August 15, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

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Worldviews are interpreting your stories
Storying, Worldview, Contextualization, Gospel

Worldviews are interpreting your stories

In communicating the gospel message, whether through Bible stories or Discovery Bible Studies, we need to be aware that our hearers will interpret what they hear through their worldviews. In a 1993 issue of the MARC Newsletter, Bryant Myers wrote about what happened after showing the Jesus Film in a Fulani village in Africa: The white missionary walked back to the village with the women, listening to their animated conversation. Something didn’t make sense. “What was it that so captivated your attention?” He asked. “The Christian man from the coast who made the magic!” they exclaimed. Confused, he asked, “What magic?” “We’ve never seen a shaman who had the power to make people get up and move about on a sheet and talk,” they explained. What message had the village women heard? From the point of view of the missionaries showing the Jesus film, they had heard the good news… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Teaching the Bible Story-line
Training, Storying

Teaching the Bible Story-line

Sometimes we approach the Bible like dining at a smorgasbord restaurant. At a smorgasbord there is no order or progression to the meal, you just pick what you want. Similarly, we can read a passage or story without thinking about where it fits in the story-line of the Bible. We gravitate to what we want to hear or what is comfortable. When we eat only the food we like at a smorgasbord, it can result in an unhealthy diet and indigestion. Likewise, we can develop an unhealthy theology and theological indigestion when we read the Bible and ignore the story-line. The Bible is more like a multi-course meal designed by a dietitian for our health and enjoyment. Each course prepares the taste buds for the next. The sequence is just as important as each item. Each story and passage in the Bible is a part of the overall metanarrative of… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Books, Disciple-making, Book Reviews, Pre-field Training, Church

The Vine Project: A review

Jesus told us to go and disciple all nations. That means that those of us who have been called and sent are to be disciplemakers who equip others to be disciplemakers as well. The question that I have been asking myself recently is, “Are the sending and training structures that we have established to help get people to the nations effective in equipping them to be disciplemakers?”  We train people to raise their support, learn and adjust to a new culture, learn to speak a new language, prepare for various security risks, educate their children, and get along with their teammates – but are they learning to become disciplemakers? I read The Trellis and the Vine a number of years ago. This short book differentiated between the work of actually discipling people from the work of creating and maintaining the structures and programs that support this disciplemaking.  The… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Teaching is a Spiritual Gift
Training, Church

Teaching is a Spiritual Gift

The Bible is clear and understandable. Anyone can understand it. [For a helpful discussion on the clarity of the Bible see Wayne Grudem, “The Perspicuity of Scripture,” Themelios 34:3 (2009): 288-308]. All believers ought to study the Bible so that the word richly dwells within them. The Berean Jews were commended for examining the Scriptures to see if Paul’s teaching was true (Acts 17:11). All believers are charged to teach and admonish one another (Colossians 3:16). But do all these truths mean we don’t need teachers? Apparently the Holy Spirit did not think so, because one of the gifts to the church is teaching.… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Learning to Work Deep: A review
Books, Book Reviews

Learning to Work Deep: A review

We live in an inter-connected world, filled with collaborative tools and awash with information.  But we also live in a deeply-distracted world and this is the serious downside to the interconnectivity we enjoy. We live in a world where few people seem to have retained the ability to concentrate deeply on a single project. This is no less true of missionaries, or at least all missionaries that are connected to the Internet through their phones and computers on a fairly consistent basis. In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport seeks to convince us of the importance of learning once again the skills of focused concentration and shows us some simple rules that he has learned to help him overcome this constant allure of distraction. Newport is a professor of computer science (Georgetown) as well as a profilic author who writes about the impact of… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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