What perspective should I take towards missions training?
What types of training should I consider?
Can I become a missionary if I don’t want to learn another language?
» more related questionsQ: I have years of schooling left. How do I prepare and persevere?
A: Take advantage of opportunities.
I was in my mid-teens when I felt a call to missions. I pursued that call by going on short-term missions trips starting as a teenager. Also I became involved in church work with a different ethnic group (Hispanic). This gave me more insight into other cultures, helped to solidify my call, and equipped me for the future. Take every opportunity you can to find out more about missions. Read missions magazines about current mission activities around the world. Read biographies about missionaries. Talk to missionaries when you can. Find out more about missions by attending a Perspectives course. Continue to take any step that you believe will help you in your goal to become a missionary. Avoid choices which might prevent you from going to the mission field, such as incurring large debt or marrying someone who is not interested in missions.
If possible, find someone to mentor you and pray for you during the years of preparation to become a missionary. There may be many years between the call and when you arrive on the foreign mission field, but God is faithful to help you get there if you persevere.
If possible, find someone to mentor you and pray for you during the years of preparation to become a missionary. There may be many years between the call and when you arrive on the foreign mission field, but God is faithful to help you get there if you persevere.
A: Go, learn, befriend, read, serve.
Go on as many different short-term trips as possible. If you don't feel led to a specific part of the world yet, consider taking one trip to each continent. Try out different types of trips, but preferably those that would bring you into contact with long-term missionaries on the field. There is no better way to learn than to sit at their feet. I know that Pioneers emphasizes that type of trip.
Learn a second language in middle and high school. Learn Spanish if you have a heart for Latin America, French if you have a heart for Africa, etc. If there is a community college in your area that offers a language in a different language family than your mother tongue, take classes to try out and hone your ability. The classes normally offered in high school (Spanish, French, and German) are all closely related to English so that one can even recognize the words without much effort. Consider Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, or Swahili.
Make friends with international students in your school and community. There are many students from Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea, Latin American countries, Spain, and other European countries. Learn how they live and shy.
Read, read, read. There is much to be learned from reading missionary biographies. Be inspired by their dedication unto death and their perseverance through every kind of trial and despite seeing little fruit for many years. Check out Mary Slessor, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, William Carey, St. Patrick, the Judsons in Burma, Bruce Olson, and Brother Andrew.
Stay in the Word and prayer and look for an opportunity to minister in your own church (if you don't already serve). It doesn't have to be missions related. Just start trying things to see where your gifts lie. This will also give you great experience in working with people. Remember, the people you will try to reach overseas are not nice, sweet, honest people who are just waiting for you to come and rescue them. If they were already righteous, why would they need to be saved (Eph. 2:1-10)? Get experience in loving the unlovable and reaching those who don't know they need to be reached. Let God humble you through service.
Learn a second language in middle and high school. Learn Spanish if you have a heart for Latin America, French if you have a heart for Africa, etc. If there is a community college in your area that offers a language in a different language family than your mother tongue, take classes to try out and hone your ability. The classes normally offered in high school (Spanish, French, and German) are all closely related to English so that one can even recognize the words without much effort. Consider Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, or Swahili.
Make friends with international students in your school and community. There are many students from Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea, Latin American countries, Spain, and other European countries. Learn how they live and shy.
Read, read, read. There is much to be learned from reading missionary biographies. Be inspired by their dedication unto death and their perseverance through every kind of trial and despite seeing little fruit for many years. Check out Mary Slessor, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, William Carey, St. Patrick, the Judsons in Burma, Bruce Olson, and Brother Andrew.
Stay in the Word and prayer and look for an opportunity to minister in your own church (if you don't already serve). It doesn't have to be missions related. Just start trying things to see where your gifts lie. This will also give you great experience in working with people. Remember, the people you will try to reach overseas are not nice, sweet, honest people who are just waiting for you to come and rescue them. If they were already righteous, why would they need to be saved (Eph. 2:1-10)? Get experience in loving the unlovable and reaching those who don't know they need to be reached. Let God humble you through service.
A: Do volunteer ministry, integrate faith into your profession.
Here are four pearls:
1) Take advantage of different opportunities to work with young people to learn more of your gifts and interests as well as a way to put into practice what you are learning. This may include involvement in a church -- a Sunday school class or youth group. Participate in a campus Christian fellowship. Look for options to work with inner city kids, whether with a Christian organization or not. Be willing to push beyond your comfort zone.
2) As you are reading and writing papers, use these opportunities to be applying basic principles to the needs of the kids you know. At the end of every course, write a page or two on, "What did I learn in this course that will help me serve young people?" Then file these summaries!
3) Work on integration of the scientific principles you are learning with the spiritual principles that the Lord is teaching you through your Bible reading, messages you hear, conversations with mature Christians, and books you read. This will be a challenge for you. Look for appropriate opportunities to work your Christian principles into your papers, even though your profs may question you. Make sure you quote respectable Christian sources. Don't be discouraged if you get criticized or even ridiculed. Be willing to be stretched, but don't be obnoxious.
4) Ask the Lord to lay a country or a mission on your heart through reading, meeting a missionary, or attending Urbana or another missionary conference. Get to know one or two missionaries that impress you, and begin to receive their prayer letters and intercede for them faithfully. Go on mission trips. Badger visiting missionaries you respect with questions; the harder the better. I think the time will come when you'll begin to see the Lord giving you focus, a burden, a desire. A country may attract you, or a mission.
All of the above assumes your faithfulness in the Christian "disciplines" or regular Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and witness.
When you graduate you will know a lot more than you do at the present time. Talk with your pastor, your parents, and missionaries you know about your sense of leading.
1) Take advantage of different opportunities to work with young people to learn more of your gifts and interests as well as a way to put into practice what you are learning. This may include involvement in a church -- a Sunday school class or youth group. Participate in a campus Christian fellowship. Look for options to work with inner city kids, whether with a Christian organization or not. Be willing to push beyond your comfort zone.
2) As you are reading and writing papers, use these opportunities to be applying basic principles to the needs of the kids you know. At the end of every course, write a page or two on, "What did I learn in this course that will help me serve young people?" Then file these summaries!
3) Work on integration of the scientific principles you are learning with the spiritual principles that the Lord is teaching you through your Bible reading, messages you hear, conversations with mature Christians, and books you read. This will be a challenge for you. Look for appropriate opportunities to work your Christian principles into your papers, even though your profs may question you. Make sure you quote respectable Christian sources. Don't be discouraged if you get criticized or even ridiculed. Be willing to be stretched, but don't be obnoxious.
4) Ask the Lord to lay a country or a mission on your heart through reading, meeting a missionary, or attending Urbana or another missionary conference. Get to know one or two missionaries that impress you, and begin to receive their prayer letters and intercede for them faithfully. Go on mission trips. Badger visiting missionaries you respect with questions; the harder the better. I think the time will come when you'll begin to see the Lord giving you focus, a burden, a desire. A country may attract you, or a mission.
All of the above assumes your faithfulness in the Christian "disciplines" or regular Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and witness.
When you graduate you will know a lot more than you do at the present time. Talk with your pastor, your parents, and missionaries you know about your sense of leading.
