The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Training Page 19 of 27

Reaching and Teaching in Animistic Oral Cultures

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On November 19, 2014

In Church Planting, Disciple-making, Training, Book Reviews, Leadership Training

In my last post we looked at Sills’ book Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience. This book is clearly a follow up to this work. It is in essence an application in practice of the principles in the earlier book. “This book explores how the Lord led missionaries to minister effectively among a specific people whom he called to himself: the Highland Quichua people of Andean Ecuador.”(pp. 2, 3).The book highlights the challenges of reaching and teaching an oral people group with a long history of syncretism:

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Accountability – Asking the Hard Questions

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On October 21, 2014

In Spiritual Formation, Training

Do you have anyone in your life who asks the hard questions? You know, the ones like “How are you doing in using your time wisely?” Or “How are you doing as a wife/ husband/ parent/ leader/ follower?” Or just the simple yet profound “How are you doing spiritually?” For some reason, we have such a hard time asking those questions, and yet I think a lot of us need and even long for that kind of interaction.

Let me get personal and real here. I haven’t REALLY felt spiritually healthy for many years now. I’ve had a few bright spots over the years, and am confident God hasn’t given up on me. Yet I would have to say that “listless,” “wilting on the vine” and even “helpless and hopeless” describe how I have felt about my walk with God over the past decade.

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How Do You Train Others to Feed Themselves?

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On May 28, 2014

In Spiritual Formation, Training, Self-Feeding

This blog series has been sidelined as we have been out of town for most of the past 4 weeks. But I do not want to leave this topic of self-feeding without addressing the question of how we can equip others to become self-feeders. In my first post on this topic, I asked the question, “Who feeds the missionaries spiritually?” Despite the value of various member care initiatives, we cannot avoid the simple conclusion that our missionaries must learn to feed themselves. The second post looked at Biblical examples and Biblical support for the concept of self-feeding. It is not just an outgrowth of Western individualism. In the third post, we clarified what self-feeding actually entails, and talked about taking responsibility for one’s own spiritual nourishment, planning ahead and developing rhythms.

Now as a missionary trainer, I realize that just writing about these concepts or even explaining them clearly in our pre-field training does not automatically translate into life transformation in the lives of our missionaries.  If only it was so easy!

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Training vs Development

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On February 10, 2014

In Training, Assessment Tools, Coaching, Pre-field Training

Recently, I have been thinking about the difference between training and development. Both are important, SEND U is committed to both, but they are different. As Steve Moore said in a recent Missio Nexus webinar, training is oriented around the needs of the organization, while development is oriented around the needs of the individual.

Let me illustrate. Our Member Orientation Program is a training event. SEND U has put together a list of objectives for MOP, describing the learning activities and content that we believe will help a new missionary develop the competency they will need.

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How Can Coaching Enhance My Ministry? (Part 2)

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On December 10, 2013

In Coaching, Holy Spirit

A second yet related way in which Christian coaching can be helpful in our missionary and church planting ministry is that it helps draw out what the Holy Spirit has put into the hearts and minds of those we coach. As Dr. Keith Webb says in the Coaching Workshop participant manual:

The Holy Spirit is the best source for insights, ideas, strategies and action points. Coaches help the coachee to hear the Holy Spirit more clearly and support them to respond well.

I have recently gained a new and deeper appreciation for the crucial role of the Holy Spirit in Christian coaching. One of my spiritual gifts is the gift of helps. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of that gift for me is my tendency to want to help people by “fixing” their problem. You husbands who may be tempted to “fix” your wife when she just wants to talk, understand how unhelpful such an approach is. The “Mister Fix-it” tendencies work equally unwell in coaching.

Instead of offering final solutions, any suggestions we give should be merely springboards for further reflection on the part of the coachee. In our coach training, we learned that after sharing a suggestion, we should immediately follow up with the question, “What ideas does that give you?” I decided to test this out when coaching a friend about support raising. In the awareness phase of the coaching session, I decided to give a preposterous suggestion as part of considering the problem from a different perspective. To my surprise, the Holy Spirit was able to use my dumb suggestion to provide new perspective to the coachee and eventually action steps that were helpful for him.

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