Category: member care

The Missionary’s Two Homes

On By missionmusingsIn member care, Missions as VocationLeave a comment

Sometimes as Christians we talk about the idea that this world is not our real home— heaven is our real home. One of my favorite gospel songs as a youth spoke of this. The first verse said,

“This wold is not my my home, I’m a just a passin’ through.

If heaven’s not my home, then Lord what will I do.

The angels beckon me, from Heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

It is a fun song. It is not totally accurate, of course. The Bible speaks of Earth as our eternal home— Heaven on Earth. In effect, this is our one home.

But as missionaries, we typically have two homes. One is in our home country, and one is our in our country of service. For years that wasn’t really important to me. We sold our house in the US and moved into our house in the Philippines. We spent 90% of our time in the Philippines, and the plan of my wife and I was (is?) to retire in the Philippines. As such, the US was not our home, but a place we visit on occasion.

However, this has changed somewhat. Our three children are now grown up and have chosen to live in the US. Additionally, one of them has some health needs that have required us to be a bit more involved in helping her along. Our old solution of just coming over and staying with relatives and friends has not worked. Additionally, short-term and long term rentals of houses and of cars have proven to be prohibitively expensive. We were actually pretty desperate for awhile. Thankfully, do some truly divine grace, we were able to work out things to have a house (with mortgage of course), and car (with loan of course).

This did remind me of the rope metaphor used by Ryland and Carey back in 1792, where Carey expressed willingness to explore into the unknown (like as into a deep pit or cave) as long as his friends back home would “hold onto the rope.”

It is hard to serve as a missionary when the rope is cut back in one’s birth country. This can be in terms of financial support. But this can also be in terms of a “home base”— a place one can call home when “home.”

Things are a bit different, perhaps, for people who serve with a full-service mission organization. However, most of the people I know in missions are independent or semi-independent missionaries. I have known some who have been completely cut off from their home base. Several of them did eventually have to return to their sending country and start ‘from scratch.’ Another got stranded in their home country during COVID, but have been able to move in with their son. Another such family had similar things occur and they moved in with their parents. One lost contact with their home country, but another country and associated church adopted him and that helped him serve. Another married into his missionary country, and as such has set quite deep roots in his service country. However, one never knows when the lack of a second home may cause issues.

As much as we may focus on the Philippines being our new home, times change. We don’t know the future, and we cannot assume that God’s best for us aligns with what we think is best.

We now have a home in the US that is our home when we are home. Two of our adult children live there year-around. We cannot afford to be homeless when back in our sending country, so this is a great blessing. We also have a home in the Philippines… perhaps it is our home until we die. Perhaps not. Regardless, it is our home.

When we return to the US, we can say it is good to be home. When we return to the Philippines, we can say it is good to be home.

We found that we needed an anchor point in both countries— we did not for 17 years, but we do now. It was a tough decision to take preciously collected savings to put into a house in the US (especially during a time of ridiculous housing prices). However, God has been good, and we found something pretty close to the perfect place (for us). Now we can go back and forth between our two countries much easier— between our two homes.

Extra thought—- In English we have two different words— house and home. They are overlapping words. A house is a building that people live in. A home usually is a building, and it has to do with where people live. But there is an emotional side to home that is not in house. The word home has a deeply emotional sense of belongingness. In Tagalog, there is a similar equivalent. The word ‘bahay’ means house— building to live in. But there is another word as well, ‘tahanan.’ It has a similar sense as home… a place of belongingness. I wonder how many other languages have this equivalent pair of terms?

Member Care and the Mission Agency

On By missionmusingsIn member careLeave a comment

I am teaching Missionary Member Care this 1st Semester. I have taught it before, and have had some formal training— in seminary, in retreat, and online. I have been in missions for 16-1/2 years so I feel like I know a bit about the topic. The week area I have is with mission agencies.

