December 3, 2024

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

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Books, Resources

Obtaining Good English Books on the Mission Field

Maybe you are wondering how a missionary obtains access to all these great books that SEND U is recommending at www.senduwiki.org. Most countries in which we work have very limited opportunities to purchase books in English, and basically nothing is available on topics related to professional development of missionaries. So we can order from Amazon, but then we have to pay shipping and wait several weeks or months. But the problem is bigger than just obtaining a new book on church planting or team leadership. One frequent question I get asked by new missionaries is how I recommend they send their entire libraries to the mission field. My answer to that question these days – leave the paper books at home, and take as much of your library as you can in digital form.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Coaching

Coaching in SEND Increases

During the summer, my coaching load went way down, but new coaching series are beginning in fall.  I am pleased to report that during the second quarter of 2010 (April – June), SEND missionaries were coached a total of at least 120 hours.  These are formal coaching hours that were reported to me, and I know there is more coaching going on within SEND than just this.  But according to my records, 33 different SEND missionaries were being coached during those 3 months.  A year ago, the total number of coaching hours and the number of missionaries being coached was about half of what it is today.   So SEND International is headed in the right direction!   In an organization of our size, if 25% of its membership was being coached at any one time, and coaching was happening twice a month, the quarterly totals of coaching hours would be over… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
E-learning, Team Leadership

Upcoming Online SEND Team Leader Training

On September 6, the first-ever SEND Team Leader online training module will begin, and I am thrilled to see the course is full.   Seventeen SEND team leaders registered, and I even had to turn a few away because we already have more than I had expected in the class.  I plan to offer the online module again early in 2011, after I have had a chance to work through the suggestions for improvement from the first group.    I am sorry that I was not able to accommodate everyone who wanted to take the course the first time around. But if you are interested in taking some other online training modules offered by Grow2Serve, check out their list of upcoming courses.   I see that they are offering modules in Ministering in a Muslim context, Coaching for Fruitfulness and Effective Online Facilitation.   I took the course on Effective Online Facilitation earlier this… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
E-learning, Pre-field Training

Pre-field Training is Too Good to be Restricted to New Missionaries

The SEND summer 2010 Candidate Orientation Program (COP) and Member Orientation Program (MOP) are now history, and after 7 weeks in North America, we are now back in Kiev, Ukraine.   While in Michigan at our international office where the training programs were hosted, I enjoyed getting to know two great groups of new SEND missionaries in these 2 pre-field programs. My primary purpose in attending COP and MOP was to better understand what we are teaching to new missionaries, and to look for ways that the two programs might be overlapping or missing some significant areas of necessary training.  Although I had a few recommendations for both programs, my impressions were overwhelmingly positive.  The content of the training is significantly different from what I received 25 years ago, and understandably so because the context of the North American churches has also changed, and so has the options available for communication.  … Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Training, Team Leadership

Finding Assignments for Missionaries

What responsibility do mission field leaders have in finding suitable ministry assignments and opportunities for other missionaries?  In the last few weeks, this question has been asked in a number of different contexts. These missionaries needing a ministry placement could either be missionaries on the leader’s own team, or new missionaries who are finishing language school or missionaries returning to the field after a period of home service or “furlough”.    Sometimes missionaries returning to their home countries after completing their overseas assignment are open to a continuing ministry with the mission if a suitable assignment could be found.   Who bears the responsibility for identifying potential ministry placements? To some, this may seem to be a strange question.   There are so many acute needs on the mission field.   Aren’t mission organizations always looking for more missionaries?   Why is there ever a need to “find” a ministry assignment for a missionary?   Isn’t… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
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