September 6, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

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Disciple-making

I Need to Disciple Interns

The following post was written by Brett Hamilton, a SEND missionary in Poland. It is an excellent example of the commitment we seek to foster in our senior missionaries to serve as mentors for new missionaries. Having served in Poland for over 20 years, I see that there are stages that I have gone through in my thoughts as to focus and priority of ministry. In the first decade of ministry on the field, I was focused on “reaching” a national population, in our case Polish. We focused very sharply in learning the language and did not go out of our way to build relationships with non-Polish people. After all, that’s who we were sent to serve. Related Posts:You Are What You Do, Not What You EatLessons to be Learned from the Church in Asia - Part…Two-sided writingAre We Reading All of Matthew 28:18-20?Fruit to Harvest: the key is abidingNot… Read the whole post
Brett Hamilton1 min read
Mission Leadership, Book Reviews, Multicultural Teams, Team Leadership

Leading multicultural teams

Just a few years ago, we could find very little that had been written about multicultural mission teams.  The subject has been of great interest in our mission organization, since our membership is becoming increasingly international, and many, if not the majority of our teams, already include members from countries other than the USA or Canada.   But very few resources for guiding the team leaders of such teams were readily available. A few would know of Lianne Roembke’s work, Building Credible Multicultural Teams.. Unfortunately, Roembke’s book has still not been released in digital form, and I cannot seem to find anyone who has written a review of it.  Then in 2011, Sheryl Silzer of SIL published her book, Biblical Multicultural Teams: Applying Biblical Truth to Cultural Differences. Silzer’s work focused on the formative nature of one’s childhood home and how that experience has impacted one’s view of what is right… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Teaming, Team Leadership

X-teams on the Mission Field

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Types of mission teamsPart 5 on a series about teaming on the mission field.   In a previous post, we talked about the three main types of teams found in our mission organization. When new missionaries think about teaming, they are generally thinking about what we have called a basketball team. Basketball teams work together closely and interact frequently with each other about their various ministries.   But many of our mission teams are more like track teams than basketball teams. Track teams have a common purpose and team members support one another, but each person on the team works independently. But there is yet a third type of team that is commonly found on the mission field.   We call this an X-team or an expedition team.    X-Teams have at least two members, a guide and an explorer.  We think of expedition… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Church Planting, Leadership Training

Still Learning from Roland Allen 100 Years Later: Contemporary Applications

At the SEND Family Conference in July, I led a workshop on what we can still learn from Roland Allen’s book Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? a hundred years after it was first published. Allen’s key principle of submission and dependence on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God was the focus of the first blog post. In this blog post contemporary application of Allen’s principles will be the subject. Related Posts:Still Learning from Roland Allen 100 Years Later:…Critical Issues for the Cross-Cultural Church PlanterPreparing to Preach as a MissionaryHow Can Christian Coaching Enhance My Church…Church Planter TrainingThree Missionary Church Planters… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Church Planting, Holy Spirit

Still Learning from Roland Allen 100 Years Later: Key Principle

At the SEND Family Conference in July, I led a workshop on what we can still learn from Roland Allen’s book Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? a hundred years after it was first published. I’m going to highlight our discussion in two blog posts for the whole SEND family. Why bother with a hundred-year-old book?   J.D. Payne wrote in 2012, Roland Allen was “One of the most controversial, yet most influential, missionary thinkers of all time… it was Allen’s insights into the expansion of the church that sometimes equated him as being a prophet, a revolutionary, a radical, or a troublemaker.” (J.D. Payne, Roland Allen: Pioneer of Spontaneous Expansion, Kindle Edition, location 126.) Related Posts:Still Learning from Roland Allen 100 Years Later:…Critical Issues for the Cross-Cultural Church PlanterChurch Planter TrainingHow Can Christian Coaching Enhance My Church…Book review: Stubborn PerseveranceTraining for Cross-Cultural Church Planters… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
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