I have never been with a mission agency. Back 17 years ago, my wife and I had applied to a mission agency. We were going through the process in what I considered a positive way. They determined that my body fat was above the limit they considered appropriate. I assume it was more of a gatekeeper issue since our missions recruiter in the agency had a higher fat percentage than I. He told me that the “chubbiness issue” could delay my being finally accepted and commissioned, but it would not slow down the evaluation process. It did, however, slow it down. In fact it stopped the evaluation process. And then while I was reducing my weight, the agency put a 1-year stoppage of bringing in new commissioning (because of financial issues at the agency).

I did feel like our missionary recruiter lied to us. However, he probably thought it was true when he said it. I remember my Navy recruiter telling me that it was “a great time to join the US military because there will be no war during my first tour. In fact, two years in, Desert Storm started. He wasn’t “lying” but was saying what he thought was true with an inappropriate confidence.

Celia and I went off on missions through our church rather than a denomination and ended up establishing accountability through establishing partnerships and NGOs in-country, along with supporting churches. While we were in country, we often worked missionaries who were tied to the mission agency we had applied to. They were, pretty much without exception, great people to work with. However, they slowly disappeared as the agency decided that the country they were working in was no longer a priority and the type of work they were doing was no longer part of the agency’s mission. Additionally, some missionaries left that agency because of a change of theology in the agency that required the missionaries to ascribe to or get out.

All of this kind of left of us thinking that we dodged a bullet. Of course, years later we had some problems with partners (both on field partners, and supporters back home) that made realize that there are advantages to having a big agency.

Still, I wonder whether agencies are still valuable today. I suspect they are… especially in creative access countries. Some missionaries are pretty creative and don’t need the help, but others really do need an established platform.

From a missionary member care standpoint, agencies seem to vary wildly. Some do seem to do a pretty good job. The best ones are able to send someone for special counseling or care to specialists. Celia and I went off to specialists before. We were thankful that we found supporters who were willing to help us do that, but if they had not, we would have been responsible ourselves.

Some agencies fund their missionaries while others act as a conduit for support. The agencies that fund the missionaries are quite nice in some ways, but tend to be more controlling, and often end up disconnecting the missionaries from their supporting churches. Positively, they can (potentially) supply a better furlough experience in terms of frequency, length, services, and opportunities. On the other hand, the conduit-type agency gives their missionaries more freedom, but then offers them less. At their worse, they take a percentage of money from the missionaries for doing what the missionaries could do themselves.

Training opportunities are often better for agency missionaries. In some cases it can be too good. I have a friend who was a missions mobilizer who would talk about missionaries turning in their monthly activities and it was dominated by different trainings. Training is good, but less good if it is training to train to be more trained. I can relate to that from when I was in the Navy. We trained to be train to be more trained. Being independent missionaries we get less support for training, but we also have more freedom to do training that we think is valuable to us.

I guess in the end, I will do okay with my class. My experiences working with agency missionaries point to the fact that their are more universal problems among missionaries than distinctives. We share more in common being human and in vocation/calling than we have differences due to type of oversight.

A missionary friend of mine who was with a full-service agency talked to me a decade ago when we were considering going under an agency. He said— if you have adequate support and platform, why go with an agency? You have the freedom to do as God leads. He was speaking from a personal experience as his agency was forcing him to move.

Anyway, looking forward to teaching the course. I have taught it before, but this will be my first time online.

 

 

 

 

Unfriendly Media as God’s Instrument

On By missionmusingsIn Christian Ethics, Leadership, member careLeave a comment

For years it was happening to THEM. THEY were in the spotlight, not US. But things change… and it is about time.

For years the Catholic Church has taken a lot Image result for political cover-upof hits for cases of priests taking sexual advantage of parishioners… especially (but not exclusively) young ones.  I must be honest that I have heard some from the Evangelical tradition revel in these stories. Multiple times I have given the warning about this sort of “schadenfreude”:

“Be careful about embracing this attitude. We know that we have problems as well. Right now the cameras and microphones are all pointed at the Catholic Church, but one day they will swing around and point at us. We should be found doing a better job than they.”

