July 9, 2025

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Spiritual Formation

Spiritual Formation, Training

Train Yourself for Godliness

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. – 1 Timothy 4:6–8 The desired outcome: to become a good servant of Christ Jesus We all want to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” from our Lord. But what does that mean for each of us? What do we need to be doing that will make it possible for us to hear those words?… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Spiritual Formation, Pre-field Training

Spiritual Formation Highlights Training for New Missionaries

Bertha and I are on a short home service, and so I am not quite as involved in SEND U activities for the next month or two.  But in July, I was back in Farmington to help lead our 2011 Member Orientation Program.   Twelve participants came from Poland, Austria and the USA.  We were trying a few new things in MOP this year, including visits to Angel House (a Middle Eastern center in the heart of Dearborn), an Iraqi mosque, and an ethnic church.   We will definitely want to repeat these hands-on opportunities for cross-cultural exposure and learning. Again we noticed how the spiritual formation parts of this pre-field training stand out as highlights for the MOP participants.   This year, Carl Kresge led most of the morning sessions on spiritual formation, building up to the “Day Alone With God” which happens the day before MOP ends. Carl emphasized that busyness… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Spiritual Formation, Book Reviews, Prayer

A Praying Life: Book Review

Equipping missionaries for greater effectiveness must begin with the foundation – a rich and growing relationship with our Lord. A few months ago, I highlighted a book that enriched my personal devotions by showing me a simple method to journal – The Divine Mentor: Growing Your Faith as You Sit at the Feet of the Savior by Wayne Cordeiro. Recently I finished reading another book that has re-energized my prayer life – A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller. Child-like dependency The author helped me to understand more clearly how essential a child-like attitude of dependency is. We need to learn helplessness when we come to God in prayer. Miller says, ‘When Jesus tells us to become like little children, he isn’t telling us to do anything he isn’t already doing.  Jesus is, without question, the most dependent human being who ever lived.  Because… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Self-Feeding, Disciple-making, Spiritual Formation, Book Reviews

Feeding Yourself and Discipling Others

A book I want to highlight this week is The Divine Mentor: Growing Your Faith as You Sit as the Feet of the Saviour by Wayne Cordeiro. One of our senior missionaries who is well-known for his commitment to discipling young men recommended it to me. He said that he hands it out frequently to those whom he is discipling.   About the same time, I received the book as a Christmas gift. Over the Christmas holidays, I finished it.  It is a very easy read, with lots of illustrations from Cordeiros’ pastoral ministry. Essentially the book talks about the importance of and a method for a regular devotional study of Scripture.  Pretty basic stuff for a missionary, right?  Well, this missionary found that the simple journalling method (S.O.A.P) taught in the book was what I needed to move from journalling once in a while to recording on a daily basis… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Character, Spiritual Formation, Covenant Community

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
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