The SEND summer 2010 Candidate Orientation Program (COP) and Member Orientation Program (MOP) are now history, and after 7 weeks in North America, we are now back in Kiev, Ukraine. While in Michigan at our international office where the training programs were hosted, I enjoyed getting to know two great groups of new SEND missionaries in these 2 pre-field programs. My primary purpose in attending COP and MOP was to better understand what we are teaching to new missionaries, and to look for ways that the two programs might be overlapping or missing some significant areas of necessary training.
Although I had a few recommendations for both programs, my impressions were overwhelmingly positive. The content of the training is significantly different from what I received 25 years ago, and understandably so because the context of the North American churches has also changed, and so has the options available for communication. But I think the quality of the training has also significantly improved since I went through COP in 1985 (no MOP back then). I realized that some of this pre-field training is just too good to be restricted to new appointees. For example, I think many of us missionaries would really benefit by sitting down with someone from the SEND media department and discussing how we can improve our newsletters. In fact, if you struggle to communicate effectively and regularly with your donors and prayer partners, why don’t you make spending some time with the media department as one of your home service objectives? Take along some recent issues of your newsletter and ask them to give you some suggestions for how you can communicate more effectively. I know they will be kind – and helpful.