What are the questions people ask about missionary work?
Motivation and Calling
- Why do people become missionaries? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/life-on-mission/ Many are driven by a religious mandate to share their faith, provide humanitarian aid, and help others. [1]
- How do they know they are called? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/right-here-right-now/ People often wonder if missionaries receive a specific spiritual sign, undergo training, or simply feel a personal pull to serve. [1, 2]
Ethics, Impact & Modern Approaches
Do missionaries respect local cultures?
Absolutely! Although the question is so broad that it is like asking if some Americans eat pie. Some do and some don’t. Some do good things and some do not. To correctly answer the question, define who you are talking about and the context in which they work. We might be more specific.
My answer will be general, based on my Bible-centered missionary experience.
People have dignity and value because God created them in His image. All people are precious and worthy of honor and respect. Even more important than local indigenous culture is God’s intended culture for all people. God is the Giver of life and wants people to live, thriving forever. God designed people to love Him, love each other, and build community together. Where God’s design clashes with local culture, one or the other will have to give. That is one of the choices missionaries bring.
The thing is, God is the Author of culture. God loves diversity and actually created the context in which each culture lives, so inviting God into any culture actually preserves it. For example, how do the Yanomamo people of Venezuela know how to eat deadly poisonous toads and process their stable starch from poisonous plants? How do people in the northern places of North America know hundreds of different names for snow, how to clothe themselves to survive in extreme winter climates, and where to acquire food to survive? God has given cultures around the world unique knowledge for thriving where they live. Where culture promotes death, God’s word may change the way people treat each other, preserving self-destructive cultures. If the people all die due to their self-destructive cultural practices, then their culture dies with them.
https://stilluntold.org/teamwork-supporting-your-global-missionaries/ A major focus in modern missions is avoiding cultural imperialism, with an emphasis on contextualization and serving alongside locals. [1, 2, 3, 4]
What is the balance between physical aid and spiritual teaching?
An old says goes like this, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Before people can hear the message that leads them to live forever, they need to live long enough to hear that message. War, poverty, and illness prevent people from living. Outside help can intervene for a time.
Helping people with medicine and practical living can help build relationships of trust, through loving actions, bridging the gaps in language and culture through which God’s message of life can be delivered. What will bring about lasting change toward life, health, and prosperity is a change in worldview that results in life-giving beliefs and behaviors. Only God can bring that about and He does it through missionaries carrying His message.
There is a bit of a balance in meeting physical needs in that a person can spend an entire lifetime of meeting physical needs without once sharing the message that will lead to living forever. The most important thing is that they hear and understand what God has said about living forever through faith in Jesus Christ.
Take a guy fishing and you will feed him for a day. Teach a guy to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime. Teach a guy to be a fisher of men, and he will have fellow fishermen for eternity. Teach a guy the Bible and he may gain another opinion. Teach him to read God’s word for Himself in his own language and he will transform and preserve the best of his culture.
org reference: https://stilluntold.org/life-on-mission/
People often ask if missionaries focus exclusively on religious conversion or if they offer holistic help like building schools, medical clinics, and orphanages. [1, 2, 3, 4] Yes.
The most effective missionaries must learn the local culture in order to accurately translate the Bible and communicate what God has said into that culture. Culture is the context in which language lives and has meaning. Words have no meaning with the context of culture. So, Bible translation also greatly helps in locking down cultural concepts for the duration of time.
For example, much of our English language historical culture was recorded and preserved in Bible translations four hundred years ago. “Bite the dust. Skin of your teeth. Broken heart. Can a leopard change his spots? A drop in a bucket. A fly in the oinment. Lamb to the slaughter. Nothing but skin and bones. No rest for the wicked. Put words in his mouth. Root of the matter. See eye to eye. Wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Even without knowing much of the Bible, most people who know English know these cultural meanings and the implications behind them.
Financial Support
- How is missionary work funded? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/the-bible-basis-for-raising-missionary-support/ Most missionaries rely on the financial support of sponsoring churches, private donors, and non-profit organizations. [1, 2, 3]
- How do they raise money? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/the-bible-basis-for-raising-missionary-support/ People often want to know how missionaries cover travel, housing, and day-to-day living expenses for long periods. [1, 2]
Daily Life and Challenges
- What is the hardest part of being on the mission field? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/teamwork-supporting-your-global-missionaries/ Common challenges include culture shock, language barriers, time away from family, and physical safety. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- How do they care for their families? org reference: https://stilluntold.org/teamwork-supporting-your-global-missionaries/ People often ask how missionaries educate their children and maintain their own mental and spiritual health while abroad. [1, 2]
Types of Missionary Work
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Preparation & Training
Questions People Ask About Missionary Work.docx