But we haven’t done a better job. We still tend follow the age-old practice:

  • We don’t hold leaders accountable.  “Aren’t they Men of God?”
  • When leaders sin, we cover it up. “We aren’t supposed to bring our hand against ‘God’s annointed,’ right?”
  • When cover up is impossible, go to witchhunt mode to identify and punish a scapegoat. In so doing, the system and overall leadership are shielded from responsibility and need for change.

And then the situation repeats. It reminds me of a cartoon (I really wish I could remember the context) where a bad and expected thing happens to someone being careless, followed by a panel showing that same person expressing relief, “I’m sure glad that will never happen again!” while making no changes to his behavior.

I actually think it is this pattern that makes the church look schizophrenic at times. They treat sinners as saints at times and then treat them as demons at other times. It is hard to effectively create wise and rehabilitative Christian discipline when we keep yielding to the desire to either cover-up or witchhunt.

Eventually, the media comes in and starts digging around. In the US, some digging into the sexual abuse in the Southern Baptists (my denomination) and in a number of missions organizations have come to light.

There has been positive signs of response in recent years as some leaders have owned up. Still, there seems to be a couple of responses that are still quite troubling:

  • Church members still often yield to the temptation to sympathize with those in power over the powerless. (Since this happens in politics as well, I have to assume this is a sociological malady, rather than one merely linked to churches. In High School, there appears to be a “natural” temptation to blame the one who “rats out” the bully, rather than blame the bully in the first place.)
  • Church members (and political folk) tend to blame the media for unfavorable portrayals of their church or political party.

On this latter point, media is blamed as portraying “fake news” even though commonly it is not fake— they simply don’t like the spin. Sadly, these Christians have no issue with “spin.” In fact, many love spin as long as the news spins their own way. When it doesn’t spin their way, they blame the media as opposing God’s work— demonizing the institution or at least the specific broadcaster.

But here is a different thought.    <Clearing my throat for a minute.>

What if news media who criticize abuse and other sinful behavior in the church are actually serving God?

This should hardly shock anyone. After all, many Christians, and many Christian leaders will say that “God is my judge,” meaning that they do not feel that they are answerable to anyone else. But if God is judge, what methods might God use to execute judgment? If the church does not embrace its role to critique and hold people accountable, then God must look outside of the church to do that.

This brings up a second, perhaps more troubling, thought.

What if “friendly” news media, including so-called “Christian News” is then on the side of ‘darkness’?

After all, if God is looking to hold the church accountable, then institutions that cover up the failings of the church, pandering to the messages that the church members want to hear while failing to carry out its God-given role to hold the church accountable, are simply not on God’s side.

If this is the case, and it seems pretty evident to me at least that this is exactly what is happening, are we willing to say, “Thank God for news media who shine a light on our failings and hold us accountable!”?

A recent article by Craig Thompson points out the situation with Evangelical missions. Click on the title if you wish to read it:

Their Abuse Happened over 25 Years Ago, So Why Were Those MKs Still Talking about It on the Today Show?

St. Paul as a “One Idea Man”?

On By missionmusingsIn Commentary, member careLeave a comment

Was St. Paul a healthy-minded missionary, or an obsessed madman. Let’s consider a few quotes from the 19th century and early 20th century to bring some consideration to this thought. This is not an idle consideration. Many see Paul as the ideal missionary. We should consider whether our ideals are, in fact, ideal.

One of my favorite essays is “Men of One Idea”

Image result for joshua g. holland
Joshua Glibert Holland (1819-1881)

written by J.G. Holland back in the mid-1800s. His thesis is that individuals who obsess on one topic only develop a certain mentality that could be described as insanity. He suggests that the human mind was designed to be healthy with a number of ideas; not just one, much as the body is healthier with a range of foods rather than a diet of one food item or category. One time I transcribed that essay but now I can’t find it. Oh well. I have a paper copy in Sanders Union 6th Reader. It originally came from “Lessons in Life: A Series of Familiar Essays.”

