“The first will be last,” Jesus said. “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” A quick perusal of Jesus’ words will turn up all sorts of instructions that don’t seem to line up with what we’d consider “common sense.” He told his followers to “Turn the other cheek” (didn’t He know about terrorism?) and to “Walk a [...]

Armchair missiologists of the world-  when deciding where to get involved in missions, don’t be distracted by what isn’t there. Let me explain. For far too long now, missions strategy has gone something like this: Start by finding where there are a lot of people who haven’t heard the gospel (or who don’t have access to the gospel, or who [...]

I’m convinced that ministry these days is far too pragmatic. Missionaries desperate to see tangible results busy themselves searching for “what works.” Missions strategies and approaches to ministry are almost always based on whether or not they seem likely to produce results. On a pretty regular basis, I receive advice from colleagues and supporters on how we should proceed in [...]

When you’re a carpenter, people pay you to build things out of wood. Mechanics earn their living by fixing cars. Authors are paid for writing books, lawyers bill for their counsel, and teachers are compensated for teaching. What is a missionary paid for? There’s really no tangible service being performed, and we don’t produce any material goods. The people who [...]

You may not be aware of this, but even the “working class” in the United States is richer than most of the people in the world. This economic discrepancy is known in even the most isolated of places, and certainly everywhere missionaries go. The image on the upper right is a cartogram (a map deliberately distorted to illustrate global statistics) [...]

As I encourage churches to get involved in international missions, one thing that often comes up is the question of where to start. With thousands of people groups in the world, and millions of potential places of service, where do you start? Most missions organizations would tell you to engage a “high priority” people. They usually mean the next largest [...]

When it comes to promoting missions and mobilizing missionaries, we rely on photos. In casting a vision for what God is doing around the world to bring people into right relationships with Himself, a picture really is worth a thousand words. Or, in my case, about four blog posts. It’s unfortunate, but we often fall into the trap of resorting [...]

Many of us on the field are active recruiters. We are always looking for people who would be especially suited for ministry in Western Europe. Many strategists find new partners by talking about their people group. They describe the beauty of the culture, the proud history of the people, and the great spiritual need among them. The idea, I suppose, is [...]

Statistics. Demographics.Lostness. Evangelization.Need. Opportunity.Resources. Support.Trends. Movements. Reaction.Creativity. Good ideas.Common sense.Duty. Tradition.Ease. Difficulty.Guilt, pity, fear.Passion, compassion, desire.Love. We are constantly tempted to allow these things to dictate our missions activities. In many cases, these are the motives that were used to recruit us into sacrificial giving and to service. We all participate in different ways and for different reasons, but the [...]

God called me to missions in Western Europe by giving me a vision for what He could (would?) do among the people here. I was excited about being part of God’s interaction with the postmodern, postchristian people of Europe. I really believed that God was going to start a church planting movement here, and I trusted that He was going [...]