3/9/19
I listened to a podcast the other day in which a lady spoke about compatibility in marriage, and how much dying to self is required in marriage, and I realized that so much of what she said would be applicable to foreign missionaries’ relationships with each other. It’s always said that conflict with teammates is one of the chief things that sends missionaries home from the field, and I think that the reasons for this are somewhat of a mystery to the average church-goer and even missions supporter in the US.
Since moving to Peru three years ago I’ve both experienced and observed in others the intense stress of living in a different country, adjusting to a different culture, learning a different language, and assuming a full-time ministry job which may or may not look anything like the job description you signed up for. I’ve seen what a life-line your fellow teammates are to you and I’ve appreciate ours so much. But conflict is inevitable.
When you get married to someone, you learn to rub shoulders with them and all of their flaws on a daily basis. Your dating relationship may have been amazing and easy, but after moving in together, sharing financial responsibility, and having children together, loving that person must often be a choice that required a lot of dying to self. I think that relationships between missionaries are very similar.
A typical missionary heads overseas after raising support to make a difference in the world doing a job that they feel passionate about. They may or may not know the people that they’ll be working alongside very well. The thing is… missionary co-workers are so much more than just co-workers. They are also your neighbors, your kids’ best friends’ parents, your pastor, your kids’ teacher, your doctor. They are also co-parents with you of a ministry that they are every bit as passionate about and are extremely invested in (they too left everything and shipped their family overseas for the sake of this ministry).
Just as so much marital struggle stems from differing parenting styles, so much missionary conflict stems from different philosophies of ministry (and our ministries are in many ways like our babies). When you get married to someone you sign your name to a marriage license and make a verbal agreement based on some rather vague vows. Similarly when you sign up to be a missionary, you may sign a statement of belief and agree that you want to serve alongside said missionary team and help support said ministry. But it’s incredibly possible and even likely to arrive on the field with a set of expectations that are completely different from those of your teammates.
Missionaries come to the field expecting to give up a lot. They expect to get by with a lower standard of living. They expect to go without many conveniences that we are accustomed to in their home country. They expect to miss friends and family terribly. They expect to suffer additional sickness. They expect to deal with emotional struggles in their children as they navigate the new culture/language/friends/school/church. But they also expect that the joy of doing the ministry and seeing the fruit of people’s lives being changed will outweigh the struggles. Now, insert the other white guy who's getting in the way of your ministry success. Maybe he says you're doing it wrong. Or perhaps he refuses to give you the freedom you need to do the work God’s laid on your heart. Or it could be that his personal or family struggles are infringing more and more on your precious ministry time and emotional capacity.
You start to realize that—like a marriage—in order to maintain a healthy relationship with this guy, you’re going to have to devote a lot of time and energy to it--and you’re going to have to give up a lot of your expectations and dreams regarding your ministry. It may start to feel like your life is consumed by maintaining this relationship. And you may start to wonder… is this really what God called me here for?
It may be a little bit like the syndrome that moms experience when they realize they are spending their lives—year in and year out—changing diapers, washing dishes, and putting food in front of people. They hide in the bathroom lamenting the loss of their dreams of business success, or of traveling the world, or of being a fun sporty wife. The thing is, because of the intense love that God has put inside of them for those little people, they will walk out of that bathroom and lovingly confront them and their messes day in and day out. The missionary has been endowed with no such intrinsic love for his co-workers.
The weary mom often has a support network closer at hand than the missionary does too. She may have mom-friends who commiserate with her at the playground. She may even have parents and family members who have been there themselves, and offer to listen or help out from time to time. The missionary, on the other hand, has supporting churches and individuals who are financially invested in their “success” as a missionary. The missionary’s family and friends live plane rides away and may have been confused by or even against their move overseas in the first place. Even when these people are supportive and available, they probably have no understanding of what it’s really like, or what questions to ask--and they often feel unqualified to offer any true counsel or accountability to a missionary.
So what’s the answer? Should missionaries only sign up to serve alongside their close friends—like minded people that they already know well and with whom they share a common vision for ministry? Sadly, I’ve seen that model crash and burn as well. Working together overseas in a high-stakes environment somehow changes a lot of things and brings things to the surface in your relationship (like in a marriage) that you never could have anticipated. Even Paul himself was not immune to this reality (Acts 15).
Missionary agencies often provide member care services to help when there is a crisis. Some even provide some training on conflict management up front for their recruits. Would-be missionaries are told that team relationships can be difficult, and that a lot of patience and grace is needed. We tell young engaged couples these things too. But what actually contributes to a missionary’s ability to last on the field through difficult team conflict?
I wonder if we should take a closer look at what predicts longevity in a marriage? What preparation or mind-sets help a couple to last through thick and thin?
