of God – in clay pots

The weakness of the kingdom

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