 

The essay starts with a quote that expresses the idea:

“Cultivate the physical exclusively, and you have an athlete or a savage; the moral only, and you have an enthusiast or a maniac; the intellectual only, and you have a diseased oddity, it may be a monster. It is only by training all three together that the complete man can be formed.”   -Samuel Smiles

The idea that the “one idea man” is bad is far from universal. A quick websearch shows many who feel that this type of person is healthy and perhaps even bound for greatness. Within Christian circles, I will take another old and rather obscure quote:

being a man of one idea “… was not so bad after all; for were not the best and greatest men, who had achieved most for mankind, men of one idea? Paul himself was a man of one idea; so was the philanthropist Howard. A man of one idea was not to be dreaded, unless he had got a wrong one; if his one idea was a right one, let him have free course. The one idea system has done a great deal of good in this world.

<The Christian Messenger and Family Magazine, Volume II, p. 469.  (1846).>

So here are two very different ideas from the same period of time regarding a person who appears to be obsessed with a single idea. One possible way of synthesizing them is to note that Holland felt that God was a bit of an exception in that God is big enough (speaking about ‘God’ as idea in this context more than being) for a person to be single-minded about. Now, I don’t know about Howard listed above (perhaps John Howard, British philanthropist) applies, but regarding Paul, he had a singlemindedness to obeying God. However, during much of his ministry that singlemindedness led him to a wide range of activities. It led him to evangelism, churchplanting, leader development, writing, and charitable work. The ultimate idea

Image result for anton boisen
Anton T. Boisen (1876-1965)

may have been singular but it manifested itself in a wide range of activities. However, later in life, Paul gained a more focused singlemindedness on the need to stand before and speak to Caesar. This took several years and (possible) resulted in his death. Perhaps that more narrow single idea was self-destructive.

 

I would add an additional voice, that of Anton Boisen. He was a theologian who founded Clinical Pastoral Orientation. He also had several bouts of mental illness where he spent time in mental hospitals. I think his perspective could be said to have bearing on this. In his autobiography,

As I look around me here and then try to analyze my own case, I see two main classes of insanity. In the one case there is some organic trouble, a defect in the brain tissue, some disorder in the nervous system, some disease of the blood. In the other there is no organic difficulty. The body is strong and the brain in good working order. The difficulty is rather n the disorganization of the patient’s world. Something has happened which has upset the foundations upon which his ordinary reasoning is based. Death or disappointment or sense of failure may have compelled a reconstruction of the patient’s world view from the bottom up, and the mind becomes dominated by the one idea which he has been trying to put in its proper place. That, I think, has been my trouble and I think it is the trouble with many others also.

          -Anton T. Boisen, “The Exploration of the Inner World– A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience”, 1936 original publication, 1962 edition, p. 10-11.

Boisen suggests that a toxic fascination on one idea is generally driven by deep trauma that fractures a person’s worldview. That trauma then can lead to fixation on one thing that he or she cannot properly integrate into a new whole person.

Considering Paul again, his Damascus experience would certainly be a fracturing of world view. This fracturing would also bring about guilt and trauma. However, the focus on God is a big enough “idea” for fixation. As such, he was “healthy” with such a fixation. One could argue that his refusal to listen to church leaders and go to Jerusalem, and then avoided early release from jail so the he could see the Emperor, perhaps, shows a more narrow obsession with an idea that was not broad enough. Reading the book of Acts, it certainly seems clear that Luke was uncertain on whether Paul was right or wrong. This is particularly clear in Luke’s recounting of Paul’s arguments with the churches in Asian Minor about returning to Jerusalem.