For one thing, I think marriage has to be your top priority. You have to realize that your marriage itself is a ministry that could change the world more than anything else you do--bringing glory to God through sacrificial, covenant love, day in and day out. I think missionaries need to head to the field with this mindset. If team conflict is truly one of the primary things sending people home from the field, then clearly these relationships have to be taken very seriously and are deal breakers when it comes to ministry success. Healthy team relationships are not only vital to keeping missionaries on the field. The reality is that the people we are reaching may be more convinced of our gospel message (or conversely disillusioned by it) based on how they see us interacting with our teammates.
At the last moment before Christ was to be arrested and crucified, He
was not to be found out preaching to the lost. He was washing his
friends' feet. He told them, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
As couples approach marriage they often do pre-marital counseling that covers how to manage finances together, how to work together on parenting, how to navigate times with extended family, and how to prioritize having fun together as a couple. We talk people through the logistics of life as a married couple, but the thing that prepared me the most for my marriage was the way our premarital counselor forced us to talk through some tough, personal issues ahead of time. He had us discuss the specific details of our expectations for each other. He exhorted us to begin praying together daily during our engagement. He encouraged us to hash through our own shortcomings and habitual sins, offering unconditional love and forgiveness, and talking through specific plans for how we would walk with our spouse through these struggles. Maybe missionaries should do more of this as they prepare for the field.
Maybe missionary work should have a greater emphasis on ministry through living communally as a missionary team, tackling sin together, praying, and worshiping together. Maybe new missionary recruits should agree to this type of ministry being their top priority with all other ministry goals being secondary. Maybe they should agree to vulnerability with their teammates from the very beginning of their missionary journey regarding sin struggles, and at the same time commit to praying with their teammates through theirs. I realize this is a radical idea.
Another thing that I think we can take away from the marriage metaphor, is the idea that your spouse cannot be everything for you. Obviously our relationship with God must take first priority in our lives, but premarital counselors also advise that each person have other trusted people in their lives who will keep them accountable to personal growth and to working on their marriage as a priority. We all need people who are champions for us in all areas of life and who will ask good questions and empathize with our struggles but also hold us accountable and speak the truth in love. Missionaries have a hard time finding this, but it is so important.
Missionaries need to have a sponsor back home who agrees to pursue them relentlessly— someone outside of their missionary team bubble who will both listen and pray and ask tough questions. Someone who will hold them accountable to working tirelessly and sacrificially toward a healthy, redemptive relationship with their co-workers as top priority. This person doesn’t have to have any experience or knowledge about missions (they certainly don’t need to feel qualified), but they need to care deeply and be incredibly persistent.
I propose a significant commitment to communal practice of spiritual disciplines for all missionary recruits from day one. The Bible teaches us to confess sin to each other and pray for each other that we may be healed. It teaches the importance of praying together. It teaches us to admonish and encourage one another. So I would think that it should be obvious that any missionary team would do these things quite regularly.
Why is this hard?
Confession
Many Christians have somehow gotten the idea that confession of sin is primarily for the sake of repairing a relationship with an offended person. This is certainly a valuable reason to confess and relationships should certainly be repaired whenever possible, but so much of our sin is not clearly offensive to another individual. So much sin is personal (against God and only God), and it is for our own spiritual vitality that we must confess in community regularly. Yet because the church has done such a poor job of walking through this with people, the average Christians sees it as a nice option for those who “need it.” Even the average foreign missionary hasn’t likely ever been a part of a Christian community that practices this well.
Prayer
Every Christian values prayer on some level. But I don’t think the average Christian values prayer in community. So many prayer times in the US church focus more time and energy (or at least an equal amount) in the sharing of prayer requests—to garner moral support from ones peers—than on the actual act of praying together. Prayer, like confession, is seen as something that need not move much beyond one’s personal relationship with God. If someone isn’t “comfortable” praying out loud in company, there’s no problem with that, and no felt need to work toward becoming comfortable with it (or becoming willing to be uncomfortable). I think this mentality stunts Christian growth and effectiveness in ministry.
Teach, Admonish, and Encourage
These spiritual disciplines, like those mentioned above, are practiced and preached, but rarely to the extent that would be optimal. Often the teaching and admonishing parts are left to the preachers, and encouragement is metaphorically checked off with statements about someone’s nice outfit, pleasant children, or valiant effort at goodness. I think, however, that if confession and prayer are being practiced well in community, it will not be difficult to initiate meaningful teaching, admonishing, and encouraging between believers as well. The Spirit will prompt hearts toward it, and the trust will already be built to foster it.
One of the difficult aspects of this proposal for missionary teams is how to incorporate those members of the missionary team who are not physically present on the field at any given time. This includes not only those new recruits who are still in the midst of training and itineration, but also anyone currently on home assignment or traveling for some other reason. If fostering of this “marriage”—this spiritually tight, spiritually disciplined community—is to be a top ministry priority for missionaries, then it must take priority in all of these phases as well. Just because a husband is traveling for work does not mean he can check out from his obligation to communicate regularly with his wife, supporting her from a far and allowing her to do the same for him. But how can this be done between missionary families?
Thanks to modern technology we have lots of options! The biggest obstacle is really our reluctance to plan and accommodate for it.
Still thinking on this…
- Laura Dougherty
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