July 27, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Training

A lot more preparation required
Training, Learning Attitude, Pre-field Training

A lot more preparation required

My wife loves to host people.  She is a great cook, and will often spend most of the day preparing a meal for our dinner guests. My participation in the preparations is decidedly less.  Maybe all the guests are thankful for that.  Admittedly, I don’t know much about how to prepare a great meal for guests.  But I have watched someone who does! In a parable-like format, Proverbs 9 presents two different women inviting people to a meal.  The same invitation rings out in both Prov. 9:4 and Prov. 9:16: Let all who are simple come to my house!… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Tanks and Training for Missions
Books, Hardship, Training, Book Reviews, Pre-field Training

Tanks and Training for Missions

God can transform the most painful experiences of our childhood into preparation to bless others.  Joseph told his brothers many years after they sold him into slavery, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen 50:20). I just finished listening to a similar story. In The Tank Man’s Son: A Memoir, Mark Bouman shares his gut-wrenching account of pain and misery, while growing up in rural Michigan. He was the son of an abusive man who owned a tank and ran a gun range near his home where military weapons of various kinds were regularly (and illegally) fired. His memories are terrifying – and at times comical – but always highly unusual. As a young boy, he suffered shrapnel wounds while helping his dad with the shooting range.  He found a huge tree root… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Training

Confident Proclamation in a Pluralistic Age

Is there any place for confident proclamation of the gospel anymore? Robert Bellah’s book, The Good Society (1991) quotes a graduate student’s comment of his experience at Harvard: They tell us it’s heresy to suggest the superiority of some value, fantasy to believe in moral argument, slavery to submit to a judgment sounder than your own. The freedom of our day is the freedom to devote yourself to any value we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true.” (quoted in D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012, 97)… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Spiritual Formation, Training, Leadership Training

Saul Was Not Ready

1 Samuel 9 introduces us to a very promising young man named Saul, a young man who we soon find out has been destined by God to become Israel’s first king.  He is from a good, highly-respected family with wealth and influence (1 Sam 9:1).   He himself is physically impressive, tall and handsome (1 Sam 9:2). But this young man has a problem – his father’s donkeys have wandered off, and he and his servant have already spent three days looking for them without success. At this point, we come to an interesting discourse that gives us a window into Saul’s spiritual formation up to this point in his life.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Training

Missiological Reflections on Christmas

At the first Christmas, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” John 1:14 (ESV).  The Son of God is described as the Word, the means of communication.  Our God is a talking God. In fact, he is the first user of language. On the first day of creation “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” Genesis 1:3 (ESV).  Throughout the Old Testament, we find God speaking to His people.   That emphasis on speaking is no less evident in The Christmas story.  Christmas music, Christmas sermons, and Christmas cards all emphasize that message is central to the mission of God. The angels brought to the shepherds “good news of a great joy that will be for all the people” Luke 2:10 (ESV).… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
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