I have often liked to surprise people by saying that Missionaries (or Cross-cultural ministers if you prefer) are FLEXIBLE and WILLING, but not particularly SPIRITUAL. And I upon reflection, I think most people kind of get what I mean by that. However spirituality is visualized in a faith tradition, missionaries within that faith tradition tend to exhibit it less. If a particular faith tradition demonstrates spirituality with loud and frenetic, missionaries in that tradition tend to be more sedate (from what I have seen). Faith traditions that are more contemplative in terms of spirituality have missionaries that tend to be… less so. Those in which Bible study and prayer define spirituality will again find missionaries coming up short.

There is one fairly obvious reason why. Missionaries are active— but often active in the mundane aspects of ministry. Time is a limited and so missionary cannot do their job and meet or beat the standards of spirituality in their corner of Christianity. A second, perhaps less obvious, reason is that missionaries bridge gaps. They contextualize. In each faith tradition there is a “lingo of spirituality” and missionaries have to use it less because they need to talk with and work with people of other faiths, traditions, and culture.

Of course, an obvious counterargument is that I am not talking about “real spirituality” but am talking about how spirituality is perceived. A person who shouts, claps, and dances in the aisles more than anyone else is not necessarily more spiritual, but may be seen as more in their own group. The same could be said of a person who lives in a cave and contemplates God, or one who sits on a mountain and communes with nature, in other settings.

The lack of consensus on what defines spirituality is much of the problem. I do think that Gary Thomas’s “Nine Spiritual Pathways” is very useful in that regard— looking at how spirituality is identified in different settings. However, that is still far from defining spirituality.

The term spirit (spiritus, pneuma) is extremely broad. Paul Tillich (I think) described spirit in its early sense as the overlap of power and meaning (or power and purpose). This idea does not ever require any connection with God or even the supernatural. While we certainly use the term that way even today, (a “spirited horse” or a “spirited competition.”) most of us in Christian ministry would say that that is not the idea we are thinking of when we speak of spiritual.

A couple of months ago, my wife and I went to the plenary annual gathering of CPSP (College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy). This is a collegial body of pastoral counselors, pastoral psychotherapists, pastoral supervisors, and clinical chaplains. A lot of people in these ministries share some things in common with missionaries. Many of its members (especially those who identify as clinical chaplains) are “feet on the ground” serving and reaching out to people outside of the church. Part of the evaluation of candidates for clinical chaplaincy (and the other sub-specialties) is a spiritual evaluation. The chaplain who presented things on this evaluation described three aspects of the evaluation.

The three aspects of spirituality are:

• Strength of Spiritual Relationship
• Strength of Spiritual Resilience
• Strength in Spiritual Reflection

I wish I had taken better notes. However, the way I see it Spiritual Relationship means (in the Christian context) dependence on and closeness to God and seeking to be guided by God. Spiritual Resilience is one’s ability to handle circumstances without losing one’s homeostasis, faith, and sense of calling. Spiritual Reflection relates to one’s skill and competence to process experiences, conversations, and ideas through the lens of faith (theological/contextual reflection).

I am not sure that the chaplain who presented this would have defined them this way, but I think this will suffice. You will note that none of these characteristics are faith tradition-dependent., They may work themselves out differently in different settings.

From these characteristics, should a missionary be spiritual? I would say yes. A missionary should be dependent on God and seek to be guided by God. A missionary needs to be resilient— whose faith is challenged by circumstances, but is able to do so without breaking. (I think of Elijah who at his lowest point of depression decided he needed to go to God— on Mount Horeb.) A missionary needs to be spiritually reflective. The mission must be able to process, learn and grow— a reflective contextualizer in new settings.

So, Spiritual Strength (as defined above) should be a characteristic of missionaries.