Jesus speaks that where our treasure is, that is where our heart is also. Perhaps, one idea is too small because it becomes our cherished idol. Only God is worthy of worship so God alone can be our singleminded passion. Ultimately, one might make some tentative conclusions that apply to us:

  • Trauma can disrupt and lead to obsessive thinking.
  • Obsessing on a bad idea, is always bad.
  • Obsessing on an idea less than God is too narrow for humans, and may lead ultimately to unhealthy, even mad, thoughts and actions.
  • God is broad enough to encompass man’s passion/obsession. However, when such passion shows itself with total committement to one narrow activity, the same problem of unhealthiness results.

Life Stories

On By missionmusingsIn Chaplaincy/CPE, member care, Missions as VocationLeave a comment

This is a presentation that we use for Clinical Pastoral Education class. However, I it is quite relevant to missionaries. as well. It draws a bit from Narrative Counseling. “Bible Heroes,” as well as missionaries throughout history have complicated and painful lives. Part of their success was in embracing God’s perspective rather than their own. Some of that is also in my book “Theo-storying,” which is described in MY BOOKS.

The Problem of Forgiveness

On By missionmusingsIn Chaplaincy/CPE, member care, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Why should we forgive? In our counseling center, I have had so many tell me, we should forgive because God tells us we MUST. You might think that is enough. But it really isn’t, because when we are given a rule that we don’t like we look to how close we can get to the boundary– how close we can be to bad (vengeful, bitter, unforgiving–where we want to be) while still being good (where we are supposed to be). More effectively, we look for moral loopholes.the-changing-face-of-horse-racing-171

Loophole #1.  Forgiveness is only to be given if there is repentance (and some add confession). This answer is given by some.  This view is expressed HERE. The passage  that views is based on is Luke 17:3-4.

So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sistersins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.
                                                                                 -Luke 17:3-4
But is repentance an absolute requirement for forgiveness? There are three problems with this interpretation.
  • This passage appears to provide a loophole (if it is a loophole) that the rest of the Bible doesn’t.  That should, at a minimum, give one pause for concern as to its interpretation.
  • The context (Luke 17) is about the dangers of a person erring, and another being complicit in that erring. Within the context the emphasis is on the importance of restoration, NOT on how to avoid forgiving. That is supported by the fact that the passage says what to do if the other person repents. It, however, gives NO explicit guidance on what to do if there is no (or “inadequate” demonstration of) repentance.
  • The Greek word that is translated forgive is apheisis (the form of the word in verse 4, a different form in verse 3) only loosely translates as forgive. The general idea of the term is to release, remit, let loose. As such, it goes beyond the English term “forgive,” except in certain specific contexts– such as “to forgive a debt.” Rather, the term is more like. “Forgive and Forget (and release from consequences, if possible)”.

In counseling, when we tell people to forgive, we are not telling people to revoke all issues of justice, or telling people to forget wrongs. We are talking about releasing bitterness and bitterness. Forgiveness of this type is done for the benefit of the one who was harmed, not the one who did the harm.

Loophole #2.  Forgiveness should be withheld for the sake of justice. The argument would be that God is a God of Justice. It may be granted that God is also a God of mercy… but mercy does not negate justice… perhaps.

The problem with this is, I hope pretty obvious and built off of the answer to the first loophole:

  • Forgiveness, as we are here using it, the wronged conscious choice to release bitterness and vengeance. It is not necessarily to hold someone unaccountable. To forgive does not necessarily mean to forget or fail to set up appropriate safeguards/boundaries.
  • When the wronged hold bitterness/vengeance in his or her heart, it is likely that appropriate justice will not be carried out. Revenge or unfocused lashing out is more likely.

For me, though, the reason to forgive is not so much about ethics, Biblical interpretation, or issues of justice. The biggest issue is what unforgiveness does to the wronged. It creates a second harming. I deal with people who are unwilling to forgive and those who are dealing with unforgiving people. It really does destroy lives and relationships… and the epicenter of the destruction is in the unforgiving victim rather than the wrongdoer.

