Customize Your Mission Training

by Steve Hoke

There’s a world of learning beyond the classroom. It’s practical. It’s guided. It’s culturally specific. And it’s offered by some of the finest agencies in the world. More and more, mission agencies are designing their own customized training for the specific fields and people groups they serve. These in-house programs will teach you principles and skills that are best learned on the job. The instruction begins at home, intensifies on the mission field, and covers the following 10 critical dimensions:

Pre-Field Training:
Before Going to the Field

1. Ministry philosophy. The core values and beliefs that guide every missionary effort are better “caught” than taught - best learned by rubbing shoulders with missionaries and national coworkers. The conceptual foundation for a mission’s philosophy is presented in a pre-field orientation or candidate school that lasts from one week to three months. You’ll see it at work when you get to the field. Principles from Scripture, research, and field experience are shared to help you develop spiritual, cross-cultural, and relational skills.

One mission executive says, “Our four-month pre-field training program is the single most important factor in preventing field casualties.” Yet hearing about an agency’s philosophy while sitting in Denver is one thing; learning it in incarnational ministry in Calcutta is the real thing. No matter what the ministry, new missionaries develop their own personalized philosophy of ministry best in the cross-cultural crucible. Another exec explains: “We are looking for team players, but we fully expect to help new staff learn how we disciple, build, and plant new churches . . . Once we find a strong player, we’re committed to making them even more effective through teamwork.”

2. Message. Each mission crafts and channels the gospel message in creative ways that reflect its own style of ministry. Campus Crusade, Navigators, and InterVarsity are just three groups that have helped two generations of young people share their faith through distinctively clear and concise presentations. Initial workshops familiarize you with the basic pres-entation style of an agency, while on-the-job training and practice in the “seminary of the streets” expand your understanding and hone your skills.

There are also rich messages in a mission’s “hidden curriculum,” which is comprised of the values, beliefs, lifestyle, language, and culture they have developed over the years. Spontaneous expression of an ongoing gratitude to God for His grace and His goodness is the “life message” characteristic of one particular mission. A mission’s “message” will rub off on you as you work alongside them.

3. Money. Some of the finest coaching input you can receive on stewardship of time, talent, and treasure comes from mission training programs. The essentials of trusting God for every detail of life - living by faith - form the bedrock of missionary support raising and are taught by veterans who empathize with you in this faith-building process. Skills in budgeting and handling money are developed under experienced tutors. The basics of both “friend raising” and fund raising are mastered under caring mentors who walk with you through the process.

4. Meaning. The shape, color, and flavor of a message influences the meaning it conveys. Mission agencies help you comprehend the implications of Jesus’ message both for your own life and the lives of new disciples. In-service training can foster greater spiritual effectiveness and power in your own life. This, in turn, invests your communication with renewed vigor and meaning for others. Each mission’s distinctive programs add layers of meaning to Christian ministry which are unique to their approach. What were formerly only clichés or concepts soon become life-changing truths. You’re introduced to new ideas before you go, but you’ll only find nourishment in these truths when you digest them for yourself in the heat of battle.

5. Methods. Mission agencies teach fresh and different ways to communicate the Good News across language and cultural barriers. Ministry methods vary from personal evangelism and discipleship programs to specialized linguistic and anthropological training. Missions typically teach the use of ministry skills and specialized materials during on-field internships that last from one month to two years. They involve informal meetings and interviews, formal classes, and scheduled practicum in areas such as lifestyle evangelism, discipling others, urban church planting, street preaching, or leader training.

Increasingly, missions have specialized target peoples which demand customized strategies. Focused outreach to Muslims, Chinese, migrant workers, Hindus, Buddhists, or animists requires intensive, specialized, on-field training by skilled national and missionary practitioners. Language learning is best done on-site as well and can last from two months to two years before fluency is developed.

