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Missionary Training

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Pat L

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I’ve been seeing the term “missional” as “being sent”, in terms of seeing ourselves as sent on Christ’s mission into the world – to seek, save, restore, redeem all that is lost and broken. That’s pretty foundational to our practice and belief, right? It’s again the whole “seeing what the Father’s doing and joining in the fun” thing.

But reading through the Celtic Way of Evangelism, another blatant truism finally dawned on me (I don’t know why it’s finally taken so long to filter through the dead matter known as my brain; really, I don’t) – that this means taht we’re missionaries into our own culture and world. Geez, I’ve read Newbigin, Guder, who knows how many people say it – but duh.

To be missional, we have to think, act, train, live like a missionary.

OK, so what does it mean to consider ourselves sent into our own culture? Or any culture, for that matter?

I went on a quick web search to see if we can get some good ideas from the missiologists-to-other-cultures. Here’s a few ideas, stolen from Google’s first hit on missionary training sites.

From the intro flash set for Missionary Training International at mti.org.:

MTI offers training in

  • language acquisition
  • family acculturation
  • team & interpersonal skills
  • learning a new culture
  • personal soul care
  • debriefing & renewal

    • OK, those look like what we need to participate in God’s project here and now.

    Let’s consider this a bit: what additional needs do we have for training and support to act as missionaries to the people we live near? (worldview, theology as well).

    Just as I believe that good missionaries don’t try to import American Christianity into the mission field, we could do well to not try to reintroduce American Christendom among our pomo pals.

    This is intriguing to begin to consider!

    2 responses to “Missionary Training”

    1. Kat Avatar
      Kat

      I have a hard time believing that you did not get that before. I thought to myself,”He knew that and probably practices it more than he thinks he does.”

      Ok…so I have mixed reviews about the word missional. I get it. For me I think of horror stories of colonialism at it’s finest. I like the word incarnating better. It is a personal preference that stems back to my days working for Young Life. Being “Jesus with skin on”. The emphasis is in the being and doing, where at times with missions it has the potential of being programmatic with emphasis on the “doing.” Let’s go do this, or preach that. Good but sometimes can be intrusive.

      For me I think it is being who we are where we are. That is not to say though I have done my fair share of language acquisition and learning of a new culture. The people that I care for are people who know alot about sex, drinking, fashion, bars, and music. I watched the entire series of Sex and the City last year, read the Mercury, and know alot more that I should about STI’s and birth control.

      Through all of this…through me being me, through assimulating, I have earned the right to be heard in peoples lives. I think I even without doing these things I would have at some point earned that right, but it gave them a place to connect. I entered the realities of life, their neighborhood….

      which is what Jesus did. and does.

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    2. Pat Avatar
      Pat

      It’s weird, Kat, but I think I understood the peripherals: the going, sending, God’s project stuff… and even the observe-your-culture stuff… but the central piece just hadn’t clicked for whatever reason. I don’t think anything changes (except perhaps this central piece is easier to teach others).

      Missionality vs. Incarnationality. This is a great discussion point. I asked the question of what’s the difference between them a while back, maybe on my blog or Rachelle’s, I’m not sure.

      I’m coming to see it this way: for Jesus, incarnation was the Means, missionality was the Goal.

      Missionality was Jesus’ being sent into the world by the Father to seek, save, redeem that which was broken and lost. Incarnation into human flesh was the method by which he accomplished that goal.

      So for me, there’s a nuanced difference: we are missional (in the sense of being sent to our land to seek, save, redeem), and we are incarnational (in the sense that HOW we do it is by being “jesus with skin on”).

      Which is also what you’re doing, of course!

      I do think we need to understand the empire-building and the ugly-american missionary caricature/symbolism/effect.

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    Hello,

    I’m Pat

    Passionate about the common good, human flourishing, lifelong learning, being a good ancestor.

    Things I do: Engineering leadership; Grad Instructor in spirituality, creativity, digital personhood, pilgrimage.

    Powerlifter, mountain biker, Gonzaga basketball fan, reader, urban sketcher, hiker.

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