July 27, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Training

Spiritual Formation, Training

What Melody Are You Making in Your Heart?

Experiencing God’s presence is essential for the Christian Life. This is especially true for cross-cultural workers. In a previous post I wrote about Puritan Meditation and would like to add to that the importance of music in our meditation. Recently I was reading Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (ESV) I also looked at the parallel passage in Ephesians 5:18 & 19 “…but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” (ESV) Now these verses are very rich but I want to focus on the place of music in being filled with the Spirit and letting the Word of Christ dwell in us (which, by… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Stress Management, Training

Stress: Too Much and Too Little – Part Two

In a previous post, I talked about the importance of maintaining margin.    Too much stress for too long a period is unhelpful and destructive. But as I also demonstrated from the life of Paul, we must not avoid all stress at all costs.   I am afraid that far too often I have said “no” to an opportunity simply because it would have stretched me beyond my comfort zone.   But I need to be stretched if I am to grow. I see many parallels to physical training.   When I started running (again) in 2009 after knee surgery, I was not able to run more than a kilometer before being totally exhausted.  Over the period of a couple of months, I was able to extend that to almost 5 km, a distance with which I was quite satisfied.   After all, I was not a serious runner, and already in my late 40’s,… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Stress Management, Training

Stress: Too Much and Too Little – Part One

Is stress, even cross-cultural stress, always a bad thing? Too much stress is not good.   More than 4 years ago on this blog, I mentioned a book by Dr. Richard Swenson on the topic of “Margin” – Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives.   I had read the book and was recommending it because I recognized that many of our missionaries were subject to overload and consequent burn-out.   (See another recommendation on our SEND U wiki.)… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Growth Plans, Training

Crucibles Develop Our Capacity

These days, I am following a training plan to prepare for a half marathon that I would like to run in September.  The training plan is progressive.  You start with running 4.8 km, then after a few weeks, you move up to 6.4 km.  When running 6.4 km is no longer a big challenge, then the training plan asks you to run 8 km.   A few weeks later, when 8 km becomes relatively easy, then you are asked to run 10 km, and so on. There are no shortcuts. This is a 20-week plan and slowly builds capacity up to 21.1 km as you faithfully follow the plan.   Other training plans for half marathons may be shorter, but they all follow the same principle. You run longer and longer distances as your capacity increases over time. I have also been reading the book of James these days and reflecting on… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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