Sometimes I almost want to tell people to forgive just to make sure that the wrongdoer is miserable. With unforgiveness, the wrongdoer is likely to suffer, but often less than the victim. I have seen it too many times.

 

A Minister’s Five Best Friends

On By missionmusingsIn Commentary, member care, Missions as Vocation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Liz Ryan is one of my favorite columnists– a regular contributor to Forbe’s Magazine. She writes regarding business employment– hiring, firing, and managing people. Although I have been out of the corporate world for over a decade, I find much of what she says very applicable in ministry as well. Much of her guidance centers on the importance of mutuality, respect, and, well, humanity, in the corporate world. One might suspect that these principles are hardly needed to be meditated on in the ministerial world— but that is wrong. Sadly, it is often even more necessary. Rules for proper treatment of workers are commonly overlooked in the religious world– often under the guise of “freedom of religion” or that serving God is a 24/7 job. I worked as a banquet server, hardly a classic ministerial role, for a “Christian business” where poor treatment of workers was justified by toggling back and forth between “you need to sacrifice because we are doing God’s work” and “sorry, but this has to be done to be competitive in the market.” The terms SELF-SERVING and DUPLICITOUS come to mind

I strongly recommend her article, FIVE PEOPLE EVERYBODY NEED IN THEIR CORNER.

I could stop there, but would like to interpret it in terms of ministers– primarily pastors and missionaries.

A minister needs people that he/she (I will use he here due to laziness) can trust.

  1.  He needs one he can trust with his emotions. He needs an UNCRITICAL LISTENER. People in minister often struggle greatly because they are uncertain who they can talk to about their burdens or frustrations. Far to many in the religious profession have the awful tendency to be advice givers and experts; or worse, judge-ers and condemners. Sometimes one need to vent or even confess to someone who will simply listen and accept. However, as Liz Ryan noted, you need more than this. One needs more than the human equivalent of a fuzzy blanket to talk to.
  2. He needs one he can trust with the truth. He needs a BRUTALLY HONEST ADVISOR (or BHA, for short). The truth hurts, but sometimes we need to hear the truth… but from someone we trust. A BHA should be someone who we trust to know the truth, and trust that he/she has our best interests at heart. For example, a pastor who likes to lead corporate worship with an off-pitch voice, needs someone who cares enough to tell him the truth— that his singing voice and microphones don’t really mix. (I would like to add “You know who you are…,” but in fact, you probably don’t.)
  3. He needs one he can trust who has blazed the trail before him. He needs a MENTOR. This person is generally more experienced and commonly older. He has, generally, been there and done that. His primary strength is not drawn from books or articles but life experience. The advice given from a mentor is welcome because it is seen as trustworthy and based on reality. Commonly an older pastor or missionary is what is needed. However, age and experience are not enough. Good mentors are, sadly, a rare breed. If one is willing to help, think long and hard about it. A good mentor may be exactly what you need.
  4. He needs one he can trust to challenge him to grow. He needs a COACH. Like a mentor, a coach gives advice, but it may not be based on great experience. Rather it comes from a position of being a good listener, reflector, and reframer. A good coach is not always right, but should help the minister look at his life (holistically) from other perspectives.
  5. And speaking of other perspectives– He needs one he can trust to be a very different viewpoint. He needs a NON-MINISTRY FRIEND. A minister should have friends not in ministry. Frankly, he should have some not in the same denomination or organization. In fact, it would be good to have friends who are not even fellow-believers. He needs someone who doesn’t talk shop and, frankly, wouldn’t really understand shop-talk anyway.  He needs someone he knows who won’t give the same old “Christianese” or denominational formulae for specific concerns. And much like the Uncritical Listener, the non-ministry friend can listen without being religiously or professionally invested or biased.

Of course, if you need such friends, others do as well. Which roles can you serve for others?