When we say the term “missionary care” or “member care”, many people give us a puzzled look. This terminology is foreign to many people, especially Christians – the Church. So what does one mean when they say they are providing Missionary Care? It is helpful for us to understand the terminology so we can deal with other questions like, “Is It Biblical? and “Do we really need missionary care?” or “Who needs missionary care?”
What is a good definition of Missionary Care? I believe that Kelly O’Donnell gives us one of the best definitions of Missionary Care there is. O’Donnell defines says, “Member care is the ongoing investment of resources by mission agencies, churches, and other mission organizations for the nurture and development of missionary personnel. It focuses on everyone in missions (missionaries, support staff, children and families) and does so over the course of the missionary life cycle, from recruitment through retirement.” ( O’Donnell, Kelly, Ed., Doing Member Care Well: Perspectives and Practices From Around the World (Pasadena, William Carey Library, 2002), 4.)
There are several terms used to describe the care for missionaries. Some use the term “Member Care”. This is the terminology used throughout the “missions world” to talk about the care for missionaries. Others use the term, “Pastoral Care”. This provides a better description that is easily understood by many believers, even if they do not know about care for missionaries. Another term is “Missionary Care”. This is the term that our sending agency, Global Outreach International uses, and we we prefer to use. It describes who the care is being done for and doesn’t leave much room for question of who is our target audience.
Missionary care is the investment by the local church and the missionary sending agency in the life of the missionary where ever they are serving and in whatever they are doing. Missionary Care starts from the time a person begins the application process to become a missionary until the time they retire from being a missionary. Missionary care is concerned with the spiritual, physical, mental and emotional health of the missionary and the missionary family. It is the purposeful, proactive, intentional care for missionaries to ensure that they not only survive on the field but also thrive on the field.
So who does Missionary Care? Traditionally, Missionary Care has primarily been done by the sending agency. However, how this is done and what it looks like varies widely from agency to agency. There are agencies out there that do a spectacular job at providing care for their missionaries, while there are other agencies who do little to nothing to care for their missionaries. As the book, Minding The Gaps: Engaging the Church In Missionary Care, says, “There may be a deficit in adequate supervision, oversight, accountability, contingency plans and strategic focus planning that can aid missionaries in achieving Kingdom objectives. The church should step forward with determination and respond to the call of caring proactively for missionaries, not just reactively when a need arises.” (Wilson, David J., Ed., Mind the Gaps: Engaging The Church In Missionary Care (U.S.A, Mind The Gaps, 2015). 6.)
For so long the church and/or sending agency has responded reactively by providing missionary care only when a crisis, a tragedy, a trauma, a problem has arisen. Sadly and unfortunately this type of reactive care often falls short of ensuring that the missionary and / or their family is in a healthy place to continue on serving for the Kingdom of God.
Instead, we propose that the local church, primarily the missionary’s sending church, provide missionary care proactively, long before a situation arises where a missionary will need support. It is not a matter of IF a missionary will need care (support) but WHEN a missionary will need care (support). If the sending church will begin to provide missionary care for those missionaries they send overseas, studies show that missionaries will come through the crisis, the trauma, the issue far more mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally healthy than they would have had they gone through it alone or even with reactive care. Missionary Care is based off the concept of building relationships long before the situation, the crisis, the trauma occurs. Missionary Care puts in place a solid foundation for a support structure so when the missionary encounters a time when an even could potentially knock them out of the ministry, they will have something to fall back on to help them process, think through and work through the events they encounter. Missionary Care should begin long before the missionary ever leaves the for the field. It should start the moment the individual has a desire to become a missionary.
We long to see the day where every missionary’s sending church has a plan in place to ensure that the missionaries they send overseas are cared for. This desire does not negate the responsibility of the sending agency to provide missionary care, but we see in Scripture where the local church took on the responsibility of caring for their missionaries, not just in a financial manner, but also for the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health of the missionary. Churches need to look at their missionaries not only as a financial investment for eternity, but also deeper by looking at the spiritual (Physical, mental and emotional) investment as eternal in nature as well. So our ministry, Pastor 2 Missionaries or P2M for short, desires to work with sending churches and even supporting churches in how to care for missionaries.
Next time, we will answer the question, “Is there a biblical mandate to provide Missionary Care?”.