August 15, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Missiology

Lifelong Learning, New Missionaries

Training for “bush” Alaska

Flying through mountains in Alaska During the month of June, this blogger was focused on other things than blogging, and I apologize.   We flew back to North America from Ukraine at the end of May, and spent basically the whole month of June living out of suitcases, travelling throughout Alaska and British Columbia.  Hence, I had little time to sit down and think through what I wanted to blog about.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
New Missionaries, Success in ministry

How Do We Define Success as Missionaries?

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Success for missionariesA question that we discuss at length during every Member Orientation is “How do you define success for yourself as a missionary?” As disciples of Christ, who have been called and sent out to make disciples of others, we can only consider ourselves successful if we believe that we have accomplished what our Master told us to do. Hearing the words “Well done, good and faithful servant” is our greatest hope and ultimate definition of success.   How should we live and serve today, so that we can be assured that we will hear those words when we stand before the Master and give account to Him? My first extended time of reflection about this question happened about 5 years ago. Our International Director stood with me in a cafeteria line at a LeaderLink training in Florida, and asked… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
New Missionaries

Understanding our Youngest Missionaries

At our last Directors’ Council, we looked at how we can better incorporate the generation called “Millennials” or Generation Y (those born between 1980 and 2000) into our mission. Dr. Jim Raymo, assistant professor at Northwestern College, and former US Director for WEC International presented his research on this topic. For us Boomers, this generation is the age of our children, but almost all of our areas now have a significant percentage of members from this generation. We have every reason to be excited about the potential these young people bring to our mission, but we also recognize that there are significant differences in the way they (some of you) think. A great resource to understand this generation and their contribution to missions is a free Mission Exchange webinar entitled “Reset with this Student Generation: Engaging Millennials in Missions.”… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Covenant Community, Character, Spiritual Formation

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
Covenant Community

Sabbath and The Covenant Community

As we seek to understand what it means for our mission team to be a covenant community, we need to go back to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.  Their identity as a people was grounded in their special covenant relationship with Yahweh.   The Lord God made some special promises to them (redemption from slavery, a land of their own flowing with milk and honey, etc), and made clear His expectations of His chosen people (no tolerance for hedging their bets with the competition, obedience to the Law, etc).   As a sign of their mutual covenant, God gave them the Sabbath, both as a distinguishing practice among the nations, and as a scheduled life “pause button”, enabling them to refocus their attention on their relationship as a covenant community with their God Because the Sabbath day was a sign of their covenant, the Israelites were to remember to… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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