6. Models of ministry. Each mission has developed a design or pattern for the way it does ministry, whether evangelism, discipleship, or church planting. This becomes a framework around which ministry is planned. Many missions intentionally teach the principles that undergird their approach to ministry. Approaches vary from street theater and preaching to cell group evangelism in high-rise communities, from research based church planting to literature distribution or university evangelism. An agency’s model of ministry can enhance your own emerging view of cross-cultural mission and stretch you into more creative means of reaching people for Christ. You should observe critically and listen carefully - trying to detect the pattern of coworkers, willing to adapt your own ideas of how missions should be conducted.

7. Models and mentors. Every mission has its share of gentle giants. They may be the formal leaders or the informal, unobtrusive leaders who influence an entire movement. Time alone with them is a powerful training experience - life-on-life exposure to God’s “Hall of Famers.” They aren’t flawless, but they know how to play the game!

If you really want to distill the experience people like this carry, you may need to seek them out and ask for time alone with them. If you can, design an internship or apprenticeship under the guidance and mentoring of a veteran missionary or national pastor whose character and life you respect and whose ministry you want to emulate. Don’t be afraid to ask, “Will you mentor me?”

8. Management style. Within days of joining a mission agency, you’ll begin to pick up pointers and principles of managing ministry and working with people. Take advantage of opportunities to learn lessons on faith, courage, planning, organizing, leading, imparting vision, budgeting, coaching, and evaluating ministry from godly men and women.

Every mission agency has a distinctive style of management. Some are very Western in their approach, setting measurable objectives and evaluating progress. Others are much more relaxed in how they recruit, train, and guide the flow of ministry. Some exert considerable control over lifestyle and ministry. Others allow more freedom and responsibility. Some are rigid, others flexible. Try to discern which management style fits you best. Learn all you can ahead of time about the dynamics and “chemistry” that make these teams work.

9. Maintenance. More and more mission agencies are realizing the importance of providing balanced “TLC” for their missionaries. This includes training and lifelong opportunities for learning, as well as care of missionaries and their families. A pre-field orientation is helpful, but it is inadequate training for lifelong effectiveness. The initial training must be followed with specialized equipping on the field and supplemented with study breaks and ongoing educational opportunities on furloughs.

Some missions have significant infrastructure and staff to serve missionary needs; others are quite lean and can offer little care. Some offer mid-career assessment and career counseling; others can only listen, encourage, and refer you to skilled professionals. Some agencies are developing reentry workshops to help returning missionaries decompress from the pressures of cross-cultural living. These workshops involve reflecting on their experience in groups with other missionaries and talking about their expectations of what lies ahead. The key to healthy reentry is knowing how to maintain your spiritual, relational, and physical strength despite a radically different schedule and setting.

Agencies are also increasingly concerned with missionary care and nurture, with helping their missionaries develop personal maintenance programs that keep them plugged in and turned on. Caring for the education, transitions, and well-being of missionary kids is a significant ministry of larger organizations. Counseling services, career assessments, and retirement planning are areas that round out a mission’s care program.

10. Mobilization. Mission agencies can also teach you to be more effective in mobilizing others for missions. Your experience can be a great magnet for others, convincing them of the need to become World Christians. You can allow your own experience of cross-cultural ministry to serve as a powerful model. A mission agency can help you be on the lookout for those who will respond to the burden of your heart for missions and who will share in the challenge to pray, give, and serve.

After your formal training, you can look forward to discovering a unique world of learning. It’s personal. It’s powerful. It’s life-changing. Be prepared to meet some of the finest teachers and godly mentors in God’s academy. Unlike formal programs burdened with requirements and financial costs, mission agencies provide personalized training - custom fit to your gifts and background. These non-formal programs will give you hands-on expertise in face-to-face ministry that has direct impact on peoples’ lives, teaching you skills that are best learned on the job. The instruction you’ve already received has only just begun. It keeps getting better. And so will you.

Reprinted from Missions Today ’96 with permission of the publisher. Evanston, IL: Berry Publishing, 1996.

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Customize Your Mission Training

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