What We Are Afraid Of
Posted March 24th, 2008 by ErnestFear is a powerful thing. It can cause us to do some very irrational things. Of all the threats that we face on a daily basis, we put more time, money, and effort into protecting ourselves from things that we find very scary, whether they are likely to happen to us or not. In Chapter 5 of his 2005 book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt offers an example of this “fear of the scary over the real. ” More children die each year drowning in swimming pools (550 deaths per year, 1 death for every 11,000 pools) than from gunshots (175 deaths per year, 1 death for every 1,000,000 guns). Yet much more money is spent on campaigns, legislature, and passive protection (gun locks, safes, registration, licensing, etc.) than on pool safety (education, awareness, first-aid training, fences, covers, etc.) When was the last time you heard about requiring pool owners to have licenses or to be registered and trained?
Guns are way scarier than swimming pools.
A missions organization has many people doing high-risk things (evangelism, scripture distribution, discipleship) in high-risk areas. It makes sense, then, that the International Mission Board would spend money on training it’s missionaries to respond to crises such as natural disasters, terrorism, or targeted violence. But how many IMB missionaries are personally faced with such events each year?
Compare that to the number of our people every year who fall victim to moral failure, poor stewardship, team conflict, and depression. These aren’t the ones you read about, but these are the real killers of missionaries’ ministries and personal lives. Are we responding proportionately to these threats that every one of our people face on a daily basis? How much do we spend in discipleship for our missionaries on the field? What emphasis are we putting on continued training, pastoral care, and ongoing spiritual development?
Hopefully, we aren’t responding to the risks that scare us at the expense of responding to the risks that kill us.
Unless writing a lot makes one a "writer," Ernest is a former missionary. After more than six years in Western Europe, he moved to Portland, where he drinks too much coffee and over-analyzes human behavior. For more about Ernest, visit the About page where you can read a long-time reader's interview with him. Or, if you don't mind waiting a very, very long time, send him an email.
7 Responses to “What We Are Afraid Of”
March 24th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I think addressing contingency training is easy…you offer a two day training and thats it. It’s done, no need for follow up or further discussion. The other stuff, the moral failure, the financial issues the things that bring down the majority of workers is more messy. It requires a significant investment of time and we’re not set up for that. I don’t think the trustees or leadership see this as a value. We should be able to take of ourselves…right? As much as we gripe about turnover rates we really don’t care. We’ve set up member care, but only in a responsive role which is usually brought in past the point of no return and is definitely not anonymous.
I think things like moral failures, depression and financial issues rarely start as those. They start as frustration with team situations, work, …. These issues are harder to deal with and take time and energy. They also take discipleship which we don’t do. We don’t focus on preventitive actions. We’re known for our focus on evangelism not discipleship, which is strange since the Great Commission is to “go make disciples”. With evangelism we sow widely, hope some stick and move on from there. It seems like we do the same with our personnel. We weed out alot through beliefs and other processes but we also allow “life” to weed out some. We act concerned about it, because it hits our financial bottom line but do we really care?
We recently had a team member leave mid-term with difficult circumstances, member care never knew about it, and no one from the board has checked on them since they returned to the states. Yes we’re going to held accountable for our financial stweardship but we’re also going to held accountable for our people stewardship.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Camel Rider,
I think you’re right. The real threats start with small things that creep up. I think it also has a lot to do with having our people so detached from the churches that “send” them.
When we sign up for missions service, I think most of us underestimate the stresses that we will face on the field. Unfortunately, anyone who voices their concerns about those stresses is seen as a troublemaker.
I think we all have similar stories we could tell. What can we do about it?
March 25th, 2008 at 2:39 am
i love this post. so appropriate….but really, where do we go from here and how do we help each other before instead of after the fact? can it even happen in the machine we have built? i don’t want to sound fatalistic, but….
March 25th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
It can happen two ways…either from leadership modeling it and allowing it to happen and making it part of our culture or….more of a revolution from below. It’s important to realize it’s not just an IMB thing….most companies don’t get it either.
We recently launched a team wide, anonymous survey and the results were rather revealing. Our SL now has the choice to correct course or continue on….if we did some type of team, sub-regional or even regional survey to see what is actually going on then we can at least see how wide spread the issues are. Then is the hard part….actually doing something about it. Like most companies we build in money for turnover so why not allow it to happen?
March 25th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
The current structure of our organization actually prevents us from being proactive against real threats to our work. Because our leadership is removed from the reality on the field, they do not recognize the trouble until it’s too late. At that point, we can only respond (excuse, blame, cover up, make a new rule) to the symptoms of the problems.
Outside the structure, however, I believe there is hope. We can connect with one another, or brothers and sisters outside our tribe, to pursue real fellowship, accountability, and care. Everybody’s always talking about the importance of building a prayer network. I say, let’s build personal interactive networks of likeminded people who will commit to caring for one another.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Moral failures and disunity – inability to get along with the other missionaries alongside…. We are to be making disciples, but how can we do this if no one is discipling us? Sure, many may have gone to seminary, but what kind of intentional discipleship is there? Unless you have some professors who make it a point to disciple, one can skirt through their academic studies without growing in character and maturity.
This is a fantatsic post. Thank you for making me think about these things. i will say that for all that people fear about YWAM, they actually do a good job of giving people a foundation for discipleship. The trick is continuing it. Some bases do it better than others.
March 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
the secret thoughts of my heart are echoed here. unfortunately, i consider myself a “casualty of the field.” not only was a faced with violence (african civil war) but had absolutely no support from team members in dealing with the things happening around me every day. it didn’t occur to me until recently how strange it is that as a “team” we never had fellowship-i was left to “survive” on my own. strange that life that way was all i knew and it never occurred to me that maybe it was normal to worship and pray with teammates.
i left college thinking i’d be an M forever, and now think there’s a chance i’ll never go back. not because i don’t want to, but because i’m afraid things will never change. i’m afraid of what will happen to me next time.
thanks for your post-for being real and addressing a very real issue.
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